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togenabi · 1 year

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apothecary diaries

vinsmoke sanji (opla) x fem!reader

♡—you need peppermint for a salve you're making, but sanji bought all of it, and that's seriously not fair.

word count♡— 3.7k

genre♡— fluff

content notes♡— opla sanji, afab!reader runs an apothecary and likes to make things, inaccurate chemistry for the sake of the story, mentions of flames in bottles, please do not do that, no use of y/n, not fully proofread

also on♡— ao3

author's note♡— I love sanji sm he makes me cry. might be first in a series, but we'll see. please enjoy. xoxo, belle.

The third time a pirate entered your shop, you genuinely considered closing up early today.

You level him with a stare despite the man being twice your size. You cut him off before he can get a word out.

“No, I don't have anything that works against people made of rubber.” Crossing your arms over your chest, you gesture to the rest of your wares. “Now, are you going to get anything else? Or should you be on your way?”

He leaves, disgruntled, but without a fight.

A huff escapes your lips. The nerve of these people.

Ever since that outrageous bounty for that new pirate came along, suddenly every pirate and pirate hunter in the East Blue was gearing up to chase after him. All the poisons that were gathering dust in your storage were cleared out within days of those posters showing up.

It was good berry at first, but they got more aggressive, and started demanding more of everything. More doses than you were comfortable handing out. More dangerous poisons that could kill everyone in the room if the seal loosens by even a crack.

You took up this apothecary business because you wanted to help people. It wasn't exactly your dream to become a poison dealer.

The shop bell rings again. Thankfully, this time it's one of your elderly neighbors and not a pirate seeking poison.

The old lady smiles at you, the sides of her eyes crinkling. “You seem to be quite busy these days, dear.”

“If only they were paying customers like you, Ma'am.” You pick up a box of loose tea from the shelf, already knowing her usual order.

She gasps in concern. “Oh my, did they steal from you?”

“Only my time.” You grimace slightly, remembering how many pirates barged in last week.

“Would you like some honey with this? We have fresh jars from today's shipment.” You offer as you tally her order.

The lady hums in agreement. “Yes, I think some honey would be lovely.”

During slow days like these, you like to tinker with new recipes to sell. On a desk at the very back of the shop, obscured by thick curtains, is your beloved workstation.

You review your notes from the previous day. You'll need to get some peppermint for the healing salve you're developing. Taking a small jar of the experimental paste, you test a small amount on your hand.

Indeed, it needs more peppermint. Maybe you should use extract instead of crushed leaves next time, so that the texture is smoother.

The problem arises when your go-to herb supplier says he's run out of peppermint.

“Please tell me you're kidding.” You groan, looking down at your sadly empty whicker basket.

“M’sorry, lass.” The vendor shrugs, not looking very sorry at all. “You just missed the guy who bought everything. I promise I'll get you your peppermint next week, though.”

Resigned, you sigh, reading through the rest of your shopping list. The salve, at least, can wait a week as it's still a work in progress. The rest of your list, however, are crucial ingredients for your usual bestsellers.

“Fancy looking lad. He asked about spices. Told him to go to the shops down by the river.”

Your stomach drops. Everything else you need are sold by those shops.

Mentally cursing that vendor, you run as fast as your feet can take you. You're not letting some tourist get the better of you when it comes to ingredients.

You reach the river in record time. You'd feel proud if you didn't feel winded. Even so, you scan the road for anyone matching the tourist's description.

There doesn't seem to be anyone remotely fancy around. Triumphant, you go on with your shopping.

You begin to feel better as you cross more things off your list. You've almost forgotten about the peppermint incident, if only you didn't suddenly smell so much of it pass by.

A tall blond man walks by, clearly doing a lot of shopping based on the boxes of supplies he's carrying. The scent of peppermint hits you again. In a paper bag, at the very top of the boxes, you spot bunches of those leaves you've been so desperate for.

You can only clench your jaw in frustration and frown at the back of his head. He purchases a large amount of meat and fish in the next stall, and you gather that he must be some sort of chef. No normal person buys so much meat that the shopkeep offers to deliver everything. But that's what happens to this fancy looking lad. He must not be normal then.

“Yes, my ship's in the docks. You can't miss it, thank you so much for your help.” He smiles. His blue eyes wander the stall, then travel to the next stall over, where you are.

There's a moment of surprise when he finds you already looking at him, but his expression changes instantly into a suave one. It almost makes you want to back away, but you stand your ground when he approaches.

“Aren’t you stunning? I was feeling tired, but your pretty face woke me right up.”

You turn away, pointedly ignoring him. He can't flirt with you while smelling like peppermint. It's just not fair.

“Sorry for the hold up, lass. What's it you need?” The shopkeep you were waiting for shows up just in time. You continue to not pay the blond beside you any attention.

“Cinnamon and salt, please.” You respond. “Pink, if you have any.”

“I'll have the same, good sir.” Fancy pants says. “Though, my salt doesn't need to be pink.”

As the shopkeep rummages through his supplies, the blond continues to speak to you. Why does he keep speaking to you?

“Pink salt is lovely to look at, same as you,” He begins, “But other than the color, there really isn't a difference to normal salt, isn't there?”

He shrugs, his broad shoulder shifting his suit jacket slightly. “You're paying extra for the same result. It's all the same when you cook it.”

“I'm not using it for cooking.” Is your only response.

The shopkeep returns before the stranger can reply. “Here's the salt for you's.” He hands you a bag of pink rock salt, and the stranger a bag of regular salt.

The dread from the peppermint vendor returns when you realize the shopkeep is holding only one bag of cinnamon. He pats it and says, “I could split it so you both get half.”

“I was here first.” You insist desperately. “Sell it to me.”

“...My hands are tied here, lad.” The shopkeep sells you the cinnamon, and it's quickly tucked into your basket when you get your hands on it. The stranger doesn't barter for it. Good.

And with that, you cross out cinnamon and salt from your shopping list. You were able to get everything except the peppermint, which stays neat and legible at the very top of the list.

You crumple the paper and toss it into a nearby bin before making your way back to your shop.

“Are you on your way to get some peppermint?” How did the stranger catch up with you so quickly?

“No.” No matter how much you wish you were.

You try to walk faster, but his pace is steady even with a large box under one arm and several others tied up with twine held in his other hand.

“But it was on your list.” He seems to be very interested in your dealings. Is he always this dedicated when he flirts?

You cross the bridge that arches over the river together. The townsfolk who recognize you and not the man next to you begin to whisper amongst themselves.

It takes everything in you to resist rolling your eyes. After a week of pirates, you suspect your shop will be full of gossiping neighbors soon.

“A certain someone bought all the best peppermint today.” Of course the scent of it wafts over you again as you say so.

“Ah.” Understanding dawns on his face. “I see, I'm sorry if that inconvenienced you.”

It was your turn to shrug. You were about to say that it was okay, but then remember that you wouldn't be able to complete your salve until next week.

You pout before you can help it. “Did you really have to buy all of it?”

He breathes out a laugh. “I normally wouldn't, but my friends tend to have endless appetites. It always pays to have plenty of supplies.”

Even in the middle of the bustling street, a certain group of strangers stand out. They're gathered outside the tavern. You don't know any of them, but you recognize one of them as that infamous new pirate with the exorbitant bounty on his head.

“Speaking of my friends...” The blond trails off, nodding towards that particular group.

You just about stop in your tracks. He's with them? He's a pirate?

Okay. A rich, flirtatious tourist you could deal with. A random pirate crew? You would probably still be fine.

But the crew with the highest bounty in all the East Blue? That's just asking for trouble to happen.

While the stranger is distracted by his friends, you slip into an inconspicuous alleyway. You'd have to go a little further around to reach your shop, but that's alright as long as you avoid those Straw Hat pirates.

Luck seems to not be on your side, though. Because fancy pants shows up to your shop later that evening.

He grins. “You didn't tell me crossing that bridge together meant something. I would have talked about something more romantic than peppermint if I knew.”

Of course, word travels fast in a small town. You should have known someone would tell him. And that he would be able to find you easily if he wanted.

“How does the legend go, again?” He asks teasingly. “If two people cross the bridge together on the day they meet... Theirs souls are bound.”

“It's a myth.” You dismiss his charming grin and try to ignore him.

He leans his elbows on the counter that separates you. He's hunched down, but still towers over you somehow.

“It's romantic. And I'm glad it happened to us.” He smiles. “May I at least know the name of the person my soul is now bound to? Mine's Sanji.”

“Well, Sanji. Are you going to buy something?” You ask and avoid giving him your name.

Sanji, surprisingly, nods. He grabs two cans of your special handmade tea and a large jar of honey.

“I'll buy these,” He places the items on the counter. “And give you this.” He holds out several sprigs of peppermint. You blink at him in surprise.

“...Thank you.” You gingerly take it, and carefully set it to the side.

You're silent while you ring up his order. It's when you're taking out a paper bag for him that you finally cave and reveal your name.

The smile that blooms on Sanji's face isn't how you expected it would be. You expected him to look arrogant, to look proud that he was able to sway you like he did other women before.

But he looks at you sweetly, dimples showing and eyes sparkling. You wordlessly hand over the paper bag.

“A pleasure, darling.”

You would have thought that would be the last time you saw Sanji. But, be it luckily or unfortunately, he finds you the next day with the rest of the Straw Hats tagging along.

Only this time, they seem to be on the run.

You hold open the door for the Straw Hats and, one after another, they flood into your shop. Sanji smiles and says something about your hair, but you can't process the words with his friends scattering to hide.

“Sanji, what the fuck?”

“I know, I know, love. I'm sorry we had to reunite like this. We just need to lay low for a bit.” He reassures you, caressing your shoulders as he does.

“I'll make it up to you! I'll cook you a romantic, candlelit dinner.”

You frown at him, unimpressed.

Sanji kisses his teeth and sighs. “I'll give you the rest of the peppermint.”

You perk up instantly. “Deal. You can all hide in my workstation.”

“Hi, I'm Luffy!” Their captain greets you jovially. “That's Zoro,” Luffy points to the swordsman. “Nami,” The woman. “And Usopp.” The one hiding under your counter.

“Of course, you know Sanji already, being soulmates and all.”

You trip on nothing, and Sanji grabs your hand to steady you. You glare. He just smiles.

“Your shop is really cool!” Luffy exclaims, looking at all the trinkets on the shelf.

“Thanks.” You say dryly, pushing the curtain partition aside. You lead them to the back of the shop.

“Make yourselves at home.” You wave a hand towards the couch and some chairs around your desk. They should be fine here as long as they don't need to stay the night.

Through the gaps in the window blinds, flashlights and shadows stream into the room. There seems to be an active search party out for these guys. You suddenly can't believe you agreed to this for peppermint.

Zoro, whose three earrings glint in the light, shifts to scratch at his chest. You spot bandages from the gap in his shirt.

You grab the small jar of salve from your desk and toss it to him. He catches it, but looks from the jar to you and back, confused.

“It's a healing salve I made. It should help soothe your skin.” You explain.

The swordsman still looks unsure, but opens the jar anyway. Zoro sniffs its contents, and tries putting a small amount on his chest.

You beam at him, unable to help feeling proud at how his shoulders visibly relax after using it.

“Thanks.” Zoro says simply.

“No problem.” You nod back, still smiling.

Luffy looks at the jar as if it's a miraculous cure-for-all. “That's amazing.”

“It smells really good, too.” Usopp says, sniffing at the air around Zoro.

“Do you sell that here?” Nami asks.

“I will, once I make more.” You answer. You never realized how uplifting it was to share your work with new people.

Subconsciously, you turn to Sanji. But, why is he frowning? You follow your gaze to find he's looking at the jar in Zoro's hand.

Before you can ask him if anything is wrong, Luffy bursts out excitedly, "You're a doctor! You should join our crew!"

You wince. “No, I'm a chemist.”

“Cool!” Luffy's enthusiasm does not wane. “So you can heal, right?”

You're about to correct him before they assume things out of your pay grade when Usopp claps his hands in realization.

“She's even better than a doctor!” Usopp insists. “She makes the medicine that the doctors give out!”

Just as you were about to interfere with how much they were overestimating your skills, the shop bell rings. You turn to the clock. Shit, you should have locked up twenty minutes ago.

You meet everyone's eyes and they all nod, understanding that they need to be quiet. You switch off the lights in the back room for good measure.

The customer is a pirate you've never seen before. He looks angry, glaring at every possible hiding spot in your shop. Particularly the room you just came from.

You're careful to completely shut the curtain behind you.

“How can I help you, sir?” You put on your best customer service smile. “I was just about to close the shop, but if it's urgent, I'll help you find what you need.”

The pirate grunts. He's not buying what you're selling at all.

“Perhaps some calming tea? You look like a refined gentleman who would enjoy this.” You hold up a can of tea as if that will help you seem less suspicious.

“What's behind the curtain?” He points behind you accusingly.

“My work area, where I make all the fine products you see before you.”

Stomping forward, he seems to have had enough of your stalling. Fine.

Just as he's about to bash his fist down onto your counter, you grab a suspicious looking dark jar. You hold it up threateningly.

“The hell is that?!” The pirate snarls.

“Haven't you heard? I'm the go-to poison dealer in all the East Blue.” You bluff. “A whiff of this, and you'll sink like a rock, my friend.”

He freezes, but glares at you more fiercely. You pretend to twist the lid.

“Y-you'll kill yourself too, then!” He barks back. “Let's see your bullshit poison then.”

“Oh, but that's what makes me so brilliant.” You grin, laying the act on thick. “I'm immune to all the poisons I make.”

Your hand settles ominously on the lid. “Shall we test who survives?”

The pirate scrambles to leave. He's out before you can blink. Without missing a beat, you lock the front door and draw all window blinds down.

You rest your back against the door. Letting out a loud exhale, you almost let yourself slide down to the floor. How long do you have to deal with pirates like that?

Thoughts of yesterday with Sanji at the market fill your thoughts. If only all days could be like that, where the worst of your problems had been a peppermint shortage.

“You guys can come out, now.” You call out to the Straw Hats.

“Uh... Is that really poison?” Usopp asks, staying very far away from the jar.

You laugh, though it comes out airy due to your tiredness. “No, those are just some herbs I left to ferment.”

“How brilliant of you, love.” Sanji is beside you in a few strides. Him and those long legs.

“Was he the one you guys were hiding from?” You ask. The crew members shake their heads.

“No, actually.” Nami says. “We were hiding from a bunch of—”

Your shop explodes.

Sanji is quick to pull you into his arms and shield you from the debris with his own body. For a minute that feels like eternity, you can't hear anything. Your ears are ringing, and dust clouds over all your years of hard work. You sob into Sanji's arms.

“No!” You cry out.

Marines step into the shop, wood planks cracking and glass panels shattering under their feet. There are so many of them. You don't understand. Even if you hid the Straw Hats here, they shouldn't be allowed to destroy private property, right? Right?

“We got a report of illegal poisons in the area.” The leading officer states, his face stoic. “Just our luck that we run into pirates as well.”

You look to the Straw Hats, all of them are positioned to fight, save for Sanji. He's still cradling you protectively.

Taking a shaky deep breath, you lift your hand to rest it on Sanji's arm. He instantly looks down at you, silently asking if you're alright.

You're not yet, and if you're being honest, you'd rather stay in his arms until everything is over. But you nod anyway. Sanji gently lets you go and gets ready to face your new enemies.

“Get them all.”

Chaos breaks, and you run to duck behind a shelf that toppled over. The Straw Hats put up a good fight, but there are just too many Marines. Your eyes find round bottles of herbs scattered around you, and you come up with an idea.

“Guys!” You yell. “Buy me some time!”

“Anything for you, darling.” Sanji winks at you before sending a Marine flying. You gape at his audacity. The rest of them don't even react, but you notice they rotate slightly, surrounding you to keep you from being interrupted.

Grabbing as many of the bottles as you can, you stuff them with shards of wood and more dried leaves. You take rocks from the debris and strike them together.

With a few sparks, the herbs and leaves catch fire. You act fast, throwing the bottles at the Marines.

The bottles shatter, bursting into flames once they hit their mark. The Marines panic and become disoriented, giving the Straw Hats an advantage despite being outnumbered.

Eventually, the Marines run and scatter, leaving only the few bravest of them to fight. The Straw Hats make quick work of them.

When the battle is over, you watch the dust settle over the ruins of your apothecary. It's going to take years to earn enough berry to restore how everything once was. You can't help but feel heartbroken.

Sanji sits down in the rubble next to you, wrapping you in another embrace. You let yourself fall into him.

“We'll help you get everything back. I promise.” He swears, voice slightly muffled into your hair.

“Or, you could come with us! Join our crew!” Nami hits Luffy on the shoulder.

“What? It's true!” Luffy insists. “We need someone like her!”

You pull back from Sanji's embrace to look at him. He doesn't say anything, but something tells you he wishes for you to come with them. The others look at you expectantly as well.

No one speaks to persuade you further. But when you compare this rag-tag team to your ruined apothecary, your answer suddenly feels very clear. If you're to slave away to earn the berry for rebuilding your home, why not spend that time with them?

The back of the shop is less affected, even if the sight is still dreadfully sad. Your notes are thankfully intact, and you're able to find a bag and shove some extra clothes into it. It saddens you that you're so quick to pack up your life, but you'll come back. Someday.

When you return to the others, they're all smiling. Sanji more so, but you should have expected that.

He holds out his hand, and you reach out to take it.

“I change my mind,” You jest. “I'll take that romantic candlelit dinner now.”

Sanji laughs loudly while he guides you to walk over the rubble safely. You catch some of the others laughing too, but they walk a ways ahead you and Sanji.

“Like I said,” He says with his signature grin, “Anything for you, my dear.”

Your mind must be playing tricks on you, because he still smells like peppermint. Now, that's really not fair.

#vinsmoke sanji x reader #sanji x reader #one piece live action #opla sanji x reader #opla vinsmoke sanji x reader #opla spoilers #opla x reader #opla sanji x y/n #sanji oneshot #sanji imagine #opla #togenabi-writes #sanji x you #vinsmoke sanji x you

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stxrvel · 5 months

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tis the damn season

a season of sadness wanted to come to an end. 'tis the damn season and you thought maybe you could go home and live with your mate the way it was meant to be…

pairing: azriel x f!reader

wc: +3.5k

warnings: pure angst, cuss words and slight (or light? soft?) unprotected (wrap it up) smut. no happy ending, sorry

note: hi guys! :)- i wrote and published this one some time ago, but i deleted it because it was poorly received and that disappointed me a bit. but now that i was able to read it again, i feel it's a good job and that should be enough for me. i hope you guys like it :). see u next time!

Azriel was your mate. You had known for a couple of months. He knew it long before that, too. The bond snapped first for him, but he never tried to get close to you. You didn't know if it was out of fear or if he never agreed with what was chosen for the two of you by the Cauldron.

Likewise, you never had time to ask. The battle against the King of Hybern almost cost you your life. You didn't know what things had been done outside of your consciousness to keep you alive, you didn't know what boundaries Rhysand had crossed to bring you back to life, and you never wanted to ask either. You never asked anything, living in that ignorance gave you a sense of peace you didn't want to get rid of.

But things were never the same after that. From the day you woke up, everything felt different. During that time, you didn't allow yourself much time to delve into what the recent bond between you and Azriel meant, and he always agreed to give you your time.

However, one day, out of nowhere, it all became too overwhelming. And you decided to run away.

You never said anything to anyone, and you closed the door so Azriel couldn't feel you. You knew it must've been painful for everyone, especially your mate, but being with all of them after everything that had happened was unbearable. You lived under a constant reminder of suffering, violence and blood. You couldn't stop seeing your hands full of blood every time you closed your eyes, guilty for the lives they had taken as if you had had any right to do so, but having to know daily that it was all justified. Velaris and the permanence of the rest of Prythian justified it.

So, you went far away, to the other side of the world, to the east. To the Continent.

And life was not easy at all. You knew Azriel wasn't having a good time. After a while, the wall you both had built around the bond was beginning to crack and his emotions were seeping through those tiny cracks. You could sometimes feel his sadness, his pain… his anger. After a couple of minutes of heartbreaking grief, the pangs of anger would appear. You could tell what he was going through and, selflessly, you tried to think that your decision was for the best.

Rhysand wrote to you almost daily. Paper with his handwriting constantly appeared around you and, although you never answered him, he always made it a point to let you know everything that was going on in Velaris.

The first few days were the hardest.

There was a heavy snowfall on the Continent when you arrived, something that had never been more than a welcome, tearing at your skin. The cold was so deadly and the gales so lethal that you couldn't leave the apartment you were renting for a whole week. Apparently, at that time, that was normal. The cold that fogged up the windows, that froze your limbs, and that made all signs of life disappear.

Where are you? Azriel is very worried

Please, answer me

Y/N

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU????

Cassian and Azriel are flying over Velaris. Can you just tell me, please?

Y/N, we are very worried. Please.

Please.

You had a lot of tugging on your bond from Azriel. You could feel his desperation even through the walls of silence. Those were difficult days. The cold days were not comforting at all.

However, as the months passed, with the cultural difference and the harshness of reality outside of the family you had known for as long as you had memories, so many hundreds of years ago, you gave in to Rhysand's wishes to return to Velaris on the night of the Starfall.

And that night… well, you hadn't told anyone you were going.

But as you expected, Azriel was the first to know you were there.

You heard the flutter of his wings before you saw him, towering in the moonlight against the dim lighting in the city in anticipation of the biggest celebration of the year. He stumbled as he fell, being one of the few times you had seen him unable to control his strength, staggering with his feet and hands to get to a safe distance from you. His breathing was rapid, almost erratic and his eyes were bright, crystallized. The stirring movement in your chest brought tears to your eyes.

Azriel was there in front of you from the moment he had the slight feeling, because he knew the bond wasn't wrong. And his gaze reflected everything. Everything he wanted to say and everything he preferred to keep silent. You had never felt so strongly the need to be close to him; you hadn't even accepted the bond, but you felt as if you had just done it. His eyes roamed the features of your face, his expression contracting as if he was slowly processing that you were really there in front of him.

You saw him raise one of his hands, the hands that had so often held you in the darkness and through the sadness. If you focused really well, you could almost notice how his body trembled at the closeness, with anticipation, just as your body shuddered at his presence.

The effects of the bond were powerful. But that hadn't been what made you fall in love with him.

Azriel took a tentative step forward, reaching out his hands as if in a trance, seeking to touch you to make sure it was really you in front of him and not some kind of hallucination. Your voice stopped him on his feet.

“Hello, Azriel,” you could barely speak, that suffocating feeling of being close tightening your throat. His eyes moved quickly back to yours and watered once more, his breathing quickening again. You didn't know what you had awakened in him just by speaking to him once more after so long without seeing him, but it must've been the same thing that ignited in your body when he spoke.

“Y/N,” he elongated your name, like a plea or a prayer, you weren't sure. Electricity coursed through your body in a matter of seconds and you felt your feet move before you could stop them. The emotion rising in your chest matched your mate's expression, nostalgic because it had been so many months since you had last been so close and yet more pained and suffering because you had been the reason all that pain now surrounded you both.

You stopped just inches away from him, your hands itching with the need to touch him, to feel him close, to once again have that warmth that would warm and thaw your soul. His huge, beautiful wings were taut behind him, being that all his attention was focused on your every move. You saw him hold his breath as you approached, struggling hard to hold back the tears that welled up in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” you whispered the question, the air stealing your confidence, perhaps feeling a little silly and embarrassed about it. Suddenly, you felt too small under his gaze.

“Okay?” the change in his voice was hardly imperceptible, sending shivers throughout your body, the panic of fear making its way into your chest, the bond tightening as if both ends were being pulled at the same time. “You left for a year without telling anyone. We went months without knowing if you were okay. I couldn't… I couldn't… feel you.”

His voice became shaky, each word brimming with a tinge of suppressed anger.

“Do you think I'm anything close to okay?”

Yes, it was a stupid question. The knot in your chest grew rapidly, the back of your throat burning with pent-up tears.

“I can't even enjoy the relief of seeing you now because… I'm so angry.”

“I know…” you barely mumbled, lowering your head. How could you look him in the eye? Why did you think you had the right to go back as if nothing had happened? It was clear that things weren't going to be like they were before. You weren't sure about the others, but it seemed you had taken some of Azriel with you by disappearing like that. Proud you weren't of your actions, but you didn't know how to explain to his shattered features and cheeks wet with tears that, at that moment, you believed it was the right thing to do.

