#spent all night having not quite nightmares not quite stress dreams

[thatone-churro]

chat i am NOT appreciating the stares i got from walking across campus to cvs in my hoodie and sweatpants as if we didn’t just sit through ANOTHER hurricane like chill man i didn’t sleep well let me get my monster to finish my logic homework in peace 😭

[unorthodoxfaithxx]

Yandere Ghost Smut

afab reader ; nsfw

“This house is totally perfect! You’ll love it,” is what your realtor told you when they finally found a house within your budget. You loved the aesthetics of historical homes, so when they discovered an older house that not only was in your price range, but had just minor damages, they called you immediately. 

You moved in within the month. It didn’t take long to settle into your new home. There was a room with shelves meant for books, and you spent most of your free time there, enjoying the books from your collection that could rival a library. Sometimes, you would feel a sudden chill in the air when reading, and grow pensive. It would feel like someone was watching you. But besides that, nothing was out of the ordinary. You just assumed you were too stressed out and growing paranoid as a result. Everything was fine.

Well, it was. Until you started waking up with strange markings on your body. You woke up one day in a cold sweat, waltzing into the bathroom to wash your face off, only to find what looked like hickeys on your neck and upper chest area. Weird. Did you have bugs in the bed? Was it an allergic reaction to the new detergent you bought for the sheets? You had no idea. 

You were never able to solve the issue because the markings disappeared within a few hours, and didn’t come back again. Once more, you shrugged it off and assumed nothing was amiss. 

Yet eventually, things got even stranger. Your panties started disappearing one-by-one, and you were sure you hadn’t misplaced them. Specifically, your already worn undergarments would disappear from the dirty laundry bin before you could wash them. What the fuck?

“I don’t know, Mary,” you call your best friend one afternoon, “I feel like this place is haunted. And what’s even weirder is I keep getting these wet dreams…like every night. I’m not even sexually frustrated so I don’t know why I wake up wet or with markings on myself.”

“Maybe you got a ghost fucking ya?” She jokes around and you both get a laugh out of that. But for some reason, the deepest part of your being can’t dismiss that thought. 

You begin to grow paranoid and start searching for any signs in your house that someone else is living with you. You decide to enter the dusty attic, and find rather antique furniture and a box containing a photo of a man and a woman. He was handsome, albeit a little creepy looking, but what struck you as odd was woman next to him. She looked eerily like you. You brought the photos downstairs to do some research on your computer, but alas, found no information on the man or the woman. The only thing you found out was that there was a fire that had damaged the property all too many years ago. You felt the creepy sensation of being watched again, and called it quits for the night, opting to get some much needed rest.

That night, you saw him.

————————————————————

It’s midnight when he appears in your room, watching your beautiful self slumber. You were so perfect, all those years ago when you left him, and even now. He loves the way the sheets drape your body, but slowly peels them off to reveal that you’re in nothing but a bra and panties. There is a slight sheen of sweat on your skin as your eyebrows furrow cutely in your sleep. 

His angel must be having a nightmare, but he can take care of that. Gently, he trails his cold fingers over your curves. He admires your beauty, so happy to see you once more. He can’t wait another minute.

While you’re still on your side, he unclasps your bra, relishing the way your tits fall free without the support. They look so beautiful and perfect, he can’t even begin to describe how enchanted you make him feel. 

You roll onto your back. He slides your underwear to the side, revealing your pretty cunt to his ghostly eyes. With a delicate touch, he rubs your clit in small circles, playing with you. 

You gasp at the touch and he smirks. Your shuffling does little to deter him from his objective.

He’s on the bed with you, intently staring at your lower half. He admires your folds and moves them open and closed with his fingers, revealing a leaking hole that was your wetness. With a gulp, he slides your underwear off you, wadding it into a ball, burying his face into it as he takes a whiff of your scent. He’d be tasting the real thing soon enough. Once satisfied, he pockets your undies for safe keeping. He tilts his head down to your lower body, shifting into a more comfortable position. With a breath of anticipation, he slithers his cold tongue over your vagina, moaning slightly at the sensation. 

He’s been doing this every night he could manifest, and it never got tiring.

This time, and he doesn’t know why, you wake up, staring down at the mysterious man in terror as he laps you up like a man thirsting in the desert. You mean to run but you can’t move. You feel something cold and wet tying your body to the bed. You try to close your legs from your violator, but his icu hands grip firmly on your thighs, keeping them wide open for him to shove his face between. 

Under the moonlight, the two of you make eye contact but he doesn’t stop, instead opting to send you a wicked smile. “Good morning, love,” he says gently from beneath you. “I missed you so, so much. You know that?”

You’re in a state of shock, words screaming in your head but not quite reaching your vocal chords. The only sound you can make is a whimper as he shoves his tongue further into you, his nose rubbing you causing further pleasurable friction. He sucks, licks, and rolls your clit with his tongue. 

Suddenly, he slides a cold finger into your hole and you gasp, arching your back only to be stuck back down again. “Don’t move, pretty thing,” he scolds you. 

“F-fuck,” you finally manage to whisper, heart racing, “Who are you?”

“Someone who’s been watching you for a very, very long time.” He’s stopped licking you, instead moving to pump another finger into your pretty cunt, thrusting in and out at a moderate pace. His eyes show so much love, desperation, and lust in them that you have no idea what to do or where to go. Then it clicks. The man from the photo. That’s who he was. How could that be possible? Was he an actual ghost?

“I’ve been so lonely without you, princess. When you left me to burn, do you know how heartbroken I was? But now you’re back, and we can finally be together again. I’m not letting you leave me another time.”

He now has three fingers inside of you, picking up the pace. The lewd sound of slick fingers sliding in and out of your cunt drives him wild. His face is back between your thighs again, lapping you up and suckling on you until you’re visibly shaking. 

“Aw, sweet girl. Gonna cum?”

You don’t want to, but you feel something hot and heavy coming.

“Shit. Cum in my mouth, sweetheart. Wanna taste everything you got.” He latches back onto you. 

Your stomach drops and you let go, mind very distressed but body obviously in heaven. Your pussy spazzes out on him and he moans as he licks up the mess you leave behind. With a wipe of his mouth he grins, eying you like a rare prize he had just one at the fair.

He grabs onto you, embracing you in a hug you can’t run away from. Seriously, why can’t you move? He notices your struggles and laughs, snuggling into your chest. 

“Ah ah ah, no running away, love. I’ve waited so long for you. You’re not going anywhere.”

He flips you to where you’re face down, ass up. Your vagina is dripping, juices sliding down your thigh. He licks his lips before biting his lower one, admiring the roundness of your ass and your now puffy and pink pussy. 

“Oh, love. You got no idea what you do to me…”

You feel something cold and hard tap the entrance of your walls, and you freeze. Oh god, was he going to fuck you? His hands are on the sides of your ass, but you feel another set of cold hands grabbing your arms, and even another pulling at your tits. You whimper at the overstimulation.

“Enjoy the hands. They’re all me.”

Before you can reply, he’s sliding his dick through your entrance. Your pussy quivers at the sensation and he laughs. “Did you just come from that, love?”

Once you take all of him, he leans forward to whisper in your ear. “I want to hear you moan, sweetheart. Go on, make some noise for me.”

As he’s taking you from behind, a hand shoves its fingers into your mouth, and you gag on it. The sets of hands on your breasts are now fondling them, pinching and squeezing. You’ve never felt so much at once before, and you eventually yield to the pleasure, moaning as he thrusts into you.

“That’s it, baby. Take it. Take it all. You’re fucking mine,” He snarls, and you whine at how hard he’s pounding into you, ferocity now evident in his demeanor. 

You slurp and suck on the fingers, only for it to pop out of your mouth and slide into your ass instead. You cry out at the sensation. A hand is sliding circles around your clit as he fucks you, sending waves of pleasure over your body you’ve never known before. 

“Too much!” You cry, sobbing with pleasure.

He gives you a kiss on the neck. “Almost done, love. Just keep taking it, okay? You’re doing so good for me. God, you’re fucking perfect.” His thrusts became sporadic, and you know he’s close. 

In the end, you come once more, and you feel he does too. When he pulls out, you collapse on the bed, blacking out. Morning eventually comes, and you feel someone is holding you from behind. A set of hands grope your body as you wake up. 

“Morning, love. Ready for round two?”

[calmcoldevening]

Little morning with slashers

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆ﾟ｡⋆

Tw: no

Characters: Jedidiah Sawyer, Mark Hoffman, Brahms Heelshire, Eric Draven, Jason Voorhees

➤ Jedidiah Sawyer

• As usual, the morning in Texas was quite cool earlier. You've been sleeping surprisingly well lately, so you've been waking up early with a good night's sleep and very rested. The sun was lazily rising from the horizon, coloring the blackness of the sky with golden and orange colors, as if a couple of drops of lingonberry blood had been dropped into the dark water.

• You lazily opened your eyes, squinting at the light coming into the room through the thin curtains. The sheets were cool but damp from the hot Texas night.

• Stretching slightly, you try to get out of bed, but a strong pair of hands stops you, pulling you back to the man's chest. Jedidiah lets out a growl of displeasure, and you giggle softly. Turning to face him, you gently touch the leather straps on his cheeks with your fingers. He forgot to take them off again before going to bed. You gently run your nails over rough skin, the scars under the mask have almost healed, leaving behind uneven pink scars.

• "Good morning, honey," you whisper, briefly kissing him on the forehead. In response, he mutters something softly, pulling you closer to him. His dark hair had grown noticeably longer and was damp from sleeping. You gently brush his bangs out of his eyes, causing a slight smile to form on his lips.

• He was always particularly sloppy in the morning. His hair is disheveled and his eyes are sleepy with small shadows under his eyes. He's wearing a loose white shirt that smells of his body and your own hands. His arms wrapped around your waist like a protective ring, Jed won't let you walk away from him so easily this morning. He likes to just lie with you in the bedroom while the others are sleeping.

• You were the only one, apart from his mom, who really accepted him and saw through those terrible scars. You didn't care about his face, he was still damn handsome to you, and the guy was grateful for that. Jedidiah was so glad that you stayed by his side, became his love of his life and his wife. And he appreciated every second he spent with you.

• Finally, after a long ten minutes, you feel slightly thirsty, after all, you haven't drunk since last night. "Come on, honey, get up. I still have to make breakfast, remember?" You speak with a slight smile and Jed purrs in displeasure, but loosens his grip. You kiss his lips briefly and get out of bed, ready to start a new day. Your husband will stay in bed for a while longer until he feels the pleasant aroma of your breakfast from the kitchen.

➤ Mark Hoffman

• Mark always woke up much earlier than you. Insomnia and stressful detective work made themselves felt. He woke up around four in the morning, his hair and nightgown wet with sweat, his head buzzing after another nightmare. The man held his head with his hands, trying to bring his breathing back to normal.

• After a short introspection, the man turns his head to the side, noticing your peacefully sleeping figure. You've always been so beautiful, even in your dreams. All thoughts of the nightmare disappeared as soon as Mark's gaze lingered on your face. He gently pulls his hand towards your face, gently and gently stroking your smooth skin with his thumbs. He's so happy to have you by his side.

• After a couple of minutes, the man finally gets out of bed, heading to the bathroom and taking off his wet clothes. He takes a quick shower, trying to sober his thoughts with cold water. After that, he makes himself a black coffee. His weekday mornings are insanely simple and gray, but on weekends it's a little different because he can spend time with you in bed until you wake up.

• Mark drinks coffee and looks through some of the Jigsaw case, sometimes instead he finalizes another drawing of a new trap for John Kramer.

• When the time moves to seven in the morning, he already leaves the house, before briefly kissing you on the forehead. You won't remember it, but a sleepy, satisfied smile appears on your face. This, surprisingly, gives Mark a pleasant feeling in his chest.

• When you wake up, he won't be home anymore. You get out of bed and wander into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Mark's breakfast is already on the kitchen table with a note next to it. "I hope you eat this. I know about your problems with food, so I hope you at least have breakfast, little lady." You smile slightly, admiring the note. The omelet he made has a sloppy ketchup heart on it.

➤ Brahms Heelshire

• A morning with Brahms is always a real lottery, you never know what mood he will be in today.

• If Brahms wants to be an adult, he will certainly get up before you. Of course, you cook for him most of the time, but he does not lack the skill to cook something simple. The man will make simple ham and cheese sandwiches and tea/coffee. Having prepared everything necessary, Brahms will return to the bedroom with breakfast ready in bed for you. You're sleeping peacefully, making soft noises. He will wake you up with a gentle kiss on your forehead, and he will put stray strands of hair behind your ear. "Good morning, Princess. I brought you breakfast."

• If Brahms decides to be little, he will be clingy and moody.

• Usually the baby wakes up before you as well. He'll frown, pick up his mask from the bedside table, and just stare at you. Brahms will just lie next to you for a couple of minutes, not knowing where to put himself. At such moments, he always naively thought that when he wakes up, you should already wake up. A man will climb on top of you, putting his chin on your chest.

"Y/N, I'm hungry!"

• He will bother you for a couple of long minutes in a row until you wake up. When you finally sleepily open your eyes, he'll be giggling with his nose in your neck.

"Good morning! I missed you," he purred with happy smile, squeezing you in his arms.

• Mornings with little Brahms are never quiet.

➤ Eric Draven

• Eric usually wakes up before you, he has a fairly light sleep. The guy smiles slightly when cool gusts of wind touch his body, penetrating into the room through the open window, and his feet stand on a warm tree.

• You get up almost behind the guy. Your eyes open sleepily when you don't feel the warmth of your lover on the bed next to you, the sheets under your palms are already cool enough.

• The air is filled with the aromas of flowering plants and young forest. Probably, the decision to move from that small town to a house near the city was the best one in your whole life. You moved in not so long ago, about two months ago, but you have already turned this place into your own cozy nest.

