#perhaps a bit lemony | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year ago

Text

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 4: These Words Are All I Have So I'll Write Them]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, prostitution, references to sexual content including noncon (18+), pregnancy, methods of ending pregnancy, speaking High Valyrian at a third-grade level, no Larys Strong this time yay!!!

Series title is a lyric from: “7 Minutes in Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 6.7k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰💜

She gives you a new dress to replace the one that is sopping wet and algae-stained from your tumble into the fishpond: a deep gory maroon, low-cut across the chest, a slit up to your thigh. It is the most revealing thing you have ever worn. You keep crossing your arms and tugging at the fabric, trying to make it cover more of you, incurably out-of-place in this room, this world. The madam is seated at her desk and jotting down notes in a thick, ancient book. When you steal glimpses of her words, they are messy and often misspelled, the script of a child. If you had parchment, you could write a letter. Your hands itch for it; your fingers flex to grasp nothing.

A woman glides into the madam’s bedroom—a tiny kingdom where no men exist—and hands you a cup of tea. She appraises you with a swift, intrigued glance; her hair is long and coppery red, her belly rounded out. She is perhaps five months pregnant. The madam casts her a stern look and the woman dutifully vanishes. “What is this?” you ask as you take a sip. It’s hot, lemony, bitter. “Moon tea?”

The madame chuckles. “No. We have moon tea for if that doesn’t work.”

Because I’m going to be doing things that could result in a child. Because I’m going to be violated here, again and again, I who was so terrified of being possessed by even one man.

The madam says: “Can you play any instruments?”

“No.” You draw into yourself—eyes and ears and the pores of your skin—every detail, every tapestry on the walls and creaky board of the floor and shift in tones of voice, anything that could help you escape. You are a traveler in a strange land. You have no map, no compass. You can bandage burns and set bones, but you know nothing about brothels in the suffocating, squalid entrails of a city.

“Sing or dance?”

“Not well at all.”

A furrowed brow. “Can you sew?”

“Barely.”

“Cook?”

“No.”

Disappointment, palpable and shaming. “Can you read or write?” the madam asks, scratching disorderly lines of black ink into her book.

“Both.”

Now she has perked up a bit. “How well?”

“Fluently.”

A raised eyebrow. This is unusual. “Any other languages besides the Common Tongue?”

“No.” Then you add desperately: “But I know about medicine! I’ve studied herbology and wound tending, and I can act as a healer for the women here, I can—”

“You could, perhaps,” the madam says, smiling with sad, aged patience. “But that is not what the prince regent intended.”

You stare at her, aghast, petrified. There is no swaying her. You consider revealing yourself and attempting to bribe her with the renowned Celtigar fortune, but this is inadvisable. It is one thing to be raped; it is another to be raped and then murdered and then probably raped again. The Greens are the true heirs of the throne in this establishment, which means Rhaenyra and all those who aid her are traitors. Already you have overheard the women gossiping about King Aegon. They do not appear to fear or dislike him; on the contrary, they fret over him like anxious mothers or wives. They hope his recovery is quick. They are grateful he survived. They wonder if he will return to visit them again soon. They do not seem to be under the impression that he is vile, amoral, cruel, a threat, a curse. When they look at him, white hair and ocean-deep eyes, they do not see a monster.

“You aren’t bleeding currently,” the madam continues.

“How do you know that?”

“You didn’t ask for a rag when I gave you that dress.” New words springing to life on those yellowed pages, pricelessly valuable and yet forbidden to you. “Ever borne children?”

“No.”

“Are you a maiden?”

You can’t decide how to answer; you aren’t sure if either reply will help you. You settle on the truth. “Yes,” you admit tentatively.

“Good. We can charge more for you.”

“Wait, no, I’m not. I’ve been with lots of men.”

The madam laughs, shaking her head as she makes her notes. Her necklace and earrings jangle merrily, too large, glinting and gaudy. “Have no fear. I will make it easier for you. I will find a slight, young lad to be your first. He won’t be too big, he won’t last too long. And if you’re fortunate, he’ll even be handsome!” Her prominent, pale eyes go distant; she is orchestrating myths, the trade she deals in like some women sell silk or wool. “A soldier home on leave, perhaps. Looking for a taste of dwindling innocence before he marches off again to be butchered by a Costayne or a Darklyn.” She snaps back into the room. “It will be over before you know it. You’ll be more underwhelmed than anything else, trust me.”

You picture it, red, rust, rage, resignation: the impossibly large stain of blood on your cousin Theodora’s bedsheets. “What if I’m frightened? What if I cry?”

The madam shrugs. “Some men like that. It will convince them of your inexperience.”

You gape at her. “That’s appalling.”

“That’s the world we live in.” She sets down her quill, closes the book, and stretches out her back as she stands. “Follow me. I’ll show you around.”

There are rooms where the women sleep, rooms where they get ready, servants to arrange their hair and moonlight-silver mirrors and a cluttered array of cosmetics and closets bursting with sheer, sensuous gowns. As the madam momentarily diverts her attention from you to scold a servant for knocking over a tin of rouge made from ground cinnabar, you swipe a small stick of kohl eyeliner off a table and tuck it into the pocket of your dress. You might be able to write with it.

What is that pocket supposed to be for? A vial of perfume to mask the sweat of men, mint leaves to clear away their taste? A cloth to mop their mess off your thighs? You shudder, then trail after the madam as she floats out into the hallway.

There are bedchambers, six or seven of them, but the doors are shut. You can smell incense burning; you can hear moans and wet slaps of flesh beneath plucks of harps played by servants. Outside there is a courtyard where women sit on the stone rims of fountains simpering and stroking men’s beards, necks, chests, thighs. It is surrounded by a wall nine feet high. Armed guards pace through the maze of rose bushes and elm trees and proliferate quilts of ivy, keeping uninvited men out, keeping women in. They are protected from their own ambitions of some other kind of life. They are prisoners. The sky above them is a mosaic of spilled wine and gold; the sun is setting.

Downstairs in the kitchen, the madam leaves you in the care of the same woman you saw earlier, long coppery ringlets and a bastard in her belly. The dress she wears is a cleaner red than yours, not blood that has dried and flaked but a heart that’s still beating. She is chopping vegetables and tossing them into a pot boiling over the fire. The long wooden table is strewn with carrots, onions, potatoes, leeks, mushrooms, fresh dark green herbs.

She flashes you a wily smile. “Our cook dropped dead last week. We’ve yet to procure a new one, so I’m making myself useful. All the house laments.”

You laugh and join her, though you don’t know the first thing about working in a kitchen; you pick up a knife and begin slicing through a carrot. It takes more muscle than you anticipated.

“On a cutting board, you idiot,” the woman says kindly, passing you one.

“Sorry. I’ve never cooked before.”

“What? Never?” Her auburn eyebrows spring up. “Where did you come from?”

The cliffs, the sea, salt and waves and mist. “The Crownlands.”

She is studying you with interest as her blade hovers over a half-chopped leek. “Were you a handmaiden to a lady there, or…?”

“It doesn’t matter. Whoever I was, I’m not the same person anymore.”

“No,” the woman agrees softly. “None of us are, I suppose.”

You glance down to her belly. You don’t wish to offend her, but you are curious.

“Go on,” she prompts. “You may inquire. I am well aware of my predicament whether you speak of it aloud or not, I assure you.”

“Did the moon tea not…expel the child?”

“No,” she sighs as she resumes hacking away at the leek. She speaks with vague, weary fondness. “The lemonweed tea did not prevent it, the moon tea did not kill it. I nearly died of fever and vomiting myself, but the child held on. It’s alive in there, I can feel it kicking sometimes. A fierce little thing.”

You nod, still gazing at her belly, undeniable evidence of the act that built it. The copper-haired woman is almost certainly younger than you, and yet she knows exactly what it means to be opened by a man, pillaged, conquered, used, left. This time tomorrow, you will know it too. “The madam let you stay?”

“Not very enthusiastically, but yes. I cook, I clean, I do the shopping in the market. She does not fear letting me venture out into the city. She knows I have nowhere else to go. I only have to entertain clients if they ask for a pregnant woman. Some men have a particular liking for that, you know.”

You did not know. “Right.”

“Besides, there might be some advantage in it for the madam,” the woman tells you. She grins. “When the child is born, there’s a chance it will have the silver hair of a Targaryen. Then the madam could approach Otto Hightower for a reward of some sort, money, protection. Royal bastards have never been more valuable. Little princes are dying left and right.”

“King Aegon’s?” you say numbly. “The child could be his?”

“Yes, obviously. Who else?”

So Aemond does not frequent this place as a customer. You wonder how he met the madam.

Aegon was here before the war began, you think, blood hot in your face, your guts twisting and nauseous. How many women know what he feels like, tastes like, sounds like when he is moaning in pleasure instead of agony?

The copper-haired woman is staring at you quizzically. You have to say something. You hear your voice like the distant cry of a crow through fog: “What was he like? The king, I mean.”

She considers this. “Drunk. Sad. But perfectly pleasant. I wouldn’t mind serving him again. He’s well thought of on the Street of Silk. I do hope he recovers. I think Rhaenyra would hang us all from a gallows. She knows Daemon has a wandering eye, and she’s not the type of wife to look the other way.”

You are trying to clear it out of your skull, like a room full of smoke: Aegon was here, Aegon was here, Aegon was here. “When you met with him, it was in this brothel?”

She hesitates. “Mostly.”

Mostly…? “Have you been inside the Red Keep?”

“Once. Ages ago. There is a network of secret passageways beneath the castle and behind the walls. The king has been known to use them for…well. You know.”

It should not hurt you. You’ve spent all your life listening to the tales of his failings. Yet it does, more than you thought was possible. You’ve never wanted a man before. But you want Aegon now. You do, you must, otherwise you wouldn’t be so pained by the thought of others touching him. You wonder if he feels the same way about you, if he ever lies awake at night with his stomach in knots over your nameless betrothed.

You try to focus on this moment, this kitchen, this copper-haired woman.You need to find a way out of here. “So the madam will decide what happens to your child once it’s born.”

“Of course,” she replies simply.

“You don’t want to keep it yourself? You are not attached to it?”

The woman is suddenly serious, quiet, melancholy. “I have no choice in the matter.”

She’s my chance. She’s my redeemer. “Can I ask your name?” you say.

“What my family named me is of no account. As you said, we’re not the same people anymore.” She smiles, warm like embers once again. “People here call me Autumn.”

“Autumn,” you echo. A woman with hair the color of crisp, dying leaves, the color of a dying world hurtling towards winter. “I think I can help you. You and your child, no matter its parentage.”

She does not want to believe you—hope is a dangerous, taunting creature, one that builds a home in your ribcage and then taps taps taps its claws along the ladder of bones—but she does. You can see it flickering in her small, upturned hazel eyes. “You…what?”

“When you go to the market, do you take a list with you? Of items that you require?”

“Yes,” Autumn replies, puzzled. “The madam always gives me one.”

“Do you have any parchment here in the kitchen?”

Autumn shakes her head. “The madam keeps it in her room. Shall I ask her—?”

“No,” you say. “Definitely don’t ask for any. Is there an old list lying around, perhaps?”

“Um, let me see…” Autumn rummages around the table; onions go rolling, leeks are flung aside. She snatches a tattered, folded sheet of parchment from under a pile of potatoes and surrenders it to you. “Here. This is the one from yesterday.”

You open it and lay it flat on the table. Sure enough, there is a list written in black ink; but not in the Common Tongue. The items are sketched. There’s a carrot with a cloudlike plume of fronds atop it, a bee (meaning honey, you imagine), a pig and a chicken, a round bottle with a heart drawn above it. Perfume? you guess. “These are pictures.”

“Well, of course. I wouldn’t be able to read it otherwise.”

You take the stick of black kohl out of your dress pocket and flip over the list. The back is blank. You write as Autumn watches, baffled, fascinated.

Your Grace, you begin, and then scratch it out. You start again.

Aegon,

Aemond has imprisoned me in a brothel. He knows the madam (middle-aged, brown hair, clever).

“What is this place called?” you ask Autumn.

“The Pink Pearl,” she says.

Autumn works here, if you recall her. She says the establishment is known as the Pink Pearl. Please send someone to rescue me at once. I am to be put to work soon, and I am afraid.

You pause. What will he have been told? What will he think of you now?

I beg your forgiveness for my deceit. I did not mislead you out of malice. I knew you needed help, and that I would not be able to provide it if my true identity was known. I have not done anything to undermine your cause. I have not written a word to my family. I assume they now believe me to be dead. I do not want this, but it is a sacrifice I have made so that I can continue to serve you.

Please help me. Please allow me to return to the Red Keep.

My name was a lie, but none of the rest was.

Angel

“You’re highborn, aren’t you?” Autumn says, hushed, awed. “You must be, to write like that.”

“Yes. And I am a friend of King Aegon. If he knows I’m here, he will pay for me.” You don’t know that for sure, but you have hope, that risky rattling beast.

“He will pay to fuck you, you mean?”

“I believe he will buy my freedom.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Then I will slit my own throat with one of these knives. “It’s better for everyone if he does.” You fold the parchment closed and then give it to Autumn. She takes it, perplexed but willing. “I cannot leave this place. But you can. I need you to get that letter to the king. You know the way to the Red Keep; you have been inside these secret passageways. Hand the letter to him directly if possible. If you are intercepted, ask to see the Dowager Queen Alicent or…” You debate this. Sir Criston is closer to Aemond than Aegon, but you believe the opposite to be true for the youngest Targaryen brother. “Or Prince Daeron. Tell them that the letter must be read by the king immediately, and by him only. If he is resting, he must be roused. If he is speaking with someone, he must be interrupted. Explain this and then leave. And do not allow the prince regent to see you.” Aemond’s words blow through you like a cold wind: If she tries to escape, kill her.

“This is a difficult task,” Autumn says uncertainly, the folded square of parchment disappearing into the bodice of her gown. “I cannot promise you anything. But I can try.”

“If I am rescued, I will see that you and your child are provided for. You will have your own home, one far, far away from here. You will never have to answer to the madam again. You will never have to lie with a man who is not of your choosing. Your life will be your own.”

She stares at you, dazed and wonderous. She cannot even fathom this, but she knows she wants it. You’ve begun to feel that way about certain things as well. When Autumn speaks, it is in little more than a whisper. “I would like that very much.”

“You will have my most fervent gratitude.”

“I will depart tonight after supper. I will tell the madam that I am craving apple cake from a street vendor.”

“Thank you, Autumn,” you say, lips trembling as they curl into a smile, tears blurry in your eyes.

She points to the stick of black kohl you’ve used as a makeshift quill, smirking. It’s still clutched in your dominant hand. “You’d better hide that before people start showing up looking for soup.”

Hours later, you are trying to fall asleep in a room you share with half a dozen other women who are not presently working, beds so close together they almost touch, soft snores, mattresses shifting when people roll over, a thin wool blanket pulled all the way up to your chin.

Aegon will read the letter. Aegon will send someone to rescue me.

In the darkness, your hands wander down to your belly, your hips, lower. Skating over your white silk nightgown, your fingertips press cautiously at a place where you sometimes feel an indistinct, uneasy sort of pleasure. You rarely touch yourself; you cannot do so without remembering that your body is not your own and never has been. But now, for the very first time and without any premeditation, you picture Aegon—his murky oceanic eyes, his crooked grin, his hands, his bravery, his gentleness, his shock of white-blond hair adorned with that single tiny braid—and instantly your once-ambiguous desire sharpens, strengthens, is accompanied by a wetness that you can feel blooming warm and needful beneath your nightgown.

But it’s not going to be him. It’s going to be some stranger who doesn’t know me and doesn’t want to.