The tears in his eyes prompted your own and you sobbed unable to contain the feeling. You tried to regain your composure, because you had no right to show such sadness when you had created it all. But Azriel was faster and you didn't even manage to put your hands under your eyes when his arms wrapped around your shoulders tightly. His wings also surrounded you and, although you had hardly noticed it because of the darkness, you felt his shadows dance around your feet.

The warmth of his body was automatically welcome. How many times had you imagined that scene in your cold bed on the Continent, all alone and devastated from time to time, with memories invading your mind. Not many times did you regret your decision, except when you thought of Azriel.

He sobbed too, his hands tightening on your arms, as if he was afraid to let you go again. He probably was.

“I don't understand what made you think you'd be better off away from us… away from me, but I'm sorry.”

His words surprised you, but a flood of feelings greeted you from the other end of the bond as Azriel let go and you couldn't think too hard. Crying swirled in the back of your throat. The level of pain and sadness that your mate was handling and had hidden from you for so long was so uncontainable that you almost doubled over, leaning over Azriel's body as you felt it rushing through you.

“I thought you needed space. I know what happened with Hybern was too much for you and I didn't want to overwhelm you. But if I had known that decision would've made you decide you'd be better off away from me…” Azriel gulped, his voice full of feeling breaking off between words. “If I had known I promise you it would've been different.”

You couldn't believe Azriel was telling you that. And the feelings coming from his end through the bond confirmed it to you. Azriel felt guilty about your departure. From moment one, when the panic and fear dissipated, Azriel never stopped feeling that it had been his responsibility that you decided to leave. And he couldn't have been more wrong. You loved him, had loved him long before the bond appeared, but the things that happened after Hybern, that affected you, had nothing to do with him.

“Azriel…”

“I'm supposed to be your mate. I'm supposed to support you, help you when you're down. I don't understand how I could fail at that. I'm sorry,” his voice was muffled as he spoke with his face hidden in your neck. At no time did he let go of you and his wings kept you warm. At that moment, that was home.

“I promise it's not your fault,” you managed to speak, your face pressed against his chest.

“I was supposed to be with you, accompanying you, but I-”

“Azriel, you didn't do anything wrong,” you fought against his tight grip so you could look him in the eyes and the tears running down his cheeks broke your heart once again.

“Then why did you leave?”

You didn't have an answer for that and Azriel realized it when your lips pursed. He sighed, as best he could, and drew you back into his arms. Maybe he didn't need an answer at that moment, just having you by his side was more than enough.

With the others it wasn't much easier.

Rhysand and Feyre almost wept at your feet. Cassian, on the other hand, didn't hide it and deliberately filled your shoulder with tears and saliva. Mor lifted you into the air and almost didn't let you escape when Azriel started begging her to let you go already. Everyone cried. Possibly even Feyre's sisters shed a tear or two.

You felt calm for a while. Complete, as if you were back in that house, in that home, before Amarantha and Hybern destroyed everything for you.

But things couldn't be perfect. After the Starfall, you began to feel that anxiety again. Azriel could only tell by your body language, because you still kept your end of the bond completely closed to him and he couldn't feel the swirl of emotions coursing through your body. You had barely had time to get used to the familiarity of the situation when all the memories came flooding back. Perhaps you had blocked them out during your absence living on the Continent, you weren't sure, but the cries of war began to haunt you from the back of your mind.

Azriel's shadows were also restless and that was another way he could tell something was going on. He was almost glued to your side all night, watching you out of the corner of his eye when you stepped away to talk to some friends. He never let you out of his sight. You knew where this behavior was coming from, but it never occurred to you to comment on it at any time.

So, by that time, Azriel knew what was going on and you were sure you couldn't escape him. When he approached you and extended his hand in silent invitation, with the sound of conversations and drinks in the back of your head, you almost didn't hesitate to take it. His darkness enveloped you and, within seconds, you appeared in your room at the Town House. The party was now an imperceptible murmur.

“Would you like to rest?” Azriel spoke, after spending several seconds standing facing each other. One of his hands ran over your face barely perfunctorily, but the warm sensation ignited too many things in your body. He arranged the strands of your hair that hid your face behind your ears with delicate, almost invisible movements.

You only moved your head in response, up and down, under his watchful gaze.

He almost crawled away, moving to your old bed that didn't have the same sheets as when you left. In fact, when you took a quick glance around the room, it looked too neat considering the amount of time that, presumably, no one used it.

You shrunk at the thought of Azriel coming in regularly to clean it.

With crystallized eyes you watched him move the comforter to make way for the clean white sheets waiting to be used once again after so long.

Azriel turned to look at you, expectant. You didn't know if he was waiting for you to move to lie down or to ask him to leave so you could change into comfortable pajamas, but you did neither. Not when the emotions in your chest moved you, when they were more uncontainable now that you shared your mate's. Not when he opened up to you in such a vulnerable way, when he let you know that which for so long he kept to himself. Not when he gave you to understand that he was always waiting for you, even though it hurt him terribly that you had decided to spend all that time alone.

So, for some reason, whether it was feelings or rationality, you approached him. You let yourself be carried away by nostalgia, by the silent desires of your heart, and you approached your mate with long strides.

His expression went from neutral to confused as you got closer and you only remembered seeing it turn to surprise when you cradled his face in your hands and kissed him.

It was rough and awkward at first, because your mate was completely transfixed for a few seconds. Maybe out of anxiety you counted ten. But, whether he was born from the same place as you or not, Azriel melted under your touch and as soon as he came to his senses he was kissing you back. It was just the kiss of an unaccepted bond, of a separated couple who held too many melancholy memories in their chests to bear on their own.

Azriel wrapped his strong arms around your waist and bent his head to kiss you more deeply. You could feel the desperation and desire hovering tentatively in his demeanor, but he held back to give you a sweet, soft kiss; a kiss that said welcome, a kiss that urged you to stay by your side and never be separated from him again, a kiss that made you wonder why you had left in the first place.

The softness of his movements were a direct contrast to your own. You cradled his face tightly, moving your lips over his as if second nature. Then you circled his neck, pressing him against you as if somehow you could hold him that much closer. You wanted him closer.

But Azriel broke away, breathing in and out between gasps, and looked up at you with dark, glowing eyes.

“Do you want this?”

His hands on your skin burned.

“Yes,” you answered quickly and tried to move closer again to kiss him, but he broke away again.

“And are you going to stay after this?”

Your eyes met his worried expression, thinly disguised. Ever since he'd opened his end of the bond for you, shedding any obstacle on his part that wouldn't allow him to feel you, everything you'd seen from him had been genuine. So you knew that concern was genuine and the mere conception generated pain in your heart.

“I will stay,” you assured him, forcing your lips into a tight smile.

Azriel studied your face trying to convince himself of your words, for he was an expert at knowing your body language, and you had no idea what he saw that convinced him and led him to pounce on your mouth once more.

When the lightness settled into the bond, you were thankful you had never lowered your wall. Guilt suffocated you.

But you kissed him back and followed your heart's desires, if only for one night.

Azriel moved his hands along every curve of your body before removing your dress. If you hadn't stopped his movements, he would've surely ripped it off. His eyes followed every part his hands had explored and then his lips were on every inch of skin. Against the soft mattress and with your wrists held by his hands, you could only sigh and moan slightly at the way he explored your body. And yes, Azriel took his time.

Before long there wasn't a single cloth separating the two of you and your mate simply couldn't keep his hands and lips still. Not that he wanted to, either. You moved your hands along his back, trying to avoid his wings, and moving your lips down his neck when he would let you because it seemed like all he wanted to do was eat you up with kisses.

It wasn't long before he had you panting against him, with the sound of bodies colliding being the only thing your head could process at that moment. The tingling that coursed through your body was like no other you had ever felt; the wonders Azriel was doing with your body were unparalleled. He was panting too and every time he met your eyes it seemed to you that they were darker than the last time, but he never stopped holding you at any moment, never stopped hugging you as if his whole life depended on it. Maybe it did.

The feel of his body against yours was indescribable, the movement and rhythm almost unbearable. You had never felt pleasure even remotely close to what he was making you feel at that moment.

“Azriel…” you moaned his name, gripping his shoulders tightly, burying your nails as if it were your only stability.

He cursed between gasps, increasing the pace and the force with which he held your waist.

You were never going to get to touch the sky like you did that night, that much was clear. Even though your head was split in two, you looked into his eyes as you went through the most shattering, sweeping orgasm you'd ever had, reveling in the sounds that came from his mouth as he followed you to paradise.

You thought it was going to be hard afterwards, but you fell asleep almost instantly.

When you opened your eyes again, your mate's arms and legs were wrapped around your body and one of his wings was covering your nakedness and keeping you warm. You were facing him, chest to chest, and just looking at his peaceful sleeping face made you want to cry. Life was here, next to him, why couldn't you accept that?

Getting out of bed without waking him up was quite a battle. Not as much as it was to sit at the foot of the bed, watching him rest, completely unaware of what would await him when he woke up. This time you were being selfish, you knew it, it was too cruel. But in your head there was nothing but disaster, pain disguised as stability. You couldn't have a good life with Azriel now and you didn't know if you could bear to see him to tell him after you promised to stay. You shouldn't have told him that, but how could you tell him otherwise? Maybe if he woke up at that moment you would stay… maybe that's why you sat there for so long.

But finally you left, just like last time, in the middle of the silence, with his shadows following your feet and trying to keep you company. You felt a deja-vu as you stood in front of the door, thinking about how on both occasions you were thinking about what would happen if someone showed up to stop you.

It didn't, in either case, and you knew the next day the exact moment when Azriel realized you had done it once again. He didn't try to hide his pain, he didn't have to, you deserved to know how you had made him feel.

On the ship, on the way to the Continent, you fell to your knees as his pain stole your breath.

#azriel x you #azriel fanfic #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x reader #azriel acotar #azriel #azriel angst #azriel spymaster #acotar fanfiction #acotar #azriel smut

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misguidedasgardian · 11 months

Text

The Hour of the Wolf (4)

IV. It is you

MASTERLIST

Summary: Pressures makes wind, earthquakes, and marriages

Pairing: Cregan Stark x Targaryen!Reader

Warnings: Cursing, war, death, mentions of killings, genocide and war, threats,arranged marriage, SPOILERS for ASOIAF, and Fire & Blood, also, might spoil House of the Dragon,

+18, MINORS DNI

Wordcount: 3.8 k

Notes: I don;t think this is going to be a love story, this is about politics, and a truly arranged marriage, their relationship will develop of course, but I just wanted to get that out there

“You have done a great job with her”, Cregan raised his eyes to encounter the mythical Jeyne Arryn, cousin to the late Queen Aemma, keeper of the East, Lady of the Eyrie, they both contemplated you as you sat the Iron Throne and gave audiences

“I have done nothing, it’s all her”, he said severely

“You are good with her, for her”, she said then, looking at him with her piercing blue eyes

“I know what you are implying…”

“She needs a husband”, she said

“You should stay here in court, as her hand when I leave”, he said almost at the same time

“You can’t leave her”

“I have to, I have a child…”

“She needs you, the realm needs you”

“The North needs me, she will be fine”

“You know that is not true, she is still too young to differ allies from foes”

“She will learn”

“At the cost of the realms”, Cregan Stark looked at her severely, but he had met her equal, this woman was not going to back down

“What about my son? What about my people? How is that going to work?”, he asked then

“You can come and go”

“A year at a time”

“Maybe”, she said. The small council had been relentless, just as Jeyne was being

His name was in that alliance

He pledged to take you to wife, you, in name, regardless of who you had become… you were his betrothed. And it’s not like he gave his word lightly, only, like he said, he need a wife and a lady of Winterfell, he did not want to become the King consort of the Seven Kingdoms, he did not want to take care of you… forever…

But he had taken the capital for you

Yes he promised your mother…

But he had done it for you, an unknown princess, on his mind

He found himself looking straight at you

Like the first time he saw you, he thought, again, you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Since he took the capital, color had returned to your face, you no longer had darkness under your eyes, your cheeks were fuller, you also filled your dresses more, meaning you were eating more, sleeping longer…

You were better

His eyes then trailed over all the faces of the Lords gathered there in the throne room, lickspittles, asskissers, many of them, without honor, just hunger for power and gold

Did he really care for what happens to the people of the other six Kingdoms? Were you really in danger? Kings had been surrounded by traitors all their lives and nothing major had happened…

Well… until Otto fucking Hightower

No, he couldn’t let that happen again

He thought he only wanted to bring justice to the traitors, but it wasn’t true, he cared about what happened

He cared about what happens to you…

The realization made him shift on his feet

He cared about you

He did not want you to get married to someone who was going to please the small council and take your place eventually, who was going to manipulate you or worse

He didn’t want you married to someone who…

No… he just didn’t want you married to anyone else… that’s it

The bare thought made him shiver

You felt yourself being watched intensely, and found Cregan Stark’s eyes

You felt your cheeks heated, as you looked away like a little girl who had been caught doing something silly

You were only a young woman, barely turned eight and ten name days

And Cregan was only a young man who had the power of the biggest country in the seven kingdoms and wanted to use it to avenge his Queen

He was himself impulsive, reckless even, maybe the rest saw him like the greatest choice, but he knew the truth

He wasn’t

What if he tipped you off a ledge? What if he sets you off resulting in the destruction of cities and the annihilation of thousands?

And yet…. He was the only one you trusted

Months on the road, maybe years away from you, years away from his home, his child… There must always be a Stark in Winterfell

But when he leaves you to be in Winterfell, he was going to wish he was in King’s Landing, and when he is here, he wishes he could be in Winterfell, he was already missing it, he wanted to see his son, his five year old son, he had left him in good hands, with his loving half sister, and trusted friends and servants… but still

He was so small, he had it when he was so young, the only thing he had left of his dear friend Arra

If he married you… if…

He was going to give you children, his child, second child, was going to sit the Iron Throne one day… and his oldest was going to be Lord of Winterfell

That was… enticing, to say the least

Too good to be true….

Having children with you, a thought that enticed and scared him in equal measure

A child of Ice and Fire, a child who was going to be a Northerner by blood and a dragon rider as well…

He shifted on his feet again

He wanted it

And he could pretend he had a choice all he wanted, but he didn’t… he had signed the pact… the woman… the Queen seated in the Iron Throne…

Was his betrothed

It didn’t have to be two months, a week long boat ride to White harbor and another week on the road and he could be home quickly…

It had to work

Did you want this?

He gave you the service of ending the courts early, and then you abandoned the throne room.

But before he could reach you, he was intercepted by Celtigar

“I need to talk to you”, he said, Cregan only nodded as they walked together to a hallway of the Keep which seemed to be empty

“What is it?” He asked, his patience long gone

“I can marry her”, he said quickly

Cregan stopped in his tracks, and frowned

“You trust me, don’t you?”, he asked when he saw his face

“yes, but…”

“I can get you out of the pact… if she is the one to accept”

He should be relieved, he should have said yes immediately, but the thought of you marrying someone else… he didn’t like it.

Not that he didn’t trust his friend, he did, he was the best choice according to him, the day before he had offered himself, the thing is… he had changed in the last 24 hours…

He wanted it, you, the seat at your side, the children you were going to give him…

But he wouldn’t even accept it himself, this was deep inside of him, he wanted to protect you, none of those southerners had what it took, only him, he didn’t trust anyone else, not really

Only him…

“My name is in those papers”, he growled

“But perhaps if I speak to her, began to court her…”

“I’ll talk to her”, he cut him

“I really think I should be the one…”, with only one look Cregan makes his friend stop speaking. He had just realized what he truly wanted to do, and he did not need to be contradicted now. “You are marrying her, aren’t you?”, he said, a smile sneaking on his friend’s face

“I don’t know yet, I don’t want to pressure her”, Celtigar only hummed

“I want to marry her too”, he said then. Cregan looked at his friend and he understood him, he was challenging him…

“May the best man win her affections then”, Cregan said.

He was not going to lose

And as he walked away Celtigar only smiled, having pushed his friend in the right direction by only pretending to want your hand in marriage

Cregan had asked Lord Redwyne for help and together they had set you up with young ladies, that shared your age, your ladies in waiting as it were. But instead he found you alone in the Red Keep garden, walking and escorted by one of your white cloaks

“What happened with your ladies in waiting?”, he asked point blank as he approached you, the lack of property, referring to you not as “your grace”, and it made your guard almost wince

“I send them on their way”, you said simply, leaning in to smell a beautiful flower, barely acknowledging him

“I don’t want you to be lonely”, he said gently, you raised your eyes to look at him

“yes, I know but they are so… vain… “this lord looked at me”, or “have you seen the dress she was wearing…”, Cregan only smiled condescendingly at you, “and I…”

“You are thinking about the wellness of millions”, he said, “concerned about the future of the entire realm, I understand”

“I understand the need to be distracted for a while, but…”, he only nodded

“I understand”, he said shortly

“Why are you here?”, you asked, nervous, he didn’t understand the change in your dynamic, you had felt confident and calm enough to cry in front of him, but now you were evading his gaze, and shifting in your feet in nerves

In your mind was a bit more clearer

You realized you liked him, you found yourself feeling butterflies in your belly when you saw his handsome face, and you wanted to punch yourself, for being so childish, you were not a young girl in front of her knight in shining armor, you were a Queen now, he was your hand, your advisor, and the head of one of the most important houses on the entire realm.

But you felt your legs shake, and your breath caught in your throat every time you saw him approach you

And every time he was near, you wanted him to stay near you, you felt your chest strangle your heart each time he walked away from you.

Gods this was strange even for you

“I want to ask you something”, he said slowly, you looked at him then, concerned

“You are leaving”, you said.

You were not an idiot, you knew he had a son, he was the Lord of Winterfell, he needed to rule his home. You couldn’t expect of him to stay here forever

That took him by surprise

“No”, he said softly

“But you have to go one day, don’t you?”

“That is what I wanted to talk about”, he said softly, your attention was on him then, you tried to pull on those dark feelings that would make you mad at him when he did decided to leave, he could not see that wide-eyed little girl who had a crush on him, not now, and you will not beg when he tells you it was going to be time for him to return home…

“... the marriage offers”, you were lost for a second but that certainly brought you back to attention

“Uh?”, you asked

“You had been offered several hands of many lords over these past few days”

“Did the small council put you up to this?”, you asked, bored

“You need to get married”, he said severely, “we need to make your family strong again, you need to settle your line…”

“I understand”, you said, looking down. You knew he had signed a pact to marry you, but you also did not want to hold him to it, there were different times, it was naive for you to think he was going to hold up his part, he had done enough already

“A marriage is also an alliance”, he continued, “you need someone who will help you and guide you, but not manipulate you…”

You only nodded

“A strong person, with a powerful family name…”

“If you say Tyland Lannister I swear…”, he chuckled, and shook his head

“No…”, he said. He then stopped all his movements, you felt his gaze on you, so you stopped as well and raised your head and eyes to look at him, “who do you want?”, he asked then

“I’m not sure”, you said, but you did… you wanted him

For the doubt in your mind made him question his own decision. He thought you were going to name him, but you were truly doubtful

You didn’t think he was an option

“I don’t know any of those men”, you said then in a whisper

“You know some…”, he tried, you looked at him

He felt even guilty for wanting it

He gave in to his deepest desire, of power and lust.

“Yes you are right”, you whispered, looking away from him again, “I just…. need to think this through”, you said with a low voice, you wanted to end this chat

But he didn’t, he needed you to say it

He had heard the small council ask him to, he had heard Lady Jayne Arryn… but he needed to hear it from you.

“There must be someone in your mind”, he said softly, with a gentle, soothing voice

“There was”, you admitted

“Talk to me, I’m your hand”, he continued, “I am here to advice you”

“Until you leave me”, you say then, without thinking, it was barely a whisper

So that’s it, he thought, you resented him for even the mere thought of him abandoning you

“I can come back”, he said then, with a hint of amusement on his voice

You only hummed, you didn’t believe him, and you were going to feel terribly lost without him, again, alone, like you had been before he saved you…. before he took the city in your name and put you on the throne

He did all of that

There was nobody else you wanted by your side but him

You shared a longing look, a long gaze

What did he want? you asked yourself. He looked like he wanted to listen to you but also to speak, at the same time. You didn’t know what else to say

“What does that mean?”, you asked then. He sighed, loudly

“I signed a pact…”, he said

“Yes, my brother offered my hand in marriage in exchange for your allegiance and your swords”, you said lowly

“No”, he answered back, you looked at him intently, “he asked for my loyalty, he had it already, but he negotiated our union for the simple fact he was scared of something befalling you, he wanted to send you North under my protection to keep you safe from harm, from the war, and from the Greens”

Ah yes, safe from Aemond and Aegon

“That sounds like my brother”, you said, melancholy tainting your voice

“He wanted to keep you safe”

“In more than one way you had kept your promise”, you assured him, “you took the city, took control…”

“I did”, he said softly, “for you”

“You are going to put a crown in my head”, you said

“In three days”, he said then, “and then you should announced your betrothal”

“I don’t have one”

“You do”, he said finally, his eyes, piercing eyes bore into yours, he dwarfed you in size, and even though he had left his fur cloak behind… he still look big and imposing

“Cregan…”, you called

“Say it”, he encouraged

“You signed the pact…”, you said.

As you looked at him, you grew angry

What did he want from you? to beg? you didn’t even know. He had signed that past, to marry you one day, and yet, he dodged that part at every turn, he needed to return home, you understood that he had a son, a little boy who needed his father, so why was he here? talking to you in this way?

“You promised to marry me”, you said softly, he barely nodded, his eyes looking intently at you, “but I understand…”, he frowned then, and you started walking away from him. Letting him standing in the garden

You called in a small council meeting, on your own accord

They were right, you needed to make your family bigger and stronger…

“I called in this meeting because I have to make a demand”, you said firmly, your small council looking amongst each other, Cregan was silent, playing with the dragon eye in front of him

“Tomorrow the Barahteon will present themselves to me, and I want to tell you my intentions so you’ll be prepared”, you said firmly, “It is to my understanding that princess Jahaera, daughter of Aegon the Usurper, is still in Storm’s End…”

“As a guest”, said lord Lannister

“As a hostage”, you said then, “It is to my understanding that she was on her way here, when Aegon was poisoned”, you said softly, “I know because it was discussed at the dinner table in front of me, yet, she is not here, I understand they are trying to keep her safe as some sort of leverage, but…”, you continued, and then you soften your gaze, “I want her here, she is a little girl, a Targaryen, daughter to my lovely aunt Helaena, and she should be with me and Aegon, with family”, you said softly

“Your grace is most graceful”, muttered the Maester, the others murmured their affirmations

“Tomorrow I will demand of the Baratheons to bring little Jahaera back to me, when she is here, we will betrothed her to Aegon, to finally solidify the family and end this madness”, yous aid with a soft smile

Aemond, Aegon, Alicent and Otto are and will burn in hell

But not Helaena and her children

She was an angel, so were the little boys that lost her lives

Jahaera was the only one left, you owe it to Helaena to keep her safe

After the affirmation and support of your small council, you walked towards your little brother’s chambers

He had become so quiet and sad, which was expected, but still, you tried to keep his mind busy, you would put Septas and maesters to teach him and accompany him, at all ours, soon, one of your King’s guards will teach him the art of the sword.

Now you make sure to sit and dine with him

Even though he barely spoke

“Jahaera will come to court soon”, you whispered to him as you served yourself a cup of wine

“Who was Jahaera?”, he asked innocently, of course he didn’t remember

“Helaena’s child”, you said, “she is your age, you can have fun together”

“Oh”, it's the only thing he said, while continue to have little pieces of bread and meat

“Maybe one day you can get married”, you said lightly

“When are you getting married?”, he asked then and made you laugh

“Soon, but I don’t know with whom!”, you said as it was a joke, it was sad that it was true

“Marry Cregan”, he said simply

“WHy?”, you asked him, amazed

“I see the way he looks at you”, he said simply

“How does he look at me?”, you asked him

“As papa looked at mama”, he said, and you got quiet

“He has to go back North”, yous aid lightly

“You can command him to stay, you are the Queen”, he said, still not looking at you

“If I only command without listening to reason I’m a Tyrant”, you said softly, “not a queen”

“He wants to stay”, he said

“I don’t know if he does, you know Northerners don’t fare well here in the south”, you joked

“Command him”, he insisted

“Aren’t you a little tyrant?”, you teased, reaching over the table and tickling his side until he squealed in a laugh

But gods if that made you think…

“He looks at you they way papa looked at mama”

Daemon Targaryen wasn’t much of a communicative man, he didn’t need to speak, it was all in his eyes…

He could make men tremble with just his gaze, he could make his children giggle with a wink, and he could make your mother swoon with that sparkle in his eyes.

