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girlgenius1111 · 4 months ago

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close to you part two

alexia putellas x leila ouahabi x jenni hermoso x reader a third installment of the orgy fic: rush by @vixwritesagain [all chapters + all OOYG chapters linked on her masterlist] r and alexia continue to dance around each other, despite the... meddling from jenni and leila. 18+ for light smut and lots of sunscreen

—

Groceries stocked (and overstocked, if you asked her), Jenni stepped outside and slid the door closed behind her.

“You seem relaxed.” She purred sarcastically.

Alexia had migrated to the shade, flicking through the pages of a book without really taking anything in.

“No.” Alexia snapped, pulling her sunglasses down. “You left me here.”

“I did.” Jenni grinned, strolling along the path to stop in front of the shaded lounger. “What happened?”

Even though Alexia stayed silent, Jenni grinned wider at the cool stare she knew was being aimed in her direction.

“Nothing? Not even when she saw you in this tiny little thing?” Jenni leaned over her girlfriend, running a hand over Alexia’s bare thigh until it reached the red ties of her swimsuit.

A sharp slap to her knuckles gave her pause.

“Don’t touch. I’m burnt.” Alexia growled, lifting her book higher.

“You don’t look burnt.”

“You left me here without even sunscreening my back, Jennifer.”

Jenni froze, trying to read Alexia’s half hidden face. “What happened, mi amor? Did you talk to her?”

With a dramatic slam of her book, Alexia sat up and swung her legs to the ground. Jenni had only enough time to pull back and watch her girlfriend storm back into the villa.

It wasn’t that she wanted Alexia grumpy, just that it was so fucking hot when she was pissy. Couple that with the sight of her perfect ass in a bikini, and Jenni lasted all of thirty seconds before following her.

Catching up with her in their bedroom, the striker shut the door courteously before watching as Alexia lay herself down on the hardwood floor.

“Ale?”

“Go away.” The midfielder huffed.

Jenni didn’t even try to hide the roll of her eyes. “What are you doing?”

“It’s cold. Feels good on my burns.”

“I have aftersun in my suitcase. Let me help.”

“No!” Alexia hissed, rolling stubbornly onto her stomach. “No touching for you.”

“Alexia-”

“You left me, Jenni! I will never forgive you.”

“Alexia, I thought maybe if you two had some time alone it’d be easier-”

Jenni was stunned into silence when Alexia jumped to her feet in an instant, then froze completely.

“Ale? I thought it might be easier for you to-”

“Shh!” Alexia hissed, snapping her furrowed brow to face her girlfriend.

Jenni had taken a sharp breath to argue right back when she heard it too.

–

Leila already had you on your back, her lips making a slow descent down your now bare body, when she heard the door slam shut. A moment later, it opened again, then closed much more quietly this time. She grinned against your hip bone, leaving a final kiss there before ghosting her fingers over your swim suit bottoms.

“Leila, please go faster,” you whined, already embarrassingly worked up from your girlfriend’s hands all over you, and your hands all over Alexia earlier. You thought of her back, taut muscles and smooth, soft skin. You thought of the red bikini, and the way it looked on her when she’d walked away from you.

Hooking a finger under the waistband, Leila tugged your bottoms down and off your legs, humming happily when she lowered her cheek to rest against your thigh. It gave her a perfect view, especially as her fingers brushed over your glistening core. You were wet, very clearly affected by the events of the day. You squirmed when Leila’s hand spread you wider, letting her thumb gather a bit of wetness before dragging up to your clit.

You felt like every one of your nerves was on fire, the agonizing anticipation of wanting Alexia and getting none of her driving you crazy. You’d been worked up since you’d arrived, maybe even since you boarded the plane, and no matter what you did to get rid of the ache, it stuck around.

You were over the teasing, even if it had only been going on for a few minutes. You needed more this instant, or you were sure you’d explode.

“Lei-”

Before the word was even out of your mouth, Leila was flicking her thumb over your clit, her touch no longer ghosting against you. Now, she touched you with purpose, rubbing and pressing in just the right way. Her hand drifted down, finding you more than wet enough for one of her fingers to slide easily inside, only needing a few gentle thrusts of her hand before a second finger eased itself in.

You pressed your hand over your mouth, not wanting the loud groan in your throat to escape. Partly because it felt much too soon for you to be reacting like this, and also because you were well aware you weren’t alone in the villa.

As soon as your hand clapped over your face, though, muffling a sound Leila wanted to hear more than anything, she stopped.

Her touch disappeared, and you snapped your head up fast enough to give you whiplash, torn between annoyance and desperation. Leila was grinning up at you, though, with not a care in the world.

“Let them hear you. Let her hear you. Show her what she’s missing.” Leila whispered.

And with the knowledge that both Jenni and Alexia were well within hearing distance, you let your head fall back onto the bed, an unrestrained moan falling from your lips as Leila’s mouth connected with you again.

Jenni watched the full spectrum of emotions flutter across her girlfriend’s face before it settled into a frown after one particularly pointed moan.

“We could…” Jenni trailed off tilting her head towards the door.

Alexia’s pout only intensified. She reached up and tugged at the ties of her bikini, letting the top fall to the floor. Bottoms next, also discarded in a crumpled heap.

Jenni lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m going in the shower.”

The captain made it three steps before she was lifted and dropped unceremoniously on clean bed sheets. The noises were louder from there, frequent and undeniable.

“Are you sure? You want to go and touch yourself in the shower and listen to her scream for someone else?” Jenni kneed her way onto the mattress, prowling over bare skin before stilling just above.

Alexia stared up at her, jaw set.

Matching her serious expression, Jenni pushed Alexia’s hair back from her face. “Do you want me to ask them, amor? I can text her now.”

Jenni wanted to kiss away her girlfriend’s grumpy pout, but Alexia shaking her head like a toddler made it difficult. “No. She’ll ask for me.”

“So stubborn.” Jenni teased, leaning down to ghost her lips over Alexia’s. “You’re sure?”

“Sí.”

“Fine. Go shower, then.” Rolling over into the empty space, Jenni quickly stripped her shirt off.

As she stood up and began shimmying her shorts down, Alexia followed her every move. It wasn’t till Jenni reached into their suitcase and started throwing toys on the bed that Alexia sat up. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to join them without you. I know you’re too sunburnt to touch. So I’ll just be here. Enjoy your shower.” Jenni lay back down, picking up one of the vibrators.

Alexia didn’t move a muscle, but her stare was intense.

In the silence, the noises from the bedroom across the hall were so loud - “yes!” and “fuck!” and the kind of moans which made Jenni shiver. She pressed a hand into her panties, exhaling at the first brush of contact before turning to her frozen girlfriend. “Did you want to watch, or-ooft!”

Jenni only just moved her hand in time to avoid the squish when Alexia straddled her waist.

The striker’s hands remained down on the bed, showing an enormous amount of restraint. Especially when Alexia leaned down.

“Venga, Jenni. Tócame.” The midfielder demanded, using her position above Jenni to her advantage. Or so she thought.

Jenni hummed, finally lifting one of her hands up off the bed only to push Alexia’s hair out of her face. “I shouldn’t. You are burnt, no? I don’t want to make it worse.” Jenni told her, an overly sympathetic look on her face.

Alexia glared down at her, grabbing at one of her girlfriend’s hands and trying to pull it to rest on her hip. Infuriatingly, Jenni continued to smile, pulling her hands away with ease and resting them behind her head. The blonde’s death stare didn’t really seem to be doing much, and Alexia sighed, moving to climb off Jenni’s lap, determined to do it herself if she had to.

Before she could fully remove herself, though, Jenni’s hand moved between her legs, lightly dragging over Alexia’s core. The blonde inhaled sharply, turning back triumphantly to her girlfriend, thinking she’d won.

“You are wet, though, amor. That must be uncomfortable.”

The smirk on Jenni’s lips told Alexia she had to play along, or she wouldn’t be getting anything she wanted. And as easy as it would have been to grab a vibrator off the bed and slip into the bathroom, she couldn’t do it. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get off the way she wanted to. Not even with the sounds coming from the bedroom next door, not with Jenni so close.

Still, it wasn’t easy. Alexia remained frozen for a moment debating.

“Jesus, Lei,” your voice rang out, likely audible from anywhere in the house. Only after hearing you did Alexia unfreeze, an unmistakable spark of competitiveness now shining in her eyes.

“Do something about it.” A raised eyebrow, a challenge extended - just because Alexia knew what she needed didn’t mean she’d give in easily. She knew Jenni didn’t want her to either, because Jenni was just as stubborn.

“I’d love to, but you’re so burnt. It’s probably better if you’re on top.” Jenni tried to school her smirk, but the corners of her mouth were infuriatingly curled.

Alexia frowned, staring hard at her girlfriend and trying to block out the fervent moans bleeding through the walls. She’d grown used to being under Jenni. While it wasn’t her natural position, being strong armed into submission was addictive. She’d come to crave the way Jenni would manipulate her body and make it take over and over. “I… can top?”

Alexia shivered at the faintest hint of her touch as Jenni once again dragged long fingers through her wetness. The striker chuckled, leaning up to nuzzle the soft skin of Alexia’s neck. “Definitely not. But you can be on top.”

Once again, Alexia froze.

Pressing her lips to her collarbone, Jenni curved her hand around her waist to keep her close. She hid her smile at the desperate buck of Alexia’s hips, knowing that she’d played her hand well. “That, or you can get off alone in the shower. I know which I’d prefer. I’d even let you sit on my face as a warm-up.”

“Fuck, Lei,” you panted blinking up at the ceiling.

Your fingers drew lazy patterns against her lower back, drawing out aftershocks which made her shiver and keen. She still straddled your leg. You could feel her grin where her face was pressed against your neck. “Fuck,” she agreed.

You were only given half a minute of listening to the fan of the AC and her slowing breaths, before you heard the first sound. Quiet and muffled. You wouldn’t have paid any mind if Leila didn’t sit up inquisitively.

Her brow furrowed, then the second noise.

Leila’s eyes met yours immediately. “They’re…” she trailed off.

As the seconds ticked by and Leila’s expression only grew more excited, you wondered if you were missing the sounds. Then a moan so loud you sat up too.

“Should we…” Leila whispered, tilting her head towards the hallway door.

As tempting as it was, you stroked over her thigh before sighing, “No, babe. They didn’t interrupt us. And we all know you’re the loudest moaner in this house. ”

Leila’s playful pout made your chest tighten. “I don’t know, you can be loud too.”

“Exactly,” you brushed off, “so they definitely heard us and still didn’t come in.”

Leila chuckled, nodding along. “You’re sure you don’t want to go to them, bebé?” At the shake of your head, your girlfriend wrapped her arms around your shoulders. “Want to keep going with me instead?”

“Later,” You promised, doing the same to her waist, “Maybe food first? They’ll be hungry after.”

“Maybe they’ll eat you on the table.” Leaning in, Leila kissed you deeply before pulling away just a fraction. “Or maybe I will.”

–

Alexia stretched out lazily as she watched Jenni - still half naked - move around their room.

“This one?” The striker called, holding up a dildo from the suitcase.

“Si, any. Hurry up.” Alexia muttered, though any irritation she held towards her girlfriend had been all but erased in the aftermath of her first orgasm. Just to tease, Alexia slid her hand down between her legs.

Jenni’s piercing glare gave her pause, now holding up two dildos. “No. You choose.”

It was one thing for the captain to take it, another entirely to admit to wanting it. Alexia rolled over so she didn’t have to feel her cheeks heat up when she replied. “Pink.”

She was ready to feel Jenni’s warm hands stroking her back, pushing and pulling until she was in the perfect position. Instead, the bed dipped to her side and gentle fingers worked through her hair. She waited a few seconds before humming her confusion.

“Ready?” Jenni asked patiently.

Alexia twisted to look at her, lying perfectly relaxed against the pillows despite the harness tight against her hips.

Jenni stroked the toy casually, keeping her voice even. “Your burn, Ale. You’re on top. Remember?”

“Pero…” Alexia started, before blushing further. She sat up to her knees, suddenly feeling very bare indeed.

“But?” Jenni teased, though her fingers trailed down to catch Alexia’s hand. She lifted it to her mouth, kissing at the knuckles before turning the palm against her cheek. “You enjoyed riding my face, no?”

“Sí, but…” Alexia grumbled, putting on her very best puppy dog eyes in a last-ditch attempt.

Unfortunately, Jenni’s pout was just as well-trained. “I could hold you down again, amor. But what I really want is to see you enjoy it. And I can’t do that when you’re on your stomach.”

“On my back, then.”

“Your back is burnt, no?”

Alexia squeezed her jaw stubbornly.

When she made no move, Jenni’s signature grin grew slowly. “Like this.”

“I want to come. No punishment.” Alexia bargained.

Jenni turned her face to kiss at her girlfriend’s palm before reaching for her thighs. “Hurry up and I’ll let you come twice.”

It was a good thing Leila could cook because you were completely and utterly useless that evening. Ignoring the increasingly loud noises coming from the bedroom was impossible, but your girlfriend did well to set out the ingredients and give you seemingly simple tasks. With each one, Leila would even pretend you’d done a fine job before stepping in to speed things along. It wasn’t until the knife you were meant to be using to chop peppers only narrowly missed your finger that she took that from you too.

“Sit,” she ordered before laying into the vegetable.

It was so much worse then. The vision of her, dancing her way around the kitchen with her hair scraped back in a messy bun punctuated by all kinds of sounds. Their words were muffled, but the grunts and moans and slaps and bangs of the bed hitting against the wall? All loud.

“They’re going to damage the house,” you grumbled.

Leila chuckled, shaking her head as she offered you a piece from the chopping board. “Hmm. Maybe they should have used this counter. Much more stable.”