You roll over onto your side and thrust your hands under the pillow, squeeze your eyes shut until they ache, try not to hear the moans that creep through the walls like dark veins of blood poisoning.

~~~~~~~~~~

All day you wait for someone to cross through the doorway of the brothel to claim you, a guard, a messenger, Daeron, Criston, anybody. But no one does. The women here keep strange hours: late to bed, late to rise, breakfast at noon, lunch at four or five, supper long after nightfall. You pick listlessly at a breakfast of biscuits with butter, honey, and blackberry jam, bacon, weak wine, pomegranate juice, lemonweed tea to prevent an unintended child like Autumn’s.

“I was stopped by a guard just outside the Red Keep,” she mutters to you in a stolen moment, huddled together at the end of a hallway by a window that opens out onto the courtyard. “They agreed to let me see Prince Daeron. He took the letter and said he would deliver it. That’s all I could do. I hope it’s enough.”

I hope so too, you think to yourself as you thank her, marveling with brick-heavy horror at how all the Valyrian ancestry and riches in the world cannot save you from the fate of being born a card for others to play, trade, bet on, use until it is worn and faceless. I hope so with everything I’m made of.

The other women take you with them to the bathhouse down the street, and in the labyrinth of sweltering pools and swirling steam you scrub yourself all over until your skin is tender to the touch. You use perfumed soaps and luxurious floral oils, not for healing but for vanity, so strange men will imagine you to be an intoxicating fantasy, so any human imperfections can be ignored. You pluck some stray hairs and trim others. You inspect each other for bruises or scratches or bitemarks that will need to be covered. No one mentions how they got them. Everybody knows.

Back in the brothel, the women show you how to wear your hair and do your makeup: black kohl on the eyes, beeswax dyed with berry juice on the lips, powder on the face to even out your complexion. Servants flit around fussing over hairstyles and switching ripped seams on dresses. Your silk gown—the one you will be raped in—is a soft, helpless, feminine lavender. You are shown to a bedchamber: flickering candles, a mountain of pillows and jewel-toned throw blankets, harp music and fresh air breathing in through the windows. You sit on the edge of the bed wringing your hands. You are waiting to be rescued. You are waiting to be harmed.

The door opens, and he enters. The madam was truthful: she has found you a slight, benign-looking young man. He smiles shyly, clanging in his light armor. He is indeed a soldier on leave from the front. He wears the crest of his family as the clasp for his cape, a white shield with a black cross. He is a Norcross, the same as the dying boy you were tending when Aemond pulled you off the battlefield at Rook’s Rest. How easy it would have been for you to not be here right now; a difference of a few minutes, a few meters, and Aemond never would have found you.

“Hello,” the man says pleasantly. He is yanking off his boots.

“Hello.” You are still sitting on the edge of the massive bed, big enough for four or five occupants. This is not a coincidence, you’re certain. But that will come later, once you have been sufficiently broken in. Your stomach lurches; you try not to show it.

Now he is taking off his cape. “You’re nervous,” he observes. There is a pitcher of wine on the table in the middle of the room. He pours two cups and hands one to you. You take it—intending to be dignified, ladylike—and then gulp it down. The Norcross laughs. “You needn’t fear me, maiden,” he says. “I am here for pleasure, not pain. I have paid a considerable price for you. You are a piece of treasure, a rare gem, and I will handle you accordingly.”

Then he reaches out to stroke your cheek, and something in you shatters, splits open, screams. I don’t know this man. I don’t trust this man. You shrink away from him and retreat to the center of the vast bed. The Norcross blinks at you, a little amused, a bit bewildered. “Sir, you have stumbled upon a great opportunity,” you tell him. “I am no ordinary woman.”

“No?” he says. But he is smirking beneath gleaming eyes, like this is a joke; and he is removing his armor as well.

“I am here as the result of a dreadful misunderstanding. You see, I have actually already been claimed. There is another man who has the right to take my innocence if he so chooses.”

“Oh?” the Norcross says. He is unbuttoning his white cotton shirt. “Who?”

“King Aegon.”

He throws his head back and guffaws, dark hair long enough to cover his ears and brush against the nape of his neck. “This is a very charming jape. Me? Getting to deflower the king’s chosen whore? Yes, yes, very good. Delightful. Delicious.” He crawls onto the bed; the mattress shifts beneath your palms. A cold sweat slicks across your skin. Goosebumps rise on your arms. He doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t want to.

“I’m not joking,” you implore the Norcross. “I am well-acquainted with King Aegon, he cares for me. I was brought here by mistake and against his knowledge. If you assist me in returning to him, I’m sure you will be generously compensated for your trouble—”

The man’s hand juts out, snags in your hair, yanks and tears at it. You yelp and struggle as he wrestles you down onto the mattress and settles his weight on top of you. “You’re mine, all mine,” he growls, smiling, playing along with what he has chosen to believe is a fantasy. “Not the king’s whore. The king has plenty of those already, he probably has thousands. But you’re all mine.”

“Get off me,” you order him, as if you are still the daughter of one of the wealthiest houses in Westeros and not some powerless, penniless woman imprisoned in ornate walls and perfumed silk; and isn’t this where you always would have ended up anyway? Flinching on some stranger’s bed as he tried to claim you, subdue you, force pieces of himself inside you?

“I will show you, maiden. The king is a cripple now. He could not satisfy you anyway. I will give you what he could not. And I’ll give it to you more than once, if you ask nicely.” He presses his lips to yours, a sickening mockery of a kiss, all flesh and no heat. He is wearing only his trousers; they could be gone in an instant. He is tugging your sleeves off your shoulders to get to your breasts.

“Please don’t do this, please stop, I’ll give you anything—”

“Everything I want is right here.”

Just let him do it, you think. I can’t leave this place, I can’t fight him off. There’s no way out. Just let him do it, and live to see if freedom will arrive tomorrow.

Aemond’s words fill your skull like flashes of lighting: If she tries to escape, kill her.

The Norcross man is pulling off his trousers. It strikes you like a closed fist: the terror, the injustice, the rage. You swing at his face, your knuckles rapping against his cheekbones. “Get off of me—!”

There is a tremendous fracturing noise, and at first you think the man must have snapped one of your bones, your radius or your tibia or your clavicle. But no: it was the bedchamber door being thrown open so violently it hit the wall behind it and cracked down the middle. And now there are footsteps, and now there are guards pouring into the room, and now the point of a blade bursts through the Norcross man’s windpipe splattering blood across the bed, the walls, the wood boards of the floor. You are shrieking; scarlet rain peppers your face, chest, hands.

“You’d take an unwilling woman?!” Aegon demands of the dying man, who gapes at him with rapidly fading eyes and a mouth hemorrhaging dark, lethal red. The king is wearing all black, tunic, trousers, boots. Half of his hair is pulled back from his face and secured with a black ribbon. You have never seen him like this before. You have never seen him brutal, formidable, furious. “You fucking animal. Enjoy drowning in your own blood.”

Aegon wrenches his sword free from the dying man’s throat and he falls face-down onto the mattress as you scramble away. And then Aegon falls too: his legs give out and he collapses to his knees, kneeling in a pool of the Norcross man’s blood, the hilt of his sword tumbling out of his grasp. You bolt off the bed and drop down onto the floor beside him.

“Aegon?!”

“Are you okay?” He takes your face in his hands—they’re shaking, they’re weak again, but just strong enough to cradle the slope of your jaw—and looks at you, turning your face one way and then the other, his eyes searching for bruises, lacerations, more fuel for the vengeful fire that blazes in him. The burn on his own right cheek is inflamed, blistering. He does not seem to notice.

“I’m okay, I promise.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No, no, you got here just in time.”

And Aegon—this so-called monster, this alleged beast, this man who the Blacks swear is a villain and a degenerate and soulless—slips the sleeves of your silk lavender gown back up over your shoulders so your chest is covered. “If it’s any consolation, you’re fucking beautiful.”

“Of course you would prefer me dressed like a prostitute.”

He laughs, embraces you, holds you to him, the first time he ever has. Your arms link around the back of his neck, your fingers knot in his hair. You are so close, yet not nearly close enough; you want him completely, always. You can’t claw your way back up the cliff you’ve fallen down.

There is a commotion as the guards that accompanied Aegon to the brothel part to allow two new arrivals into the bedchamber. Aemond and Criston now stand just inside the doorway, breathing heavily from their sprint across the city. Your gaze meets Aemond’s and you clutch Aegon tighter. The king kisses your temple—so quickly and unceremoniously it feels like a habit, something instinctual, something innately right—and reluctantly unravels himself from you. He grabs the nearest bedpost and hauls himself to his feet, wincing, groaning, bracing himself against it with both hands.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Aemond shouts at his brother.

“You will not harm her! You will not take her from me!”

“Aegon, she’s not a Thorne, she’s a Celtigar! Her father sits on Rhaenyra’s council, he funds her war effort, when our men are killed it’s with arrows and steel that he paid for—!”

“We’re all different people now!” Aegon roars. “All of us! You were some pathetic runt, I was useless, Daeron was a child, Helaena was happy, Criston was devoted to Rhaenyra, Mother was her closest friend, all of us have been changed by this world and its endless goddamn misery! So she was born a Celtigar, is she to be eternally condemned for that? Is she truly irredeemable? Can no acts of service to the Greens’ king convince you of her loyalty? She saved my life!”

“Are you insane?! We can’t trust her!”

“I am the king!” Aegon bellows. “I am still the one who gets to make these decisions, no matter how unworthy you think I am!”

“She lied to you, to me, to everyone, that cannot go unpunished!”

And then Aegon responds, but not in the Common Tongue. He says something—laboriously, haltingly—in a language you recognize only from hearing Daemon and Rhaenyra converse in it. You were not aware that Aegon knew High Valyrian well enough to carry a conversation. Perhaps Aemond and Criston weren’t either; they exchange a brief, astonished glance. The guards’ eyes dart between the king and the prince regent.

Aemond replies, his tone cutting but his words swift, seamless, graceful, fluent. Aegon stumbles his way through a sentence or two, pausing several times to conjure the correct word. Aemond says something else, an effortless litany of syllables your forebears shared. Aegon forces out one last plea. It sounds painful; it sounds like a confession. Aemond stares at his brother, perhaps scandalized, perhaps merely stunned.

“Alright?” Aegon pants, in anguish now. His hands are like talons on the bedpost, the force of his fingernails leaving white scratches in the wood. “You get it? You understand?”

“Fine,” Aemond says, low and bitter.

“You will not harm her. She stays in the Red Keep. Promise me, Aemond. I cannot rest until you do.”

Aemond nods, glaring down at the floor.

“Criston?” Aegon presses. “Promise me. If he breaks his word, you will stop him. I command this. I am your king.”

“I promise, Aegon,” Criston agrees, willingly enough.

“Good,” Aegon says. “Good.” And then he blacks out and crumples to the floor. The guards rush for him, but Criston tells them to stand back. He stoops low, lifts the king, throws him over one shoulder and carries him. Aemond fetches his brother’s fallen sword. You follow them out of the brothel, staying as far away from Aemond as you can. You pause just long enough to peek into the kitchen.

“Autumn?” you call, and she looks up from the chicken she’s been coating with herbs and butter. “I’m leaving now. You’re coming with me. Get your things.”

“What things?” she says, grinning. She cleans her hands and trots after you, one palm resting on the swell of her belly, her copper sea of hair streaming out behind her.

Inside the Red Keep, you inform the servants that Autumn will be staying as a guest of the royal family and that she is to have a room near yours. Then you hurry to Aegon’s chamber. He is sprawled across the bed, writhing and moaning. Grand Maester Orwyle is administering milk of the poppy. Criston is stripping him, heaving off Aegon’s boots and trousers before gingerly removing his tunic to reveal bandages red with blood around his shoulders. He has torn the half-mended flesh there. He suffers, he heals, he suffers again.

“Angel?” Aegon chokes out, reaching for you with tears flooding from his eyes.

“I’m here.” You take his hand. “What hurts, Aegon?”

“Everywhere,” he gasps.

You tell Orwyle: “Give him another dose.” And a second goblet of milk of the poppy is emptied down the king’s throat. Within a minute, he is mercifully unconscious again.

Criston looks at you. “What’s wrong with his face?”

“Sunlight. The rest of his burns were covered, but not the one on his cheek. Fresh burns must be kept out of the sun. He knows that.” You unwrap Aegon’s bandages; his wounds need to be cleaned and re-dressed.

“Oh, seven hells,” Criston whispers, covering his mouth with one hand. There are four or five ruptures around each shoulder, thin bleeding crevices that branch out like the legs of a red spider. Grand Maester Orwyle ambles off to order servants to fetch water, vinegar, honey, linen, more milk of the poppy.

“I should have done better,” you say, and your voice breaks. “I should have used more rose oil on his shoulders. I should have made him stretch three or four times a day.”

“You’ve tended to him tirelessly,” Criston says gently.

“I shouldn’t have lied about who I was.”

“I don’t see how you could have saved his life otherwise.”

“Go find Alicent,” you say. “Explain what’s happened, but don’t bring her to visit him yet. It will only upset her.”

“Yes,” Criston agrees, and leaves.

Outside, the sun is setting, and all the world is the color of dragonfire. Grand Maester Orwyle returns with servants and supplies. As you are dabbing at Aegon’s wounds with cloths dripping with water and vinegar, Daeron appears in the bedchamber doorway. His eyes—large and expressive like Aegon’s, but more crystalline, less dark—are shimmering and wider than you’ve ever seen them.

“Is he dying?” Daeron asks, sounding fearful and very young.

“No more than usual,” Aegon rasps; and that’s how you know he is awake again.

When Aegon is cleaned, bandaged, and soothed once again with milk of the poppy, the two of you are left alone. You perch on the edge of the mattress and can’t stop touching him, his left hand where his dragon ring glints in the flickering candlelight, his disheveled silver hair that still has that little braid you made for him. You don’t know what to say. You worry that if you begin talking, everything will spill out like a monsoon or a rogue wave, things you can’t take back, things you don’t fully understand yourself.

“House Celtigar, huh?” Aegon murmurs drowsily, smiling. “I’ve never been so happy to see a crab in my bed.”

And it hits you all at once: I would take every last drop of pain for this man. I would slit him open and drain him of it, swallow it down, assume the debt. I would carry every burden, every red flare of agony and ache in his bones. I would learn the art of self-loathing if he could forget it. I would trade fates with him, threads cut and crossed and burned to ash.

“What?” Aegon asks. He’s watching you with those storm-blue eyes, glassy with pain and poison.

Why wouldn’t you send someone else in your place? Why would you go yourself? Why would you injure yourself so grievously, so senselessly? “Why would you do this for me?”

“You are the only person I’ve never disappointed. I’d like to keep that going if I can.” He takes your hand and laces his fingers through yours. “You’re so far away.”

You lie down on the bed and curl up beside him, careful not to put pressure on his fresh wounds. You place one palm on the center of his bandaged chest, the other against his unburned cheek. Aegon pulls you in closer until your noses are nearly touching and you swing one leg up to rest on top of his; even then, he keeps a hand on your thigh, as if to make sure you don’t leave. The other twists into your hair and stays there. Aegon dives into a deep, starless sleep and you doze next to him. When you catch wisps of dreams like fireflies in a child’s grasp, you hear crashing waves and see dragons pitching into the sea: Vermax at the Gullet, Arrax into Shipbreaker Bay.

Why did Aemond have to murder Luke? Why did he have to start this war?

Something wakes you, a sound, an indescribable shift in the room. You open your eyes and turn to see Aemond, arms crossed and back propped against the opposite wall. You rise as carefully as you can so you don’t disturb Aegon, untangling yourself from him like he’s something catastrophically fragile, a spider’s web, a splintering pane of glass.

You stand and take several steps towards Aemond, only so you can speak without waking Aegon. “What do you want?”

“I fear I did not conduct myself particularly well yesterday,” he says. “I may have acted…impulsively. Unwisely.”

“Your capacity for self-reflection is truly inspiring.”

Aemond frowns. “I’m being serious.”

“I’m not interested.”

“If we are to be on the same side of this war, we should learn to understand each other.”

“I don’t want to understand you. Your mind must be a horrible place to live.”

He stares at you with his sole remaining eye, cold and hurt and wrathful and hopeless.

You ask softly, knowing that only Aemond can tell you: “What did he say? Back at the brothel?”

Aemond does not answer for so long that you convince yourself he’s not going to. At last, he decides to extend a peace offering. “He said that he cannot live without you. Or that he wouldn’t want to. I’m not certain which he meant. His High Valyrian has always been terrible.”

Then Aemond walks out of the room without another word.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon ii #aegon targaryen ii #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii x reader #aegon x reader #aegon targaryen ii x you #aegon targaryen x you

447 notes · View notes

iridescent-solstice · 8 months ago

Text

ᴅɪꜱᴄʟᴀɪᴍᴇʀ: ɪ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴀᴅᴅ ᴘɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇꜱ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴏᴏᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ꜰɪᴄꜱ. ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʙᴇʟᴏɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ ᴜɴʟᴇꜱꜱ ꜱᴛᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴡɪꜱᴇ. | ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: {MDNI‼ This fic gets graphic and kinky near the end. I do not want you to interact with this, please respect my wishes or you will be blocked} |

★彡[ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴅʀᴀʙʙʟᴇ ɪꜱ ɪɴꜱᴘɪʀᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴍʏ ɪɴᴄʀᴇᴀꜱɪɴɢ ɴᴇᴡ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴇꜱᴛ ɪɴ ʙᴀᴋɪɴɢ, ᴍᴀɪɴʟʏ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜɪɴɢ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀꜱ ᴘʀᴇᴘᴀʀᴇ ʙᴀᴋᴇʀʏ ɢᴏᴏᴅꜱ. ɪ ɢᴏᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪᴅᴇᴀ ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ɪ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜɪɴɢ 내복곰 ɴᴇʙᴏᴋɢᴏᴍ'ꜱ ʙᴀᴋɪɴɢ ᴠʟᴏɢꜱ]彡★

✧･ﾟ☆｡˚🍮⋆ ˚ ☆

You watch silently as the quiet whisking of cream echoes in the silent kitchen. It was close to 3am, yet both you and the Trancy butler were wide awake. One would assume you two were up to some... um inappropriate behaviour. It was quite late after all. But contrary to popular belief, Claude was not always up to nefarious actions. Sometimes, it's the simple day to day activities that would end up gaining his interest. Like crocheting in the garden with a cup of tea long after the master of the manor had gone to bed. Or other times, tending to the garden, maybe even a game of chess against himself...

The clinking of bottles provided the perfect ambience as he mixes various different ingredients in an attempt to rid out the taste of lemon. He's a bit of a perfectionist. So, when he accidentally added a tad bit too much, while chatting with you, he became hell bent on fixing it. Yes, it is almost unnoticeable, the lemony touch, but he refuses to let it go. So, you sit there all quiet and pretty in your knee length nightgown, your legs swinging back and forth as you try not to laugh at his apron. His eyebrows furrowed as he focused, with an intimidating glare in his eyes. Yet you could hardly feel yourself scared when looking at him due to his attire. A small white bandana holding his hair back from his face, makes him look….funny. Not that you’d ever admit it. You swallow a chuckle at his attire. Not wanting to distract him anymore. Pfft, you weren't sure how much more teasing he'd tolerate from you.

For all his indulgence in meaningless human activities, he never once thought he would be sharing these moments with another. To demons, said activities are useless after all. No need for said food, and even if needed, there was no need to craft it himself. Yet he does. Perhaps he even seeks it for his own enjoyment. That would explain his insistence on perfecting his baking techniques... Yes, this late at night, because when special interests arise who's to stop him? Who with the authority to hold him back anyways. But perhaps he yearns for someone to share it with.... That would explain his lack of irritation towards you when he accidentally added a bit too much of an ingredient. Getting carried away when listening to you was quickly becoming one of his worst traits.

However, as you struggle to stifle a yawn as your teary eyes forbid you from staying awake any longer. Vision becoming blurry but just as you were about to cave to your slumber. His voice rings out. "That seems about right. Here, try it." Before your eyes have even opened properly, he's shoving his index and middle finger inside your mouth. The tips of his gloved fingers covered in a small sample of the cream he just prepared. You gag and immediately hold his wrist in weak protest. But his glare quickly stops any intention to push him away. Eyebrows raised as if daring you to stop him. He knows you won't though. "Go on, tell me what you think." Swirling your tongue around to taste the whipping cream about to be used, you watch a small grin creep onto his face. Your eyes roll back to your head with a quiet groan. It actually tasted quite nice. If he could be arsed to, guests would flock to the Trancy manor to taste his pastries.... As you mull over the thought of advertising his cooking to your friends and family, his eyes begin to dart to the newly whipped cream, and then back at you. Low lidded eyes suddenly glowing as he watches you. Perhaps he won't reserve it for the croissant, his mind quickly finding a new better use for his newly prepared assortment. "So? Don't tell me you've forgotten the task at hand already... Well, that's a shame I thought I taught you better."

✧･ﾟ☆｡˚🍮⋆ ˚ ☆

90 notes · View notes

nb-octopus-writes · 1 month ago

Text

once you're in the hive, the other bees assume you're supposed to be there

[masterpost]

Chapter 9: Come for the Bike, Stay for the Game Night

wordcount: 3.5K

~~~~~

An indeterminable amount of time later, after they’ve watched multiple episodes, Lemony Snicket’s expository monologue is once more interrupted by the theater door slamming open.

“I come bearing booze and board games!” Remus announces at roughly the volume of an explosion, or perhaps a fire truck’s siren. “Turn off the television and come socialize.”

“C’mon, Remus, we’re at a good part,” Roman complains without looking in his direction.

“It’ll still be there tomorrow,” Remus says, coming into the room. He doesn’t turn the lights up or anything though, just heads toward them. “Your favoritest twinsie, however, might not be, and the alcohol certainly won’t.”