Even little Aegon could tell

Even if the nannies took control over your little brother, you were by his side until he fell asleep, and then you went to your own room

You served yourself a cup of wine, another cup of wine.

“Call in Lord Stark please”, you asked Eryk, and he nodded and went to fulfill your requirement

It was inappropriate, to say the least, to summon a man to your chambers at this late… but you needn't to worry about such matters… Or you did

Your brother was right, you were a Queen, you had to begin to act like one

Cregan foud you seated by the fire, in a relaxed stance, with a goblet of wine in your hand

“Your grace”, he greeted, he seemed serious, but you believed you found a glint in his eye… you were started to get to know him and his facial expressions, as cold as they may seem

“My Lord Hand”

“You will summon me and believe me, I will attend to your calling, but I must say, if someone sees me coming into your chambers at the hour of the owl, where we are going to be alone…”

“I’m aware”, you said, smiling at him

“What do you need?”, he asked gently, with a smirk on his lips

“Today in the garden…”, you started, “you mentioned the pact you sign”

“Yes I did”, he said

“Why?”, you asked him

“Why?”, he asked back

“Why would you bring it up?”, you asked again, “it seems that you do not intent to honor it”, he got quiet then, analyzing you

“I meant…”

“There is no one else…”, you said, “it is you”, you looked up at him, your eyes sparkling. He softened his gaze

“Is that a command?”, he asked, amusement in his voice, it was like he was playing a game.

“Marry me”, you said, “honor the pact of Ice and Fire… you can come back home, on the condition of course that you come back…”

“To you”, he said

“To me”, you agreed. “Everyone will be at ease, well, except for the Hightowers, when you sit at my side in the throne…”, you said, he barely nodded, still smiling

“I don’t think so…”, he said finally, you stopped all your movements, was he rejecting you? he was not going to marry you? you had to command him, if he refused, you could fall through, you couldn’t make a man marry you… you started feeling ashamed of even summoning him here… you were starting to feel like an idiot

He turned his back to you and went to the small table in the corner and served himself a goblet of wine.

“I think they will feel threatened..”, he continued, you smiled then, taking a breath you didn’t know you were holding, “you and me together…”, he continued, taking a sip, “soon they’ll realize… the dragon and the wolf sat together… and they are all sheep”

You both smiled widely at each other

this is the vibe I was going for jajaja

Cregan is... complex... everyone wanted a tougher Cregan, i'm giving a gray one. He has ambitions, and wants power, and he is not indiferent to us, the beautiful young Queen... of what I read about Cregan, it is what I perceive... anyways... hope you like... maybe I moved it a bit too quickly but I want to get to the good part

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@lyannesworld @tremendouswolfsaladranch @unlesshouse @mimsie95 @ostricx @amelia262006 @marihoneywk @ahristata @happinessinthebeing @dd122004dd

@lyannesworld @aestmilky @lightdragonrayne @delaynew @mxtokko @stargaryenx @lightdragonrayne @delaynew @mxtokko @good-night-starlight @yentroucnagol @beebeechaos

#IV.misguidedhour #cregan stark #cregan stark x oc #cregan stark x reader #cregan #cregan x reader #cregan x you #cregan x y/n #cregan fanfiction #house stark #house targaryen #house of the dragon fanfiction #hbo house of the dragon

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skygemspeaks · 1 year

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do you guys want to hear about my sanji's siblings love him au?

who am i kidding, of course you do

anyways

ichiji, niji, and yonji run on facts and logic. they're programmed to have loyalty to their family, and sanji is part of that family, even if he can't do everything they can do.

and the way they see it, it just makes more sense for their loyalty to lie with the brother they shared a womb with for nine months over the father that insists on abusing all of them.

it's not sanji's fault that he's weak and has emotions. that's an objective fact. he was born the way he was. it could just as easily have been any of the rest of them that were different.

so sure, they'll follow judge's orders, because they have to, because it's what they were born to do, but they're not gonna take any of the shitty things people do or say about their brother, least of all their father

sora adores her children. because judge hurt them terribly by taking away their free will, but that's none of their fault, and they're trying in the only way they know how. she's patient with them, trying to teach them about morality and the importance of doing the right thing

at their age, they don't really understand it, but they do notice that people are more likely to do what they want with little fuss if they treat them the way their mom says they should

but then their mom dies, and maybe the loss of his wife is what pushes judge over the edge but he lashes out at sanji, because somehow in his mind sanji is the reason for sora's death. if it weren't for the poison she had taken, which had turned sanji into the weakling that he was, sora would still be alive

ichiji and the other two are furious. they hate this empire that their father has built for himself - and that little fact, that they can hate it at all - goes unnoticed by all of the kids

but they do hate it, and with their mother gone there's no reason for them to stay. so they take sanji, and they take reiju, and the five kids escape from the Germa kingdom and never look back

they work whatever odd jobs they can. and then one day they come across zeff - after he had been rescued from the island he was stranded on for months

and this zeff still has both legs and he didn't suffer as much because he didn't have a child to give up all his food for, but he still decides to give up pirating. he lost his entire crew in that storm, and he has no desire to sail the seas without them

so he had set out to fulfill his dream of building a floating restaurant for himself. he's living on an island in the east blue, and he comes across these five children. one of them, sanji, latches onto him as soon as he finds out that he's a chef. slowly, over the months, their relationship develops and grows stronger.

zeff isn't an idiot, he knows there's something wrong with these kids, but he doesn't pay it much mind. he treats them like any other children, with all the kicking and scolding that entails

normally ichiji and the others wouldn't put up with this kind of treatment from anyone, but they see the way sanji and reiju latch onto zeff, the way the two of them follow him like lost puppies and positively preen at any positive attention he gives them, and they decide they'll put up with it.

it's not like the crappy geezer's kicks actually hurt the three of them

so zeff takes reiju and the boys in, even if it means that food will be a little tight until their restaurant gets off the ground.

the 5 of them grow up on the baratie, protecting their home and surrounded by the gruffly affectionate cooks that are drawn to their father's way of life. it's so different from the environment that they had been born into that they don't know what to think. sanji and reiju take to their new life like fish to water, but it takes a little longer for the boys

yonji respects sanji like he respects his other older brothers. he watches sanji, sees the way he loves and hurts and grows. the intensity of the things sanji feels is completely foreign to yonji, but it stirs an unknown feeling in yonji's heart. he doesn't know what it is, but it makes him short-tempered with his brother

by now zeff has been around his kids for a while, and he's more or less figured out what's up. yonji learns from zeff that what he's feeling is jealousy. that he wants something sanji has that he doesn't

which should be impossible.

yonji doesn't feel things.

zeff shrugs and doesn't argue. he just leaves his kid to figure things out on his own.

after that, it happens slowly, so very slowly, but over time, ichiji, niji, and yonji start feeling more and more emotions. their emotions are still pretty dull in comparison to the frightening intensity of what sanji, reiju, and other people feel, but they cherish this new aspect of themselves.

and it turns out that sanji hadn't been the only one affected by their mother's desperate attempt to save her babies. the others had as well. it had just taken a little more work to draw their humanity out of them

by the time don krieg makes the ill-fated decision to attack the baratie, they still don't have the depth of emotion that other humans do. and maybe they never will. but they have enough to know that they will destroy anyone who even thinks of threatening their father's treasure

and they have enough to shed tears when their brother - a piece of their hearts - sets off with the future king of the pirates

it hurts, to have him leave them. and that hurt is something they wouldn't have had to feel if they had remained the way they were as children

but even that hurt is precious to them

because it's a product of how far they've come, and how much they've gained

#one piece #op spoilers #whole cake island #vinsmoke brothers #vinsmoke ichiji #vinsmoke niji #vinsmoke yonji #black leg sanji #red leg zeff #vinsmoke judge #vinsmoke sora #long post #raw fic #my writing

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farfromstrange · 6 months

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Interview With The Vampire | Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader

-> Main Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader (she/her)

Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), alternative universe, blood play, marking, scent kink, slight Dom!Matt, unprotected p in v, oral f!receiving, biting, vampirism, angst, religious imagery & symbolism, Catholic guilt, mentions of violence, allusions to suicidal thoughts, lots of plot, age gap

Word Count: 12.2k (this is a beast)

Other Characters: Vampire!Elektra (mentioned), Ben Urich (mentioned)

A/n: I finally got this one edited. This is a beast, y’all! I drew inspiration from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, but particularly the 2022 AMC series (I fell in love with it then and there), but it’s not based on it, so I just played around with the idea and this came out. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a full-blown series, so you’re getting a big ass One Shot instead. I used my usual Smut tag list, but since this is slightly Dead Dove Do Not Eat, heed the warnings and proceed with care! Don't read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Read Me On AO3!

The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps.

Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again.

Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’

The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable.

In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil.

If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature.

Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving.

An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.

Two years out of your Master’s degree at Columbia University, you have become one of those hard-working adults who fall into bed later than they should, and you lie awake at night, wondering how much longer you have to exist before you can live.

You interned at the Bulletin; you ran the true crime and mystery column for over a year before the newspaper shut down. A billionaire from downtown Manhattan bought it to start his own magazine, and you were the only employee he didn’t fire. Instead of relying on your top-tier education and experience though, he has banned you to the lifestyle and beauty column. He’s a beast if you have ever seen one.

On a Monday in June then, after the sun has risen and is now falling again, you find an envelope on your desk. You glide your fingers over the fancy paper. The letters are written in handwriting that resembles the old letters from the 18th century you had the pleasure of using as research material for your Bachelor’s thesis.

Your heart skips a beat. Could it be…

It is no secret that vampires exist.

Over two decades ago, scientists published papers on the existence of blood-sucking creatures after years of valuable research, and now governments around the world have set out to burn the inhuman species out before they can cause any more damage. Vampirism though is older than humanity itself and unless law enforcement has evidence of homicide, vampires have the right to exist amongst humans.

They are excellent at hiding their true nature, that much is true. The lore that has been passed down since the beginning of time is only partly true. They know how to adapt and rise from the ashes like elegant phoenixes. The misconceptions surrounding their existence stem from fiction, horror, and fear, but they persist.

And a rule has been established in society ever since the truth was revealed: don’t talk about vampires!

Don’t talk about them unless it’s in a fictional context. Don’t put your research out there. Don’t fraternize with them. Don’t risk becoming prey. Don’t be fascinated by them, and God forbid, don’t you dare write articles about them for the public records. If you want to know about vampires, you have to dig, and you have to do so quietly or society will deem you crazy and a freak.

The worst thing to be is not a flying android or a super soldier with a shield; the worst thing you can be, in this day and age, is a vampire.

You were a curious child who turned into an even more curious adult. At times even a bitter one because she couldn’t get the answers she yearned for and had to do it herself. So, of course, the We Don’t Talk About Vampires rule came across as rather absurd, learning about it back when you were merely a teen.

You started researching, and you found out more than you thought you would—more than you thought you could. You wanted to cover the issue in the Bulletin back when you still worked there, but since humans were raised to fear the very mention of vampires in the real world, no longer romanticizing the concept but rather running from it, the truth shall remain hidden. Again, that seemed absurd, but you had to accept it to get ahead.

You kept researching to the point you convinced yourself you could be one of them if you tried. You felt like you understood them, but nothing could ever fully answer all of your questions to the point it felt truthful. Honest. Real.

Growing up, everyone told you dead things aren’t supposed to walk. They aren’t supposed to breathe and exist among the living. They are cruel, and vampires are killers that leave trails of bodies the government is hiding from us. Greediness exceeds common sense. The human mind tends to get sick and twisted, and those who don’t fit in hardly ever stand a chance.

Hell’s Kitchen is particularly quiet on the issue. Rumor has it that the vigilante chasing criminals at night and leaving the worst of them dry at the shore of the Hudson while, at the same time, surrendering those he deems worthy of rehabilitation to the authorities, is one of those vampires.

They call him Daredevil; the savior of innocents and the downfall of the vile. Only a handful of people know who he is. The truth is caught in a spider web of lies, unable to come out unless someone were to tell his story for the world to hear.

That Monday in June when you open the mysterious envelope on your desk, everything changes.

He addressed you personally. Your name resembles a masterpiece, the letters swirling at the edges.

You don’t know me, but I know you.

It’s strange to read your name out of the mouth of a stranger.

I must admit, Miss, I’m a big fan of your writing. And I’m not talking about the lifestyle and beauty column Mr. Doherty of the ‘Silver Lining’ has confined you to.

No, I am a big fan of the work you used to do for the New York Bulletin. I remember your name headlining many articles on crime here in Hell’s Kitchen—a column my late friend Ben Urich used to call his home.

It’s a shame that the paper was shut down. I tried to prevent it, but the disappearance of half of humanity and Wilson Fisk’s irreparable damage to the city’s foundation tied my hands.

The token female journalist reporting on unsolicited beauty advice and lifestyle choices no one is going to follow in the days of social media and fake marketing. It must be frustrating, right? Not having a story to tell. Not getting recognized for your impeccable talent. The Bulletin gave you a platform, but Mr. Doherty and his goons took that away from you.

What I’m asking myself is, are you satisfied? You were probably imagining a different future for yourself. A woman of your caliber must want to be more than a mere object used to make a bottomless magazine look better on the market.

Excuse my overstepping. I read one of your essays on the magical and the mythic—lore versus reality—the other day, and it inspired me. My life has been taking quite a few turns lately, so I required some new… let’s call it insight.

You don’t know me, but I am one of those creatures you are fascinated by. I’m the kind of creature people have been telling you not to write about because the weak minds of the public would not receive it well. The Catholics, the church, the fragile and fearful human beings that can’t imagine anything in fiction being real and want to remain the superior species—trust me, I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner. To be abandoned. To be underestimated. Not quite like you, I admit, but I have a few years of experience in and with this world to show for myself.

I imagine you’re tired of your position. I imagine you’re dissatisfied with human idiocy. You crave answers to your questions. Questions you have been asking yourself ever since college failed to answer them. My kind is being censored—partly for good reason—but that doesn’t sit right with you, does it? To live life in a monotone line with no clear way out of this boring rhythm you have had to fall into?

I can offer you a different path. A story. Answers to your questions. And the unfiltered truth of a 242-year-old man.

You are going to find a card with my address attached to this letter. I can assure you, sweetheart, we both want the same thing. I will wash your hands if you wash mine. Think about it, and come find me when you have made your decision. Preferably after the sun has set.

Yours sincerely,

The paper crumbles in your hands, but only at the corners. Your eyes are glued to the lost drops of ink, the blue blood of an old fountain pen caving under too much pressure.

He chose his words carefully. Every paragraph circles around your head. You breathe in, and it suddenly feels as though the whiff of the unknown is an inhalable drug, twisting your brain inside out.

The pull threatens to submerge you in a stormy ocean. You’re flailing your arms around helplessly, but there is nothing for you to hold onto. All buoys have drifted into oblivion, leaving a sea of utter emptiness behind, and in the midst of it, there you are, drowning.

In a moment of clarity, you fold the letter back down on the desk. It lands with a thud, and you look around frantically, checking if anyone is watching you. They aren’t.

M. That’s all he’s giving you. And the fact he is over two hundred years old proves the rumors to be true. He’s standing by it, but only to you. He wants to reveal himself to you, show you his true face for a story, but he’s a vampire.

You’re alone. You can wash his hands, but is just showing up enough for him? You don’t even know him.

You’re in trouble. This time though, you didn’t even do anything. You did your job, and he caught an interest in you. How does that work?

Your heart skips another beat. It should not, but it does. The danger is exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. You hate what your body is doing, but how can you make it stop? You can’t. You can’t do anything but take it.

This stranger has got you in a chokehold, but in his hands, you might as well surrender to your certain demise. You don’t consider vampires inherently evil, but there is a reason people warn you not to walk alone at night in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s dangerous, no matter his nature, and he is not supposed to lure you in the way he does.

But you’re a curious kitten, and he is offering you the holy grail of answers to questions you have been grappling with for years. He hit the nail right on the head. And it doesn’t even scare you how well he knows you.

This is a gold mine. Realistically speaking, telling a vampire’s story could make or break your career as a journalist. If you do it for the magazine, you’re done before you can even bring your words to print, but if you do it individually and you do it well, people will certainly eat it up. The question is just, are you going to play your entire life safe, conforming to your boss’s view of you until you get the freedom you crave, or are you going to take the risk and fly?

The answer is as clear as day, but it takes you a moment to process. It’s as though someone is in your head, steering you in the direction of whoever this M is. Daredevil. This vampire who wants you to interview him, and for what? That’s still an open question you don’t have the answer to. But you do know what to do.

You scramble for your laptop, your notepad, and the letter in the envelope. The clock strikes four. You have another two hours on the clock, but you can’t be bothered to stay.

Upon hearing the sound of your shoes hurriedly scraping against the linoleum floors, one of your colleagues turns in her chair. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“I, uh, have somewhere to be,” you tell her as you brush past her.

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I forgot I had an appointment.”

“What about Mr. Doherty?”

You stop on your way out, looking back over your shoulder. “If everything works out,” you say, glancing through the window to his office at the other end of the hall, “He’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of the week.”

She gasps softly. “You’re quitting?” her voice is barely above a whisper.

Almost sinisterly, you chuckle. “That’s the plan, yeah.”

“But—”

“Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from me. I gotta go.”

Your steps echo for minutes still, but you are long gone with the wind.

Silver linings are considered an advantage that comes from an unpleasant situation. The name has proven to be entirely unfit for the magazine that replaced a big piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s history. The Bulletin had cultural value as much as it was laden with decades of the city’s stories told to the average person.

Wilson Fisk was the dynamite that sent New York alight. The Bulletin’s destruction was mere collateral damage in the fight to get the city back on track. You have had so many reasons to leave presented to you, yet you never took them. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here, making bad decisions on what started as just another Monday in June.

The fact is though, you didn’t leave, and you are here now. Facts are what matter. They count. Your hypothetical past, present, and future have no place in this reality because you can’t travel back or forward in time. Vampires may exist, and the Avengers time-traveled to save the world, but things aren’t quite as easy once you look at the bigger picture. You are not a superhero, you’re just a journalist chasing the kind of story that will finally make her voice be heard.

You know that Ben Urich, at least, would be proud of you.

His address weighs heavy on the small card you pulled out of the envelope earlier that evening. You passed it on to the cab driver, and he began to navigate the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The luxury condominiums in this part of the city can be counted on one hand. You know exactly when you’re there.

The sun has once again set over New York City. You’re wide awake, not quite sure though if you’re ready to face what you are walking blindly into. Even your driver refuses to take you past a certain point, and that is how you know that you’re not dreaming. This is real, and it’s supposed to be terrifying.

How come you’re not scared then?

You slip twenty dollars to the cab driver, then climb out of the backseat. The salty air from the Hudson River a few blocks down wafts around your sensitive nose. In the distance, you can hear waves crashing into the docks as the wind picks up in speed. The boats must be moving wildly by now, swaying from side to side and possibly even making the fish in the depths of the water seasick. You would be if you were them.

With every step, you grow closer to your target. On second thought, maybe you should have brought more than just a pathetic bottle of pepper spray and your precious laptop. You could have brought your grandfather’s cassette recorder, at least that would leave a mark if you hit someone over the head with it.

Do vampires get concussions? That is another question you can add to the seemingly endless list in your mind. It’s a confusing place as of late, and the weird sense that someone is playing with the controls won’t leave you alone. Either you are overthinking, or you are worse off than you originally thought.

The apartment complex the card directs you to stretches high above you. You look up, seeing not a single light on. That’s odd, you think, but then again, you are meeting with the city’s most notorious man. If he is who everyone says he is, and if the rumors are even true, that is.

As you are about to approach the entrance, your fingertips start to burn. A gasp escapes past your lips. Staring down, the cubical piece of paper goes up in flames. You are mere feet from the door, nowhere near close to an open source of fire, and the card starts to burn like a wildfire.

You pull back, your heart hammering against your ribcage. The ashes fall to the ground, but before they can hit the asphalt, they vanish.

“What the–” before you can finish, the doors before you swing open toward the inside. The lights turn on. Someone even has called the elevator for you.

Another step forward, and a voice stops you. “Fourth floor, down the hallway, first door to your right,” the voice says through the speaker. Only then do you notice the lack of a doorbell.

Everything in you is screaming for you to run, but you are rooted in the spot. He dragged you here with a mere letter, and you were more than ready to jump. Desperation was the only thing that drove you here. Your brain seems incapable of rational thought.

What if that is what he wanted all along? To get you complicit by playing on what you so desperately need, which is a story and a way out of this boring everyday life that is threatening to slowly kill you.

He’s like a siren, luring you into his deadly trap, but even knowing all of this, you still can’t find it in yourself to run.

The second you enter the building, the door shuts behind you, and your only way out is officially locked. You made the decision; you have dug your own grave, possibly quite literally, and now you have to lie in it. It’s better to die chasing a good story than dying at a desk in an office that doesn’t respect you.

You are a disgrace, you can hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. He always warned you not to be too reckless or your bad decisions will eventually catch up with you. He always taught you not to trust strangers, and to stay the hell away from those who disgrace God, but you have never cared much about being a good girl.

Your thoughts are as morbid as your obsession with the walking undead. It is time you embrace what people are already saying about you.

The elevator ride feels like an eternity. It goes up and up and up until it finally stops on the fourth floor. The walls smell like nothing but a faint hint of bleach. It’s clean, parquette not carpet, and the walls are kept in a shade resembling a mixture between crimson and maroon, and it is blending into a sort of marble.

The metal doors slide open. Again, you hesitate. A sweet whisper echoes in your ear, dragging you toward the edge. You breach the border between the elevator and the hallway that waits behind it. The voice is distant, and it doesn’t sound human—it reminds you of a siren’s song, calling for you. He is calling for you, and a fog settles over your mind. You’re not in control anymore, he is.

You imagine him to be an old man, possibly middle-aged. Vampires stop aging when they’re turned. Their mind doesn’t. You’ve read the research plenty. They are wise beings, more intelligent than human beings could ever fathom. That makes them dangerous.

Their venom rivals the intoxicating feeling of heroin, you’ve heard, and it heightens your senses to the point all you can feel is the one who bit you. Research suggests it’s a million times stronger than an orgasm, for both the vampire and the human being.

Part of you has always wanted to try it. Part of you wants to know what it feels like to be sucked dry. You want to know what it feels like to be carried into a new dimension by someone who knows how to play the human body like a fucking piano, eliciting the sweetest melody through your very essence and the symphony of your moans.

This M—Daredevil—is inherently dangerous. He’s as mysterious as they come; a man in a mask lurking in the dark corners of Hell’s Kitchen every night, turning the fight for justice into his hunting ground.

It’s as though he curled his fingers, and you followed.

You walk the dark hallway down to the door on the right. Paintings litter the walls. Masterpieces, blotches of white, red, and color. You recognize the red marble as a decorative theme on the wallpaper. Tracing your fingers over it, the rough drywall scratches at your skin.

You reach out a shaky hand toward the golden knob. Before you can turn it though, the door already flings open. It must be witchcraft.

Red appears to be his favorite color. At least judging from the hallway, that is true. When you step into the room with a pounding heart and blood pooling in your cheeks though, the inside of the room is a lot more… human. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the gloominess surrounding you on your way there.

A leather couch and armchairs stand in the middle, facing toward the window front. Colored windows, as you have gathered from the rumors. They are see-through now though, showing the city skyline and the moon up high. The chandelier on the ceiling is the only piece of furniture you would consider old. Browns meet hues of blue and dark green, a forest at midnight, and you suck in a sharp breath. The apartment is beautiful.

You look to your left and see a bookshelf stretching the length of the wall. You can’t help but run your hand over the backs. You would have expected original editions from the 18th or 19th century, but when your fingers trace over the bindings, you are met with the bulging of Braille underneath the elegant golden writing of the titles. None of them seem to have collected dust. It surprises you to only find a mere handful of classics that haven’t been transcribed in Braille and a realization you did not expect starts to crawl its way forward.

