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justagalwhowrites · 1 day ago

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Halcyon - Ch. 19: Did You Mean That?

Joel confronts your shared past and potential future. A continuation of Halcyon from the prologue through Ch. 18, a modern no outbreak AU TLOU fic found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Angst. Modern No Outbreak AU, No use of Y/N, Slow burn, 18+ only, Minors DNI

Length: 6.6k

AO3 | Main Master List | Prologue | Previous Chapter

Joel was frozen for longer than he was proud of, staring at the place you’d left him.

I fucking heard you.

What the fuck did that even mean? Heard what?

He looked back toward Sarah’s room. He shouldn’t just leave her here by herself but he considered it all the same. He’d just… he’d go after you, make you talk to him like he should have done all those years ago. He wasn’t going to just let you disappear again, not this time.

Instead, he called you, still standing on his front stoop, still considering chasing after you. It rang twice but then you sent him to voicemail.

“Fuck!”

His grip got tight on the phone but he resisted the urge to hurl the phone at the brick of his house.

“Dad?” Sarah peered at him from around the doorway, her eyes somehow seeming especially wide.

He sighed.

“Yes, baby girl.”

“You and Aunt Goldie were really in a fight, huh.”

He sighed again, looking at his daughter even though it only made him feel worse. She loved you so much, you were the closest thing she’d ever had to a mother and Joel had fucked that up, too.

“It’s… it’s complicated, baby girl,” he said. “C’mon, let’s go inside, it’s getting late, you should get ready for bed…”

“But,” she huffed. “Dad, it’s Goldie. You can’t just let her leave, she’s family!”

“I know,” he said, a hand on her back as he guided her back inside. “Not gonna just let her go, don’t worry. I just… need to figure out what to do first, OK?”

“Promise you’re not going to just not talk again for years?” She asked, looking up at him. “Because - sorry, Dad - that was bullshit.”

“Hey,” he said. “Language.”

“Dad.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right. It was bullshit.”

He texted you while Sarah got ready for bed but you left him on read and he ground his teeth. He read his daughter a chapter from a book and resisted her begging to have him read another one before tucking her in, thankful that she still wanted him to do this at all.

“Hey Dad?” She said as he went to leave.

“Yes, baby girl?”

“You’re going to talk to her, right?”

He sighed. She sounded so hopeful.

“I’ll fix it,” he said. “Promise. Love you.”

“Love you too,” she said, sounding more relaxed.

He closed the door behind him and went to the living room, pacing for a moment.

I fucking heard you.

He tried to remember the conversation with Ricky all those years ago, not something he’d really thought about in so long.

Other things from that small window of time had dominated Joel’s memory. He remembered trying to find the words to talk to you, trying to come up with a plan for every possible outcome. If you wanted him, too, then he would figure out a way to be there for Tommy and his mom from afar and go with you. If, heaven forbid, you were pregnant, he would do everything to make sure you could still go to school and still be everything you were meant to be while he took care of the rest. If you wanted nothing to do with him… that had been the one scenario he hadn’t come up with a solution for. Of course, that had been the one he’d been left to reckon with.

He remembered how he felt then, how desperate he’d been. But he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said to fucking Ricky, something that had apparently stuck out in your mind so much that you’d moved across the country without a fucking word. He went over it again and again but couldn’t remember it, even though it felt like his fucking life depended on it.

Eventually he tried to call you again but it only rang once before you sent him to voicemail.

He listened to your outgoing message, bright and cheery, flexing his hand again and again as he waited, impatiently, for the beep.

“Goldie,” he said when it finally let him record a message. “Not letting you walk out, I’m gonna keep calling. Just… pick up, baby. Please.”

He hung up and immediately called again. Two rings, then voicemail. He called again.

The fourth time, you finally answered, your voice sharp and harsh.

“What!” You snapped. “What more do you want from me?”

“I want to talk to you,” he said, straining to keep calm. “I don’t know what you mean, I don’t remember what the fuck you’re talking about, I…”

You laughed once, derisively.

“Of course you don’t,” you said. “You wouldn’t, would you? Because I was always just another girl to you, wasn’t I? Why would you remember…”

“No,” he cut you off. “No, that’s not…”

“I need some space, Joel,” you said.

“I’m not losing you again, Goldie,” he said, harsher than he really meant to. “Please, let me just…”

“If you don’t want to lose me then do what I’m asking you to do,” you said. “I need space, OK? I can’t just do this with you, I can’t… just don’t call me or text me or whatever, just give me some time.”

“Goldie…”

“I mean it, Joel,” you said. “I need space.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Fine,” he said. “I…I can do that.”

“Thank you,” you said. “I’ll talk to later.”

“Will you?” He asked, probably rougher than he should have.

“Eventually,” you said. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice thick. “Yeah, OK.”

You hung up and he sighed, sinking onto the couch and cradling his head in his hands for a moment.

He was on the edge of losing you again, he could feel it. He couldn’t let it happen, not this time. He started thinking again, just like he had all those years ago, trying to think up contingency plans and ways to work through this without you leaving but, really, that’s what it always came back to. He’d do anything - he’d never touch you again, he’d tolerate your shitbag husband, he’d watch you live a life he was agonizingly separate from - if it just meant that you stayed.

Joel got himself a drink, which quickly became two and then three, staring at the ceiling, wondering just how long he was supposed to stay away from you this time before he passed out on the couch.

When he woke up the next day, time seemed to crawl. He couldn’t just ignore you. You were in everything, it seemed. Sarah showed him the books you’d gotten her, excited about reading them. He reviewed his business plan again and again, looking at your notes in the margins. He put on a Longhorns t-shirt and remembered you sitting at his kitchen table, building out your syllabus for the year.

Even Tommy noticed a difference when he was at work on Tuesday, seemingly short tempered and impatient.

“You gonna tell me who pissed in your Cheerios or you gonna leave that a mystery?” Tommy asked as they leaned against his truck during a coffee break.

“What do you mean?” Joel frowned, staring down at the paper cup and thinking about how you took your coffee and wondering what was he supposed to do with that knowledge if you were just gone now.

“I mean you’ve been biting people’s heads off all week,” Tommy said. “I mean, you’re always an asshole but you’ve been in rare form man.”

“Tommy…”

“Don’t feed me some bullshit, either,” he interrupted him. “Know you too well for that.”

Joel looked at Tommy for a moment before he sighed and it all came spilling out of him - prom night, what had been happening between the two of you the last few months, the moment in his kitchen, what you’d yelled at him over the weekend, all of it.

“Jesus,” Tommy said when he was done, just blinking at him, dumbfounded. “I… fuck, man. I always thought there was something between you two but… holy shit.”

“I don’t know what the fuck it is she’s talking about,” Joel said. “I talked with Ricky back then but fuck if I can remember what it was about, that was more than a decade ago, what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“I mean… do you know how she feels?” Tommy asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“Yeah,” Joel scoffed. “Yeah, I think she’s made that perfectly fuckin’ clear.”

“Has she?” Tommy said. “Because - and maybe you just didn’t mention it - but I don’t think you actually talked about it. Ever. Not once.”

Joel frowned, looking at the ground, going over everything in his mind.

That couldn’t be right, could it?

It sure seemed like you’d talked about it. Maybe not explicitly, but everything you’d said pointed to you seeing him as a friend. You said you wanted to be with someone you could love and that wasn’t him. The first time he’d slept with you again, you asked him not to call you baby and he’d all but begged you to let him. He’d had to fucking comfort you the morning after the concert, tell you that it didn’t mean anything so you didn’t panic because being with him freaked you out that much. You’d never said it, not in so many words, but you didn’t need to.

“Maybe you should ask her,” Tommy said when Joel had been quiet for too long.

“Tommy,” Joel groaned, rolling his eyes. “I can’t just…”

“Can’t you?” Tommy said. “I mean… shit, man. You already blew it all up, what else you got to lose?”

Tommy’s words were still in Joel’s mind when he left the job site that afternoon, going home to get cleaned up before going to the bank for his business loan appointment.

What did he really have to lose? He could at least tell you how he felt, a thought that made his chest tight but brought a sense of relief, too. He’d been holding this in for so long now. It seemed like loving you had become a part of him, one that he was used to keeping to himself but one he didn’t want to hide anymore.

He’d told himself for years that he’d loved you quietly because it’s what you wanted. You weren’t interested, it was unfair to put his feelings on you. Even when you were a country away and not speaking with him, he found it strangely comforting to know that while it might be because he’d caved to his baser instincts and slept with you, it wasn’t because he’d pushed his feelings on you. He had regrets - he’d have given anything to take back that night if it meant you’d just talk to him again - but at least he knew how he felt about you hadn’t been the thing that had driven you away.

Could it really be possible that not telling you had been the thing that sent you running from him? Had he really wasted years of his life not having you all because he’d been too afraid of actually fucking saying it?

He put on his best clothes - wishing he had a suit for the first time in his life - and took a deep breath, looking at himself in the mirror. It felt like his whole life was riding on this, everything he could have sitting there, just out of reach.

He’d never been worthy of you before. Back when he met you, he was barely passing his classes, going nowhere fast. Doomed to spend his life in his hometown, doing some job to get by while trying to keep his kid brother’s nose clean. He hadn’t gotten much better since, staying in the first job he could get, doing his best to raise the child he’d made by accident, trying to make something of himself as he could. It was nothing compared to you. But if he could manage this, actually do something real and tangible, maybe he’d feel worthwhile.

Joel drummed his hands on the steering wheel as he drove, one of the Taylor Swift songs from the concert he’d gone to with you and Sarah coming on the radio and he remembered looking at you that night, remembered how much he wanted to kiss you in a way that actually meant something. He had to do this. He had to.

His stomach was in knots as he sat in the bank waiting room, one foot bouncing as he tried not to crinkle his presentation and application in his hands. He wished you were here. Why was he doing this on his own? What made him think he was even fucking capable of this without you?

After what felt like a small eternity, a woman named Audrey brought him back to her office and Joel took a deep breath before walking her through his business plan.

His heart was pounding the entire time and there was something perverse about talking through a future that you weren’t somehow a part of. He walked Audrey through the financial plans, what the next five years would look like and there was the nagging thought at the back of his mind that he should have talked with you about all of this. How money would be tight for a while, how he’d be extra busy, how much he appreciated the way you’d supported him through all of this so far. He never could have done this without you pushing him, encouraging him, helping him navigate the business world. It felt like your success, too, when Audrey set his presentation down on her desk, nodding.

“Well, Joel,” she said, looking at him with a smile. “I think we have everything we need. Congratulations, you’re getting your loan!”

Joel just laughed for a second, looking next to him quickly before remembering that you weren’t by his side.

“Thank you,” he said. “This is… thank you very much.”

“Looking forward to doing business with you,” she smiled. “Give me just a minute and I’ll be back with some papers so we can get things going.”

Joel took his phone out and stared at his text message conversation with you, the last thing he sent still “I’m sorry.” He wanted to tell you that he’d done it. He was a business owner, he was going to be something, he was becoming someone that Sarah was going to be proud of and it was all because you’d come back into his life. You were who he wanted to share this with and he couldn’t.

Audrey gave him the paperwork and he went through it page by page, more than a little reminded of when he got his mortgage and felt like he was signing his life away but with more optimism about his future this time.

About halfway through the paperwork, though, the pen started skipping. He tried wetting the tip of it, scratching on a corner of the paper but he couldn’t get it to write smoothly again.

“Do you got another one of these?” Joel asked, holding the pen up. “Can’t get it to work…”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that,” Audrey said, looking around her desk, including at an empty pen cup. “Let me just…”

She opened a desk drawer and took a few things out, piling things on her desk - a purse, water bottle, a book.

Joel cocked his head at the book, the spine of it familiar. So familiar that he couldn’t help but laugh. Of course you’d be here, too.

“What?” She asked as she found a plain, white box and pulled out a handful of pens with the bank’s logo on the side. She dropped them into the pen cup and held one out to Joel.

“Oh, nothin’,” he said, taking the pen and nodding at the novel. “Just… my friend, she wrote that book. Funny seeing someone read it.”

“Wait, really?” She asked, her face lighting up as she held up your book. “You know who wrote this?”

“Yeah,” Joel nodded. “Yeah, she’s my best friend, known her since we were 15. She’s… she’s amazing. She teaches now, over at UT.”

Audrey set the book down, leaning over the desk with her arms folded in front of her like she was going to tell Joel some kind of secret.

“OK can I ask something?” She asked. “Sorry, this is probably hugely unprofessional but I am obsessed with this book, I can’t put it down and my book club is going crazy. Is any of it true? The falling in love and things ending like that? It seems like it has to be at least somewhat based on her life, I don’t see how someone could write this without knowing it, you know?”

“Oh, uh,” Joel cupped the back of his neck awkwardly. “I actually… haven’t read it?”

“Oh,” she said, sitting back a little, looking let down.

“Sorry,” Joel said. “I’ve tried and I know it’ll be amazing but it’s just too weird for me…”

“No, I’m sorry,” she laughed a little. “I overstepped, I shouldn’t have assumed…”

“I should read it,” Joel said quickly. “I got it at home, maybe I’ll give it another go now.”

“You should,” Audrey said. “It’s really, really good.”

The new pen worked and Joel finished the paperwork, staring at his signature on the last page a little too long. He handed the pen and papers back to Audrey.

“You can keep the pen,” she smiled, taking the pages. “Let me make copies of these for your records but otherwise, congratulations, owner of Miller Brothers Construction and Contracting!”

Joel had a bubble of pride in his chest as he drove home, one that seemed too big to keep contained and, against his better judgement, he called you.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he expected, if he thought you were going to send him to voicemail, if you were going to answer and let him actually say something to you or what.

What he didn’t expect was Gale.

“Hello?”

Joel just blinked for a second, recognizing the man’s pompous voice even from just the one word.

“Is this Joel?” Gale - fucking BRAD - said. He took his silence as a yes and laughed. “Was wondering if I’d hear from you. Don’t worry, she’s with me, back where she belongs. Thanks for looking after her while I was gone, though. Appreciate it.”

“Lemme talk to her,” Joel said through clenched teeth.

“I don’t see why that’s necessary,” he said. “Seems like she doesn’t want much to do with you these days. Think you blew it. Thanks for that, too, by the way.”

“We’re just…”

“You’re just nothing,” Gale cut him off. “You were nothing but a childish distraction for her. She went running back here when things got hard - which I take my part of the blame for - and she needed a project to keep herself busy but she doesn’t need you anymore. So go back to the little life you’re meant for and leave us be. She was always too much for you and this place, anyway.”

“No,” Joel said sharply. “No, you put her on the phone, put her on the phone right now!”

“Can’t do that,” Gale said. “But I’ll tell her you called. Take care.”

The line went dead and Joel threw his phone against the dash so hard the screen cracked.

“Fuck!” He yelled, smacking his hands against the steering wheel. He wasn’t going to lose you, not again, not like this.

He ignored Gale. Instead, he drove to your house, pounding sharply on the door, panting for breath as he did but you never answered.

So he went to Anna’s next. He only needed to knock for a minute before she opened the door, Ellie’s beaming, chubby face happy in her arms.

“Hey Joel,” Anna smiled at him. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! Here to see this one?”

Ellie squirmed in Anna’s arms, cooing and reaching for Joel and he laughed once, he couldn’t help it, before holding his arms out for her. Anna handed him her daughter and Ellie giggled, immediately reaching to tangle her tiny fingers in his curls. He smiled at her for a moment, marveling at the little girl who’d brought you and him together in the way it felt like you were always meant to be.

“Is she here?” Joel asked, bouncing a little with Ellie, watching her smile, her little body a grounding force that eased his racing heart.

“Oh,” Anna frowned, her eyebrows knitting together. “No, sorry, she’s not here too often anymore, just a few times a week… She moved back home, I thought you knew that?”