“Mleh,” Roman says, sticking his tongue out at said twin.

“Also, if you aren’t there to stop me, I’m going to eat all of whatever dessert Patton made and not leave you any!” Remus announces cheerfully. He takes Roman’s right armrest and folds it up into the back of the seat so that there’s nothing separating them when Remus plops down beside him and stretches out across Roman’s lap.

“Rude,” Roman complains, drawing the word out in a playful manner. “Mean to me, specifically.” He pats Remus on the head, then begins to run his fingers through his hair. Remus goes boneless and gives off the impression that if he could, he’d be purring. Loud, obnoxious, chainsaw purrs.

“You’re a menace,” Roman tells him affectionately. Remus hums and doesn’t move.

He continues to not move for the rest of the episode, other than to become an even more boneless puddle under Roman’s absent scritching. Well. And once to grab Roman’s hand and bring it back to his scalp when Roman makes the mistake of trying to gesture excitedly at the screen with it while commenting on the characters’ antics.

When the episode concludes, Roman gives Remus a couple of pats. “Well, shall we go up and see everyone else, or have you trapped me here forever?” he asks.

Remus answers with an indistinct mumble that doesn’t sound like he wants to get up. Roman chuckles and continues to stroke his hair for a few moments longer, then puts his hand on Remus’s shoulder and rolls him off his lap.

Remus lands on the floor with a thump. “Oww,” he whines, sitting up. He sounds more petulant than injured, though, and considering that Remus is quite capable of being an immovable deadweight when he wants to be, Virgil doesn’t think he’s probably actually very upset about being dumped on the floor, or he wouldn’t have let it happen. Still, he pouts up at Roman. “Rude,” he complains.

Roman appears to be of the same opinion as Virgil, because he just stands up and stretches, popping in multiple places. “Okay, let’s go upstairs then,” he says.

Virgil gets up too, which draws Remus’s gaze. “Oh hey!” he says with a grin. “I didn’t see you there, Tickle-Me-Emo. You been here since the party?”

“No, I went home,” Virgil says, shrugging. He folds himself into his hoodie a bit more. “A couple times, actually.”

Remus’s grin widens. “Couldn’t stay away, huh?”

Virgil shrugs again. “What can I say? They keep enticing me back.”

“Patton’s seducing him with food,” Roman jokes to Remus, who nods seriously.

“It’s like a fairy hill in here,” he says. “One bite of Patton’s magically delicious cooking, and you’re stuck forever.”

“That’s how he got me,” Roman agrees, and starts to herd them toward the door.

“You might have warned me,” Virgil says.

“You were already elbow-deep in the buffet when I first saw you,” Roman answers, though Virgil had been speaking to Remus, considering that Remus was the one who had brought him to the party in the first place.

Remus slings his arm around Virgil. “Aw, it’s not so bad, being kidnapped by the fae,” he says. “They’ll keep feeding you, and sure, they throw more parties than you personally enjoy, but at least they won’t make you dance till your feet fall off for their own amusement, so there’s that.”

“Thanks, Remus, that’s very comforting,” Virgil says dryly.

Remus gives him a squeeze. “Anytime!”

Upstairs, they find not only Janus, Logan, and Patton, but also Remy, who brightens when he sees them.

“Hey babes,” he greets enthusiastically. “Here you are, I missed you, it's been ages.”

“You saw me yesterday,” Virgil reminds him.

“That was a whole day ago,” Remy says, “and we barely got to chat, so it hardly counts.”

“I am not responsible for your terrible timing,” Virgil informs him. Remy had shown up during one of their busiest times, of course they hadn't been able to exchange more than a few words.

“You guys didn't peek, did you?” Remus says, brushing past them in the direction of the kitchen.

“No, Remus, your mysterious parcel has remained undisturbed,” Janus responds dryly, with just a bit of sarcasm on the mysterious. Remus is already gone, and doesn't respond.

“Oh,” Logan says abruptly, and gestures between Janus and Virgil. “I almost forgot, are the two of you acquainted?”

Virgil exchanges a glance with his best friend's husband, whose lips twitch minutely. “We've met, yes,” Janus answers coolly. “How are you, Virgil? Staying out of trouble? I don't believe I've seen you since the party.”

“I'm good,” Virgil says with a thumbs-up. “You?”

Janus inclines his head. “I am doing well, thank you.”

Remus returns then, carrying a large unmarked paper bag. He sets it on the table with a heavy glass-sounding thunk, and shimmies his shoulders excitedly. “Show and tell time!”

“Considering that you announced the contents of that bag the moment you walked in the door, I fail to see the purpose of this procedure,” Logan says as Remus reaches into the bag and extracts another, considerably smaller, paper bag, which he puts down with another glassy thunk.

“The purpose is that you don't know the specifics,” Remus says, pulling a second small bag out. He sets it beside the first one. “Also, I enjoy being dramatic as fuck, and this is as good an opportunity as any.”

“Very well,” Logan says, amused. “Proceed.”

“I will,” Remus says, and continues his self-appointed task. There are five bags in all, of varying sizes, and he lines them up in no particular order. “Okay! Who wants to go first? Logie?”

“Sure,” says Logan. “Why not.” He takes the center bag and opens it, drawing out the square glass bottle it contains. “Vodka,” he announces, setting it back on the table.

“Ooh,” Patton says. “I think we have pineapple juice in the pantry. We should get it and mix them, that's real good.”

“Me next!” Roman says eagerly, and grabs one of the taller bags before anyone can stop him. “Oh, it's a funky shape!” He pulls the bottle out and examines it delightedly. “It's all twisty, I love that.”

“Yeah!” Remus says, wiggling more energetically. “Isn't it just a gorgeous bottle!?”

“Yeah!!”

“What’s in it?” Logan asks.

“Hm?” Roman says, and turns the bottle to find the label. “Oh, it’s whiskey,” he says, and resumes his admiration of the spiral-shaped bottle.

Logan sighs. “I assume that you will be wanting to keep it as decoration.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Roman agrees.

“Only if I don't manage to take it home first,” Remus says. “Remy, you wanna go next?”

Remy considers the remaining bags, then selects the one which is square in shape all the way up, rather than folding in around its contents. This, it turns out, is because its contents are inside a cardboard display box.

“Is that a giant chocolate truffle?” Virgil asks, leaning in. The bottle is round, and wrapped in gold foil.

“Looks like,” Remy says. He tilts the box back to read the label. “Chocolate cream. So, yes.”

“It also comes with its own cup!” Remus adds. “Very fancy!” Indeed, in the top half of the box is a spherical cup nearly the size of the bottle. Remy starts unpackaging it.

“Can I pick next?” Patton asks, and actually waits for their nods before he takes one of the remaining two bags and opens it. This alcohol is much darker than the others, almost black. “Kuh…” Patton reads. “Kahlúa?”

“Coffee liqueur!” Remus says. “It's made of coffee, or maybe meant to go in coffee, I'm not sure. Got it cause we were gonna pick up Remy next, and he likes coffee, so I thought he might like this.”

“Aw, I'm touched,” Remy says. “I do enjoy the occasional spiked coffee.”

“Okay, one bag left!” Remus says. “Who wants to open it?”

“Would you like to?” Janus offers to Virgil. “I’ve already seen it.”

Remus gasps dramatically. “You peeked!? Janus, you promised.”

Janus raises one eyebrow. “I watched you pick it out,” he says, and slides the bag across the table to Virgil. “In fact, I believe you used my card to pay for it.”

The final alcohol is a red wine with a stylized picture of raspberries on the label. Reading the word directly underneath them, Virgil thinks he knows why this bottle in particular caught Remus's eye. “Loganberry wine,” he says.

Logan leans forward. “Color me intrigued,” he says, and extends his hand in a silent request. Virgil passes him the bottle.

Remus bounces, grinning widely. “I’m gonna get the cups,” he announces, spinning on his heel and dashing back into the kitchen. Patton gets up and follows him at a more reasonable pace.

Remus rushes back in with a double handful of glassware, plonks them hastily onto the table, and whirls around again. In the doorway, he nearly collides with Patton, who is returning with the pineapple juice and a jug of milk. “Oops!” Remus says. He grabs Patton by the hips, and spins them both around to trade places. Patton giggles a little, stumbling a bit as he’s spun, but doesn’t fall or drop anything.

“Would you like help,” Janus offers, already getting up to assist.

After multiple trips back and forth, what they have on the table is this: the spherical cup that had come with the chocolate liqueur, five goblets of various shapes and sizes, one of which is made of green glass and decorated with the raised images of curling grape vines, several shot glasses of the larger variety, one of those triangular martini glasses, a large mug that Virgil’s pretty sure is intended for drinking beer from, a plastic cup with a cartoon butterfly on the side and a sillystraw, two short, squat cups, and a tall narrow vessel that Virgil isn’t convinced isn’t actually a vase.

For drinks, they have the alcohol Remus had brought, the pineapple juice, milk, a bottle of sparkling cider, orange juice, and cans of sprite, ginger ale, and dr. pepper. Also, a jar of maraschino cherries. Patton has also located both cocktail swords and tiny umbrella toothpicks, and is busily opening up several of the latter and placing them around the rim of the beer mug. Logan, meanwhile, retrieves a package of crackers and a stack of small plates, and begins to portion them out.

“Ooh, cheese too,” Roman says, and goes to get it. He brings back a whole block, along with a knife and a cutting board, and starts to cut it up. Once he has a decently sized pile of cheese slices, he takes two of the crackers and makes a sandwich, which he devours cheerfully and messily.

Virgil’s not sure how to extricate himself from what is clearly rapidly approaching Getting Drunk Together. It’s one thing to only serve himself from the Non-Spiked punch bowl and avoid the other one, but if they actually pour him a glass, how does he politely turn it down? He does not have a good social script for this. Maybe he should just leave? Leaving before they open the alcohol would probably work. Though of course then he has to find an opening to tell them he's going to go home now, and hope they don't get offended by him spurning the social intoxication.

“Did you clear out the whole cabinet, Remus?” Remy asks, eyeing the eclectic collection of drinkware, which Remus is now shuffling around into a very particular configuration that Virgil doesn't see the underlying logic to.

“No, there’s some left,” Remus says distractedly. “Why, I forget your favorite shape?”

Remy hums thoughtfully. “Weeell,” he drawls, “I might like a coffee cup. Also, coffee.”

Remus squints at him. “Didn’t we get you some on the way over?”

Remy shrugs. “Oh, that’s long gone. I finished it while you were downstairs.”

“I’ll start some brewing,” Patton offers.

Remy smiles at him. “Thanks, babes, I’d appreciate that,” he says, and as Patton circles around him to get to the kitchen, Remy gives him a quick pat on the butt.

“Scamp,” Patton says, and ruffles Remy’s hair.

“In front of my salad?” Roman gasps. Remy sticks his tongue out at him playfully, and Patton giggles, vanishing into the kitchen.

“Before we begin drinking, is anyone intending to drive home tonight, or have any other reason to wish to remain sober?” Logan asks. Oh thank God. Virgil raises his hand. Logan nods seriously at him. “Noted,” he says, and doesn’t even ask for more details. “The cider is non-alcoholic, as of course are the juice and soda.”

“Ooh, we can make you a mocktail!” Remus chimes in. He appears to be satisfied with his arrangement of the glasses, at least for now. “Do you want a Virgin Mary? It’s like a Bloody Mary, but instead of vodka we use ginger ale. I will need tomato juice, worcestershire sauce, olives–”

Virgil cuts him off firmly. “No thank you, Remus.” He does not want to drink the weirdest tomato soup, even if it is a widely recognized beverage.

“Okay,” Remus says with a nonchalant shrug. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

Virgil is not going to change his mind. Even without the alcohol, that sounds gross. Who even likes drinking tomato juice, anyway? And worcestershire sauce!? No. No thank you, no.

“How bout a Shirley Temple?” Roman suggests, reaching across the table to grab the maraschino cherries. He pops the lid off and reaches into the jar with two fingers to fish around for a cherry.

“Hey, no,” scolds Patton, which startles Virgil because he hadn't seen him come back from the kitchen. “Have you washed your hands? No? Then fingers out of the jar.”

Roman pouts, but retracts his fingers. “Well then how else am I supposed to get one out?” he asks.

“You could use a spoon, or perhaps one of the toothpicks.” Patton hands him one of the swords. “Here.”

“If you intend to make a shirley temple, you may wish to use a spoon anyway,” Logan says, as Roman impales a cherry on his tiny plastic sword. “We do not currently have grenadine, so you will need to make the version where you substitute cherry juice.”

“Fair enough,” Roman says, and pops the cherry into his mouth. With the hilt of the sword sticking out from between his lips, he wanders off in the direction of the kitchen, presumably to fetch a spoon.

“What's in a shirley temple?” Virgil asks, because it seems that Roman is pretty intent on making him one, and if he needs to stop him it'd be better to do it before ingredients are actually getting mixed.

“It is mostly soda,” Logan tells him. “Traditionally ginger ale or ginger beer, though you can substitute either sprite or seven-up—or could, except that we do not have the latter. Then grenadine, here substituted with cherry juice, and garnished also with a maraschino cherry.”

That doesn't sound too bad. A little weird, maybe, but he's willing to do the experiment. “Okay,” Virgil says.

Roman returns with a spoon and makes Virgil the sprite-and-cherry-juice variation of a shirley temple in the martini glass. “Here you go!” he says cheerfully, sliding it over to Virgil.

Virgil eyes it suspiciously for a few moments, then takes a cautious sip. Yeah, okay, not bad. “Thanks,” he says, and Roman beams.

“You're welcome!” he says, and pours the rest of the can of sprite into one of the goblets to make himself a matching drink. “So, Remus, you mentioned board games?”

Remus perks up. “Yeah!” he says, and rushes off. He returns with a game box, which he slams down onto the table hard enough to make the glassware rattle. “Look what we found!”

Patton leans in to look. “Parcheesi?”

“Six-player parcheesi!” Remus corrects. “You know, since we can never all fit around a normal ’cheesy board.” He glances over at Virgil, then Remy, and adds, “Unfortunately we still can't all play, since there's seven of us now. So, oops, we're gonna need to find an even bigger game board for next time.”

“I was not aware there existed six-player parcheesi,” Logan says. “How does it differ from the typical four-player setup?”

“It's a hexagon,” Remus says, opening the box. He takes the board out and unfolds it for them to see. “Also, gay.”

By which he clearly means the fact that the six colors the game makers used for the six players are the colors of the rainbow, though they're not in rainbow order.

“Dibs on red,” Roman says quickly.

The pieces are currently separated into little baggies, and Remus digs through the pile for the red ones. “Here you go, little red foxes,” he says, tossing them to Roman.

“Ooh, they're animals?” Patton asks.

“Yep! I bet I know which one you want,” Remus says, and passes him the orange packet. “Oh, or wait, blue is frogs. Do you want orange cats or blue frogs?”

“Oh!” Patton says, brow furrowing. “Oh, that's a hard choice.” Remus passes him blue as well, and Patton takes one of each color out, deliberating between them.

“I'm surprised the frogs aren't green,” Logan says.

“Nope, green is turtles,” Remus says, tossing them over and almost hitting Logan in the face. “And bananacondas for you, dear,” he adds, handing Janus a packet of coiled yellow snakes.

“I think the frogs are cuter,” Patton decides finally.

“Can I have the cats, then?” Remy asks, and Patton passes them to him.

“Then that leaves Virgil with the purple octopussies,” Remus says. He tries to hand them to Virgil, who doesn't take them.

“Wait, what about you, don't you want to play?” Virgil asks.

Remus grins. “Oh, don't you worry, I have an idea,” he says, pressing the octopods into Virgil's hand. “Patton, I am going to raid your craft supplies.”

“Oh! Okay,” Patton says, sounding surprised, and Remus runs off with no further explanation. “Don't make a mess!” Patton calls after him.

“I have never played parcheesi before,” Virgil admits.

“I believe that is your cue for nerdy exposition,” Roman says without looking up from where he is lining his foxes up in front of him, and Logan nods and adjusts his glasses.

“The objective is to move all your pawns from their starting location—” He places one finger on the purple diamond in one corner of the board— “to here.” With his other hand, he points to the purple segment of the hexagon at the center of the board. “To do so, you progress along this outer path based on your dice rolls.”

Logan continues to explain the rules, about movement and blockades and knocking other pawns back and rolling doubles and special cases. It's kind of a lot, but Virgil thinks he can probably manage a game if they're willing to re-explain things as they come up. Especially the special cases. There seem to be a lot of those.

“And of course, whoever gets all six of their pawns to Home first wins,” Logan concludes just as Remus returns.

“Ta-da!” Remus announces, dumping a colorful handful of fancy buttons onto the board.

There's a pause. Then, Logan says, “Explain.”

Remus grins. “I will be playing as the Nest Parasite,” he says, and begins to rearrange his buttons. There are six of them, one in each color of the rainbow, and Remus slides them each over to the corresponding starting diamond. “I'm on a team with everyone, but also no-one.” He shrugs a little. “Basically, it's like I get to control one of each of your pieces. If we're the same color, we can team up for blockades, but I owe no allegiance to anyone, and I'll absolutely take you out with my other pieces if I get a chance.”

“Any chance to sow chaos,” Virgil surmises, and Remus grins and wiggles.

“That sounds like an acceptable adjustment to the rules,” Logan says. “Any objections?”

No-one appears to have any, so Logan says, “Alright. Let's get the board set up and roll to see who goes first.”

#sanders sides #9 #accidental polycule infiltration fic #nb octopus writes #polyamory #multichapter

34 notes · View notes

ohmyeyesmyeyes · 7 months ago

Text

IT'S NEVER OVER | s.crosby

Sidney Crosby and Nat Brooks loved each other once. They'd loved each other through the most crucial parts of adulthood: Sid becoming a hockey superstar and Nat leaving for college in New York.

And then it fell apart.

But perhaps the most painful part of it all was that they still understood each other. Years had passed, and with that came breakups, marriages, failed relationships, changed careers...they'd lived completely separate lives for fourteen years, strangers in every sense of the word. They were different people, but the very core of their soles were still tangled.