• You get out of bed and stumble awkwardly into the kitchen. Eric was here. His broad back immediately appears in front of your eyes, covered with scars in some places. His favorite big white shirt was on you right now. Eric turns to face you, giving you a warm smile, two mugs of coffee in his hands.

• Previously, a summer morning was always a good time to stay outside. And now the two of you are sitting on the porch. Eric put his arm around you, draping a thin plaid over your shoulders. You were sitting peacefully with each other, drinking hot coffee and looking into the darkness of the forest. Your boyfriend's presence has always been so comforting. Eric looks down at you and kisses you on the forehead, leaving a small wet mark on your skin.

"Good morning, my rose."

➤ Jason Voorhees

• You woke up because you were cold. It's damn cold. You slowly opened your sleepy eyes and sat up in bed, wrapping yourself more tightly in the blanket. The seat next to you was empty. No, of course, you knew that your boyfriend was special and he didn't need to sleep, but he was usually here with you until the morning, warming you with his big body.

• Your first thought was that maybe there were intruders in the camp again. But in such a cold season, hardly anyone would dare to enter the forest 'with ghosts'. So you decided to just wait, hoping for his return soon.

• Jason returned after a long half hour. He entered the room, throwing a large number of branches in front of the fireplace, and looked at you in surprise. He hoped you were still asleep. Jason's gaze slides anxiously over your trembling body. He frowns when he notices how you're shaking from the cold and your blue lips.

• Jason quickly lights a fireplace in the room, throwing in a large number of branches and comes to your bed. He takes you in his arms with care and tenderness, putting you on his lap, and squeezes you in his arms, hoping to warm you. Seeing you like this, Jason was consumed with guilt from the inside, he was so sorry that he left you. The man just didn't expect you to wake up so quickly, he wanted to quickly go get firewood for the extinguished fireplace.

• But you were better now. The room gradually became warm because of the burning fireplace, and the pleasant warmth of Jason's chest gave you peace and comfort. You curled up on his chest like a kitten while he gently stroked your head with his big hand. You felt so good in his arms.

[moonsaver]

Hi! It’s @pix3lplays! (On anon because I have another account and I can’t switch which account I’m asking from haha)

I wanted to say thanks for being so nice when I responded to your comment on one of my posts~I really appreciated what you said hehe, definitely made me feel bit more confident and inspired me to keep writing :)

So I thought I’d throw an ask out since requests are open~

If you’re not interested no problem but I’ve thought about it a little and I thought maybe you’d have some thoughts.

Yandere!Sunday when his darling somehow gets seriously hurt, how do you think he’d feel, what would he do?

Personally I think he’s a complete control freak already when it comes to reader, so it just gets WORSE…ANYWAYS I wanna hear YOUR thoughts if you’re interested in the prompt hehe~ also if you’ve already talked about this oops I must’ve missed it, sorry in advance-

But yeah thanks so much, it was really cool to talk to you, take care of yourself, please!!

Hello Pixel! Thank you for sending in this ask, you're very sweet haha <3 i like your writing and im glad i helped you become more confident in it. Also,same issue here, i cant send asks from this account specifically, so i use anon or just use my personal blog to send asks.

Anyways, onto the request,

Ooh, my Yan!Sunday brain is ticking.. he really is an absolute control freak, and is a bit of a mess when he sees you seriously injured. A miscalculation, ignorance, negligence, or perhaps just.. an oversight from his part? Whatever the reason is, he's in high-drive now, and absolutely stressed about it. He only has a worried and distant look on his face, and at this stage he's prone to easily snapping at anyone, but his mind would be on a completely different level of stress. How dare they? How dare anyone lay a filthy inch of a finger on you? To stain you with their sins, and to breach your skin in such a grotesque manner.. he's absolutely enraged.

He insists on tending to you himself personally, unless it's so serious paramedics have to be involved. Stays by your side until he cant, sitting on the egde of the bed, body turned halfway to face you, fingers ghosting the edge of your face with tenderness.

However, this tenderness is only limited to your recovery period.

After you wake up or recover a bit, practically any freedom you would have had is gone. Completely.

Scolds you, borderline yells at you, holds you still with a deathly tight grip on your arms, forcing you to look into his eyes. This happened because you left. This happened because you were out of his watch. This all happened because of your freedom. Don't you dare even bother mentioning going out anywhere. You will be surveillanced almost all the time. He spends a suffocating amount of time next to you, harshly spitting back whenever you try to protest or reason with him. His words aren't gentle at all, and you're getting on his nerves. Perhaps he should just look over you himself, force you into a borderline coma in the dream fluid, and deal swiftly with the perpetrators.

Robin catches wind of this at some point.. she tells you that he's just worried, and there's a lot of people that don't quite hold The Family in high regards. Just.. its okay. Let him do this.

Let him pick out your clothes, brush your hair, check your healing wounds, gently ebb the water over them as you bathe, and kiss the skin of your shoulder when both of you stay silent after another argument.

If you still continue arguing.. he doesn't have a choice. He slumps a bit, a hand coming up to massage his temple as he sighs, and tells you in a softer voice that he's terrified. The worst thing that could happen did happen. He almost lost you. Can't you just go with it and let him be assured? You're dragging it out much more than it needs to be. He's spent many sleepless nights, ideas of dreamscapes turning into nightmares as the image of your hurt face flashes in his mind. Just cooperate, for Aeons' sake.

And no one speaks after that. He emotionally blackmails and manipulates you as a sort of final resort. Surely, you'd understand. It's not like it's far from the truth anyway. He is scared. But more than that, he's enraged this happened in the first place.

Adding on more to it,

Once things calm down.. in a twisted sort of way, he realizes just how perfectly he can get you under his complete control from these events. He may even not so subtly orchestrate similar events to scare you, to keep you in check, forcing you to rely on him completely, as he swoops in at the right time, acting as some kind of a "savior". Its a sick mindset, and he's not ashamed of it. Oh dear, you were just so pleasantly compliant after that event. And it just solidifies his statement that you shouldn't be going outside anymore, or be constantly accompanied by the Bloodhound Family guards, after only a few incidents of various threat levels.

In the end, it's a cycle that repeats up until you finally give in and let him take any and all freedom you have. He sets down your hairbrush with a gentle 'clack', kisses the crown of your head, and tells you it's alright. He will take such good care of you. Just listen to him. Listen to his every word. He has your best intentions in mind. Don't think about anything, anyone. You're a smart girl, surely you understand?

[pizzaboat]

Might as well make a list of fun (sad/horrific) things to explore. Headcanons for the motivation I have to write with. Like a reminder list.

TW I suppose

Eda has C-PTSD from all the shit that's happened to her, and maybe BPD too

She still struggles with depression after the show. Her life just doesn't suck half as bad anymore

Massive SI pre-ending that got worse in the time skip

All she has is nightmares, she doesn't dream (that's basically canon)

She's always tired and fluctuates between insomnia and extreme exhaustion that makes it hard to keep her eyes open.

She has had so many panic attacks. Eda is pretty prone to them. She's actually quite an anxious person

What Gwen did for all those years was abuse. Like, emotionally that would fuck anyone up. Same with Lilith

Eda forgives easily in perspective to the crime done to her because she's terrified of being alone. She doesn't see anyone putting in the work to actually make things right with her and stay with her because she's so "difficult to love" so she leaves the door open to her heart constantly

Having detachable limbs has saved her from her mother's "cures" more than once

She's had so many horrible exs, and she chose to date some of them to feel something other than alone and numb. Eda thought she really deserved it with some of them

Eda has spent so long not crying or getting angry when she really wants to, so when she can cry or be angry, it surprises her

She's touch starved and gets separation anxiety from her family now

Eda doesn't feel pain the same anymore. Her threshold is so high that she could break a rib or have internal bleeding and not notice. Really not notice. That's not a curse thing, that's her body adapting to agony for decades

She flinches at loud noises behind her. She flinches during arguments with people. She's on the offence so she doesn't have to be on the defence and Raine points that last bit out to her because they're determined to show her she's safe with them

Eda will start crying over something and not be able to stop. She's super emotionally disregulated

Eda can't sleep for the longest time after the events of the show without being held. Doesn't matter who. She has to hold or be held and not be alone.

Raine spends a lot of nights spooning and doing protective cuddles because Eda falls asleep the fastest that way, and they're worried about her sleeping

Making money was hard at multiple points in her life, even with the door, so she was used to skipping meals to let King, and then Luz, eat and she doesn't see anything wrong with skipping multiple meals in a row. Raine, Lilith, everyone is so concerned, and Raine has to insist that she's maybe making the curse worse this way from the stress of starvation

Raine gently pulls Eda aside to talk about what she tried to do in the woods that day and they check to see if she still feels the same and Eda starts crying. Not because she is, but because she's overwhelmed

Eda always feels overwhelmed

[lassieposting]

S&B Characters + Sleep Headcanons

Aleksander Kirigan doesn't get a lot of sleep. He claims it's because he's an incredibly busy man, and that's often true - long hours are basically part of his job description - but in truth it's just as likely to be any of a dozen other things keeping him from his bed; nightmares, occasional merzost headaches, intrusive thoughts, the ghosts of fuck-ups past, the relentless stress and worry of trying to keep Ravka's borders secure with dwindling funds and forces. Over the centuries he's learned to bury himself in his work to avoid his demons, and he's become one of those people who's perfectly functional on four hours of sleep, considers six a lie-in, and will sporadically go days at a time without sleeping when he's not doing well.

For most of his life, he's been immensely wary of falling asleep beside a lover - there are few worse ways to discover your bed partner was just out to kill you for bone jewelry than waking up mid-assassination attempt. If he's keen enough on them to not have them leave after a casual encounter - say, Zoya - he'll usually stay with them until they fall asleep, and then get up and go quietly do some work or read until morning. He's willing to adapt, though, for the right person - Nikolai and Alina can both settle him enough to stay with them all night. The trick, as it turns out, is playing on his touch starvation; on the rare occasion he finds someone he can actually trust, he likes to be held, and affectionate little gestures like playing with his hair or scritching his stubble or massaging his shoulders will melt him and flick his OFF button real fast. He's surprisingly cuddly, though he'll swear blind that he just gets cold easily and Alina and Nikolai both run hot.

Nikolai Lantsov is very tactile and affectionate in general, so when he's sharing someone's bed, he likes to cuddle. Like most soldiers - and kings who have survived more assassins than anyone should ever have to - he's a light sleeper, but he also drops off easily, the legacy of learning to get his head down wherever and whenever he can in an active warzone. He likes to sprawl out over or wrap himself around his lovers, and he does a lot of idly playing with hair or repetitive stroking up and down random stretches of skin, almost like he's self-soothing by comforting someone else.

He's been known to react to things happening around him while still asleep - pulling Alina in against his chest if he feels her shiver, or rolling over to throw an arm over Aleksander and mumble easy, Sasha if he's having a bad dream. He has nightmares of his own - he spent his military service on the front lines, not safe in an officer's tent like Vasily - and he tends to burrow into the closest warm body for comfort, burying his face in Alina's chest or Sasha's shoulder to ground himself. Aleksander will almost always wake up for this and react, reassuring and resettling Niko. Alina, not so much.

Alina Starkov sleeps like the dead. Once she is out, she is Out, and she'll sleep through pretty much anything short of a bomb being dropped on the palace. For quite a while this actually frightens her - she worries she won't wake up in time if she's attacked - but Niko is a light sleeper and Aleksander startles awake if a butterfly sneezes in Novyi Zem, so once they're all sharing a bed she's perfectly safe to conk out like a light. She's always had very vivid dreams, but she doesn't remember them for long after she wakes, so she keeps a sketchpad by the bed so she can draw any ideas or lingering impressions she wants to hang onto after she wakes - a concept for a machine Nikolai might want to build, a kefta design Aleksander would look devastatingly good in, old memories from the war she needs to exorcise, random nonsense that makes no sense outside of the context of her dream. She's usually the last to wake - Aleksander and Nikolai are both military and ridiculously busy besides, so they're often up with the Saints-forsaken sun, but Alina loves a lie-in, and would much rather stay up late than wake early.

Mal Oretsev is used to taking turns on watch with other soldiers, so he tends to sleep in short bursts of a few hours at a time. This poses a challenge once he takes over the Volkvolny - he has a lot of extra time to sleep now that he didn't have before. He spends a lot of it painstakingly working his way through the collection of books in Sturmhond's - his - stateroom. If he's to play the role, he should probably have the knowledge, and he'd rather be able to pull his weight without getting in the crew's way. He enjoys the engineering manuals and seafaring tomes, but mostly uses the ones on statecraft to make himself doze off when his brain doesn't want to shut down and be quiet.

Genya Safin is a paranoid sleeper. Her bed is positioned and angled so she can watch the thin strip of light visible beneath her closed door, waiting for the old king's loathsome shadow to block out the glow from the other side. Long after his death, she'll wake and go rigid at the sound of footsteps in the hall. It takes her a while to actually let David into her bed, but when she does, she realises she finds him comforting, actually - he's so logical and steady that he can talk her down from even the worst of her dreams. He doesn't mind getting up to prove to her that her door is locked, or reassuring her nightly that the old king really is dead.

David Kostyk is That Guy. He talks in his sleep - quadratic equations and theories of immutability and assorted Fabrikator shop-talk. He gets up and wanders around sometimes - usually to and from his desk, but occasionally down the hall. At least once he's gotten up, put on a housecoat, double-checked the lock on the door for Genya, comforted her after a nightmare, and gone back to bed himself, having never really woken up in the first place. This is a known habit at the Little Palace, and has caused plenty of entertainment and consternation - he's "caught" Nikolai sneaking out of the Black General's chambers back when he was still the spare tsarevich, he's wandered into the war room at four-thirty in the morning to explain a prototype to General Kirigan, he's been found ambling about the kitchens barefoot. Everyone who tends to stay up late - Kirigan included - has kindly escorted David back to his own rooms at least once. His saving grace is that he's really quite particular about his pyjamas - they're Durast-made to feel heavy, like a weighted blanket, and he finds it difficult to drop off without the grounding sensation - so at least he's never gone sleepwalking in his birthday suit. He wanders a little less once he starts spending his nights with Genya - if she's resting her head on his shoulder, or has an arm draped over his chest, he seems to be reluctant to move her.