“No, I did,” Joel said quickly, looking to Anna and offering a finger to Ellie for her to gum at. “She just… wasn’t there, tried callin’ her but…”

“Oh,” Anna pulled her phone out, looking at the time. “She might still be at the school, I can call her for you…”

“No,” Joel said quickly, not wanting to get your sister involved in the mess of whatever the fuck was going on between the two of you. “Don’t… Don’t worry about it, sure I’ll talk to her eventually.”

“OK,” Anna said, still frowning. “Look… It’s not my business but… Is there something going on with you two?”

Joel just looked at Anna for a moment, wondering if he should tell her, too, because fuck it, why not just let the whole world know how much he’d fucked up with you.

But she beat him to it, going from a frown to an absolutely glowing smile in no time at all.

“Oh my God.”

“What?” He asked, adjusting his hold on Ellie.

“You love her!” She sounded practically giddy. “Oh my GOD I knew it! You LOVE her! Have you told her? Does she know? Oh my GOD, JOEL!”

“I… I haven’t exactly said it,” Joel said, his cheeks getting hot. “I don’t want to make it her problem, I don’t want to get in the way of her being happy, I just… I want to be there for it.”

Anna just looked at him for a moment before shaking her head a little.

“Is… Is she happy with him?” Joel asked, watching your sister closely. “Is he what she wants? I didn’t know her when they were really together, I just… it seems like he holds her back and that he’s bad for her and…”

“Joel, did you read her book?” Anna cut him off.

He frowned.

“What? What does that…”

“You wanted to know if he’s what she wants,” Anna said. “She’s never going to actually say it, you know that. At least not to you or to me, she’s always going to try to seem like she’s OK and handle it herself until she can’t and even then she’s not going to actually fucking say it, Joel, but she will write it. She always writes it. Read the book, Joel.”

He gave Ellie back to Anna and went home, trying to focus as he made Sarah dinner and helped her with her homework.

Read the book. Just read the fucking book. Was that all it would take? Could he even do that? If fucking Brad really was what you wanted, could he really sit and read hundreds of pages about how much better your life had been when he wasn’t in it?

He’d never been able to manage it and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to know you through your words and it wasn’t because he didn’t like your writing. It was because he didn’t know if he could stomach reading something you wrote while you were in love with someone else.

But… Anna was right. He knew that. If he wanted to know the truth of any of it, he’d have to read it. So, after he tucked Sarah into bed, he sat on the floor, staring at the box in his closet that held the two copies of your book like it was daring him to actually confront his feelings for a change. Because that had always worked out so well for him in the past, not like every fucking time he’d resolved to actually talk to you he hadn’t found you loving someone else.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, opening the box and pulling out the books. This time, though, he picked the signed copy, the one he’d never tried to read before. There was something different about holding this copy, knowing that you had once, too. He ran his hands over the cover and the spine reverently for a moment before he leaned his back against the wall of the closet and opened the book.

Joel had to force himself to read past the first few paragraphs, his stomach in knots the entire time, but, after a while, he fell into it - to the point that he almost forgot that he was reading your book.

He’d known, from what little he’d managed to read in the past, that the book started in Austin, he just hadn’t expected the story to linger there.

But it did, the narrative following a girl named Cressida. She started out as a quiet, introspective high schooler who had become unlikely friends with a football player named Eli, a friendship that felt so like his with yours. They knew each other, understood each other, their worlds seem to revolve around each other. It seemed natural that it led to them sleeping together. But instead of the immediate implosion that had ended your relationship in real life, theirs devolved over time. Cressida came back to him again and again, the two of them winding up loosely connected every time a relationship of Eli’s fizzled out, her clinging to a heart wrenching longing that hurt to read, one that her friend seemed shockingly oblivious to.

Eventually, though, things came crashing down. This was different too, though, because it ended not with her vanishing but him, a car accident claiming Eli’s life when Cressida had finally resolved to tell him how she felt. They buried him in a sunny corner of the graveyard just before graduation and Cressida, it seemed, never really moved past it.

The other three-quarters of the book followed her as she tried – desperately, devastatingly – to live again, to get over the love she’d never really had to begin with, to find some place to root herself outside of that sun-drenched grave in her hometown.

She never really managed it, the ending almost painfully unsatisfying but feeling true. She’d become something – Cressida delving into the business world instead of the creative one as you had – and she found success away from home but her mind kept going back to that place and that person. She’d had relationships but, when her last boyfriend had proposed, she couldn’t bring herself to say yes. It had felt like a lie, to tell someone she would love him above all others when she’d never love him more than the memory of the boy who had been gone for years. He’d died at the worst time, the part of her life that would always be on a pedestal no matter what she did. Nothing and no one would ever compare and she was stuck, still going back to him again and again even though he was cold in the ground.

The last chapter closed with her bringing home a man who reminded her of her friend, something charming about him that took her back to that brighter place for a while. But when he fell asleep next to her, she had to confront that hollow feeling in her chest. In the last moment of the story, she bought a plane ticket to go back to that sunny grave site, something about the calm that fell over her when she decided to go back making it seem like that grave was her resting place, too.

Joel just stared at the book when he read the final words, the last pages flopping over, revealing your picture on the inside flap of the dust jacket. That knowing smile and piercing gaze gutted him then, no longer the taunt and temptation of knowledge they had once been.

Was Anna right, was this the truth of it? Did you write out your real feelings? Had he really gotten everything this fucking wrong? Had he really spent years wishing things with you were different when they’d been different all along?

He got out his phone and ignored the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning and called you. You didn’t answer. It didn’t even go to voicemail, the phone ringing once before he got some message saying the number was unavailable.

“Fuck,” he sighed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. He wasn’t positive but, based on his experience trying to track down Sarah’s mom years ago, that meant you’d blocked his number. It’d be just his fucking luck that he thought - hoped? - that, maybe, you felt the way he did at the same time he lost you for good.

He sat there with his eyes closed in the glow of his closet light, next to the box made up of the history of you, trying to pick through his memory from all those years ago, searching for some sort of guarantee that the book was based on what happened between the two of you back then.

At some point, when he was swallowed by his memory of you, he fell asleep. Maybe it was the book, maybe it was the fact that he’d been sifting through ancient history when exhaustion finally caught up with him, maybe it was your words still ringing in his ears, but he remembered then.

In his dream, he was back under the bleachers with Ricky, pacing to work out his nerves. He talked to his friend - the one who was more experienced, the one who wasn’t reckless, the one who would understand exactly why he was so afraid of what he might have just done to you.

But, most importantly, he remembered exactly how that conversation had ended.

It’s Goldie. I wish it were anyone else. It’d be better if it were anyone else.

“Dad!”

Joel jerked awake, the book still open in his hands, your signature there for him to see.

I fucking heard you.

Sarah pounded on his bedroom door again.

“Dad, come on!” She yelled. “I’m gonna be late!”

“Shit,” he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and checked the time before calling to his daughter. “Two minutes, baby girl!”

He got up as quickly as he could, his legs tingling from his awkward sleeping position on the floor of the fucking closet.

Joel got changed quickly, barely paying attention to what he was putting on.

He’d had the answers sitting there for years, he’d just been too afraid to look it in the face but he had and now he knew. He knew how you felt - how you must have felt, why else would his misunderstood words have driven you away? - he knew how much time he’d already fucking wasted by being a coward, he knew it all now.

He just didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.

Joel got Sarah out the door quickly, barely paying attention on his drive to the school. He couldn’t just give up. He already refused to lose you, not again, but now it would be impossible. You were so close, everything he’d ever wanted there in front of him but just out of reach. Even if you’d moved on now, even if you were happier with fucking Brad, he had to tell you. He owed both of you that much.

“Bye Dad!” Sarah poked her head between the two front seats and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“What was that for?” He frowned, turning to look at her.

She just shrugged and smiled.

“Just seemed like you needed it,” she said. “Love you!”

“Love you too!” He called after her as she hopped down from the truck and slammed the door behind her with a little too much force, waving behind her as she ran to the building.

“Alright,” he took a deep breath, looking at the clock on his dashboard. Just after 8 a.m. He’d start at your place because he wasn’t sure what time you went to campus this semester. But he was going to talk to you. He was going to talk to you and he was going to tell you how he felt and he was going to do it today. “I’m comin’, Goldie.”

You weren’t at your place when he got there. He tried not to think about if it was because you’d spent the night with fucking Brad, if you’d gone to his hotel and had never even been here. Instead, he went to campus. He wasn’t sure where you’d be teaching right now but he was pretty sure you wouldn’t be in your office. You always had morning classes with a break in the afternoon.

“Excuse me,” he said to a random passing college student. “I’m lookin’ for… shit, probably creative writing? Or literature? What buildings are those?”

“Oh, um,” the girl looked around quickly. “I’m a physics major but I know I had an English class in that building over there last semester? You could start there?”

She pointed to a building in the distance and Joel kept his groan to himself. He forgot how fucking huge college campuses were.

But he couldn’t just sit and wait. He needed to find you and he needed to do it now.

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a wave and already starting to jog for the building. “Appreciate it!”

But you didn’t have a class in that building. At least not at that time of day. He knew because he looked in all the lecture halls. You weren’t there.

He tried two other buildings after asking for directions - no luck - before checking his watch. If your schedule was anything like it had been the semesters before, you’d be in your office soon. That, at least, he knew how to find.

He jogged there, resisting the urge to run because that would probably make him look utterly insane, and threw his arm out to catch the elevator on its way up.

“Floor 10, please,” he said to one of the college girls looking at him funny as he panted for breath. She did as he asked, though, and he marveled, for a moment, at just how fucking young college kids seemed to him now.

He closed his eyes and focused for a second, trying to figure out exactly what to say to you, but hearing your name pulled him out of his head.

“I don’t think they’re still like… together together, though,” the girl who’d pushed the button said. “Like I know they were married but she said he was visiting. He’d live here if they were married, right? Besides, I really don’t think her husband would be asking for my number with his wife there, would he?”

“I dunno,” the other girl shrugged. “He’s just… isn’t he old? Like old old, not hot old.”

“I like them old,” the first girl giggled. “They know what they’re doing then.”

The elevator chimed and the girls got off and Joel’s heart was beating so hard he could feel the blood in his body. You’d brought fucking Brad here and he’d hit on one of your fucking students - one who looked so young Joel never would have looked twice at her if he saw her on the street. Right in front of you, from the sounds of it. That’s who you’d chosen, that’s who you’d felt like you deserved because he hadn’t opened his fucking mouth years earlier.

When the elevator made it to floor 10, he squeezed out of the doors, not willing to wait for them to open all the way, and ran to your office.

“Excuse me,” the girl behind the front desk said as he went past her. “You can’t just…”

“It’s fine,” he said, catching the door as someone came out of the hall where your office was.

“No, wait!” She called after him but he ignored her.

He ducked around other professors, dodging them and their questions until he was at your door.

It was closed but he didn’t bother to knock, throwing the door open to find you there, standing in front of your desk in the arms of your fucking husband as he kissed you.

Joel moved so fast that neither you nor Gale had noticed he was there but he couldn’t just stand there and watch that fucking guy kiss you, not like that.

Without really thinking about it, he ripped him away from you, just catching a glimpse of the shock on your face as he punched Gale in the head, sending him sprawling into your desk.

“Joel!” You yelled before grabbing his arm and pulling him back before he could hit your goddamn husband again. “What the fuck are you doing!”

“Sorry, baby,” he said, shaking the feel of the punch out of his hand, his knuckles raw. “I couldn’t just watch that fucking guy touch you like that.”

“Well, it’s really not your business how he touches me!” You snapped, shoving him back. “You don’t get to just come in here and hit people because you’re not getting your way anymore!”

“That ain’t what this is,” he said, taking you by the shoulders, something grounding in the fact that could feel you again. “Baby, I read your book…”

“Congratulations!” You snapped. “What, do you want a cookie because you finally got around to supporting me?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Did you mean that? What you wrote, was that…”

“What does it matter!” You asked, your eyes searching his face. “Why do you care! It’s ancient history, it doesn’t…”

“It does matter!” He held you tight, wanting to kiss you more than he ever had before. “It matters because I love you, I love you so much, I’ve loved you since we were fucking kids, I love you so much that I think it might kill me if you don’t let me just say that to you at least this once and if you feel that way, too…”

“You need to leave,” Gale - who Joel had all but forgotten about - said, trying to position himself between you and Joel. “And take your hands off my wife.”

“Oh I haven’t even fuckin’ started with you,” Joel said, rounding on him. “You’re a fucking predator, chasing after her fuckin’ students while you’re here with her? Doing with them what you did with her, that it? Lucky I don’t beat the shit out of you…”

“Joel, I…” you began, but you didn’t get the chance to finish, Gale pulling you back from Joel and going to hit him.

Joel didn’t give him the chance, shoving him away from you before punching him again. Gale fell, landing on your desk again with a sharp crack.

“Joel!” You yelled.

He didn’t get a chance to respond. Instead, he got pulled back, security guards dragging him into the hall and away from you before he knew if he had a shot at really having you for the first time in his life.

A/N: FUCK YOU GALE!

Sorry, I've been picturing that moment since I first thought up the fic. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Taglist: @kaseyconnour

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #halcyon #joel miller x oc

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museofreverie · 1 month ago

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𝐖𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐦. Eren Jaeger

Pairing: Modern Fem!Reader x Eren Jaeger┊ONGOING ┊Written in 2nd POV

In which a chronically online Gen Z that went through the pandemic goes to the Attack on Titan Universe and tries her very best to change the ending with an "I can fix him" mentality.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Archive of Our Own ┊ Wattpad

┈➤ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒

When the world is thrown into chaos and safety protocols become the new normal, you must confront the fact that continuing your lifelong dreams of becoming a dancer may no longer be possible after experiencing the loss of a beloved someone due to the pandemic. However, there is always a possibility of finding small joy even in times of despair: the freedom to do whatever you want during quarantine. And perhaps this includes being addicted to the Attack on Titan series. But when an action of yours triggers a phenomenon, you find yourself transported to a familiar world where man-eating titans exist, with the threat of war looming between countries ━ all of a sudden, fiction becomes reality and things take a drastic turn as you encounter your beloved characters. As the stakes become increasingly high with your knowledge about the future, you must learn how to confront your fears, face the consequences of your choices, and with the goal to change the course of history and stop the gruesome fate of many by helping Eren Jaeger discover the true meaning of freedom at all cost.

┈➤ 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒

𝟎𝟎𝟎┊Prologue 𝟎𝟎┊From You, 2000 Years Ago 𝟎𝟏┊The Girl Who Knew 𝟎𝟐┊Iced Coffee and Anxieties 𝟎𝟑┊Some Words of Wisdom 𝟎𝟒┊Just a Very Long Dream 𝟎𝟓┊Under The Tree 𝟎𝟔┊Dépaysement 𝟎𝟕┊Held Captive 𝟎𝟖┊Rot Girl Summer [ONGOING]

┈➤ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

Heavy Spoilers, Manga Spoilers, Slow Burn, Long Chapters, Attempt at Humor, Heavy Cursing, Mommy Issues, Blood and Gore, Anxiety Attacks, Grief, Violence, PTSD, Trauma, Mention of food restrictions, Body Dysmorphia, Period-Typical Discrimination, Fascism, Gaslighting, Slavery, Mental Illness, War Crimes, Racism, Death

┈➤ 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄

Hello, everyone! I finally decided to post this Eren fic here on tumblr to have more engagement to it. Yes, it's an isekai fic and yes, we will embrace the cringe! The AOT brainrot will not end that's why I wrote this because Eren deserves a happy ending---but before that, please bear with me because this is a slow burn fic. I didn't want this fic just to focus on romance and make Y/N a mary sue---I want her, you, be written as human as possible. This fic will talk about loss, grief, moral dilemmas, psychological trauma and many more along the way. Also, if you don't mind, there will be a LOT of pop culture references. (If you don't like reading those, then it's fine. You are free to exit this fic.) I hope you'll enjoy this ride! feel free to also comment down your thoughts since I love reading comments <3 lots of love!