Sometimes you just needed a little bit of courage. And what did it matter if they'd lost each other during the race if they crossed the finish line hand in hand?

note: f!oc x sidney crosby; exes to lovers/second chance romance; single mum trope

sneak peek | prologue | pinterest board

chapters

prologue

if anyone asked sid, he wouldn't say that he liked pittsburgh more after meeting nat. no, that would be absurd.

chapter one - of all people

nat was about to repaint her house when she got the call from the school: evan had another scare. sid had been coaching a small group of kids from a local school when one of them was pulled out by the school nurse. the next time he'd see him, evan would be sitting on the reception desk with nat...the nat brooks, of all people.

chapter two - rex records

coming soon!

chapter three - girl talk

coming soon!

chater four - carnegie museum of natural history (i don't know what you like because you kept saying you weren't bothered)

coming soon!

chapter five - untitled

coming soon!

epigraph

" i will love you if i never see you again, and i will love you if i see you everyday

i will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively

i will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. i will love you no matter where you go and who you see, i will love you if you don't marry me. i will love you if you marry someone else and i will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and i must say that on late, cold nights i prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios i have mentioned. that is how i will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way."

an excerpt from lemony snicket: the beatrice letters

#sidney crosby x oc #sidney crosby fic #it's never over #nhl fic #nhl series

36 notes · View notes

magefeathers · 4 months ago

Text

Sleep Token Analysis: ONE

To my continuing surprise people seem to like my Sleep Token thoughts, so I guess I should start posting my song interpretations.

I wrote about my interpretation of Sleep itself here, and while I'd love for you to read that as well, it isn't required reading for my song interpretations. The only really important thing to know is that I don't interpret the music as being about Sleep, regardless of what you personally view Sleep as.

I have a very grounded/realistic/logical way of interpreting things, because that's just the way my brain works, but I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to analyze or decipher anything about Vessel's actual human life in the real world. I think there's a narrative being told, that is shared primarily through emotional responses to events rather than events themselves being portrayed, and the narrative composed by any interpretation of these emotional responses may or may not be an actual reflection of any real events that may have inspired them. I have no clue, and I have no desire to find out. So, for the sake of remaining within the narrative, I will refer to the person singing as the narrator, and the person being sung about as the subject. If I use the name Vessel, I'm referring to him as a third person writer – best way I can explain how I think about it is, the narrator is Lemony Snicket, while Vessel is Daniel Handler (the real author). No part of this is meant to be dissecting his actual life, only the characters in the narrative.

Disclaimer aside, onto the analysis!

THREAD THE NEEDLE

Bury me inside this Labyrinth bed We can feel that time is Dilated

There are a number of instances across the discography where the context in which something is presented and the tone in which it's sung doesn't quite match the implication of the actual words. It's harder to pick up on than more blatant lyrical dissonance (as in the original version of Hey Ya) because a lot of the lyrics are so cryptic to begin with, so you have to really think about what he's saying to pick up on the dissonance.

Saying you want to be buried somewhere seems like a positive thing (I want to spend eternity here), but labyrinths tend to symbolize confusion and struggling to find your way, searching for the right path. So in saying ‘bury me inside this labyrinth bed’ he's asking… to spend forever in a place that causes confusion and uncertainty?

Likewise, to say that time is dilated in this seemingly complimentary context is an interesting choice, because when something is dilated that means it's been expanded, and normally it's a negative thing when we say that time feels like it's just stretching on and on. But if the narrator wants to spend eternity here, it must be meant to be a good thing, especially if the narrator and the subject are spending the night in fascination.

One possibility is that he was thinking about it in a less literal sense and more in the sense of your pupils dilating when you look at someone you love, but I tend to lean more toward believing this dissonance is intentional. Perhaps it's because time feels dilated in this place that he's resigned to spending eternity here: he already feels trapped, so why not simply choose to stay? Regardless of the reasons why the narrator might want this, the dissonance tells us that what the narrator is idealizing isn’t actually healthy, or as good as he thinks it is.

It might seem like a bit of a jump for the first set of lyrics, but when taken in the context of the rest of the discography, I feel like this is about the tendency to wallow in one's own misery, to make your depression and trauma a fundamental part of who you are and revel in them, rather than trying to heal. Change is hard; the confusion and uncertainty and the pain they bring are all familiar and comfortable, and that's why the narrator wants to stay with them.

We can spend the night in Fascination You can thread the needle Time and time again

I had only ever heard the phrase ‘threading the needle’ in a mostly literal context, referring to anything to the effect of navigating through a narrow opening. So I googled the phrase to make sure I understood it fully, and apparently it can also mean, “to find harmony or strike a balance between conflicting forces, interests, etc.”

So with the phrasing of this – we can spend the night in fascination, you can thread the needle – it makes me wonder, if the subject is the one finding this harmony, what are the conflicting forces at play here? Again taking the rest of the discography into context my most realistic assumption is that the subject is bringing peace to the conflict the narrator feels within himself, between his mind and his mental illness. As I personally read a lot of signs of pre-existing familial trauma in later music, it could also be that the subject feels like a safe haven from the conflict of the narrator's home life.

You turn the lights down Come on and find out

An invitation extended to the subject; he's already said I want to spend forever here, now he's saying I want you to join me. Come and spend the night in fascination with me. I want you in this labyrinth with me because you bring me peace. If I'm going to be lost forever, I want to be lost with you.

Now. It's perhaps worth mentioning that the narrator inviting the subject to turn the lights down and join him in a labyrinth bed to spend the night in fascination can certainly be read in a suggestive manner, and I want to clarify that although I see the innuendo there, and I do think it's an intentional innuendo, I don't actually think any of this is about sex. I think Vessel as a writer sometimes uses very sensual or suggestive phrasing to convey a level of intimacy that many people instinctively associate with sex, even though he isn't talking about sex. There's this ongoing theme across the discography of the narrator wanting to know the subject inside and out, including the parts of themself that they hide from the rest of the world, and I think there's an intimacy to that level of allowing someone into your inner world that goes deeper than just sex. I think he's just using the trappings of sexiness to set this stage of intimacy, because, y’know, sex sells and whatnot.

Something to confide in Something to erase Just look at where we're lying An invisible space

Not someone to confide in, but something, steering away from the more common usage of the word. I feel like the narrator is still trying to convince the subject to join him in this invisible space, this metaphorical labyrinth – which is probably the fields of elation from the next song. There's a lot of similarities between Thread the Needle and Fields of Elation that lead me to believe that they're sort of different versions of the same song, or different songs telling the same story, however you want to think about it. So I think these lines are telling the subject what this dreamscape has to offer: it's something they can believe in and have faith in, something that can erase the woes of the real world.

We can spend the night in Fascination You could thread the needle Time and time again

Also worth mentioning is that in the original myth of the labyrinth, the only way the hero of the story, Theseus, could find his way out of the labyrinth was by using a ball of thread given to him by the Princess Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him. So between you can thread the needle and nobody else can pull me out hopefully you can see why I think this figurative ‘labyrinth bed’ and the ‘fields of elation’ are one and the same. The fields of elation, most commonly interpreted as some sort of dreamscape and the domain of the deity Sleep (although you’ll know how I feel about that if you read my interpretation of Sleep), are the narrator’s personal labyrinth, one he wants to get lost in and is inviting the subject to wander endlessly with him, but… does the subject want to?

It's at this point that the music gets louder and arguably quite tense. I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about actual music theory, but I am generally able to recognize when the sounds being used are meant to make the listener feel anxious or tense, and that's the impression I get from the music here. This is just an assumption, of course, but given how prevalent this dichotomy is on One – between dreamy, ethereal lyrics with sparse and gentle music behind them and then wordless sections with heavy, intense, music – I feel like it's an intentional choice, perhaps to show the contrast between the peace the narrator feels with the subject and the anxiety/depression/abuse/etc that permeates the rest of his life. Or, perhaps, this tension is indicative of the confusion and uncertainty found within the labyrinthian fields of elation, and the whole reason the narrator wants the subject to join him there is to quiet or calm this storm.

If I’m following my interpretation from earlier of the narrator’s wish to stay in this dreamscape being a metaphor for choosing to wallow in one’s depression, perhaps these invitations to the subject are a request to be met where he is rather than forced outside of his comfort zone? It could also relate back to the recurring theme I mentioned earlier, of the narrator wanting to know the subject inside and out, even the parts of theirself they hide from the rest of the world. Maybe these invitations for the subject to join him in this dreamscape – arguably his inner world, whether you look at it as a literal dream world or a metaphor for his depression – are a way of offering to let them in, and share the parts of himself that he hides from the world. Regardless, it’s a request which I don’t think goes over well, judging by how the song ends.

You turn the lights down Come on and find out You turn the lights down Come on and find out

The repetition of this line, these invitations to the subject, leads me to believe the subject has not taken this invitation. The narrator wants to share his inner world, his dreams, his life, with the subject, but his repeated invitations seem to fall on deaf ears. The way the tense music cuts out very suddenly into this repeated line, and then goes straight back into the heavier music with steadily growing tension makes me believe the narrator's first invitation was likely ignored. After some time away from the subject, dealing with whatever conflict exists in his life outside the subject (the tension in the music), he eventually decides he can't take it on his own anymore and comes back to offer his invitation again, only to be either ignored or rejected once more. The way the music simply fades out at the end of the song rather than coming to a concrete end makes me lean more toward the invitation being ignored – there is no closure, no solid answer.

Nothing about this song leads me to believe that the narrator and the subject are actually in a committed relationship. I have mixed feelings about the common belief that the whole of the discography is about one singular toxic relationship, but I tend not to get into it because it doesn’t really matter much in the grand scheme of things. Whether the subject is one toxic partner (or romantic interest) that the narrator keeps going back to or there are multiple subjects signifying multiple toxic relationships over the years, the narrative remains the same: the narrator is stuck in a cycle of abuse. As mentioned before, I’m not trying to analyze Vessel’s actual life in any way, so I generally think it’s worth assuming one subject for the sake of The Narrative. However, it is difficult for me to align my interpretation of One with the rest of the discography because it reads so distinctly like a relationship that never was, to me. I feel like the relationship explored within One is either entirely self-contained within the EP, or takes place very, very early in the relationship with the subject of the album trilogy.

FIELDS OF ELATION

The daylight recedes in unison, this room Buries the hours like death, in motion Nobody else can pull me out The fields of elation, quiet and loamy

The opening of this song is very reminiscent of the opening of the previous song. The daylight receding is obviously a reference to nightfall, and burying the hours I assume is either referring to killing time, or referring to sleeping as being like a temporary death. Either way, I think it's safe to assume the first two lines are referring to passing the nighttime hours in one's room, probably sleeping/dreaming. It recalls bury me inside this labyrinth bed from the previous song, as well as the feeling of time being dilated. This is why I believe the two songs are connected, and these fields of elation are the same invisible place spoken about previously. Whereas the previous song had the narrator inviting the subject to join him in this dreamscape, however, this song says nobody else can pull me out. The subject hasn’t accepted his invitations, and the narrator has decided that the subject is worth partaking in the waking world for.

Your name is a sin I breathe, like oxygen Caught in the careless arms of lust, again Nobody else can pull me out The fields of elation, quiet and loamy

This reinforces my theory that the narrator and the subject aren't actually in a relationship, because the subject's name wouldn't be a sin if it were something he were allowed to indulge in. Whether he uses lust here in the more widely understood manner, or simply as a tool to further compare his feelings for the subject to something sinful and illicit is up to interpretation, but ultimately the message is the same: the narrator's desire for the subject is an indulgence he feels guilty about, but also feels like he needs – like oxygen – and it's a sentiment that's echoed in the refrain at the end of the song.

The heavier music kicks in here, but it doesn’t hold the same tension that ‘Thread the Needle’ did, not at this point, anyway.

And nobody else can pull me out The fields of elation, quiet and loamy And nobody else can pull me out The fields of elation, quiet and loamy

If ‘Thread the Needle’ was the narrator inviting the subject into his inner world, into his dreams, into his life, and receiving no response, then ‘Fields of Elation’ is perhaps a bit of coaxing. I read this as trying to express to the subject how much they mean to him, how important they are to him. If they won't accept the invitation into his dreams, then he insists that they're the only thing better than dreaming, the only thing worth being awake for.

It’s after this section that the tension rises, and then the heavier music cuts out for the final refrain.

I'm losing my faith in our lives apart I'm losing my faith in our lives apart I'm losing my faith in our lives apart I'm losing my faith in our lives apart

This refrain breaks my heart, not only because of the words but because of how hopelessly it's delivered. It sounds like resignation, like he already knows he's going to need to continue on without the subject, even though he doesn't know how he'll be able to. And unlike the fade-out at the end of ‘Thread the Needle’ this song ends rather quickly after this, with only the gentle atmospheric music lingering for a few seconds longer, leaving us on that note of hopelessness.

WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS

You could stay alive Just tell me that you notice Even in the dark The way I left you breathing

I’m going to hope that staying alive is just a metaphor for staying awake, as I hypothesized the opening of the previous song might be referencing sleeping as being a sort of temporary death. I’m assuming the narrator, by this point, has gotten a flat-out rejection of his invitations, and is now relenting that the subject can stay in the waking world. All he asks is some sort of recognition of what they shared; I’m assuming 'the way I left you breathing' is meant to say he, at some point, took the subject’s breath away?

Sometimes when we touch Everything we love resets It's only just enough Even when we run with death

It seems to me as though this part of the song is acknowledging some flaws in whatever their relationship is. Whether the touching referenced is literal or metaphorical, it seems that this connection is refreshing their love for each other, making it just enough for them to cope with their struggles. This is, honestly, the first time we’ve gotten any hint that the subject might feel the same about the narrator… which is why I’m going to give into the suggestive innuendo for just a moment and say that maybe the previous verse’s 'tell me that you notice [...] the way I left you breathing' is in fact a reference to them sleeping together and the narrator leaving the subject literally, physically out of breath. Perhaps the 'sometimes when we touch / everything we love resets' is meant to say that it’s only the physical aspect of this relationship that’s actually fueling their feelings for each other – or, at least, the subject’s feelings for the narrator. This kind of changes the context of the first part of the song and makes it seem like the narrator is asking the subject to at least admit he made them feel good, even if they don’t want to be in a relationship with him.

We could be released Flowing over sorrow days We could stay suspended Even when the bough breaks

This is what I believe is the core dilemma of this song. It reads to me like two opposing options, a decision that needs to be made: do we fall through, or do we stay suspended? I believe the ultimate meaning of ‘when the bough breaks’ is the moment in a relationship where you realize that it isn’t going to work out. You’re then faced with a decision: do you end the relationship (or give up on pursuing the other person), allowing yourselves to be released and feel the sorrow, or do you choose to stay suspended despite the broken bough, and stay in the relationship (or continue pursuing the other person) when you know they don’t feel the same about you?

If we're going to assume, as most people do, that the entire discography is all about a singular relationship… It unfortunately seems that the narrator chose the latter.

Sometimes when we touch Everything we love resets It's only just enough Even when we run with death

I'm a really big fan of when lyrics change slightly over the course of a song to portray narrative development, character growth, etc. After a second repetition of this verse we get a whole lot of repetitions of the line 'Don’t lie to me,' followed by a slightly altered version of the same verse:

Everything we touch Turns water into blood You try to look away from Even when the bough breaks

Something has changed about the act of the narrator and the subject touching. In the original verse, it seems like the relationship might already be on the rocks, but sometimes their connection is enough – even if only just – to reset things, and remind them why they're together. In the altered verse, they're spilling blood and trying to ignore it – or at least the subject is trying to ignore it: you try to look away from, the narrator says. The repetitions of the phrase Don’t lie to me leads me to believe the subject has maybe been exaggerating their feelings for the narrator in order to keep him around. Maybe their denial of the narrator’s invitations to join in his dreamscape was what made it clear to the narrator that these feelings weren’t genuine, and now he’s asking for an honest answer. Tell me that you notice [...] the way I left you breathing. Whether the physical relationship was all the subject was interested in or not, that seems to be the conclusion the narrator has drawn.

You don't really love, you just hate to be alone You hate to be alone You hate to be alone

The previous verse and this one are repeated for the rest of the song, with the repetitions of 'don’t lie to me' overlaid with them. The repetition reads as insistence to me, as if the narrator is arguing his perspective and trying to get the subject to admit to it. The heavier section of music kicks in at the start of the third repetition, but similar to the middle of ‘Fields of Elation’ it doesn’t immediately give the sense of tension that I feel in other places, it’s just gotten busier and louder. After the lyrics fade out, however, it does get noticeably more tense, and this tension persists almost for the entire final minute and half of the song, with only brief moments where it eases up.

The song ends by cutting out very suddenly, in one of the more tense sections. I'd like to interpret this as the final argument and an end to the relationship, as it was clearly unreciprocated and unbalanced. If we are to interpret the full discography as being about a singular relationship, however, maybe this is only the first of a sequence of break-ups and make-ups. If I'm right about the repetition of the accusatory final verses being indicative of the narrator arguing his point and trying to get the subject to admit to their lack of feelings for him, it's possible that he just pushed the subject away with his strong, internalized belief that nobody could or would truly love him.

We'll never know, and that is both the beauty and the tragedy of it.

If you read this far, I thank you for hearing out my thoughts 💖 The plan was for me to tackle Two next, but after the success of this post and my later realization of the connection between the songs on TMBTE and their inverted counterparts on Sundowning, I think that's the next essay I'm going to write, because I'm very excited about all the parallels I've found. After that I'll get back to Two, and then the stand-alone singles, and then I'll have to figure out how I want to go about the albums.

Feel free to add in the replies/tags if you think I should do the albums all together in one post (like this) or if I should break them up in chunks of a few songs at a time. I'd like to keep the full albums together but I don't want to make people sit through mile-long posts, so I might opt to just not analyze every single lyric and rather focus on the lyrics I have specific thoughts on. But I also might end up having thoughts on every lyric, so, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#sleep token #sleep token theory #sleep token interpretation #enjoy approximately 4k words of me babbling :)#i got too many 'wheres the essay op?' comments on that post about the summoning and drag me under and now I'm feeling brave

16 notes · View notes

beelmons · 2 years ago

Text

love comes in moments.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader Rating: Mature, 13+. Tags: Angst, no happy ending, Reid!POV, slow burn if you squint Word count: 6,772 Summary: Dr. Spencer Reid writes a memoir about the 15 years he spent by your side, and everything you went through since the moment you joined the BAU. A/N: I wanted to feel utter pain, so I wrote it. Hopefully you will suffer with me. Also, this hasn't been proof read, so things might change a bit during the week as I re-read it. This fic ended up having an aftermath with an slightly happier ending, you can read it here Heavily inspired by these two songs: 1 , 2 Tag list: @hey-dw @cassiemartzz

“Entry 1: The humble beginnings.

I still remember the day you first came through the doors of the unit. Shoulders down, your stare facing the floor, walking slightly behind Gideon. You were nervous, at the least, but if your body spoke as loudly as I was guessing, terrified would have been a more accurate word.

I couldn’t shake your hand, the germophobia wasn’t always nice to me, but you didn’t care. You understood. You faked a high-five, and just like that we had our own little inside joke. I had made a new friend within thirty seconds of meeting her; that was a first, but silly me, twenty-something and naïve, I couldn’t notice right away that a woman like you was meant to be many “firsts”, and even greater “onlys.”