Ivan Kaminsky has night terrors, the kind that wake him screaming and thrashing and completely disoriented, trapped in his own blankets - the legacy of the front lines at the Fjerdan border over a century ago. As a younger man, fresh off the front lines with nothing to his name but a medical discharge from active duty, he'd often find himself seeking out General Kirigan, stumbling into his tent or the Little Palace war room pale and shivering and still in his sleep clothes, all terribly undignified. Kirigan never seemed to mind, really. It was an understanding of sorts, between old soldiers familiar with the lingering spectre of war. He'd give Ivan a cursory once-over - "Evening, Kaminsky." - pour him a drink, and push a stack of papers across the table to give him something to do. He misses it, sometimes, the long nights spent working in companionable quiet. But now the General spends his nights with the sun summoner and the puppy king who's been making eyes at him since he was a skinny princeling, and Ivan spends his with his Fedyor, who has a truly remarkable amount of patience for being woken up at all hours by all the flailing and yelling. Ivan still hates talking about his night terrors - Fedyor is too young to have ever fought in the campaigns that got Ivan his discharge papers, and Ivan is reluctant to place extra horrors on his shoulders - but Fedya would listen, if Ivan needed him to, and in the meantime, he'll regulate Ivan's heart rate and breathing for him, deactivate the fear centre of his brain and flood him with signals telling his brain he's close to sleep, until he really is.

Inej Ghafa likes to sleep in Kaz's office. Back when he first bought out her indenture and took her from the Menagerie, that was where she felt safest. Only one door, locked firmly behind him whenever he ventured down to the rowdy Club below, where the raised voices of drunken men made her feel sick with terror. Two windows, left open at her fearful request - exits, if she needed them. A comfortable leather couch. The scratch-scratch-scratch of Kaz's quill on paper. Jesper used to try to reassure her - no harm will come to you at the Crow Club, you're Kaz's - and a small, wounded part of her took that to heart. If her connection to Kaz Brekker kept her safe, this man who showed more interest in her blades than her body, then she would rest where he could see her, where that protection would be a physical, tangible thing. And he let her. Never complained, though she knows now what he's like about his privacy. Just let her curl up on his Chesterfield. Draped a blanket over her when it was cold.

She's not that terrified girl anymore. She has her own lodgings, with her own possessions, though she still has a nighttime ritual for safety - one final sweep of the building, checking her escape routes, jamming a chair beneath her door handle. But she's quite capable of protecting herself now. All the same, when she is injured or sick or has been summoned back to the Menagerie on business, she'll still climb through his window, breathe out a sigh of relief at the inevitable, unsurprised, "Hello, Inej," and make herself comfortable on the couch for the night.

Wylan Hendriks sleeps curled into a ball. He's spent his share of time on the streets of Ketterdam and that's how he's learned to do it - hugging his meagre bagful of possessions, threadbare blanket wrapped around him and it. In Jesper's room at the Crow Club, he likes to burrow under the blankets; he'll rest his head on Jesper's belly to sleep rather than his shoulder, so even his hair is covered. It muffles the sound drifting up from the club floor or the street outside in the evenings - the shouting, the drunken arguments and bitter insults tossed around like knives, anything that might remind him of - anyway. He tends to turn in fairly early compared to the other Crows - while he loves the music of the city's bars and even enjoys the camaraderie of watching Jesper gamble, closing time in most of Ketterdam peaks at around midnight, and that's about when all the socialising starts to get a bit much for him. The Barrel stays open late, and Kaz doesn't kick out his patrons until the early hours of the morning, so most of the Crows have become night owls by necessity. Wylan uses the hours between making his exit and Jesper finally coming to bed to decompress - compose, play his flute, experiment with chemicals, look at the books Jesper got him, the ones with all the pictures to tell him the fairytales. After a few incidents where Jesper bursting in drunk and noisy left Wylan...a little out of sorts...he's learned to knock, the same pattern every time, before he lets himself in, and it's always easier to uncurl a little and relax with Jesper holding him.

[honeybeezgobzzzzz]

𓅨 Your Fate is Sealed With Mine: Chapter One

Your Fate is Sealed With Mine: Y/N Burgess is the granddaughter of Alex and Paul, and after having spent so many summers at their manor and always wondering why she was forbidden from entering the basement, she descends the steps into the world of the Order. She broke out the being that had been trapped in that glass cage, but what does he want with her now that he is free?

Warnings: Language, Mind Fuckery (Possessive Boi Morpheus), Mental Health Discussion, Medication Discussion.

To Note: Morpheus/Dream x Female!GranddaughterReader, based on Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’.

Word Count: ~2.4k

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You remember the summers you spent at your grandfathers’ manor quite well. The large stone building and sprawling grounds were massive, with plenty of space for you to roam, and roam you had. As a child, your imagination ran rampant and your dreams even more so. You had so much freedom your parents would have been mortified, well, you could go where you pleased save for one location: the basement. Naturally, you were curious about what was down there. But grandpapa Alex told you that a monster was locked away and he didn’t want you to get hurt going down there. 

It made sense with all of the guards coming and going in shifts, so you had left it alone and never spoke of it again. But then the dreams started coming, they were of a place that seemed to be rotting away to black and gray. Splendor to ruin. A kingdom crumbling without its ruler. Those dreams had made you afraid as a child. In fact, it had gotten so bad that your parents had to come and retrieve you because you were so terrified of sleeping for fear of dreaming about that decaying and dismal place. You had stopped visiting the manor at ten, terrified of what was in that basement and what came to your dreams at night. It had taken hundreds of sessions with a therapist and medication to rid your child mind of those dreams.  

Now an adult, you were less inclined to take the medication. You were an adult and you knew that dreams were exactly that, dreams. Why did you need to fear them when upon waking up they would no longer be real? So you stopped taking them and moved on from that chapter of your life. If only things were that simple. 

“Come on, Y/N, it’s Friday, we’re at the club, we look hot, relax a little will you?” Jemima protested from where she sat across from you, drink in hand. The Friday after work you had been dragged out by Jemima, your childhood best friend, and coworker, to the club to let loose from a stressful work week. “You aren’t still thinking about your ex, are you?” 

“Mmh?” You sounded, your eyebrow lifting as you rested your chin in your palm. “Oh, no, totally over that twat. I’m glad he’s gone if I’ll be honest. He was a lazy sod I was glad to kick to the corner. Kind of embarrassed that I dated him in the first place actually.”

“Then what’s on your mind babe? You’ve been spacing out a lot lately.” Jemima returned, setting down her drink. “You aren’t acting like yourself.”

“Nothing, really, I’ve just been thinking a lot about my childhood lately… don’t exactly know why.” You said with a shrug. “I keep feeling like I should visit my grandfathers', I haven’t been since I was ten.”

“So… why don’t you?” You hadn’t thought about that. Deep down inside you was that yearning to visit, a strong urge to go into that basement and find out what had terrified you so much as a child. But your conditioning was so strong you had been unconsciously resisting the idea even as an adult. 

“Honestly I have no idea, my parents told me that I was to never go back, nightmares and all. I’ve kind of just accepted that I should just stay away. Plus, you know I’m busy with work.” 

“But you loved Fawny Rig! You raved about it when we were children. Are you really going to let your parents tell you what to do now that you’re an adult? Babe, you're a grown-ass woman. Live a little, I’m sure Paul and Alex would love to see you.” You tilted your head to the side, honestly thinking about her words. Yes, you were an adult, and no, your parents couldn’t control what you did anymore. Besides, what they didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them.

“Alright, I’ll pen it in when I get to work on Monday.” You told her, your mindset and that gut feeling, finally appeased. Jemima beamed at you and picked her glass up. 

“Excellent, now that we’ve gotten that business out of the way, can we finally let loose and have a little fun, you look like you need a proper fuck.” You snorted and rolled your eyes. 

“I didn’t come here to have a one-night stand, Jem,” She shrugged at you before pointing to the bar. It was only half filled with men and women, but in half an hour it would be packed with patrons wanting their beer and chips.

“No, but you did come to have fun, at the very least go kiss someone. You need a good snog, Y/N.” You had to resist rolling your eyes a second as you slipped from where you sat and headed for the bar. It was time to get a drink in hand, preferably your favorite, and forget about all your troubles and stress. 

Alcohol ran through your veins like blood as you laughed at what Sam, the man who had managed to charm you enough to hold your attention, had said.

“So I told him if he didn’t want to botch up the job he should have just told me. Pretty sure the lad isn’t just a prick, but a fucking cactus.” Your laugh dissolved into giggles while you gripped your stomach. 

“My God, how in the bloody hell have you put up with him this long? He sounds worse than my ex and he was a piece of work.” Sam’s eyebrow went up and curiosity filled his soft brown eyes. 

“Oh?” You took another sip of your current drink and shook your head at the ridiculous your relationship had been. 

“Believe me, I’m wondering why I stayed with him for so long, he’s the type where if you listen to him long enough, you start to wonder who ties his shoelaces for him. Absolutely useless. Wanker can’t even boil water for tea.“

“That's why you’re here tonight drowning your drinks like they’re water?” 

“I’m not the type to cry over a twat like him, my mother taught me better than that.” You responded before lazily shifting your gaze to where Jem was dancing with her chosen man of the night. “Jem, my best friend who came with me tonight, brought me to unload after a stressful week at work.” 

You both looked at her for a few moments. She was obviously enjoying her time and not worried or stressed at all. Envy nipped at your heart, you wished you could be as carefree as Jemima was. She hardly seemed to have any troubles in life, and if she did she just breezed past them like they never happened. 

“I’m a little envious of how she can just let all of her stress go.” You sighed. “My life would be so much easier if I could do that.” 

“You make it sound like you are a bore, Y/N.” 

“Am I not?” You returned with a raised eyebrow. Sam tilted his head to the side and studied you, his eyes not really revealing what he was thinking. 

“No, I don’t think so. Care for a dance love? You look like you could use more stress relieving.” Releasing your drink, you grabbed the front of his shirt and slipped from the bar stool you had occupied for the last hour. 

“Come on, Brown Eyes, let the de-stressing commence.” Sam laughed as you dragged him to the dance floor and twirled in a circle. He took your hand and pulled your body against his as your body swayed to the beat of the latest song. You weren’t familiar with the song but the beat was nice and easy to dance to, so you let yourself get lost in the music and the light scent of Sam’s cologne. 

The alcohol you had drunk surely helped with the nagging feeling deep in your gut and Sam provided a wonderful distraction you were all happy to indulge in. As the songs progressed your hands migrated upwards to wrap around his neck and you leaned your head against his chest. Song after song, the lights in the club twisted together in a kaleidoscope of colors. Sam was a temptation and you wanted to kiss that temptation until it was all you could think about. Sam finally dipped and you stretched. 

Your lips connected and alcohol mixed with beer. Odd combination but you didn’t care, Sam’s lips were pleasant and delicate against yours. It was a feeling and experience you missed, but it didn’t entirely sate that need for comfort and intimacy. Beggars couldn’t be choosers and you were content to take what you could from what Sam was offering. So you did.

You sunk your fingers into his hair, wrapping them around his strands and tugging on them while his lips worked themselves across your own and drew out little delights. Sam’s hand slipped across your lower back and pulled you closer to him. He tugged at your lower lip and parted your slightly tingling lips, you let him sweep into your mouth with the same delicate precision he had when simply kissing you. 

Your body trembled in delight, glad to have some form of genuine affection that didn’t come from a place of deception and disinterest. Sam then brushed a hand up your side, staying respectable as he reached your cheek and stroked your jaw with his thumb. You couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh against his lips, pulling back slightly to look into his eyes. 

“I don’t normally kiss strangers I meet at the club, Sam.” You told him, your eyes twinkling with mischief and your lips begging to return to his. Deviousness sparkled in his brown ones as his lovely lips curved into a partial smile. 

“Didn’t stop you from kissing back.” He returned with hesitation, still holding you against his chest delicately. You dropped your eyes down to the hand you had resting over his heart and drummed your fingertips against his shirt. 

“Consider me charmed,” You mused with a soft smile. “But I hardly think snogging in the middle of the dance floor is appropriate.” 

Sam’s eyebrow went up and his eyes didn’t stray from yours. 

“That’s not stopping everyone else from doing so, fairly sure they’ve forgotten where they are…” His comment was filled with humor and you couldn’t help but huff out a laugh. 

“I’m not that open with my affections, you can fix that if you want.” Sam was tugging you through the crowd by your hand in seconds as you giggled. You passed Jemima and her man of choice and cackling, her hand darted out and landed straight on your arse. You snorted in laughter, jumping forwards at the sting while glancing over your shoulder at Jemima. She had a massive grin on her face and was cackling her head off. You shot her a dirty look before disappearing into the edge of the crowd, breaking free of the dancing people. 

Now free of the overheated bodies, you and Sam stumbled around each other, heading in the direction of a much quieter corner of the club. Back hitting a wall, Sam’s lips found yours once more. The entire time you kissed he never once was pushy or overbearing, no, he stayed gentle and delicate. You could appreciate that because you never once felt like you were being smothered by his desires. Your fingers scratched at his shirt and dug into his hair, tugging and pulling at what you could grasp. Lost in the feeling of being wanted once more, you barely noticed that Sam’s kisses had turned deeper, more demanding, and less delicate. You weren’t being smothered but you could definitely tell that Sam was now kissing you in slight desperation. Like he too was grasping for what little affection he could get.