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cdragons · 11 months ago

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Bound by Embroidered Chains - Aemond Targaryen x Seamstress!OC x Jacaerys Velaryon - Chapter One

Prologue

Summary: Dragons have a habit in hoarding the prettiest of jewels, and pearls are of no exceptions.

Warnings- MDNI 18+ Obsessive Behavior (we all knew this was coming), tiny!Aemond is delulu, tiny!Jace is delulu, Dark Themes, not betaread we burn like Harrenhal, etc. Also translations for Valyrian will be added at the bottom! Also I used an online translator for the High Valyrian, so it may not be great 🫠

Author's Note: Hello everyone! Thank you all so much for the amazing support for this story's prologue, I did NOT expect so many positive reviews! I'm sorry this took so long, but I had a ton of applications and finals. But since I am on winter break, hopefully I will be able to upload more fics! Happy Holidays and big shoutout to @valeskafics, who continues to be the HOTD fanfic writing ICON that we all know and love! If you liked reading this work, reblog and comment if you want to be tagged in future installments of this work! Also I apologize for any grammatical errors, I wanted to post this as soon as possible.

You have known your entire life that you were going to be one of the many seamstresses that serviced the Royal Family.

By the age of three, your mother would teach you how to begin your very first stitches, which soon shifted to learning the most complicated patterns of embroidery. You still remember the tears in her eyes as you presented the silk-woven handkerchief that had lovely little purple and blue flowers embroidered on the borders for her birthday. Your face flushed to an almost too bright red when she insisted on showing all the other royal seamstresses and tailors your first handkerchief. But it made you smile in remembering how big her smile was that week, as she was so pleased by how much you’ve progressed at such a young age.

When you were only six, your mother had begun to teach you how to properly extract the dye from beautiful flowers and the scales of brightly-colored insects. So skilled and nimble were your fingers that you even gave your childhood playmate, Aemond Targaryen, a thick green wool cloak with green and silver dragon embroidery. The cloak’s wool had been dyed by your hand with copious amounts of goldenrod and indigo flowers. You then carefully stitched silk to line the inside of the cloak to prevent him from overheating, as even the harshest winters in the Crownlands were hardly anything compared to the summers in the North. It had caught you off-guard in the almost too-tight embrace he locked you in, but you eagerly reciprocated as you could tell he appreciated the gift more than words could describe.

It was not just a gift for is name-day from a childhood companion, but also a way to reassure him that he will one day have a dragon. And even if the gods do not grant him worthy in their eyes, he would always be considered a prince worthy of the Targaryen name in yours. After all, there were not many princes that would willingly spend all their free time with a lowly seamstress’ daughter – even if the supposed seamstress that was your mother was so heavily favored by the Queen.

“Pearl,” came a voice with a tone far too serious despite its youth, “what are you doing in the Godswood?”

You lifted your head from old tome you were studying, only to see a young boy of only nine name-days, that stood as straight as one of the stone pillars that stood in the Sept of Baelor. His white locks nearly blinded you with how the sunshine seemed to reflect on them.

“Well my prince, as you can clearly see, I have decided to take advantage of this fine day to do a bit of studying of my own.” You lifted the near ancient tome on your lap to show him the title, Myths and Legends of the Jade Seas.

Whatever outwardly beauty the book possessed had long diminished, the spine was bent from the hundreds of hours spent looking through its contents and the letters were near faded to a dull grey as the pages yellowed from age. But the colors of the ink remained as vibrant as when they were first painted on the frail sheets, accompanied by beautiful imagery of magical dragons and elusive mermaids. The details were so fine and intricate that it felt as if you only needed to touch the ink in order to be transported into the stories. You remembered how you begged either your mother or father to read it to you every night, as utterly transfixed by the colors back then as you remained so now.

“You are more than welcome to join me, but if – and only if – you share one of those apples hiding in your knapsack.”

Finally showing an expression appropriate for his age, the young prince reached in his pouch to show two gorgeous apples – the skin was practically gleaming in the sun as your mouth watered for its taste. Aemond handed one to you as he sat by your side underneath the plentiful shade of the heart tree. Scooting over to make room on the overgrown root you sat on, you eagerly showed him strange text.

“Look Aemond!” you exclaimed as you shoved the book to his nose. “This book says that there were dragons in Yi Ti! Isn’t that amazing?”

Aemond looked at you as if you had suddenly grown two heads and five eyes. “How can there be dragons in Yi Ti? All the dragons save the ones in the dragonpit and the rocky shores of Dragonstone had perished in The Doom that sunk Valyria. Everyone knows that pearl.”

“These dragons are different! According to my kepa, Yi Ti dragons don’t even need wings to fly!”

The young prince rolled his eyes at that. “How could they fly if they don’t have wings? Even Carraxes the Blood Wrym has wings, and he looks like an overgrown red snake.” Honestly, his pearl could be so silly. “Besides, what would your father know? He’s a bastard from the Iron Islands, that’s nowhere near the Jade Seas.”

Now it was your turn to roll your eyes. “He heard so on his travels with Lord Velaryon and Prince Laenor! Apparently, these dragons use magic and live in the ocean. And they don’t even breathe fire! They make it rain and control the oceans!”

“…Pearl, I think you’ve been spending too much time making those dyes. The fumes must have gotten to your head.”

You openly gaped at your friend’s comment, completely in shock for how blatantly he dismissed you. It made you want to pound your fists on his person until he took it back. So naturally, you did just that.

“Aemond Targaryen, you take that back right now!” you shrieked. Although your actions told otherwise, the smile on your face showed that you took no true offense to his words. If anything, it pleased you to know that you could still make the stone-faced prince giggle as a boy should at his age.

“Never!”

As the two of you giggled and played, several pairs of wandering eyes spied and grimaced at the distasteful display. Although your friendship with the next generation of the royal family was no secret, much of the court disapproved of how highly the royal family thought of you and Prince Aemond’s friendship. After all, he was the second born prince of House Targaryen, born of King Viserys and Queen Alicent. By the time the Targaryen prince could toddle, great things were expected from him. From a very early age, he immersed himself in his studies befitting of a prince of Westeros. You, on the other hand, were only the daughter of a seamstress and a bastard knight who became a lord of a holding so minor that it had no name. You only skills were that you could make pretty dye, and stitch pretty pictures with a needle and thread.

But he always treated you kindly and defended you whenever his eldest brother decided to use you as his latest target for mockery. You were a precious pearl – his precious pearl – Aegon may be his brother, but he could never love Aegon as much as he loved you. True, your father being a bastard did you no favors in the Red Keep’s court, but Aemond would never tell you that himself. Instead, he openly acknowledged his bravery and commended his loyalty to the Crown. After all, how many bastards can boast that they saved the Lord Corlys Velaryon, holder of the Driftwood Throne, from a siege of pirates during one of the lord’s many voyages to Essos?

In turn, you always made sure to provide comfort and support whenever his brother and nephews decided to pick on him. Without fail, he would seek out your company – his eyes red and puffy, while his cheeks were wet from hastily wiped tears. You would take his hands and the two of you would venture out to the library’s more secluded sections. You made sure to pack whatever you have been working on with you. While you were glad that he came to you for comfort, it would do little good for either of you if you were to be punished for not completing whatever tasks your mother assigned you.

“Who cares if you don’t have a dragon?” you once asked him as the two of you laid next to each other, surrounded by books. “There are plenty members of the Targaryen line that did not have dragons, but they still lived out important lives in serving their family however they could. King Jaehaerys was considered a great ruler for how he served the realm– not for riding Vermithor. And even if you had a dragon, is that all you wish to be known for? Your grandfather, Baelon the Brave, was wise and beloved by the small folk for how he tried to make their lives easier. But all he is known for in history books is how he burned down Dorne with Vhagar.”

“Better to be known for a dragon than to disappear, not being known for anything – not even a dragon worthy of the Targaryen name.”

Sitting up against a bookshelf, you repositioned Aemond to lie his head on your thighs. Luckily the candlelight made the area dark enough so that you wouldn’t see his ears turning red. Instead, he buried his face in the soft cotton of your blue tunic as you stroked his soft silver white locks. Although his heart was beating erratically, your sweet scent along with your body’s suppleness was enough to take away any ire left in him.

“Stop that,” you ordered, “you will not be forgotten, don’t be so dramatic.” Eyes softening at his tense shoulders, you eased on the sternness of your tone. “Nyke pendagon iksā brilliant. Eman dōrī rhēdan anyone else qilōni kostagon ȳdragon Valyrio Eglie hae sȳrī hae ao. Kostā solve problems bona aegon ēza trouble lēda during aōha lessons lēda se Giēñatī. Aemond, iksā ñuha sȳrje raqiros. Gaomagon daor ivestragon kesā sagon daor rūnas.”

You pretended not to notice how tightly he clenched your dress as you ignored the how warm the spot where his hot tears grew.

As you continued to stroke his hair, Aemond made a silent vow that when he finally claimed a dragon, you would be the first person he would ride it with. He thought about how his bastard nephews would always try to take you from him, especially Jace, how he despised that boy. No, your touches would belong to him, and only him. Your sweet words and kind demeanor were his to cherish. You were his pearl – his pearl – and no one else’s, especially not the pretend Targaryen that was Jacaerys Strong.

Yes, it pleased Aemond to know that he was your best friend. But sometimes it frustrated him in how you refused to take him seriously as a man. For example, he once announced that when he claimed his dragon, he would finally be a noble dragon knight who would protect you from the most vicious of beasts. No matter how he insisted on his sincerity, you only rolled your eyes at the proclamation. You told him that you had no need for a knight, let alone a dragon knight. You had your dearest kepa for protection, and there was no finer knight in all the Seven Kingdoms in your eyes. So silly was his pearl indeed.

“Ashi’!” a new voice called out, interrupting the comfortable silence between him and his pearl. It belonged to the king’s eldest grandson, Prince Jacaerys Strong Velaryon, heir to the Iron Throne after his mother, Princess Rhaenyra. “Your mother is looking for you! She said that she needs your help with Mother’s clothes!”

“Alright!” When you stood from you spot, you made sure to brush away any dirt or debris left on your skirts. You gathered your mother’s book in both arms when you made your way to the prince. “But why did my muña not send one of her attendants instead? It would not have been difficult to find me. Everyone knows that I enjoy reading under the Hearts Tree in the Godswood during my spare time. Are you not busy with your own duties, my prince?”

Straightening his posture to appear taller, Jace did his best to sound as authoritative as his father had taught him. “I just finished my lessons for the morning, and I volunteered to escort you. Besides, I figured that it would do me some good in practicing escorting you. I’ll need to do it in the future when I am king after my mother.” His round freckled cheeks reddened to a rosy hue at that last part.

Not at all catching the terribly obvious implication, you shrugged off his words as you figured that he meant that he was using you as practice for whichever future noble lady he would court in the future. However, the suggestion was not at all lost on your friend, who was still sitting on the overgrown root, glaring at his eldest nephew with a fury that rivaled the Great Doom that sunk Valyria.

“Well, we should be on our way then. Come on Aemond, we should get going!” You held out your held for your friend to hold on to, but were quickly interrupted by the brown-haired Targaryen at the side.

“He can’t! I mean-” stammered Jace as did his best in thinking of an excuse, “-I’m afraid my uncle cannot join us. You see, um – his mother, the Queen, requested his presence in her solar.”

“I’m sure my mother won’t mind waiting for a few moments while I join you in escorting my pearl to her favorite friend, nephew.” This wasn’t a lie on Aemond’s part. While he didn’t like the idea in keeping his mother waiting for him, he despised the thought of you being alone with the Strong Knight’s eldest bastard even more. Besides, his mother adored you as if you were her own daughter. It would have gone without saying that she would be happy with her son spending time with her best friend’s daughter.

“But why would you want to risk it, uncle?” Jacaerys wasn’t going to let his selfish uncle hog all of your attention. You were his friend too! It wasn’t fair that he had find crumbs of your time and affections, while his uncle got to feast on your smiles and laughter. He had spent hours with the dragon keepers of the dragonpit to help him train Vermax, all so that he could finally show you how close he was in riding him! But you were always too busy comforting his stupid dragonless uncle!

Enough was enough. Jacaerys may have been a Velaryon like his father, but he was also a Targaryen like his mother. It was he who carried the dragon’s blood, and dragons took what they desired or felt what they deserved. And he desrved to be with you more than Aemond.

“It’s alright Aemond, we’ll talk more later! Let’s go Jace, we shouldn’t keep our mothers waiting any more than we have.” Grabbing his hand before walking out of the gardens, you weren’t able to see the younger prince throw a triumphant smirk to his uncle before once more facing you with the story of how Luke accidentally got egg in his hair.

Watching his literal bastard of a nephew walk hand-in-hand away with his pearl, Aemond Targaryen felt his fury grow more potent with each step. He hated that you called his nephew by his nickname, all while he had none. What’s worse was the fact that you allowed him to refer to you as “Ashi.” What a ridiculous name, only a lowborn such as his nephew would refer to someone as precious as you as something as study and simple like “Ashi.” You were a pearl – his pearl, in fact. A fact that he felt was important to emphasize as he watched your head being thrown back in laughter. His anger grew to an all-time high when he watched you ruffle Jacaery’s hair with abundant affection.

Not wanting to make a scene, he walked to his mother’s chambers in fuming silence. While her presence wasn’t yours, maybe he could think of a plan to get you away from his whore of a sister and her illegitimate offspring.

If worse comes to worst, he might need to recruit his sister to his cause. He knew that Helaena would especially be thrilled in receiving your presence. You were the only one besides your parents that did not treat his beloved sister like an oddity. If you were not with Aemond, you were often found stitching with the young princess. It seemed that you were the only person in the entire world that could get her to smile.

Such a sweet girl, his pearl. Someone so kind was not meant to endure the presence of lowly bastards – even if they did technically carry royal blood.

He needed to come up with something fast.

Translations:

“Nyke pendagon iksā brilliant. Eman dōrī rhēdan anyone else qilōni kostagon ȳdragon Valyrio Eglie hae sȳrī hae ao. Kostā solve problems bona aegon ēza trouble lēda during aōha lessons lēda se Giēñatī. Aemond, iksā ñuha sȳrje raqiros. Gaomagon daor ivestragon kesā sagon daor rūnas.” - “You’re brilliant. I’ve never met anyone else who can speak such fluent High Valyrian, especially at your age. You can solve problems that Aegon has trouble with during your lessons with the Maester. Aemond, you are my best friend. Don’t say that you will be forgotten.”

Tagging:

@valeskafics, @faesspace, @aphroditesmoon, @dreaming-for-an-escape, @nellychick, @asa-do-your-thing, @arcielee, @bellamys-girl1, @immyowndefender, @xxlovingfandomsxx, @elinedjarin, @meg-egg-blog, @marvelescape, @mandiiblanche, @lokiofasgard12, @boxedpandas, @anewpersonthatexists, @toodlesxcuddles, @mckiquinn, @cvspians, @aemondslove

#house of the dragon #hotd #hotd au #house of the dragon x you #house of the dragon fic #house of the dragon x reader #house of the dragon x oc #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jacaerys velaryon x oc #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x oc #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys x oc #aemond x reader #aemond x oc #reader insert

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cherri-balms · 9 months ago

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♡﹕𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓, 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓! — PROLOGUE

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။ ၊|• 0:00

↻ PREV ◁ || ▷ NEXT ↺

A/N﹕YAY I FINALLY FINISHED THE PROLOGUE FOR MY FIRST SERIES!

This is the first full fledged fanfic I have written in a long time, I hope anyone who finds this finds it enjoyable, I had a fun time writing this prologue chapter and I currently have around a 10-12 chapter vision for this series as it stands, but if this proves to be something you guys like I will be happy to extend the series! I do plan to create a tag list, if you would like to be added shoot me a DM and I will add you to the list! As always any replies will be made through our main acc @caravan-mad!

This prologue pretty much gives most if not all the information about the reader aside from important plot details. I wanted the reader's demon form and time period to be as ambiguous as possible and limit the use of Y/N, the reader in this story has allegories to butterflies.