“I stole that one from a library in Paris.”

Your racing heart stops beating. The book you’ve been holding falls to the ground, its worn-out leather cracking further around the spine. The thud is deafening. You gasp, turning around. Your shoulders fly up as the tension ripples through every last muscle in your bone. Your bones ache just from how stiff you’re standing, but you can’t move.

The man before you moves as quietly as a mouse. You didn’t hear him coming. The moonlight reflects off his dark brown hair, making it appear almost ginger. He’s wearing a simple suit without a tie, and the white of his shirt is as pristine and clean as the cut of his beard. You can see chest hair poking out from underneath the two open buttons, as dark as the locks on his head. His jawline is irresistibly sharp, leading up to a pair of plump lips he is wrapping around the brim of a crystal glass filled with rum.

Your heart remains frozen. Not a single drop of blood pumps through your veins, yet your cheeks burn brighter than a bonfire on a pitch-black night.

But his flawless appearance is not what catches your attention the most. Looking up into his eyes, wanting to know whether they are as red as those set into the devil’s mask, you find nothing but your terrified reflection staring back at you. It’s as blurry as the picture of your face in a still ocean’s water, your wide eyes staring back at yourself.

The red glasses are all you can see. Round with a black rim. Silver would have looked better on him, or maybe even gold. The black reminds you of an endless pit, a sinister embrace of vampire stereotypes, but you can’t look away from the maroon that won’t allow you even a glimpse into his eyes. They are shielding him from the world, and his eyes from curious, stupid humans like you.

He nods toward the ground. “You gonna pick that up?” he asks. His voice reminds you of rumbling gravel.

He looks like a man. He talks like a man. If you didn’t know better, you would say he is human. There seems to be blood in his cheeks and air in his lungs.

You have to pull yourself together. Clearing your throat, you bend down and pick the book back up.

“Thank you,” he utters your name. “It’s been a while since I’ve received visitors that don’t work for me.”

You put the book back on the shelf. Your lips are sewn shut; you can’t find the words. Every time you open your mouth like a fish on dry land, you close it again, and it is embarrassing to be standing in front of him with your guard down.

“Welcome to my home,” he says. You wish you could see his eyes to know if he’s mocking you. “Do you want a drink, or do you need another minute to process?”

He is mocking you. His tone is gentle, as is his voice, but he smirks like a smug motherfucker, and your anger boils to a tipping point. The candle is about to burn out.

“I–” you stammer. Internally, you curse yourself for being such a fool.

“Another minute it is then.”

You don’t need a minute though. “You’re blind,” you blurt out.

The beautiful—deadly—stranger nods. “Yeah.“

“How?”

“Accident when I was a kid.”

“But you’re…” you leave the missing part of that sentence hanging in the air like a noose.

“Say it,” he murmurs. You want to say it sounds like a growl, but you’re not sure. He isn’t asserting dominance or trying to force you into submission by scaring you away, but he is toying with you regardless.

You take a deep breath. The word, the truth, numbers your tongue and your lips with its weight. “A vampire,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, matching his.

His smirk broadens. He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek for a moment, then releases it as it darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m a blind vampire, yes,” he answers. “We’re rare, but we do exist.”

Blind vampires. In all of your years of fascination, that has never crossed your mind. You used to believe that they had healing abilities that far exceeded your own. You were wrong. He lost his eyesight before he got turned into a vampire. He lived as a blind human being and didn’t regain his most crucial sense when he died.

He came back to life, but he died. It is surreal to stand across from him. He’s not just letters on a piece of paper, he is very much real. And he’s blind.

“Oh, my God,” you curse.

That elicits a soft chuckle from him. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says.

“I was considering not to.”

He sees right through you with those empty glasses. “That’s a lie.”

“How would you know?” you counter.

“I can hear your heartbeat. The blood pumping in your veins…” His head tilts ever so slightly in your direction. You take a step back. It’s an instinct. “Your pulse picks up when you lie, or when you’re nervous, or both,” he states. “When you first saw me, your heart skipped a beat. It did again when you lied to me.”

Your eyes trail down to his thick thighs perfectly fitted in his tailored trousers. His thick digits pat the rhythm with his fingers on the fabric. Thud-thudthudthud-thud. You place a hand on your chest. He wasn’t wrong; your heart is racing.

His smirk turns into a smile, but only briefly again. It’s a glimpse of humanity he doesn’t want you to see. “I like that sound,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell good? Sweet, sour, and a little salty. Natural. You don’t use a lot of artificial perfume, but you like cherry chapstick.”

You swallow, taking a whiff of your arm. Besides your deodorant masking the scent of your nervous sweat, you smell nothing. How good must his nose be? His hearing? His sense of taste?

“Right now, sweat is dripping down your back, and your muscles are tense enough to strain against your bones every time you breathe. Your heart just skipped a beat again. You find it weird,” he muses. “I can’t turn it off, but I get it must be strange for you.”

“You–” The blood has collected in your head, pushing the temperature in the room to an all-time high. “Get out of my body!” you snap.

He laughs. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”

“And I never thought you would ask for an audience with me, but here we are.”

“Here you are.”

You want nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face. He looks so smug, standing there with his drink, wearing a suit too fancy for his own home. He’s fully in his element. It’s scary how alluring he is, too. You don’t want to think that way, but as soon as your eyes gaze upon him again, your chest contracts, and you forget how to breathe.

He’s a wolf, and you’re a lonely little sheep that doesn’t know any better. That lonely little sheep just wants to be a part of something bigger, even if that means surrendering herself to the big bad wolf. He wants a taste of her, and the sheep would give him that in a heartbeat if he just asked.

You blink. There is a voice in your head, and it isn’t your own. Far from it. You don’t want to be associated with this stranger. She thinks she knows you. She thinks she knows what you want—the sheep in the eyes of her natural enemy. This voice is the most irrational you could be, and you need to stop letting her win.

And yet you—not just the voice of the lonely sheep you appear to be—would follow this man anywhere, even to hell if he asked you to.

Your eyes drill knives into his skull, but they are also full of curiosity. Can he hear your thoughts? Your heart beats in your throat. You can taste it on your tongue. If you bit your lip, you would bleed, and he would probably fall into a frenzy. Still, your teeth dig into your bottom lip. What if he can hear your thoughts—hear how fucking needy you are? You’re pathetic. What he must think of you, standing across from him, smaller than human life itself.

You want to read him, but he is far from an open book. He’s not Braille you can run your fingers over, and even if he was, you don’t know how to read it. He’s an enigma. His face is set in stone; an iron mask you can’t penetrate.

His chest heaves with another chuckle. He sets the crystal glass down on the coffee table, taking a step forward. “No, I can’t read your mind,” he says.

You flinch. “What?”

“Your breathing pattern. The way you look at me. I can sense that you’re thinking about something.” He adjusts his glasses. “It’s just… Most humans ask me if I can read their minds, you know. I can’t. Some vampires can, but my senses are the only heightened ability I have.” This time, when he chuckles, a hint of bitterness dances in his voice.

“At least you’re not in my head then,” you say.

“No.”

“Good.”

A pregnant pause follows. You clutch your bag to your chest, your fingers digging into the frame of your hidden laptop.

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks, pointing to his empty glass.

You wave him off. That’s the last thing on your mind. “No, thank you.”

Sometimes at night, you fantasize about diving into the abyss of darkness. It looks and sounds a terrifying lot like him. You want to know him. You need to know him. When it comes to him and this—whatever this is—the lines between want and need are blurring into an unidentifiable mess. It’s an ocean of emotions with no land in sight. A total eclipse of the heart, if you will. You’re losing your mind.

“What you can do–” You straighten your shoulder, hoping it will add height to your beaten confidence. “You can tell me your name. Sir,” you say.

He nods. “I suppose it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.” The softness of his features as his lips move to the rhythm of his words takes you back anew. His eyebrows raise slightly, and you catch a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, unfocused hazel eyes that steal your breath away.

Matthew. It is a name that easily rolls off the tongue. It suits him.

You repeat his name aloud. “That’s an odd name for a 200-something-year-old man,” you point out.

Matthew scoffs. “My parents were both Catholic.”

“I suppose you’re not?”

You hit a sore spot. His head dips, fingers running over his nails and tongue tracing his teeth. “Not anymore,” he says.

God died for him a long time ago, and all churches burned down.

Your grip on your bag loosens. “Then why Daredevil?” you ask.

His lips part. “I, uh, have the Bulletin to thank for that one. After centuries of existing in this world, and being despised for no matter what I do, I’ve decided to embrace it. I am Daredevil, not even God can stop that now.”

Matt grabs his glass, turning away from you. He doesn’t use a cane to navigate from the couch to the mini bar on the other end of the room. You carefully follow his movements. One of his hands remains at his side, snapping his fingers as he navigates the familiar terrain of his home.

He uncaps a half-empty bottle of Whiskey to pour himself another glass.

“You know, Matthew,” you prompt, daring to step forward an inch, “as big as your reputation is in this part of the city, Silver Lining is not the kind of magazine that would cover your story.”

“You still came,” he says.

“I could lose my job if anyone knew I came here.”

“And yet you’re here and not where you should be.” He turns his head over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t risk losing your job if it wasn’t important to you, would you?”

You stammer, “I–” He’s got you. You’re a fish with a hook in her mouth.

“If Silver Lining Magazine won’t cover my story, why are you here?” Matt turns back to you, leaning back against the shiny Mahagoni of his minibar. It offers a beautiful contrast to his strong physique and the slight paleness of his skin. “Could it be because you’re fascinated by the mythic?” he asks, teasing. “By werewolves and witches and vampires?”

It’s your turn to scoff. “I won’t confirm or deny. My boss wouldn’t let me write a vampire vigilante exposé even if I begged him to.”

“And that’s why Mr. Doherty doesn’t deserve you.” Your body visibly recoils when he pushes forward, moving just an inch toward you. “Your curiosity is a virtue,” he purrs. The moonlight sets your reflection in his glasses alight.

“Is that why you lured me here?” you ask him. “Because my curiosity is a virtue and you consider yourself better than the people in my life?”

“I didn’t lure you here, and I think you know that. That’s not what this is.” The distance between you starts to shrink, backing you into a corner. “I believe you came here because the thought of interviewing a vampire and sharing your findings with the world on your account excites you,” he says. “You want to be heard. You want to be taken seriously as a journalist, and you want to make people happy.”

The only way for you to come out of this with your pride and dignity still intact is to put up walls before the already existent labyrinth of walls keeping your heart guarded and your soul safe. “Again,” you ask, “why me?”

“Why not you? As I stated in my letter, I’m a fan of your work.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, about that. How did you write that if you’re blind?”

“I didn’t, my secretary did.”

“Of course.” Of course, he has a secretary. “I… I just don’t get it,” you say. “You’ve been hiding for so long–”

Matt cuts you off with an urgency you didn’t expect, “Things have changed. Circumstances…” he trails off.

“Wouldn’t it be a suicide mission?”

His answer is silence. You let out an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to interview you, you have to be honest with me.”

“I’m not on the record yet.”

“Right. Maybe you can answer this though—off the record, of course—how can you be certain I didn’t call the cops or the FBI before I came here?”

His eyes crinkle. “I’m not stupid, sweetheart,” he says.

He’s amused. You’re amusing him.

“Don’t call me that,” you growl.

He’s spreading you open, holding up a mirror for you to look into. It’s your miserable self in all its glory, and he knows you better than you know yourself.

You ignore the sharp pain in your left ribcage as you pull the arrow out of your heart. “Unless someone holds up a sign that they are pro-vampirism, how would you even know I’d listen to you and not just refer you to the Journal of Psychiatry?”

“Are you telling me you don’t believe in vampires?” Matt quips.

“That’s not… Answer my question!”

The sound of your heartbeat must sound almost like the rapid firing of a machine gun, that’s how fast your pulse is racing. Your veins threaten to burst with the excess blood. It’s a heat like no other. You’re a witch at the stake, and Matt is holding the torch to your gasoline-doused body.

He clears his throat. Your face falls at the words that tumble out of his parted lips, and the rapid firing turns into a deafening silence and a monotone line on a heart monitor.

“After what I’ve learned from reading Dr. Rice’s research on the phenomena of vampirism, I can confidently say this species is no different than an animal like the great white shark or the Homo sapiens sapiens—our kind,” he recites. “Vampires are a medium of fiction and propaganda to induce fear, but they are also a widely misunderstood species that is being silenced rather than heard. Our species, the human species, likes to consider themselves superior, even when we’re in a position of being someone’s natural food source. Dr. Rice’s research is based on a comprehensible set of facts, and isn’t that what we have been relying on ever since the beginning? Our psychology makes it possible for us to change the narrative in our favor, and more often than not, we ignore the very facts deemed by humans as an intellectual importance to spread the message of an entirely different agenda. Dr. Rice’s research only proves that egotism and humans themselves will be humankind's certain downfall.”

“My investigative journalism essay,” you breathe out.

“Published by Columbia University.”

Your heart restarts with a rush of adrenaline. “How… how do you know all of this?”

“I may be blind,” Matt says, “but I know how to read between the lines.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The alcohol in his drink seems to have little effect on him. “I know you have questions, and I’m willing to answer them if you promise to publish a detailed report somewhere other than Silver Lining Magazine.”

You look down at your bag, then back at him. “Ben Urich could have told your story in a way that would’ve made people listen,” you murmur. “I don’t have an impressive career like him.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “but you could have easily written ‘Attack on NYC’. Ben was a good man, an even better journalist, but he could not have written your college essay. And he could never have been you.”

Your name rolls off his tongue—not a pretentious nickname that makes you want to vomit but your name, and it flicks a switch within you.

You glance around the spacious living, pulling your laptop out of its confines, and you bridge the distance between you, finally. You notice he smells of sandalwood cologne and scentless soap. “Okay,” you cave. “Where do you want me to set up?”

Session 1.

The spacebar clicks underneath the tip of your index finger. The white of your screen fills with a series of red sequences as the microphone takes in every little sound around you. Except for the two of you and the fading footsteps of one of Matthew’s assistants though, the world has fallen silent in the dead of the night. He’s sitting across from you, legs crossed, head tilted; your life is about to change.

“So, Mister Murdock,” you begin, “tell me. How long have you been dead?”

His mouth opens in a wide grin. “242 years,” he answers.

“And what happened the year you died?”

“Well, it was 1782. I was a good few years out of law school. I was a good lawyer, but I wasn’t successful. That year, I met a beautiful woman at a banquet. I wasn’t rich—trust me, I was beyond penniless—but she had been adopted into a wealthy family, and that made her one of the richest women in the room. Everyone wanted her, but when I sensed her across the hall, she only had eyes for me. And she was the first woman to not see me just because I was blind.” He chuckles sadly. “I thought she was the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, but a few weeks later, after letting her into my life, I realized that she didn’t look at me that night because she was interested. She was hunting me. El— Miss Elektra Natchios…”

The year 1782 becomes apparent before your inner eye. As he tells you about the night he met her, you can see the dark-haired beauty making her way across the ballroom. Red lips and a gown to die for. Her dark eyes were full of mischief, but the passion in them could have knocked a grown man off of his feet. And that is just what she did to poor Matthew.

“I was going to marry her,” he tells you.

He went to church regularly. His knees were bloody from praying, his senses already heightened before he died. God’s soldier, that is how he puts it. He was told that the accident that left him blind happened for a reason, and he had to fight a war that went beyond the country’s fight for independence.

That summer, Elektra drained him. He didn’t know what she was. She fooled him. He was obsessed with her. Her dark eyes he couldn’t see lured her in, and it was the venom in her blood that became his downfall after she dug her teeth into him.

Matt tried to beg his priest for forgiveness, but he didn’t even make it past the marble stairs before the doors locked. He knelt in a pool of blood—both his and that of the first human he ever sucked dry to survive as a newborn vampire—offering an eternal sacrifice to Catholicism, but God abandoned him on his doorstep.

The church walls would have been set on fire if he had touched them from the inside.

You look up from your notepad to find him now standing at the window. He’s not looking out, of course, but he seems so deep in thought, the memories that aren’t your own but his start to dissipate, and you’re brought back to the here and now.

Matt poured his heart out to you. You expected answers, but not this kind, and certainly not of this magnitude. You see him in an entirely different light. He’s vulnerable, fragile, and human. He has endured trauma that killed him, but he couldn’t die because the woman he loved made him immortal. It’s a bigger curse than growing up with the belief that an accident made you God’s soldier.

He lost everything. For centuries, he has had to live with that. It’s killing you, feeling his pain, the pure agony that radiates off him.

Your voice is quiet when you ask him, “What was it like?” You don’t have to say it out loud for him to know what you are referencing.

Matt chuckles, the sound a mere breath in the atmosphere. “Like she took my soul from my body, setting fire to my belief system and already heightened senses,” he says.

You swallow. “That sounds… overstimulating.”

“It was. Is. My heart stopped, but when that happened, something else awoke inside me. The hunger… the hunger was the worst part. It’s insatiable. One hour passes, and you feel like you’ve been starving for weeks.”

“Like you’ve been possessed by a demon?”

“Like I am the demon.”

“But you’re not.” You should stop the recording. You’re not on track; you’re incorporating your feelings into Matt’s story, but you can’t help it. The words tumble out of your mouth without a second thought, a train that cannot be stopped.

He raises his eyebrows, you can see it in his reflection in the windows. “Are you religious?” he asks.

You shake your head. “This isn’t about me.”

“Are you?”

The veins on the back of his hands bulge as he balls them to fists at his sides. Your throat is a desert, and your heartbeat resembles a storm that burns right through it, sending the sand flying in all directions of the horizon.

You adjust in your seat, crossing one leg over the other. He takes a whiff. He’s smelling you, and that doesn’t help the speed of your pulse to calm down.

Tapping your pen on your notepad, you watch the red sequences fill the white space of the recording program. It moves with the sound of your voice when you finally dare to answer. “It’s a complicated question because there is a difference between believing in God and believing in the church,” you say.

“Do you believe in God then?” Matt asks. It’s as though he’s trying not to seethe at the mere mention of someone he used to worship. You make a note of that.

“There is so much bad in this world. So much cruelty. I can’t…” You take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to believe in a God that would let the things humans do to each other happen. If God existed—if he was as merciful as Christians like to claim, he wouldn’t let this happen. And I’m so sick and tired of people using their faith, and their beliefs in God and the church as justification to be disrespectful. I don’t understand it. How can anyone? Why is someone who has to drink blood to stay alive—someone who didn’t even choose this life—worth less and the devil’s breed when humans do worse things to each other? Why would God allow us to start wars that kill innocent people? Children? It’s just not fair that we treat ourselves and others as though we are already in hell, and we’re just supposed to accept that God doesn’t care—” You stop yourself, the tears burning behind your eyes.

Matt turns back around. You can’t look away. “When I was still human,” he murmurs, “I used to believe everything that happened to me was God’s will. The accident, God’s will. Me going blind, God’s will. I went to confession, prayed until my knees were bloody and bruised. I tried convincing myself that every scream I heard from down the block, every person who lost their life or their innocence was my responsibility. God made me this way for a reason, right?” The scoff is as bitter as the liquor in his glass. “I fell apart, you know. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he tells you.

You hold your breath. The glasses slip from his eyes as he takes them off with shaky fingers. You are met with the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes. Emotions dance a heated tango in a tornado. If you look closer, the green specks bring life to his eyes. It’s human nature in the purest sense of the word.

Your reflection stands in his irises, his unmoving pupils, and the tears glisten in his eyes. They’re as red as blood, watered-down crimson essence. You want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but that would be crossing a very big line that you can’t bring yourself up to touch.

“I studied law because I thought it would change something,” he continues. You listen. It’s the only thing you can do—listen. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I ever did felt like it was enough. I lost my father. Jack. I didn’t know my mother until it was too late. Maggie. I had no one. No money, no prospects, just me and those voices in my head, telling me I was supposed to be God’s soldier.”

“You’re not,” you cut in.

He shakes his head. “I prayed; I crawled up the stairs of the church, and I spent hours repenting for my sins. I bled myself dry for Him. I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed my youth, my heart, and my soul, and I got nothing back. I begged for help until my voice was sore, but nothing… God, nothing was ever good enough. Until Elektra came around,” he says.

“She changed everything for you. It makes sense. She turned you into a vampire, but she also loved you.”

“She did love me, in her own twisted way.”

“It’s what you deserved,” you say.

He isn’t yours, but the pang you feel in your chest is treacherous. Your heart cracks like a porcelain vase, jealousy creeping in like a parasite of toxic waste.

In response, Matt only chuckles bitterly. “She made me believe again, then took my soul and crushed it in her hand.” The correction makes your shoulders slump. “Instead of feeling like my world ended though, I felt at peace when she sucked the blood out of my veins and fed me her venom,” he says. “It’s sick, I know. I was aware I died that night, that she turned me into a devil who could only survive if he drank the blood of others. The Catholic in me struggled to accept it, but I had no choice but to embrace what she made me.”

“And where is she now?” you ask.

“Gone.” The light in his eyes has fully disappeared now. “I stayed with her for a while until she died in my arms. She showed me what love is, and she showed me heartbreak. She made me hungry for blood, awakening the devil I’ve been trying to tame. She taught me how to feed, how to hunt, and how to chase. But she also cursed me,” he says. “I only exist for myself now. I only bleed for myself. No God, no church, and no more religion. I’m not Jesus, I’m Judas, and I retired the cross the day I was crucified.”

You have run out of questions to ask. Too overwhelming is the sight of his walls crumbling down, this stranger you now know better than any living being seems to. You no longer see money in this, or a story to chase, you only see Matthew, and the halo above his head he still believes is a pair of horns. The world broke him. His faith in God broke him. It crushed him, and he lost everything. How broken he must be.

“Not such a pretty story when I say it out loud, huh?” He scoffs.

The spacebar clicks again. The recording comes to a sudden halt. One hour and fifty-eight minutes, the first session of your interview with the vampire. You need to put a halt to it now because what you are about to say or do as you reach your hand out to brush his cold, dead skin is not something that should be found on a record. And you won’t ever tell.

Matt pulls away when your warm fingertips brush his. You’re standing across from him now, so close he can smell, hear, and feel all of you at once.

Your touch is the holy water that burns his skin, but the fire sustains him and shoots straight to his core the same way the blood rushes to yours.

“It’s not a pretty story, no,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, “but it did tell me what I already knew.”

“And what’s that?” he asks.

“That you’re not evil. You’re not the Devil. You’re misunderstood. You’ve been beaten; you’ve been abandoned, hurt, and broken. That doesn’t make you a monster. Trying to make this city a better place does not make you a monster.”

“If you only knew the things I’ve done…”

“I know the rumors suggest that you were the one who fought Wilson Fisk and got this city back where it needed to be. You’ve saved countless women from the worst of fates. You are the reason the innocent people of Hell’s Kitchen feel safe. By picking up that mask, you became a hero, not a villain, and that is the story I want to tell.”

In lightspeed, he has moved you from the window to the other end of the room. Your back hits the wall.

Matt towers over you in all of his intimidating glory. His eyes spark red, but you hold his unfocused gaze. He has such beautiful eyes. This pull between you is far from human; it’s unhealthy, and it is exactly where he wanted to get you. You’re trapped, pinned underneath him like a deer caught in headlights.

Exhaling, your breath strokes his cheeks. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste of you. Every particle in the air, he inhales. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. Oh, what you wouldn’t do to suck that tongue into your mouth.

Your pheromones play his head like a puppeteer pulling the strings of his marionette. He growls. “Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?”

The moonlight catches his sparkling white teeth. This time though, you come face to face with the sharp edges of his previously concealed fangs. Your jaw drops open. He’s ethereal.

“I could snap your neck—” Matt places his hand on your neck, “I could make that heart stop beating, take the air from your lungs. I could eat you…” He traces the vein in your throat from your jaw to your collarbone. “I could bite you and suck your blood until you’re empty. I could kill you, sweetheart. My kind is your natural enemy. You shouldn’t be here.”

You shudder. His nose brushes the sensitive skin below your ear. He’s so close you can smell him. On inhale, and his scent consumes your senses. He is all you can feel now. You reach out to hold onto his arms, his muscles tensing under your teeth. He’s big and strong, and those hands have a mind of their own as they begin to wander but never where you need him most.