The sounds continued through the rest of dinner prep, which felt like an eternity just sitting and listening, though was probably not long at all. Leila cooked quickly, alternating between smiling at you when she heard the bed banging against the wall and frowning in concentration at the food in front of her. She was thrilled, you could tell, but that was not the word you would have assigned to your own feelings in the moment.

“They’re so loud tonight,” Leila commented as she placed a full plate in front of you. “Alexia… wow.”

Your emotions were hard to swallow down. “Dinner will get cold.”

“They can use the microwave.”

“Maybe I should shout on them.”

“Alexia would come running,” Leila sniggered.

“It’s not fair. You cooked for us, the least they could do is be here and eat it while it’s hot.”

The most infuriating thing about Leila was her ability to see right through you. “Hmm, what could have happened to make you so grumpy after a very fun afternoon?”

“Maybe we should go back upstairs.”

“Sí? And let dinner get cold?”

“It’ll reheat.”

Leila grinned and picked up her fork. “Eat, bebè. I don’t want to hear your stomach singing.”

“Rumbling,” you corrected as a particularly rapturous moan rang out, “my stomach rumbles.”

“So grumpy.”

You were all too aware when quiet finally fell. You and Leila shared a look before finishing the last of your plate, and clearing it away.

She’d just poured you another round of drinks when the door squeaked open.

“Hi,” Leila greeted as Alexia timidly made her way downstairs. Jenni followed ten seconds later, moving far more energetically. Jenni’s grin was triumphant, and you desperately wished that you could get her alone to get to the bottom of it.

“Did you cook? Sorry we’re late,” the striker began, brushing up against her girlfriend and kissing her shoulder.

Alexia’s hands immediately circled Jenni’s forearms. As Leila dived into her master cheffing, you took in their disheveled appearance. Despite the messy hair and the crumpled, loose clothes, they were glowing. Happy.

You tried to push down the jealousy as you busied yourself prepping their plates for the microwave.

—

#woso imagine #woso x reader #woso one shot #woso fanfics #alexia putellas x reader #jenni hermoso x reader #leila ouahabi x jenni hermoso x alexia putellas x reader #leila ouahabi x reader #alexia putellas x jenni hermoso

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complete-clownery · 1 year ago

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Hahaha okay rant about this amazing fanfic (you probably heard of this one already but still)

So whenever it comes to explaining and writing under my posts I just get lazy but I need to push through this cuz I need to talk

So the fanarts were made for the lmk fanfiction sunbreak, that a lot of you (probably mostly shadowpeach shippers) had read, and it is amazing, I read trough it as fast as my brain let me and as you can see it has pleasantly scratched my brain so much so that I even (attempted) to make fanart for it

Ngl if I wasn't a major pussy I would try to illustrate the whole thing or make covers for each chapter but Im unable to work on something more than 2 hours and I would want those to look good, but good looking art (if I don't mess up) takes 6 hours ughh--- annoying much---

Anyways I'm not good with literature but man is this fix a masterpiece *chefs kiss* its everything its amazing, I was unable to put it down once I started it

Okay i dont think I have the brain capacity to explain how much I worship the writer of this masterpiece @ladygreenfrisbee , so i'm just going to talk about the drawings a tad

So first picture with Red Son and MK its sort of like an au in the fic where the whole lbd plot is somehow nonexistent and after Macaque gets to his sisters domain they settle down and raise the kids together without much of an issue aside from assassinations keep happening and trying not to get in trouble with the heavens

Id like to think that Gongzhu still wouldn't let the court tailors to put any form of red or gold on MKs outfits and only allowed the yellow after when MK was old enough to declare that yellow was his favorite color, but even now she would insist on some form of purple and shadow motives to let others know who the mother is

We also got baby MK and toddler Red Son and sassy LIF and Mac

Third pic with the lion: I don't know what it was or why but I just love general Song so much--- he's a major dickhead but sgvshshsevkdididhr (actually I kinda love all the original characters in this one, from the generals to the old lady in the beginning of the book, (gosh I also wanna draw some scenes from those chapters I loved how Mac and she interacted hshsjsj))

so chapter 34 was probably my favorite so far I re read it about two more times cuz it was amazing to see Macaque being the schemer he is and try to piss of Song lol

Last picture: its a sketch/a wip or whatever (probably not going to finish it but im still putting it there cuz its somewhat decent looking)

Its the part where Wukong remembered of Macaque finally finding him and asking for him to come back to flower fruit mountain.

I tried to make Macaque look more unhinged on this one but since I didn't finish it I dont think its that noticable so fuck that but I also gave him a halo like the saints to symbolise his suffering and what not (thought it looked cool and fitting think whatever you want about it lol)

And that all ((((hollly mother))))

If you read this trough, thank you and congrats👏👏

#clown does art #lego monkey kid #lmk sunbreak #sunbreak #shadowpeach #lmk macaque #six eared macaque #lmk mk #lmk red son #fanfiction #lmk #lmk pif #princess iron fan

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i-am-a-bad-influence-writes · 27 days ago

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P*rn ☆ Introduction

Masterlist Word count: 1 k Sylus x Fem!Reader

Summary: You have been following a spicy content creator by the name of Red Crow for some time now. Nothing could’ve prepared you for what would happen when he moves into the apartment next door.

Warning! This story is meant for mature audiences. It contains sex, swear words, porn, smoking, intimate piercings, mentions of drugs, and other mature themes. Do not engage if you are under 18.

Mature content under the cut. This part is setup. No graphic content yet.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

It's been fucking years! Not by your choice. No, not at all. You just hadn't had the time or the energy, but God do you crave it. It hadn't really bothered you the first year. You had gone on dates regularly, but despite your love for intimacy you need a certain level of connection before you lay down and take it. Sure, you had a few nice connections but no one that managed to turn you on.

Not like he does.

Ever since your regular booty call called it off, you started watching some adult content. At first nothing really seemed to call to you. You were flipflopping from category to category as if you were flipping through a magazine, leaving you high and dancing on the edge of full gratification every single time. Sure, you came but it never felt that great.

Then you found him.

Tall as a fucking mountain, grey hair, red eyes, sly smile, toned body, strong nose that's ever so slightly crooked. You even remember the little scar under his left eye. But what does it for you, most of all, is his voice. Low and gravely, constantly teasing and commanding. There's something more to it though. When he gets to the edge, it's almost as if he wants someone to take over and it fucking gets you going. Makes your panties go from bone dry to soaking wet in a matter of seconds.

Worst of all, the man has a TikTok page and a Tumblr page. Neither are all that suggestive. The TikTok has some thirst traps and workout videos, but the Tumblr page is a different story. On there, he reads spicy romance books to his audience. He had tried it before on YouTube but got taken down real fast. Those books, the way his voice picks up and changes with the story. It's truly something magical. You'd almost consider it better content than the videos of him stroking his dick, though you don't mind that those exist at all.

And today is Friday, which means he's posting a new chapter and there's a possibility of a new video on TikTok. Nothing too riveting but enough to get you going and keep you going for the weekend. You're looking at a long and satisfying weekend with your magic wand. Just one more hour until your shift is done.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

'Again?!' Sylus’ voice booms through the living room of his apartment. If it were any louder, the walls would shiver. 'I was so fucking careful this time,' he says through gritted teeth. His hand has a strong grasp on his phone, almost snapping the thing in his fit of rage.

"I don't know what to tell you man. Maybe someone followed you?" Kieran, the ever daft creator that makes spicy content with his friend Luke, tells him in the kindest voice he can must up. He knows just as well as Sylus that the man is impossibly popular. It all happened overnight just a year or two ago when he made a video humping a pillow and groaning praises to a nonexistant partner. Ever since then, he's been making content solo. It's doing much better than his partnered stuff used to.

It also came with unwanted attention. Sylus lives for the praises and truly feral comments on his socials and spicy content, but this. This goes too far. It's the third time in as many years he's been doxed. If it were a stalked he could go to the police but it seems to be someone different each time.

Sylus groans and runs a hand through his hair. 'I should move further away this time.'

"That's the understatement of the century. Just be glad they haven't got your name yet."

Yet. The word rings in Sylus’ head for a little longer than he would like it to. If those feral women and men got his name, he would never get any peace again. Sure, he was the one that decided to put his face in all those videos and that might've been stupid. It is stupid. Especially for someone who likes his privacy as much as Sylus does.

"Oh, Luke just said he knows a place for you. He has a friend who owns an apartment ages away from your place. He's been looking for someone to lease it to."

'I can trust this person?'

"Yes, for sure. I know this guy too. He's some flamboyant artist that owns too many properties to keep track of who lives where." Sylus sighs, a rumble going through his chest.

'Fine, get me the contact info.'

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

'You doing anything fun this weekend,' your friend and colleague Tara asks with a sweet smile. You almost spill and tell her, but she's far too pure to understand any of your desires. It'd be better to keep this friendship as wholesome as it is.

'Nothing much. I don't have any plans for once. I'm probably going to binge that TV show you recommended.'

'Oooh, tell me what you think about it,' she replies excitedly. At that moment, a car honks, and she looks up. Her lovely boyfriend is waiting for her in the car. 'See you soon,' she says with a quick wave and off she goes. The man even gets out of the car to open the passenger door for her. Such a nice man. He waves to you and you nod back. You know him a little, but he never comes along to any company events or dinners. If you're not mistaken, his name is Kieran. Nice guy.

You make your way to your car and drive home. Traffic is terrible but uneventful. All you can think about is sitting down on the couch at home and listening to whatever Red Crow has cooked up this time.

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sepherinaspoppies · 4 days ago

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Only If For A Night

ꕥ series masterlist & taglist ⋆. 𐙚 ˚ masterlist ✧₊⁺AO3

⟢summary: In Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), she gets forcefully transported to Westeros and meets her favorite book character, Aemond 'One Eye'. She asks and begs for his help to send her back home after realizing this was a world she did not want to live in. Unknowingly to her, her favorite fictional man had already grown too attached to fully let her go.

⟢pairing: Dark! Book Aemond Targaryen x Modern! Reader

⟢warnings for this part: Mentions of dead bodies, Harrenhal visions, light gore, Ser Crispy Coleslaw, Aemond being jealous and horny.

⟢wc: 7,872

⟢gif credit: @peachysunrize but she deleted her acc so im sorry!

Chapter 3: Me and the Devil

She was doing her best not to lose her mind. She’s never been stuck in a situationship like this before. Or hardly knew anyone that had been. Stuff like this only occurred in…books. In which she was now in the middle of.

She had so many questions yet no answers.

She knew she had to come up with some sort of well thought out plan. But if she was being honest, she barely even had a pl. As Phoebe Buffay once said on an early episode of Friends.

One thing was for sure, she was in the Riverlands. Harrenhal. Westeros. If she had her history correct, and she did, the year is currently 130 AC.

Rhaenyra Targaryen had just taken over the city of King’s Landing with the help of the Rogue Prince at her side.

She recalls how this news caused Aemond to go on a seize of murderous rampage, killing the entirety of House Strong. The very same pile of dead bodies she saw in the outer yard, those were them.

As much as she tried, she couldn’t get that horrifying image out of her head. Not now and perhaps not even the days to come. With every blink of her eyes, she saw them; bloody, decaying, eyes wide of what they felt before death: fear.

Don’t throw up, don’t throw up.

Not that there was much in her stomach to.

Shortly after Aemond had severed the guard’s head, she had literally thrown up just inches away from his feet.

He did not say much, only bringing a small green handkerchief from his pocket and wiped remnants away from her lips. Instead of being angry or disgusted, Aemond’s face exhibited only concern.

Because of that she was escorted inside Harren’s castle with haste by Aemond’s orders. With the very little time she had, she tried to go against this but her words were swiftly overlooked and ignored.

She was brought into a medium sized room at the highest tower of Harrenhal. The room wasn’t much to look at. High stoned black walls with no decorations or personality. A canopy bed with multiple pillows and furs laid near the window with two nightstands on each side, holding lit candelabras.

Facing the canopy was a vanity table with nothing but dried flowers and a dusted mirror that she couldn’t make out her reflection. It was obvious that no one had occupied this room in a very long time. The cobwebs, near all four corners of the ceiling, confirmed it.

To the left of the vanity was a beige folding screen and behind it was a large white bathtub that she had been thrown in immediately upon arriving in the room by two older women.

After she had been bathed and dressed, a third woman delivered a hot cup of peppermint tea to ease the nausea. However, after they left she made sure to discard the cup, choosing not to drink anything, harboring feelings of distrust when she previously drank a cup of tea.

The sound of the door being opened caused her to sit rigidly on the chair, thinking it was a particular one eyed prince entering the room. Instead, the knots in her stomach loosened as an elderly man made his way inside, offering her a simple smile before he set a leather bag he’d been holding on a nearby table.

Her mouth opened, wondering who he was but as she assessed his gray robes and the several decorated chains hanging from his neck, he’d have to be a maester.

Something close to a doctor in her world.

“You have not touched the tea, my lady.” His voice was barely audible, gentle as he pointed out. “Are you allergic to peppermint?”

“No,” she shook her head, her eyes landing on the medical supplies being brought to the rounded table. She recognized some of them such as the suturing kit, scale, gauze, scissors and a scalpel.

Her abuelo, Vidalio, had a collection of identical vintage medical supplies in his office that often as a kid she’d glance at in complete fascination.

“Are you not partial to peppermint?” The maester questioned.

“I’m not partial to drinking something that I did not see being made,” she added. After drinking that tea Alyssandra had given her, there was no way she’d risk doing that again. “Besides, peppermint is most known to target headaches. If you were to mix ginger and chamomile, then you have an accurate tea to treat nausea.”

The maester lifted a bush eyebrow, cocking his head to side taking her suggestion into consideration. “Very well. I’ll bring a cup of boiling water—” He tried saying, only for her to sprint directly in front of him.