Not all chapters will have warnings nor does this one, however the full fic will contain dark content and will be under the dead dove do not eat tag.

Some content will include but are not limited to: Unhealthy relationship dynamics, N.SFW, Unrequited love, Yandere themes, Dubcon, and pretty much any tag youd find listed in Hazbin Hotel tbh

𝐄 × 𝐌/𝐅 × 𝟐.𝟔𝐤 × 𝐎𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 × 𝐀𝐎𝟑

♡﹕Bored at work performing repetitive choreography and pleasing faceless demons, you find yourself reminiscing on life, death, and limbo.

♫ envy baby ~ ♫

“Lights clear? Sounds clear?”

“We’ve been fucking over this Steven! We’ll know it’s clear when they finally stop tuning our shit-”

“Anne chill, we still have six minutes till airing. Don’t waste all your energy on the roadie.”

“That crowd doesn’t seem to be getting any quieter does it…” The little imp’s observations were now only being met by eyerolls and silent treatment by the two drummer girls as the completed instruments silenced in countdown.

Lights crew above, sounds crew from behind, and effects team surround. The way every single backstage member of your cast would run and scurry around you to get their various tasks done always made you think of little mice, rats even, so worked up making sure everything was in perfect position before those curtains had a chance to stop separating you, from them.

It was cute enough to make you laugh as though you were still a highschool girl.

“Broadcasting live in 60 seconds!” Dark blue scene lighting begins to fade your entire surrounding to a pitch black, and among doing so freezes your little mice into statues all around. Only the tiniest crack in the fabric ahead illuminated the space with a sharp vertical line down the curves of the figure that stands as the adorning center piece of this particular attraction. Roaring bass brings about a quake to the stage beneath your feet, queuing time for you to give your puppies a treat.

“Awwwe~ Did we leave you waiting long?” The volume of pure passionate devotion always rang to your ears louder than any electrical speaker could achieve.

The wave of the new future adorned in electrical inventions was something you’ve always been prepared to face; why even in the faint blur of the overworld it was all the grown ups could ever yap enough of! No, that wasn’t where that bitter taste came from.

In the full truth of things, you just never knew you’d stick around long enough to bear full witness to its infection of mankind.

Oh come on. Who are we kidding right now?

“Hi. I wanna people save, all right? ”

You’ve never been more liberated.

“You’re in m-my way!!”

Your eyes have but a second to adjust to the flood of bright neon before life hits play once again. The choreography you, and and the other 4 devils fanned out beside you have programmed into your bodies for the past months flow across the stage with ease. among the camera men you can make out the mass of waving pen lights stirred ablaze after the long anticipation, oh how you love they always use the color dearest to your heart…

“The tightrope falls, broken by others”

Once you felt the rushing high of the stage the first time around tolerance for it subsided immediately after. You’ve seen the looks on those poor saps down in the front row, each one hyper fixated on every movement you make wishing they could be you, or be up here with you.

And of course, you all flash them bright smiles, longing gazes and praise them with verses of purity more fitting for the angelic souls looming up above. Customer service is the utmost desired, as they say!

“What a lady, she’s gonna jump

towards the light and shatter humiliatingly”

Actually, can you even remember when your first performance was? How old were you even? All of this came from a cheap shot of gaining a few quick pennies back in the day. Landing yourself a handsome and rich husband with the filth you wore on your back was the first childhood dream you found dead on arrival, but what you were cursed in status you were blessed with the cuteness that made kittens hiss in envy. To say you had “the voice of a goddess” would mayhaps be a bit too presumptuous, but who were you to refute the compliment when it came your way?

Well, maybe trying to parse through finding the day your career debuted or took off was a fool's errand, but the moment it ended certainly still remains as a burned film stuck to your mind. You stopped caring about the “Oh woes me~ what did I do to deserve this~” a long time ago. Still, the punishment you received in death far exceeded what you ever did to earn in your eyes, more so than your sentencing of eternal damnation.

“High and without care I’m lonely, lonely”

Right on que, as always every time you reach exactly 32 seconds into your first song the intrusive memory flashes the same images of the past over your current reality it almost feels as if you were stuck suffering that fate again each time.

You wish there was more to say on the matter of your demise, but there’s only a brief two second window between staring down some heckling loud mouth making a scene in the crowd and a bomb beneath the stage going off before your soul is falling down under the earth’s crust as a blazing comet onto the asphalt below.

And two days before your 21st birthday too are you serious?! UN-Fucking believable!

“From their idle words, the clown becomes a prisoner”

The only thing you wanted to do was scream in the immense burning agony you were suffering until the whole world knew the kind of pain you were in, but each time you cried not even a croak could get past your scorched throat

Even after the blazes subsided and your charred cocoon was all that was left behind, the inferno decided your vocal chords were going to be its payment.

…. That was it?

This was your payout…

And after all that work…

“It’s the same love as always, no way I’d have regrets”

Surreal didn’t even begin to describe what became of the following weeks, months, you haven’t a clue. The construct of night and day seemed to mean jack in the bizzare wonderland of maddness holding you, only so much telling what shade of putrid red in the sky was darker than the same shade of fucking red from two hours ago! What a productive way to spend your newfound endless time!

Every aspect of this place made you absolutely sick, enough so to have you still praying you just were drugged and having the worst trip of your fucking life, but the horror in maddness is the consistency that lies between the lines. You’re certain that damned illuminated “WELCOME TO HELL!” sign and the stranger you befriended in the mirror was that line that made you finally cave.

“Hey, it's a amazing.”

Honestly, you couldn’t say what specifically led you into the epiphany you had, all of a sudden one day you heard a sudden snapping sound in your conscience, and like that everything made sense to you. Why your life was snuffed before you could emerge from your cocoon, why your makers deemed this your new home, and why that bomb taking your life just wasn’t enough to deem your afterlife a hell.

There was a certain liberation that came with hell that you were never going to get being the glowing little diamond you were in human society, through terrorism, cannibalism and bloodshed one thing would remain a constant throughout devil society. No one would ever give a damn about anything.

Hell became your fucking playground by the time your first extermination came around, and keeping on the move while broke as shit was a cakewalk this time around, but your first encounter with an overlord after catching your foot in the grave in the casino humbled your inflating ego. Chaos for society did not necessarily mean chaos without hierarchy, and going without a voice to call your own put you at an extreme disadvantage.

“LA-LA-LA!”

The crescendo of the opener is right around the corner, for the leading front and center of your group your vocals and choreography had primarily remained reserved for backup. The primary color of lights among the crowd made the obvious clear with who the majority of these demons were here to see, your manager was aware of this more than anyone else.

Your fans tended to be aware of this for a majority of your shows, your parts in particular tended to stand out even as mere background vocals.

“I’m ready for this this lover baby!

My garden of love is in danger from a drawing hand.

Truly, this this lover’s crazy!

In the garden of harm, the bud of a human is a lie-ai-a!”

Sinners rejoice once the solo everyone was edging towards drops with the bass of the loudspeakers and the flares of the strobes above. The pitches your vocals were now capable of hitting and the frequency you were able to synthesize between notes wasn’t just inhuman, it was impossible for any singer whose notes carried on oxygen.

Your manager always made it a note in the writing room or when creating your setlists that overfeeding wolves with delicious treats would dull the taste over time, your solo singles often did well enough to prove this didn’t need to always be the case, but whenever it came to the business decisions you always put your full trust in him. Where you are standing right now is more than enough proof in your eyes that he knew exactly where and when to move his pawns, and in doing so he turned you into a valiant queen.

“Ah! I love you and even things about you I probably shouldn’t love

I love you too much, on a count of one and two

Lie-lie loving you, such words

and doing such things, you’re in m-my way!”

Survival was of the least of your concerns after so much time had passed, but survival was all you could find yourself able to do in your forced retirement. Where you yearn for character in sound you were able to temporarily find when turning to radio, but living vicariously only quenches so much before greed starts cozying up within.

Plausible excuses for your laziness were wearing thinner by the day, even the last sane smolder of human morality trying to keep itself sparked wanted nothing more than to argue you weren’t supposed to be living to the fullest in hell, but the mute silence in your throat was beginning to phase your memory of the voice your inner conscience called its own too, and you'd sooner go mad trying than wither away again a fucking waste.

“Here comes the love maniac who never misses,

Stack up all the whining,

Fall in a high-fi love lie-ai-a!”

Overlords were still beings that had you nauseous upon first glance, your first meeting of one of these overlords had you vowing to never end up in the claws of one again, should you find yourself in a deal you can’t unbind yourself out of. Pride stuck thick to the roof of your mouth and there was nothing more you wanted to do than stick to your morals and prove use on your own, but reality had pelted you with stones throughout your entire afterlife.

You were going to need to write out a loan before you’d find yourself with any ounce of power to call your own, not like you didn’t have options for whom to choose! Even so, you needed to keep a steady head and an even sharper nose. In your ponderance you'd come to realize there was only really one option for you to go to this whole time. Maybe that gambling kitty taught you a valuable lesson on staking bets in the long run.

“Copy their acting and keep the truth hidden

Stacking three and lonely, lonely

You’re surely a clown, a prisoner”

A bet on the future was what you were going to stake it all on.

“Copy their acting and keep the truth hidden

Stacking three and lonely, lonely

You’re surely a clown, a prisoner”

Everything about how the world operated changed so rapidly from the days walking in the sunlight to your eternal party in the redlight, the wave of the future had finally hit with the promise for a solution to everyones problems. There couldn’t have been any better timing, if technology was going to be the way of the future, who's to say you couldn’t prove what was achievable? Like that, you had your sales pitch. The hardest part on your end was complete.

“Hey, it's a amazing.

LA-LA-LA!”

“So you were a singer in life and lost your voice in death, and just what the fuck made you think I was the man to go to for this?” Those were the magic words you were waiting for, with his composure shaken it wasn’t long before he was the one asking the questions and allowing the ball to move into your court. Your fingers dance on the illuminated tablet laying on the table once again before you flip it over toward his direction.

~Have your inventions not made it to that level of advancement yet?

Hook, line, and sinker. You had a hunch a passive aggressive challenge toward the ego would be what ultimately won you over with any overlord you chose, but the speed in which he stood from his desk and held out his hand, it felt almost too easy.

“If it’s a new voice you wish to invest in, consider your stocks opened, Monarch!” Finally…

“I’m ready for this this lover baby!

My garden of love is in danger from a drawing hand.”

“Now for what you have to offer me,” You don’t care. “I hope you weren’t planning on extorting me out of a generous gift and then making the big bucks with it, hm?” These overlords just love to hear themselves go on.

“Truly, this this lover’s crazy!

In the garden of harm, the bud of a human is a lie-ai-a!”

“I suppose I could just issue a royalty for your voice, after all you wouldn’t be making a sound without my tech. Lucky for you, I’ve been having fleeting thoughts of entering the music industry. So why not invest in each other instead~”

“Ah I love you and even things about you I probably shouldn’t love

I love you too much, on a count of one and two”

Being owned by an overlord in the end wasn’t so bad, or maybe this is the fated “stockholm syndrome” everyone seems to be crying about these days. Either way, the biggest price you had to pay in the end was just having someone else do all the “business” part in show business.

Naive maybe, but rosey eyed you weren't. For all that he’s done you still fail to see how your end of the deal has in any way repaid what’s given, which can only lead to one thing down the line. You were going to have to give him your everything.

… Yet, how could you find yourself ungrateful to someone who fulfilled your afterlife dream and still continued to provide for you?

“Lie-lie loving you, such words and even such things, they’re in m-my way!”

The audience went absolutely ballistic at the final group pose signifying the end of your opening set, some of the really hardcore fans in the front row you swore passed out the second eye contact was made.

Yet when you turn your chin upward to the VIP section after performing your tricks so well, all you’re met with is a turned back and a schmoozed up producer instead of a tasty bone.

“Thank each and every one of you for coming to see us tonight!!” No, you only wanted him to come out to see you.

Only you.

Hey, Vox?

Can you just turn your stupid flat head this way?

#Hazbin Hotel #Hazbin Hotel x reader #Vox #hazbin hotel vox #vox x reader #hazbin hotel fanfiction #vox smut #vox x reader smut #hazbin hotel vees #the vees #Hazbin hotel smut #hazbin hotel x you #mdni #🍓My one and only!#🕊Dead dove do not eat!#💔I’ll leave you be…#next next!

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kyojurismo · 1 year ago

Text

★ PROLOGUE

# sub!kyojuro rengoku x fem!reader

summary : your behaviour is starting to change towards him, but kyojuro fears this is only his imagination and that you’re simply lonely and finding a way to enjoy yourself. is there a possibility that you’re actually attracted to him?

chapter tags : sfw, mitsuri makes an appearance, mention of rengoku family, i can’t think of anything else so lemme know if i missed something, 1.6k words — i’ll try to write more for future chapters, pray for me lol.

series masterpost

a/n : hello! i’m both excited and scared to post this lol, writing series and longer fics in general it’s not my forte, so please please please be kind and keep in mind that english is not my first language. i know there’s nothing spicy or truly entertaining — i was lowkey testing the water lmao — but i hope you guys enjoy it anyway <3 ps. lemme know if you wanna be added to my say yes to heaven taglist to be sure to not miss something.

a young, rich woman without a husband? of course people would speculate about it. that’s what your mother used to repeat. because rich women were always seen under a different light.

but, you didn’t care. you never searched for a husband, you knew your worth and that you didn’t need a man to take care of you.

the only man you were able to tolerate was your precious servant, kyojuro rengoku. kyojuro had been working for you for almost three months now, he was a loyal, caring and educated young man. he was working hard to help his family, and nothing seemed to distract him from work.

at least for now.

─────────────────────

the fact that you could work from home was a real blessing. you weren’t a lazy person, you just enjoyed being around him most of the time.

kyojuro was a simple guy. he was always smiling and his voice sounded so comforting and soothing whenever he spoke, whatever the topic. he would be able to smile back at a bully and kindly ask him to not vent their anger on others. that was truly amazing.

his personality was able to overshadow his appearance. no doubts he was an attractive young man, but the moment he started interacting with you – oh, you completely forget about his pretty face. you could ask anyone, they would all reply with the same thing.

you were sitting at the table in your dining room, patiently waiting for your usual breakfast. your eyes were scanning the first pages of the newspaper, devouring the fresh news for the day, when the doors opened. he walked in and served you quietly, before bowing and taking a couple of steps back so he could stay close enough to you if you needed anything, but not that much close to disturb your peaceful breakfast.

“did you sleep well last night, kyojuro?” you suddenly asked him, keeping your gaze focused on the page as you took the first bite of your food. “yes, ma’am,” here came his voice. “i’m glad. as you know, we had to move your room closer to mine for a couple of electrical issues,” from kyojuro’s perspective your tone showed a bit of annoyance, but in reality a part of you was glad that side of your house had been left without light until someone could come to fix the cables. “i understand, but you don’t have to worry about me, ma’am,” he smiled even though he was standing behind you. “i’m happy with everything you decide.”

oh, really?

“now that i think about it, i have a bunch of commissions in town. i’d like for you to accompany me, if that’s alright,” you let a small smirk curve your lips when he hesitated; it was the first time you asked him something like that, after all. could it be a challenge?

“m-ma’am, i’d gladly accompany you but—” you interrupted him, knowing that he was gonna explain he had to stay here since it was his role in the first place. “kyojuro, i’m not really asking for you approval,” your tone sent a shiver down his spine and he cleared his throat. “i will gladly come with you.”

“good boy,” you turned your head to glance at kyojuro and show him a smile, before turning to finish eating your breakfast. that caused you to miss the faint blush appearing on his cheeks at your praise. it was the most casual thing to say, but somehow kyojuro found very pleasurable to hear you say it.

one thing for sure, you weren’t that dumb. you noticed that after such period of service, kyojuro craved your praises whenever he did something for you. it made him feel good and sent a pleasant feeling through his whole body. all this from just the thought of making you feel satisfied with his work.

would you be able to get something more from him at this point?