The grasp on your jaw tightened, pulling your lips closer to his and you were all too happy to respond. Your fingers pushed through silky hair and your nails scraped against his scalp. Lips ravished yours with desperation, migrating to your jaw, and you found yourself floating away in a reverie of daze and delight. Letting out a small moan, your back arched and your chest pressed again his. Soft hair brushed against your cheek as lips migrated to your neck. His lips were now exploring the skin of your neck, softly and yet with barely restrained want. He was holding back and you could feel it. Your eyelids fluttered open, and staring up at the hazy lights overhead, it took you a few moments to make sense of what you were seeing.

The room was dark, its occasional flashing lights gone. There was a dampness in the air you could now feel, there was even a smell of must… but your surroundings weren’t what brought a shiver up your spine. It was the silky black hair you had in your grasp. A beautiful raven black longer than the strands you had previously been grasping and tugging. Not the shorter chocolate brown hair Sam had. Your heart leaped in your chest, taking off at an almost painfully fast pace. You weren’t kissing Sam anymore, but something else entirely. With shaky breathing, your eyes slowly moved downwards to the man now gently nipping at the underside of your jaw. Your eyes met intense silver-blue ones, and the moment you realized what was going on, you jerked back against the wall. 

The world around you distorted and returned to the club, pulsating lights and music and all, and with a frown, Sam looked at you in concern. He touched your cheek, his thumb lightly running across your cheekbone. 

“Y/N, you okay love?” You blinked rapidly, reaching up to run your fingers over your neck, still feeling those kisses against your skin like haunting echoes. Like they had been real. “You spaced out for a moment…” 

Letting out a heavy breath and feeling your heart rate slowly ebbing to a normal pace, you slumped back against the wall. 

“Sorry, my mind got distracted.” You replied breathlessly, shaken to the core but trying to hold a calm and collected demeanor. You nervously chucked. “I don’t think the alcohol is helping either.” 

“Better get some water in you then, love,” Sam replied, returning the chuckle as he guided you back to the bar. He was the perfect gentleman, helping you up into a seat and ordering you water. While he talked with the bartender, you watched him, a growing new pit of dread forming in your stomach and one thought on your mind: he was back, and you had a feeling that this time, you weren’t going to be able to get rid of him with medication.

Date Published: 8/15/22

Last Edit: 4/25/23

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[theduskyprincess]

Cooking with love - A Cassian X reader story

You heard the door open but didn't look away from the pile of papers scattered on the dining room table. You had recently come back from visiting your family in the Summer Court when Rhysand requested your presence at his townhouse. He needed a house to be built. A gift for Feyre. A home that would house his mate and his newborn son Nyx. Hopefully, become a home to any other children they may decide to have together. Those words went unspoken but the both of us heard it loud and clear. That was why you were hunched over the dining table that was pushed up against the window, trying to make Rhysand's dreams into reality.

"An architects dream is an engineers nightmare," you muttered under your breath. "Cauldron Rhysand" you continued, "this is structurally impossible to accomplish. Thank the cauldron you came to your Head Engineer to build you your house. Maybe I can knock some sense into you with a brick whilst I'm at it". You shook your head and let out an exasperated breath.

You heard a deep, rasping chuckle just behind your ear. The sound made your skin prickle and tingle with warmth, but didn't quite curb the irritation you felt towards your High Lord.

"What's Rhysand done now?", Cassian laughed in your ear as he banded his arms around you to hold you against his warm body. His chest pressed up against your back whilst his chin gently rested on the top of your head. He tucked his head in, the tip of his nose grazing your hair to drop a single kiss to your head. He took a deep breath in, your floral scent calming his soul and turned his head to the left to lay his cheek on top of your head.

You hummed and enjoyed the feeling of his secure arms. He was feared and revered by the people of the Night Court. Earning his title of the Lord of Bloodshed whilst he fought battles as a young Illyrian warrior alongside his two brothers. He had become hardened, both mentally and physically, from a young age to withstand all kinds of evil this world harboured. Yet, this fearsome and frightening warrior had a warmth inside him that drew you in. A steady ember that glowed brighter than his Siphons. A glow that was powered by friendship, loyalty and love. You had never believed that glow inside his chest would consume and encompass your heart too, for you loved him with all your soul. You weren't his mate, but, you fell in love with him anyways. He had fallen in love with you too. A friendship that grew into a mature love, rooted in mutual respect.

You pursed your lips. "He's got some pretty solid ideas which in theory should work but," you trailed off with a deep sigh, "it just needs a little bit more thinking from me. I can't seem to figure out how to execute this so that the staircase can actually hold the weight of his big head," you finished your sentence with agitation.

"Well, if there's anyone who can help Rhysand not fall flat on his face in his own home then it's my beautiful, accomplished wife." Cassian stated with determination. You tilted your head back to peer up at him through your lashes. Your eyes, squinted with suspicion, locked onto his honey coloured orbs, "Mhmm and it exactly why are you buttering me up, oh Lord of Bloodshed?"

"No reason", he uttered, "I just love you and know for a fact that you've likely spent your entire day trying to perfect this house for Rhysand and Feyre. I'm also 99.9% sure that you haven't eaten anything today." He was right. You hadn't eaten. Too stressed in trying to design a home for your two friends and their baby boy. They had gone through so much together and had done so much for Prythian that you wanted to create a home where they could feel cherished and loved. A place where they could create new memories together. Memories that one day could heal their broken selves and give them hope for the future.

Cassian stared down at you, a soft smile painted his lips and a glimmer twinkled in his eyes which told you that he knew exactly where your mind had gone. Letting go of your body, he grabbed your hand in his and tugged you away from the table towards the kitchen. "You", he said whilst pushing you down into a seat "sit here whilst I, Chef Cassian, cook you something delicious".

You chuckled watching Cassian flounce around the kitchen. He grabbed an apron from the top drawer to tie around his waist and then placed his hand on his hips, determined to create something delicious for you. You looked at him, eyes glazed with love and thanked the Cauldron for gifting you with a wonderful husband.

"This reminds me of our first date." you spoke, your words dripped in nostalgia.

"Yeah" he murmured back, " I remember it turning out to be a disaster and Rhysand having to put out a fire". You laughed at the memory. You weren't fond of going out and loved to spend most of your days inside your flat. Cassian had finally built-up the courage to ask you out and although you were giddy at the prospect of going out on a date with Cassian, you were still weary that this step may ruin your long lasting friendship. Cassian proposed that he cook for you in your flat, that way you would be somewhere comfortable and could relax. He was always so thoughtful about your feelings and his suggestion only made you feel more secure about going into a romantic relationship with him.

Turns out Cassian had never cooked anything in his life until that moment, always relying on Rhysand or the magic of the Windhaven house to feed him. Thankfully no-one got hurt after that date night fire fisaco, only Cassians pride. It resulted in you both deciding on taking cooking classes together for your dates. Leading to the both of you falling head over heels in love with each other and learning to cook different Court cusuines.

"Well, I loved that date night no matter how much of a disaster it was. It opened my eyes to you and how serious you were about me, about us," you spoke softly, eyes welling up with tears. " I think I started to fall in love with you then. You didn't even know how to cook back then but wanted to do something sweet and romantic just so I didn't feel uncomfortable out in public. And here you are today, feeding me because I forgot".

"You're my love. Looking after you is my privelege and joy" he replied. His words were short and sweet but I could feel every fibre of his love in those words. He plated up the food and placed it in front of me. "Eat up sweetheart", he said, tilting my face up to place a firm kiss on my lips. "Can't have the Night Court's Head Engineer low on fuel. Cauldron knows these houses won't stay up without you," he winked and walked away to wash the dishes. You smiled into your food and thanked the Cauldron one last time.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! This is my first time writing fanfic. I hope I did a good enough write up and you all like it. I'm so nervous. I'm not a writer by nature so there's probably loads of spelling and grammar mistakea but I just wanted to give it a go and be part of a community that gives joy to readers like meee.

With love,

theduskyprincess

[omniblades-and-stars]

Earthbound

Got Your Six: Part 5

The trajectory of his life changed the moment Shepard witnessed him arguing with Executor Pallin. He didn't know it quite then, but Garrus knew it now. It was proven over and over again in innumerable ways. If someone told him a few years ago that he would end up serving on a human ship during a galaxy-wide push for survival, and that the person leading that push, one of the most willful, powerful humans in the known universe, would call him home ...

Well, he probably would have laughed at them and told them to get their head checked.

He sat on the corner of her bed, a small glass of water in his hand (the small cups Helen kept in her cabin were almost comical in his hands), and watched her sleep. Even as exhausted as she was, he could tell she was suffering a nightmare. For as long as he'd known her, she was haunted by bad dreams - of slavers and their destruction of her home, thresher maws, the broken messages from the Protheans, the attack on Earth, and all of the ghosts of the people they'd lost during this fight.

If only that list had been comprehensive. She had so many nightmares.

And as they prepared to make their final push on Earth, the dreams only got worse. He watched as the skin of her forehead creased, and a grimace marred the angular features of her face. Stress left its marks on her, shocks of gray hair rested on her temples where the hair had once been entirely blond, and she had new and ever present wrinkles around the corners of her eyes.

Human bodies were so malleable, changeable. It was such a startling difference between their species. Just a few months of pushing nonstop through impossible barriers, brutal battles, and heart-rending losses bore themselves so obviously on her body. Her sagging posture when she thought no one was looking, the red along the bottom ridge of her eyelids, the ragged edges of chewed fingernails, and the subtle impression of bones too close to her skin - weight lost from meal after missed meal, pouring over “just one more report, Garrus, I'll eat later.”

She never ate later.

Not that he was the champion of taking care of himself or managing the unbearable weight of their shared burdens. The already pitiful dextro provisions on the ship became less and less appetizing, and it felt like a battle in itself just to choke down enough calories to keep moving and keep himself sharp. And many nights, he spent so much time looking at the numbers and the data feeds at his console in the main battery that they all started to bleed together before he was gently pulled away by her voice on the intercom, reminding him to come to bed. Like she knew that he was suffering from a splitting headache, and an aching heart.

Leaving Palaven to burn while they went to take their chances on Earth was a nearly impossible decision to make. Were it not for the woman sleeping fitfully next to him, he probably wouldn't have left. If any other person had been at the helm of the end of the world, he'd still be on Menae, or dead. No, he'd definitely be dead, and so would so many countless others.

Garrus barely managed to keep himself from actually laughing at the thought, a muted huff snuck up from his chest. Thankfully, it didn't wake her. It was a bleak thought, but there was humor to be found in how he kept narrowly avoiding his own demise because of her.

Spirits, it could only have ever been her. What a terrible burden. They both knew it was the truth. Neither of them could stand by and watch the galaxy burn around them, even if it killed them to try to stop it in the end. They were on the cusp of finishing this thing for good, one way or the other. The count was down to mere hours.

This was becoming a bad habit of his, sitting at the edges and watching over her sleep like some sort of guardian angel, when he should have been lying next to her, haunted by his own dreams. He had plenty of his own nightmares. But even when his own thoughts were turning to the hopeless, watching her sleep made it feel bearable. That she could sleep at all meant that this thing was doable, right? He had to believe that, for her, and because of her.

Garrus stood quietly and set the glass on the nightstand. He wasn't going to waste what was potentially their last hours just watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest, or staring at the way her hair fanned out all over the pillow, tangling in small knots as she slept. All the reminders that she was, in fact, a living, breathing person. Not just the monolith or legend that the Alliance built up around her, not the off the rails Council Spectre she was often accused of being. And definitely not the Cerberus science experiment she still often felt that she was.

The Illusive Man's files had done nothing to assuage that particular fear of hers. Not that she'd had any time to sit with what they found. They left the bastard's space station to immediately head to Earth, it had only been mere hours.

Garrus carefully climbed back into bed, and settled underneath the covers. With her warm body pressed up against him, the rhythm of her heartbeat was an assurance of its own. A strange lullaby reminding him that they were here, they were together, and that they could do this.

They were going to make it.

They were going to win.

The last thing she remembered was hammering on the trigger of her pistol to trigger the explosion that would, in theory, save the galaxy. She was surprised to be aware again. She knew she was dead, there was no other option after that.

The afterlife was not at all like she was expecting. It was a lot like the nightmares she was having for months before, but it was also different. She knew it was different, knew it wasn't just a dream.

For one, there was no child. When the Catalyst took the form of the small boy she tried to help when the Reapers first arrived on Earth, she wondered if he had ever existed at all. Reapers did that - fuck with your mind, try to convince you to not destroy them. Her decision to destroy them never felt firmer than when she was face to face with a mind game. She was so tired of bullshit psychological manipulation, it only made her furious.

She didn't hesitate to blow up that tube.

The second difference from her nightmares was that her afterlife seemed like some mutated version of the Citadel, rather than an endless expanse of dying trees in an ever-repeating park. But it wasn't the Citadel like it was when she ran into that beam. No, it looked like the Citadel when she first came to it, back when it was just Saren and the Geth she was fighting. At first, it felt nostalgic, like home, or like a favorite vacation spot. Like she could point to a storefront and laugh as she said, “Look Garrus, do you remember the time we almost got blown up by an AI in the stock room there? Those were good times, I wish we had a pic.”

That illusion was shattered almost immediately. It was all false. It was empty.

Well, not empty. Those shades came back, very quickly. The ones of her friends that whispered her name, or repeated their final words to her. They filled the walkways, tormenting her with their faraway cries of “Shepard” and “Commander”. Anderson's voice was among them now, another stone weight of guilt in her belly, rendering her sluggish and confused.

The other thing about this Citadel was that it was wrong. After she spent some time wandering around, the halls contorted and changed just when she thought she found somewhere familiar she wanted to go see better. Maybe she was just too tired to see it right.

It wasn't fair that she was so exhausted, even in the afterlife. It definitely wasn't heaven, it was too cruel to be heaven. But it wasn't hell either. Or if it was, it wasn't as bad as she feared.