“—there’s no need. I am well; as you can see.” She feigned a recovered smile.

“I still am in need of boiling water to brew milk of the poppy, my lady.”

It was her turn to gaze at him in wonder. “What for?” She inquired. She knew what milk of the poppy was. An opium made from the poppy flower to aid in severe pain and to anesthetize a person out cold in a deep sleep.

It was also the same pearly liquid she read in A Game of Thrones that Grand Maester Pycelle used to treat Ned Stark after an altercation he had with Jaime Lannister, which gave the Warden of the North, strange dreams. ‘Poppy dreams’ otherwise known as hallucinations.

As helpful as it was, it was also very addictive. Equivalent to morphine and fentanyl. As an intern at St. David’s Hospital, she’d seen how bad opioids took a toll on people.

So it was safe enough to say she wasn’t going to be easily convinced to take it.

The older man pointed at the swollen cut on her lower lip, where that asshole of a guard had slapped her hours ago. “The wound on your lip; I have to stitch it. I will use milk of the poppy to ease the discomfort when inserting the needle into your lip.”

“I already said I’m fine.” She answers more firmly. She glanced at the multitudinous array of small amber jars on the table that contained different kinds of fine powders, liquids, dried herbs, seeds, and strange looking roots.

She was able to make out a little bit of everything. Though, nothing of the sort would be needed for something so minor. Rubbing alcohol and perhaps a topical antibiotic ointment were as good as any.

“Tis’ not what the prince thinks, my lady.” The maester abruptly murmurs out, fearfully looking at the door. If the prince were to walk into the room, seeing his guest not being properly treated as he demanded, he too would suffer the same unmerciful fate as his lord.

“It’s a superficial cut! You can tell the prince, I don’t need tea or stitches.” What she needed was to get out of here and go home.

“A topical amoxicillin ointment should be enough. Though, I don’t think it exists here.” In fact no modern medicine could be found here. This era was if not the same as medieval times, where people die everyday of infection or contamination due to the lack of antibiotics, antivirals, and vaccines.

She felt lucky that all of her vaccines were up to date.

Except maybe for her yearly flu shot. Fuck!

The maester tilted his head in surprise, “Are you a healer?” He asked, intrigued that she too knew medicinal practices. Most witches did not, if he believed the rumors around the castle.

She crouched down, eyeing the herbs that caught her attention.

“Something like that. I know enough to know that I don’t need stitches. It’s just a little bit of swelling that will go down in a day or two if I ice it.” Though, she wasn’t sure how the maester would get ice in the Riverlands. If this was the North, ice wouldn’t be a problem.

The maester, befuddled, nodded. Knowing that his endeavors to treat her lip were pointless, he slid her a small amber salve of bread mold.

She gave him a ‘what the hell is that?’ kind of look, in which he explained it was an ointment to prevent infections.

After a few series of questions, she realized that this bread mold was as close as what she was going to get to penicillin.

A look of relief and ease plastered on the maester’s face as she delicately dabbed some of the salve on her wound. She was equivocal if the salve was meant to have a bitter taste or smell, but she kept her thoughts to herself as she wanted this visit to speed up.

“What’s your name?” She asked while watching the man place his medical supplies in his bag with uttermost care.

“They call me Maester Nywen.” He revealed.

She pronounced his name repeatedly in her head, trying to remember if he was mentioned in Fire & Blood. Though, there was no record of him at all.

“I’m—”

“I know who you are, my lady.” Nywen interjected. Everyone knew her name, including the walls of Haren’s castle. It was said she possessed otherworldly abilities unknown to men.

In his many years serving House Strong, Nywen never came across her path. Never saw her in the flesh. Just tales and rumors. Some that he believed; such as her being his lord’s favorite out of his true born sons and daughters. Some that Nywen didn’t quite believe; like the rumor of her bathing in maiden’s blood to remain forever youthful.

Looking at her now, her complexion differed from what he pictured.

To her befuddlement, she had no idea how Nywen knew her name. She didn’t remember mentioning it to anyone, including the old ladies.

This was all some weird mystery that was making her feel dizzy and unsettled. She only now wished she had some Ibuprofen or an Advil pill to dull the pain in her head.

“If this is all, I must take my leave. Good day, my lady.”

“Wait! I’ll go with you,” she called out, and the older man came to a halt before he exited the door.

A look of sympathy came on Nywen’s face. “Apologies, my lady, but the prince ordered for you to remain here.”

“Wait, what?!” She followed a close second after him, perplexed. Nywen gave her one last look of remorse, “I am sorry, my lady. You won’t be kept in here for long. The prince has some matters to attend to before he calls for you. Should you come in need of anything, ring the bell.”

“Nywen!” She called out, but it was too late as the door was suddenly closed right in her face. The sound of a lock confirmed her fears.

She was alone again.

She wondered how abuela Selena was doing. The older woman, who’d been more like a second mother to her, had come across her mind a lot more now.

Had she known she was missing?

Of course she did; she was probably seriously panicking right now and sent out a search party to look for her.

The pueblo was small, and it wouldn’t have taken her family long to figure out she wasn’t there or in any surrounding pueblos. She knew that wouldn’t hinder them from continuing their search for her. Her family were strong and brazen fighters and would stop at nothing to keep the family safe.

She also wondered if her mother knew. Though, she already knew the answer to that. Her very overprotective mother, who calls every hour of each day, must have flown from the states the second she did not answer the phone. A heavy argument most likely would’ve happened between her mother and her abuela, Selena, for not keeping a close eye on her.

Even if the fault had not been her abuela’s, she feared that her disappearance became a fresh new layer of conflict added on top of the decades long strife between her mother and Selena.

She did not wish for that. For years, she’d attempted to push them together to communicate and get past whatever tension they had between them. She prayed that things would not escalate further between them in her absence.

She could just imagine seeing them after all of this was over.

But to pinpoint when?

Now, that was going to be challenging.

She was so high up in Harren’s castle that she wished she were some type of bird. A raven, perhaps. With great big and wide wings to fly to carry her away.

Fly, a voice whispered next to her.

Startled, she snapped her head up to the side in the direction of the voice. “What?” She asked with a shaky voice.

You have wings. Use them.

She glanced behind her shoulders, feeling for soft feathers but was met with bare skin and no wings.

“Liar.” She asserted back. And the voice responded something in return, though it was barely audible.

However, something in the room had shifted. It became darker, colder, and overall strange. The dark hairs on her arms stood when the flames of the candles blew out one by one by themselves while the hinges of the door creaked open.

A thin curtain of light appeared at the end of the hall and her body seemed to sense some type of energy vibrating around the room, pulling her to leave now that the door was unlocked.

A part of her debated whether or not to take the risk and leave as this was exactly how people died in scary movies, by following strange energies. Another part of her said fuck it, sensing the energy as not evil or not good either.

She let out a frightened gasp as the door shut completely from behind and the vibrating energy increased tenfold. The longer she walked throughout the corridor, she began to realize that the buzzing was actually a low humming sound echoing down the hall.

A song.

Arrorró, mi niño

Arrorró, mi Sol

Arrorró pedazo

De mi corazón

Abuelo Vidalio would sing that exact song as a lullaby when she had trouble sleeping as a child. Which happened to be all of the time since she experienced very vivid dreams about strange people and creatures she did not recognize. Vidalio, with his soothing voice, would be there to sing the bad dreams away.

Este niño lindo

Que nació de noche

Quiere que lo lleven

A pasear en coche

Could it be him?

With trembling hands, she takes a peek through the slim opening. A large and nicely furnished room is set directly in front of her. It sort of reminded her of Vidalio’s private studio near the outskirts of her family’s home. Vidalio had a love for old vintage things like outdated medical books, scrolls, medical supplies, herb vials, maps, and furniture.

Some of those things decorated the inside room.

In the center, a man sat on a wooden rocking chair with his back towards her. She glanced at the carvings on the top rail of the chair; a three headed dragon, wolf, lion, some sort of sea creature, fish, falcon, stag, and a rose.

Instantly, she knew who the rocking chair belonged to.

“Abuelo?” She asks aporetically. Although she missed him terribly, she secretly hoped it wouldn’t be him. Since he, himself, had been dead for years. And it wasn’t like she didn’t believe in ghosts; she did.

The humming impetuously ends before it begins, and so does the back and forth movement of the rocking chair.

Purple eyes stare directly at hers like he’d been waiting a while for her to come in. “El niño no se puede dormir,” Vidalio addresses her in complete distress. (the boy can’t fall asleep)

His appearance made her halt on her tracks, he looked and dressed differently than what he normally looked like. She remembered him older, tanner, his light blonde hair styled directly away from his face, with more modern fitted clothes.

Here he was younger with milky white skin that was untouched from the harsh Mexican sun; his hair slightly long and silver. And more importantly, his clothes were strange and old fashioned, almost aristocratic.

The only way she knew for certain this was her abuelo, was by a polaroid her abuela took of Vidalio when he was young, were they both briefly lived in Cancun.

How was it possible that he was here, in Harrenhal?

In Westeros?

How could it be?

Her lack of response causes Vidalio to continue humming the lullaby as he sways something tight on his arms.

A boy, no more than eight, laid lifeless across Vidalio’s arms. Small cuts and bruises painted across the young boy’s small and delicate face and body. All while fresh blood dripped from the side of his chest, pooling down onto the floor.

He was bleeding out.

Yet, the boy was already dead.

What was more harrowing of it all, were the boy’s eyes. They were a rich and dark violet color, wide, blinking and staring right at her.

Through her.

It was the only thing about him that was alive.

Este niño lindo

Ya quiere dormir

Háganle la cuna

De rosa y jazmín

“We need to take him to a hospital,” she frantically suggested. Maybe the boy wasn’t completely deceased. Maybe all he needed was proper medical attention like a blood transfusion and a few stitches.

“It’s too late.” Her abuelo pointed out. “All he needs now is the comfort of his mother.” Vidalio gives the boy one last hug before he stretches the body in her direction.

“What?!” She exclaims, feeling the air in her lungs rapidly leaving her body.

Surely, he didn’t mean the little boy was hers…

This didn’t seem possible. A mother is able to recognize the face of their own child. She’d hear on multiple occasions from mothers, at the hospital she interns in, how a sort of natural maternal instinct and intuition set in the moment they became mothers.

She’d know if she had a child, but that boy was not hers.

Or was it?

“I- I need to go. This isn’t real. This-this isn’t true. You aren’t real. You are dead.” She says between ragged breaths, feeling a panic attack brewing in.

She took a few steps back, only to be met with a cold hard chest. An older man, perhaps in his late sixties, with long silver-white hair and dark eyes, smiled warmly at her. Beside him, were six other men and a singular woman.

She noticed that the two older men wore more modern clothes, while the others wore some sort of old fashioned clothes similar to Vidalio’s, embroidered by the same red design.

“I’m sorry,” she let out an apology to the older man. The man, though, remained unfazed. He simply continued to look at her with tears in his eyes before he replied with a strangled voice. “Mama.”

“No. Oh, no, no.” She shook her head, placing some distance between them. All of them. As if that would help them disappear.

Yea she needed to get the fuck out right now.

She eyed the door and ran towards the opening, leaving behind people that did not exist. For a moment, she believed she heard something but dismissed it as quickly as lightning.

She saw people along her path but whether they were real or not she did not know or care for. Her goal was to leave. Leave this place, sapphire or not.

Halfway into her sprint, she got the feeling she was being followed. So she ran into a solitary hallway and opened the first door she saw.

“You’re early.”

She drew in a sharp breath as she came across the last person she wished to see right now, none other than Aemond Targaryen.

The prince’s lone eye was practically sparkling when looking at her after being hours apart. She had been away for too long for his taste.

Aemond would have preferred for her to come after everything– the wine, dinner, and dessert– were perfectly set up on the table as he had planned.

Yet, she was here now.

With the light blue with silver gown he specifically picked out. The colors itself reminded Aemond of House Arryn, a traitorous house that sided with the whore that was his half-sister. Though, the colors were at least better than that of House Strong.

Aemond almost had the two women killed for even considering such bletcherous colors for his one and only to wear.

Blind luck was bestowed upon them when another woman quickly brought an unused gown from her daughter’s armoire. Which was the one his love was currently wearing.

She looked mesmerizing. Goddess like. The very Maiden in the flesh.

“Are you alright?” Aemond asked as he noticed her out of breath appearance.

Before she had a chance to say anything, a tall and dark haired knight came in; presumably after her as he was out of breath too.

Aemond looked between Ser Criston and his one and only, and concluded that he’d been chasing her for some time.

“Tis’ alright, Cole. No grave offense has occurred,” Aemond affirmed with a court nod.

She blinked, assessing the man who was one of few to cause the civil war, Dance of the Dragons, between Aegon and Rhaenyra.

He appeared just as he was described in the books.

Charming.

Though, she did not expect him to be quite so… short.

Whilst Aemond stood exceptionally tall, Ser Coleslaw seemed no taller than five foot and eight inches. Perhaps that is one of many reasons he was such a misogynistic dick who couldn’t handle rejection.

If she did the math correctly by the current year, he must’ve been in his late forties. Yet he had this youthful look about him that one wouldn’t have guessed he was reaching his fifties.

Not that he would live to see his fifties.

Days later he would die south of the Gods Eye.

“Holy shit, you’re Criston Cole?!” She exclaimed not with fascination but with distaste lacing her tone.

The Kingmaker placed a hand on the pommel of his sword, glaring at her with such vigilance. “I am. Have we met before?”

“Not really–”

“Leave us, Cole.” Aemond snapped unexpectedly, causing her body to jolt at the intensity of his voice.

Criston shifted his focus to the prince regent. “I think it would be wise if I stay, my prince. Wouldn’t want anything… unseemly to happen.”