─────────────────────

you were staring out the window quietly, watching with little interest the people and the buildings passing by. “i’ve never been in this part of the city,” you heard kyojuro’s comment and turned to look at him, catching him staring out with a sweet smile on his face. “i realise you rarely leave the house…” your voice is low but it still reached his ears.

“ma’am, there’s no need for you to feel bad. that’s just my job,” he tilted his head to the side and smiled at you, a warm feeling spreading through your chest. he looked so… adorable.

“i’ll let you come with me more often,” you assured with a smile then grabbed a little notebook with a pen, handing them to him. “you can write down the places you want to visit next time.”

kyojuro was surprised but nodded eagerly, genuinely appreciating it. he indeed wrote down a bunch of places, but the dream of coming here again felt distant to him nonetheless.

when the car stopped, you jumped off followed by him and started walking towards your usual clothes shop. kyojuro glanced around curiously while you looked around for a new elegant dress. “what do you think?” he turned his head to look at you, noticing you were holding a sleeveless dark blue dress into your hands. “u-um, it looks good.”

were you really asking him for advice?

“i’ll try it on then,” you smirked at him and walked towards the dressing rooms section. kyojuro followed you swiftly, in case you would need something.

“i need help with closing the back!” you called from behind the curtain. you waited patiently for him, since he seemed to be quite hesitant to enter inside. it was the first time you asked for something like this. “kyo– oh, i thought you left without me,” you chuckled and watched him from the reflection.

his hands were warm against your skin, as he helped you close the dress. his cheeks were slowly turning red as he timidly glanced at your reflection, your cleavage more visible than usual now. “it looks beautiful,” his smile showed he was a bit embarrassed, but sincere. you turned to face him and smiled, watching him scan your figure. “yeah… really beautiful.”

you laughed before patting his arm playfully. “relax! you’re so tensed,” you exclaimed while turning around. you glanced at yourself into the mirror, it was indeed a beautiful dress. “i’m gonna buy this one then,” you announced, satisfied.

you then started taking the dress off before catching his eyes into the mirror. “are you waiting for a show?” you smirked at him and kyojuro’s eyes widened while his whole face turned red, quickly followed by his ears. “i-i’m sorry!” he was quick to exit and you couldn’t help but chuckle.

you found yourself enjoy teasing him. his reactions were cute. in fact, you kept doing it for the whole day. the mischievous touches whenever you were sitting next to each others, the compliments clearly going further that of a friendly relationship between a servant and his madam. kyojuro was left speechless most of the time, with red cheeks and his heart close to jump out of his chest.

but was it real or was it all in his head though?

─────────────────────

“no way!” mitsuri jumped in her seat, looking at her friend. “oh, kyojuro!” she grabbed his hands, making him gasp. “what are you gonna do about it?” he frowned at her words. “nothing?”

it was his day off work and kyojuro always tried to meet up with mitsuri, one of his childhood best friends.

mitsuri glared at him, almost offended. “what do you mean by that?!” she hit his chest, exasperated with him. “she’s clearly enjoying your company and there might be something more going on between you and her. take this opportunity!”

“i would never take advantage of her like that,” kyojuro’s tone was serious. “i work for her, she probably just feels lonely and that’s her way to have some fun. i can’t blame her at all. plus…” his voice trailed off. “plus??” mitsuri waited expectantly for him to continue. “i like getting her attention, so i don’t really want to ruin anything,” he confessed it in a very low tone, mitsuri had to lean closer to hear him clearly.

“ooh, i knew it!” she clapped her hands happily and smiled sweetly at him. “alright, do as you please… but lemme know if something changes!” she made him promise, showing him her pinkie. “don’t worry, nothing will happen between me and her,” he said while raising his own pinkie, locking them together. “a girl can dream!”

kyojuro found himself smile then while listening to her rambling about some sweet guy working with her, as they kept sitting at the restaurant table enjoying their lunch together. she was a very lively person and was usually seen smiling most of the time. he enjoyed her company and was happy to be her friend.

after that, kyojuro would usually visit his family and give them his monthly payment, making sure they could easily afford any kind of costs. he was mostly working to help them, after all.

you never took advantage of his need to work, you actually admired him. not many would do the same and kyojuro was really a son to be proud of. you hoped his father was aware of such thing. you were for sure and, deep down, a part of kyojuro wanted you to be proud of him…

taglist : @vampcubus @naomi-nana @stuckinthewrongworld @doumadono @unear7hly @frickinsleepdeprived @roseofthevolturi @mioblobby @thedevilishlyangelic @ilysm-akari

#⭐️ — say yes to heaven ( series )#📂 — writing !!#sub!kyojuro rengoku x reader #kyojuro rengoku x reader #kyojuro rengoku fanfic #kny kyojuro #kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #demon slayer #demon slayer fanfic

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therentyoupay · 3 months ago

Note

Hi, i am loving more than you know (the latest chapter wrecked me emotionally in the best way possible)!

I don’t know if you or callimara have already explained this, but I noticed that act I and II are no longer in the ao3 fic, can I ask why that was?

hello, and thank you so much for this ask!!! 💕 we are always happy to know when we have emotionally devastated someone 🤣🙏💕

WOW, YOU ARE SO KEEN EYED AND SO FAST 💕💕💕💕 this change literally just happened JUST this morning, only a few hours before your ask arrived!! we put a teeny-tiny line in ch. 1 (the new ch. 1) and the fic summary itself to welcome viewers from the youtube video to the third act of the project, but calli and i are both in the THICK OF RESPONSIBILITIES™ right now so we didn't have time for a nice full explanation!! calli and i are planning to post a little explanation in the next chapter, but we can go ahead and share a bit here, too!

the long and short of it is, we realized that people who were visiting ch. 1 of the story were getting very thrown off by the YouTube Script Narration Format (which is a writing style that is very peculiar for ao3 fanfiction, we realize that!!). the more that time went on, the more we had a sneaking suspicion that many people were not willing to brave the Unusual (YouTube Script) Writing Style and carry on into act iii (which is actual fic!style, haha).

ultimately, we realized that written transcriptions of acts i and ii in ao3 were, in retrospect, not the best representations of the EXPERIENCE💕 of this part of the story (art, illustrations, voice acting!!) that calli had created for her youtube format!! although act iii shall similarly be showcased on youtube, the ao3↝youtube transfer is a softer, more palatable transition for many folks rather than the youtube↝ao3 transition, we have found.

therefore, last night, calli and i saved all the comments from acts i and ii (for our future viewing haha), and then removed acts i and ii from ao3 completely (FOREVERRRR), so that now, when you visit more than you know on ao3, you are taken directly to where the youtube video left off! we decided that the removal of acts i and ii would ultimately be best for the project as a whole, and more accurately represent our hopes and dreams for our #kriscallicollab brainchild 💕💕💕💕🥹🥹🥹🥹✨✨

we also added this little bitty line to the beginning notes of ch. 1 and the fic itself, to help signal to readers that there is indeed, one hell of a prologue 🤣:

↳ PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS AO3 STORY MAY STAND ALONE. HOWEVER, TO ENJOY THE PROLOGUE, PLEASE CHECK OUT CALLI'S VIDEO: ACTS I & II, starting at 1:28. 😘 And, if you like, you can start from the very beginning, and watch the whole 2-hour thesis. 🤣

thank you for your ask, lovely!! 💕💕💕

#therentyoupay ask #kriscallicollab #therentyoupay more than you know #therentyoupay callimara more than you know #nightcrow712 #callimara

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aphfanficwriters · 3 months ago

Text

Monthly Members' Fics — Aug 2024

A Snake With Blue Eyes by Tentaculiferous (America/England, Canada/England, America & Canda) While Arthur is thrilled that the King of Spades has been discovered, the King himself takes less joy in being found. Alfred was happy with his life as a commoner. Maybe he hadn't had fancy clothes or even his own bedroom, but he'd had freedom. He could go where he wanted, do what he wanted, live the kind of life he wanted. Now he's supposed to waste his days sitting on a throne being the Queen's good little boytoy. Fuck that.

Strange Magic by Tentaculiferous (America/Canada/England) With the threat from the Kingdom of Clubs looming, the King, Queen, and Ace of Spades resort to an old magic ritual to save their people. But the price for their kingdom's safety may turn out to be more than Amelia and Matthew are willing to pay. (Or, Amelia, Matthew, and Rose fuck for the good of the kingdom.)

Trick Cards by Tentaculiferous (America/England, Canada/England) After a heated disagreement between King Alfred and Queen Arthur, the queen decides to end things once and for all. But Arthur isn't the only one in the castle with a trick up his sleeve, and he may be the one playing the fool in the end.

Synchronicity by proosh (France/Prussia) Francis' pre-rut rolls around and it triggers something awful and unknown within Gilbert.

The Hidden Spade — Chapter 1: The Princess and the Prologue by Actually_a_horse (America/England) When Alfred finds he has the mark of the Queen of Spades, he knows he will be forced into royalty and the feminine role of Queen—dresses and all. There is no way Alfred can allow himself to be found out, not when his freedom and identity are on the line. The universe seems to have other plans for him, however. Can Alfred keep his secret? Or is fate too strong to allow a Queen to not take her throne? (UKUS, rating may change with future chapters)

acuerdo by southerngothics (South Italy/Spain) It’s still new to him; four months is an eternity for humans, perhaps, but perspective has shortened and condensed time into a coiled thing, folding over on itself until the entire stretch of it is thin as parchment. Four months is the blink of an eye. And the fighting has not stopped since he set foot upon that little island kingdom; he hasn’t had time to truly process it all. That Romano is his now. That they are together. That every morning he will wake up and Romano will be here, and that every night Romano will be asleep in this bed. It still seems like the far-fetched dream Pedro had cooked up in hushed tones, away from the menacing glares of el Papa. Spain is convinced, somehow, that if he blinks, reality will throw its punch and he’ll be back in Palermo, crushed under that damned France’s boot. In 1282, King Peter III of Aragon is crowned King of Sicily.

s'unifier by southerngothics (America/Canada) This does nothing, it seems, to deter Canada. Instead, he only burrows his head into America’s chest and snuggles closer, and it’s almost too nostalgic for him, dragging up memories that are still fresh, haphazardly stitched-up wounds. The colonial days are hemorrhaging within him and for a moment it’s hard to think clearly, sunny days mixing with gunpowder in a disorienting flat circle of history. He wonders if it gets easier or harder as time goes on. In the early 1850s, multiple American annexation movements take root in Canada.

Teach My Heart to Bend Instead of Breaking by Tentaculiferous (Canada/England) Matthew Williams is an unusual student, a diamond shining brightly amid a sea of clods. That’s how Arthur Kirkland, his history professor sees him. Arthur’s only intention in taking Matthew under his wing is to nurture a rare talent, but it’s possible to become too close to a student. Already on thin ice with his wife and the university due to his prickly personality, getting entangled with Matthew might be what finally deals the deathblow to his marriage—and worse, his career.

Felidae by Mossy_man (Russia/Turkey) Ivan gets cat ears and pussy. Sadik gets two cocks. That's it, that's the plot.

(Prussian) Dad Baby by ChibiDashie (Austria, Germany, Prussia, OC) Based on and inspired by the Bluey Episode "Dad Baby" While Prussia was helping clean Mary's bedroom, Mary finds a mysterious object stored in her closet that came from her own mother and father. Even as Prussia demonstrated how this object worked, this gave Mary an idea to play a silly game! Hilarity and shenanigans ensue between Mary and Prussia during this funny game. aka Prussia learns how it feels to be pregnant and suffer

#axis powers hetalia #hetalia world stars #hetalia #aph fanfiction #hws fanfiction #hetalia fanfiction #hetalia writers' association #post: monthly fic round-up #august 2024

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kannymaei · 1 year ago

Text

Eloping With The General - Prologue (Jing Yuan x Reader)

MASTERLIST

Author's Note: I haven't finished most of the main quests in HSR so everything will or might not be true to the story. Some characters may be OOC and this is not canon to anything <3 (Also new fic woohoo?)

Synopsis: The stars had crossed the paths of the future general of Xianzhou Luofu and a girl that originated from another universe through a meteor crash. While Xianzhou Luofu suffers the consequences of the curse of immortality, Jing Yuan has kept you imprison in his room for a long time before fate separates you for a long time.

Word Count: 1.2k

Next Chapter -> Chapter 1

Roughly 2000 years ago...

A young Jing Yuan was having trouble sleeping but he couldn't sneak out outside due to the fact that he'd be punished by Jing Liu for staying up late at night so he decided to star gaze on his balcony instead and no one could see him.

A very bright shooting star caught his eyes. He was fixated on the star that he began to doubt it was a star but rather a meteor.

The moment the meteor landed it caused quite an earthquake that awoke the people in Xianzhou Luofu but people assumed that it was just a normal shaking in their land. No one could have thought that it was a meteor.

Except that Jing Yuan knew that it was a meteor, so he jumped from his balcony and ran towards the direction of that meteor due to his curiosity getting the best of him.

---

After a few minutes, Jing Yuan saw a very odd shaped meteor. It has an oblong shape and the stone was smooth, it doesn't even look like stone, it's like porcelain with a jade in the middle.

He thought of how something like that would fall here? He decided to check it out and touched the jade.

Something happened, the so-called meteor had opened and revealed something... Rather someone.

Now Playing: Lia - One

When I saw you for the first time, I knew you were the one.

Smoke came out from the meteor and it opened slowly, you slowly opened your eyes to see a boy of your age who's on his back crawling away slowly from you.

You didn't say a word to me, but love was in the air.

What Jing Yuan saw was a girl with foreign clothing, she wasn't wearing any kind of slippers to cover her feet.

"Hello!" Jing Yuan said but he was frozen because your beauty was nowhere near the beauty of the world he was living in.

You were just staring at him, barely understanding whatever comes from this boy's mouth but based on his gestures, it seemed like he was trying to introduce himself to you.

"Ah let me cover your feet so it won't get dirty" Jing Yuan tore off his clothing and wrapped it around your feet and ankles.

When you held my hand, and pulled me into your world.

You felt his touch on your hand, and began showing you around the meteor area.

From then on my life has changed for good, now I'll never feel lonely again because you are in my life.

Jing Yuan wasn't a good liar. A few years have passed by and he has kept you inside his room for quite a long time. He realized that he can't have you running around the city because you don't belong there in the first place and he was scared that you might get executed.

Nevertheless, the two of you never shared a verbal conversation and he has assumed that you might be mute but in reality you aren't. You just listened to him as he taught you their language but you never attempted starting a conversation with him.

Love, how can I explain to you the way I feel inside when I think of you.

Jing Yuan can’t help but to worry about you because he left you inside his room for training. He wondered what he would do if they ever found out that he was keeping a lady of unknown species that may be possibly a threat to everyone.

You gazed upon the windows of his room to see people running around, selling buns and other sweets. It was very different from the world that you originally came from, it was rather peaceful and not chaotic. You can’t help but think about him and what kind of training he does.

I thank you for everything that you showed me, don't you ever forget that I love you.

Jing Yuan always brings something home to show you such as a mechanical bird, a special breed of flowers, and sometimes he brings home snacks to eat with you. Jing Liu and the others have been suspicious why he was buying food that is more than for himself and he can’t bring himself to tell that it was for you.

He was still young to realize that he was already attached to you.

Love, I know that someday, real soon. You'll be right next to me.

Jing Yuan had a dream that someday, the citizens would accept your presence and you would no longer be considered a threat.

Holding me so tight so I will always be yours.

Jing Yuan brought you to a secret and special place where you could admire the entire beauty of the city. Only people with such high status like him are permitted

Although we can't be together now, remember I am here for you when I know you're there for me.

"H-hey… this might sound weird but-" Young Jing Yuan blushes as he was about to confess his feelings for you until multiple mara-stuck cloud knights began to surround two of you.

He immediately brought his sword out and told you to stand on his back as he'd attempt to protect you and make you run away to escape.