“She’ll be your partner, be nice.” those were Hotch’s words.

Not until much later would I have come to realize the weight of that warning. Trained eyes could reach everything I wasn’t able to. I wonder if you noticed the utter adoration that man had for you, as a subordinate, as a friend, as a companion. Aaron always had that eagle-like eye to spot people who needed him just as much as he needed them. Emily and Derek were a clear example, but that’s besides the point.

Now, believe me when I say I’m sorry I didn’t notice how beautiful you were the second I laid my eyes on you. Perhaps, that would have saved us a lot of pain, or rather given us a lot more happiness. I was, to my ill luck, blinded by my adoration for someone else. I wouldn’t label it a mistake, it’s fair to say it was just an unfortunate event at the time, that would later come in doubles, and then in triples, like a series of them.

Do you remember that book? ‘A series of unfortunate events’ by Lemony Snicket. It was the first thing you gave me as a birthday present, that and the ridiculous hat that haunts me to this day. Engraved in my mind I have the expression you made when I told you it was a children’s book.

“No way! I’m giving a children’s book to a genius?!” the anguish in your voice was palpable, you were truly ashamed.

“Well, this is not the illustrated version, so it’s technically not a children’s book. I love it, thank you.” I tried to reassure you, but I wasn’t very good at that.

Maybe, you just wanted your partner to like you, to show me you were trying, or to prove that you could know me as much as the others in such little time, but regardless of the reason you felt like you’d failed. I could see it, and I regret not letting you know just how precious that possession would turn out to be.

Months later, we would also come to know that you couldn’t stand for that long without moving, otherwise your legs would feel swollen for days. Six hours you spent with me at the shooting range, even after Hotch had given up. They had to kick us out, and out of hunger we found that indian restaurant that’s open 24/7. I refuse to believe I still failed that certification, you were one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, but I’ll always be thankful for every missed shot, since that night I found the wonder that butter chicken was. My first time having indian food.

Interestingly enough, we didn’t go back to that place on our own, jobs, people, life always getting in the way. Now I understand, then, it was no wonder the chicken never tasted the same.

Entry 2: Trial, one of many.

I still wonder how you always managed to show up, regardless of the way I constantly seemed to juggle with my own life. The first time I died, courtesy of Tobias Hankle’s dad, I wondered if my mom was going to be okay. Funny, huh? Even in death I found it hard to put my life first. I know that always pissed you off, and I never knew better, and I’m sorry to tell you I’ve kept the bad habit, I’m afraid.

Peaceful doesn’t quite describe the way it felt, my last breath I mean. Relieved, I guess, would fit better. I had told you before, hadn’t I? The hospital she was in, the books she liked best, the letters I wrote everyday. It was a hopeful relief, I craved that you would have come to care for me enough to look after my mother if I were to be gone.

Luckily, you didn’t get the chance to prove it, but many years later I would understand that, back then and there, you would have moved heaven and earth for me; and I should have known by the way your arms found me amidst the dark of that cemetery. I should have known by the way you stayed in my messy apartment throughout the night, by the way you held my arm when I woke up shaking in terror, and by the way you repeated that same routine every evening for almost a week.

Should have known after you dropped everything to meet me at Gideon’s cabin as I cried over his gun and badge, as I mourned someone that I hadn’t lost, as I yet again felt insufficient to remain, to make him stay. I’m still not sure why I called you. Perhaps you would share the burden of losing a mentor, or maybe you would notice that I was breaking down, that I was too weak to fix myself, and even weaker to ask for help. No one reached out for me because I never screamed, no one knew how bad I needed it. And yet, with a simple whisper miles away, you came. You showed up.

I should have known right when you were sitting by the toilet bowl, your hair tie loosely holding my hair together so it wouldn’t get dirty. Did I think I looked good with that? Why did I ever leave it that long? Stop, I can’t also be rambling while I write, not that you ever minded the infinite data of nothingness, did you? Circling back, I still feel the coldness of your fingers, pale with concern, as they curled around my trembling wrist while I threw up my guts and soul in that white container.

“You should go.” I would whisper in between gargles and spits.

“And leave you like this?” you weren’t even looking at me. I guess the image of my body bent over a basin, sickly and frail, was enough to be engraved in your mind with one glance.

“I’m just one of the 21 million americans that struggle with at least one addiction. I’m nothing special.” I grumbled with disdain “And you don’t have a magic wand you can wave and make it go away. You’re nothing special.”

You sighed at my words, by then you knew how stubborn I could be, am I correct? It didn’t take a profiler to figure out something like that. “Only 10% seek help, though. Those odds make you special enough, don’t you think?” If you said anything else, I cannot remember. I could only focus on the fast speed of my beating heart, that I mistook for undesired side-effects of the drugs.

Withdrawal can be hell, but I had already had a taste of that, so I figured I could handle a bit more of it. You, on the other hand, were not ready for the burden that was I. I could see the facade you put on whenever I said something so hurtful anyone else would have gone out running, the subtle swallowing of the knots in your throat, the deep, shaky breaths, the way your eyelids clung to the tears that threatened to come out. Yes, I should have known right then and there, after you met the worst of me, and yet stayed.

Entry 3: Did I care to share?

To be fair, you were a bit to blame for my obliviousness. A pure heart is a mystery for men who don’t know kindness, and life hadn’t been particularly tender to me. I had begun to question if, maybe, the lifeline that had become your gentle hand meant something else. But more often than not, I had learned that love follows after life, and if it had been gentle enough to give you to me, who was I, a mere mortal, to want more, to show greed.

You were there for Elle and her revolting, for Morgan and his search for his truth, for Garcia and her desire to cling to life after her very own kindness had almost taken it from her, and for Hotch and his falling into the darkest of despairs. You would tell me how you had to cancel plans to make him company, how you woke up extra early to make sure he’d have breakfast, how you’d pretend to be walking by his new bachelor apartment as an excuse to check up on him, and spend extra hours just so you could get him to talk in his office.I watched you worry and give your best to put a smile on a saddened face. Just like you had done for me, and the many people that we both loved. It hurt, it selfishly hurt. Your love was so vast it could fill a dam and still pour, yet my thirst could barely be quenched.

My skin still burns with the memory of your tears falling on my hand when I told you my cravings had started again. I saw the glint of failure in your eyes, like I had years ago with the children's book. It made me question if eidetic memory could translate to the sense of touch, to this day it is vivid, like they cover me again whenever I feel the urge, whenever I need to escape.

Once again, you showed up. You showed up at my apartment to pick me up, like a toddler waiting to be taken to the doctors, only that the person that would fix me was not a medic, it was a sponsor. I don’t think I’d have been brave enough to show up by myself, to get help on my own, if I hadn’t been so scared to hurt you again, probably bad enough to finally push you away.

It was okay, even if you were to be shared, if your heart had space for everyone else, I was happy to know I could belong as well, to be included. I was okay sharing you, as long as I got a piece.

Entry 4: The dreaded distance.

I never understood politics, or the system. Ironic, though, since human behavior is nothing but a mixture of different structures interacting together, creating a being that then I would dedicate my entire life to studying. But it was always so confusing, why would they rip you away from me? Didn’t they see how good you were? Perhaps that was the issue.

I still remember the way you clung to my chest when we were saying goodbye. Did the DEA really need you? Did it really have to be you? It wouldn’t be the only time the bureau would plot against me, against the hope I grasped on to continue doing my job, but it certainly was the hardest one, and mind you, the first one. The pain of having a friend ripped from my arms, a handful of things could only compare.

Hotch would later come to confess that my hatred for the superiors was unfunded. You were not taken, you were a tribute. When Strauss came in arms, you had to surrender to protect me. They made Aaron choose between me and you, one had to leave, it wasn’t up for discussion, and you volunteered. Because you knew, I could barely make it anywhere else.

“It’s been a while since I was hugged like this.” you said when we were strong enough to finally pull apart, when the clock was streaking 6, and there was no professional excuse to keep you in the building for longer.

“Like what?” I had to ask. You deserved to be engulfed in arms every waking second. You deserved to be carried by the holiest of angels. Why wouldn’t I hug you like we were in a Shakespearean tragedy?

“Like somebody was afraid of losing me.” you answered.

Oh, my love, was I terrified.

Maybe I am dramatic. You weren’t dead, you weren’t gone, just in a different building, in the same city. I knew where you lived, where you bought your coffee, and your favorite place to dine in. Yet, you felt so far away, so out of reach I could barely handle it. I missed you, so dearly, so madly.

Weekly escapades to the geekiest of places, a lousy street diner I was too scared to eat at, and that I would just because of you, the faking of high-fives whenever I got an idea, my favorite inside joke, the laughter in the bullpen at my unintentioned comments, the looking over my shoulder to see if you were still there, the joy in my chest whenever you entered the room, the love I didn’t know was love. All gone, away from me.

Your midnight calls were balm to an open wound. Calming at the stake of some pain. And I knew, one of the very few things I knew, that you weren’t doing good in that place, that your pain was greater than you would express, but your body wouldn’t lie to me, it could never lie to me, the sighs between sentences, the strain in your voice, the tiredness in your breath. But I wasn’t like you, I couldn’t just show up, I didn’t know how. I didn’t know I helped. I didn’t know I was to you what you were to me. A beacon of light, of hope.

I wondered what was hurting you. Was I not nice enough for you to tell me what, or who, was causing that to you? “Be nice” Hotch had said. Was he nicer? You always went to him for things like these, the matters of the heart. I had to hear from Garcia, months later, about that mysterious fellow agent that was making you cry, and I realized in that moment that I had never known rage. The pure, raw need to tear someone limb by limb. How dare he toy with a soul as giving as yours? Like using the crown jewel as a skipping stone.

Fortunately, I was not the only one that wanted to protect you. Not the only one that cared enough. A visit from Morgan, a call from Hotch, and the rat was gone, for good, and you were back in the unit, for better.

Entry 5: When I knew without knowing.

You’d changed, I could see, and I’d heard heartbreak does that to a person. Yet your smile always seemed to shine bright. It shone for our boss, swallowed in deep grief, it shone for JJ as she was, to no one’s surprise, cruelly taken from us, it shone for Prentiss and her struggles, the ones that were there even when she wouldn’t confess to them.

Do you remember the flame of my tears on your shoulder when I heard she was dead? I could barely stay home. The walls seemed to crush me if I was alone. I hopped from your house, to JJ’s, to the office, to yours yet again. Your arms were my solace, my God given solace. Whenever I turned, you were there.

I don’t know what was harder to deal with: her death or her return to life. How did you manage to not take a side? You felt the same pain I did. You cried the same tears I shed. I wondered if you were always stronger than me. Stupid question, the answer was yes.

“I’m just saying, Spencer.” you twirled around in my kitchen as you spoke, impatient since I was taking a long time to get ready, and there was an appointment to get to.

“Well, okay, then stop saying!” I was shoving a couple of books and other belongings, I can’t even remember what, as I subtly yelled at you.

Time and again, the stupid book would slip out whenever I tried to close my bag. It was frustrating, infuriating. Kind as you were, you kneeled with me, your hand brushed mine, and a mere graze was enough to slow me down. I looked at you. Did you see pain? I know you did. You always did. My body couldn’t lie to you.

“I feel it too.” you began to talk “The guilt. The wishing that she was still gone so you wouldn’t have to go through the excruciating pain of betrayal.” bullseye, as per usual. I started to cry; you always made me comfortable enough to break down without care. “If you truly don’t wish to make up with them, the girls, I’ll be on your side. You have the right to feel hurt. If you tell me, right now, hand to heart, that you want to skip Rossi’s dinner and go catch that ridiculous black and white movie, I’ll get up and walk beside you, like I’ve done countless times, and I will also be there, when you are filled with regret, and the words can’t leave your mouth to ask for their forgiveness for your attitude.”

Dragged by your hand, we showed up, and I felt it, the memory of a feeling long not emoted, the warmth of family. You were right, you were always right. I walked you to your place that night, stumbling a little from the wine, laughing about something Garcia and Morgan had said. We stood by your doorway, and you stopped. You looked at me, so deeply, so filled with pride. How could I be so stupid? I should have kissed you at that moment. I should have hugged you in a way you hadn’t before, in a way that told you that in this and many other lives, I needed you with me. I needed you to be mine.

Entry 6: The start of my demise.

I still wonder how you did it. How did you stand beside me with a straight face while you broke on the inside? Watching me slowly fall for someone else to a point of no return, a point of devotion you had long earned.

You knew about Maeve before anyone else. I didn’t have to tell you, my smile gave me away, since you knew it better than anyone, you were the one that put it back there more than once. You supported my every move, my every whim, my every idea to please her, to make her love me. And she loved me, and I loved her, there’s no point in hiding it.

How did you do it? Seriously, how did you advise me to court her and hear me rant about her like she was the latest scientific breakthrough? How did you wear a straight face as mine lit up at the thought of her name? How did you pour your heart out to help me find her? All while wearing that damned smile, the cursed reason for my existence. How did you not fall in shambles as you watched me love her? I would have, without question.

So, I beg of you to tell me. How could you possibly love me while I loved someone else?

It’s like a riddle whose answer is before me, but I can’t see it, I can’t find it. To this day it amazes me, the way that you remained outside my door throughout the night. Did you think I didn’t know you were there? The way you took care of my food and services. Did you know I couldn’t bring myself to even check my bank account? The way you saw through me when I came back to work. You knew I wasn’t okay, regardless of my attempts to prove so.

You remained for months by my side, showing up at my door when the night got too cold, holding my head on your lap as I sobbed, as I, once again, mourned. You stood there with me trying to fix something someone else had broken, something you didn’t even know if you could glue back together.

“If I believed in religion, at least I could cling to the hope of meeting her again.” I muttered, and you laughed a bit.

“Perhaps in another universe, if you’re lucky enough.” smart of you to talk to me in terms I could understand.

“It doesn’t feel like it will ever end, you know? The grief.” I confessed to you as your fingers threaded on my locks, body too tired to hold up straight from crying, so my head laid on your thigh.

“It will.” you reassured “Maybe not soon, but it will.”

“Maybe.” I could only agree “but I can’t count on you to soothe my pain forever.” I only looked up because your fingers stopped moving, but I’m glad I did, I’m glad I caught your eyes, filled with endless determination, as you spoke.

“Says who?” did you mean it? Forever?

Entry 7: All that’s well…

After JJ’s abduction, something drastically changed. Not just the two of us, but the entire team. Our secrets were no longer innocent and blameless, they were dangerous, harmful. They could tear us apart if not properly shared. They could push us away if we didn’t say them outright.

My love for you was my deepest rooted secret, pushed so far into the drawer I had forgotten about it myself, too scared to pull it out, afraid I’d just have to push it back in without giving it a chance to show off.

No more secrets. That’s the pact we all agreed on. I kept thinking about that as you walked with me. You knew it had hit me hard to see JJ so weak and hurt, reduced to bruises and agony; you also knew I would find a way to blame myself if I were to be left alone in that room, so you decided to make me some company. We dined in silence, utter absence of sound that did not, at any moment, feel odd. You walked with me, not next to me, with me. And you waited by the door for my invitation to enter. I could just stare at you, so beautifully patient, so wonderfully loving. So easy to love.

“No more secrets.” I told you, my eyes unable to leave your face.

“Yes, Spence. No more secrets.” you answered with that blissful smile of yours. You caught up rather quick that I was hiding something. I could never fool you, not you. “Is there something else you need to tell me?” you questioned me, and I could see the look in your eyes trying to subtly profile me.

I couldn’t bring myself to answer. Over 7,000 languages are spoken in this world, and there were still not enough words to describe what I felt for you. I didn’t talk. My lips just found their way to yours, so naturally, so right.

“This is a mistake.” you muttered. You were still unsure, you would tell me later, that life could be so kind to you, to have me love you. How silly of you, darling, to even dare to think I could not.

Our bodies didn’t lie, they couldn’t lie to each other. Your tongue gave you away, it spoke of truce but tasted of war. Your hands explored all of my body, they felt my every vein, and tasted the pulse of a heart that beat for you. Your mouth spilled honey-like sounds as I greedily took every part of you for my pleasure. As I embedded your scent in my brain, to the record of things I loved about you. I had never made love. Sex, once or twice, but never love. I remember watching you sleep, your warm cheek on my bare chest; your hands, even unconsciously, clinging to my torso as if I were to slip away like a dream. But you felt so real, oh honey, you were so real. You were so mine. And I couldn’t remember the last time I was held so close I could touch love.

I can still hear Hotch’s sermon. No more secrets, that’s what we pacted, and you were big on promises, but to be fair, so was I. An hour, I recall, we were shoved inside that office. Hands together, faces down, like children caught in the act.

“Fraternization is dangerous,” it was his third time saying that “and if this were to come out, I would have to transfer one of you.” we didn’t care, and he could tell. He sighed, in defeat. “Just tell me one thing.” he changed directions “Are you happy?”

He was asking you, yet pretended the question was for both. You didn’t entertain him with an answer. He already knew. He knew in the way you reached for my hand, in the way I held back a smile. He nodded. Did he approve? I don’t think we’ll ever know, but he protected us, he always protected us.

That day, we drank and danced all together, as if our love was a reason for celebration. Apparently, it wasn’t a secret to anyone but us. Long ago they figured we’d end up together, even got some complaints for having been later rather than sooner.

Life was good and kind with you by my side, filled with laughter, adventure, and pleasure. The darkest nights still glimmered with your presence, like a blindfold being lifted to reveal the cold truth; all it took for life to be kind was me loving you, and you loving me.

Entry 8: Alone we stand

When did I stop making sense? Curiously enough, that’s the one moment I can’t pinpoint. I broke a promise, and the downfall caught up.

“Were you even going to tell me?!” you paced around my apartment in rage.

“Come on, you know I was” I had gotten defensive, regardless of my wrongdoing.

“When, exactly? After you had fixed it? ‘Cause you have to fix everything alone?” you snarked at me.

“I don’t want to sound rude, but it’s a private matter.” worst phrasing I could have chosen, to be honest.

“I’m your girlfriend, Spence. I think I have proven for quite a while now that I’m here for the bad and the worst. Instead, I have to find out your mother has Alzheimer’s through a hitman. You told a hitman before you told me!” I see now, that your anger was not unfounded.

“She had a gun to my crotch! What did you want me to do!?” I tried to argue.

“Oh, okay, so that’s what it takes to get you to open up?”

No, you didn’t hold a gun to my crotch. You did way worse, you forgave me, and we moved on. But it was never the same, oh no, I could feel it, we both could feel it. How conversations seemed to require more energy, how the touches were more scripted than impulsive, how after a few hours you realized that you hadn’t thought about me in a little while.