You shouldn’t be here, yet you came. He asked you to him, and you complied. Is this your fate now? Chasing after your big bad wolf like the helpless sheep that you are?

Your walls clench around an agonizing emptiness, your swollen clit brushing against your soaked underwear. Whatever he is doing to you, it’s the cruelest form of torture.

A strangled noise breaks out of the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. “You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” he breathes.

“Do it,” you beg. “Taste me.”

He utters your name again. “Stop.”

“Please.”

Your tone shatters him. When he kisses you, finally, fireworks explode in the universe around you. All the stars seem to finally align. Your heart opens, and it sucks him right into you. Your soul yearns for him. He’s so close yet so far away.

The moon stands between you, but you cross even that ocean as you push against him, forcing your tongue into his mouth. He takes like heaven and hell; he’s the apple Eve bit into and cursed her for all eternity. But he’s also the snake, the one who compelled you to take this journey of bad decisions and jump right off the cliff’s edge. You melt into him like a broken candle.

He pulls away. Those fangs are alluring, as sharp as a knife’s tip. You want to know what it would feel like gracing your skin, digging into your as he thrusts his cock into your tight cunt. The thought alone sends your mind into a spiral.

Your lips are swollen, but he has yet to draw blood. Matt looks as though he wouldn’t dare, his eyes darting around in a darkened conflict he feels might cost him more than your dignity. You are begging for it, as is your body, but he’s holding himself back. He’s the one who tied himself to an invisible pillar, keeping his hands locked behind his back. But that is not the Matt you want.

You lean your head to the side, exposing the length of his neck. All control has slipped from your fingers. It’s in his hands now—you are. He cups your head gently. A mere few inches lie between your fountain and his lips.

You press a kiss to his calloused palm—a desperate and needy kiss, tracing your tongue over the lines that tell his life’s story in a way no interview can retell—and it is then he is forever done for. He’s doomed, and you are the second woman to pull him under the pits of hell.

Saliva drips from his fangs. You hold your breath. He hisses, a weak admission of surrender; the words die miserably on your tongue when his lips close around your pulse point with all his might, and his teeth drive home.

You moan aloud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, forcing him deeper as he sucks the dark red essence out of your vein. The sensation is more than you bargained for. It’s a drug that wrecks your system. The synapses in your brain backfire with all their might, and what follows the initial explosion of pleasure shooting white hot through your being is complete and utter silence as this God of a man feeds on you.

The invisible string between you glows a bright crimson. It slings around you, tying you together like the roots of a tree. It’s an eternal sacrifice. You are giving your all to him, the very core of your existence that is now flowing into his mouth. You swear you can hear his thoughts mingle with yours. Yes, more, please. You taste so good. Your knees buckle, but you remain standing strong. He makes sure you don’t fall. Don’t slip away from me. I need you.

A tear rolls down your cheek. You could sob. It feels so good—too good to be true. In that moment, you become one. There is no telling where one begins and the other ends. The coil in your stomach tightens, and the only pain you feel is the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. He’s taking everything as you give him everything, but it is not enough. It has never been enough.

When your body struggles to catch up with the lack of blood, he pulls away. His fangs drag out of your neck agonizingly slowly. You whimper at the sudden loss.

Matt catches you as you stumble into his arms. “You okay?” He cradles your face, brushing the hair out of your face. Your blood stains his lips. Blinking up at him, the force of your metaphysical connection slaps you awake.

You cease to exist in all solar systems but his.

He pokes the tip of his index finger with the sharp edge of one tooth, sliding it over the two holes that are pulsating with the work of your heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t have—” he begins.

“No,” you say. “You did exactly what you should have.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“But you did.” You wipe the blood from his mouth. “And I felt you. I only felt you.”

The living room passes by you. Before you know it, your back lands on something much softer than a concrete wall. He’s not a monster, that one, but he surely is an animal.

You taste your blood on Matt’s luscious lips as he devours your tongue. It tastes of copper and a little bitter, but that is what makes him moan. That sound is the last thing you could ever grow tired of.

His palm rests on your chest. Your heart pounds against his palm. “You’re so alive,” he says.

You cradle his face in your hands. “And you’re more human than you think.”

If he wanted to pull your heart out and hold it, you would let him in a heartbeat.

He leans you back. He strips you bare. He kisses down your body like you are a fucking masterpiece for him to explore. That is how he sees you.

Your head falls back. The kisses wander from your hips to the inside of your thighs. Every kiss brings his breath closer to your center. Matt pulls them apart. He opens you up to him. Your scent clouds his senses, and he groans, but he doesn’t touch.

His fangs graze your skin. “Mine,” he growls.

You gasp. He bites into the sensitive flesh. Hard, passionately. Your legs wrap around his head, trapping him there. He sucks, and he sucks, and he drinks, and the wetness pools out of your cunt in an obscene amount. This is foreplay to him. It drives you toward the edge leading to an abyss you are afraid you might never be able to crawl back out of. There is no bottom, it is just a pit, and he’s pushing you closer and closer, and—

Your back arches, but he pulls away before the coil can snap into a million butterflies. He pries your legs away from his head, spreading them further on the mattress, as far apart as they will go.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been served on a silver platter. He breathes in. The scent of your soaked pussy sticks to the hairs in his nose. It isn’t enough. He breathes in again, your arousal sweeter than fiction. You’re everything and more. He wants to taste that part of you more than anything, suck up the slick that is soaking the sheets—and you didn’t even think that was possible—but he waits because he needs to savor it. He doesn’t want it to be over too soon. neither for him nor for you.

The blood is still dripping from his tongue and his fangs, and the raw inside of your thigh. He runs his finger through it. The sting runs from the wound to your folds, then back down. Still, he doesn’t touch. He plays with the blood, sucking on his fingers until they’re clean, and then he dives back in for a taste. He doesn’t bite, he kisses and sucks, but he doesn’t push it further. He doesn’t hurt you.

You’re his saving grace; he has to worship you. Pain only has a place in pleasure.

“Matthew,” you moan.

He chuckles, kissing where his fangs left deep indentations. “No one will ever touch you again,” he purrs. “I’ll make sure of that.”

You try to protest, but the words die on your tongue when he leans in, capturing your clit with his hungry mouth. The wound on your thigh closes. The blood from his lips mixes with your juices, and you cry out at the intensity of it all.

He eats you with the ferocity of a man starved for weeks. He eats your pussy like he ate your blood, savoring every drop but still feasting for the taste to spread out in his mouth like wildfire. Sour, sweet, and copper. He sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth. His tongue drags through your folds, up and down, and then the tip slides inside, tasting your walls. He grows bolder as your moans accelerate.

Matt cradles your thighs. He forces your hips back down to the mattress, stronger than the average human man. You have to endure his beard scratching and burning, and the pace he has set.

The orgasm creeps up on you. Before you know it, he has plunged his tongue into you, and your body convulses around him. You scream into a pillow as you come.

You are each other’s forbidden fruit. No prayer in the world could keep you apart.

Faintly, you can hear him say, “Good girl.” Your legs quiver. He pulls away, then comes right back like a boomerang.

He’s warm now. He was cold before, but when he kisses you this time, he’s warm. He’s hot. You run your hands over his bare chest, the scars that lie under the dark strands of hair. You tug at it, and he moans. You can tell he is a little insecure, but by pressing your lips to one of the cuts on his shoulder, he relaxes.

What he must have endured, what he must have lived through before he died and was resurrected in the same breath, just without a beating heart—you don’t want to think about it or you will break, but you can still feel him through the crimson tie that holds you together, and you know that he has suffered enough for more than two lifetimes. You wish you could take it all away from him. You wish you could have saved him before it was too late, loved him more than the woman who turned him, but turning back time is an impossibility. You are both acutely aware of that.

“Hey.” Matt tilts your head toward him. “Where did you just go?” he asks.

“Thinking about you,” you murmur.

“Me?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be your salvation.”

You. His salvation. He kisses you, softly this time. He pours gratitude into his lips and bleeds them out in poetry as they slide into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop.

If someone had told you a week ago where you would see yourself on that particular Monday, you would have laughed at them. And if someone had told you a week ago that you would be making love to the devil, you would have called them crazy. But it’s happening.

He thrusts into you without a warning. His thick cock fills you like nothing and no one ever has before. Your cunt has been molded to fit him, you’re sure. You take him in, and you moan at the stretch. It’s a pain so delicious you could fall apart right then and there just from the feel of him inside you.

Every thrust drags the tip of his cock along your sweet spot. Every added sensation drives you closer to your death.

Your body tingles. He explores your face with his lips rather than his fingers, moving to your neck again. You cling to him, oh-so-desperate for him. He likes you like that, and you like him like that.

“You’re fucking with my head,” he tells you. “Offering your pussy to a vampire. Letting me drink your blood. Begging me to fuck you. You’re in my head, baby. Can’t get you out of my system. Fuck.”

You are his downfall, his salvation, but he is all of those things to you as well—all of those things and more. If he could read your mind, you would tell him that. Words can’t do justice to how you feel. Not right now, maybe not ever.

“Bite me again,” you beg.

His thrusts falter. He searches your body for any sign of regret. His fangs come out, and he buries them deep in your jugular vein. The floodgates open wide. Your walls clench around his cock, your clit pulsates, and the wave crashes into you.

You come as he devours your neck and your blood. You transcend into another dimension, far away from everything and everyone but never him. Never Matthew.

The sensation of you wraps around him like a weighted blanket. His balls tighten, your blood unfolding its taste on his tongue. You are all over him, inside of him, everywhere at once. He falls head-first, dragging you down with him.

He comes with a shout that is only muffled through his teeth buried in your flesh, his cum spurting into you and filling your cunt to the brim. Your eyes roll back. You’re flying and falling all at once.

Oh, how good it feels to be consumed by him. To be fucked and sucked dry. You would have never expected this to come out of your week, let alone your life, but now that it has happened, you are floating on cloud nine.

Dizziness threatens to take over, but before you can pass out, he forces himself away, allowing your heart to catch up with the lack of blood in your system. He collapses on top of you. His cock softens, but he stays inside. You need him there. You want him there. And that is the only place he wants to rest tonight.

He heals the wounds on your neck. “You have a mark,” Matt rasps, tracing your skin with his finger.

You choke out, “Yours.”

“Yes, you are.” He kisses you there. Once, twice, even a third time. “Mine,” he says.

You’re his. He’s yours. It doesn’t get any better than this.

The minutes tick away on the obnoxious clock on the wall. Matt pulls out eventually, wrapping you up in a blanket. He coaxes you to drink, but you’re barely lucid. Only when he begins to stroke your hair you start coming back to yourself. You thought you might regret it, but as you look at him, his almost guilty eyes staring back at you, all you can do is reach out for him.

“Session two tomorrow?” you ask.

He chuckles and retorts, “Have I not scared you away?” There is some truth to it though.

He’s covered in your blood. It sticks to his lips, his hands, and his chest. It’s sickeningly intimate, in a way.

You shake your head in response. “You could not possibly.”

He listens to your heartbeat. You’re as honest as they come.

“Okay,” Matt says. “Session two tomorrow then.”

That night, you fell in love with the Devil, but he also fell in love with you, his angel in the form of a reckless journalist, and the only blood he ever wants to taste again until the end of his miserable, cursed days.

Matt Murdock (Smut) Tag List: @shouldbestudying41 @theradioactivespidergwen @cheshirecat484 @1988-fiend @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama @bohemianrhapsody86 @a-girl-has-n0-name @winkev1 @callsign-ember @chittaphonstar @buckyyyismahhlife

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock smut #matt murdock x fem!reader #matt murdock x you #vampire!matt murdock #matt murdock angst #daredevil #x reader #interview with the vampire #charlie cox #alternate universe #reader insert

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 24 days

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Overtime 7

Warnings: this fic will include elements, some dark, such noncon/dubcon, and other untagged triggers. Please take this into account before proceeding. It is up to curate your online consumption safely.

Summary: your boss, Mr. Hansen, runs you ragged but you find solace in an unexpected friend.

Characters: Lloyd Hansen, Jake Jensen.

Author’s Note: This one is dedicated to my dearest @thezombieprostitute

Please feel free to leave some feedback, reblog, and jump into my asks. I’m always happy to discuss with you and riff on idea. As always, you are cherished and adored! Stay safe, be kind, and treat yourself💜

“Not so fast, critter,” Hansen drops a keycard on your desk as you hike up your bag. “I need you to go down to the East location and grab a package. Fuckwads delivered it to the wrong office.”

“Sir?” You glance at the time. It’s almost seven. You’re already well past your usual sentence. “I can get it in the morning. They probably already locked up--”

“They’re waiting for you,” he interjects. “Was just on the phone with them. This can’t wait. You go get it and bring it to me.”

“Um, okay, sir,” you swipe up the card and turn it over. “Back here?”

“My house. I got shit to do. I do have a life,” he scoffs. “Melora wants to have a sit-down and if it keeps her off my back, I’ll flex and give her something to chill the fuck out.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll get it--”

“Christ, critter, don’t sound so fucking enthusiastic,” he chortles.

“Yes, sir.”

You sidle away from the desk and step around. For a moment, you think he might stop you as he hovers on the other side. You wish he’d just leave you alone. He already ruined your dress and your day.

“I won’t be long, sir,” you promise over your shoulder.

You trod out heavily and wait by the elevators. The building is desolate as most people left at five. You’re used to be a straggler. Even when Mr. Hansen leaves early, you’re kept behind.

As you step through the doors, someone calls out for you to hold them. You put your hand out to trigger the censor and Jensen sprints through. He gulps in a breath and turns around, nearly colliding with the wall.

“Hey, thanks,” he huffs. “Oh, hey.”

“Hi,” you stare ahead and hit the lobby button.

It’s quiet as the elevator shifts into motion. You sway and keep your eyes locked on the doors. You cross your arms and squeeze the strap of your purse.

“Uh, what happened to your dress?” He asks.

“Accident...” you shrug.

“Oh, wow, must’ve been a big one.”

“It’s fine,” you insists.

He’s silent again. His breath gusts out and he sucks it in, opening his mouth to say something then thinking better of it. As the doors ding and open, he doesn’t move.

“Well, have a good night,” you say.

As you step off, he follows you, “wait, wait,” he calls, “um, so, I was chatting with someone in logistics. They have an opening. Looking to fill it internally. I hope you don’t mind I mentioned you.”

“You...” you scuff to a halt and face him. “Why?”

“I just figured maybe it would be good to move into something new. Away from that jackass.”

You frown, embarrassed. It’s not like you never tried to get something else. You’ve been to interviews and never heard back.

“Um, thanks, that’s nice of you to think of me.”

“Yeah, no problem. I hope it goes well. You should get an email. They seemed very interested to have you,” he explains.

“Right,” you agree, “thanks again but I... gotta go.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” he gives a crooked grin. “See ya tomorrow?”

You nod and turn away. You stop again and spin around. He nearly walks right into you. You clear your throat.

“Jensen, I think maybe you should avoid coming around Mr. Hansen’s office,” you say. “He doesn’t like.”

“He doesn’t seem to like anyone. Not even you.”

“I know, but...”

“Yeah, I know. It’s not helping you. Well, maybe I’ll see you in the courtyard at lunch.”

“Maybe,” you echo. “Good night.”

You flit away as you’re reminded of the keycard still clutched in your left hand. You have shit to do. Oh gosh, is that Hansen’s voice in your head?

The only bright side is that it’s no longer raining. Your care chuffs before it starts and you give a long, dreadful look to the hood. Don’t give out now.

You head off, away from your apartment, and grip the wheel as you hunch forward. You try not to lean to heavy on the gas but you just want to go home. The traffic is less than the rush hour clog but it’s still tediously slow.

You finally get to the East offices and use the card to swipe into the building. The lack of instructions has you searching around the empty lobby. A security officer approaches.

“Can I help you?” He asks gruffly.

“Sure, uh, I was sent my Mr. Hansen at central--”

“Mm, this way.”

You follow the uniformed man to a back office and he hands you a flash drive. A flash drive. It could literally be an email. You hide your urge to scream behind a smile and leave.

Now to drive all the way to Mr. Hansen’s house. You’ve been there once or twice but only in passing. It’s all the way at the other end of the city and beyond your building. You need to top up your tank. Your exasperation mounts the long you sit in the driver’s seat and you idle at a red sign and think.

Another job wouldn’t be so bad. You don’t want to get your hopes up but you don’t know how much longer you can take this. Something’s got to give and Jensen talked you up. Maybe this one will work out. You’ll take anything at this point.

You finally pull up to Mr. Hansen’s house and follow the long drive to his reclusive home. His perfectly landscaped lawn and gleaming facade irks you. You don’t know why but in contrast to your cramped apartment, it’s a mansion.

You get out and march up the walk with the flash drive in hand. You stop at the door and fix your skirt, making sure you don’t have any more incidents. You press the doorbell and try to ignore the lens. Mr. Hansen’s voice comes from the speaker.

“Get in here.”

You sigh and let yourself in. You stop on the mat and look around the interior. It’s just as nice as the outside.

“I’m gonna leave it here, Mr. Hansen,” you call through as you hover your hand over the key tray.

“Critter, get in here,” he demands.

You repress another frustrated exhale. You grip the drive and step out of your flats. You pad towards his voice and peer into the front room. You swallow a squeak as you find him shirtless and cradling his face. There’s a split in his brow and his eyes is turning purple. What the heck?

“You wanna get me some ice,” he winces and hisses as he pulls his hand away. “Shit, she’s still got a hell of a right hook.”

“Sir?” You blink at him.

“Hurry up, critter,” he snaps and stands, staggering just a little. He goes to the mirror mounted above the artificial fireplace and checks his reflection.

You look around and scurry through the next door. You find your way to the sleek kitchen and search the matte black fridge. You find an ice pack and a dish cloth and return to the front room.

Hansen lays on the couch and waves you over. You approach and hold out the ice. He grabs your wrist and yanks you close. You’re force to sit on the edge of the sofa as he brings the pack to his face. You adjust it behind the cloth and he whimpers.

“Ahhhh, critter, much better,” he keeps a hold of you.

#lloyd hansen #jake jensen #dark lloyd hansen #dark jake jensen #dark!lloyd hansen #dark!jake jensen #jake jensen x reader #lloyd hansen x reader #overtime #series #drabble #au #the gray man #the losers

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estrellami-1 · 1 year

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If I Should Stay

Part 1 | . . . | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17

That evening, the older members of the Party make their way into a rift, one Nancy had found the first time and later told Steve about. They younger members stay in Steve’s house, safe. Each of the older members have a walkie-talkie, but the younger members only have two: a main and a backup.

Each of the older members also have a weapon. Nancy has the shotgun, which she’d been practicing with all afternoon. Steve has the nail bat, Robin has Molotov cocktails—and the means to make more should the occasion arise—Jonathan has a tire iron, and Eddie has a metal bat.

They make their way into the rift, Steve going first and Jonathan bringing up the rear. “We need to stay together as much as we can,” Steve murmurs. “Depending on the state they’re in, we may have to split up. If we do, Nancy, Jonathan and Robin, you stay with Barb. Get her out of here as fast as you can and in the car. Don’t unlock the doors for anything or anyone besides us, got it?”

Nancy nods. “Got it,” Jonathan says.

Robin gives him a look, but knocks their shoulders together in acceptance. “Keys,” she murmurs, and Steve drops his car keys in her hand, squeezing her fingers for a second before releasing.

They find Barb first, nearly unconscious and shivering, tucked into some trees.

Nancy runs to her, shoving the shotgun into whoever’s closest, meaning Eddie almost falls over as he tries to grab it.

He turns to Jonathan. “Can you shoot?”

Jonathan looks dubiously at the gun. “No.”

Eddie smirks and hands him the metal bat. “Then I think this might work better.”

As soon as Nancy reaches Barb, something in the trees behind them growls. Nancy whips her head up, looking into the trees, then turns to look at everyone else, a question clear in her eyes.

“Eddie,” Steve murmurs, not taking his eyes off the trees. “You can shoot?”

Eddie pumps the slide, checks the safety isn’t on, and widens his stance. “Just tell me what to shoot.”

Steve grimaces. “You’ll know when you see it.”

With that, he advances towards the trees, taking measured steps. He reaches Nancy and Barb, helps hoist Barb up, and slowly, they make their way back towards the group.

They get about halfway before Robin gasps, and Steve immediately shoves Barb onto Nancy, spinning around with his bat up and ready.

He’s just in time. A demogorgon crashes through the trees, heading straight for them. He hears Eddie yelp, a high, panicked, “What the fuck?” but he can’t focus on that, just swings his bat when the creature gets close enough.

A second later, the shotgun goes off, and the demogorgon’s head is gone.

Steve stands for a second, looking around, listening for anything else, but that seems to be it. He helps Nancy with Barb again and together they make their way back to the group. “She’s not gonna make it all the way to Will,” Steve says. “Jon, come take her from me. Get them safe to the car, alright?”

Jonathan nods and steps forward, mouth a thin line.

Steve turns to Nancy. “Do you want the gun back? Will you be able to react in time and shoot them?”

Nancy bites her lip, thinking, then shakes her head. “The cocktails,” she says. “As long as we have those…”

Robin steps forward and nods. “I gotcha.”

Jonathan hands Nancy the metal bat and situates Barb so he’s carrying her piggyback-style, with his tire iron helping to support her weight.

Steve takes a breath. “Alright. Get back safe. Robs, you’ve got the walkie?”

She nods. “I’ll radio if we need anything, but we’ll be fine, okay? Get Will and get out.”

Steve nods and pulls out his own walkie as they separate. “Home base, Barb is secure. We’re splitting up now, Eddie and I are going to find Will. We need directions.”

The walkie crackles to life. “Where’d you find her?”

Steve looks around, desperate for a landmark. Eddie puts a hand on his arm, grabs for the walkie talkie. “We’re about two miles east of Skull Rock.” He shrugs when Steve stares at him. “I spent a lot of time in the woods growing up.”

“Got it,” the walkie-talkie says. “Lucas says head north. We’ve got El tracking you, we’ll let you know when to turn.”

They head north, keeping an eye out for anything else. “So you said last time… bats get me?”

Steve nods. “The kids call them demobats. Ugly little fuckers with long tails that they use to wrap around your throat, arms, legs… whatever they can get. Razor-sharp teeth.”

Eddie sighs. “You mean to say I get eaten by bats and don’t turn into a vampire?”

Steve laughs. “Unfortunately, no. Otherwise I don’t think we’d be here.”

Permanent Taglist: @justforthedead89 @ilovecupcakesandtea @madigoround @bookbinderbitch @suddenlyinlove @nburkhardt @artiststarme @paintsplatteredandimperfect @i-less-than-three-you @alyelf @quarble @messrs-weasley @littlewildflowerkitten @vankaar @starman-jpg @bornonthesavage @steddie-there @goodolefashionedloverboi @andienotannie @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @platinum-sunset @just-ladyme @steddiestains @swimmingbirdrunningrock @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @martinskis-lydias @notaqueenakhaleesi @sleepyboosstuff @bestwifehaver @m-owo-n @thatonebadideapanda @finalmoondragon @velocitytimes2 @callmeanythjing @ajeff855 @ilikeititspretty @knitsforthetrail @sillysparrow @that-one-corvid @ace-is-bored @local-writers-corner @harpymoth @weirdandabsurd42

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#stranger things #if I should stay #steve harrington #eddie munson #eventual Steddie #time travel #fix it fic #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #Barbara holland #will byers #jonathan byers #the party #starambles

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buff-muffin · 28 days

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Been thinking about Koala and cooked up some headcanons

She still has some long lasting trauma from her time with the celestial dragons and habits that are hard to break, one of them being the need to work. She finds a sort of comfort in working, she will be helpful if she’s working, she won’t get in trouble if she’s work, She won’t get HIT. Even knowing the revs would never hit her it’s a habit she can’t help but have. However the work life balance of the army where there were times she’s on and off the clock really helped her find at least a healthy balance with this habit even if it took some time to stop working in her free time.

Outside this habit she found it hard to figure out what freedom is for her, she found it hard to play with the other children of the army finding it difficult to connect or find enjoyment in games. The only person who taught her freedom. Was Sabo. Sabo as a child was SHAMELESSLY himself. Breaking rules mocking staff and testing every boundary there was. And while the two were paired up so koala would keep him in line. He taught her how to step out of it and took the blame every time. Sabo taught her the thrill of breaking rules and how to express herself. And in turn koala helped him figure out where the line of too far stands since Sabo with no memories had no real point of reference.