You knew that you can't leave him, if it's someone who needs to be protected, it has to be him and not you.

Whenever I long to be with you, I just close my eyes and pretend you're here.

You could tell that Jing Yuan was really scared facing these many enemies as he was still very young and was not used to fights like this.

"I'll p-protect you okay! D-don't worry-" Jing Yuan breathed heavily, cold sweat began running down his cheeks.

He looked back and saw that you were not on his side.

The Mara-stuck soldiers began to charge all at once to him and Jing Yuan was terrified, fear clouded his mind as he didn't know what's the next step he should do.

I see you, I touch you, I feel you, like real.

A bright light came on, shooting one of the Mara-stuck soldiers that was about to stab and curse Jing Yuan, throwing it off-field.

He looked at the direction where the light came from.

Nothing can ever change what I feel inside.

"The eyes were a threat to the void" For the first time in so many years, Jing Yuan has heard your loving and soft voice.

You aligned your hand against the soldiers as blinding light began to surround the entire area, the soldiers were stunned as light envelopes them completely and it was the last thing that Jing Yuan saw.

How long must I be far away from you?

10 hours later.

Jing Yuan woke up to see several soldiers around him were cured from the curse of Mara.

He was very happy now that he knew there was a cure for mara.

He was glad that he wasn't cursed.

But one thing bothered him.

You were nowhere to be found.

I don't know dear but, I know we are one.

Centuries have passed and Jing Yuan is finally the general of the city.

He kept on reminiscing the days he had as a child, the days he had with you.

He was very afraid of the day he'd forget what you look like because he had already forgotten what your voice sounds like.

He is very afraid that these precious memories of him with you are starting to blur.

Until one fateful day, the brightest star lands on Xianzhou Luofu once again.

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kittyball23 · 10 months ago

Note

Before you saw Trolls Band Together, what were your predictions when you first saw the trailers??

Ohhhhh boy, I had a lot of predictions! 😆

Most of them were compiled as oneshots in my Trolls 3.0 fic (posted on AO3, Fanfiction.net, and Wattpad) Some of them never made the cut and stayed living in my head, but I’ll be glad to share the ideas from both right here 😊

At the beginning of the movie, I knew there was most likely going to be a prologue, since Trolls and Trolls World Tour both started off this way. I had figured it would either start with Velvet and Veneer actually kidnapping Floyd, or with a musical number by the band (which of course is what ended up happening)

I had thought that the argument/breakup was a result of everybody getting on each others’ nerves, instead of their anger directed towards one of them in particular, in that case, John Dory

I thought that perhaps John Dory and Floyd had reunited at the time that Velvet and Veneer had captured Floyd. Like, say JD and Floyd were singing, the duo heard them, and intended to catch them both so they could have one Troll each, but only managed to swipe Floyd, where JD escaped, promising his bro that he would come back with the other bros as backup to save him (Kinda think along the lines of Toy Story 4, where Forky and Woody tried to make their escape from Gabby Gabby)

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I thought that there would be little flashbacks and stuff of the bros in their teenage years scattered throughout the movie (in particular, Floyd and Branch flashbacks, and further their bonding)

I was hoping there would be almost-kisses between Branch and Poppy also scattered throughout the movie (I would’ve been going bonkers collecting screencaps of those) and maybe a scene where Broppy had a mini-date or something and the bros (JD, Bruce, and Clay) harmonized and set the mood for them (think along the lines of Rio’s bus ride scene)

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I thought that maybe there would be a scene where Branch chose to give himself up to save Floyd, switching places with him so that his bro could be free of the diamond, but he would be trapped there instead

I thought that maybe the fight scene would be this magical, song-battle thing with Velvet and Veneer’s negative energy battling against the Trolls’ positive energy (think Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks’ climax)

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I hoped that there would be an implication to Viva getting together with one of the bros (particularly, Clay, since she has already known him for years and they seem to have a good friendship)

One of my BIGGEST wishes was for the Broppy wedding! Like I have mentioned in a couple other posts, Branch’s “let’s go get married!” is what – as Bruce put it – created a seismic shift in my brain 😂 I was pining so much of my hope for them to finally hook up with the marriage and the reception and the kisses and possibly even kiddos… but, I suppose we shall have to wait and see what the franchise’s future will bring us. I guess I’ll just way that I don’t think a Broppy wedding is ruled out completely

Anyway, those were some of the wild things I thought up 😆

#trolls #trolls 3 #trolls band together #branch trolls #poppy trolls #john dory #spruce trolls #clay trolls #floyd trolls #brozone #viva trolls #velvet and veneer #velvet trolls #veneer trolls #dreamworks #thanks for the ask!#kittyball answers

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eternalglitch · 1 year ago

Note

Dunno if you’ve heard this one before but can I say how much I love the title “Like Father Like Son”?

On initial reaction to the title it makes sense to assume Draxum is the “father” in question, since he’s the one in the summary, his pov is the prologue, and it’s his plan and desire to bring his creations back to his side. Also, Draxum’s villainy and Leo’s Forced villainy; i.e. Like Father (Draxum) Like Son (Leo)

But then you get into the Battle Nexus arc, the place where Lou Jitsu spent many years being forced to fight in and held prisoner. In comes Leo, handed over to Big Mama and forced to fight in her Nexus, and to top it all off he gets held prisoner in the very cell LJ, Leo’s father (unbeknownst to him), was trapped in; i.e. Like Father (Splinter/Lou Jitsu) Like Son (Leo)

The title is a double meaning, possibly even more that I haven’t seen yet. One could also bring in moments where the other Hamatos share LFLS moments, but since this is a Leo-Centric fic I’m focused on him for now.

This also makes me wonder if there will be more Like Father, Like Son situations in the coming arc(s). I’ll just have to wait and see.

(Unrelated to the title analysis, ironically I decided to send you this while walking home carrying pizza and thinking “omg this is what Leo was doing before being kidnapped by Draxum and forced to do villainy :0” lol. Your fic has plagued my mind and I’m not complaining.)

I am so glad lfls' title worked so well because titles are one thing I am criminally terrible at. I don't even remember having to brainstorm for it, since I knew what my vision was before I even started fleshing out the plot so that title just instantly seemed to be the one.

Also there's definitely more to be mentioned in the fic regarding this link between sons and fathers :}.

It's been a while since I gave any new content actually, I'll leave some (short) related rough snippets of dialogue from Donnie planned for a future chapter under the cut.

“I just wanted you all to be proud of me. My brothers, you. I wanted to be someone that you’re glad to be related to, and I- I let you down bad, Dad. I let everyone down, especially Leo, and I just-“

“Do you think Draxum could’ve included any of his own DNA into the mutagen? Don’t I seem like his spitting image right now?”

#glitch answers #lfls

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kmomof4 · 6 months ago

Text

A Scoundrel… Or a Gentleman?

Ohhhhhh, I’m so happy to FINALLY be posting this fic!!! Inspired by Francesca Bridgerton’s story, When He Was Wicked, I wrote the prologue - 8k words - last September, then took a six month break before sitting down and getting the rest of the thing written. I so hope I did the story justice and that you enjoy and let me know what you think!!

And now thanks to whom thanks are due!!! @jrob64 is a LITERAL SAINT for everything she did to make this fic better. She is an outstanding beta and a dear friend, but I seriously tried her patience going back over and back over and back over AGAIN trying to make this just right. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, my friend, for EVERYTHING!!!

To @hollyethecurious for all the historical info that she shared with me and asking the questions that needed to be asked and answered before the fic was ready for posting. Her support was absolutely invaluable. Thank you, babe!!!

To @motherkatereloyshipper for her work on the Prologue artwork shown below. It is soooo beautiful, I could stare at it for hours!!! Thank you so much, darlin!!! Please give her lots of love!!!

The fic is complete with a total of 9chs. I’ll be updating twice a week- Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Summary: Killian Jones has been in love with Emma Nolan since the day he met her - the day before she married his brother Earl Liam Jones. That was six years ago, and Liam has been gone now for four years. Emma and Killian have both arrived in London for the season - her to seek a husband so she can hopefully bear children, him to finally take up his duties as the earl, including finding a wife. Will they succeed in their respective desires?

*spoiler alert- of course they will. It’ll just take them a little while to get there…*

Rating: M (smut in later chs)

Words: almost 8400 words of approx 59,5k

Tags: Regency Romance, Inspired by Francesca Bridgerton’s Story, Smut in Later Chapters

On ao3 if that’s your preference.

Tagging the usuals. Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.

@Jrob64 @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @the-darkdragonfly @jennjenn615 @donteattheappleshook @undercaffinatednightmare @pirateherokillian @cocohook38 @qualitycoffeethings @booksteaandtoomuchtv @superchocovian @motherkatereloyshipper @snowbellewells @pirateprincessofpizza @djlbg @lfh1226-linda @xarandomdreamx @tiganasummertree @bluewildcatfanatic @anmylica @laianely @resident-of-storybrooke @exhaustedpirate @gingerchangeling @caught-in-the-filter @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @darkshadow7 @fleurdepetite @captainswan-kellie @soniccat @beckettj @teamhook @whimsicallyenchantedrose @thisonesatellite @jonesfandomfanatic @elfiola @zaharadessert @ilovemesomekillianjones @mie779 @kymbersmith-90 @bluewildcatfanatic

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

Prologue

There is a moment in every man’s life in which his future becomes clear. A turning point of sorts. The moment when he becomes a man, when he leaves the irresponsibility and temerity of youth behind and turns his eyes to the future. A future that he’d never bothered to think about before. Unfortunately, that moment came for Killian Jones when he first laid eyes on Emma Nolan at a supper celebrating the imminent marriage between herself and Killian’s brother, Earl Liam Jones.

After years of chasing anything in a skirt, Killian grimaced at the irony. In all that time, he’d never allowed his heart to become entangled with his many, many romantic exploits. Allowing himself to be chased until he conquered, his reputation as a rake and a scoundrel was well deserved. He’d even stopped attending church, although he assuaged the pricking of his conscience by telling himself the derelict stones of Kilmartin Abbey on the Kilmartin estate up in Scotland… no originality among his ancestors there, who were so proud of the title when it was newly bestowed about 300 years ago, they attached it to everything they possibly could... Anyway, the Abbey couldn’t withstand a direct strike of lightning, which would surely happen if Killian Jones ever showed his face inside.

Killian Jones

Worst of Sinners

He would have had it printed on calling cards if he didn’t think it would actually kill his mother. The only semblance of honor he’d maintained in his heart over all these years was the fact that the only times he’d slept with married women was if their husbands were tossers, and they’d produced at least two male offspring. Three, if one was sickly. He’d also never seduced a virgin, but even that wasn’t enough to redeem him now. Because this was the one thing that truly blackened his soul beyond all redemption.

He coveted his brother’s wife.

And had since that fateful moment two years ago. The day he met Emma Nolan. Now Emma Nolan Jones. Lady Kilmartin. Countess Kilmartin. Wife of his brother, the Earl of Kilmartin.

He could torture himself for days, thinking of every iteration of Emma Nolan Jones, but it would never change the simple fact. He couldn’t have her. She’d never be his.

Now, looking around the room where he, Emma, and Liam were enjoying some after-dinner conversation, he had to rise and cross the room to the decanter, pouring himself a drink to avoid the thoroughly besotted eyes Liam and Emma were making at each other.

“What shall we do for our second anniversary?” Emma asked, sitting down at the pianoforte, her long delicate fingers tickling the keys. Killian swallowed a low groan.

“Anything you want, darling,” Liam answered. He smiled gently at his wife as he opened the evening edition of the Times. She turned her attention to Killian.

“What do you think?”

“About what?” he asked, turning to her, a charming, lopsided smile on his face. No one took him seriously when he smiled like that, which was exactly the point. She pressed her lips into a thin line and Killian relented slightly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.”

“What should we do for our anniversary?”

If she’d thrust her own hand into his chest and squeezed his heart to dust, it probably would have hurt less. He shrugged indifferently. He was, after all, an expert at hiding what he really felt.

“It’s not my anniversary.”

Emma rolled her eyes, the corner of her lips lifting in amusement. It probably wasn’t a good thing that Killian spent far too much time studying the lips of his brother’s wife.

“I’m aware,” she huffed. “I was asking if you had any ideas for us.”

Killian lifted one brow quizzically. “Why would you ask me, when I have absolutely no experience in the realm of marriage or the anniversary celebration of such?”

The amusement left her face and was replaced with irritation and no small amount of sympathy. Emma rose and moved toward him.

Oh, God, he thought. Please no. There’s nothing worse than when she…

She placed her hand on his arm.

“You won’t always be unmarried, you know,” she said gently.

She shouldn’t be touching him. She couldn’t be touching him. His next words were with the singular purpose of getting her away from him.

“Am I to become your project then?” he bit out. “‘Killian can’t possibly be happy living his life of debauchery and aimlessness, so I must see him married,’” he mocked. “I am not interested in marriage, thank you very much.”

She removed her hand from his arm and backed up, her brow furrowed, her mouth a small o of hurt. Thank heaven, it bloody worked, he thought, even as the guilt surged.

“We care about you, Killian, and we want to see you happy.”

And there it was. We. Not I. We. They were a unit. Liam and Emma. Lord and Lady Kilmartin. She may not have meant it that way, but that was what he heard. As if he’d ever forget it.

“I care about you, too.” His voice wasn’t much more than a whisper and he shot pleading eyes toward his brother who finally gave up all pretense of reading.

“Emma,” he chastised lightly. “Killian is a grown man. Let him find his happiness when he’s ready. In his own time.”

Emma shot her husband a disgruntled look. Killian had to bite back a bark laugh. He knew Emma almost as well as he knew his brother, and he recognized the root of her irritation was at being thwarted in her attempt to arrange the people in her life to her satisfaction. Liam smirked at him and picked his paper back up as she returned to the pianoforte and sat down, her visage contemplative. It suddenly lit up and Killian’s heart rate increased with it.

“I should introduce you to…”

“Emma.” It was only a single word, but Liam’s voice held a note of reprimand in it. Leave him alone.

Emma deflated and Killian could have kissed his brother. He may have only thought he was saving Killian from Emma’s nagging, but if he had to suffer the woman he was in love with trying to find him a match - a match he was wholly uninterested in - it might be the final straw of his sanity. Truly.

“We should all go for a walk,” she said suddenly. Killian looked out the windows where darkness had finally descended over London.

“Isn’t it a little late?” he asked.

“Not with two strong escorts,” she cheeked.

“I’ve an appointment in an hour,” Liam said. He winced and rubbed his temple. “And I’ve got a headache. I think I’ll lay down for a bit before leaving.” He looked at Killian then. “But you should go.”

Absolute proof that Liam hadn’t a clue about his brother’s true feelings for Emma.

“Parliament?” Emma asked. Liam nodded and rose. “Do you want me to wake you when we return?”

“I’ll ask my valet to do it, darling,” he said, dropping a gentle kiss to her lips. Killian averted his eyes. He’d never begrudge his brother and his beloved their happiness, but he certainly wasn’t going to watch them bask in the clear love between them.

“I’ll just be a moment,” Emma assured him once Liam left, a soft smile on her face, her forest green eyes glowing. Perhaps it should disturb him how certain he was of the color of Emma’s eyes when she wasn’t even in the room, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He dreamed in shades of green these days. Emma green, the color should be called. He poured himself another drink and slammed it back, trying to steel himself for their impending constitutional.

He knew he shouldn’t be accompanying her. He knew he shouldn’t ever be alone with her. But when she smiled, he was helpless to resist her. It may leave him wracked with equal parts guilt and desire later, but he couldn’t deny himself any amount of time in her presence. Because that’s all there would ever be. He’d never act upon his desires. Never betray his brother in that way or sully Emma’s reputation. There’d never be a kiss, meaningful glances or touches, whispered words of love and affection, or moans of passion.

All he’d ever have was her friendship, her smile, and her company. And besotted fool that he was, he’d be happy with it.