I tried to fix it. It’s what I always do. Perhaps if I could get us both in the same place, it would happen again, the spark that we had lost. I asked you to move in with me, and you agreed. We were happy again, not simply because of the fact, but because it was a great reminder for both of us, that the future was together, it had always been together.

But alas, life isn’t kind enough. We had agreed to find a new place, somewhere we could turn ‘ours’ without getting rid of the ‘mine’. It was taking time, of course, since we wanted it to be perfect. And little did we know that time was the only thing in this world we didn’t have.

The news of Hotch’s departure hurt us all in a way we never truly recovered from, but for you, for the never-ending-loving you, it left a wound I couldn’t close. I saw the always dreaded glint of loneliness in your eye, the same one I carried when Gideon left. I saw the breaking of a soul that had lost a mentor, a protector, you lost the ground you walked onto and never learned how to fly.

We didn’t make it. I don’t think it was your fault, or mine, for that matter, life just happened so fast, so merciless. I loved you, that never stopped, and you loved me, I know that much. All I could do was hold on to the hope that I had made the right decision, the decision to push you away, to save you from the torture that our life would be. I would do anything for my mother, even if that meant standing back on my own, without you.

I’m sorry, my love, that it took me so long to understand. That the strength you were lending me was not for me to judge, but to carry, to use as a tool to build what we dreamed of . I didn’t learn about it until JJ visited one day, when I was mourning the love that we had, that she told me what happened the day she showed up at your apartment, knees on the ground, to beg you to continue loving me.

“It wasn’t my decision, Jennifer.” you said, barely allowing yourself to glance at her.

“He’s just doing this because he thinks he’s protecting you, you know that.” she tried to argue on my behalf.

“JJ, you are his best friend, if you’re asking me to convince him to change his mind, you know it would be easier to get Garcia to play soccer.” you were right, by the way. JJ was about to give up.

“He needs you.” she kept trying.

“No, he doesn’t.” you answered “He needs someone to be there for him, at his constant back and call, to dedicate their very being to his happiness, to pour out the entirety of themselves onto him, and I can’t be that person. I can’t.”

“But why not!?” to her, it also didn’t make much sense. You always were, what was different this time?

“Because I’m not whole.” you finally admitted.

She had to hear you cry for hours at how lost you felt. I didn’t understand I’d become a part of you, and by taking me away, I was ripping a portion of who you were. With Hotch gone, there was no way you could fix yourself, not fast enough, at least. I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t know.

You stayed for the man that more than once had your back. You stayed to catch Mr. Scratch. I was no longer the hope you held on to, I was no longer the one you chased after, Aaron was your last hope, your last piece to make sense of whatever you felt like was happening around you. The person who would return to you the will to love something that wasn’t me.

But he wasn’t there, and you were lost.

Entry 9: Together we fall apart.

I can’t blame you for leaving, you had no reason to stay, the job had long ago stopped making sense, it was the people that you loved what made you stick around, and now we were gone, in more than one sense. And believe when I say I missed you, with every pore of my heart, even if I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to at least know how you were doing.

I did wonder, though, if having you around would have made a difference. If you could have seen something all of us missed, if you had protected me better, if you could had helped me when I didn’t know how to help myself.

Cat Adams would ruin me in more than one way, sure, but regarding us, I’m sure now I’m the only one to blame. A series of unfortunate events by Spencer Reid.

“We told her you were in prison.” Emily said as she sat across the booth, with a crystal screen separating the both of us. There was no need to say your name. They all knew you were all I ever thought about. “She’s asking to be put on the list.”

“Emily!” I yelled out of reflex .

“I’m sorry, Spence, but she’s really worried, and maybe she could help.”

“My answer is no.” I watched her sigh as I said those words.

“Can I at least tell her you’re thinking about it?” she still tried to convince me, for your sake. “And, will you think about it?” I nodded.

I promise I thought it through, hard and well. It’s not that I didn’t want to see you, I didn’t want you to see me. I knew, I knew you would try to fix it, and I couldn’t do that to you, not again. Regardless, you still tried. You made sure my mother was safe and well, you made her company, it wasn’t your fault, I don’t hold it against you, they outsmarted us all. And I’m sorry, again, that after I was freed I still couldn’t bring myself to face you.

Many things happened in the following years. I wish I could have seen you one more time just to tell you all about it. A coffee by my apartment window, a nap on that comfy living room couch, a laugh by the bullpen. The things I’d have done to have one more moment with you.

The second time I died, it was way less scary. Guess I had some practice. If I told you who I saw, you wouldn’t have believed me, but it was the message that counted. I wasn’t ready to go, and I wasn’t ready to leave you. If I were to stay, I was going to fight to at least see you one more time, to hear your laugh once again.

My mom did tell me that I should be careful what I wish for, and when I woke up in that hospital room, after a horrible stroke nonetheless, I understood why.

“Please don’t be mad at me.” Penelope remained for a second by my bed after my mom had left to get some water.

My eyebrows furrowed the slightest, I couldn’t move that much. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t know if you were going to make it, and I didn’t think much before I hit the call.” she continued to explain.

Again, I could only tilt my head in confusion, something about having brain failure had made me the tiniest bit slower. The fog cleared very quickly, though, once I saw you walk through the door. You were as beautiful as the day I met you, only now I could see, and I would never cease to see. You walked to the bed and your hand reached out for mine, like it was supposed to be.

“Hey, you.” you said softly.

“Hey,” I muttered. If I had been able to breathe better, believe me I would have yelled out like an excited 5 year old “what are you doing here?”

“I recently realized I’ve grown into the habit of showing up after you almost died.” you joked, and it was like time hadn’t passed at all “which, if you ask me, it’s a weird habit to have.” it was my turn to laugh, you always caused that in me.

Penelope had stepped out, she knew we needed the space, as for our souls could only be bare if it was just the two of us. You came closer, and our eyes met, and time actually stopped, and everything was okay.

“I will always love you.” I’m sorry I said it like that, I know it’s not what you expected.

“Spencer…” you began to talk.

“No, just,” I cut you off “I know I can get it right this time.” the way that you looked at me I will never forget, a look you had never given me, that you respected me too much to give me, the look of pity.

“I’m not a second chances program” you started “I couldn’t just wait around until you were ready to notice that I was still there, that you allowed me back in.”

Your tears threatened to fall. I could see them, that’s not what I wanted, that’s never what I wanted. I reached for your face, and you leaned against my hand. Old habits die hard, don’t they? I should know, since I had fallen into the habit of wanting you, of loving you. This and every other life. I couldn’t hold them any longer, the sobs, the tears, the pain, the pain only you could heal, only you could let me show. I love you because of your strength, since it allowed me to be weak without remorse.

You did the same for me, your gentle fingers caressing my cheek, pushing away the salty droplets. “It’s okay, Spencer, it’s okay.” you whispered “we have to let us go.”

“And if we’re lucky enough?” I asked.

“If we’re lucky enough,” your face smiled, but the strain in your voice showed me the misery in your words, along with their genuinity “in another universe, you would have been with Maeve and I would have never loved you. And we could finally be happy.”

You couldn’t have been more wrong to think, even for a second, that my destiny was any other than you. I didn’t have the words to prove it, I could form a sentence to save my life, save the love of my life. I tried to kiss you. I wish you had done it, you would have understood.

“My boyfriend is waiting outside.” you muttered before my lips could meet home, and like that, you were gone.

Entry 10: I think I’ll be alright.

I never saw you again, but it’s okay. Years to come I would question every decision I had made, did they lead me to you, or just pushed you away? There was no way of telling. Regrets are a broken sword, dull enough to be harmless, and sharp enough to hurt. Would you have done something differently? I doubt so.

I’m thankful, nonetheless, to have been given the opportunity to concur. To have been loved by you. I did wish for a different ending, but who am I to be selfish? I had it all, even if I lost it. Until years later I would hear about your marriage; you eloped, as we always thought we would do, planning a wedding was too much of a hassle. Did you end up having kids? If you did, lucky them, if something they were to never lack, it would be love. I hope he is treating you well, that you are happy, like you always deserved.

Me? I finally had to learn. The grief finally went away, you see, someone once told me that love comes in moments, and later in life I found myself clinging to that thought. If love comes in moments, my darling, after everything we've been through, yours will last me a million years.

Even if I got just a fraction of it.”

The silence was covered by the rustling of book pages as the woman finished speaking. Yet her crowd of one didn’t seem to show much reaction, which was a source of concern.

"Spencer, would you like me to read it again?" Penelope asked as she swayed back and forth on the rocking chair the staff had given to her.

"Sorry?" he asked, seemingly lost in thought.

"Ma'am." a gentle nurse interrupted them "visitation time is over, Dr. Reid has to rest."

"Of course." the once blonde woman, whose hair now shone silver, said as she handed the diary back to his owner "Here, take this."

"Is this mine?" a still confused Spencer continued to question.

"Yes, it's your favorite book." she reiterated.

"Really?" his fingers fidgeted with the cover "What is it about?"

Penelope couldn't help the way her eyes filled with water, like they did every week whenever she had to leave the friend she'd visit in that mental facility without fail.

"The greatest love story ever told."

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid/reader #spencer reid #fic: spencer #fics: spencer #fic: mine #fic: criminal minds

302 notes · View notes

beatricebidelaire · 4 months ago

Text

in brett helquist's letter, he said he never believed the stories he read about lemony in dp, whether it's in relation to the quagmire case or any other.

lemony was being accused of the quagmire fire ......... hmmm something something about how if someone's repeatedly rumored to be dead for various times (therefore in a way giving the impression that the previous reports were all wrong, that the death was false - perhaps potentially faked) it was then also easy to frame this person for arson, even after the supposed death - because hey, he faked it last time, and the time before that, and so on - wasn't that suspicious? he's the perfect scapegoat for all the arson committed by others, in a way, because he's "frequently rumored to be dead" but all those times can't all be correct. some has gotta be false reporting, even if he did indeed die at some point. the quagmire is very recent to canon timeline and lemony's been rumored dead before that. dp just keeps printing lemony to either be dead or had just committed arson don't they ..........

also, daily punctilio supposedly accused lemony of burning down the quagmire's place. we know from the slippery slope that quigley quagmire read the daily punctilio after the fire happened

“Well, nothing happened for a while,” Quigley said. “On the doorstep of the house was a copy of The Daily Punctilio, which had an article about the fire. That’s how I learned that my parents were dead. I spent days and days there, all by myself. I was so sad, and so scared, and I didn’t know what else to do. I suppose I was waiting for the herpetologist to show up for work, and see if he was a friend of my parents and might be of some assistance. The kitchen was filled with food, so I had enough to eat, and every night I slept at the bottom of the stairs, so I could hear if anyone came in.”

“The Daily Punctilio said that I died in the fire, too,” Quigley said. “The article said that my sister and brother were sent off to Prufrock Preparatory School, and that my parents’ estate was under the care of the city’s sixth most important financial advisor.” “Esmé Squalor,” Violet and Klaus said simultaneously, a word which here means “in a disgusted voice, and at the exact same time.” “Right,” Quigley said, “but I wasn’t interested in that part of the story. I was determined to go to the school and find my siblings again. I found an atlas in Dr. Montgomery’s library, and studied it until I found Prufrock Preparatory School. It wasn’t too far, so I started to gather whatever supplies I could find around his house.”

quigley did not mention the name lemony snicket. it's possible that the article accusing lemony was a later article, one published "after some investigations" and not immediately after the fire, so quigley did not read it.

alternatively, he read it, and then he met jacques snicket, of all people, while he's at monty's house. maybe jacques and he talked and he then understood/believed that lemony was not behind it. since lemony is not actually the one who burnt down the house, he decided not to mention this to the baudelaires.

if it was a different article and he never read the one accusing lemony, it was perhaps very narrowly avoided and he may have almost read the article and then come across jacques snicket, someone who's related to the "arsonist"

though, according to quigley, he did not know who J was at first, and maybe didn't know his name until a bit later

“I was interrupted,” Quigley said. “Someone walked in just as I was putting the atlas in a totebag I found. It was Jacques Snicket, although I didn’t know who he was, of course. But he knew who I was, and was overjoyed that I was alive after all.” “How did you know you could trust him?” Klaus asked. “Well, he knew about the secret passageway,” Quigley said. “In fact, he knew quite a bit about my family, even though he hadn’t seen my parents in years. And…” “And?” Violet said. Quigley gave her a small smile. “And he was very well-read,” he said.

anyway i just think the "almost could have" "maybe actually did" could play a lot into jacques and quigley's dynamic. if things were different, would he have trusted J?

#lemony snicket #brett helquist #jacques snicket #quigley quagmire #jacques quigley pseudo apprenticeship tag #vera.txt #the unauthorized autobiography #the slippery slope

17 notes · View notes

jacobsnicket · 2 months ago

Text

fictober prompt 5: "it's a new day, let's go" | all the wrong questions | G

read on ao3

Lemony didn’t remember falling asleep, but he woke up anyway. As far as he could tell, he was in a sleeping bag, laid out on a cold wooden floor he only barely recognized.

“Finally, you’re up. Come on now. I’m making breakfast downstairs.”

Thankfully, that voice was something he did recognize. “Good morning, Moxie.”

As Moxie dragged him toward the kitchen, Lemony recalled more and more memories from the night before, but none of them explained what he was doing in the lighthouse. In fact, they made things even more difficult to understand.

He thought about the train. He thought about the crash. He thought about the beast. He thought about Ellington flinching away from him, Moxie not looking him in the eyes. He thought about walking into the forest.

His hand drifted to his pocket, and he felt cold, sharp wood against his fingers. His hand curled around it. It was the only reminder he had that last night, that fateful night, was not merely a dream.

Perhaps he was dreaming now. He’d succumbed to starvation and sleep deprivation in the Clusterous Forest and was curled up next to the seaweed and the bird skeletons. It would certainly explain the warm way Moxie smiled at him.

“So, last night was quite eventful,” Moxie said, once their pancakes had been prepared.

“I suppose so.” Lemony took a breath. He supposed he would have to broach the topic eventually, and now was as good a time as any. “It was all a bit of a blur for me, personally. I don’t remember coming to the lighthouse.”

“You don’t?” Moxie looked at him, concerned. But it was the concern from when he’d climbed through the train window, the concern from when he’d limped to the diner after Stew Mitchum had attacked him— not the concern from after the train had crashed, as if she was worried for her own safety, rather than his. “I suppose I should start from the beginning, just in case. So, we were on the Thistle of the Valley—”

“I remember that, yes.”

“And then it crashed. I’m not quite sure what caused the crash, but I have a feeling that Hangfire was behind it. We all got out safely, but then you got into a big argument with Theodora. Then I was just going to sleep. I was late, must have been after midnight, and I saw you wandering about in the Clusterous Forest. Theodora was cruel to kick you out like that, so I figured that you could stay here for the foreseeable future.”

“Yes,” Lemony said. His mouth felt dry. “That was kind of you.”

There were bits of Moxie’s story that weren’t adding up, he was sure of it. Had she really forgotten? “You said you didn’t remember what caused the trainwreck. You saw the beast, didn’t you? We were in the same car.”

“The beast?” Moxie asked. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused.

“Yes, the bombinating one.”

“Do you remember…” Lemony’s hand tightened around the statue in his pocket. Part of him didn’t want to give up what he had, what he’d just gotten back, but he had to know what was happening. “Do you remember what happened to Hangfire?”

“I remember he is no longer a concern.” Moxie smiled at him and there it was again, that glassy-eyed look. “We’re free.”

Lemony felt like he was standing in the Clusterous Forest again and suddenly the sea had flooded back in, drowning him. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“I remember he is no longer a concern,” she repeated again.

There was water in his lungs, he was sure of it. Any minute now he’d fall under the waves. “You’re a journalist, aren’t you?” he pressed. “Wouldn’t you want to know?”

“There are things best left concealed,” Moxie said softly, still glassy-eyed. “It’s a new day. All that matters is the rebuilding.”

He ignored the irony of a journalist saying that. Whatever had happened to her, there was clearly no further prying he could do. “Theodora didn’t kick me out,” he said instead. “I left. I no longer have a chaperone.”

“Oh.” Moxie’s eyes were focused again, that clear, familiar stone-grey. “Then what on earth were you doing in the Clusterous Forest? You could have come to any of us. After all you’ve done, we would have let you in.”

All you’ve done, he thought. He’d done too much to the people of Stain’d-by-the-Sea. He’d done too much to Moxie, even if she couldn’t remember all of it.

There was no sense, though, in walking out into the forest when there was a perfectly fine shelter right in front of him. A shelter that would disappear the moment Moxie realized what he’d done, but a shelter nonetheless.

“I’m not sure, actually. I figured I would take a walk. Clear my head.”

“Only you,” she laughed, “would take a leisurely walk in the middle of the Clusterous Forest.”

“You know me,” he said, allowing himself to laugh too. “Just a leisurely walk.”

There were things best left concealed, after all.

#this is just an au idea that popped into my head and i had to write it somehow #yay eldritch bombinating beast yay #atwq #kiran writes #fictober24

8 notes · View notes

writtenbywings · 1 year ago

Text

Battle Scars

Pairing: Hermione Granger x Draco Malfoy

Summary: Returning to Hogwarts as a professor, Hermione bitterly encounters Draco Malfoy as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, throwing everything into chaos.

Hatred and lust slowly begins to burn between them, though only as they recall their final, secret year at Hogwarts.

Chapter word count: 2.8k

AO3 Link: Click Here

Fanfiction Link: Click Here

Type: Lemony, lemon, lemon---ade. Smutty lemonade.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Year 7 Flashback

Excuses are what we need to get through life. Tiny little pockets of gold that free us from the tormenting thoughts that keep us up at night. I wouldn't know where I'd be without excuses, without the ability to rectify my decisions, my actions, with lying reason.

And I had lied all week, keeping my experience with Draco Malfoy in Slytherin Tower a secret, even to my two truest friends. Perhaps because it felt good to keep something just for myself, or maybe because they would look at me with a different set of eyes if they knew I had allowed him in… penetrating my protective bubble.

Draco had redeemed himself to somewhat of a degree in Harry's eyes, especially after he had fought with us, opposed to against us, when we battled Voldemort. Though Ron was unshaken. His brother had been killed. His family had been torn apart. And blood was harder to wash off of a conscience than a few bad memories.

Harry would have understood with less hatred.

Ron would have just hated, and hated… and hated some more.

Alas, Ginny could tell something was different. She noticed me flushing in the face whenever a seventh year came passed, dressed in emerald robes. Though I hadn't said much, other than that I felt a little sick and shaky, and maybe the nerves of my unfinished homework was weighing too close to home.