Oh.

At that, she took a few steps away from Aemond, placing as much distance between them as possible.

The mere thought of her and Aemond together made her feel uneasy and very unsettling. He was a prince. Royalty.

While she was the opposite of what he was. A simple commoner.

Aemond kept himself from frowning at the space his love placed between. He clearly did not intend to take her today, as much as he desired to.

His incessant desire and appetite would be sated the moment they were joined as one.

Which would be soon, if everything went according to plan.

“Leave us. It is a command,” Aemond said, tone much demanding and darker.

Criston clenched his jaw in anger before he turned to leave. Just as he was about to shut the door he gave her one last look.

There was no kindness in his cold green eyes. Rather he looked at her like the dirt beneath his boot that quickly needed to be swept away.

“Do you always captivate this much trouble, my lady?” Aemond asks, just seconds after the door closes.

She is only able to let out a hum as she feels all the words in her throat shrivel and dry up.

Aemond’s white linen shirt hung loosely and unbuttoned against his chest; His pants were halfway unlaced.

Aemond looked down at her silently, waiting for an answer from her. Yet she stood there gawking at the man in front of her, with his toned-pale chest on display, light silver trail of hair below his navel, leading to–

She apologizes quickly before rapidly turning around to grant him some privacy.

Doing so caused Aemond to curl his lip into a smirk. She didn’t need to be sorry about her curious glances. Aemond thought to himself. Very soon, she’ll be well acquainted with his body; as well as he with hers too.

Though, that day could not be any sooner. Much to his dismay, Aemond had to settle on that memory when she wore such sheer chemise. The same clothing he kept to himself after she was dressed, and used to pleasure himself with just moments ago.

“What makes you think that?” She added, her voice stammering a bit but she masks it with a cough.

“You outran three of my guards, for starters, and managed to harm one of them. You also fled from your chamber without so much as a word,” Aemond breathed. “Will you hand me my doublet, please?”

Her hands reached for the black leather doublet in front of the armchair, handing it back to Aemond with hands over her eyes. “Are you saying that I shouldn’t have run and let them have their way with me?” Anger, panic, fear and disbelief brewing deep in her stomach

“Seven Hells, no. That is not what I am implying,” Aemond expresses. “I am elated that you managed to defend yourself and run. But if your reason for fleeing was because you harbor any fear that it will happen again, I can assure you it will not.”

She stilled for a moment, the hair follicles at the back of her head rose when she felt Aemond’s presence so close behind her. “As long as you are here, you’re under my protection. I will never let anyone or anything harm you. I promise you this.”

The very gruesome image of Aemond beheading the guard that assaulted her, deemed his promise held true.

Nevertheless, she was taken aback by the comment and the surface of her face felt warm. “Um thanks,” she nervously chuckled. It was the only thing she could say at such earnest promise.

“You can turn around now, if you wish.”

And she did. He looked well put together, dressed in all black from head to toe. The dark shade truly suited Aemond, giving him the illusion of a gothic prince.

In such proximity, she could smell something amidst smoke, fire, and ash emitting from his clothes.

Possibly from his dragon, Vhagar.

Vhagar.

Being the bookworm that she was, she wondered what the oldest and largest she-dragon looked like. Or where she was currently nesting at.

However, her nerdishness had to be set aside.

For now, atleast.

“Are you famished, my lady? The servants are to bring us dinner shortly, but if you’re hungry now I could ask them to speed it along.” Aemond asked across the room, his hand on the handle of the door.

She was about to refuse his polite offer, unfortunately for her the mention of dinner provoked her stomach to growl so loud that even Aemond heard it.

Damned traitor.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Aemond said, his lips curling into a witty grin. She held up her hand in a way to prevent him from arranging dinner, she didn’t have time for. “That won’t be necessary–”

“The ferocious noise inside your belly says otherwise,” he quips as he instructs a nearby servant for some food. “I am starved from killing Strongs all morning and afternoon. I crave something more fulfilling besides shellfish and mediocre soups.”

It was all Aemond ate at the capital after the Pretender ordered the blockade. At first, the small council had spent a remarkable amount on enough meat, poultry, grains, fruits, and vegetables for his family and guests. Subsequently, in a moon or so everything had run out. Fish, oysters, shrimp, and different kinds of soups were served.

Aemond did not mind, in the beginning, but after a while his appetite longed for his regular and satiated meals. He nearly took one of Vhagar’s goats for himself. Aemond knew he couldn’t as Vhagar needed her strength for upcoming battles and decided to let that foolish idea go.

A few minutes went by when an array of servants arrived inside the room, carrying hot plates of food. She recognized two of the servants. Both of whom helped her bathe and dress earlier.

One, she noticed, struggled to keep a ceramic bowl steady. Instantly, she took the bowl from her trembling hands. “The bowl is very hot, my lady. You must be careful!” The old woman warned as she tried to pry the plate off her hands.

Although she was touched by her worriment, she couldn’t help but to chuckle. “It’s alright. I’ve been accustomed to touching hotter things, and this is not nearly as hot as you think.” At a young age, she more than often would help her mama make homemade tortillas de harina and would flip them by hand in the comal while scorching hot. On the weekend’s she’d help out at her uncle Belen’s restaurant. Often serving customers hot plates of food straight from the stove. (flour tortillas, griddle)

So heat never really bothered her.

She placed the large bowl in the center of the table, adjacent to the other plates and pitchers. Then she proceeded to help the servants set the table.

All while doing so she couldn’t help but feel Aemond’s eye on her the entire time as she moved. He stood silent near one of the windows, patiently waiting until everyone that wasn’t her, to leave.

“Will that be all, my prince?” A kitchen servant asked, her eyes struggling to keep eye contact. Aemond waved the woman away, disinterestedly. Something about that irked her to her core, and it reminded her of the countless entitled customers who treated servers beneath them.

“Thank you,” she smiled at the servants before they took their leave. They returned the smile and she couldn’t help but to think if they’ve ever been thanked before and she was content that she did.

“Shall we dine?” Aemond gestured to the overly-filled table.

She nodded, her stomach doing flips for food. Before she had the chance to pull out a chair, Aemond beat her straight to it with a smug smile carved into his lips.

“In truth, I’m glad that you came now. I was to summon you for another hour while you had your rest but to my surprise the maester informed me that you refused treatment.” Aemond spoke from behind.

She sucked in a breath, shoulders tensing as the tips of Aemond’s fingers softly grazed around the exposed skin behind her neck. A spot where she felt insecure and anxious from anyone viewing.

Even the two older women, who bathed her, halted their scrubbing when they came across the two deep vertical scars on each of her shoulder blades. A part of her was relieved that they did not say anything and continued their scrubbing, but the overthinker in her worried if they were secretly judging behind her back.

Aemond pressed his lips together tightly, replacing a frown as she wiggled herself away from his touch.

“Stitches are required for deep or gaping wounds, and surgical incisions. I did not necessitate it since this is a superficial cut. It will heal in a day or two if I clean it properly to prevent infection. Nywen agreed as well as I did and supplied me with a topical antibiotic.”

She watched as Aemond slid into a seat directly across from her, digesting in her words.

“Nywen?” Aemond arched his brow.

“The maester.”

Aemond hummed, content by her answer. “You speak as if you’re a maester yourself.”

“I’m a nurse,” She shared proudly, though ignoring the fact she has not taken her NCLEX yet. Meaning she was not actually licensed.

Aemond appeared to be taken back by her response and redirected his eye to her very glorious and plump pair of breasts.

Would she allow him the pleasure to drink from her chest as well?

The one eyed prince could only wish.

Aemond could practically hear his one and only loudly moan and cry for him as he drank every last drop from her breasts, providing her with not only relief but also pleasure.

The thought alone made his cock stir underneath his breeches.

“Not a wet nurse!” She exclaimed, as she crossed her arms over her chest, attempting to cover her boobs.

That, however, proved to be fruitless as the action alone caused her boobs to thrust upwards, revealing more for his eye to see. The violet in Aemond’s lone eye darkened and she swore she almost heard him… moan.

“Forgive me, my lady. I didn't mean to cause offense,” Aemond softened his voice as he discreetly adjusted his hardness beneath the dining table, stifling a hiss at the throbbing sensation.

“I never met a woman who practices conventional medical treatment; especially a young woman. Just old men. But seeing as to the maester being gone–”

Hearing that caused her head to snap up. “–Gone?”

“Yes, he left shortly after he was done treating you. I bid his freedom in exchange for his services and you were his last patient.” Aemond briefly told as he grabbed a slice of some type of roasted meat onto his plate.

“Well, that’s good to hear. At least he is free to see his family now,” she exhaled a breath she didn’t know she held.

Aemond hummed in agreement, choosing to spare the grisly details of him beheading the maester for treason against the crown.

In a way, the maester did get to finally visit his family, along with his liege.

“With him gone, perhaps you’d want to take his place?” Aemond offered coolly.

It wasn’t like she would stay here long enough to help heal his people. She had a deadline to meet and follow, and the One Eyed Prince sure as hell wasn’t going to get in her way. So she chose to give him a little inconsequential lie.

“Perhaps,” she shrugged as she began to assess the food upon the table.

And boy, were there many to choose from. There was a variety of cooked meats, sauteed vegetables, hot stews, breads, cheeses, and fruits.

It reminded her of an all-you-could-eat buffet.

She ended up selecting the same type of roasted meat as Aemond, paired with a small slice of bread and a goblet half full of a golden liquid she believed was some sort of juice.

By the way he was staring at her, she almost wanted to tell Aemond to take a picture to make it last longer but saying such a thing would be indecipherable to Aemond.

Rather it was better to say “paint a portrait.”

Now, however, was not the time to be comical.

Aemond began shifting to a new topic of conversation when she took the first bite of what he said was ‘roasted duck’. Instantly, she scrunched her face at the off- putting taste.

She always preferred her meat to be cooked well done and generously seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper, with a hint of rosemary and chili peppers for spice.

Though this meat itself felt uncooked in the center, bland and not seasoned correctly.

But what else could she expect from Westeros?

Aemond watched from where he sat, disheartened by her dischuffed reaction, “Is the duck not to your liking?”

No. She wanted to reply but she had a feeling that if she denied him, Aemond would try to convince her to take another dish.

“It’s good, thank you.” She lied after she forcefully swallowed the meat, smiling as she reached for her goblet to wash down the horrible aftertaste that lingered in her mouth.

Aemond was not in the slightest convinced that it was or the wine judging from her disapproving reaction. “Here, have some Dornish red. It is what I’m drinking, much better than the shit from Lannisport you drank.”

With hesitance, she took the cup. His fingers brushed with her own with a gentle caress that shocked her and almost pulled away from, if not for the goblet being nearly full.

She examined the dark red wine carefully before sampling it. There was a sweetness blended with some sourness that had her wondering if she had it before. It wasn’t a bad taste but it was definitely strong.

“Better?” Aemond queried, sitting straighter.

“Well you’re definitely right about the other one tasting like shit.” She laughed as she drank more Dornish red.

She's had some questionable alcohol before, but Lannisport wine definitely takes the cake. It was like drinking straight raw honey and cinnamon.

Aemond joined in with her laughter. “Dornish red can be quite strong and can surely get a person drunk if they have not eaten. Mayhaps I can have the cooks prepare something you prefer eating. What would you like?”

There were many foods she craved right now.

Back home, her abuela was preparing the masa for the tamales that took hours to make just for the entire family. (dough)

Her cousins Sara and Valeria, planned to bring a very spicy pozole and mole from their side of the family.

Tio Belen and tia Alicia were bringing their infamous chocoflan and caramel empanadas for dessert.

Those meals alone were what she wanted more than anything.

Sadly, there were zero chances that Westeros had any of that.

Especially during a war.

“I’m alright, thank you. I’ll stick to eating this, it’s not so bad now with the wine,” she reassured. Last thing she wanted was to waste food. Something she despised.

Her answer, however, wasn’t what Aemond hoped for but he settled on it for now.

“I do, myself, wish to know how exactly a lady such as yourself came to be wandering about in the woods, dressed in nothing but her shift.” Aemond implored, tilting his head to the side.

Uh oh.

“The remaining guards confessed that you were wearing your shift when they found you. Prompting them to believe you were some mislead whore. It still doesn’t justify their actions against you and for that I sincerely apologize. But, I’d like to hear your side of the tale if you do not mind.”

It all had been some unusual mystery, how she— the woman he had been expecting for ten years— came running onto his arms out of the blue.

Your life awaits

Was all Helaena said before he left to take back Harrenhal.

The pounding of her heart increased tenfold. She knew she had to stick to the truth as much as humanly possible, only altering the details that had to be kept secret.

She wouldn’t deny a part of her wondered if there was even a chance of coming clean to Aemond.

Without proof, maybe he’d think she was ludicrous.

If someone from Westeros came to the modern world, and extemporaneously said they’d been transported from a fictional universe, she without a doubt thought they were on some sort of crack.

She clears her throat, blinking rapidly in search of the right words to say. “Earlier I was sent to pick out some flowers for my family. Along the way, a woman came across my path and robbed me of not only my gown and shoes but my belongings as well. I tried chasing after her but after several minutes my feet became tired and I was lost around the woods with nothing to go by.”

“Your guards found me moments later. They insinuated that I was a whore, and I tried to tell them I wasn’t. That’s when things got violent and I was only trying to defend myself.” She explained transparently.

Aemond redirected his gaze towards the cut on her lower lip, then to her hand noticing some bruising. He recalled how the first guard had a stain of dried blood on his nose right before he killed him.

“Again, I must say how truly sorry I am for the dishonorable actions of my men. And I applaud you for your braveness, my lady.” Aemond said as he raised his goblet before taking a sip.