She came back down wrapped in a soft yellow cloak and he held his elbow out for her to take. Resigned to his fate, he escorted the love of his life out of the house and to the street below. Lucky him.

~*~*~

As Emma and Killian walked along the street, Emma couldn’t help but think what a dear man her brother-in-law was. Oh, he’d be certain to scoff and list all the reasons his soul was as black as they came (none of which, she was afraid, were exaggerated) if she expressed those sentiments out loud, but she knew him nearly as well as she knew her husband, and Killian Jones possessed a heart of honor and had a capacity to love that was unequaled among the men of her acquaintance. And if she didn’t find him a wife soon, she’d go mad.

“Killian,” she began, turning to look at him.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he interrupted. “Didn’t Liam just suggest that you let me find my happiness in my own time?”

Emma’s jaw dropped in shock. “How did you know what I was going to say?”

“You’re a bit of an open book, my dear,” he said, looking at her and booping her on the nose. Emma huffed indignantly as they continued their walk.

It was funny. When she met Liam, she fell head over heels in love more quickly than she ever imagined possible. He understood her in a way that she’d never experienced before. Of course, she loved her family immensely, but as the youngest of six siblings, she often felt lost in the shuffle. Killian was the only sibling Liam had, and removing herself from the hubbub of London and her large family felt like a breath of fresh air. Not to mention the actual fresh air of Scotland, her new home.

But then there was Killian. She hadn’t met him until the day before her nuptials to Liam, since he’d just recently returned home from the Napoleonic Wars on the continent. He was handsome, to be sure, but there was an undeniable connection between them that she felt from the moment she met him. If Liam understood her the way no one ever had before - the opposite side of the same coin - then Killian was like a puzzle piece that fit her perfectly. A puzzle piece she never knew she was missing. He completed her. Besides Liam, Killian was her very best friend and that was why she wanted him to be as happy as she was. And the only way that was going to happen was if she found him a wife who’d make him as happy as Liam made her.

“Finding me a wife is not among your duties, Lady Kilmartin,” Killian spoke again, drawing her from her musings.

She huffed again. “Well, it should be.”

He laughed, which delighted her immensely. She could always make him laugh.

“Very well, then,” she said, dropping the subject for now. “Tell me something wicked. Something that Liam wouldn’t approve of.” Her lips lifted in a conspiratorial smirk that he returned in kind. It was a game they played, that spoke again to how Killain somehow completed her. As much as she loved her husband, hearing about Killian’s exploits was always immensely entertaining. And she knew Liam enjoyed hearing about them, too, even if he gave a token admonishment whenever he was also present. Killian never shared too much, he had too much discretion for that, but he’d share hints and innuendos that never failed to amuse her greatly.

“Alas, I’m afraid I’ve done nothing wicked this week,” he said with a sigh.

“You?” she asked, incredulous. “I find that very difficult to believe.”

“It’s only Tuesday, my dear,” he reminded her.

“I’m aware,” she shot back, “but aside from Sunday, which I’m sure you’d leave sacred…” She shot him a look that belied her words completely, earning her another laugh, “that would leave Monday, and a man can get up to quite a bit of mischief on a Monday.”

“Not this man,” he assured her. “Not this Monday.”

“What did you do then?”

He was quiet for a moment as they continued walking.

“Nothing, really.”

There was a tone of melancholy blanketing his words and Emma stopped and turned to him. His blue eyes shone under the street lamps and Emma was shocked at the intensity she found there. A moment later it was gone and the thought occurred to Emma that Killian Jones perhaps wasn’t really the man he wished others to believe him to be. Even her.

She squeezed his arm gently. “We must find you something,” she whispered into the night.

He held her gaze a moment longer then he looked up.

“We must return. Liam will have my head if you catch a chill.”

“Liam will blame me for my foolishness of insisting on a walk after dark, and well you know it. This is just your way of saying you have a woman waiting for you, probably wearing nothing but a sheet.”

He smirked. A devil-may-care grin that made Emma roll her eyes and recall why the female half of the ton fancied themselves in love with him, even without the title.

“Don’t be jealous, my dear,” he said, the teasing clear in his voice, making Emma roll her eyes again.

“As if I ever could be,” she scoffed.

He stopped and faced her, the way his black hair flopped over his brow making her long to brush it back. The intense look was back in his crystal blue eyes and Emma had trouble drawing a deep breath.

“I know.” His voice wasn’t much more than a whisper. “It’s the only reason I tease you.” He reached up and lightly ran his knuckles down the side of her face. “You’re the only woman I know who would never stray. I can’t tell you how much I admire you for that.”

“I love your brother. I could never betray him.”

“I know that, too.” His hand returned to his side. He was so handsome and so in need of love, Emma felt her heart would break. If only he’d let someone, anyone, into his heart. If anyone would care enough to look beneath the handsome, yet devilish facade, they’d find the man she knew- kindhearted, loyal, and true.

They continued toward Kilmartin House and Emma took a deep breath. “Thank you for bringing me out tonight. I was just feeling so closed in, claustrophobic almost. The fresh air did me quite a bit of good.”

“Then I’m happy to have been of service, milady,” he said as they climbed the steps to the front door of Kilmartin House. The door opened, the butler obviously looking out for them, and Emma undid and handed him her cloak and gloves.

“Will you stay or must you go?” she asked Killian. She could just see Liam’s valet coming down the stairs out of the corner of her eye.

Killian checked his pocket watch. “I’ll wait for Liam, if he hasn’t left yet. I came on foot, so I might as well avail myself of his carriage after he’s done with it.”

Emma nodded and turned to the valet.

“Has his Lordship left yet?”

“No, my lady. I’ve rapped on his door, but he must be sleeping quite soundly. Do you still want me to wake him?”

Emma sighed. As much as she wished he could sleep longer, she knew how important this meeting was.

“No need,” she assured the man. “I’ll wake him myself. Thank you.” She nodded at him and Killian and hurried up the stairs.

Moments later, Emma’s scream pierced the night.

~*~*~

Killian had no memory of taking the stairs three at a time to rush to Liam’s bedchamber, one of two thresholds in the house he’d never breached. He suddenly found himself there, staring at the bed on the other side of the room, barely conscious of Emma screaming from where she sat on the edge of the bed as she shook the shoulders of his unnaturally pale and still brother.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. Whoever that was lying on the bed, it wasn’t his brother. His brother was gone. He’d seen death in battle, but death wouldn’t dare come for Liam. Liam. Who was so strong. So steady. The pillar of their family. The one they all relied on. The picture of good health.

He took a laborious step forward.

“Emma.” His voice was hoarse, strangled, and unsurprisingly Emma made no indication that she’d heard him, her screams continuing unabated. When she finally stopped to take a breath, her face turned to him.

She rose, her movements so slow and graceful, her face nearly as pale as Liam’s, Killian could have mistaken her for a ghost. She glided toward him and as she got closer, he could see the splotches of color high on her cheekbones, the sunkenness and redness of her eyes, the tear tracks down her cheeks. She grabbed his hand, her grip so tight her knuckles were white.

“Wake him up, Killian,” she begged, more tears spilling from her eyes. He met her gaze, knowing the same devastation she wore on her visage was reflected back to her on his own. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her in tightly, automatically, like some kind of machine. She grabbed the lapels of the coat he wore and buried her face in his chest, moaning like a wounded animal. “It was just a headache.” Her tears soaked his shirt. “It was just a headache. How could this happen? I don’t understand!”

He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t offer her any sort of comfort beyond holding her as he was now because he didn’t understand either. Between Eton, Cambridge, and the Royal Navy, he’d been trained for everything the life of a gentleman had to offer. But he’d never been trained for this.

She pulled back suddenly, the cry falling from her lips coming from the depths of her soul.

“WHYYYYYYYY??!!”

Just as suddenly as she pulled back from him, she collapsed in his arms, bringing them both to the floor. He stared, unseeing, at the far wall, wondering why he wasn’t crying. He was numb and his body felt heavy, like his very soul had been crushed. Killian’s internal cry echoed Emma’s.

Why?

~*~*~

“Could she be with child?”

Killian sat behind Liam’s desk, and blinked at the question posed to him by Lord Isaac, a short and thin man who rather reminded Killian of a rat. The representative of the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords had a self-important air about him that grated on Killian’s nerves. Liam hadn’t been gone - he still couldn’t bring himself to say or even think the truth - twenty-four hours and here was this bastard, demanding an audience and droning on about some sacred duty to the crown. He turned his attention back to Lord Isaac, his brow furrowed.

“What did you say?”

“Her ladyship,” he repeated, enunciating each syllable carefully, as if Killian had no idea of whom he spoke. “If she’s carrying, it will make things… difficult.”

“I don’t know,” he said, enunciating his own words just as carefully. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this right now. “I haven’t asked her.”

“You need to.” The man sniffed indignantly. “I’m sure you’re eager to assume control of your new holdings, but before you can do that, we must determine if she’s carrying. Furthermore, if she is, a member of our committee will need to be present at the birth.”

Killian was stunned. There was no other word for it. “I beg your pardon?” He was amazed he was able to get the words out.

“Baby switching,” Lord Isaac said grimly, with all seriousness. “There have been instances…”

“For God’s sake…” Killian interrupted, scrubbing his hand down his face.

“It’s for your own protection as much as anyone’s,” Lord Isaac assured him. “If she were to give birth to a girl, and no one is there to witness it, what’s to stop her from switching the babe with a boy?”

Killian couldn’t bring himself to dignify that with any kind of response.

“You need to find out if she’s carrying,” Lord Isaac insisted. “Arrangements will have to be made.”

“She was widowed yesterday,” Killian bit out. “I will not burden her with such intrusive questions.”

“There is more at stake here than her ladyship’s feelings,” Lord Isaac continued, haughtily. “We cannot properly transfer the earldom while there is doubt as to the succession.”

“The devil take the earldom,” Killian snapped.

Lord Isaac drew back in visible horror. “You forget yourself, my Lord.”

“I am not your lord,” Killian growled. “I’m not anyone’s…” He stopped suddenly, realizing almost too late that he was perilously close to tears. He glared at the man in front of him, trying to stave them off. This little weasel, who didn’t seem to understand that it wasn’t just an Earl who had died, but a man.

His brother.

He expected that as soon as the abhorrent little rodent left, the door was locked behind him, and Killian was sure no one would observe him, the tears would finally come.

“Someone has to ask her,” Lord Isaac said.

“It won’t be me,” Killian murmured.

“Then I will.”

Killian could take it no longer and was out of the chair like a shot, grabbing Isaac by the lapels of his jacket, pushing him against the wall before the man could even blink.

“You will not approach Lady Kilmartin,” he growled, menacingly. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, my Lord,” the damnable man choked out. Killian realized he was turning an alarming shade of purple, so he stepped back, releasing him.

“Get out.”

“You’ll need to…”

“Get out!” Killian roared.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, when you’re in a more calm frame of mind.” The man left quickly with as much dignity as he could muster and Killian closed the door firmly behind him, turning the lock before he returned to the desk.

He dropped his head into his hands and a single tear finally spilled over and tracked down his face. His chest was tight and his throat felt so narrow, it was a wonder he could breathe at all. A gasping sob escaped him and the dam broke. Killian’s anguish poured from him in a seemingly endless tide, the tears streaming down his face, soaking the loosened cravat he wore and the shirt underneath.

How had it come to this? Yes, as long as Liam and Emma had remained childless, he was second in line to the earldom. But no one seriously expected him to inherit. Liam was barely thirty and the picture of health.

Word had already reached him that men at the club were calling Killian the luckiest man in Britain. What no one realized was that he’d never wanted this. He’d never wanted the earldom. He wanted his brother.

And no one seemed to understand that.

Except Emma. Her devastation equaled his own, he knew.

They’d put her to bed last night, him and her mother, Ruth, who’d arrived quickly after his urgent summons, and she’d slept soundly all night, too worn out from the shock of it all. Killian knew, because he’d spent the night opposite the large bed where Emma slept, in one of the chairs where he imagined Liam and Emma taking their morning coffee before starting their days. He couldn’t bear to leave her or be alone with his own thoughts.

When she woke this morning, he could see the moment she remembered the events of the night before. Her eyes landed on him and he saw a moment of alarm, surprise, confusion, and then finally realization. He stood on shaky legs as her eyes filled with tears. They only lasted a moment, however. He watched as a firm resolve took over her gaze, her movements choppy and stilted as she swiped away the evidence of her anguish.

He grudgingly admired her for that and stood before her helpless to do anything useful. What were they to do? Neither of them was prepared for this. They were young, happy, carefree. They’d never dealt with death before and all the myriad details involved with it.

Who would have guessed the Committee for Privileges would get involved? And demand a front row seat to an event that should be a private moment for Emma. If indeed she was with child. Which he was not going to ask her.

“We must inform Alice,” she said.

“Of course,” he murmured. Why he hadn’t thought of that, he’d never know. Their mother would be equally devastated.

“I’ll write the note.”

Killian could only nod, wondering what he was supposed to do. The answer became apparent when Lord Isaac arrived. But he couldn’t think about that now, all that he stood to gain since Liam was gone. There was nothing good about Liam being gone. And if anyone dared to offer him congratulations…

His tears spent, Killian lifted his head and stared sightlessly out the window. He hadn’t wanted this. Had he?

He only wanted Emma. But not like this. Not at this cost.

He’d never coveted Liam’s title. The money or power.

He’d only ever coveted Liam’s wife.

And now he stood to gain everything that had been Liam’s. Except his wife. Guilt wrapped itself around his heart and threatened to strangle him.

He didn’t want this. He’d never wanted this.

“Killian?” Her soft knock and voice drew his attention to the door. The locked door. He rose and moved toward it, making no effort to hide his grief. He unlocked and opened the door and she stood there, as thin but strong as a young birch tree, her face pale, her green eyes round as saucers and beyond exhausted.

“I’ve sent a note to your mother,” she murmured. “Is there anyone else…”

Killian shook his head slowly. He knew he should say something to her, but his mind just refused to give him anything. He was too broken, too grief stricken. Just like the woman in front of him.

He gently took her elbow. “You should sit down. You look exhausted.”

Emma shook her head, even as she allowed him to lead her into the room and toward a chair.

“I can’t,” she murmured. “I can’t stop. If I do…” She shook her head. “If I don’t stop, I don’t have to think. And if I don’t have to think…” she trailed away and her eyes filled with tears again. It didn’t matter. He understood perfectly.

Then she turned her eyes upon him and her mouth opened like she had something to say. He steeled himself against the despair in her eyes.

“I’m pregnant.”

~*~*~

Seemingly overnight, Kilmartin House in London changed.

First, Alice Jones arrived from Scotland.

Second, Emma’s own mother, Ruth Nolan was a much more frequent guest than she’d been when Liam was alive.

Third, Killian was a much less frequent guest than when Liam was alive.

And Emma wasn’t sure she’d survive that last one.

Of course, it was a comfort to see her mother-in-law. They got along well and Emma loved her. And she’d known the grief of losing her husband. But now she’d lost her son, and in many ways was in as much need of comfort as Emma herself.

And of course her own mother was also a comforting presence, having also been widowed young, but Killian was the one she needed. Killian was the one who knew and loved Liam best, besides herself of course, and Killian was the one who most understood what she was going through.

He still came to visit occasionally, but when he did, he didn’t feel there. Not like he was when Liam was alive. His eyes were distant and he didn’t come anywhere near her, beyond what propriety demanded when greeting her or taking his leave - a formal bow, a slight brush of her knuckles with his lips, murmured words she could barely hear. He wasn’t the same.

And it was killing her.

But, she reminded herself, he was hurting, too.

She reminded herself of it when she didn’t know what to say to him. She reminded herself of it when he didn’t tease her. She reminded herself of it when they sat together in the parlor and neither had anything to say.

She’d lost her husband. And she’d lost her best friend at the same time.

She was lonely. And so sad. Why had no one told her how sad she’d be? But would she have believed them? Of course not. There was no understanding this kind of grief without experiencing it for herself.