Koala is also one of the most patient when it comes to new staff. When she sees people doing tasks like cleaning the grounds, if she sees a mistake she will step in and as kindly as she can, correct it and even help. Because she never wants anyone to feel like their life is in danger for messing something up like she had felt.

When it comes to how exactly Koala joined the army, I’m not sure if we have answers but I have an idea. Her home was a little in the middle of nowhere and I could see it being sieged by a higher power. And when everything hit the fan, unlike her family, koala stepped into action having been in a similar situation with Fisher Tiger's liberation of the slaves years ago. Maybe she saved her parents by taking them to a safe place. Maybe she saved fifty people, whatever it was she stepped into actioned and proved herself as someone wanting to fight enough to get the attention of the revs. When offered a chance to fight and make a difference she accepted, wanting to find a way to help he fishmen who had helped her years ago. She doesn't like showing of the sun mark on her back. not so much because of disgust but the symbol of the sun had become unanimous with the sun pirates and fishmen and she did not not want to skew the meaning of that symbol to something having to do with the Revs. But she did in fact grow to be very proud of it. She's been keeping up with the news about the fishmen pirates for years. Jimbe becoming a warlord, Arlong taking over and being defeated in the east. Really she keeps up with a lot of fishman news and wishes she should meet the princess.

#one piece #koala one piece #revolutionary sabo #revolutionary army #sun pirates #arlong #jimbei #she is so sweet and so mean #her and sabo are childhood friends #they probably couldnt stand each other at first #she broke a window and Sabo took the blame instantly with a smile not caring for the punishment #besties ever since #power duo #they give dragon so many headaches #rambles #thoughts #head canons

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fairyhaos · 1 year

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❍ the 2k event: jeonghan + empire

vote for this fic in the poll!

alternative title: burn, palace, burn

pairing: prince!jeonghan x f!empress!reader

genre: historical au, empire au, enemies to lovers, angst

word count: 1517

warnings: mentions of blood, war, death, manipulation, imprisonment (yeah,,, this ended up a little dark)

event taglist (send ask to be added): @slytherinshua @rubywonu @pepperonijem @amxlia-stars @weird-bookworm @hannyoontify @my-moarmy-heart @suminsfav @minhui896 @haocovr @lockburn-castle @jeonwonwoo

War is never something you’ve enjoyed.

Bloodshed is horrifying, and the amount of lives lost, often futilely, make your stomach churn and your heart ache. The effects of war are almost always felt for generations after, staining child after child and traumatising the land beyond belief, the blood of enemies and allies and victims painting nightmares into the soil.

What a shame that your hands are dripping in that very blood.

You sigh, straightening yourself in your throne, brushing at the delicate golden chains dangling from your headdress as they touch your shoulders. However, you’ve been brought up by a tyrannical family, hell-bent on controlling their people. It’s always been your greatest desire to undo that damage, create a prosperous society, but that has proved near impossible.

That was a lesson your advisors had taught you, early on in your reign. As a woman, you’d have little power but to do as the men before you had done.

“Your Imperial Highness! The Great Sun of our land! Your imperial army returns from their latest battle!”

The doors to the throne room burst open, and in strides the head general, helmet under his arm, chest puffed, cheeks splattered with blood. It makes you feel sick.

But what makes you even more ill is the fact that he’s not alone. Behind him, two other soldiers drag in a man, tugging on his chains and forcing him to kneel before you. His head his bent, once-rich robes tattered and torn. There is a crown on his head, but on closer inspection, it looks to be a crude imitation of one, fashioned from tatty cloth and rotten sticks.

“We have returned from our conquest in the East,” your Head General says, proud. “The Kingdom of Thae has fallen to your mighty reign.”

Another kingdom acquired by your crown, you think weakly. Another kingdom for your advisors to lord over. Another kingdom for you to play at being empress to.

“Well done,” you say, and try to hide the discomfort from your voice. Masking it should come easily, given the countless times you’ve done this, but your horror at what has become of you never ceases to fade. “The Imperial Crown thanks you for your service.”

The Head General nods in acknowledgement, and point to the man kneeling beside him. “We have brought the prince of the Thae Kingdom here to you. Though their King and Queen have been slaughtered, Advisor Kim relayed that you would enjoy certain… spoils of war, if there were any left.”

Your head spins. This is horrific. You want to leave.

“Yes,” you manage to force out, as gracefully as possible. “Thank you.” You look down at the man, and his head is still bent, but his chained wrists shake from the way he clenches his fists tightly. “Pray tell, what is the prince’s name?”

The Head General smirks, and steps back. “Would your Imperial Highness like to take a look at him?”

It’s posed as a question, but you have no choice.

You rise from your throne, (lies, it’s not yours, it’s always belonged to anyone but you—) and descend the steps, kneeling before the man, the heavy silks of your skirt fanning out beneath you.

With one finger, you lift up his head, and your breath catches.

He’s beautiful.

“Prince Yoon Jeonghan, Your Imperial Highness,” your Head General introduces for you, and even his name is beautiful.

His hair, raven-dark and mussed up, is still velvet-soft as you tuck a lock behind his ear, mesmerised by his beauty. His eyes are like black diamonds, so dark that you could fall into them and yet endlessly bright and sparkling. His skin is pale, and he looks so small and delicate and you wish for nothing more than to whisk him away from this horrible, horrible world.

Jeonghan snarls, and his teeth sink into your wrist.

Immediately, the guards around him pull at his chains and tug him back, tug him so hard that he falls back, head crashing painfully on the cold stone of the floor.

“Oh!” You don’t even register the stinging teeth marks on your wrist, bleeding red beads, standing up and rushing to his side, holding the back of his head, even as he swats angrily at you, chains clinking. “Are you alright?”

Jeonghan stares at you as if you’ve gone insane, wrestling himself from your grip and receiving more harsh tugs for his actions.

“I gather that Your Imperial Majesty is pleased with this prince?” the Head General says, and the sick pleasure in his tone makes you look up.

“Indeed,” you say, with all the authority you can muster. “Now, leave us.”

There are little benefits to being a puppet empress, but at least the people still have to respect you.

Once they all leave, and the room is empty, you fall to your knees beside him once again, brushing at his robes, seeing if he’s alright. But Jeonghan pushes your hands away again, hissing.

“Leave me alone,” he snaps, and his voice is cracked and hoarse but the anger pulsates, ever-present and unable to be hidden. “I refuse to be your boytoy.”

“Let me help you,” you beg, noticing the bruises along his arms, the dried-up blood on his neck. “Please. I could— I could give you a good life here. I promise.”

Jeonghan’s eyes darken, icy flames dancing in his irises, every blink oozing hate. “Your promises mean nothing to me,” he spits. “I refuse to bow down to a bully like you. You’re a killer, a manipulator, and I want nothing to do with the likes of you.”

Every word is a steel shard struck straight into your heart, and it’s startling how much the hate stings you. You’ve conquered countless kingdoms before, albeit not by your own choice, and you know that this is how people must view you. And yet, it hurts, to hear the venom and calculated rage pouring out of this prince’s mouth.

“I’m not those things,” you say quietly, voice echoing meekly within the large throne room.

Jeonghan scoffs, opening his mouth to retort, and you rush to carry on.

“I’m not the one in charge. I have no power, no control here. I’m—I’m as much a prisoner as you are, a prisoner to my people, to my advisors, to my court. They prod me and push me around as they please, and I can’t do anything against them without being killed. Please, I— just let me help you.”

The hate does not waver in Jeonghan’s eyes. His delicate, pale face is contorted into an expression of such loathing that it makes you shiver in fear.

“If you’re all those things,” he says venomously, “then how can you help me?”

“I can keep you alive,” you say. “I can make sure you won’t die any time soon.”

Jeonghan freezes, and then slumps. He’s sitting on the floor of your recently polished throne room, satin robes torn and charred and splattered with blood. The floor shines, and his blackened fingers curl into the stone, fingernails scraping painfully.

“I just want my parents to be alive,” he says, quietly. “I want my life back.”

His words hit too close to home, and your heart constricts. It takes you several deep breaths before you manage to compose yourself again, and you rest a hand gently on his own.

“I can’t give that to you,” you admit, “however much I want to. I… I can’t even do that for myself.”

Jeonghan looks up, and there’s a question there, amongst the flickering flames of derision and fury and sadness.

“But I can give you a life,” you say. “It won’t be your old one, but it’ll be a life all the same. If you work with me, I can… I think I can free you. Free everyone.”

Jeonghan’s brow furrows, and a sheen covers his eyes as he thinks it over. He’s tattered and underfed and probably suffering several wounds, and yet he is taking the time to think of your offer, and part of you wonders faintly if Jeonghan, before all of this had happened to him, had been someone intelligent and calculating and revered by his people.

You feel even more ill for what you've done to him. For what others have done to him in your name.

“Very well,” Jeonghan says finally, and your eyes widen. His chains clatter once again, and he holds his hand out. “Help me, and I help you.”

You smile, and take his hand, gently helping him to his feet. “I promise.” You prod at the chains on his wrists. “I'll free you. I will."

The beginnings of a smile tug at Jeonghan's lips. He tugs at the golden threads of your crown, and you let him, let him push it off, let it crash to the floor in a tinkle of expensive and heavy metal.

"How noble of you, Empress," he says, but there's a light in his eyes, devious and cunning. He's a fighter, Jeonghan is. You can tell. He grins.

"Let's burn this empire to the ground."

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nekrosdolly · 9 months

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father's friend (18+)

you are just what he doesn't need.

cw; afab reader, reader in a skirt, dad's friend wesker, major age gap (14-17 years), fingering, degradation, implied multiple orgasms, reader is a little naive and wesker eats that up, predatory almost???, inappropriate use of mirrors, daddy kink if you squint (get a microscope)

terms of endearment; dear (reader receives)

a/n; i don't know how this became what it did bc this was supposed to be fluff. if you'd like the fluff version, i'm more than happy to provide that, just let me know!

when albert wesker pictured his life, he saw greatness. he'd dreamt of sanitizing the world with uroboros, his pet project of years would finally come to fruition. the world would be the perfect place, full of the superior and cleansed of the lesser. his dreams realized.

what he didn't anticipate, however, was you.

you, who came into his life when he was 38 years old, fresh off the high of the mansion incident. mostly human, partially not. he'd changed his clothes- only black attire from that point forward- and kept a low profile because he should be dead, but he's not. with no body to find, they gave up on the search only months later. he'd slid under the radar with a new identity and relocated across the country to some small town on the east coast.

at the time, you were in your early twenties. maybe 24, 21 at the youngest. you were youthful and so sweet, painfully naive and lacking experience of life's true cruelties. without scars that held stories to be told, or nightmares that took hold of you in the night.

unmarked. untainted. flawless. you.

and you hadn't meant to draw his attention. you, the child of his best friend. oh, you were tempting. how whenever he was over, you'd greet him with a little "hi mr. wesker" despite him telling you over and over to call him albert.

he hung around your father because he was an operative of umbrella as well, and albert needed connections. you were quick to teach about certain things, your doe eyes drawn to him whenever he merely breathed. like you were waiting for something.

naturally, you'd maintained a healthy distance for a long time. the routine you two had whenever he'd stop by- almost daily- the greeting, the glances, the lingering, subtle touches on each other's arms, shoulders, backs, wherever you had access to that wouldn't draw immediate attention.

your father never noticed. not as he fell asleep on the couch one night. not when albert ensured the roofie he'd given your father had settled, then snuck up into your room after.

not now, as he has you on his lap, your legs spread wide, your skirt lifted up so he can rub your clit. he forces you to watch in the mirror, your back pressed against his chest, as he pushes your panties aside and sinks two long fingers inside of you. forces you to watch, his other hand gripping your jaw to keep your head still.

"you're a whore," he murmurs in your ear, "such a filthy fucking whore. you think you can tease me and get away with it, hm?"

"n-no, i'm sorry." you whimper, his fingers curling inside your weeping entrance. you're making a mess of yourself and his hand.

"mm, i don't think you are, dear. you're so wet, i bet you've been thinking about this for a while now, right? imagining daddy's friend splitting you open, ruining your perfect cunt." you should be embarrassed that he's got you down to a science, but his words make you squeeze around his fingers. you nod, much to his satisfaction, and he chuckles quietly. it reverberates in his chest and you relish the way it feels, wondering if you'll ever get to be more than just his secret.

"you're never going to get this from anyone else, you know that, don't you? nobody else will ever make you feel the way i feel." you're dumb from just his fingers, but you can't help that they're just what you wanted. the pads of his index and middle finger brush the spongy spot on your walls, making you cry out and writhe in his arms. your thighs try to squeeze shut but he lets go of your face to force them back open.

"t-too much-"

"shut up and take it. this is what you wanted, so why the hell are you complaining you ungrateful brat?" he hisses, focusing on that spot. with the way the heel of his hand is palming your clit, his fingers buried so deep inside you, you're cumming within moments. you're loud even if you don't mean to be, especially as he continues finger-fucking you after your orgasm.

"please- no more, i-i can't-" you whine, trying your hardest to move away from him, but he's got you tight in his grasp.

"you can, and you will. you don't have a choice. you'll cum as much as i want you to." he kisses your temple, the first sign of mercy he's shown you all night, and then slips a third finger in. you're weak to him, the same way he's weak to you.

#bunnystalker ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡#bunny's fics ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚#resident evil #albert wesker #albert wesker x reader #resident evil fanfiction #writing #albert wesker i love youuuu #albert wesker smut #albert wesker fanfic #resident evil x reader #resident evil smut

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seresinhangmanjake · 1 year

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your way back to me

Dad!Jake “Hangman” Seresin x female reader

Summary: Jake’s best student gets into an accident and ends up in the hospital, and he doesn’t want to leave her alone so he waits for her mother to show up. But her mother just so happens to be the love of his life who left him in the middle of the night decades prior, and it’s about time she shared her biggest secret.

Warnings: Allusion to smut. Cursing. idk, that may be it.

Notes: This is an AU of the Oh, Baby series.

She was a good kid.

A great kid.

Dedicated, strong, wise beyond her years. Wickedly stubborn, and yet, she managed to keep it from impacting her work. She didn’t have the ego; that entitlement and bravado that came with being as talented as she was. But she wasn’t just talented. As if it were woven into the network of her veins, she was the absolute best at what she did, far surpassing her classmates.

No one wondered how she achieved so much at such a young age. She lived by some internal set of rules that Jake had caught onto over the last few months. Something along the lines of ‘work harder, train longer, don’t lose hope, never surrender.’ He could see it in every choice she made—too similar to his own mantra of motivation when he was developing his skills in the sky so many years ago. But she was also open. Open to offering others what she knew, and open to learning from others what she didn’t. He couldn’t have asked for a better student; didn’t even realize one like her could possibly exist.

He never had a child. There was one woman he would’ve given it all to, but when she left, finding another he cared to build a family with was not so easily achieved. But if anyone were to come close to what he imagined his kid to be like, Eve was it. The qualities she possessed that he recognized as his own were what bonded them, and the rest of her—the other pieces that made her whole—were infinitely better. They surpassed him. Those qualities, he’d deduced, came from her mother.

He didn’t know much about Eve’s mother, and knew of Eve's father only what Eve had shared with him—that solely being that the man was a pilot and the determining factor in her choosing to be the same. And maybe, he thought, that was why the two of them fell into their easy flow. He had always wanted a child; someone to care and be there for, and Eve was in need of the support and encouragement that should have come from the father she never knew. And so developed the relationship they had—one of instructor and mentor, confidant and friend.

Rooster teased him; told him that if he wanted something to take care of and watch over like a papa hawk, then he should’ve just gotten a puppy. But a puppy was a thought-out process. It was an acknowledged adjustment to daily life that required careful planning. It wasn’t the same. He hadn’t planned on taking Eve under his wing. Somehow, it was a natural development. He cared about the kid’s well-being. He wanted her to do well. The possibility of her fire and liveliness being snuffed out from a mission gone wrong was unable to pass through his mind without an accompanying squeeze to his heart. Should it become a reality, he would lose the closest thing he had to a daughter, and he knew he’d feel the full force of it.

That was why he stayed when the rest of her team had eventually gone back to base. Despite his exhaustion, despite his duties, the aches in his body from cheap waiting room chairs, and the hours upon hours of unchanging news, he refused to leave.

Eve only had her mother, and while she had been notified of the accident, it would take ages to make her way to California from the east coast. When she would finally arrive at the hospital, he didn’t want her to be alone. He wanted Eve’s mother to understand that there was someone else who cared about her baby, who tried so damn hard to protect her when he could, and wouldn’t leave her side when he failed.

—-

Jake…

Jake!

He internally groaned.

He hated when you called out to him. He hated that your voice always sounded so clear; so near that it filled him with enough false hope to have him reaching out into the darkness, thinking his fingers might actually feel your body. He imagined them grazing along your skin as you smiled at him in a promise that you were real, right in front of him, able to be tugged close and held tight and kissed until the rest of the world fell apart around you. He pictured you still in his bed, wrapped around him, trading whispers of love. It was a common stabbing to his chest that never failed to pierce through to his heart. Yet, if it disappeared, if you disappeared, if the dreams stopped, he knew it might be the thing to finally undo him.

“Jake!”

He jolted upright in his chair before his eyes had a chance to snap open. He looked up at a ghost. Stunning. Ethereal. A well-known silhouette.

Huffing, he positioned his elbow back on the armrest so he could rest his cheek against his fist. He allowed his eyes to drift closed. “Go away,” he mumbled. “You’re not real.”

“What are you talking about?”

His vision again tried to adjust to the overhead lighting. With a bite in his tone, he replied, “You are not—”

His eyes widened as they met those he had stared into so many times before. Real?

Jake shook his head, trying to recall any serious hits to the head. But then an invading thought caused him to remember his purpose.

His stiff joints cracked as he hopped out of his seat and rushed to the main desk.

"Excuse me, Miss." The words tumbled from his lips so fast it startled the young woman behind the counter. "Can you please tell me if—"

"She's going to be fine, Jake."

His breath hitched at the voice not leaving the mouth of the shocked young woman. The voice that came from behind him. That voice. The only one that mattered.

Moments ago, he was convinced his mind was having fun with him, playing and betraying simultaneously. However, needing to know Eve's state had shoved that concern to the side. But now it was unmistakable.

Jake gulped. He slowly turned.

Fuck.

His brow pinched, eyes beginning to sting as his heart went wild inside his chest.

Beautiful. So damn beautiful.

Like a fresh wave, it washed over him how different he felt just at the mere sight of you compared to how he did for any woman he had in his life over the last decades. Those feelings never came close to matching. They weren't on the same tier; couldn't be when what he felt for you sat high on a pedestal of his own making.

His eyes savored their slow scanning of you.

Exhaustion showed in the slump of your shoulders and in the dark circles under your eyes. Your hair was slightly messy. The shape of your body was hidden under a large sweatshirt. Your thumbnails were worn down from being nervously picked at. And Jake could see a few fine lines touched around your face. But you were still you. You still looked like his girl. And he couldn't understand how the hell you were in front of him.

"Eve's going to be ok," you repeated. "I talked with the doctor already. They gave her some medication to help her rest."

"You talked to…" He was still worn out. Brain trying to catch up with the world around him until, eventually, it clicked. "Eve is your daughter."

The empty room was silent as you stared at him. Then you said, "We can come back in the morning to see her. They said visiting hours are over so we have to go."

You twisted on your heel, making your way to the exit. Your steps against the tile echoed.

You were real. Each passing second further proving it. So he followed after you.

"Wait! You can't just walk aw—"

"Not here," you interjected.

His mouth instantly closed. He wouldn't argue, fearing that doing so would somehow make you disappear. And that was not something he was willing to risk.

He trailed you out the front door of the hospital.

"Are we far enough away now that you'll talk to me?"

You stopped and faced him. Neither of you seemed to guess what to do first. He had asked his question and he wanted his answer, but you didn't appear to know how to give one, so he skipped past it and instead glanced at your ring finger. It was bare. But maybe that meant nothing.

"Are you married?" He asked.

"No." You wrapped your arms around your middle. Hugging yourself. Barring yourself from him. Your weight shifted to your other foot, then your averted gaze made its way back to his. "Are you?"

His head shook as he soaked in the relief of your response.

Heaviness settled between you despite the California breeze moving the air along.

"Did you know?" He broke the silence, but the tension held firm. And as if you expected it, you didn’t flinch. "Did you know I was her instructor?"

The simple gesture of your nod was a punch to the gut.

"And you didn't want to reach out? Talk to me? See me?"

"Jake—"

"I would've done anything to get a chance to—" He stopped himself at the pain screwing your features. That expression had always ripped him apart. Twenty years changed nothing.

Taking a calming breath, he continued. "I'm sorry. I didn't…I'm not trying to…" His hand ran down his face. "Shit, I don't know how to do this anymore. I never thought I'd see you again."

You made no rushing move to collect the words he was giving you, and Jake sighed in disappointment. This was not how the two of you interacted. You didn’t stand so far apart. You didn’t hold yourselves back from touching one another. You weren’t supposed to be nervous in each other's presence.

"You look beautiful."

With a snort, you replied, "I'm a mess." You looked down at your sweatshirt and leggings. "I wore this to bed last night. They called me at the crack of dawn and I practically ran to the airport." Tugging at the hem of the oversized top did nothing to erase its wrinkles. "I didn't know you guys train so early."

"Eve likes to, so I let her," Jake said. "I'm so relieved that she's going to be ok. She's really great. If I ever had a daughter, I'd hope she'd be like Eve."

A hard swallow briefly created a bulge in your throat. Your arms found their way around your waist again.

"Do you, uh…do you have a place to stay?" With me, he thought. You belong with me.

"I'll find a hotel."

"You can sleep at mine."

"I couldn't intrude—"

"Honey, it's you. You're not an intrusion," he said, stepping closer.

He would’ve paused to consider the slip of the endearment and the slight widening of your eyes, but he too desperately needed to convince you to go with him. He needed more time. More time to exchange questions, to learn all he’d missed. More time to hear your voice, and maybe, if he could encourage it, hear your laugh as well. More time to be in your presence and exist in the space you enchanted. More of any and everything with you.

His hand rested on your arm and even through the thick material of the sweatshirt, he could feel your heat. So familiar. So welcoming.

Home.

"Come home with me, Honey. I've still got the spare room."

—

There'd been an unspoken agreement, as Jake drove back to his house, that neither of you would discuss all that had been revealed within the half-hour prior. Well, ‘agreement’ maybe was not the most accurate of words. You didn't speak, so Jake didn't pressure you. Had you chosen to open your mouth, he would've hung onto every syllable.

When you did finally step into the house, you shocked him with your sudden willingness to ask questions. How long had he been an instructor? Why had he kept the house when he'd surely been deployed elsewhere for long periods of time throughout his career? How the rest of his old team was?

He answered each one as you made your way down the hall into the living room. Then you went quiet and Jake glanced over his shoulder to find you staring at his wall of frames. From left to right, your eyes scanned each picture—those of his friends, group shots of his past classes, and one or two of him with his Gram. But you stared longest at the last one, and reached up to softly run your fingers over your younger face; a happy young woman smiling wide from his kiss on your cheek.

His chest tightened. "Do you want something to drink?"

You jerked your hand back to your side. A pinkish tinge rushed to your cheeks from having been caught, but seeing that reaction only produced the same in him. "No, thank you."

Nodding, he said, “Make yourself at home.” Just as you used to. Back when you were so close, so attached to one another that home really was being in each other’s space. It was the way things should have always been. It’s the way things would have continued to be had you not left him.

Jake grabbed a glass from his cabinet as you sat, poured himself a swigs-worth of alcohol, and downed it. He needed to curb the edge; calm the wiggling nerves under his skin. Then he joined you on the couch.

“How are you feeling?”

You blew out a long breath. “Exhausted. I was in panic mode all day. The only reason I’m not suffocating right now is because the doctor promised me she’ll be fine.”

“I felt that relief, too,” he said, trying to restrain himself from wringing his hands. “I mean, I know she isn’t my daughter, but I try to help and prepare her for every obstacle as if she were my own.”