It wasn't good, though. The shades tormented her, they didn't respond to her attempts at communication. Her fingers moved through their vague shapes like smoke. One sounded like Thane, and she dropped to her knees to beg him to move on to his goddess's ocean, and found that no matter how the knot in her throat grew, she could not cry.

The shade didn't leave.

She was so alone there, and so tired.

Her only comfort was that none of the ghosts called her by her first name, and none sounded like him. She wasn't sure she would know if he died after her, but at least he wasn't among the one's she'd already lost.

Voices of her dead friends rang out around her.

“It’s the right choice, and you know it, Ash!”

“Had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong.”

“Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness.”

“Shepard-Commander.”

“You did good, child. You did good. I'm proud of you.”

They wouldn't stop. Millions of whispers slithered into her mind constantly. They were so quiet, but she could hear nothing else. Please, God, she just wanted it to stop for just one minute. Hadn't she earned just one minute of fucking peace? She gave her life to try to stop everything ...

Ice gripped her lungs, and tears that couldn't come choked her. What if it hadn't worked?

It had to be hell she was in, she would know if it had worked otherwise.

Shepard began to run, she felt a desperate need to find anything real, anything fucking tangible. The Citadel construct was a cruel farce. Storefronts faded into solid walls as she drew near, she walked into an apartment building only for there to be more empty hallway on the other side of the door. Ramps that went up took her right back where she started. She thought. She couldn't be sure.

Everything there was so confusing, it never ended. She could have been walking for hours or lifetimes, she couldn't tell.

Her legs felt like they weighed hundreds of pounds, and her posture dropped, shoulders sagging and head hanging low. She couldn't keep moving. Couldn't keep searching.

For what?

She didn't even know. She should have been done looking for things now. She was dead.

Maybe if she just closed her eyes and slept for a little while, the afterlife would feel better. She slid down to the ground with a groan, laying in the middle of what was once a busy thoroughfare in Zakera Ward when she was still alive. It was so lonely there, now.

As her consciousness slipped away, she heard her first name.

“Helen.”

Stubborn.

If there was one word to describe Garrus Vakarian, it was stubborn. Being bullheaded landed him on the Normandy, and he wasn't about to stop being stubborn now.

Someone gave him the plaque with her name on it, to add to the memorial wall on the ship, but he just couldn't do it. It couldn't really be called optimism, no one had ever accused him of being an optimist, but there was absolutely no way that he was going to give Commander Helen Shepard up for dead until he saw her body for himself.

The rest of the crew seemed to agree with him.

Even as they mourned the loss of EDI, the entire crew threw themselves into repairing the ship. Commander Shepard wouldn't let something so simple as a small spaceship crash stop her from getting back in the fight, and neither would her crew. She never gave up on them, they sure as hell weren't going to give up on her.

Tali and the engineers helped get the drive core back online, while Garrus helped find workarounds for all of the systems that used to run through EDI's processors. Liara helped Traynor get communications back online, she picked up a lot of comm-tech expertise in her very brief time as the Shadow Broker. Ash and the rest of the crew helped to patch the old girl back up so that she was a space-faring vessel once again. And Joker put on a brave face and fixed all of the flight computers that he could in preparation for taking the long way back to Earth without the assistance of an AI.

Garrus hoped that EDI's memory core was still intact, maybe they could bring her back in some way. But their first priority was getting back to Earth. Everything else could be figured out from there. Hell, he'd even help.

Another thing that Garrus had never been accused of being was patient. Even with FTL speeds, the journey back to Earth took too much time. Too much time with too little information, and he started to descend into the what-ifs.

What if we can't make it back?

What if we run out of rations on the way?

What if she's dead?

No. No. He wasn't going to let himself think like that.

The closer they got to the Sol system, the more destruction they could see. It was so hard to keep holding onto that thin filament of hope. Like if he breathed to hard, it would blow it away forever, and that by losing that hope, it would ensure that she was dead.

No, if he had to sift through the wreckage of the Citadel himself, he was going to find her again.

He tried to distract himself as best as he could, but the longer it took, the harder it was to keep from going crazy. When they were still unable to make contact with Alliance Command, he nearly wrenched the QEC terminal from its housing. He paced so much that Dr. Chakwas cautioned him that he was going to re-injure his leg before it finished healing. He didn’t understand how everyone else was so calm.

Even if they could get to Earth at that very second, it wouldn’t be fast enough.

Spirits grant him some patience, he just needed to wait a little bit longer.

She woke up standing on the platform where she met her final decision, and her end. It was startling and confusing. The glass tube stood shattered before her, dangerous shards crunched beneath her feet as she cautiously moved around the platform.

In the open space around her, she could see the battle still. Only, it was stopped in time. Reaper lasers paused midstream, taunting the ships they would burn into nothing, just as surely as they were taunting her. More than one of the Alliance's ships was coming apart, pieces suspended in the vacuum of space when they should have kept moving forever, or until some other force acted upon them.

Like gravity.

It occurred to her that she didn't know if the Citadel was close enough to Earth to be brought into its orbit. Not that it mattered. This, again, was just another torment in her death. She was so close to seeing the results of her final act, but everything was just stopped.

“Helen, I'm here.”

It startled her, anxiety shot through her veins, dumping adrenaline directly into her heart. She looked around, searching for a shade or a body, or some proof that he didn't make it. But there was nothing, not even a half-hallucinated child program. She swore that his voice came from below her. Far below, somehow reaching up to her from the planet's surface.

“Please, Helen.”

Helen approached the edge of the platform and dropped to her hands and knees at the precipice. Her heart thundered in her ears, she was afraid that she'd go careening into space again. If she died in the afterlife, what would happen?

She looked over the edge. Earth looked so beautiful from up there, an impressionist painting of blues and greens. She could almost forget the ruin and desolation from her lofty perch. Her heart ached and she wanted to return. Shepard had only ever been to Earth on a couple of occasions. The most time she ever spent there was in a detention room crafted to try to make her forget that she was a prisoner.

The most memorable trip to the planet was the final push. A fiery, husk of a destroyed city, overrun by abominations and the dead. It was cruel that she could remember it.

Fuck, she wanted to cry, needed to cry. But she couldn't. The tears just wouldn't come, and it was so fucking distressing. Why wasn't this death followed by empty oblivion like the last one? Why was it like this now?

Oblivion was so much more preferable to this.

Shepard cried out, but the open space around her swallowed the noise. “Garrus,” she whispered. It was some relief that she could voice his name, even if she was alone there.

“I'm here. Come back. You can do it.”

”Garrus! I can hear you!“ Helen shouted at the top of her lungs, but it sounded only like a whisper. She stood up and turned around, desperate to see his face. She wanted him to still be alive, but if he was there in the afterlife, she didn't have to be alone. He'd always been there for her, through some of the worst things that had ever happened, to either of them. They could face this hell together.

But he wasn't there.

She stood alone among the shattered remains of the Catalyst, and a hopeless space battle frozen in time.

"Garrus, please! I can't find you!” she screamed up towards the heavens. Her voice broke through, no longer sounding like she was yelling under water. As she frantically ran from side to side, searching for a way to get down, her ears started ringing.

It was strange, after Cerberus rebuilt her, the old tinnitus had gone away. But now it was unbearably loud, screeching inside of her head.

“I'm here, Helen. It's okay. It's going to be okay.”

He had to be talking to her from Earth. She just knew it. Helen walked back to the edge and peered over the side. Her vision tunneled and vertigo threatened to send her tumbling over. Something like cold water filled her veins and her heart began to race again. She'd never had vertigo before.

She dropped to her knees and gripped the edge of the platform. She felt her nails splintering beneath her grip. “Garrus!” she called out over the edge, “Can you hear me? Please, I don't know how to get down!”

Shepard knew it didn't make any sense, but nothing else here made any sense. Her heart was beating so fast, the noise of her blood rushing in her ears was drowning out that horrible screeching in her head.

“Come back, please, Helen. I need you to come back.”

Garrus was pleading with her, and he sounded so fucking broken, and still, she could not cry. She just needed to be with him again, needed to not be on this stupid fucking platform anymore. This is hell, she decided. She wasn't able to outrun the devil after all.

Fuck it.

Helen Shepard never let something impossible stand in her way. She beat death before, and if this was what she had to deal with in death, she wasn't going to stand for it.

It was fitting that she was about to throw herself into lower orbit. It amused her to think that she might manage to die in the afterlife just like she'd died once before.

“I'm coming, Garrus,” she whispered and stood resolutely. Shepard walked several paces back towards the wreckage and turned to face the edge again.

Helen ran.

Her feet hit the shining metal platform like rolls of thunder, and her breath felt real, heavy in her lungs again as she dashed towards almost certain destruction. Panic tried to take over, freeze her muscles in place, make her hesitate, but she did not stop.

She leapt over the side

It was strangely comforting to her that hurtling through space was a familiar sensation. As her body fell, it was caught in the inexorable draw of gravity, hard and fast. Her body began to ache, pain bloomed from her joints and spread through her muscles. But she wasn’t suffocating like last time, not burning up.

The strangest sensation pinched at her right hand, and she tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t go away. Her vision blurred, but she was moving so fast, hurtling towards Earth like a Commander Shepard shaped comet, she couldn’t really see anything anymore.

Tears burned hot on her cheeks. Finally. She’d never been more relieved to cry.

And then, everything went black.

That screeching in her ears was back, louder, but less in her head, and more next to it. Her awareness came hurtling back to her with all of the force of a bullet train. It was too much all at once. She opened her eyes and then slammed them shut, too bright. Her skin tingled and itched, and she’d only been aware of the sensation for seconds but it was already driving her crazy. She tried to form a word, but it came out as a tight groan. Her throat was so dry, she felt like she drank an entire desert’s worth of sand.

“I’m here,” he said again, only he was so much closer now. He was holding her hand.

Helen tried to sit up, but was so weak. Her body didn’t even get far enough to crash back into the hospital bed dramatically.

Hospital.

Helen was in a hospital. She was in a hospital, and Garrus was there with her. It couldn’t be heaven, because there was no way heaven would have hospitals. And it couldn’t be hell, because hell already tried to keep her away from him.

“Garrus!” she tried to shout it, in her heart and in her mind it was a jubilant cry, but even to her own ears, it was actually a pitiful croak. She braved opening her eyes again, and everything was so blurry, she began to panic. A hundred possibilities crossed her mind, messed up eyes from the explosion, faulty cybernetic processors, brain damage. All were likely, if she remembered what happened right. But as she blinked to try to focus, she realized she was still crying.

Helen raised her free hand to wipe the tears away, but found that it was … gone. Her right hand was gone. She stared at the place where it used to be dumbly, unable to process the visual information she was receiving.

“Helen, you’re awake,” Garrus nearly laughed. He sounded so relieved. His grip around her hand tightened. Helen lowered her arm, deciding that she could deal with the onslaught of feelings she had about the missing limb later. She turned to look at Garrus, and was relieved that her vision cleared enough to see him. Cobalt blue eyes greeted her, it was really him, not some horrible wisp of smoke. “How do you feel?”

“Like hell,” Helen started. Her hips burned, her head was pounding, the hand that wasn’t there ached, and she was distinctly aware of all of her remaining fingers and toes. Every last part of her just hurt. “Tired … confused,” she continued with a great deal of effort. “Thought I was dead.”

Garrus lifted her hand and very gently brought it to his mouth plates. “It was close, Helen. Too close.”

Helen exhaled and laid her head back against the too thin hospital pillow. It was almost too much just to be able to stay awake. “Garrus … did it work?”

“You did it. They’re really gone.”

Tears gathered in her eyes again, and began to slide down her cheeks and onto the pillow. They did it. Really did it. The impossible part was over. Fuck she was so tired.

She must have started to drift off, because Garrus began to rub the back of her hand with his thumb before he said, “Get some rest, Helen. You’ve earned it. I’m here with you, I’ll keep watch.”

Victory was complicated. The costs were astronomical. The recovery would be difficult and arduous.

But at least, for one time in so long she couldn’t even remember it, Helen slept soundly and without dreams, with the knowledge that she was safe with the one she loved.

[yumichikah]

[ What are Yumichika's dreams usually like? Does he dream at all? If yes - does he have any recurring dreams? Any nightmares? Are they a product of things that have happened to him in real life, or are they purely from his imagination? ]

Dreams are a hard topic for Yumichika. He would prefer sleeping without them, but unfortunately he is the kind to bring the stresses and worries of the day with him to bed. Mostly he falls asleep in the middle of making mental notes about what he has to get done the following day and planning his schedule out in his mind which does sometimes carry over to the dream world where he eventually continues working. Those nights rest is hard to achieve since there is constant work stuff activating his brain and it's like he never even put down that last document he had to go through.

Then there are the nightmares and resurfacing memories that occur every now and then. Nightmares usually circle around topics like loneliness, abandonment, losing important people, being invisible/mute, being exposed and being chased. All this ties to the trauma of not being accepted as he is, the need to suppress his real self and the history he carries with him from the Rukon days. Worrying is definitely something he does a lot so usually the dreams take inspiration of the current worries he has when laying down, but some specific dreams are recurring; like the one of the whole of Eleventh dying around him while he is left behind and not being able to die with them. Most times he even knows of the fate of his peers but could do nothing to stop it thanks to not being heard and/or not being strong enough to protect anyone.

The memories that surface during nights often go through the times he had to endure horrible things like being assaulted mentally and physically thanks to his feminine looks, getting used and discarded like trash, being forced to kill or be killed, all sorts of messed up things from back then. Sometimes he even remembers the guilt of robbing people to survive and the day he first killed someone, yet those ones are quite a rarity. But at the other times he does also dream of the simpler times of travelling together with Ikkaku when they still had no responsibilities and underlings to look after. Times spent living in a messy abandoned shed with barely enough to eat and challenging every guy walking past to a duel. Those are his favorite dreams which he would want to stay in longer.