As Thursday came around, six days after our secret meeting, I saw Malfoy standing in the courtyard, talking to Isobel Wretching. She was a pretty girl with blonde hair and fluttery, doe-eyes. A student who would have been better suited for Hufflepuff, opposed to Slytherin. Though it was her fathers affiliation with the dark arts that caused the sorting hat to take an unexpected turn, and one that saw a brief relationship with Draco, in question.

I saw him smirk, the bruising on his face now alleviated entirely. He wore his shirt sleeves down during the day, not wanting to show off that Death Eater mark. Though Isobel was reaching over, playing with his hand.

The image I'd been keeping of him in my head burned to nothing, and I walked past with a vigor that rustled a small wind, alerting him as I went.

Really, what was I expecting? I didn't want us to be friends outside of our arrangement, though I didn't expected to be toyed with. I was Hermione Granger, not some common room slut. If his… areas… were touching other… areas… I didn't want them near mine!

I thought of myself as a virgin, if not for the few times with Ronald.

Though I doubt they could be considered as sex, as they included no passion, no romance, no touching of the explicit kind. It was just a romp on his bed after quidditch practice, and then another time at The Burrow, when I'd been wearing a little dress and we'd let the mood take us. But still, I'd never… orgasmed. He did. But I had just rocked about on the bed for the best part of ten minutes.

If I ever had experienced a climax in life – not involving the happiness I got from a new book – it would have been in private, with one of those vibrating wands from Va-Va-Broom. And I'd never expect Draco Malfoy to be able to deliver anything other than selfishness, so what was I expecting? A bit of loyalty… from the man who nearly killed Dumbledore?

My thoughts continued to hiss like a hot kettle, and continued well into even the night.

Friday morning came, and Draco didn't so much as glance my way in The Great Hall. I shamefully tried to steal a glance, one that would confirm I hadn't made up everything in my head, though as Isobel Wretching flaunted herself over his lap, feeding him a grape from the bouquet on the table, I stood and marched across the room.

I'd been played. A fool.

It was the one day I performed poorly in Potions class, and messed up an entire batch of Sickleweed Milk. A little elixir meant to cure Fizzlebumps. The cauldron exploded and one of the Ravenclaw girls had to go to the hospital wing, riddled with pimples.

I'd been given another free pass, and sent to Hagrid's for the afternoon, to help tend to a few of the magical creatures kept near his hut. I said nothing, letting him prattle on about his dealings in Scotland, and picked the feathers of a pheasant to feed to three untamed creatures. The professors were essentially letting me off every bad mistake I came to make, and for what… because I helped save the school? Or because they knew I was traumatized?

I was beginning to feel like a victim, and not the girl who could cast without a wand.

"I'm going to bed early." I told Hagrid, just as the sky began to darken. He bid me farewell, and watched as I climbed the steps to the castle, not even bothering to have dinner in the Great Hall. In my dormitory, I had a few leftover boxes of chicken pastries, quickly heating one with a spell that cooked it well, tucking into it between a soapy shower and getting my bag ready for the weekend.

I was meant to be visiting mum and dad in London, after the ministry reversed my memory spell on them. It would take a few more sessions to regain their full memory of me, though they were getting better with every visit.

Dad remembered my birthday a few weeks ago, and mum had managed to cook my favorite dinner. Small steps, though big with this kind of magic.

I paced the length of my room, searching for my dress robes, when I remembered I had left my witch's hat and cape in the common room, by the fireplace.

Lord have mercy.

I glanced at the clock and saw it was just after seven o'clock, and that most of the students would be having dessert by now. The girl's dormitory was empty, and I would have a chance to sneak and grab it, after my shower.

Still, I wanted to be careful.

I exchanged that fluffy, white towel for my pleated skirt and white button up shirt, not bothering with tights or a bralette. Though I did take a minute to slip into my knickers.

I crept downstairs, snatched up the bundle of black fabric strewn over the armchair, and ran back up within the matter of sixty seconds.

Clearly, it wasn't enough time.

As I bolted the door, wanting to change before the girls had chance to return, I saw the window ajar– the light breeze rustling the papers on Ikera's writing desk. Her owl fluttered in its cage, and made the wet ends of my hair brush icily against my breasts. I ran over and went to clasp it shut, though as I did, I saw a figure lounging on one of the beds.

It was Draco.

"What the hell are you doing in here? These are forbidden quarters to a Slytherin, let alone a boy!" I yelled, reaching for that towel to cover my chest. I was suddenly aware of how hard my nipples were.

Draco had an arm tucked casually behind his head, dressed in a white shirt similar to mine, the buttons loosely fastened. His emerald tie amiss.

"I knew you would back out of our arrangement, and I wanted to come remind you of what we agreed on." He said, playing with a smirk the way he had played with me last Friday.

"You're right." I spat. "I wasn't going to meet you, after I'd seen it was nothing but a cruel joke to you. I couldn't be bothered with your games."

At this, he sat up, bridging toward the edge of Ashley Wellings bed. Her teddy bear looking skeptical beside his hand as it tightened into the mattress.

"This isn't a game to me, Hermione."

Again, the use of my name felt like a slap, and I'd almost prefer him to use the insult. Mudblood. At least I could expect it.

"Friday night. I'm your distraction. We keep to the plan as follows."

"I don't want you to be my anything if you're going to be sleeping around. I don't know what diseases you'll be collecting."

He almost grinned, almost– if it wasn't for the seriousness he read in my glare.

"I'm not shagging Isobel Wretching. I'm not shagging anyone."

My breathing stilled, and I didn't know whether to believe him. What good would he have in lying? I would find out eventually… women always found out. Though with the way he now stood from the bed, sauntering over, narrowing the space between us, I allowed myself to believe him. If not to keep him right here, standing in front of me, but because I did, truly – honestly, really – feel distracted for the first time.

"The door is locked." I managed to say, just a whisper.

It was my way of saying I agreed, I consented.

His eyes didn't leave mine, but he nodded very slowly.

"My hair is too wet… to go to the tower." I followed on, as his eyes dragged down my tendrils of wet curls, my chest as it was still disguised beneath that towel.

"And… although me and Ron have partaken in things in the past, I really don't—"

"Drop the towel." He said, cutting me off.

I swallowed loudly, unable to move my gaze from his very serious, blue one. My fingers unlocked from their hold, and the towel fell as a bundle of white to the floor, revealing my crinkled white skirt, and the alert pinch of my pink nipples, visible now as the damp from my hair made the material transparent. He reached down and unclasped the first few buttons, my breasts – that had gotten so much more fuller in the past year – falling out, making me gasp as a wind tousled through the open window.

He had climbed the wisteria on the outskirts of the building, all to come up and here and see me. He wasn't playing any games. Not when his pride was so obviously dropped.

The Malfoy name coincided with pride.

He circled back to Ashley Wellings bed, and sat himself back on its edge, crooking a finger and beckoning me forward. A bright and immediate blush rose to my cheeks as I sauntered forward, my breasts bouncing as I did.

He held up a hand and I stopped.

No better than a dog.

An owl.

"Are you wearing anything under that skirt?"

"Yes."

"Good."

In a sudden twist of movement, he clambered his hands around my back and pulled me into his lap, causing me to gasp. I resisted the urge to squeal– I was not that girl. Though I could only swallow the saliva as it pooled in my mouth, watching as he laid himself onto the mattress, staring at me and my perky, upright breasts, in my school uniform.

With two, great hands he planted them on my rear and pushed me with such force, I slid up his body and stopped with my wet, slick underwear rubbing along his face. I jerked forward as his nose rubbed into my clit, and grabbed the bannister of the bed, lifting myself from his face with apology.

Though no, this is what he wanted.

"Sit back down." He ordered, in a voice that was as wilful as magic.

I felt obliged, if not under a spell, to do as he commanded.

With a tear, I felt his hands pull the cotton of my panties free, throwing the shredded material to a discarded corner of the room. Then, he perched me willingly onto his mouth, and with the most pained cry I'd ever released, I shivered dramatically as he began licking my folds.

The pleasure shocked me so much, I lifted up again, though Draco wasn't having any of that. He forced me back down with his hands, now holding my waist and hips like a seatbelt, making my tits thrust upwards as I bucked and grinded, unable to stand it.

"Oh my god… oh my god… Oh, god… Oh my… Oh." I whispered feverishly, biting my fingers, then grabbing the bed, then grabbing at his white wisps of hair between my thighs, then back again to my mouth to chew. I felt it deep within my stomach as tension built, his tongue slithering from my pussy hole, up my clit, and back again. Wagging like a dog's tail, flicking that bundle of nerves that hadn't been teased by anything other than my small hand, or that vibrating wand.

Though this wasn't a wand… this wasn't skin… this was wet, slithering skill. This was an ice cream in the boiling heat, a puddle on dry pavement– a forbidden lust, making it only tastier. The noise he released made me wonder if he could breathe, as I'd gotten so slick so quickly, it must now be soaking his face, his nose, his jaw. Though I didn't care– selfishly, all I could see, feel, hear and breathe was the aching, unconventional desire to cum.

I needed it so much, I began sliding my cunt against his face, grinding against his nose as if it were a bump in the road– feeling the breeze as it came from the window and ruffled the end of my skirt, exposing my rear. As if he knew, he let go of my waist entirely, and planted his hands like two dinner plates against my ass, squeezing and slapping, knowing I wouldn't leave now even if I had the capability.

I'd never leave.

I never wanted this feeling to leave.

And then, suddenly, there was pain.

Pain that cut through the pain, but somehow, only intensified it. Brought it to a new level that brought tears to my eyes, causing me to open them and stare ahead, shocked.

His thumb had made its way into that sacred little hole between my ass cheeks, degrading what I thought I knew myself to be. I wasn't as pure and white as the others had made me out to be, I wouldn't be the wife to endure one sex position in bed for the rest of my life.

I was a creature who enjoyed every morsel of humiliation when it came from the hands of my enemy. I was a mudblood. I was whatever he wanted to be, so long as he didn't stop.

I found myself backing my rear into his hand, hissing as his thumb twisted, corrupting what was left of Little Miss Granger.

The downstairs door clicked to the common room, and I could hear the girls giggling from dinner. Talking, though not quite coming up yet.

Please, I would kill them if they so much as came near this door. I needed to finish. I needed to climax. I needed to release the tension building so quickly, so fast.

"I'm close." I whimpered, which didn't change his rhythm.

I didn't want him to. His tongue was moving so perfectly already. It didn't need to accelerate or so down.

One of his hands slipped from my pert buttocks, though not the one penetrating my hole, and it pushed the skirt down from his face, revealing his blue eyes. I couldn't look at him! No, I couldn't… I couldn't come to terms with the fact it was Draco Malfoy about to get me so far, and it was Draco Malfoy with his tongue buried deep into my cunt.

I threw my head back, feeling that hand now on my breast, pulling my nipple so hard I thought it might pinch off. He devoured me like a machine, with a bit of him– other than his cock– everywhere. And he watched with the lowest, predatory growl, as I overcame the hurdle and came.

I reached forward and grabbed Ashley's teddy bear, stuffing it into my mouth and biting down hard, knowing whatever scream left my mouth would alert everyone downstairs. My stomach clenched in as I shook and trembled, tightening my asshole around his thumb, releasing my juices in hot, sweaty relief.

I couldn't remember saying his name, though the long, whiny, drawn out word 'fuck' came as a mewl, softer than any kitten. Like a doll, I collapsed senselessly to his side, quivering only slightly.

I could see his cock was rock hard within his trousers, and his face was a shiny mess.

The scent of my arousal was everywhere.

I could hardly breathe.

"Unforgivable." He said, swallowing what I could only imagine was more of me.

"Hmm?" I barely mumbled, still panting.

"The word we're using whenever we need this. No questions asked."

"Unforgivable." I said, a little drunk on ecstasy.

"Good girl."

#fanfiction #draco malfoy #dramione #hermione granger #hermione x draco #draco fanfiction #draco x hermione #dracotok #draco malfoy fanfiction #hermione fanfiction #hp fanfic #hogwarts #hp fandom

45 notes · View notes

mediocre-noodle · 4 months ago

Note

if you want some Family terms, lemme know— especially official definitions. theres only like 3-4 but i wrote them down and it gives context.

THE FAMILY/THE SYZYGY/THE EYES

normally are “born” when the higher ups notice them and their existence while they were alive. when those noticed have died, they are Chosen and Ascend.

5 head gods. 1 admin god, 4 mods if that makes sense. the head god is titled Apogee, nickname of aji (ahgee or ă-jē). altogether called The Syzygy.

- dallas is a mod after promotions bc hard work and knowledge and such. also nepotism /j (aji really likes dallas)

- (btw theyre all like. several thousand years old. minimum.

They normally Choose people who have been through A LOT of struggles but have stayed,,, relatively good people. like even if —— neutral on moral alignment, its fine.

basically They adopt the traumatized kids (even if they arent kids)

powers:

as immortal and omnipresent/omniscient beings, they can basically do anything. (you have to learn these once you Ascend though. its not just *snap* and you know everything immediately. its a practice thing. also like how humans work and absorb info as we grow. it may take years— maybe even decades to master it.)

- shapeshifting

- tend to try and fit in with the main species

- teleportation

- looks like black swan (hsr) except taht its gold and not wind(anemo) colored

- innate magic ability

- spells, potions, etc. allows for greater realm of magic

- wings

- MULTIVERSE TRAVELING

- but world interaction is uncommon. most like to just watch and guide from the higher dimensions. (dallas is just special)

- many members of the Family are multilingual. in fact, the only ones who dont know multiple languages are usually the newly Ascended. (“new” being lenient. time is weird for immortal beings.)

- blood turns gold when you Ascend and tastes acidic— lemony (dopamine machine by ferry inspo)

- send Eyeless to a prison/jail— BASICALLY HELL.

- can be incited by saying “may We See what becomes of you.” or something similar that has the same weight— judgement and justice being served bc you were an asshole

- (genshin ‘we will be reunited’ cutscene) dainsleif cutscene w him choking out the abyss lector? yeah. to set the spell up, you extend your arm like that and the magic aUrA or dUsT has to envelop them (specifically their arms to immobilize them. perhaps neck if need be.) and THEN the saying

- ONLY HIGH POSITIONS CAN DO THIS (The Syzygy and then those trusted by them to clean the trash of the multiverse)

- when the body dies, it fades like in genshin (without the weird falling thing) but theyre still there. it can materialize again if they want or not. if they exhausted themself too much , itll take a bit longer. most of the time, it takes maybe a min (because many normally die during fights so they have to get back to help faster)

- after one’s respawn, people will notice something… off about the body though. did they always have that scar? why are their eyes so bright?? why is their skin slightly glowing? the light around their head oddly looks like a halo if you focus.. huh. (other times, one might come back in full ascended form, all wings and covered in Eyes, fuckin cryptid bitch. scares the crap outta people who don’t expect the unexpected.)

RAHHHHHHHHHH how do u world build like that?????????????? so well???????????????????????????? im jealous????????

#GRRRRRRRRRRRR

6 notes · View notes

louisetaylor · 2 years ago

Text

The novel we all need:

Beatrice's 200-page novel/letter to Lemony containing all of the many reasons why she can't marry him. The darkly elegant turn-of-the-century opera/ballet/high-society vibes of Lemony, Beatrice, Esme, Jerome, Kit, Jacques, and perhaps Olaf, all scheming and murdering and flirting in The Unnamed Big City.

Cab rides fraught with menace and apprehension, with Jacques whistling up in front as he drives. Beatrice narrating everything with a grief (and loquacity) similar to Lemony's, but looking toward the future rather than the past. Sometimes she writes "a word which here means" because Lemony says it so often. Food and fire as recurring themes. Beatrice might have an unnerving attraction to fire...and one instance of intentional fire-setting because she knows two instances would legally make her a pyromaniac.

Her uncertainty between Lemony and Bertrand, two very different men who are equally pretentious in different ways (and subtly fight over her in Clever Verbal Skirmishes, which she loves). The whole story taking place in the melodramatic atmosphere of the opera, perhaps divided into acts. Brief arias of soliloquy from Beatrice, letters from Lemony (!!!) and her friendship with the mysterious Duchess R of Winnipeg. GORGEOUS clothes on absolutely everyone.

Lemony and Beatrice bonding over their love of root beer floats, not to mention questioning the whole system of V.F.D. thinking violence is never acceptable and the world should always be quiet. I've always wondered why Beatrice chose Bertrand over Lemony, and if she really loved Lemony more. LEMONY COOKING FOR BEATRICE AT 2 AM IN HER APARTMENT AFTER A SHOW. Lemony crying on her shoulder at the bitterness of the world, disapproving of her preference for sweet milky tea. Bertrand symbolizing fire (candles, chandeliers in operas and restaurants), and Lemony symbolizing water (rain, the sea, lunch at Briny Beach, splashing with her in the fountain).

The fated tea party, the friendship turned simmering rivalry between Esme and Beatrice, the theft of the sugar bowl when Beatrice finally turns her back on Esme. Kit's subtle glances at Olaf, who's still young and kind and handsome and full of hope and mischief, even though he's a bit of a jerk. Kit believes in him. Everyone else just believes in Kit. Jacques flirting with anything in a skirt just because he likes making people blush and giggle.

The denouement is the grand opera where Beatrice's performance is followed by the death of Olaf's father and the breaking of the fellowship.

Notes in the margins written by Lemony and punctuated by tear stains.

At the end of the book, she quotes Robert Frost. "Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire."

After the quotation, Lemony writes "She burned too bright for this world" from Wuthering Heights, which she loved.

Perhaps the overall meaning of the book could be that Beatrice (a name which here means "she who brings happiness") loves Lemony, and always will, because he symbolizes grief and lost love and wishing for the safe childhood that none of them ever had. But Lemony is the past, and Bertrand is the future. Beatrice has always been surrounded by people who wrote and spoke and sang of the beauty of grief, the glory of sadness. But Beatrice couldn't help holding a happiness as deep as grief. She loves dark stories and art as much as anyone (she's an opera singer, after all) but she's hungry for happiness.

And she had happiness with Lemony when he gave her food, when he hugged her and told her all the ways he would love her, when he played the accordion so well it made her cry. The manuscript is stained with her tears too. She needs to make people happy, and as much as Lemony loved her, she could never make him happy. He saw and adored her deep capacity for happiness, but he couldn't receive it. Like Dante, he admired Beatrice's glow from afar. Now he descends into the inferno, where his angel can't go with him.

The novel is perhaps named A Series of Fortunate Events. Because they all happened with him at her side. Although she has to leave him, she mourns for him, for his endless wandering on the run, and never regrets the time she spent with him. She finally learned to see herself as he always saw her--a beacon of light and warmth who held all the friends together, even as the times grew dark and the force of destiny worked on them all.