As he had hoped, he got to hear your laugh. Not the one he so fondly remembered, though. It was a weak chuckle, not the least bit imbued with humor, and there was an odd twinge of something else he didn't quite understand.

“Of course you do," you muttered under your breath.

His brow pinched, and he was ready to ask what you meant, but his first word was interrupted.

“Jake, why didn’t you ever marry?”

"Uh…" He shrugged. "I don’t know. It just never happened.”

Lying to you was not something he was accustomed to. It was different than when he was a younger man keeping the secret of his feelings from the woman he’d loved for a year. You’d never directly asked him what he felt for you, so he was never in a position to be untruthful. But he sure as hell wasn’t about to tell you now that the sole reason he never married was because the only woman he ever imagined having a family with vanished from his life while he slept unaware and unable to stop it. You, though, didn’t seem to have the same problem when it came to properly moving on. You had created that family. Without him.

“Were you ever married?” he asked. “To Eve’s father? Or someone?”

For such a simple curiosity, you took a while to address it, opting instead to sit in silence, eyes not entirely focused on any particular thing in the room as one thumbnail picked at the other.

He knew that look, only shown when you were overthinking.

"Jake," you began, eyes still lost for a moment before they flicked over to his, “Do you know how old Eve is?"

"Sure. Pretty much everyone does. She's one of the youngest to ever be in the program," he chuckled.

A sense of pride encouraged his smile. Being so young made Eve’s skill and abilities wildly impressive, and aiding in her success couldn't be compared to anything less than an honor.

His grin remained long after the lingering of his statement faded entirely. And not once did your expression shift. Rather, the radiating anxiety continued to halo your body.

Jake placed his hand on top of yours to soothe their fiddling, and you immediately grabbed onto him, pulling that hand closer and keeping it snug between your palms.

“Honey, what’s wrong?"

Sighing, you peered up at him. Your gaze was sad, desperate, pleading, in a way. And he stared back, trying to decipher that pain; hoping to figure out why you were looking at him as you were, and why you'd asked the questions you did.

Then his eyes widened.

His jaw slackened.

Lips parted.

He’d heard of those random shocks. Those instances of a thread suddenly linking two dots, and that new connection bringing a clarity which, in hindsight, should have been so very obvious.

Jake sifted through his rapid replaying of memories that spanned the last couple of months.

Phoenix eyeing the young student and commenting how the girl bore quite the resemblance to him—He’d brushed it off. Plenty of people had blond hair and green eyes.

The way she sometimes spoke. A specific phrase said in a specific tone that he’d only ever heard come out of your mouth—Just an odd coincidence.

The fact that her name was the same as his grandmother's—There were only so many names to select from, right?

But now, with that new unbreakable thread connecting those previously sporadic dots, clarity smacked him upside the head.

"You left me at the beginning of that summer," he started, voice low and slow and careful with each word. "And Eve's birthday is in March."

"Yes."

Looking down at your joined hands, he nodded and said, "She's our daughter."

He could practically hear your swallow.

"...Yes."

He stood then, hand slipping from yours so it could run down his face as the other settled on his hip. He blew out a heavy breath.

"Jake, I'm so sorry. I should have told you. I thought—I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. When I found out you were her instructor, I was going to find a way to tell you, but I was so scared and it was selfish and—"

"Does she know?"

"No, she—When she came here she told me she looked up to you, and that if she imagined the kind of man her father was, he'd be like you."

You paused to properly exhale, head hanging in the aftermath.

He wanted to erase that showing of shame, but if he interrupted you, you might not have given the rest of the story. And he needed the rest of the story. He needed the truth of the events that had haunted him for decades.

"I always felt I made the biggest mistake of my life the day I left you, but hearing her say that solidified it. And for years, I let fear keep me from righting that wrong,” you said, a droplet of water falling from your face, soaking into the fabric of your leggings. "All this time I've been so afraid that you wouldn't want her, and you wouldn't want me, and it's paralyzed me."

His fingers twitched at his sides, begging him to allow them to brush away your tears—to let the woman he loved know that he didn’t hate her for her past choices—but he couldn’t move. And the only thing he could think to say was, "Should it really have taken her getting hurt for you to tell me?"

Raw heartbreak seeped into your gaze.

"So it's my daughter that is laying in a hospital bed right now." The more he said it, the more he called her that in acknowledgment of who they truly were to one another, the more it ached each limb and vein and nerve of his body to know that she was hurting. Yes, he had always cared about her and treated her like his own, but Eve being his daughter changed things. It altered his biological instincts and the chemical balance in his brain. Failing in protecting her was no longer just a failure, it was catastrophic to his soul.

He pictured her face bruised, her lip cut, her cheek swollen. He imagined your sheer horror once learning she was injured thousands of miles out of your reach. You’d faced it alone. You never should have been alone to begin with.

"I should've kept looking for you," he said. "I should have just told everyone else to fuck off."

"Jake, if they were telling you to give up, then—"

"Don't. Do not say it was for good reason. We could've been together. If I had found you we would've been a family."

The day his friends had sat him down, laid out what they believed to be the reality he refused to accept, and told him to move on, was fresh in his mind. Not a moment of it had faded. He’d dreamt about it for ages—sometimes still did—always waking devastated.

Your palm cupping his cheek called him back from his thoughts.

"The only reason we weren't a family is because I fucked up. I did,” you stressed. “This isn't on you."

You were suddenly so close, he realized. So warm within his space. How he’d survived losing you, he didn’t know.

"Would you have come back with me? If I had been able to find where you were?"

Your hand fell but he grabbed it before you could retreat, and thankfully, you didn’t fight him. Then you sighed, the act expelling the tenseness that had stiffened your form. "I'm not going to answer that question."

Perhaps for the best. Either answer would’ve broken him.

He wished to go back in time, to never give up on his search. He wanted a chance to convince the woman he loved to raise a child together. He wanted to be a father to that baby girl as she’d grown, and enjoy all of the moments that came with being her parent.

Nothing could give that to him now, but at least he wouldn’t be losing any more time.

Eve being grown didn’t mean she wasn’t his. Being in one another’s lives proved to be predestined. He was a father, had always been, and could maybe finally be seen as a father by his daughter now that you had bared it all and given the truth.

So he figured maybe it was only fair to do the same for you.

Jake looked at you. Really looked at you. His eyes bore into yours, taking in the swell of your pupils and the different colors flecked around in what remained of the ring of your irises. "Is this secret sharing day?" he asked.

"What?” Your brow pinched as you sniffled and swiped your fingers under the lower lashes framing your right eye to remove the final remnants of tears. “I-I suppose so. If that’s really what you want to call it."

“Good.” Both hands were on his hips to give him some sense of physical stability, and he licked his lips, then said, "I didn't get married because I never found anyone I loved as much as I love you. I couldn’t fully give myself to anyone while I still belonged to someone else.”

Shock and disbelief melded inside that previously heartbroken gaze.

He hadn’t been able to say the words before you left. You hadn’t given him a chance. But he could see now that you had spent years wondering if felt that deeply for you, as he had wondered if you felt that way for him.

“Jake, you…you love me?”

“I've always loved you, Honey,” he declared just before his lips met yours.

The soft touch didn’t seem to stun you. You didn’t take your time to adjust to the kiss you hadn’t shared in decades. Instead, you fell right into it, right alongside him. Your arms rose to wrap around his neck, sending shudders up his spine. You tugged him closer as he did the same to you. You moaned and whimpered and let your tongue play with his, so generously allowing him to get drunk off of your taste.

You kissed him exactly like he remembered; like nothing had changed or interrupted the perfect path you once started on. There was the same sweetness that, just as it used to, surrendered to an underlying burn. A familiar need for each other that had never died. And you settled into it; kissing skin and grasping at clothes and snuffing out all space between you until neither of you could take it anymore.

“Honey?” A little whine into your mouth.

“Yes,” you replied, sealing your lips again before he could say another word. Because you weren’t just answering the call of his name for you. You were answering the unspoken question the both of you already knew was coming.

Jake grinned into the kiss and slipped his hand down the front of your leggings.

—-

"I assume you have more questions?"

Your voice was the first break in the peaceful silence where he had been lazily pressing his lips to your neck and bare shoulder while your back was tucked against his chest.

He did have questions. But it was a war whether to ask them or to remain a little longer in the bubble of bliss where he could touch you and cuddle you and kiss you. You had asked, though, and he'd never been too good at denying you anything.

Pulling his lips away from your skin, he said, “A hundred of them.”

You flipped under the bedsheet to face him. "Any particular one you wish to start with?"

Jake paused. Not because he didn’t know the first of which to ask, but because your answer had a great deal of power over him. It contained his hope and his pain, either with the potential to destroy the other. It was an answer that would dictate his future.

"Can she know?" He finally asked.

"She deserves to know,” you replied to his relief. “She'd want to know. As long as you want her to know, too."

His arm over your waist curled and pulled you closer. "Of course I do, Honey."

"Then we can tell her tomorrow, if you want."

"Are you ready for that?"

"It's not about me," you said. "She might forgive me now, she might not. It could take a while, I suppose, and I hate that, but I'd deserve it."

When your head dipped down away from his, he ran his hand over the strands of your hair and brushed his lips against your forehead.

"I hope that we all can look at this as a chance to have something new, though," you continued. "I'd like for us to look ahead, not behind."

Jake smiled. That was all he wanted. Just a chance to have what he’d lost. Everything he had lost.

"And what about you and me?" He hummed as his knuckle under your chin tilted your face back up to his. "Do we get something new as well? Because I don't know if I'm capable of letting you walk out of my life again."

The corners of your lips curved the slightest and you cupped his cheek, drawing him further into you. The kiss was gentle, brief, but more than enough to send tingles throughout him. Then you separated a hairs width and whispered:

"Jake, I'm not capable of leaving you again."

----

A/N: Ok, so this might be it for a little bit, guys, as far as fic posting. There’s been a lack of interest it seems lately and i’m not in a good space mentally to be able to put a lot into it and not know how it’s being received. It’s no ones fault but my own that I feel this way. This is how I’ve chosen to spend my time and this is the platform I picked. I want to write the rest of Oh, Baby and Beyond the Hills stuff but idk. Maybe i’ll snap out of it. But this was just to let those of you who have been following know what the plan might be. I’m very thankful that some of you have stuck around this long.

Tags: @wkndwlff @kmc1989 @sagittarius-flowerchild @dempy @oliviah-25 @rosiahills22 @xoxabs88xox @cinderellasmissingshoe @novagreen04 @multifandomlover4life @mayhemmanaged @memeorydotcom @ryiamarie

#jake seresin #jake seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin #jake hangman seresin x reader #top gun maverick #top gun maverick hangman #top gun maverick fic #tgm fic #jake seresin fluff #jake seresin angst #dad!jake seresin #dad!jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x female!reader #jake seresin x fem!reader #jake seresin imagine #jake seresin au #jake seresin fanfiction #jake seresin fic #jake seresin fanfic

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project-sekai-facts · 10 months

Note

idk if this has its own comprehensive post on here or not but can you explain in depth how rui is gay coded

yeah okay

i think what you'll see people bring up most often is the fact that he has his right ear pierced (see above). incredibly brief queer history lesson for anyone who is unaware: back in the 70s & 80s when it was still illegal or otherwise heavily looked down on to be gay, wearing a single earring in your right ear became a non-verbal identifier amongst gay men in America. As far as I'm aware, identifiers did actually vary between areas, but it became far more publicly known that the right ear was the gay ear and the left ear was the straight ear. Even today when the stigma has worn away a decent amount, you still hear people bring up the term "gay ear" and the fact that the right ear is the gay ear is fairly common knowledge. This is also a known thing outside america, i'm not sure how far the spread is outside america and other english-speaking countries but it is definitely known in a fair amount of places, including Japan (also it should be noted that a right ear piercing can have different meanings in different cultures that predate this meaning, and nowadays people are more likely to get whatever ear pierced they want regardless of sexuality).

obviously anyone can have any ear pierced that they want but things work a bit differently with character design. the only other MCs who regularly wear earrings are An (left ear) and Akito (both). For both of them, this is definitely done to make them seem more cool, which makes sense given they're in the street music scene and following the fashions. As for NPCs there's Nagi (left), Arata, Ken, Tatsuya, Iori, Saku, and Yuuka (all both), which again is probably just to fit the fashion of those characters. Okay, Yuuka just has regular old earrings but as for the others you've got street and punk rock styles which both incorporate piercings as a big part of the style (especially with Saku's punk look).

so all that considered, Rui's earring just sticks out, I guess? it's not really a fashion thing, it's pretty plain and just kinda there, and very conveniently happens to exactly match up with an old way of signaling in the gay community instead of being in his left ear which is the far more common ear for guys to get pierced if they only have one earring. also he almost always only has the one piercing in his right ear in trained cards, the only exceptions being his cheer squad (earrings in both ears) and his canary card (three piercings but still in his right ear).

like i said though, it doesn't have to mean anything but talking from the perspective of character design, sometimes if you want to communicate something about a character then you put it in there. however, as stated earlier, this is something that originated in America and it doesn't hold nearly as much weight in a Japanese game as it would if this was an American game, especially since piercings are a fairly common fashion accessory for men over in Japan. That said, you will still sometimes see Japanese players or other players in the east asian fanbase bring this up.

this one is more of a matter of perspective, but you're gonna have to sit through it or skip this section because like most other characters in the game some of Rui's queercoding comes through shiptease interactions. Rui has a few interactions with Tsukasa that could definitely be read as flirting. it's kinda ambiguous though, which does make sense given the type of game this is; idol-adjacent games like this very rarely make anything concrete so that people who are fans of a pairing can enjoy the teasing and people who don't like it can simply move on. first thing that comes to mind would be the part where he invites Tsukasa to his house in wonder halloween (above), mainly because his L2D uses his smile expression that has a blush with it and that was a choice that someone on the L2D team had to make but didn't have to - they could've easily just kept his usual teasing expression he had at the start of the interaction there was no need to change it.

There's a couple other interactions but this is probably the most obvious outside of that one scene of Rui volunteering himself to play Juliet so Tsukasa could rehearse the proposal scene of his R&J adaptation, despite the fact that Nene was in the room, in Kamikou Festival!. Also, these scenes I mentioned would have been written before the pairing between the two characters gained massive popularity in the fandom, so they were written just because the writers wanted to rather than because they were intentionally targeting a certain group.

There's more recent interactions too. The section of the Tales of Detective Tenma after live where he spends about 20 seconds imagining what Tsukasa would look like if he were more muscular can definitely fall under this, especially since based on Rui's description, he probably wasn't imagining Tsukasa with a shirt on. However, attraction isn't necessarily implied and this dialogue is played as a joke anyway, being a callback to an earlier gag area conversation where he was teasing Tsukasa. Although you could counter-counter argue that the original area conversation had Rui talking about Tsukasa building muscle for show-related purposes, and in the after live, it was just because Tsukasa exercising more came up in conversation, and the show ideas didn't come up until after all this was said and done.

There's also multiple instances of him accrediting Tsukasa for his enjoyment of things, such as in KAITO's Kamikou Festival card story, Thrilling White Day's after live, and chapter 8 of Pandemonium, but this is a lot more speculative ship talk than I wanted to be on this blog so I'll be leaving this section here and moving on.

(TL by pjsekai eng)

there's also that 1koma that I posted about a while ago. you know, the one where he asks for people to call him the "modern day Hiraga Gennai"? Hiraga Gennai as in the 18th century Japanese inventor who was also gay and wrote multiple works about it. However, Gennai is well renowned for his genius and contributions to science, and is also known for his eccentric satirical writings, and kabuki theatre he wrote under a pseudonym, which fits Rui's personality very well. That said, it is very easy to interpret this 1koma's joke as being about the fact Gennai was gay, considering it's the thing he's most known for after his scientific achievements, and especially considering Tsukasa's comment (even if it's not in the best taste).

The 1komas are played for jokes though, and especially the original ones are quite hard to call canon due to some of the scenarios and character interactions not making sense. But then again, someone on the writing team decided to write a gay joke around Rui for whatever reason that may be and it got passed by higher ups and put in the game (or, 3 versions of the game. the joke didn't make it to EN due to Gennai not being very known amongst the audience and was edited to fit the new context). Definitely one of the strongest pieces of evidence here.

the only other thing i can think of (and arguably like, the biggest bit of evidence for this theory (? Idk if I should call it that)) is that he doesn't really show any interest in women.

First off, the Valentine's Day 2021 vlive. Quick note that in Japan, Valentine's is traditionally a holiday for girls to give chocolates to boys (while white day is the reverse). You can give platonic valentines too, which is what happens in-game... for the most part.

Those chocolates Rui got could easily just be platonic chocolates from other students, but then you have a few factors to filter in. 1) this is very early into the game, back when his only friends were WxS and Mizuki and 2) Those chocolates aren't from WxS, since Emu and Nene give the boys sweets offscreen after the vlive, and Tsukasa is on the receiving end for this holiday. Of course, one box could be friend chocolates from Mizuki, but that leaves more chocolate boxes than friends to give him chocolates.

Immediately after this, Tsukasa gets jealous that Rui got chocolates and tries to brag that he got some too, before saying too much and revealing he got friendzoned by multiple girls, heavily suggesting that Rui's chocolates were given with some sort of romantic intent. I guess you could say that these were chocolates given out to everyone in 2-B, but then why would they leave it anonymously in his locker? The only reason I could think of is that people don't want to associate with him, which is canon admittedly. However I think the romantic intent or at least attraction option is more likely, especially given Tsukasa's jealousy and also just the anonymous valentine romance trope. This is almost word-for-word from that post I made about the in-universe attractiveness of every character so sorry I made you sit through that again.

Getting back on track, Rui seems very neutral about the fact he got given multiple boxes of what was likely confession chocolate. He just briefly mentions that he forgot the holiday was even happening until he found chocolates and then never brings this up again. I think it's worth comparing his reactions to Tsukasa, who seems to care very much about his abilities (or, lack thereof) to attract women. Obviously Tsukasa is the big reactions/brag about a lot of things guy, but Rui does not really seem to care about the fact that multiple women find him attractive, or just the holiday where he’s supposed to get chocolate from girls in general. But this whole interaction is just for jokes anyway so you don’t have to think too much of it if you don’t want to.

Second sub-point: Shizuku. Shizuku can be considered as the most attractive character in-universe given the sheer amount of characters that have been shown to be attracted to her or at least comment on her looks (currently at least 8 MCs if not more and a few named side characters). Admittedly none of those MCs are male, but it isn't like it's impossible for people to be attracted to the opposite gender in this game, like we just established that Tsukasa says he's interested in women, so the point still stands.

(TL from Tsukasa's #3 fan on YT)

Specifically I would like to point out a scene in A Once-In-A-Lifetime Pandemonium, when the 2-B trio first meet the Miyajo 2nd years. The three of them immediately recognise Shizuku and Airi and then Ibuki describes Mafuyu as "a beauty". Shizuku gives them her idol smile which in their POV has the same sparkles that often (not always, but definitely in this context) show up when characters are attracted to another character (like how Haruka has this effect on Minori and Kohane, and An has this effect on Kohane). Like it's very, very obvious that Rui's friends are attracted to Shizuku and the other girls and they're pretty surprised that he's hanging around with them.

But Rui never acts like this around Shizuku at all, nor does he ever even address the fact that she's good looking. He doesn't even bring it up in their earlier interactions back in the Picnic event or any events after, when a lot of other characters (e.g: Emu, Ena, and Mizuki) commented on her looks almost immediately after meeting her (they did first meet in a pretty stressful situation if you want to argue that, but it still stands that he's never been attracted to her). Similarly in The Tomorrow we Hope for, he does not have any reaction to meeting Haruka for the first time, unlike how we see other characters who are attracted to women (Kohane/Minori/debatably Nene it’s up to interpretation) act around her at first.

at the end of the day i think you could definitely make a case for it. like it's harder to make a solid argument in comparison to say, Kohane, An, Saki, or Minori who are outright attracted to other girls and say as such on-screen, but there's definitely some more subtle hints and stuff to work with still and it was actually quite fun to compile them (i took the in-depth part to heart as always sorry anon).

#this isn't meant to invalidate anyone's ships or HCs or whatnot like do whatever you want #do whatever you want with this post it's just for fun.#asks #theory #? i guess??#rui kamishiro

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stevenssacrab · 9 months

Text

In Secret

⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ✧ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ*

Summary: For six months, you and Steve have hidden your relationship from everyone, but what happens when you come face to face with death?

Rating: 17+

Warnings: Sneaking around, hostage situation, kissing, reader has a near death experience

Word Count: 1.6k

a/n: love a good ol’ Steve fic, never misses, I hope everyone enjoys this one, have a happy new year!!

⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ✧ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ*

Being Captain America’s significant other comes with an absurd amount of pressure; you have to be flawless, never make a single mistake, be a good role model for kids, and be just as if not more heroic, which is precisely why you’ve chosen to hide your relationship from everyone, fellow Avengers included. It wasn’t an easy decision, but you and Steve both decided that it would be for the best; you were new to the Avenger team and didn't want the added pressure of being with Steve; you and Steve somehow managed to have kept it hidden for six months, it didn’t come without its hardships though, Steve needed to keep up the appearance of a fearless leader, so he couldn’t be sweet on you when it came to training and performance evaluations; and you couldn't defend Steve when others complained about his methods, less they suspect anything between you two, much to your dismay Steve seemed to always have women after him, leading to a few disagreements about how Steve should handle the situation, you wanted Steve to be harsher when he turned them down, but Steve has a reputation to uphold, and being rude and dismissive was not a part of it.

"Okay, you leave first, and I'll join 5 minutes later," Steve said reassuringly, rubbing your arm gently and giving your hand a light squeeze.

"Okay, see you out there, Cap," you say playfully with a wink; you walk out of your room and down the hall into the conference room filled with fellow Avengers; your eyes scan for an empty seat.

"Y/N! Over here!" Wanda calls, waving her hand and patting the open spot between her and Natasha; you smile and briskly walk over.

"Did we start yet?" you asked, knowing the meeting can't start without Steve.

"No, just waiting for Steve," Natasha says matter of factly, doodling absentmindedly on a piece of paper.

"So, Natasha and I want to see that new movie that just came out. Do you wanna come?" Wanda asked, but you've already seen that movie with Steve earlier this week.

"I've already seen it," you said disheartened.

"HOW!? It's been out for two days?!" Wanda astonished. "It's honestly impressive how fast you watch these movies as they come out; who are you even seeing them with?" Wanda asked, peering at you suspiciously.

"Uh, my mom?" you voice with a rising inflection.

"Okay, this week's mission!" Steve calls out loudly, walking into the room before Wanda can question you further, "Our sources tell us Hydra is working on a new super soldier serum for a division of soldiers. Our mission is to stop them in their tracks." Steve says firmly, eyes landing on yours fleetingly.

"We'll go in groups of 3: Wanda, Clint, and Y/N in group one, group two is Me, Peter, and Scott, and the third and final group is Bucky, Sam, and Natasha.”

"We gotta hightail it; this is of great significance, so we move tonight, meet at the quin in an hour, we’ll discuss our plans of attack on the way," he says with a nod, marching out the room.

“Everyone’s here?” Steve asks, scanning the quin, ensuring everyone is accounted for, “Okay, as we fly over, group one will land on the south side of the building, my group will land east, group three lands west, and the quin will land in the north, the goal is to push toward the center where intel tells us the serums are located and try to catch anyone who may be running off with the serum, once secured everyone evacuate immediately and meet at the jet. Everyone clear?” He asks strictly, looking toward the teams, and they nod affirmatively.

“Okay, move out!” he shouts, rushing for his shield and jumping out of the plane; you land quietly outside the building, shed the parachute off, and get into position.

“Okay, on my mark, go!” Clint whispers harshly; the three of you move as a unit, sweeping every corner, taking quiet steps, instincts on high alert; as you move through the building, you can’t help this nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach; something doesn’t feel right, you’re halfway through the building, and not a single enemy has been spotted.

“Guys, I don’t like this,” you say lowly over comms, hairs on the back of your neck standing straight.

“Let’s just keep moving so we can get out of here,” Clint says, readjusting his grip on his pistol while Wanda grows increasingly worried, palms becoming sweaty, the tension hanging in the air.

“Cap, you guys got anything on your end?” Clint asked over comms, his eyes scanning the suspiciously empty room.