“Oh, this?” She asked, gesturing to the hand that was bruised. “This is nothing.”

Aemond let out a chortle. “It’s not nothing. You certainly broke his nose and damaged his foot by the looks of it. Who taught you to hit like that?”

“My uncle, Aimon.” She answers. Though unsure if she should reveal details about her family. “Most of us, my cousins and I, are girls. He said it was important that we, as women, learn how to be self resilient and defend ourselves. He taught us with a practice dummy, at first. Then with some padded gloves. ”

Aemond raised his brows, shocked by the notion that a man would allow their nieces to physically fight. His own father never bothered to teach his sister how to train in combat, not that Helaena would’ve wanted to or his mother allowed it. The Dowager Queen detested violence.

It was only ever him that learned to train in combat.

Not by his father, too sickly and yet too worried about Rhaenyra. Only Ser Criston Cole who shared the passion of the sword with him.

“Your uncle seems progressive,” Aemond stated, watching as a sad smile set on her face. “Yea he is.” The reminder of Aimon made her reflect on how much she missed her family right now.

Especially since Aimon was coming home for Dia De Los Muertos, after being stationed in Mexico City for ten years. Alicia and her were the only ones that knew of Aimon’s surprise visit to abuela Selena.

Though, perhaps now the only surprise her abuela was going to get was her disappearance.

“Have I said something to upset you?” Aemond questioned.

Her attention went back to the one eyed prince, who looked at her with concern. “No, no you haven’t. I just… nevermind.” She shook her head as she fiddled with the edges of her goblet.

Aemond leaned forward in his seat, desperately wanting to know what she had to say. “What is it? You can tell me—”

Just as his hand was about to reach hers, a knock interrupted them both. “Prince Aemond, the dessert you requested is almost done. Shall I have it straight delivered to your chambers?” A kitchen maid inquired from the other end of the door.

Aemond made a sound of complete annoyance, causing her to give him a major side eye. “Yes, do so.”

His reply caused her to be taken aback. Did that mean she had to stay longer with him?

She hoped not as there wasn’t enough time for dessert or any of his pleasantries. No matter how hard Aemond procures her to stay. There was a deadline she had to follow and a family and home to go back to.

She knew that by now, her family already contacted the authorities; the police and even the fucking FBI. They’d even call the SWAT team if it were possible.

Maybe she was being a bit too… dramatic. But was she?

There wasn’t anything her family wouldn’t do for her, including searching all of Mexico just to get her back.

Sadly, she was nowhere near Mexico.

Rather she was stuck in a world that up until hours ago, was purely fictional. A work of fiction that she received as a gift.

Her first mistake of coming into this strange world was not thoroughly checking the cottage properly. Perhaps there, she could find some clues and answers that could help identify where this sapphire might be.

So, now was as good a time as any to leave. More hours later and she’d permanently risk staying here forever, just as Alyssandra warned.

As much as she wanted to explore and live through every bit of Westeros, she already missed her home, her family, the food, internet, and comfortable clothes that weren’t medieval dresses.

“Would you care for some more Dornish red as we wait for dessert to be served?” Aemond eventually asked, breaking her out of her stupor.

Go.

“Actually, I can’t,” she nervously chuckled as she stacked her plates and swept leftover crumbs with a napkin. Even universes away she still had the decency to pick up after herself.

Aemond felt his heart drop.

“It’s getting late and I must go. I’ve been gone for hours and my family is probably wondering where I am.” It was not entirely a lie. Her one way ticket out of here was to play her cards right by telling the truth.

“But the dessert—” The one eyed prince tried to explain but was interrupted.

“— can wait or I’ll take it on a to-go box. Do you guys have one of those here?” She knew not but it was worth a try.

Aemond gave her a look of utmost bewilderment. “A what?” A box for a piece of dessert?

She waved him off before she stood up, “it doesn’t matter. Thank you for letting me stay and for everything else you’ve done. I’m grateful, really. But I seriously have to go.”

Aemond found himself standing as well and before either of them knew it, Aemond spun her around so that her back was pressed on rough stone and his chest just inches away from her glorious plump breasts.

“You can’t leave,” Aemond said with a loud growl.

She swallowed, her eyes widening in total disbelief. “What?” In a frail voice she asked.

Aemond had to be gentle with his next choice of words. Last thing he wanted was to scare her off, like how he currently was doing so.

The prince softened the darkness in his eye. “Well,” he sighed, “you’ve said so yourself, it is getting late and I don’t think it is wise for a lady to wander by herself in the woods again. Especially at night and with a mugger on the loose.”

“I’ve caused you enough trouble as it is if I stay.” She stated, distancing herself away from Aemond.

Though the one eyed prince was quick to act as his hand barricaded her point of exit. “You caused me no trouble, I swear this to you. Please stay a little while longer. I’ll send a raven to your family that you reside here with me.” Aemond begged, feigning a demeanor of woefulness.

Although she did slightly feel bad, the deep voice in her head told her to stick to her guts; which was leaving.

“I don’t think so.” She shook her head as she was quick to duck underneath Aemond’s arm towards the door. She felt the light graze of Aemond’s hand reaching for her but she pulled away before he could touch her, causing him to frown.

Aemond yearned to have more time with her; to know every single part of her that made her so intriguing to him. She had haunted his dreams every night for far too long to let her go now. Considering how he had not yet voiced his affections to her. Aemond presumed, now was not the right time to declare his devotion. Time is what he needed.

“Alys, wait!” Aemond called out.

And she was sure as hell did wait.

A/N: sooooo I haven't updated this story for 8 months and for that I'm sorry guys 😩

but for those who are wondering: I live in an abusive household. so that should say enough.

and yes I am trying to get out, but I am currently unemployed.

the next chapter won't take 8 months I promise, but I am writing some smutty one shots for valentines day so I won't update this story until march!

also, if anyone can guess who Vidalio is, I will post a sneak peek of chapter 4!

#prince aemond #aemond fanfic #aemond targaryen x reader #hotd fanfic #hotd aemond #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #dark aemond x reader #alternate universe #modern reader

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skay-ali · 4 months ago

Text

The Forgotten Daughter

Chapter 1

You still clearly remember when you arrived at your new home It was the biggest house you had been able to see in your short life.

When you got a better look, you felt a great sadness emanating from the outer walls, each space filled with a lifeless neutral color.

The owner of all the hallways, floors and valuable things, he was also a spitting image of melancholic, that was what you wanted to believe for a long time, that your new father was so damaged, that he couldn't afford to fix anyone else, besides him.

You took refuge in your room, the first days were full of tears and great sadness, you had not only lost your dear mother, but also your home, you ended up in an unknown place, with unknown people, you were miserably alone.

Recovering a little from your depressed and lifeless state, you decided to seek comfort, whatever you could get, it didn't take a hug or sympathetic words, not even a minute of attention, just an empathetic look, a pat or some miserable affection.

Alfred, the butler, was the one who was in charge of taking care of you, he tried to give you the affection you needed, he was a father, while your real father continued to behave like an adult with no responsibilities at home, he was a sought-after bachelor with no children.

Seeing him and a new woman passing through the hallways hurt you a lot, not because of jealousy, you thanked all the divinities that your mother never stayed with your father, but rather because those women received more love and attention than the one you you had when you arrived at this house, of course they were only small one-night stands or fleeting relationships, but they still had your father's attention.

Some time passed, your father brought a boy, upon returning from one of his outings, you knew his secret that he was a superhero, you knew it from the day you saw him injured in the dining room chair while you were leaving with a tray of cookies you made with Alfred for their movie night. The point was that you never went out with your father, not even when he was in his role as a millionaire.

You thought that new boy was just your father's whim, to help someone in trouble, but he became your new brother, was that his way of helping?

You tried to establish a friendly relationship with the boy, your new brother Dick Wayne, but he was so focused on his pain and hatred that he didn't even look at you at first, but with a little perseverance, you became his rock of support in his lowest moments together with Alfred, it's a shame that in trying to find his new path he left you behind.

Unlike you, your father did pay attention to him and looked at him, he was his son.

He did the same with his next two adopted children, Jason, the brother you were able to get along with the most, he told you a lot about the adventures he had or the books he finished reading, he was like a little child next to you. Until he died. It was sad, not seeing him anymore. It depressed you for a long time.

After Jason, Tim followed, he was a very closed child with you, he didn't give you an ounce of his attention, just an unfriendly face.

You only had these little descriptions of your siblings, not that you knew much about them, you never dug deep into their past, you tried to be a good big sister.

When the third child arrived you had already graduated and managed to enter a university very far away from Gotham City.

You packed your bags, said goodbye to the only person who was your family in this house and went to form your new life.

You didn't expect that a few years later, while you were preparing dinner with one of your best friends, he would tell you that you have a person at the door looking for you.

Less see a child who was the same carbon copy of your father.

"Well... What brings you here?"

The boy's raised eyebrow told you how bad you were starting the conversation, but in your defense you didn't know what to do, you were full of nerves, leaving the boy outside your house was not an option, it was at night and it was dangerous.

"I am Damian Wayne, the first blood son of Bruce Wayne, a true Wayne" what great arrogance this boy possessed.

"I came to this place to look for the first girl my father adopted"

"You know we are half-brothers from what I understand your speech."

His look full of anger and indignation showed that he did not like your words.

"YOU…"

He was ready to get up when some whimpers stopped him.

"Excuse me for a moment if" you left the room and ran to the cause of the whining.

Damian was regretting having come to this place just with the goal of meeting a girl, Alfred had made her sound like someone great, but seeing her for the first time disappointed him, you weren't even half as good as his other brothers, that It meant you couldn't even reach his heels. But still there was something that stopped him from leaving when he saw you, your kind way of receiving him, how you treated him as kindly as possible without you knowing him.

He got very angry when you named him an equal, his half-sister, he didn't like that title, he was ready to start a fight and teach you a lesson, but some whining stopped him from continuing.

Seeing you return to the living room with a baby in your arms baffled him, maybe you had a son.

He watched you sit down, you rocked the baby lovingly and you hummed a song to him.

"This is Alice, she's my little princess" you smiled as you showed her to the boy.

If your little adventure with the stranger who joked about being a hero ended with the origin of your cute baby, you became a new version of your mother.

Your new half-brother focused a lot on watching the girl.

"Now, as I understand it, you were looking for me because you wanted to meet me, right?"

"No, of course not, I just wanted to know who the girl Alfred always talked about was."

"It's not the same as what I said"

It seems that you provoked the boy, when you saw him go towards the door.

"Hey why don't you stay to eat" you stopped the boy, if you weren't already over this family.

You got up with your baby and carefully placed her in the child's arms.

"Here, load it up, I'll put the plates for dinner."

You went to the kitchen and the boy quickly followed you with the baby.

"I'm not your babysitter to take care of your daughter," he complained.

"No, of course you're not her babysitter, you're her dear uncle" I smiled at how adorable they looked "Look, it seems like she adores you, she almost never likes to leave my side and cries when someone else picks her up."

There were a few more complaints from the boy, but you saw that your words made him proud and made him play with the baby in his arms.

If the yandere family has not yet appeared, it will first start from the smallest, the indirect cause that all the others are yanderes, maybe??? an attempted introduction to what ___'s life was like in the mansion and his relationship with his first 3 brothers and a comforting scene with one of the brothers. I hope you like this attempt at a story, I'm still thinking of more ideas for drama and anguish and who could be the baby's father and new yandere

@kore-of-the-underworld @vanessa-boo @jsprien213

#yandere platonic #yandere dc #x reader #fem reader #yandere batfam #platonic batfam

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ckret2 · 8 months ago

Text

Chapter 53 of human Bill Cipher not properly appreciating the fact that Mabel is his only friend on Earth:

Mabel has read a book about Bill's home dimension and is prepared to interrogate him all about where he comes from.

Bill is willing to do anything to avoid being interrogated.

(Featuring SEVEN illustrations, provided by 🌈 MABEL 💖)

####

Flatworld, from what Mabel had read, was probably literally the worst place to ever exist.

The book was a hundred pages of an old-fashioned formal-sounding super boring guy rambling on about the most egregiously evil society Mabel had ever had the horror of reading about.

Society consisted of a bunch of geometric shapes—which in concept sounded half nerdy and half adorable—but they'd made a brutally oppressive government organized by quantity of sides, with infinite-sided circles at the top and three-sided triangles at the bottom, and one-sided lines—women—oppressed into near silence. Career options, educational opportunities, who you could love, were all determined by your sides. Irregular shapes—quadrilaterals that weren't squares, triangles that weren't equilateral, anyone with a side too long or too short—were presumed from birth to be criminally insane. Each generation had sons with one more side than their father—and they had to, because having higher-ranked sons was the only way families could climb out of poverty. When babies were born with too few or irregular sides, poor families abandoned them—or worse—and rich families put them through oft-fatal bone-snapping surgeries to regularize or increase their sides. Knowledge of the third dimension was considered heretical, and anybody claiming it was real was locked in an insane asylum.

There was a lot of mathy stuff in the book about a square meeting a magical sphere and going on educational adventures to the higher and lower dimensions; but most of it passed by her in a blur. When she'd finished reading last night, Mabel had lay in bed for an hour, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about dead baby shapes and fighting the urge to wake Bill up just so she could hug him; until she'd finally drifted off and woken up in her own bed.

At least, thank goodness, the bit about banning colors so lower shapes couldn't contour themselves to look like higher shapes was false. But she was sure that at least part of the story was true. And it had happened to somebody she knew. It was a lot to process.

So she processed it the way she usually did the stories that weighed on her: by creating a self-insert and pulling out her art supplies.

####

"You're drawing fan art of Flatworld?" Bill asked warily.

"I wouldn't call it fan art. I'd say it's more of a... thoughtful artistic critique. I don't think I'm a 'fan' of the second dimension," Mabel said. "No offense."