So yeah, he dreams. Not every night, but definitely often enough for him to stay paranoid and traumatized. Those memories and fears is what keeps him hiding his true self at the end of the day.

[stardust-in-my-mind-blog]

hello grip stress my old friend

one gnarly thing about deciding to solve problems

after the new year is that once that new year hits

you are suddenly overcome with so much stress

that your mind will do nothing but list off all the problems

you now have to solve and can't you fucking do it

all together and exactly at the same time

and aren't you the worst creature to live on this planet

if you can't immediately get all the shit you were

putting off together all in the span of a day and also

here is every single mistake you've ever made and also

by the way just know that everything you've been doing

up until this point was garbage and you're the worst

it's nice having a quick mind on the best of times

but man can it switch on me just as quickly

it's best when we are friends but when we are not

my mind makes a formidable mortal enemy

yesterday the only way to turn it off was to sleep

and so I did that the entire day because no matter

what I did all my thoughts were just negative and mean

I suppose that's what having a mental health day is

because my mental was absolutely not healthy

I did end up getting my lost phone back

and though I woke up with my mind telling me

pretty much the same negative assumptions today

I thought about how I spent the last year

I didn't climb corporate ladders or rake in the cash

but I did learn how to sing on stage

and I did end the year exactly how my heart desired

so if I was a failure as my mind wished me to believe

seems like I'd have to ask through whose eyes?

because according to my heart

I've done nothing but make a few impossible dreams

into a reality where I got to experience a type of bliss

that I thought I was just writing about

nonetheless I have a house to move out of

and I do need to figure out some basic logistics

and today that will be spent finishing up

with the packing of my room and then packing up

the rooms of the kids and letting myself

see that as organizing the chaos of my mind today

because when I opened my eyes this morning

I woke up to only fear and panic and so much

needless angst that won't be helping anybody

obviously something within me is in a deep need

for gentleness and compassion because when I

take a look at the back of my mind there is something

running around in circles screaming and it's actually

quiet difficult to get anything done with that happening

in terms of thinking so today I will take a small step

in a direction that no matter what has to be done

last night I dreamed about all the different colleges

I attended and I was running around through all of

them and there happened to be six in my undergraduate

and the attempt at graduate school so I was actually

quite busy going to all of them in one night

I'm glad it was not elementary or middle school

which it usually is but it did follow the same themes

I had homework to turn in that I forgot

or I was going through the nightmare of scheduling

or even worse I was trying to get started

all of these tasks involve a state of organization

that I'm not always able to get at so it was super fun

to wake up to a different state of chaos

but in this chaos everything can be fixed

there is not a problem that I have that I can't do

something with as long as I don't listen to the screaming

my goodness I wish that creature would stop screaming

but I suppose everyone deserves a minute or two to express

themselves and at some point we will need to get them

off the stage even if they aren't done with their message

let's hope a shower helps

[equizona]

⤷ ROMANTIC HEADCANONS

michael afton || five night's at freddy's

gender-neutral reader

masterlist, navigation

i'm having michael brainrot and I can't when write his name right and also the new tumblr update can go choke on some shoelaces

⤷ MICHAEL AFTON

Michael is the type to get jealous easily. He's insecure, has abandonment issues, is making minimum wage and has a fuck ton of trauma attached to him. He knows he isn't the best boyfriend one could ask for, and that you probably deserve so much more, so seeing you with other people he just knows are better than him? It makes him want to crawl into a hole and cry.

Despite how easily he gets jealous, he doesn't show it very often. He refuses to guilt you into staying with him, or isolate you from having relationships outside of him. His father did that with his mother, and he got front row seats to see how well that turned out for them.

Michael doesn't make a lot of money, so he can't get you expensive gifts or take you out on fancy dates. Instead you both often go on walks, have picnics and watch movies at home. He'll save up for occasional amusement park, circus or whatever else you like for dates, though he tries to save those for special occasions.

He probably stays over at your place quite often. He doesn't like to be alone and he doesn't like the idea that he'll wake up tomorrow and get a call that someone broke in and killed you, or something like that. He stays over where you live often for that reason. He doesn't let you go to his place, either, since he knows the animatronics could easily figure out where he lives if they wanted.

He gets a lot of nightmares, too. He doesn't expect you to comfort him or anything, he knows he can be stressful and doesn't want your sleep being put aside for something as stupid as a bad dream. He doesn't really want you to do so, either, since he feels so guilty. The best thing you can do for him is let him cling to you, hug him back and go back to sleep.

He most certainly has an eating disorder. He forgets to eat and drink most of the time, and majority of the time when he doesn't forget he either thinks it's too much work or too expensive or just not worth the effort. However, if you bring him food or a drink, he'll make sure to consume all of it, no matter how nauseous it makes him. If he ends up vomiting, he might have a breakdown from guilt. Especially if you made it yourself.

On a less angst filled note, Michael is really good at making food. If you have ingredients and don't mind him messing around your kitchen, he will make the most heavenly tasting food you can imagine. Since he doesn't work during the day, he'll make you breakfast when he gets back, alongside lunch for whatever you have to do during the day.

He'll also make you dinner, with him making you m meals a good chunk of the time, it makes there be at least one less thing to stress you out. At least, that's what he's hoping for. If you give him the money, he'll go grocery shopping for you as well! He has all your preferred brands memorized too, so not to worry about that.

His parents didn't teach him very basics things about hygiene or cleaning, so while he isn't really a messy person, he doesn't know how most things work and decides to just leave things where they are. If you teach him to do the dishes, use the laundry machine or a vacuum, and assure him you won't get mad if he does something wrong, he might try doing some of your chores for you.

If he does it right and it makes you happy when he does it, he'll keep doing it. It makes him pretty happy, actually, to be doing it. He remembers his classmates whining about having to do chores with their mothers while he spent most of his day worried he's get yelled at for moving a glass over to the sink from the counter. Most might think it's boring to clean, but he thinks it's nice. And if it makes you happy, and makes your life easier? He's pretty ecstatic to be doing the dishes.

Michael naturally runs really hot. He could be your personal heater easily, and he's very comfortable and warm to hug. Despite how warm he is, he gets cold super easily, so he's always dressing warm and laying under blankets, which just makes Jim run even warmer.

He has a soft spot for children. If he builds a more stable life and routine with you, he'll probably try doing babysitting during the day for some extra money. He's actually really good with kids, too, even if he might seem sort of intimidating at first. He's also able to make all of them eat their vegetables and fruits, so parents adore him as well.

He is weak for matching things. Matching outfits? Keychains? Bracelets? Phone cases? Mugs? Blankets? Shoes? He doesn't care, he just loves the idea of matching with you.

He likes doing arts & crafts. Sometimes the kids make him do it with them too, and he's pretty good! He occasionally gives you those handmade bead bracelets. If he sees you wearing them he'll probably cling to you for the rest of the day.

Michael is actually like, really good at singing. He'll sing when he cleans, when he's doing his night shifts, when he's cooking or baking. If you like his singing, he might sing you a lullaby to help you sleep. If you sing with him he will be the happiest person on earth.

He likes a lot of things that are less traditionally masculine and more traditionally feminine, like flowers and soft things. (Blankets, stuffed animals, etc.) If you get him flowers, he'll press or dry them so he can keep them for much longer.

He's not much of a fan of animals, and animals don't like him that much. The exception being foxes, since he thinks they're very pretty. If you have any pets, he'd be happy to help you takecare of them, but he won't have a very deep emotional connection with the animal.

[runningmunson]

My Fierce Lady - Part 2

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Female!Reader Word Count: 1.7k Summary: After the events of your attack, you felt helpless. You asked Aemond to teach you to fight so you can gain some control back into your life and finally feel brave. Part 2 of My Fierce Lady. Warnings: traumatized reader, mentions of previous attack, use of a sword, slight angst, fluff, soft Aemond

Masterlist

Agony. You were in agony. Everything had been so different since you were attacked and forced to take a man’s life. Anyone would change if it had happened to them, you believed. Aemond reminded you daily that you are strong and brave, that you and your children were still alive and breathing, and that the man was in the ground where he belonged because of you. Yet you still lived in fear every day, terrified that someone would strike again, but you wouldn’t be so lucky. 

That’s not to say that your husband and his family didn't try to make you feel safe. Your personal guards had been doubled. You were seldom left alone. You wouldn't step into your chambers, so they allowed you to move rooms. They exhausted resources to find whoever plotted to attack the Targaryen household. However, their attempts were futile. They never found who did it, and no matter what they did, you never truly felt safe.

Nightmares often plagued you. Too many nights you dreamed of Maelehra being murdered. You soon followed, only to be woken screaming and crying in the arms of Aemond as he tried to calm you. Your stress and anxiety were so severe that the maester put you on bed rest until the birth of your son. 

You thought things would be better after you brought your son, Rhaegar, into the world, basking in the joys of a newborn, a male heir for your husband. You were sorely mistaken. The maester chalked it up to melancholy as your body adjusted to a new state of motherhood. The royal family tried to keep it hidden. Everything was always kept in the family, never wanted to reveal their personal weaknesses to outsiders. But it was hard to ignore the whispers around the Red Keep with rumors of you going crazy and behaving worse than your sister-in-law, Helaena. 

You spent a lot of time with Helaena in her chambers, doing needlework as your children played on the floor together with the nannies. Rhaegar was usually fast asleep in his cradle. You had a feeling your mother-in-law, the Queen, had something to do with your time spent behind closed doors, not that you minded too much. You dearly loved Helaena and preferred her company over the other ladies in court. 

—

For once, you were having a good day. Your anxiety was at bay and manageable. The children were behaving excellently. You knew everyone was safe, and you finally settled in once you checked several times that there were two guards outside the door.

“That looks quite lovely, sister! You stitch our sigil far better than I could,” Helaena’s eyes were wide as she smiled brightly, complimenting your work. You were working on embroidering the Targaryen sigil on a new dress for Mae. 

“That is very kind of you to say. Your spider looks exquisite,” you smiled back at her. You genuinely meant it. While you did not share the same affinity for insects, you were always enthusiastic about her interests and ready to learn.

“Thank you, it’s a zebra spider. We have these in our garden,” she replied, then returned to her work. 

It was relatively quiet in the room, with an occasional sound coming from the children. All your focus was on the dress until your concentration was broken. The door opened without anyone knocking, and an unknown man stepped inside the room. 

You immediately stood up, a scream slipped from your lips. It startled your son awake, and he started crying. Your heart was racing, and you felt as if you could be sick. No, you thought, this cannot be happening again. As quick as you stood, you backed into a corner. You sat down with your hands over your ears and eyes tightly squeezed shut. 

Helaena shooed the man out of the room and told the nannies to remove the children. She slowly approached you, afraid to disturb you even more. You could see her mouth moving but heard no sound. The only thing you could hear was ringing. Tears welled up in your eyes. She turned to the guards and demanded they go get her brother at once.

Aemond made his way to his sister’s chambers in record time. “I am so sorry, Aemond. It was a new servant, he didn't knock first.”

“It’s fine, Helaena.” He looked at you, seeing you in a catatonic-like state. Your hands had not moved from their spot on your head, but your eyes were now wide open, blankly staring at the wall. It made him angry to see you as a shell of what you once were, no longer the carefree and lively woman he fell in love with. He turned to his sister, “May you give us some space please?”

Helaena left the room, and Aemond made his way to you. He crouched down, blocking your vision of the wall. Your eyes finally focused when you saw your husband in front of you and not another stranger coming to kill you. He reached up to take your hands off your face, noticing the scratch marks your nails left behind. With your hands in his, he gently kissed the back of both. 

“I’m here now, love. I got you. You are safe. Nothing is going to hurt you,” he spoke in a soft, calming voice- one reserved for only you and your children. The words he spoke were familiar as he often said these like a mantra in the dark of your room after your nightmares. You threw yourself in his arms, catching him off guard as he almost fell. He steadied himself and pulled you in close, once more repeating those words.

When your heart was steady and mind clear, he pulled you up to the ground and led you to the comforts of your own chamber. As soon as the door was shut, you turned to him. 

“I cannot do this any longer,” you said to him, voice cracking in desperation.

“Do what, my dear?” he questioned.

“Live in fear, no longer feeling safe in my own home. I wish to be free of this anguish! I want to feel as brave as you say I am. I want you to teach me how to fight,” you said to him. It was something you had thought about for some time but too afraid to address until now.

“I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. 

You knew it was unbecoming of a lady such as yourself to fight, but you were at a complete loss at what to do. It wasn’t as if Aemond thought that of you though. He always believed you could do anything you wanted. He never tried to control you or put you in your place unlike the other men of the court. Fighting could be dangerous, and he just wanted to protect you. 

“Please, Aemond. I need this. If you love me, you will grant me this wish,” you begged him, grabbing his hands and looking into his eye. You needed nothing more than to gain back some control of your life.

He nodded his head, “Then I will do just that, I promise you.”

—

Aemond led you to an empty room in the castle. You were adorned in pants and a tunic, your hair in a single braid falling down your back. He was finally going to teach you how to fight with a sword.

When you made your way into the room, he shut the door behind you for privacy. You noticed a few weapons were already laid on a table. There was a dummy filled with sand in the middle of the room as well. 

“Now, today we will learn the basics of defense, just a simple thrust and slice. Let’s go pick you a sword,” he walked over to the table. and you followed. You knew how heavy swords could be, having handled Aemond’s sword once to see what it was like and almost dropped it in the process. 

He handed you several, having you do a few mock swings to see which one felt best in your hands. You picked a lighter sword, the blade a typical silver color with a black and red hilt. The pommel housed a blue jewel. How fitting, you thought when you noticed it was similar in color to the sapphire where your husband’s eye once was.