“Nothing over here; keep your eyes peeled; everything about this feels wrong,” Captain uttered, uneasy hanging off every word; you signal you are going to have a look around at the team and break right; you creep into a dark room littered with papers, it looks like everyone just got up at left, you spot a computer playing footage on a loop, you walk up and watch, it’s your team landing outside.

“It's a trap! They know we're here!” You screamed over comms; you reached for your gun but felt something hard press against your back.

“Don't even think about it,” a deep voice said coldly as they pulled you against them roughly; you kept your hands in the air, your heart beating out of your chest; they ran their hands over your body, removing any possible weapon.

“What’s the plan now?” You ask coyly, looking over your shoulder slightly.

“Turn around!” He boomed, patience wearing thin; he pushed the gun against your head, “Walk,” he said, shoving you with the weapon, and you walked carefully toward the exit.

“Y/N, where are you?” Steve asks, trying not to sound as concerned as he is; you trudge toward the exit and swing it open

“Hiya, Captain,” you call, looking at him with pleading eyes. Steve’s face breaks your heart; it’s as if you told him the worst news of his life. The assailant grips you by your neck and pulls you close, holding the gun to your temple.

“What’s wrong, Captain? Cat got your tongue?” He said smugly. Steve said nothing, his eyes remaining planted on you as panic started to work its way across your chest, your hands clawing at the arm tightening around your neck, the assailant laughing at the way you struggle to breathe.

“I'll keep it brief and tell you what I want: a trade, the soldier for your newest recruit," he said arrogantly, walking you both closer to Steve

"Don't do it!" you say anxiously, looking at the team with all their weapons drawn and pointed in your direction; you shift your weight uncomfortably, trying to think of any possibility that doesn't end with you injured or dead, Steve looks back at the rest of the team and then back at you, time moves slow, your skin stings with the bite of the cold winter air, and you hear your blood rushing through your ears like crashing waves, when the assailant jerks suddenly, he fires a shot in the air.

"It's now or never, Captain!" He yells, shoving the gun aggressively into your temple; you close your eyes, accepting your demise, and you open your mouth to say something, but the sound of a gunshot cuts you off; your body tenses, and you wait for the pain, but it never comes, you finally open your eyes when you feel Steve's arms wrap around you, Steve's face is filled with concern, you see his mouth moving, but you don't hear anything, Steve grabs your arms and shakes you lightly, your hearing fades in.

"Y/N! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Oh my god," he blubbers, tears welling in his eyes; he pulls you in for a fiery kiss, holding you as you'd slip through his fingers; he pulls back slowly and looks deeply into your eyes.

"Are you alright?" He asks, panic having left his body; he glides his hands down your arms and holds your hands, interlacing your fingers.

"Yeah, I'm okay, just shaken up," you say reassuringly, pulling him into a hug. You close your eyes, inhaling his scent, losing yourself in the comforting aura that is Steve, and then you hear someone clear their throat; your eyes shoot open, landing on the whole team just staring at you and Steve; you jump back and hit Steve playfully on the chest.

"Steve, they saw us!" You whisper harshly and turn him around, hiding behind his big frame; he clears his throat and speaks

"Uh..." he mutters; he suddenly reaches behind himself and grabs your hand, pulling you next to him and wrapping his arm around your waist.

"We are dating." He said confidently, chin high; there was a long pause as the team looked around at each other, and then you heard a squeal; it was Wanda squealing with happiness, running towards you with a broad smile and open arms, she practically tackled you to the ground, squeezing the life out of you.

"Oh, Wanda, I can't breathe," you choke out, gently smacking her arms.

"Since when?" Sam asks, walking up to Steve and patting him proudly on the back.

"6 months ago," Steve says brightly with a smile, pulling you against him.

"I've known for four months," Natasha says cooly

"How?!" You and Steve say in unison, looking at each other. Natasha smirked and walked closer to you both, placing one hand on each of your shoulders.

"You guys should probably not fall asleep in each other's arms if you don't want anyone to find out." She says matter-of-factly, walking away and leaving you both stunned. "Congrats," she shouted back as she walked into the quinjet.

"Let's move out, team!" He shouts, grabbing your hand gently and walking you both onto the quinjet.

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bellaireland1981 · 1 year

Text

Special Delivery for the Birthday Boy

Summary: You enlist Phoenix’s help to surprise your husband on his birthday. You’d been living on opposite coasts since he’d been called back to Top Gun and you were ready to reunite with him just in time to celebrate his birthday. An added bonus is you also get to surprise the rest of the Daggers who have no clue that Bradley is married.

Word Count: 3.9K

Pairings: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Female! Reader

Warnings: Fluff, mentions of birthday sex but no actual smut, mentions of pregnancy.

A/N: I do not own TGM characters, I DO NOT give permission to anyone to repost, copy or translate my work to any other platform or website. Don’t steal my work... it’s not cool. AS always thank you to @waywardodysseys and @beyondthesefourwalls for letting me bounce ideas off them and encouraging me!! Reblogs and comments always appreciated!

Masterlist

Side note: Meant to get this posted yesterday but wanted to redo a few things on it...still not 100% sure I love how it turned out but...here you go!

YOU: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY! I LOVE YOU! I’ll be in interviews all day but I’ll FaceTime you tonight. Fly Safe! 💋

HUBBY: Thank you, Dove. I miss you so much 🙁 Wish you were here. Love you 💗

“Are you sure he doesn’t know I’m coming?” You asked, putting your suitcase into the back and climbing into the passenger seat. “Thanks again for coming to get me!”

“Y/N, I promise, he’s absolutely clueless.” Phoenix assured you, smiling. “He’s been moping around all day because he can’t get a hold of you. And you’re welcome! I can’t wait to see his face!”

“I can’t wait to see his face either… I miss that face.” You said, leaning back in the seat. “I’ll be so happy when we’re living on the same damn coast again.”

“When will that be?” She asked, merging into the traffic leaving the San Diego International Airport. “Rooster mentioned you had some loose ends to tie up out East.”

“That’s part of his birthday present.” You said beaming, “I actually just accepted a teaching position for the fall. I had an interview over Zoom yesterday. Bradley thinks I’m in interviews all day today.”

“Y/N that’s awesome!” Phoenix exclaimed, “He’ll be so damn excited.”

“I’m excited.” You laughed, “I’ve had enough of being across the country from my husband. Especially after the last mission. How are things really going with him and Maverick?”

“Honestly?” She said, “Much better than when we got back to Top Gun. They’ve talked and are actively trying. It’s been really good for Rooster.”

“Good.” You replied, “I’ve been trying to get him to reach out for a few years. He just wasn’t ready. I’m glad he got this chance. It’ll be interesting to meet the man.”

“He’s a good guy.” She said, “Bob and I are the only ones that know about you, by the way.”

“I figured.” You laughed. “I’m kind of looking forward to that bombshell being dropped too. From everything I’ve heard about everyone, the reactions should be priceless. I’m especially looking forward to Hangman’s reaction.”

“Oh, this will be absolutely priceless.” Phoenix laughed, “For as much shit as he gives Rooster for never hitting on women at the Hard Deck and not having any game… he’s going to have to eat his words. He’ll most likely hit on you though if he meets you before knowing you’re married to Rooster.”

“Are things better between them though?” You asked, “I know Hangman wasn’t Bradley’s favorite person… and they’ve butted heads in the past. When it counted though, that man came through for my husband and it’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay.”

“They’ve formed a tentative friendship.” She said, “It’s new… but there is a strong mutual respect between them. They’ve flown better together in training since the mission…have become a pretty damn good team actually.”

“It makes me feel better knowing he’s got the best pilots in the Navy flying with him.” You said, “I always felt safer when I knew he was deployed with you.”

“Just because you know I’ll keep his ass out of trouble.” She laughed. “I get it though. You have to trust your wingman. This last mission showed us that we can really all trust one another to come through for each other.”

She pulled into the driveway of her apartment complex parking her car and the two of you got out. You grabbed your suitcase from the back and followed her up to her apartment.

“Ok I just need like a half hour to shower and get ready!” You said, “Then I’ll be ready to go!”

“Take your time.” She laughed, “I’ll grab a towel for you. While you shower, I’ll text the group. Jake is actually in charge of getting Bradley to the Hard Deck for birthday drinks.”

You opened your suitcase, pulling out a sundress you’d left on top for easy access. It was one of Bradley’s favorites on you so you made sure to pack it. You grabbed the strapless bra and matching lace panties you’d bought to wear with the dress and headed to the shower. You tied your hair up so it wouldn’t get wet and quickly jumped into the shower.

True to your word, thirty minutes later you were dressed and ready to go. You’d left your hair down, opted for light makeup and only wore a necklace Bradley had given you for your anniversary (a Dove pendant on a dainty silver chain). You slipped your feet into wedge sandals and grabbed your purse and the small gift bag with Bradley’s other birthday present in it and headed out to the living room where Phoenix was waiting.

“Ready!” You said, excited to finally be headed out to see your husband.

“Jake said he’s having a hard time getting Rooster to go to the bar. He asked him after work and he said he was just going to go home.” Phoenix said. “I can drop you off at the Hard Deck then go to the house and drag his ass out. He’ll listen to me.”

“Hold on.” You said, “He’s probably waiting for me to FaceTime him and doesn't want to miss that call… SHIT! He’ll recognize your apartment…. Ok…. no problem.. I’ve got this.”

You brought your husband’s name up on your phone, hitting the call button.

“Baby you said FaceTime.” Bradley complained, answering the phone on the second ring. “Where’s your beautiful face?”

“I know, Sweetie,” You replied, sighing, “I promise I’ll FaceTime you later tonight. I messed up the time difference and I got a call from another school to interview with. I just really want to find a job out there so I can get to you. How about you go get a birthday drink with Nix and then by the time you get home I’ll be free and we can FaceTime.”

“It’s OK, Dove.” He said, “Good luck in the interview, Baby. They’ll all want you and you’ll have your pick of jobs. I just miss you so damn much. I want to be able to come home to you at night. I love you.”

“I love you too, Bradley.” You said, your heart breaking at how sad he sounded, even knowing you were about to make him so happy. “I’ll be home there with you before you even know it and you’ll be coming home to me every single night. Promise you’ll go get a drink with your friends? Celebrate your birthday?”

“I promise.” He said, “I’ll talk to you later, Baby. Good Luck.”

“Thank you, Sweetie.” You replied, “I love you so so much.”

“Love you too.” He replied.

After hanging up you had Phoenix text the group chat again to let everyone know that drinks were happening at the Hard Deck in thirty minutes for Bradshaw’s birthday. Then she texted Bradley and let him know she wasn’t taking ‘No’ for an answer.

PHOENIX: Bradshaw, your ass better be at the Hard Deck in 30 minutes or I’ll be at your house to drag your ass out myself. 😡

ROOSTER: My wife already texted you? Lol 😂 I’m changing out of my flight suit now. Be there in 30.

“Alright, he’s changing now!” Phoenix said, smiling, “Let’s get you to your husband!”

You pulled your suitcase back down to her car, throwing it into the back again to be transferred to your husband’s Bronco once you were at the Hard Deck. Knowing you were going to be seeing him in 30 minutes caused excitement to flood your system. You’d been married for three years, together for five and gone through much longer deployments and separations that the one you’d just been through, but never before had he flown such a dangerous mission where it had been pretty much assumed someone wasn’t coming home.

“Not long now!” Phoenix said, smiling over at you, knowing where your head was going. “An added bonus to this new assignment is the deployments won’t be as often or as long. We will actually be getting to do more instructing of the new classes of Top Gun students in between missions. You won’t have to worry about long separations anymore.”

“I’ve done ok as long as I didn’t let myself think about it too much.” You said, “The minute I let myself think about how close he came to not coming home… I lose it.”

“You’ll feel much better once you see him and have him back in your arms.” She promised, “I know he’ll feel better once he’s got you in his arms too.”

“You’re right.” You said. “Just need him in my arms.”

She pulled into the parking lot of the bar a short time later and you made your way inside.

“Looks like everyone except Rooster is here.” Phoenix said, spotting everyone in their regular corner of the bar when they walked in. “Let’s go grab drinks from the bar and kill time until he gets here. I want him to be the one to introduce you.”

You followed her to the bar, sitting in one of the free seats.

“Hey, Phoenix.” Penny said, coming over, “What can I get for you two?”

“Hey, Penny.” She replied, “I’ll take a beer, Y/N?”

“Just a Ginger Ale or Sprite if you have it?” You asked, smiling. “I’m going to be DD tonight for my husband.”

“One of these aviators belong to you?” Penny asked, grabbing the beer for Phoenix and filling a glass with ice and pouring the amber soda for you.

“He’s not here yet.” You replied, smiling. “But yeah, I have to take claim for an aviator.”

“Penny, do you know if Mav is coming tonight?” Phoenix asked, winking at you. “Figured he might pop in for Rooster’s birthday.”

“I think he said he’s stopping in.” She replied, “I’m so glad those two are finally talking!”

“You and me both!” Phoenix replied, taking a drink of her beer.

“Phoenix, why are you sitting over here keeping your beautiful friend here from joining us?” A smooth voice sounded behind you both. You turned and smirked, knowing exactly who was standing behind you.

“Bagman, you’re not allowed to harass my friend.” Phoenix said, rolling her eyes. “She is definitely not your type.”

“I’m Hangman.” He said, flashing a megawatt smile, complete with dimples. You were sure that smile landed him plenty of ladies. You had to bite back a laugh when you glanced over at Phoenix who was rolling her eyes. “Or Jake, whichever you prefer.”

“I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you, Hangman.” You replied, glancing behind him as the door opened and a very familiar mustached aviator walked in wearing one of his million Hawaiian shirts. Thankfully he hadn’t seen you yet so you still had the element of surprise. “Phoenix is right though, you’re not my type. I only give my heart to 6 '1”, brown eyed,curly haired, aviators with mustaches and a penchant for Hawaiian shirts.”

“Oddly specific…” He said, confused, but turning to see where your eyes had landed. You hopped off the seat and moved past him, straight into Bradley’s line of sight.

“Lieutenant Bradshaw!” You called, catching his attention. His head shot up, his eyes locking in on you immediately, a shocked smile stretching across his face. “Surprise, Baby! Happy Birthday!”

“Dove!” He exclaimed, finally snapping out of his shock. He closed the distance between you two quickly, meeting him in the middle, and scooped you up into his arms. Your legs wrapped around him so he was holding you koala style, your lips locking against his own in a passionate kiss, neither of you caring that you were standing in the middle of a crowded bar. “Fuck, I’ve missed you so damn much, Y/N. I can’t believe you’re really here!”

“Forgive me for not FaceTiming now?” You asked, laughing “I was at Phoenix’s apartment when I called.”

“You’re a little minx.” He laughed. “I forgive you baby.”

“Bradshaw!” Jake said, “Care you’ve got some explaining to do.”

“Give me a minute, Hangman.” Bradley replied, setting you down, but not letting you go. “I haven’t seen my wife in a couple of months. Let me say ‘hello’.”

“WIFE?” Jake exclaimed, “Phoenix, you know about this?”

“Yup.” She smirked, leading Jake away from you and Bradley. “Give them a minute. They’ll join us shortly.”

You were still wrapped in Bradley’s arms and you finally felt like you were home.

“I can’t believe you’re really here, Dove.” He said, resting his forehead against your own. “You look so beautiful, Baby.”

“I’m really here, my love.” You promised, kissing him softly. “It’s so good to see your face and kiss you and to be in your arms. I love you so much. From now on, I will go where you go whenever humanly possible.”

“I love you too, Beautiful.” He replied, “I’m hoping this will be our permanent home base. How close are we to being a one coast family?”

“Actually, how likely is it that you can get leave to help me pack up our Virginia house?” You asked.

“Pretty likely.” He smiled, “Do you have a timeline?”

“Whenever you’re ready.” You said, “I accepted a job out here for the fall, officially resigned at the district in Virginia Beach and cleared out my classroom two days ago.”

“FUCK YES!” He exclaimed, picking you up and swinging you around, “I’ll put in for leave tomorrow. As soon as it’s granted we’ll book a flight back and pack it all up and list the house.”

“Bradshaws!” Jake yelled, “Join the party!”

“We’re being paged.” You laughed, “Come on, Baby. Introduce me to your friends.”

You and Bradley walked over to the corner where everyone had congregated and introductions were made.

“Everyone, this is my wife Y/N.” Bradley said, happy to finally get to introduce you to everyone, “Baby, this is the squad. You’ve met Hangman. That’s Payback, Fanboy, Coyote, and you already know Bob.”

“Hey Y/N” Bob said, coming over to hug you, “It’s good to see you again!”

“Hi, Bob!” You replied smiling, hugging him back, “It’s so good to see you too!” Then looking at the rest of the group you smiled and said, “It’s so nice to finally meet you all. Bradley’s told me all about you guys.”

“Wait a damn minute!” Jake said, turning to glare and Bradley, “Phoenix and Bob BOTH knew you had a wife? What the HELL, Rooster? I saved your life and I don’t get to be in the cool kids club knowing you have a WIFE? I thought we were friends, man.”

“Jake…”Bradley said, unsure what to say, “Come on man, it’s not like that…we are friends…”

You look over at Jake who’s doing all that he can to not smile, enjoying the fact that Bradley has no idea what to say.

“Baby, he’s playing you.” You told your husband, winking at Jake. “Jake, stop bullying my husband. It’s his birthday. Play nicely and you come over for home cooked meals.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He replied, smiling, “Sorry, Rooster. Couldn’t resist. Congrats on the beautiful wife. She’s a firecracker. Definitely keep her.”

“I plan on it, Hangman.” Bradley said, shaking his head at the blonde aviator.

The night continues with the group playing pool, swapping stories, drinking and you filling them in on how you and Bradley met and ended up married. Eventually, Phoenix made her way to the Jukebox and pulled the plug, silencing the music, causing your husband to chuckle. There was a mixed reaction from the bar to the music being cut. Some booed, upset that whatever had been playing was cut off mid song, the rest cheered, clearly knowing something was about to happen.

“That’s my cue, Baby.” Bradley said, tapping your leg to signal he needed up. You stood up to let him get off the chair, but before you could sit back down, he grabbed your hand and pulled you along with him to an upright piano.

“They clearly know your party trick.” You teased, “Come on birthday boy, serenade your fans.” Bradley sat down on the bench, pulling you down next to him. His fingers moved over the keys, playing a random melody before launching into the familiar intro chords to Great Balls of Fire. You knew he could play a million other songs, but this one in particular held the most meaning to him as it was the one his dad had played and sang when he was little before he died.

You could tell Bradley had done this before here because everyone crowded around and were singing along with him while he played. You joined in, belting out the song alongside your husband. KISS ME BABY.. (you leaned in to kiss him quickly) OOOOO THAT FEELS GOOD, HOLD ME BABY….. WELL, I’LL STILL HOLD YOU LIKE A LOVER SHOULD….. YOU’RE FINE…. SO KIND… I GOT TO TELL THIS WORLD THAT YOU’RE MINE MINE MINE MINE!

When the song finished the bar erupted into loud cheers and chants yelling “ROOSTER”. You loved seeing your husband in his element like this. You quickly took advantage of being in front of the piano and scooted your husbands fingers off the keys, replacing them with your own and started to play Happy Birthday. You were happy when everyone around you immediately joined in and soon the entire bar was signing to your husband.

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy BIRTHDAY dear ROOSTER, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!”

“Make a wish, Baby”! You said, turning towards him.

“All my wishes have come true.” He replied, leaning in to kiss you.

“Hey Rooster,” Phoenix said, gently, not wanting to interrupt the moment. “Mav’s at the bar.”

“Ready to meet my Godfather?” He asked you.

“Definitely ready.” You replied. “Then I’ve got the rest of your birthday present.”

“Baby!” He exclaimed, “You’re here, you’re MOVING here, YOU are my present.”

“Ok, well, there’s more.” You shrugged laughing. “Introduce me to Mav.”

Bradley took your hand and led you to the bar where Mav was sitting sipping a beer. He looked up as you both approached and smiled, standing up.

“Happy Birthday, Kid.” Mav said, hugging Bradley tightly.

“Thanks, Mav.” He replied, hugging him back. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

You stepped closer, smiling softly. You were nervous to meet the man that meant so much to Bradley and who had been like a father to him growing up before everything had exploded. You wanted to help your husband to build that relationship back up, knowing how important it was to have family. Your own parents adored Bradley and had immediately welcomed him into the family when you’d brought him home the first time.

“This is my wife, Y/N.” He said, his arm around your waist, “Baby, this Mav. He helped my mom raise me after my dad died.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Y/N.” Mav said, his voice thick with emotion.

“It’s great to finally meet you too.” You replied, smiling, stepping forward to pull him into a hug. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“For the record, Y/N’s been trying to get me to reach out for a couple of years now.” Bradley admitted. “I’m just bullheaded.”

“At least he admits it.” You laughed. “We’d love to have you over for dinner though, Mav. I’d really love to get to know you.”

“I would love that, Y/N.” He replied, “I’d love to get to know the one making my Godson so happy.”

“He’s easy to love.” You said, looking over your shoulder at your husband. “He makes me pretty damn happy too.”

“I think I’m going to steal my wife now and take her home.” Bradley said, “She just flew in today and is still on East Coast time.”

“Sounds good.” Mav said, “Enjoy the rest of your birthday, Kid. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” He replied, smiling, “See you tomorrow.”

After saying goodbye to the rest of the squad, you were finally able to escape out to the Bronco. Phoenix had already transferred your suitcase while you were inside.

“Do you need me to drive?” You asked, you hadn’t kept track of your husband’s drinks tonight.

“Nope. I’m good.” He said, smiling, opening the passenger door for you,“Only had 2 beers earlier, nothing since. Hop in, Dove.”

You leaned back in the seat, enjoying the air coming in from the open windows as Bradley drove you both home. He had found an apartment not far from base that did short term leases when he’d come back to San Diego for the mission. Now that you knew it would be permanent the two of you could start to look for a house together. You made a mental note to start looking at listings tomorrow while he was at work.

The apartment wasn’t too far from The Hard Deck either, so before long, Bradley was pulling the Bronco into the parking space and shutting it off. He came around to open your door for you before pulling your suitcase from the back of the Bronco.

“Ready to see our temporary home in person?” He asked

“More than ready.” You said, “Especially the bed… I really wanna see the bed.”

“I can’t wait to get you into bed either, Baby.” He smirked, “Birthday sex is the best.”

“Lead the way, Stud.” You winked, “I still have another birthday surprise for you.”

“Is it under your dress?” He asked, taking your hand and leading you to the front door, unlocking it and ushering you inside.

“It is…” You replied, “But I need something from my suitcase first.” You unzipped the suitcase and pulled out the small gift bag inside before handing it to Bradley. “Happy Birthday, Baby.”

He smiled, reaching to take the bag, leaning down to kiss you as he did, “Thank you, Dove.”

He opened the bag, taking out the tissue paper, and pulling out two onesies. Holding them up, you could see the moment it registered in his head what he was looking at. His eyes filled with tears as he read each one.

“Future Aviator, just like my Daddy,” He read, before holding up the other one to read, “Daddy’s Wingman”

He looked up at you, “Baby, you’re….we’re…really?” He was too choked up to get the words out. You smiled, tears of your own spilling over and running down your cheeks.

“Yes” You whispered, unable to get your own voice to work. He carefully set the onesies in the bag and pulled you into his arms, your own going around his neck. His lips connected with yours in a deep kiss, desperate to convey all of his love and feelings to you in that moment.

“We’re having a baby.” He whispered, when you’d both pulled back to breathe. “How far along?”

“I just hit 11 weeks.” You said, then reached for your purse to pull out the sonogram photo you had safely tucked inside, “And actually… let’s go sit on the couch and I’ll show you the sonogram…”

He took your hand leading you to the couch, sitting down with you tucked into his side. You handed him the envelope with the copies of the sonogram from the doctor. He carefully opened it up, pulling them out to look.

“Dove…” He said, shock once again covering his face “Are you serious right now?”

“Surprise!” You chuckled, “Turns out you're top 1% in more than just flying, Baby.”

“We’re having twins.” He smiled, looking at the sonogram, “I’m gonna be a daddy.”

“You’re gonna be the best daddy.” You confirmed, “Happy Birthday, Bradley.”

“This has been the best birthday ever, Dove.” He replied, leaning over to kiss you. “Thank you for making all of my wishes come true.”

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