"Sure."

Mabel had designed a shapesona of herself: a pink heart with a rainbow-colored outline, a big sparkly eye, and skinny black stick limbs like Bill's. If, as Bill had said, colors weren't illegal, she didn't see any reason she couldn't be rainbow. The heart shape was maybe unconventional, but Bill hadn't said she couldn't be a heart yet, so she was sticking with it for now.

She'd honestly expected Bill to come over and interrogate her about her creation long before now. Usually, when she was doing art and he was unoccupied, he was hovering right by her, examining her work and dropping hints—some more subtle than others—that she should draw him next. But she hadn't immediately noticed when he'd silently drifted into the room, and she wasn't sure how long he'd been there before speaking up. He was still leaning on the wall, arms crossed, watching askance from halfway across the living room as Mabel worked with her crayons, as if she were playing with a chemistry set and he was trying to figure out if she was building a bomb.

"Is Flatworld really about your world?" Mabel asked. "Did you tell Edward Bishop Bishop all that stuff? With the circles and all the laws about shapes and stuff?"

Bill mulled over the question, staring into space. Mabel had never seen his face look so inexpressive before—at least, not since his first night as a captive, after he'd gotten all the screaming out and had looked too exhausted to feel. "We talked," he conceded. "I'm surprised you got your hands on it. I suppose Stanford brought it up."

Something in the back of her mind pricked up defensively—what was that supposed to mean, he was surprised she got her hands on it?—but she pushed it back down. "Yeah, he told me and Dipper about it when you guys got home yesterday," Mabel said. "But you brought it up to me first!"

"No I didn't. When?"

"A few weeks ago? You mentioned Edward Bishop Bishop."

"I don't remember that," Bill muttered. "I probably didn't think you'd make sense of it."

"Hey!"

"You didn't make sense of it! Ford had to tell you about it."

"Yeah, but—mean!" She shoved aside her drawing and started on another one, grumbling, "I could've made sense of it if I'd looked it up."

What was up with Bill today? He wasn't usually this much of a jerk. To her. Lately. Plus, she thought they'd really had a moment yesterday! But Bill had had a rough couple days. Maybe he was just tired and cranky.

A wiser person might just leave well enough alone. But a wiser person wasn't exploding in their brain with curiosity about just how bad Bill's life had really been. There was something itching at the back of her head, had been itching since she'd woken up—something about Bill, something important, she was sure of it—but she couldn't quite put together what it was. She just needed to talk to Bill long enough to figure it out.

"So..." She glanced up from filling in a shape yellow, "were lines really executed if they didn't make noises all the time so everyone always knew where they were and they couldn't sneak up and stab anyone?"

Bill scoffed, rolling his eyes, as if the very idea was stupid. "It wasn't that extreme. Making a peace cry is like a human saying 'coming through' when they're trying to squeeze past somebody. Lines are just taught to do it in public because it's easier not to see a line, that's all."

"If they didn't, were they executed...?"

"No. They were just rude."

That was a relief. Mabel had been worried for her fellow ladies. She was plenty noisy, but she didn't think she could remember to make constant sound any time she was around other people. She turned back to coloring her newest drawing, but watched Bill out of the corner of her eye. "Is it true that rich people killed almost all of their babies by giving them surgery to break their sides?"

The corner of Bill's mouth curled in a sneer. "Do I look like a pediatric surgeon?"

"Um." Not a welcome question. She tried to backtrack to something softer. "So, in the second dimension, the outside of your body is just your outline and your guts are everything inside the outline, right?"

He gave her a wary look. "Yeah."

"So your bow tie is basically in your stomach."

Bill sucked in a deep breath; but quickly caved in to the need to be the most correct person in the room. "More like around my esophagus, but. Sure."

"So, where did you wear it when you were back in the second dimension? Was it on your side? Did you have to wear two so people could see them from both sides—"

"I didn't need a bow tie then."

Mabel stared at him. "What do you mean, you didn't 'need' it? What do you need it for now?"

Bill ignored the question. "You know, I didn't think Flatworld was an interesting enough book to deserve this much attention! Especially not from you. You like fun stories." It felt oddly like he was criticizing her for having read it.

"Well—yeah, but it's about your home! That makes it fun!"

Bill raised his brows.

"Right? Doesn't it?"

"Kid." Bill laughed condescendingly. "Don't give me that. You read an entire book. In the summer. About math. With a downer ending where the narrator goes insane and gets locked up. That's some people's idea of a fun time, but I know it's not yours."

Maybe "fun" was the wrong word—but it was still important. She was glad she'd read it. She'd cared about it. She'd cared enough to know Bill was describing it wrong. "That's not what happened. The square got locked up because he kept telling everybody the third dimension's real."

"Like I said! He went insane!"

"But he's not insane. Everyone says he is, but he's right about the third dimension! It's everyone else who's stupid!"

"So what," Bill said. "The things he knows mean he'll never be able to see the world the way other shapes do, and no matter what he does he'll never be happy with his home. If that's not insanity, what is?"

Last year, she'd heard Bill agree when Gideon called him insane. She'd always wondered. "Is that why you're insane?"

Bill shot Mabel a furious look. That was the wrong thing to say. "Shooting Star—"

(Oh no, she thought, he's using my full name.)

"—what's with the third degree." Bill crossed the room to lean on the other side of the table. He gave her the guarded glare of a guilty suspect facing down a cop in an interrogation room—and trying to figure out whether he could kill the cop before he was stopped. "What do you think you're trying to dig up?"

"I'm not trying to 'dig up' anything," Mabel said. "I just want to learn more about you!"

"Oh yeah, I'm sure you do! Who doesn't wanna know all about me! And right after I trusted you yesterday! Do you think you're the first person to start digging into my history? 'Hey, does anyone know what made Bill Cipher so crazy'?" Bill laughed bitterly. " You're not even the first Pines to try it. Not even the second."

"That's not what I'm trying to do!" said Mabel, right before it dawned on her that that was exactly what she was trying to do.

"Right. I'm sure whatever you learn will make a nice two-page spread in Journal 5. Another secret you and Fordsy can add to your Mysteries, huh? Think he'll draw the dead babies?"

She thought back to Portland—to asking Ford what had made Bill so awful. I think if anyone’s ever had a chance of finding out what made him like he is, it might be you. Mabel shook her head. No. She didn't want to be that. "I'm not Grunkle Ford's spy, I'm your friend. I just—I just want to understand you—"

"Yeah, and the 'friends' who understand you are the most dangerous kind." Bill laughed harshly. "Your uncle and brother couldn't figure me out! And Sixer's been trying for years! So what makes you think YOU can?"

He was calling her stupid. He'd been calling her stupid all day. That was why he was so surprised she'd read the book.

"You—shut up!" She wadded up her latest drawing and flung it in Bill's face. (He snatched out of midair.) "All I did was read a book I thought was important to you, you jerk! I thought you'd like that!"

She hadn't meant for that waver to enter her voice. But she was exhausted from too little sleep and worrying about dead baby shapes and worrying about Bill's fear of death and worrying about what Ford had said about not giving Bill a second chance, and now Bill was being a jerk, and maybe he was just exhausted and upset too, but he was treating her like she was stupid—and there was that pathetic little waver.

But it made Bill pause in his onslaught; for a moment, he averted his gaze. Still, he said, "Maybe if you'd thought to ask—"

"You were asleep! I was being nice! And letting you sleep! In my bed!"

"But—"

"Just go away!" She pointed at the doorway.

Bill's face hardened again. "Fine!" He flung his hands in the air and stomped from the room. "Who wants to hang out with you when you're in such a bad mood, anyway."

Mabel glared at her stupid drawings so she didn't have to watch Bill's stupid back as he left.

Why had she bothered?

When Bill was out of sight, she dropped back onto her chair, pulled her sweater over her face, crossed her arms on the table, and buried her head in them.

####

Bill didn't think to smooth out the paper Mabel had flung at him until he was out of the room.

On one side she'd drawn Bill—properly triangular—with an expression that he thought was supposed to be fear and on the other side several angry-looking shapes, pentagons and hexagons, colored gray and black, being led by a pale figure shaped like a human skull and wielding a scythe; and between them, a bright pink heart, standing in front of Bill protectively, hands on its "hips," glaring down the would-be assailants.

The corners of Bill's mouth sagged down.

####

The bell rang and the shapes began filing out of class, muttering to each other about how they thought they'd done on the test. As the triangle cheerfully left the room, the teacher caught him by the arm again to pull him over. "Just a minute," she said. "I want a word with you."

Oh, he bet she did. Breezily, he said, "Sure thing! What is it?"

"Who was the first triangular president?"

"Wh— Th—" He spluttered indignantly. "There's been like—seven of them."

"Nine. And I'm only asking about the first one."

"How should I know!"

"You knew an hour ago."

He sputtered again. "That was— That was a multiple choice test! And it was an hour closer to when I'd studied! And I can focus better in the classroom! You can't expect me to remember anything in the hallway. You're using intimidation tactics. How could anyone focus under these conditions—"

"I don't know what you're doing," the teacher said, "or how you're doing it. Maybe I never will. But..." She sighed, and the anger seemed to leak out of her, and that only made him more nervous. "But whatever you're doing—you won't be able to do it forever. What will you do when you're out in the real world and you didn't learn anything in school?"

Her pity was worse than being hated had been. At least when he was hated, he knew she only looked down on him because she had something against him. What did he do with pity? With concerned warnings about the "real world"? He'd never heard anybody use the phrase "the real world" as anything but a threat. He hoped he was never out in the real world.

"Who cares! I'll never need any of this!" He should have shut up there. He didn't: "You're just jealous that me and my family make a million times more lying to everyone than you'll ever get trying to teach them the truth!"

His teacher gasped in shock; but before she could say anything, he was halfway down the hall with no intention of slowing down.

The next day, he stayed home, and his mom visited the principal. The day after that, he had a new teacher.

####

He was stupid. He knew that. He didn't know when he'd gotten stupid—if it was because he'd started touring so much and missing classes, or if he'd always been dumb and just didn't notice it before he registered just how often he was using his all-seeing eye to pick up answers that other kids couldn't see. It had crept up on him. But there it was. He was stupid, and he was too stupid to figure out what to do about it.

There was a big difference between being able to see everything, and actually knowing anything. And he might be all-seeing, but an idiot like him would never be all-knowing.

####

A trillion years later, he still didn't remember the name of the first triangular president. And look how far he'd gotten without it.

Lunch was toast and peanut butter. The toaster was the only source of heat he could use without having to ask his captors for access; and peanut butter and bread were the most nutritious foods he could reach without asking his captors to open a cabinet or fridge. He was sick of toast and peanut butter.

He wasn't about to ask Mabel to help him get lunch.

Well. He'd succeeded. He'd known just the right thing to say to get Mabel to lay off and drop the topic. Did he feel accomplished?

He stared out the window as he ate—there were hazy gray clouds on the horizon, beyond the trees, slowly inching closer—and he tried not to look at the picture Mabel had flung at him.

####

Mabel felt dumb about being upset that Bill thought she was dumb.

Because of course he did. Sure, he liked her art and he liked dance music and games without rules; sure, he was a willing student when it came to stuff like making friendship bracelets or artistically mixing sprinkles; sure, he was a weirdo fun guy; but he was also a Smarty McSmartypants, just like Dipper or Ford. And Mabel was the Girl Dipper who brought home C's. And even a weirdo fun Smarty wouldn't want to hang out for long with someone who couldn't keep up with nerd talk. He probably just... put up with her for as long as he could stand pretending he took her seriously, but he'd finally lost his patience...

And shown his true, jerky colors again.

Maybe Ford and Dipper were right about him; maybe he couldn't really change.

Except... there was something he'd said. And right after I trusted you yesterday. When he'd cried in front of her. When he'd told her about his fear of death.

He was being a jerk because he thought she'd betrayed him. But by reading a book?! Why couldn't he ever just explain himself? Did he think whatever was bothering him was obvious, and she was stupid for not figuring it out?

Something she almost but didn't quite remember thudded like a drum inside her brain. Dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum-dome.

From the entryway, Bill called, "Hey, star girl. I—"

He stopped in the doorway. Mabel had taped 28 pieces of paper together, drawn on a door knob, written "DOOR" at the top, and taped it across the doorway into the living room. Irritably, Bill said, "It doesn't work like that. This is obviously paper."

"Bill," Mabel grumbled. "Go away."

"No. I'm gonna say something to you."

He didn't phrase that like he was giving her a choice in the matter; but all the same, she said, "I don't wanna hear it."

"You know that horror story about a bride with a velvet ribbon tied around her neck, and her head falls off and rolls down the stairs when her husband unties it?"

She did. She and Dipper had read a book of scary stories to each other on Halloween a few years ago while waiting for it to be late enough to go trick-or-treating. In spite of herself, he'd piqued her curiosity. She reluctantly turned to look at him. "Yeah? So?"

Bill was leaning in the doorway, head tilted against the doorframe so he could see Mabel around the paper door curtain. "That's why I wear a bow tie."

Mabel blinked. "Wait—if you didn't, your head would fall off? What part of you is your head? How did it come off? Were you decapitated? Did you get decapitated for knowing about the third dimension—?"

"It doesn't keep my head on; it keeps my skin on."

Mabel's nose wrinkled. "Gross! How?"

"Remember how you said my outline is my skin and all my organs are inside the outline," Bill said. "That didn't change when we left the second dimension! We had to get exoskeletons on our top and bottom sides so solids like you can't stick you fingers in our guts. My bow tie keeps it tied in place."

"Whoa." So that was why they hadn't seen Bill's organs before. "Do you ever take it off?"

"Mostly when I'm eating!" He knocked on the doorframe. "So can I come in now?"