Killian was the one link to the husband she’d lost - who’d loved him as she did - and she hated him for being here, but not being here. To walk beside her in their mutual grief. So they could be a comfort to each other.

It never occurred to her that in losing Liam, she might lose Killian, too.

“How are you feeling, dear?” Alice’s gentle question drew Emma from her musings. She blinked, momentarily unable to really comprehend the question, much less answer it.

“Uh, fine,” she said after a moment, with a slight shake of her head. The soft smile on the face of her mother-in-law, coupled with the joyful sadness in her eyes, prompted a small smile from herself as well. It brought home the fact that while Alice had lost her first born, the fact that Emma was carrying a piece of him brought a measure of peace to her grieving heart. “No different than I ever have.”

Alice sat down across from her and folded her hands in her lap. “It’s remarkable. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“If it wasn’t for my missing courses, I’d never know anything was different.” And it was true. She’d been around enough pregnant women to know what to expect in the early weeks and months, and the only thing she was experiencing that might be a symptom of early pregnancy was that she was a bit more tired. But, of course, that could be the grieving as well. Her mother had told her she’d been tired for a year after her father passed. Emma experienced none of the expected quirks and illnesses other women had told her about.

She’d be happy to be losing what little breakfast she was actually eating each morning, if only so she could imagine the little one waving, hello, I’m here!

“I wonder if Killian will be visiting today?” Alice mused.

“He hasn’t been here in three days,” Emma murmured, “So I expect he will.” She’d never admit to counting the days between his visits, but she had been, and he was due for his bi-weekly visit.

“He’s grieving Liam,” Alice said softly.

“So am I.” Her voice was a bit sharper than she’d have liked. “So are you.”

“But it’s different for him,” she continued. “He’s a bit in limbo until you deliver. And that’s still six months away.”

“Well, I can’t do anything about that.”

“Of course not,” she replied. “I just hope that he begins thinking about the future soon. If you do deliver a girl, he’ll have to marry and produce an heir.”

Emma scoffed. “Killian will do what has to be done, but he’d never marry while he’s still grieving Liam and it’d be dreadfully unfair to expect him to.”

“Of course,” Alice agreed. “I just so want him to be happy. Even with Liam gone.” She sighed forlornly.

It was odd. Emma wanted Killian to be happy, too, but imagining him married was rather hard to picture. Of course, it hadn’t stopped her from trying to push Killian in that direction. But if she was really honest with herself, he just didn’t seem the type. For years, she’d had Liam and Killian had been their rather constant companion. Could she be happy for him if he found love and happiness and she remained alone? Was her heart big enough?

She was tired and feeling a bit weak as well. She stood, grasping the arm of the chair when a sudden wave of dizziness came over her.

“I think I’ll lay down for a nap,” she said. “Wake me when Killian comes, if you please.”

“Of course, my dear. That’s a very good idea. You need your rest.” A sudden gasp escaped Alice and Emma saw that she wasn’t looking at her, but at the seat she just rose from.

There in the middle of the cushion was a small patch of red.

Blood.

~*~*~

Killian stared at the almost full bottle of rum sitting on his desk. His life would have been much more bearable if that amount of alcohol was enough to get him drunk. But unfortunately, Killian was blessed with quite a robust constitution and could hold his liquor with aplomb and grace.

He glanced outside the window to see it was still some hours from sunset. Also unfortunately, he couldn’t make himself override the good manners and etiquette Alice had instilled in him from the time he was a small boy that refused to let him get bosky before the sun set.

He tapped his fingers against the desk and wondered what he ought to do with himself. Liam had been gone for nearly two months now, and he hadn’t yet brought himself to move into Kilmartin House, still living in his modest apartments a few blocks away. According to Lord Isaac, whose lectures he was eventually forced to endure, the title would go into abeyance until Emma delivered. And if she gave birth to a girl, then the title and everything with it would be his. But given that that event was still six months away, Killian felt he could get away with not taking up residence in the earl’s house. He told himself he didn’t want to move in only to have to move out again in six months.

But the truth was something else entirely. He wasn’t sure he could survive living under the same roof as Emma.

She was still living in the house. She was still the Countess of Kilmartin. And would be until she gave birth to a girl and he married. Which he was absolutely not inclined to do.

Because even if he did end up as the earl, Emma wouldn’t be his countess, and that knowledge was enough to make him seriously think about damning etiquette to hell and downing that entire bottle of rum between now and sunset.

He would have thought his grief would have overtaken the longing in his heart for Emma, that he could be near her and not want her so much he could barely breathe. But no. His heart still ached with the pain of loving her. Even being in the same room with her caused his breath to hitch and his heart to race.

And now, all that longing was intertwined with a suffocating guilt. As if there hadn’t been enough of that when Liam was alive.

Emma was in pain. Grieving. And he should be there comforting her. Who could better do so? No one had known Liam better than he did. The two people who knew and loved him best should be comforting one another in their loss. But no, instead of comforting her, he was lusting after her. What kind of bastard lusted after his sister-in-law, his pregnant sister-in-law, when his brother wasn’t even cold in his grave?

Him, apparently.

And so he stayed away. Not completely. He couldn’t get away with that, not with his mother in residence at Kilmartin House. In addition, although the title wasn’t potentially to be his for another six months, everyone was looking to him to manage the affairs of the earl.

It was the least he could do. For Liam. For Emma.

He may not be able to be her friend at the moment, but he could make sure her finances were in order.

She didn’t understand. And he knew she didn’t. She’d often come to visit him when he was working in the study of Kilmartin House - going over various solicitor’s and land steward’s reports - looking for their previous camaraderie, he knew, but which he was unable to give. Not yet.

“My lord?”

Killian looked up at the door to see his valet, Smee, and a footman wearing the unmistakable green and gold livery of Kilmartin house.

“A message from your mother,” the man said, approaching with an envelope in his outstretched hand. “She said it was urgent.”

His brows rose on his head. Urgent? That was new. His mother had sent him nearly daily missives, or it seemed like it anyway, but they were never more than just prattling on about the doings at Kilmartin House. She was likely just trying to keep herself busy.

Once Smee and the footman left the room, he opened the letter.

Come quickly, it said. Emma has lost the baby.

~*~*~

Killian himself was nearly killed several times, not to mention the numerous pedestrians who were in his way, as he raced on horseback to Kilmartin House.

But now he stood here in the foyer, holding his crying mother, and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

A miscarriage they called it. It seemed like such a small word for such a profound happening. And why had they called him? This was the province of women and doctors. Of which, he was neither. What could he possibly do?

But then it hit him. He was the earl.

Slowly but surely over the last two months, Killian had been stepping into Liam’s shoes. And now that process was complete. The final nail in the coffin, so to speak.

It took nary a thought to murmur comforting nonsense to his mother as he led her to the downstairs parlor, her sobs abating.

“It’s like losing Liam all over again,” she whispered.

“I know,” he agreed. And he did. While Emma had been pregnant, a small piece of Liam still existed on this earth. And while he wasn’t yet prepared to step fully into Liam’s shoes, by the time she delivered, he would have been, and he would have done everything duty demanded. For Liam, his child, for Emma.

But he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t. Not yet.

That last fragile link to Liam was snapped and he was right back where he was two months ago.

“How is she?” he asked.

“In shock,” she answered quietly. “She’s been crying. She can’t seem to stop. She asked for you.”

Killian’s head snapped toward his mother.

“Me? Why?”

Alice’s face was surprised. “She wanted you.”

“But… I can’t…” he stammered.

“Yes, you can.” His mother looked confused at his refusal. “You have to,” she insisted.

Killian shook his head vehemently, his hands starting to tremble. “I can’t go in there.”

“You can’t abandon her!”

“I’m not! I didn’t!” he cried, the grief breaking free. “Liam abandoned her! Liam abandoned me!” he shouted. His voice shocked him. He sounded like a wounded animal - pained, panicked, confused. Tears pricked the corner of his eyes. “She was never mine to abandon!”

“Killian George Alaster Jones!” his mother cried, shocked. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Mother,” he all but moaned. “She needs a woman. What can I do?”

“You can be her friend,” she said softly.

“No. I can’t. Not yet.” The anguish on his mother’s face was real and he knew his was the same. In a move of utter and pathetic cowardice, he rose and ran from the room.

~*~*~

If there truly were nine circles of Hell, then in the month since he’d taken on his duties, Killian surely must have taken up residence in one of the lower levels of Hell on earth. With every new ceremony, each document he signed as Kilmartin, and every “my lord” he was forced to endure, it was as if Liam's spirit was being pushed further and further away.

Everything that had been Liam’s was now his.

Except Emma.

And Killian was determined to keep it that way. He would not bring that last insult to bear against his brother’s memory. He’d seen her, of course. And offered his best words of comfort. Which were, truthfully, woefully inadequate. And both he and Emma knew it.

He’d been more relieved that she was physically unharmed than upset over the loss of the child. But he couldn’t very well say that.

Their mothers, for some reason, felt compelled to describe the event in gruesome detail, a chamber maid trotting out the bloodied sheets as proof that Lady Kilmartin had indeed lost the baby. Lord Isaac had nodded in approval when presented with the evidence, but had then added that Lady Kilmartin would still need to be observed closely for the next few months to be sure she was not increasing. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to circumvent the sacred laws of primogeniture, he’d asserted.

The rage inside Killian at that statement nearly propelled him to pick up Lord Isaac bodily and throw him out the window, but he managed to control himself by the most tenuous of grips.

He still hadn’t moved into Kilmartin House. He knew it was expected, but the circumstances at the house hadn’t changed, and Killian still couldn’t bring himself to live in the same house as the woman he loved.

Who now stood at the threshold of his study. She looked thin and pale, but her green eyes flashed.

“Emma?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

He was shocked. He couldn’t deny it. She’d never been here. Not when Liam was alive. And certainly not after.

“I wanted to see you.” The rest of her statement, her accusation really, went unspoken. You’ve been avoiding me.

Was this improper? He hadn’t a clue. Their relationship now was so different and ambiguous, he couldn’t guess what rules of etiquette applied. He motioned to a seat and she took it, her fingers twisting in her lap.

She finally looked at him, her gaze intense, grief and anger swirling in their depths.

“I’ve missed you.” Make that an even lower level of hell.

“Emma…” he tried.

“You are… were… my friend,” she said, angrily, swiping at the tear that tracked down her face. “Besides Liam, you were my closest friend!”

Emma, I…” he tried again. He was a fool. And a coward. And he didn’t know what to say to her.

“Where have you been?”

“I…” He was speechless. Brought down by an angry and grief-stricken face, and a mountain of guilt. Although guilt for exactly what, he couldn’t pinpoint any longer. It came from too many sources to make sense of anymore.

“I needed you.” The plaintive need in her voice nearly undid him. “You knew him best. You loved him the most, besides me. Why didn’t you come and help me?”

Killian looked down at his desk. He couldn’t lie to her. But he couldn’t tell her the truth either.

“I don’t know,” he settled upon instead. She was quiet and Killian couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes.

“That’s it then,” she whispered.

“I guess so,” he replied sadly. The sadness threatened to consume him. In the eyes of the ton, he may have gained much, but in reality, he’d lost everything. And the one person who needed him the most… he couldn’t be what she needed. He couldn’t stand to be near her. Because the grief and the anger and the love and the guilt were a never ending flood, and he was drowning.

The ticking clock on the mantle was the only accompaniment to her swirling thoughts. She looked at Killian and took in his tense shoulders, his rigid bearing, the unbridled grief on his countenance mirroring hers.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” he finally said, taking a tentative step toward her. Then another. Then another. Then he was kneeling before her, his hand on her knee. “I’m so, so sorry, Emma.”

“Why did this happen?” she cried. “I don’t understand!” The tears poured from her eyes and Killian gathered her into his arms. “It isn’t fair!” She clutched at his jacket, holding on for dear life as all the grief, all the anger, all the confusion that she thought she’d already released burst forth from her all over again.

“It isn’t fair that it happened to me!” she lamented. “It isn’t fair that this happens to anyone! Oh, what am I to do?”

“I don’t know.” She could just hear him murmuring into her hair and placing a gentle kiss on the top of her head. And the comfort she felt from him holding her was almost more than she could bear. For the first time in months, she felt safe and warm. And not alone.

Her tears finally spent, she pulled back from him.

“Will you come back? To Kilmartin House?” she asked, her voice shaky. “Will you stop ignoring me? I still need you.”

She could see the tears in his own eyes, grief and something else she couldn’t identify, as she waited for him to speak.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t know what to say to you. Didn’t know what I could do, so I stayed away.”

“I know,” she said quietly, looking down at her lap. She still clutched at him, unable to let him go, or the warmth and safety he gave. “I knew that’s why you were staying away, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.”

“I know. And I’m sorry.” He released her and stood, even as her arms reached for him again. “I’ll take up my residence in Kilmartin House.”

He could deny her nothing. And living under the same roof couldn’t possibly be any worse than what he’d already had to endure. And if it was, and it did actually kill him, then so be it.

“Thank you. That will… that will be a great comfort to me. And your mother as well.” She paused for a moment and rose. “You know, you were to be his father, in a way.”

Killian felt the blood drain from his face and his heart stop.

“What did you say?” The words were soft, weak, he could barely catch his breath to get them out.

“The baby,” she replied, turning toward him. “In the absence of his father, you’d have been the closest thing he had. And even with him gone, having you here will help me let him go. Let them both go.”

But Killian didn’t hear those last words. His heart started beating again at a gallop and the blood rushed in his ears. All he could grasp from her statement was that he would have been a father to the baby, and that knowledge destroyed him.

The title, the lands, the money, the power, the responsibility were all his now. The only things that weren’t were Liam’s wife and child. And now Emma was telling him that wasn’t true either.

He grabbed Emma by the arms. He was shaking, and she looked frightened but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t let her go.

“No!” he cried. “I can’t! I won’t! I’m not Liam!”

“Of course you’re not,” Emma cried out, thoroughly alarmed at the sudden change that had come over Killian. She’d never seen him like this. His eyes were glazed and unseeing, his grip on her arms painful, but her words to try and reach him, to get him to release her, fell on deaf ears. He looked wild, crazed, like a cornered animal that would either make a last desperate attack to try and save itself, or fall over and wait for the final killing blow.

“You can’t ask this of me,” he breathed, the strength and energy that fueled him, completely disappearing. He still held her tightly, but his eyes were finally seeing her and not some vision playing out in his mind. “I can’t do it.”

“Killian, you’re hurting me,” she whispered. “Please let me go.” He released her suddenly, the recrimination in his eyes and the restored blood flow in her arms bringing tears to her eyes.

“I’d… I’d better go,” she said, pulling away from him. She looked at him for a moment more, trying to make sense out of what just happened. She’d never seen Killian like that before and it frightened her. She wasn’t afraid of him, though. Even after that, she knew with utter surety that he would never harm her and would protect her to his last breath.

“Perhaps… perhaps it would be better if you remained here instead of Kilmartin House.”

“Y- yes,” he stammered, nodding with a jerky motion. “I think that would be best.”

Not only had she lost Liam, and her child, but it was now clear she’d lost Killian as well. And she didn’t quite know what she would do about that.

~*~*~

Once Emma was gone, Killian sat back down behind his desk and poured himself a tall drink.

He’d made a promise to her and broken it almost in the same breath. He’d spent the last month fulfilling the duties of the earl and then Emma’s words made him realize something.

She truly had no inkling of his feelings for her, and as long as that was the case, as long as she didn’t understand how much he hated himself for every step he took in Liam’s shoes, he couldn’t be near her.

And that brought him to a decision. Rarely in life had his path been this clear. He slammed back the rum and rose from his desk. When he arrived at his bedchamber, he found his valet carefully folding a cravat.

“Smee,” he asked. “What do you think of India?”

~*~*~

Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to know what you thought! Next ch will be up on Saturday!

#a scoundrel… or a gentleman?#krystal writes #inspired by francesca bridgerton’s story #art by motherkatereloyshipper

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