Perhaps it was really Beatrice who symbolized fire all the time, not Bertrand. Lemony was water, and water smothers fire and dims its light. But Bertrand might symbolize air. Bertrand might be a fresh breath of air on Mount Fraught, liking the outdoors more than Lemony, making mischievous jokes with Olaf, slurping loudly from a straw while Lemony does a Dramatic Philosophical Monologue, meeting her on windy streets with newspapers (articles written by Lemony) blowing around their feet. Bertrand pining in the background as Lemony kisses Beatrice's hand. She feels more alive and awake with Bertrand. Water reflects fire, but air feeds it.

The whole novel contains foreshadowing of all the unfortunate events to come, some of the references quite clever and amusing even as they break your heart. But one comes away from the book with a sense that though Beatrice was always doomed to die...she LIVED. The book must be warm and full of life, contrasting the books about her children in a world that is often too cold and too quiet. The world is too quiet without her. But it's not a sad ending. Because she left a legacy of warmth and hope and love. Lemony wrote the children's stories for her sake, because he loved her and remembered her.

He loved her for her fiery happiness, even as she loved him for his grief and vulnerability. In the scene where Lemony confesses his love for Beatrice, a moth flies into the candle on the table between them, symbolic of Lemony wishing his heart out to be with her warmth, even as it doomed him to exile in a cold and quiet world.

But even this is not the end. Because someday, after Beatrice and Lemony have had their say, young Beatrice Baudelaire II will drop a note through the ceiling of Lemony's office, and the old Beatrice somehow gave Lemony a child to love and take care of, in a strange and roundabout way.

Edit: Allusions to heaven and hell throughout the work, hell being the arson perpetrated by the Bad Guys, and purgatory being the wide empty hinterlands that lie outside the city. Lemony chooses to stay in hell to help the unfortunate people in it, making him a bit of a Christ figure. Bertrand climbing his way up out of hell and reaching for the heaven of a safe home and family. Beatrice symbolizing an angel who fell, or was pushed, from heaven a long time ago and being a bit of a Christ figure herself for going deep into Lemony's sadness and understanding him, thus saving him even as he saves her.

#long post #beatrice baudelaire #lemony snicket #a series of unfortunate events #story idea #symbolism #poetry #V.F.D.#vfd #literary analysis #of a novel that doesn't actually exist #classic literature #dark academia #religious symbolism #religious imagery #dante alighieri #dante's inferno #paradise lost #which i haven't actually read

86 notes · View notes

eikonoklast · 2 months ago

Text

Day 11 (Surrogate): The Mirage

The emerald carbuncle chased its three tails around and around, little sparkling traces of aether in its wake. The arcane creature was vibrant and full of life as it rolled around on the ground, tussling with itself. Chiteni called his familiar Chesan, but Gosetsu had once misheard him, thinking he had said cheese. Of all things. The surly warrior had been annoyed by the misunderstanding more than Chesan's owner had - who was just as disgruntled - but the name had caught the interest of the twins, who decided a new name was in order.

So it was that Cheese the carbuncle trundled amicably from table to table, pawing at legs and begging for scraps and introducing itself with a cute little flourish. The Meyhane was fairly busy this afternoon, so there were plenty of victims to fall prey to the familiar's puissant charms. Chiteni watched his charge carefully in case the aetherial kit caused any trouble. The two certainly couldn't be further in disposition.

“Thank you for waiting.” Chiteni's ears pricked at the sound of a familiar voice. The miqo'te was a powerful mage, but fairly pedestrian when it came to controlling his vast reserves of aether with any sort of precision. And with the bustling crowd and vibrant colors of the Meyhane, he knew it would stimulate his vision overmuch. Everything too bright, too layered - the physical and aetherial. To amend this, he often wore a blindfold while using magicks, especially ones that required more focus. Thus did he see his companion's unique aether, bright as a warm sun underneath even the darkness of his covering. The luminous smaragdine hue swirling about the form of a young boy.

“Varshahn,” he got up from his chair, offering a small bow. The colorful outlines of the people in the Meyhane shimmered out of the corner of his vision, but none burned so fiercely nor so beautifully as the great wyrm's. Even in his simulacrum - a vessel for his will - his aether was too unique to conceal perfectly.

“Please, sit. I hope I am not interrupting your meal.”

Chiteni had been sitting alone at the table. He hadn't come to eat in the first place: his presence was simply requested by the satrap. But the friendly server Mihleel wasn't one to listen, especially not to those who had saved her beloved city. She had first come out from the back with water. Then again with some fragrant and warm reddish tsai. Upon her third visit she seemed disgruntled that Chiteni had not ordered anything - enough so that she had returned with some simple slices of the Meyhane's honeyed dragonfruit; the snow white flesh covered in a sweet, lemony coating. He had eaten a bit simply to satisfy her - and Cheese had as well though not necessarily for the same reason.

“This? No, no; your people just have more hospitality than I can handle.” He smiled. “You had need of me?”

“Yes, there has been some trouble of a more…arcane nature. My alchemists are perplexed - it is not a chemical reaction. Perhaps it is best I show you.” Varshahn's voice was commanding but still gentle at the same time. Chiteni couldn't see the finer details but he imagined those vibrant red eyes staring back into his own with a measured intensity. “There is no need for concern, I do not detect any problems arising. But we would have peace of mind if you would visit and give your opinion.”

“Chesan,�� the little creature turned from the table where it had been nibbling bits of food a dissatisfied child had generously donated. Quickly running up to him it pounced into the air, morphing into a blueish corvid and alighting on his shoulder. Chiteni followed the satrap out of the Meyhane, happy to be away from the heat and press of bodies - alongside the noise that accompanied them.

“I was not aware you used familiars in your spellcasting,” the great wyrm said as they flew over the violet hills of Thavnair; the sun sinking below the waters of the coastline and setting the sky on fire with vibrant reds, lavenders, and turquoise.

“Not normally, no. But they help with focus. And you mentioned this wasn't a very dangerous situation, so I simply imagined explosions weren't necessary.”

“Indeed,” the great wyrm shook his head gently. “I have need of your sight.”

The two flew over the Shroud of the Samgha, its tropical trees waving calmly in the faint ocean breeze. There was a hush over the dark forest below; the sound of Vrtra's great wingbeats pounding in gentle rhythm with the distant crash of the surf. As they approached their destination, Vrtra gently landed in an open stretch of grass, his wingbeats causing animals to scatter back into their trees and holes, their eyes lighting up the shadowy forest with myriad shining reflections as they watched curiously.

Chiteni recognized the stone structure that lay before them. A large rectangular pool stretched out for several yalms, its waters emerald yet clear. In the fading light he could make out the bottom as well as the surrounding gaja statues that lined the sides, their tops covered with soft green moss, the stones weathered and smooth. The statue of a gaja-headed deity Chiteni did not know adorned the far side of the pool; its six arms both raised and lowered, stern visage watching over. The Font of Maya, the people called it. A place of illusions.

Vrtra bade Chiteni go to the water with a gesture. The miqo'te approached calmly, his familiar still perched upon his shoulder and bobbing its head curiously to and fro.

“What doest thou see? In the pool?” Vrtra's voice was…unknowable. His intention difficult to ascertain.

Chiteni looked down into the water. With his blindfold on, all other things fell away into an inky darkness. But the surface of the water was as it had ever been: tranquil.

“Nothing, at present.”

“Soon, then. Let us wait a moment.”

Vrtra beckoned Chiteni to come sit beside him for a time while the sun continued to dip beneath the waves. The stars began to appear in the sky, twinkling through the descending darkness like pinholes in its dark mantle. Out of his peripheral vision, Chiteni noticed something around the water. A strange aura began to emanate from it, the air above awash in soft shades of mauve and cobalt. It was hard to see in his mask while looking directly at it, so he kept turning his eyes away while he sat, cocking his head to the side.

“You see it, yes?”

“Yes…I guess I do. One moment.” Chiteni got up, approaching the water as the air shimmered above it, dancing with all the colors of a rainbow. The light rippled as though it were water in the sun; streaks of white interlacing greens, reds, yellows, blues, purples…It shimmered in an intangible way. As if the colors themselves were liquid. Looking down into the water below, Chiteni saw no such activity. Nothing arcane of any sort, nor any living thing that might be causing the strange phenomenon.

“I can't say I understand what is causing this,” he admitted, perplexed. “I see no lingering enchantment - nor any evidence of an object of arcane origin nearby.”

“What would you see if you removed your blindfold?” Vrtra asked simply. “I do not mean to pry, if it is of a personal nature. I have heard that you have need of it to dampen your senses. What if you did not do so?”

“No that's…a reasonable observation,” Chiteni reassured him. “Generally everything is too bright. I cannot channel my aether properly when it comes to many things - my sight included. When I am using magicks everything becomes overlayed with energy. Like…staring at the sun.”

“What if you used your energy to see through my eyes?” Vrtra asked.

“I don't understand.”

“Channel your energies and I will do the same. We will act as one. I will show thee.” Vrtra walked over to the waterside, the air above still shimmering beautifully. He lowered his head. “Place thy hands.”

Chiteni placed a palm on Vrtra's horned snout gently. He could feel the hum of the wyrm's incredible power beneath his fingertips - like a wave barely suppressed before breaking onto the shore.

“Now. Feel me. Reach for my mind with your own. I shall help thee.”

Chiteni considered this carefully, and he opened his mind to the possibility. He felt Vrtra's massive, powerful wings, his senses guiding him down the length of his body. His mighty tail swished with calm restraint that belied a formidable power, and his strong legs led down to wicked talons. Chiteni felt their grip on the ground as if the grass was under his own bare feet. Vrtra's chest rumbled with each breath and Chiteni could feel his own breaths syncing - the two in time with one another. As if they both breathed through these great bones. He could feel the spark of the fire deep within as they exhaled, and Chiteni opened his eyes.

They were many feet off the ground, head pressed into a small human hand. They lifted their neck with some effort, gently swinging their mighty head towards the waterside. Through the great wyrm's eyes - their eyes - with the arcane abilities of his human form: they saw. The light was no longer blinding. The colors were visible even without the contrast of darkness. The lights swam and spiraled through the air, forming into shapes for the briefest of moments before fading away; too quick to grasp their true meaning.

Shocked by the strange sensation, Chiteni fell back into himself with a rush, tumbling onto the ground and panting like he'd been running for his life. “What- how did you do that?” he gasped.

Vrtra turned his head towards the man at his feet. His eyes shone with amusement. “What did you see?” asked the great wyrm, ignoring the question.

Chiteni slowly sat up, thinking deeply. “I saw-”

Author's Note: As much as I'd like to ACTUALLY put something here, that's gotta be it for the night. I'm tired and there's sleep to be had! The prompt is pretty obvious in this one, so I'll just leave it up to your imagination for now :)

#ffxivwrite2024 #ffxiv #original character #chiteni kha #day 11 #i'm so sorry but i must sleep #i am no great wyrm #these eyes are needing to witness the back of my eyelids

5 notes · View notes

trentcrimminallybeautiful · 1 year ago

Text

i was halfway through writing this when i realized i had been basing it off this post except with a much less complex/interesting premise. although you can tell from the beginning initially the idea was going to be "lemony snicket up a ted lasso snippet" but then it spiralled out of control. anyway, enjoy? back to your regularly scheduled prompts in a bit.

(ao3.)

If you would like to hear something happy, you would be best finding another story entirely.

This story does not have a happy beginning, nor a happy ending. It is, if anything, the reverse of what an old friend once called “rom-communism”: rather than a dark forest our heroes must wander into and then fight their way out of, the middle is a bright clearing, and it is everywhere else that is the wood.

This old friend might be disappointed to hear me describe it in such a way. But this is not his story, at his own insistence, and he is not here.

Let us begin.

Once there was a sour old fox, with a bitter heart and shiny, thick coat of fur. He had been abandoned, a long time ago, and had never quite recovered. He had sharp teeth and a sharper tongue, and all the other animals grew to fear him.

The fox was caught in a trap of his own design, one he refused to escape from. He dragged it everywhere with him, even as his paws bled and the pain made him crueler.

One day, however, he was instructed to speak to a wolf with long whiskers, who had been put in charge of the local pack. The wolf was either a fool or a villain, and the cold-hearted fox suffered neither.

When he prepared to bite, however, the wolf was kind to him. No one had been kind to the fox in a long time, for the fox had grown to be unkind himself, and could no longer bear to be handled gently.

The fox withdrew his teeth, and pondered this for some time.

Soon, the fox realized that the wolf was neither a clown nor a knave, but truly a noble soul with a good heart. Touched by this, the fox squirmed from his trap, and began to follow the wolf with unsure steps.

Although the fox made many mistakes, even, once, turning his sharp teeth against the wolf, the wolf never attacked him, or threw him back into the cold woods he’d come from.

Indeed, slowly, the fox was brought into his pack, and grew used to being surrounded by warmth, to having a den that was safe and comfortable.

He wasn’t the only stray the wolf had brought in: there was a housecat, and an alley cat, a stray dog, a rat, and even another fox, and many other animals, not just wolves.

The pack was largely misfits, even the original wolves. And the fox wasn’t alone.

The fox mellowed, and with every moment in the wolf’s presence, admired him more. He had been tamed, you see, and although his teeth were not so sharp, so, too, had his heart been softened.

If this were a fairy tale or a fable, perhaps this is where the story would end. The fox in a den of wolves, curled comfortably, free of his trap.

But the world does not stop where it would be happiest to end.

The wolf, you see, had a cub, far away from here, a cub that he missed every day. The cub could not be brought here, nor could the pack be brought there. The yawning stretch between them hurt the wolf greatly. He had a hollowness in him that could not be filled by anything but the child.

And so one day, without so much as a proper goodbye, the wolf slipped from the den and vanished into the night, and broke the fox’s heart.

The fox was not angry, but he could not follow. And besides, he suspected that the wolf would not want him there.

The wolf was the one who had brought the fox into the pack, and so soon, with no one to keep him there or want him there, the fox ran away. He knew, logically, he had not been abandoned again, not in the same way, but he couldn’t help but feel it. He had been afraid, when that had happened, and he was afraid now.

He retreated to his old den, much smaller and colder, and curled up there alone. With his tamed heart and duller claws, the fox knew better than to venture far.

He missed the wolf. He missed the pack, and the den. But still, for all the food in the world, the fox wouldn’t trade away his time with them and return to before: he was still free from his trap, and although he would never be the same, perhaps that was for the better.

Love lost was better than love never had, he supposed—a sentiment the fox once would have scoffed at, but now felt with all of his broken heart.

Regardless, with dulled teeth and dulled claws, and winter approaching, the fox remained in his old den and slowly grew hungrier. Far away, the wolf returned to his old den, too, and although he missed his pack, he curled around his cub and felt whole again.

The fox’s den was snowed over, and although it was cold, he was too weak to move. He found he didn’t mind—he was numb, now, and the fox dreamt of better times and better places, until he passed into a dreamless sleep and never woke up.

The wolf was happy, far away, and that was enough for the fox, even until the day he died. As for the pack, some of them scattered, but most of them stayed together, and while they missed the wolf greatly, the fox’s absence was noted, but eventually forgotten. They healed, too, even if they would forever remember the wolf who had brought them together.

The fox’s bones lay under the snow until the summer melted it away, but so well hidden was the den that no one ever found it, nor did anyone ever try.

Such are the ways of foxes and wolves, who always return to their dens when winter approaches.

The end.

(That’s a terrible fucking story.)

It’s how it goes. Not all stories come out of the dark forest. Some end there.

(That’s stupid. Why would the pack just forget about the fox?)

He was just one little fox. Only the wolf, who had brought in many strays, noticed him there at all.

(No way! The other fox wouldn’t forget!)

The other fox had other animals to confide in, Colin.

(Other animals that would fucking miss the fox, too.)

I think you’re missing the point. Both of you.

(No, you’re missing the fucking point. Fuck the wolf. This isn’t about the wolf. It’s about the fox.)

Why do people keep insisting that? It’s not about the fox, it’s just from the fox’s perspective.

(Bullshit. It’s about the fox. The fox is just too in love with the wolf to see it.)

I know exactly what you are implying and I do not appreciate it.

(Oh, dropping contractions, are we? Come on. You know it’s fucking true, mate.)

I didn’t say it wasn’t. I said I didn’t appreciate it.

(You’re an idiot.)

…Yes, I’m well aware.

(No, don’t—fuck. I’m bad at this.)

…

(He also doesn’t know how to handle crying.)

(Oh, because you’re doing much better, with that fucking shoulder pat, Colin. Fuck. I just mean—the wolf isn’t the only one who liked the fox.)

Roy, I don’t think—

(They all love that fucking fox. And the fox doesn’t just miss the wolf, does he? Shouldn’t have fucking run away.)

Well, he did.

(Good thing the pack came to find him, then. Other fox included, by the way.)

…

(You’re a fucking idiot.)

Oh, thanks.

(Nah, nah. You just need a new ending for your story, boyo. Come on. The fox runs away…)

And dies. The end.

(We’re not killing off the fucking fox, Trent.)

We?

(We.)

Jesus Christ.

(Nope. Roy Kent.)

(And Colin!)

Fine. Fucking hell, then.

(The fox runs away… and when he’s off feeling sorry for himself, the whole pack shows up and fucking drags him back to the den by scruff of his scrawny neck.)

(Because they love him. And we—er, they—all miss C—the wolf.)

(But it’s better to miss him fucking together, or whatever.)

…Why are you here?

(You really have to fucking ask? We’ve been playing along with the whole fable thing, but despite everything, you’re not actually that fucking dense, Trent.)

(You haven’t been showing up to anything!)

I don’t work there anymore.

(Technically, you never did.)

Well, I work there even less now.

(We could change that if it really bothers you. But Keeley doesn’t work here either, and she still shows up when-the-fuck-ever.)

She’s dating one of you.

(Two.)

What?

(Look, it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about the wolf—Jesus fucking Christ.)

…

(…)

(I think you broke him.)

(As I was saying, this isn’t about Ted. It’s about you.)

(…You’re gonna give him a conniption if you make him say he loves you.)

(Colin, I swear to god.)

You didn’t have to do this.

(Shut up. We were always going to do this.)

…

(The fox deserves a happy ending, too, Trent.)

(Yeah, stop burying your gays!)

(Oh my god.)

(Am I wrong?)

What are you even suggesting?

(Come back.)

(Come home.)

…I’m sorry for leaving.

(We get it, boyo. Heartbreak’s a bitch.)

(You don’t need Ted to be here. Prick.)

Yes, I got that.

(Come on. Higgins is hosting some huge barbecue.)

(Yeah, it starts in about ten minutes.)

And it’s just a coincidence that it’s starting in about ten minutes?

(Funny thing about coincidences.)

Sometimes they just happen.

(Exactly.)

#snippet #my writing #my fics

22 notes · View notes