Of course. He'd been using information to buy his way back into her good graces. (No—that was what somebody who didn't think Bill deserved a second chance would think. He was making up for earlier by answering one of her questions about him.)

She took a deep breath, turned to face Bill, and said, "You didn't talk to me like a friend earlier."

"I—" Bill grimaced, looked at the ceiling for help, and conceded, "I mean—It's how I talk to my friends, but all right, I know you're not used to that—"

"Nobody should be used to that!" Mabel said. "What would Love Bunny say?"

"Wh—?! I— Th— You—" His voice cracked as it jumped higher, "What do I care what a cartoon rabbit thinks about—"

"What. Would. She. Say."

Bill's face screwed up in agony. He crossed his arms. "Ugh."

"Biiill?"

Eyes squeezed shut, Bill said, "She'd say my breath smells like I've been eating mean beans."

"Aaand?"

"I'm not going to say it. I won't say it."

"And you need to eat your nice rice!"

Bill let out a long, slow sigh.

"Say it!"

"This is my penance," Bill muttered toward his feet. "This is my penance. This is fair." He took a breath. "And... I need to eat my nice rice."

Mabel nodded. He'd confessed his sins.

"I think we're out of nice rice," Bill said, "but I've had the peanut butter of kindness and the toast of remorse. Good enough?"

She considered it. "Yeah. You can come in."

Bill batted aside the paper door curtain and ducked into the room.

He sat across the table from Mabel and set down the paper she'd chucked at him amongst her others. Mabel glanced at the drawing, embarrassed of it now; but Bill didn't say anything about it.

He just propped his cheek against his hand and started looking over her other art.

Mabel sat there with her hands under her legs, watching his spotlight eyes rove over the table, feeling like she was waiting for a teacher to grade a poster she'd made for class. He saw a stop sign red octagon in sunglasses that was labeled "Bill's parole officer" and snorted. She wasn't sure if it was an amused snort or a derogatory snort. His gaze stopped on her attempt to figure out how Flatworlder anatomy worked, and didn't move farther. She'd probably gotten everything wrong, hadn't she?

She couldn't stand waiting for him to pass judgment on her art. "You think they look dumb, don't you."

Bill took a moment to reply. He didn't look up from her drawings. "I don't think you're dumb, Shooting Star."

"You think I'm dumber than Dipper and Grunkle Ford."

Bill winced. "I don't." At her dubious look, Bill amended, "Only Stanford! And that barely counts, all humans are dumber than Stanford. It doesn't mean I think you're dumb-dumb"

"Could've fooled me," Mabel muttered.

"You bet! I'm good at fooling people. All I have to do is say things I don't mean that make people feel the way I want." His voice was flat and matter-of-fact. "I wanted you to feel like the conversation wasn't worth it. That's all."

She stared at him. "By letting me know you think I'm stupid?!" She chucked a crayon at his face. "You could have just told me you didn't want to talk about Flatworld!" Her voice was getting that stupid waver again. "If I'd known, I would have dropped it! I didn't want to upset you!"

"I wasn't upset, it's just a stupid thing to complain about! It's just a dumb book! It'd—it'd take a real loser to be bothered by talking about a dumb book! I'm not..." He sighed harshly. "I know you weren't trying to get on my nerves, kid. It'd mess up your sticker chart." (Mabel hadn't even realized he knew about her sticker chart.) Almost inaudibly, he added, "M'sorry."

She'd never heard him apologize before.

She let out a slow breath. "Biiill. I don't think you're a loser."

He muttered something she couldn't make out as he flipped his hood on and pulled it down over his burning face. "Forget it. Move on. It's in the past!"

"If you're so embarrassed—"

"Not embarrassed!"

She chucked another crayon at his chest. "Then why are you telling me this now?"

Bill shut his eyes; took a deep breath; and, with a look of solemn dignity, and no small amount of pain, he said, "Because. Teddy Tender says. Our friends can't help us feel better if we don't tell them why we feel bad." He almost, almost managed to say it without sounding sarcastic.

Mabel burst out laughing. Bill pulled his hood lower.

Bill didn't even like Teddy Tender—he thought he was the stick in the mud of the Color Critters—and he certainly wasn't actually trying to follow Teddy's friendship lessons. He was just... saying something he didn't mean to make Mabel feel the way he wanted. And he wanted her to feel better.

No matter what anyone else said, he could change. And he was changing.

"Apology accepted," Mabel said. "Gold star!" She peeled one off a nearby sticker sheet and held it out.

Bill eyed it, like a man so hungry he was too nauseous to eat eyeing a pizza; and then snatched it from her and stuck it in the middle of his hoodie.

Mabel said, "And... I guess I'm sorry for getting all diggy about your home world." Even if she hadn't known it was bothering him, she probably should've guessed, shouldn't she? With how crabby he'd gotten. "I just got all excited and curious and... kinda worried about you after reading that book?" She sighed. "I understand if you don't wanna talk about it. You probably hated your dimension."

"What? He lurched forward with the vehemence of his denial—"Of course I don't hate my dimension!" Mabel leaned away at the sudden rage that had flared up in his eyes; but it died just as quickly and Bill immediately reeled himself back in, sitting back, crossing his arms: "I mean, come on, kid, use your head: you read a book about a culture. We're talking about an entire dimension. Would you hold a grudge against Jupiter if an ant bit you on Earth?"

Even as casually as he played it off, Mabel was sure he hadn't meant anything as calm and measured as claiming it was technically irrational to hate an entire dimension. He meant—emphatically, with his whole heart behind it—that he didn't hate his home dimension, at all.

Then why didn't he want to talk about it? (Then why had he destroyed it? Or was not hating it just another fiction he'd made up because he'd prefer that reality? Or was the destruction itself a lie? He hadn't mentioned it once since they'd started talking about Flatworld. Or did he think she didn't know about that and didn't want her to know? Or...)

Something had been churning in her subconscious since she woke up, and now—watching Bill ball up around himself as he squirmed around the things he didn't want to say—it finally dawned on her. Two words. Another piece of the Axolotl's poem. She tried to hold the words in her head until she could write them down, repeating them over and over—Misses home. Misses home.

Quietly, she asked, "Then... don't you want to remember it?"

His face spasmed, like it was nearly cracking in two—and then smoothed out. His face was blank. He didn't answer for a moment. "The last time I told a human more than two sentences about where I'm from... he gave me the universe's most depressing geometry textbook."

Oh. Maybe Bill was following Teddy Tender's friendship advice. "That's because you were talking to a boring old-timey math teacher, duh."

He laughed wryly. "You may have a point!"

If Bill assumed anybody prying into his history was either looking for the reason something was wrong with him, or publishing a whole book about the super bad parts... No wonder he hadn't wanted to talk to her. "So you didn't dislike Flatworld? You just dislike the book?"

Bill grimaced. "Did you read Eddie's biography?"

"No?"

####

As soon as he'd buckled himself into his seat for the drive to Northwest Manor, Dipper read the summary on the back cover of Flatworld, and then the paragraph-long author biography underneath it:

Edward B. Bishop, born in 1838 in England, was an accomplished mathematician, writer, theologian, and closet occultist, as well as a professor at the esteemed University of Fancyton. He published twelve books, the last of which was Flatworld in 1884. After sentencing his square protagonist to a two-dimensional asylum for preaching of the existence of the third dimension, he himself succumbed to an ironically similar fate: three months after publication, he was committed to an asylum for insisting that two-dimensional alien invaders intended to conquer the Earth and were persecuting him for revealing their existence, a delusion he maintained until his death from sleep deprivation in 1886. His most enduring legacy is inventing the margarita glass, which he claimed came to him in a dream.

Dipper hissed between his teeth. "Ouch."

####

"Never mind, don't worry about it," Bill said. "But no. I didn't like the book."

"You poor thing! All this time you've been homesick for the second dimension, but the only things humans talk about is the bad stuff!"

"Don't call me that."

"Do you want to talk about the non-depressy stuff instead? Like..." Mabel wracked her brain for something nice she'd read in the book. She winced. "Uh... I'm sure there's something. You could choose the topic?"

Bill didn't look directly at her. He just looked over all her drawings again. "Tell me why you want to know so badly."

It was basically the same question he'd asked earlier—what's with the third degree—but his tone was different. Mabel swallowed hard and repeated, "Because... I'm your friend. It's crazy that we've been friends for like a month and I barely know a-ny-thing about who you are or how you grew up! By now, I'd usually know about a friend's family, favorite subject, favorite animal, opinion on glitter, and biggest life dream! Plus all the stuff humans have in common—like, 'do you breathe?'"

This time, Bill didn't argue with her answer. (He could have called her a liar. A month ago, she had just been trying to find out what was wrong with him. But this version of the truth she'd made up was better.) "You already know I'm pro-glitter in all contexts and my life's work is to throw an eternal party. What else really matters?"

"Those are the two most important questions," Mabel said seriously. Tentatively, she asked, "Did you have glitter in the second dimension?" He'd already reassured her that they'd had color, but it was hard to imagine glitter in such a bleak world.

"Sure."

Mabel heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness."

She looked around at the morning's art production, pulled over the first drawing she'd done of her shapesona, and grabbed a bottle of glue to draw a thin line around the heart.

Bill watched as Mabel carefully sprinkled several separate colors of glitter on the line of glue, like a master chef adding a precise amount of spice to a gourmet recipe, to create a glitter rainbow gradient; and then he slowly sat up and leaned toward the table again. "So, who's this freak?"

Mabel gave him an exasperated look. She decided he'd meant "freak" neutrally; but she'd clearly labeled the heart "ME IN FLATWORLD," she thought it was pretty obvious who this freak was.

But Bill cheerfully went on, "He's the most hideously disfigured shape I've ever seen."

"Hey!"

"I'm not joking, it hurts to look at this guy. At least he's symmetrical, but woof."

"She's not a guy! She's supposed to be me in Flatworld," Mabel insisted. "She's a powerful lady and I think she's beautiful." She paused. "Can a heart be a girl?" Lines looked boring, but Flatworld said that girls were all lines and all other shapes were boys. (Or were they? When they'd talked at the mall, Bill had been very clear that he considered himself a triangle instead of male or female, which scuttled the "all polygons are male" concept. Maybe Edward Bishop Bishop had made that part up?)

"She can be anything she wants," Bill said firmly. "I don't see any gender cops around here, do you?"

Good point. "And when there's no cops around, anything's legal."

Bill laughed. "Hey, I like that."

"Grunkle Stan says it!"

"Wise man." Bill leaned forward further across the table and tapped a finger on the deep cleft at the top of the heart. "Personally, I'm more worried about that agonizing-looking birth defect. I'm surprised she survived past infancy!"

Mabel glared at him, but she supposed she couldn't argue. A heart was a pretty irregular shape. And according to Flatworld, almost all irregular shapes were executed in childhood or else imprisoned in adulthood, since they thought irregular shapes would grow up to be depraved, imbecilic criminals—

"Wait," Mabel said. "Wait. Last year, when I called you an isosceles freak—"

Bill cut in, "It was 'monster,' but go on!"

"Was that, like..." Mabel's voice dropped to a whisper, "a slur on Flatworld?"

Bill fought to keep his face straight as he decided how to respond. He went for the funniest answer. "Yes."

Mabel clapped her hands over her mouth and squeaked, "Nooo!"

"It's actually pretty impressive a human managed to come up with it!"

"I'M SORRYYY, augh I didn't know!"

Over her anguished whines, Bill went on, "It's just a good thing you didn't say 'scalene'! I would've had to wash your mouth out with drain cleaner!"

Mabel had pulled the collar of her sweater over her face. From within Sweater Town, she asked, "Was that the first thing I ever said to you?"

Bill choked back a laugh. "Yeah, it was."

She squealed in embarrassment and slid under the table.

"Heck of a first impression, star girl!"

"i'm sorryyy."

Bill reached under the table to pat the top of her head. "Ahhh, it was funny. Get up here."

As she climbed back into her seat, Bill added, "I'm getting back at you now, I'm not done making fun of your medical miracle yet. You know what she'd look like as a human? A headless, neckless body with an eyeball shoved six inches down her esophagus." He paused thoughtfully. "Actually... that sounds kinda cute."

"Eww, Bill."

"It is, it's cute. Like a clumsy puppy with a neurological disorder! I guess that's how the hideous Miss Heart here must look to humans!"

Mabel looked over her art again, wondering if she should change her shapesona, considering Bill's reaction to it.

So, maybe she was creating a freak. She didn't see any shape cops around here. She kept drawing. "I'd be fine," she said. "You like weird freaks! You'd keep me safe."

A stricken look crossed his face. He was momentarily silent as he watched Mabel start another picture. And then, as though he were only considering it for the first time, he said, "Yeah. I guess I would."

His gaze drifted to the wrinkled picture of Mabel's shapesona standing protectively in front of Bill. "Freaks can't afford to tear each other down."

####

(THIS is the chapter that's been giving me hell the last few weeks. Months. Last few months. I'm so glad to finally have it out, and I hope y'all enjoyed!! This chapter probably brings up a lot more questions than it actually answers—and completely different questions based on whether or not you've read Flatland lol—so I can't wait to hear what y'all think.)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #mabel pines #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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prettylilyanime · 18 days ago

Text

Blooming Hearts ♡ Chapter 01

˚✿˖ Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x fem reader

˚✿˖ Synopsis: All your life, you’ve had it all—wealth, beauty, and a quirk good enough to secure your spot at UA. But after three years, you still feel more like an outsider than a future hero. Social life? Barely existent. Friends? Who needs them? You’re ready to coast through your final year solo… until fate lands you squarely in the lap of a certain hot-headed blonde—literally.