When you were satisfied with your choice, you made your way to the middle of the room where Aemond was waiting. With the sword placed tightly in your hand, he led you into the proper stance. He used his leg to move your feet where he wanted them. His back found its way flush against yours. One arm wrapped around your waist to straighten you out. The other helped you hold your sword to the correct height, pointing to where you needed to strike. Whiffs of your scent flooded his nose as he held you close. You were disappointed when he pulled away.

“Alright, keep that stance. This should be an easy one. Draw your arm back and simply thrust it forward,” he said, his hands placed firmly behind your back. He was intensely watching your every move, making you a bit nervous. You drew back the sword and plunged it into the chest of the dummy. When you removed the sword, sand spilled on the ground. 

“Good, you have just defended yourself. Now put yourself back into the same position, and I’ll show you how to slice,” he explained the movements once more and let you do your thing. 

You stood the way he told you, doing a spin to gain momentum before slicing either side of the dummy. Once more, sand flowed from the cuts. Aemond started clapping. You turned to smile at him, finally starting to feel a small amount of control for the first time since your attack.

“My, oh my. Who knew the Gods blessed me with a wife who is a natural in the art of the sword,” he smiled, looking proud.

You laughed, “ Well, I have watched you practice in the courtyard often, my dear husband. Maybe I can be as good as you one day.”

“I’ll make a fighter out of you in no time, my fierce lady.”

[lollypopsx]

Boyfriend!Harry - Ever Since New York

Please like if it’s not too shabby, reblog for anyone who you think may enjoy and follow if you want to read more! I love you all! Be safe and be kind x

Warning: Angsty, Swearing, talking about heavy periods and blood, mean/grumpy Harry:(

3.6k words

Part 2 - Master list

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Touring with Harry really did have it's moments. One minute everything was your life's dream, and others it would just be a beautiful nightmare. This very rarely happened, but today, you were in the storm of that beautiful nightmare.

The two of you had been together since you were 15. You thought once he left for X-Factor, you'd just become a distant memory for him. But without fail, he came back to you every time. One Direction's first world tour, you were waiting back in the small town of Holmes Chapel. That was the toughest, it was new to you both, and you were convinced that when he travelled the world, he would find the new love of his life. He came straight back home to you. Before their second world tour, you and Harry had moved into a two bedroom apartment in London. You had a job in a local theatre, as a backstage manager. You didn't need a job, and Harry wanted you to stay safe at home, not wanting you to stress because he re-assured you every penny he had was yours too. And even though you appreciated that, you wanted to do your own little thing, besides, something had to get you through Harry being away for so long. Even though that tour was just as strenuous for your relationship as the first, he came straight back home to you.

Harry had managed to convince you to come to the next world tour, travelling with them (It didn't take much convincing at all to be fair!) and you never toured without him after that. Touring with One Direction was an incredible experience, and you really had made 4 other friends for life. Harry's solo tours, although very different, you felt more included than ever. You all were one very big family. You both went home together after every tour.

You understood that Harry had a stressful job, and while others may not agree, you knew it was stressful. The constant travelling, the late nights, the constant errands. Soundcheck, rehearsals, show, adrenaline, exhaustion, headache. That seemed the be how every performance was for you, and you weren't even the one of stage! But it was so worth it, and while you really did love seeing your man put his heart out for his fans every single night, you were starting to feel like he had nothing left for you.

You had woke up together in a beautiful hotel room, overlooking the arena and the city. He had covered you in kisses and held you every second he could. He was set to perform his first night in Maddison Square Garden for Love On Tour. New York was a city you'd always dreamed of visiting, and you craved going back every time.

You had gone out and spent the morning wandering around the city, Harry wasn't usually able to join you when you went exploring in the mornings because he would for sure get mobbed. And you had to take two security guards with you, as well as have your most basic features covered up. It was always better to be safe than sorry. Unfortunately, your tourist-y morning was cut short when you were having unbelievable stomach cramps.

Harry, the band and the crew had been in the arena since lunchtime and you weren't aiming to get back until 3pm, so when you came back three hours earlier than planned, something was wrong.

You rushed straight into Harrys dressing room and into the toilet while he was busy. "Fuck...how is this still happening?!" You whimper. You had bled through your jeans again, this was quite unusual for you, what was more unusual was that this had been going on for two weeks. You decided it was easier to just shower first and then find something else to wear. As you rinsed your body with your hair up in a bun, you couldn't help but whimper at the constant cramping of your uterus.

You had asked Harry to bring you a change of clothes to the arena for when you came back. As you wrapped a white towel around you (big mistake!), you went to the sofa and rummaged through his bags, frowning as you couldn't find one single item of your own clothing "Oh Harry" You whine and grab your phone, trying to call him, but it just rang and rang. You sigh and phone Jeff, praying he answers.

"Y/N? Everything ok? Everyone said they saw you come back early?" Jeff answers and you sigh in relief

"I-I'm fine...is Harry there?"

"Yeah he is, do you want me to send him to you?"

"Y-yes please" You were starting to shiver, being only wrapped in a towel. A few minutes later the door burst open and you jumped out your skin, you were sat on the sofa waiting and Harry usually always knocked before he came in.

"What do you want Y/N? I'm busy" He sighs, with a hint of annoyance. You couldn't help but be quite taken back by his sudden attitude, he was smiley and loving this morning before he left.

"Sorry I just...where's my clothes?" You frown softly.

"Dumped in the corner where you took them off" He shrugs and points.

"No Harry...the clean ones I asked you to bring..." You roll your eyes because he had forgotten.

"Well what's wrong with putting them back on..." He snaps, his voice sharp and stiff.

"I can't! I-"

"Y/N I don't have any fucking time for this! I'm busy, and I can't help it if you aren't getting the attention you want!" His words race in your mind. As much as you wanted to cry your eyes out, his words hit and made you snap back.

"What the fuck…I'm not an attention whore!" You laugh angrily

"Huh really? Fucking acting like it! Who else would call me here and just so happen to be naked under a towel!"

You felt like he had verbally slapped you in the face. "Just get changed and come and be sociable for fucking once" He spat as he left and slammed the door shut behind him.

In your years of being together, never had he been like this. As far as you were aware, there was no reason for it either. As soon as the door shut, you felt the tears spill from your eyes as you lay on the sofa, holding the towel tightly around you and whimpering softly.

You were freezing and after 10 minutes of calming yourself down, you get your phone, and dial the next person, who you was sure would be in a much nicer mood

"Hello?" A chirpy voice answered,

"Hey Sarah, it's Y/N...I'm sorry to phone...but do you have any spare pads or tampons on you?" You sniffle. "Yeah sure, there's a box full in the girls dressing room. Come and help yourself" She smiles through the phone.

"Actually I...erm do you think someone can bring them to Harry's dressing room" You mutter, slightly embarrassed, even though you had no reason to be.

"Oh sure of course, one minute...Mitch can you hold the baby for a minute please, I'll be back....Y/N I'll be two minutes" She smiles and hangs up.

You took your jeans and began to rinse the stained crotch area in the sink, scrubbing at it with your hand, and many many baby wipes to attempt to get the stain out. Within minutes, a gentle hand knocked on the door and you open it, relieved to see Sarah. You let her in with a sigh of relief "Thank you so much...I owe you" You smile appreciatively, although the sadness behind your eyes didn't go unnoticed.

You head back to the sink and keep scrubbing "Jesus Y/N what happened?!" Sarah looked shocked at you.

"O-oh nothing...I just-"

"Y/N...your towel is covered babe" She frowns

"Oh fuck...no...no not again!" You whimper, noticing the large red patch on the back, praying the tears wouldn't erupt this time.

"Let me go get Harry and find the spare clothes...Your jeans are ruined and-"

"No!....He didn't bring them and he doesn't care. Leave him out of this" You mutter. You felt guilt spread through your veins "I-I'm sorry I didn't mean to...I just. He already screamed at me once...I'm not facing it again" You sniffle, you couldn't bring yourself to look at her.

"Sweetie...come and sit and talk to me" She offers and smile, taking the jeans from you, the stain had spread and smudged much larger. She sat you down and wrapped an arm around you while you explained the whole situation, the cramping and heavy periods for two weeks, your accident in the city, and every word that came out of Harry's mouth.

"...What an arrogant son of a bitch" She mutters and shakes her head. “I’m sorry he was like that to you babe...I don’t know what’s going on” She frowns and pulls you close to her chest. You sniffle softly and wipe your cheeks “It’s not your fault” You whisper. 

“Right, let’s get you cleaned up, and you can borrow some of my clothes. Then you can come and chill with us okay?” She smiles and puts your jeans in the bin. 

“Oh no its fine, they’re yours...” 

“When you reach motherhood, you’ll always have two spare pairs of clothes because children love to vomit...I learnt that the hard way” She chuckles. “I’ll be two minutes” You nod and smile. Heading into the bathroom and cleaning yourself up as much as possible with fresh sanitary products and Sarah brings you a pair of her joggers and a new and clean TPWK Merch Hoodie. “Here” 

“You’re an angel, thank you” You smile sadly and get changed in front of her, you were close with all the girls and changing in front of each other wasn’t anything ususual.

You headed to the whole bands area to chill, you had no idea where Harry was off to. You hadn’t seen him since he screamed at you. “Come and lay in here, and take these” Mitch smiles, handing you a bottle of water and some tablets. You thank him quietly and lay on one of the four sofas they had.

“You gonna have a cuddle with your god mummy...gonna cheer her up?” Sarah coos at her beautiful boy. You smile through the cramps and put your arms out to him “Hello gorgeous” you whisper to him and rest him against your chest, he was sucking on his dummy tiredly and you held him lovingly as you rested your eyes shut for a moment, not to sleep, just to relax.

You cradled your godson in your arms sweetly, as you sit up slightly and you hear Harry’s footsteps down the hallway, while everyone had conversations amongst themselves. “Where is she?!” Harry groaned from outside the door. “She’s with the band, and the baby is sleeping. Keep your voice down Harry and sort your attitude out” You hear Jeff warning quietly as the door opens. You could usually pin point some reason why Harry would be upset today, but you really had no clue.

“Y/N can we talk?” Harry mutters...maybe he felt guilty and wanted to apologise, you hoped. You nod softly “One sec” you whisper and get up, wincing softly and you gently lay the baby down in his travel cot.

You head into the hallway with Harry and wait for him to start talking.

“Well...?” He prompts, an eyebrow raised and tapping his foot against the floor.

“Well what?...” You mirror his raised brow.

“Unbelievable..I give you a chance to apologise for your behaviour earlier and you sit and be cocky. If I’d have known taking you on tours would turn you into a brat I’d never of let you come!” Harry raised his voice slightly. Oh...wow. not the conversation you thought you’d have.

“I beg your pardon?!..my behaviour?!...What the hell is wrong with you today! You was showering me with love all morning until we got here...What the hell has happened?!” Your voice was leveling his, anger and emotion rising through your body. You were sure the band could hear all this.

“I’m fed up of you moping around like you aren’t getting enough attention. You’ve changed the last two weeks...who is he Y/N?!” Harry shouts

You were angry and beyond confused. “Who is who?! What do you mean...Harry are you accusing me of cheating?” You ask in disbelief.

“Well it sure fucking seems that way! You’ve been off for two weeks and you seemed pretty eager to turn me down since then...” His face was red, and you couldn’t believe he actually thought you’d ever want anyone else.

“I haven’t been fucking cheating Harry!” You scream in his face as you felt the tears spike and fall at your cheeks “I’ve been bleeding heavy for two weeks and cramping so much and I’m scared because I don’t understand why! You would know that if you bothered listening to me! How dare you fucking you speak to me like that!” 

You thought...well, hoped, that his anger may soften and he would realise how stupid 

“So get a fucking doctors appointment. No need to be fucking dramatic. Fuck this” He mutters and storms off to his dressing room. You felt the tears fall quickly. That was the last straw. You’d never felt so distanced from Harry. He was always so gentle and caring. The most loving boy and man you had known. Maybe now his true colours were showing.

“How dare you Harry...don’t you ever...ever speak to me like that! It may well be the last thing you ever do!” You shout as you sob quietly and rush into the band’s room to get your things. “Y/N?” Sarah frowns softly.

“I-I need to go...” Was all you managed before you rushed off. MSG was like a maze backstage. You were panicking and you just wanted to be alone where no one could find you. You found a small dressing room completely away from the others. You take your phone and diall your friend in London, waiting 4 rings to hear an answer.

“H-Hi...I’m coming home. Can you get me from the airport? I’m booking the next flight I can” You whisper quietly, you hung up the phone as soon as you heard the word yes. You didn’t want to answer questions.

You had none of your luggage. It was all either on the tour bus or in the hotel with Harry. But luckily, you had your bag with you, which always had a charger, your purse, passport and some extra bits.

Hours passed, you managed somehow to sneak out the venue with no one noticing. It broke your heart to leave, but you had to. You caught a taxi straight to the airport without being seen either, and got on the plane asap. You texted your friend your flight number and turned your phone off as quickly as possible. You rested your eyes for a while, but your mind was racing with feelings, pain and confusion. You was never someone who would just get up and go all of a sudden, so this was very out of the ordinary. 

Everyone knew you were very prepared and organised, so when everyone was piling themselves onto the tour bus after another amazing show, it wasn’t long before the concern grew.

“Where is she?! Have you checked in the arena?” Harry panicked. What the fuck had he done.

“we’ve looked everywhere in there Harry, but no one saw her leave” Jeff frowns, “I’ll call the hotel and see if she went back there” He sighs. The tension in the bus was so thick it could be cut with a knife. His mind was running a million miles an hour. “What if she went for a walk and got hurt o-or...or mugged or taken!” He panicked, his chest heavy at the thought. Regret and sadness filling his eyes.

“Sarah she must have told you...” Harry pleads. Sarah was in no way happy with how Harry had treated you, but she was still his friend, and she was just as concerned for your safety.

“I’m sorry H...If I knew it would be like this I’d of stopped her leaving the room...I just assumed she’d go to the bus. She can’t of gone far, her stuff is still here, but she took her phone” She rocks her baby gently.