˚✿˖ tags/warnings: 18+, smut in the later chapters, reader is spoiled, shy reader, they're all third years at UA, Fluff, strangers? to lovers trope, not really strangers, miscommunication, drama, y/n just wants to make friends, reader is canonically pretty, reader is a hero in training, whipped bakugou, she falls first but he falls harder

˚✿˖ Masterlist ♡ Previous ♡ Next

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The first days of school are supposed to be exciting—or at least, that’s the idea you’ve gathered from TV shows and a few overly romanticized books.

But for you, ever since you first walked into your pre-k classroom in shiny Mary Janes, it’s been the same story. Year after year, right up to today, in your polished Chanel loafers, you’ve loathed it.

If anything, it’s your least favorite time of year.

Everyone is too happy. Too enthusiastic about seeing each other. People making plans left and right, hugs, laughter—none of it involves you. You’re left to sit and watch, stuck in your silent little bubble while the world keeps spinning around you.

Not that anyone’s being intentionally cruel. No, you know this is more on you—on your quiet, awkward nature that seems to freeze any potential interaction before it even has a chance to begin. So you can’t really blame them when, even as you sit dead center in the classroom, your classmates talk over and around you like you’re invisible.

You sink lower in your seat, hoping it isn’t too obvious how Kaminari is leaning across you to chat with Kirishima, who’s seated just behind you. Each laugh and cheerful exchange only makes you feel smaller.

God, you hate day one.

Class doesn’t officially start until 8:45 a.m., but your alarm—set to chime with soft jingles—woke you up at 5 a.m. sharp.

You went through your entire morning routine with the precision of someone preparing for a photoshoot: exfoliating every inch of your skin with vanilla-scented soaps imported from France, carefully styling your hair to perfection, and spending far too long at your vanity.

A layer of sparkly gloss on your lips, clump-free mascara on your lashes, pink blush dusted on your cheeks, and the lightest touch of pearl shimmer on your nose—everything had to be just right.

Even picking out your outfit took an hour, despite the fact that it’s a school uniform, and no one’s likely to look twice at what you’re wearing.

Still, it boosts your confidence, makes you feel like you’ve got some control. Your black designer loafers and knee-high black socks set you apart from your classmates, most of whom stick to the standard brown shoes provided by the school.

Your jewelry is minimal but elegant—sparkling diamond studs in your ears, a small stack of delicate rings on your fingers, and a few simple bracelets on your wrists. Beneath your uniform blouse, a dainty diamond pendant rests against your chest.

Yet, even with all that effort, you still feel small, like your presence is nothing more than background noise. You stare blankly at your desk, drowning in the chatter of the classroom around you.

“Bakugou! What’d you do this summer, man?!” Kaminari’s voice rings out, pulling your attention.

Your gaze lifts to the boy sitting at the front corner of the room, his expression as uninterested as ever. Bakugo barely spares Kaminari a glance before responding in his usual blunt tone. “I trained and worked with best jeanist, dunce face. You were there for most of it.”

Dunce face. If Bakugo ever called you something like that, you’re pretty sure you’d have an existential crisis right then and there. But Kaminari? He just laughs, brushing it off with a carefree grin, as if Bakugo’s blunt insults are part of his daily routine.

The boys keep up their banter, the sound blending into the general noise of the classroom while you sit quietly, feeling like a shadow in the background—there, but barely noticed. Just another morning, same as always. That is, until something weird happens.

“What about you, Y/N? Did you do anything fun?” Kaminari asks, suddenly turning toward you.

You blink, your brain stuttering to process his words as the chatter around you dies down. All eyes shift toward you, and you feel the heat rising to your face. Instinctively, your hands clam up, but you fight the urge to shrink away, forcing yourself to meet Kaminari’s expectant gaze.

“I, um… I traveled.” Your voice is soft, hesitant, and wow—could you sound any less enthusiastic?

You glance around nervously, your eyes flicking toward Bakugo. As expected, he looks utterly disinterested, his expression blank as if he’s already tuning you out. Figures.

Swallowing down the tightness in your throat, you turn back to Kaminari, offering a tense smile. “Across Europe. I… brought souvenirs for everyone.”

For a moment, there’s silence.

Kaminari’s yellow eyes widen in genuine surprise, and Kirishima looks equally taken aback. You can tell they hadn’t expected you to say much—let alone reveal that you’d thought to bring back gifts for them. You’re not exactly known for being vocal, and this is probably the most they’ve ever heard you say at once.

“Oh, that’s really cool!” Kirishima beams, his usual warmth shining through as he gives you an approving nod. “You didn’t have to do that, though!”

“Yeah, that’s super nice of you!” Kaminari adds, grinning widely. Beyond his dumb antics, the electric boy really does have a sweet smile to him, and for a second, the tension in your chest eases just a little.

You shift awkwardly under their attention, unused to being in the spotlight like this with your peers. “It’s nothing, really. I can give you the gifts after class,” you mumble, waving a hand dismissively, even though your heart is pounding in your chest.

“So cool! What countries did you go to?” Kaminari asks, leaning in slightly with genuine interest.

“Well, I stayed at my grandparents’ vacation homes, so mostly Western Europe,” you explain, your manicured hands practically clawing into your skirt as you try to project calmness.

“What’s this about Western Europe I hear?! That’s so cool, Y/N!” Mina suddenly bounces into the conversation, and your heart practically drops out of your chest. How does she so easily swoop into conversations she wasn’t even part of? You know these are her friends, and she’s comfortable with them, but still—you can’t help but admire her confidence.

“She was there over the summer, and she got us gifts too!” Kaminari shares excitedly, as if you aren’t sitting right there. Your cheeks burn violently under the sudden attention.

Bakugo stays silent, leaning back in his chair with a bored expression, but you swear you catch the briefest flicker of acknowledgment in his eyes before he looks away. Maybe it’s your imagination, you tell yourself, but it doesn’t stop your mind from swirling.

Mina gasps and clasps her hands together. “Wait, you got us gifts? That’s seriously so sweet! Thank you, Y/N!” she chirps, her gratitude genuine.

You manage a tense smile, nodding politely, but before you can reply, Sero chimes in with a grin. “So you stayed at a vacation house too? Gosh, that sounds way cooler than ours. We were only there for a week.”

Your brows raise slightly. They all went on vacation together?

“Hey, we can’t complain,” Mina snorts, nudging Bakugo, who scowls in her direction. “It was on the beach, and we had Chef Bakugo at our service the entire time.”

“At your service is bold as fuck to say, Raccoon Eyes,” Bakugo scoffs, arms crossing in a way that only somehow makes him look even bigger. “If I hadn’t cooked, you all would’ve starved on cups of ramen.”

Your eyes, if they could, would sparkle at the visual. How does he even fit in his uniform?! His arms strain against the fabric of his sleeves, and the way his blazer clings to his broad shoulders almost makes you forget how much you hate first days of school.

You catch yourself staring for a second too long and quickly look away, heart pounding. Seriously, calm down. You don’t have a crush on Bakugo. You can’t have a crush on Bakugo. It’s not like he even knows you exist—aside from right now, where you’re sure he’s more focused on the conversation than you.

But still… he’s hard to ignore.

Denki, in his usual silly mood, throws himself into an exaggerated pose, dramatically praising Bakugo as though the blonde had single-handedly saved his life on that trip. “Our fearless leader Bakugo, slaving over a hot stove so we didn’t perish!”

Bakugo rolls his pretty red eyes, muttering something about “idiots” under his breath, and somehow the sight sends your heart into a chaotic rhythm again. God, I need to get ahold of myself.

Conversation flows smoothly without you really, but you still sit and smile, at least somewhat involved which is more than what you've really ever gotten- though it's interrupted by the sight of Aizawa opening the class doors.

“I want to see the progress you’ve all made over the break. You have 15 minutes to put on your costumes and meet at the training arena. Don’t waste time.”

Your brows lift slightly in surprise at the sudden announcement. A performance test, right off the bat? Instinctively, nerves creep in, but they’re soon replaced by a flicker of excitement.

You can’t wait to put on your new costume. Your mother had pulled some serious strings to have it custom-made by her design team, and you’ve been itching to see how it feels in action.

Grabbing your suitcase, you fall in line with your classmates, heading toward the locker rooms. Once inside, you quietly move to a far corner, grateful for the privacy. You flip open the suitcase, and your heart lifts as your eyes land on the carefully folded fabric inside.

The bodysuit is breathtaking—an iridescent pink material that seems to shimmer with every shift in light. Attached to the waist is a short skirt shaped like delicate flower petals, each edge subtly sparkling as though dusted with stardust. It’s both beautiful and practical, designed to move with you and enhance your quirk.

With steady hands, you slip into the form-fitting suit, the breathable fabric molding to your body perfectly.

You adjust the petal skirt, ensuring it falls just right, before sitting down on the bench to put on your boots—sleek, sturdy, and designed for agility. As you lace them up, you take a moment to glance down at your fully assembled outfit, a soft smile tugging at your lips.

It’s more than just a costume—it’s a statement of everything you’ve worked for, a tangible reminder of how far you’ve come.

Already, little girls across the country are asking for dolls that resemble you, despite the fact that you haven’t even graduated yet. Your internship at your mother’s prestigious hero firm is impressive, sure, but it's your image that truly captures the public’s attention.

After all, who could resist a hero who looks like a princess, wielding a quirk that blooms like pink flower magic in the midst of battle? It’s easy to see why your visual appeal has taken center stage—there’s something undeniably captivating about a hero who sparkles as much as she fights.

It’s surreal, considering the incredible feats of your classmates, that you're one of the ones that are being eyed most.

Todoroki, Midoriya, Bakugo—they’ve long since cemented their place among the best, their power unquestionable.

Yet, somehow, you've found yourself thrust into the spotlight, unexpectedly pushed forward as one of the frontrunners in the public eye from your graduating class.

It’s almost ironic, considering how incapable you are of even talking to your classmates. You’re not as strong as they are—not by a long shot. You don’t have their raw power or battle-hardened skills.

But in a world where appearances sometimes speak as loudly as strength, your presence has somehow captured the hearts of the country.

Again, painfully ironic.

You stand and smooth the glittering fabric of your bodysuit once more. Taking a steadying breath, you step toward the mirror. With a flick of your wrist, your quirk activates.

Delicate cherry blossom petals glow softly, the faint pink hue shimmering as they materialize from your hands and float effortlessly through the air. They slot themselves into your hair, pinning back the front pieces with the kind of precision you’ve long perfected.

So cute!!

“Oh Y/n, you look so good!” Ochako gushes, her eyes wide and sparkling as she clasps her hands together. Your cheeks flush at the attention, feeling the heat rise as if all the energy of the room is focused solely on you. The sheer amount of social interaction today has already left you feeling a little winded, but you force a smile, the best one you can muster.

“Thanks, Ochako,” you reply, gesturing to her newly upgraded bodysuit in black and pink. “You look great, too.”

In fact, everyone looks great. It’s surreal, really.

To think back to when you all first started, and now, seeing how much you've all grown—both in your abilities and in how you carry yourselves. It’s a strange feeling, being a part of it all, like you’re watching the shift from the sidelines rather than standing in the middle of it.

The sudden memory of Aizawa’s emphasis on “15 minutes” jolts you back to the present.

With a quiet shuffle, the girls make their way out into the arena where the rest of your classmates stand. You settle yourself on the outskirts of the group, perching on one of the benches, the space around you familiar and comforting. You’re content to just observe this time, no pressure to dive into conversation.

It’s easier this way, you think, as no one pays you any mind. Your eyes wander over to Bakugou, who, unsurprisingly, is at the center of the chaos.

He’s snapping at Kirishima, his fiery temper on full display—but you couldn’t care less about the words exchanged. What draws you in again is the way his costume fits him, perfectly tailored to his frame, an expression of his raw power.

God, he looks good.

Before you can let your mind wander any further, Aizawa’s voice slices through the air, snapping everyone’s attention back to him.

“Alright, guys, let’s start,” he announces, his tone calm but commanding, as usual, a checklist in hand. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

You focus, brow furrowing slightly as you listen to the rules. Capture the flag? Sounds easy enough, right?

The rules are simple: whoever holds the flag is considered the villain, and the team tasked with capturing it are the heroes. Straightforward.

But then, the teams are announced—randomized, of course—and before you know it, there’s a bright yellow flag strapped to your waist. And just like that, you’re the villain.

The weight of the flag feels less like an accessory and more like a target now. Great. It’s fine! You can handle it. Your quirk’s flashy and not the best for stealth, but you’ve worked with it before. No problem.

You straighten up, waiting for Aizawa to announce your opponent. You can practically feel the tension building as the seconds stretch on.

“Bakugou Katsuki. Hero.”

What?

Suddenly, it feels like the world stops spinning for a moment. You’re hyper-aware of the eyes on you and Bakugou, feeling the weight of everyone’s gaze fall between the two of you, curiosity in the air. Mostly because, well...

You and Bakugou had literally never been paired together for anything in the three years you’ve spent together at U.A.

It sounds odd, but despite being in many different classes, projects, and assignments together, it’s never happened. Not once.

And now, here you are. Your first time being paired with him. Oh god.

You can feel your heartbeat in your throat as you look over at him, unable to stop yourself. Your breath catches when you realize his red eyes are already locked on you.

His hero mask rests casually on his forehead, pushing back the messy platinum strands of his hair, only adding to his beautiful face. His expression is neutral—almost indifferent—but in your eyes, it only makes him look more dangerous.

You swallow hard, and your pulse spikes.

Bakugou Katsuki... is going to try and catch your flag?

Your hand naturally falls on the flag tied to your waist line, holding it to you, and you don't miss how his sharp eyes follow the movement.

Why, of all times, does your face suddenly feel like it’s on fire? Your heart races in your chest, and you can’t tell if it’s from fear or something else entirely. Oh god, help you. You’re in trouble

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