‘Don’t you ever...ever speak to me like that! It may well be the last thing you ever do’. Your words ran circles in Harry’s head.

—————————

Once you had landed, you waiting at the pickup area for your best friend, sunglasses and a hat were all you managed to grab to attempt a cover up.  

She pulls up and looks at you with a sad smile “Hello stranger”

“...Hi Y/B/F/N...” You whisper, the moment she opened her arms, you fell into them...falling to pieces. “I-I think i-it’s...o-over” you choke through your sobs.

“Oh babe...” she frowns and holds you tightly, “lets get you home” she whispers and helps you in the car.

You turned on your phone as you headed home with a sigh. Your phone was blowing up with texts, missed calls and voicemails from Harry, Sarah, Mitch, and Jeff, as well as the other band members.

17 Unread Text Messages

49 Missed calls

6 Voice Mails

3 Message From Sarah:

  Hey babe, I don’t know where you’ve gone but the shows about to start. Come and watch. Love you x

Y/N please tell us where you are. We aren’t leaving without you x

Harry’s really worried. We all are. Call us! x

5 Messages from Harry:

We need to talk.

We’re waiting to go. Hurry up.

Y/N! Why is your phone off? Stop playing games

I’m sorry baby. Please phone me. I’m scared x

I love you so much, please answer someone xx

3 Voice Mails. All from Harry.

10:42pm “Y/N What are you playing at? We’re waiting for you so we can go. I’m not having this argument just hurry up and get on the bloody bus.”

10:59pm: “Look...I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have treated you that way, and I had no right to speak to you like that. Can you just come back to the bus please. I need to know you’re safe. If you’re lost in the arena phone me, or whoever...I get I’m the last person you want to talk to right now but please...we’re worried....I love you” You could hear his voice beginning to crack at the end.

11:17pm “Baby please...please pick up. I’m so scared. Everyone’s looking everywhere and I...I’m terrified. I don’t want to lose you and god if anything has happened to you right now I will never forgive myself. Baby I’m begging you to come back. wherever you are. I’m not mad, please come back t’me” He begs through sobs.

You felt the guilt from leaving, causing a nauseous feeling in the pit of your stomach. You didn’t think they’d be worried. In fact, you forgot you were all travelling on the busses tonight. You thought they’d be in the hotels again so you didn’t think they’d notice. Your thoughts were interrupted with the vibrations and a photo of you and Harry on your screen. As angry as you were at him, and broken you felt from his words, you hated the idea of worrying people.

You answer hesitantly, hearing Harry’s surprise as you answer “Y/N? A-are you there? Are you okay? Where are you...I’m coming to get you!” He sobs in relief, although he hadn’t even heard your voice yet.

You take a deep breath and close your eyes “...I’m home” you whisper, feeling the lump in your throat.

“W-what? You’re home? Y/N that’s not funny I...you can’t be that far. Are you at the airport? I’m coming to get you” He whimpers, his regret obvious in his voice. Everyone’s head snapped up at the mention of airport.

“I already landed Harry...” You whisper, almost silently.

“W-why...why would you leave? Please...please come back” He begs through tears. 

“...Get a fucking doctors appointment I suppose” You mutter, there was so much you wanted to say. But it couldn’t come out. “I’m sorry for leaving. Should have said” 

Your words were heavy to him. “I-I’m so sorry...I...” He was quite speechless. He knew you’d never leave his side if you could help it. So this was when he knew he royally fucked up. “I love you so much...please don’t leave me” He begs.

“I-I’m...I just need some rest. I can’t be getting in your way too much”

“Baby please, I never meant any of that? Are you home yet? How did you get back? Are you safe?”

“I’m fine H...” You sniffle “Y/B/F/N picked me up, we’ve just parked up home. We will speak in a day or so. Get to Florida safely. Let me know when you land there. I love you. Get some sleep” You let out a quiet sob and hang up.

You just wanted to sleep off this nightmare.

As you arrived home, you thanked your friend who offered to stay with you, but you really just wanted to be alone for a while to think, and you promised to text her when you woke.

You strolled inside after pressing in the codes for the key box and house alarms. You quickly changed your clothes and sniffle as you dive into the cold lonely bed. Everything was dark and quiet, as you closed your eyes to drift off.

You were woken by loud knocking on the door. You glance at the clock 11am...I guess you really needed the rest. You groan as you throw yourself out of bed, your cramps pinching sharply.

You sigh as you open the door tiredly, rubbing your eyes.

He didn’t fly to Florida...He came straight back home to you.

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Tag List: @harryhoney-bee - @sunandherflores - @sad-capuccino - @beachwood-cafe

[waltwhitmansbeard]

my fair lady: epilogue

well, here we are. there are thirty chapters i recommend reading before this one. i would never have gotten here without @romeoandjulietyouwish's inspiration. thank you.

The first thing Vax does after finding out that he has become the Champion of the goddess of death is find his sister. He looks for her in one of the guard towers where she usually spends her time before being informed that she had sent word that she would not be on duty that day. He runs from the castle, down through Zephrah, to the front door of their home, which he bursts through, panting. Vex, who had been sitting at the dining table with her head in her hands, jolts to her feet, her face melting when she sees him standing there.

Vax wraps her up in a hug, apologizing and promising her over and over that he is not going to die, after all. Percy, who had been in their little kitchen brewing some tea, watches them embrace, and over his sister's shoulder, Vax mouths to him, Thank you. He receives a nod in return.

He is sure to spend extra time with his sister over the next few days, apologizing ad nauseum for the stress he's brought her over these past months. All she does, saint that she is, is roll her eyes and throw her arms around him. "You are happy and you are here," she tells him. "I require no apology for these things."

Time spent with Vex means time spent with Percy as well, who Vax is starting to believe no longer regards him as a threat to either Keyleth or the Ashari Nation. The two of them develop something of a tentative friendship, one born more out of respect than any kind of affection, because if there is one thing both of them recognize in each other, it is their unending devotion to the women in their lives.

Just a few days after the worst night of Vax's life, a funeral service is held for Kynan. The entire Royal Guard gathers to pay homage to their fallen friend, and Vax keeps a hand on Keyleth's back to help her stay upright as she trembles through a memorial to the one who died in service to her. When the rite is over, the two of them take a visit to Kynan's aging father in town, where Keyleth apologizes over and over for the loss of his son. The father, to his credit, wrecked as he is, informs Keyleth that Kynan had grown up admiring the Royal Guard and always dreamed of serving the crown, and that he bears no ill will toward her or the royal family for his son's sacrifice. That night, Vax holds Keyleth as she cries, and Vax asks his matron to usher the young guard's soul into eternal peace.

As time wears on, Vax's days are filled no longer with standing against walls and following Keyleth from place to place like a particularly eager puppy, but rather meetings and lessons of his own. Pike has quite a lot to teach him about divinity, about the gods, about the storied history of Champions, which were, until recently, believed to be relics of an age gone by. He spends long days in the Zephran temple to the Raven Queen, where he sinks himself into a pool of blood and attempts to better understand his matron's wisdom, and he even goes down to the catacombs on a night to pray before an obsidian bird.

(Once, Keyleth goes with him, to see for herself the place where she died and came back to life. She is somber, stoic in the face of the raven, but Vax is barely holding himself together. He wants her out of this place, away from this air of death, this room where he held her corpse and begged for her life. His nightmares that night end in screaming, and she does not go down there again.)

When word makes it through Zephrah that this once-guard is now the Champion of the Raven Queen, his presence is often requested at deathbeds and funerals, to bring the auspices of the goddess of death to those so near her domain. At first Vax does not know what to do, fumbles through platitudes and aphorisms that he hardly understands himself, until Pike encourages him to speak from the heart. Over time, he begins to learn a type of magic wholly different from what Pike has been helping him practice: the magic of silence. He sits with the dying, the dead, the left behind, and he says nothing. He allows their grief to fill the space like water in a sinking ship, and he lets their rage spill over him as if he were standing before a tidal wave bearing down on the shore. His gift is not in what he can bring those grappling with the Raven Queen's influence, but rather what he can take from them, what he can carry with him when he leaves. He says countless silent prayers to his matron; he thanks her for her mercy, he asks her to welcome the newly departed into her realm, he recites to her the names of those who remain. He does not know if she is listening, not with any kind of certainty, and yet, he believes that she hears every prayer, every dirge, every wail of mourning, every graveyard silence, and takes them in as her hymns of worship.

And through it all, there is an understanding, a bone-deep knowing that he comes to live with: his matron's mission, now his, is not limited to history lessons and last rites. There is something coming on the horizon, something that the Raven Queen has chosen him to face head-on. And as he comes home each night, drained and smelling of death, he does so to his radiant wife, who holds him until her light has cast all the shadows from his soul. She pulls him to dinner, coaxes the words out of him with her stories of her day and updates on all manner of political matters, until he is himself again. When he sleeps, he sleeps with her in his arms, and when he dreams, he dreams not of death, but of a long, contented life, one spent in the sun with his wife and his sister and the little family he has built for himself here in Zephrah.

.

Word spreads quickly about an Ashari princess marrying her guard. The whole of Zephrah knows within a day, the rest of the nation by the end of the week. Percy reports the whispers and gossip he's hearing, and despite her steadfast confidence in having made the right decision, Keyleth can't but feel that she has brought scandal to her people, to her family.

Her father, though still becoming accustomed to the idea himself, is nevertheless a buoy in the rough seas. It is only through many tearful conversations with him that he is able to convince her that they will weather the storm, that once it is understood that her husband is a god's Champion, there will be little room for slander or outrage. Keyleth has no choice but to believe him, though at night she apologizes to Vax for bringing him into this world of court intrigue and public observation, but each time he kisses away her regrets and takes it all in stride.

She doesn't know how she would get through these early days without him. During the day, it is suffering the fallout of her actions, and at night, it is sleepless hours and haunting nightmares. Nearly every night she startles out of what restless sleep she's able to get, gasping for air and scanning the room in a panic. Vax is there to calm her breathing, to assure her that they are alone, that the wards Lady Allura put in place to prevent further magical appearances are still in effect, but still she struggles to fall back to sleep, sure that each creak and bump in the night is Gaben Finefirn come to finish what he started.

It isn't until she shockingly bursts into tears in the middle of a council meeting regarding the ongoing manhunt for Finefirn that she is able to admit how much the knowledge that she died is affecting her. Percy brings her swiftly to her rooms and Vax is summoned, and the two of them catch her jagged pieces and start to put them together again.

With their help, she is able to start working through her guilt, her shame, her fear, her dread, and in time she starts sleeping for longer and longer stretches. Her largest leap forward in her healing journey comes one early autumn afternoon, when shouts and warning bells ring out from the guard towers around the northern wall of the castle. Keyleth, who had been in the eastern gardens at the time, rushes over, a harried Derrig running behind in a failed attempt to stop her. When she arrives, she is stunned to see, on his side in a tight ball with thick manacles around his hands and feet, Gaben Finefirn, glaring up at her and spitting through the gag in his mouth. She can hardly move for the sight of him, but a piece of parchment that had been affixed to his ratty tunic is torn away and handed to her. Shaking, she opens it to read:

Dearest Princess Keyleth,

A gift from your allies in Draconia. I hope this goes some way toward relieving our great debt to you.

Your friend, Prince Tiberius Stormwind of Draconia

When he is hanged in the center of Zephrah, Keyleth stares him straight in the eyes, her hand in Vax's and her chin held high.

Over time, Keyleth is able to sleep through the night, always in the soothing circle of Vax's arms, and she begins to spend some of her days getting to know Vex. She is acutely aware of the Captain of the Royal Guard's distaste for her, understands completely why Vex neither trusts nor cares for her, but she is important to Vax, and anyone important to Vax is important to Keyleth. At first, her reception is icily polite, as the Captain cannot be outright hostile toward her someday sovereign, but Keyleth confesses her admiration for Vex, how she envies her endless confidence and impressive skill with a bow and arrow, and soon enough, Vex starts to melt, just a little. Once they are able to start mocking Vax and Percy together, poking fun at all their quirks and idiosyncrasies, the two become fast friends, much to their lovers' dismay.

Percy is further dismayed when Keyleth corners him one afternoon to ask when he is going to start taking his relationship with Vex'ahlia more seriously. When Percy stammers out some excuse about both of them enjoying their casual liaison, Keyleth pulls herself into her full queenly stature and asks him if he honestly believes that to be true, and then turns and leaves him dumbfounded and speechless. Keyleth hopes that, at least, will begin to pay her new friend back for being so understanding about her relationship with her brother.

Despite the challenges of her station and the state of things, Keyleth cannot imagine being happier than she is. She works tirelessly every day for the betterment of Ashari lives, and she goes back to her chambers—their chambers—each night to decompress and curl up against her husband, warmed by the fire and his smile. It surprises her, therefore, when her father approaches the two of them after breakfast one morning in the heart of autumn, when the leaves are rippling through to their new vermilion shades, to tell them that he has a belated wedding present for them. Confused, the two of them follow him down and out of the castle, curious as to what a gift from the sovereign might be.

.

The cherry tree on the hill on the southern edge of the castle grounds has been standing sentry here for approximately fifteen years. It has seen the passing of seasons, births and deaths, the beginning of a war and its end, a secret wedding at dawn. It has taken whispered prayers and mournful tears and nourished itself, grown to the great height that allows it to keep a watchful gaze on the castle, where the beloveds of the one buried at its roots have learned the art of going on.

The cool winds herald the arrival of autumn, and soon, the tree's leaves bronze and redden. One such chilly morning, three familiar faces approach the tree, and finally, perhaps, the tree is to get some answers regarding the flurry of activity that has taken place in its shadows over the past few weeks. One figure, who stands tall and wears around his head an impressive golden diadem, leads the other two by the hand, as they each have their eyes closed. Once they are close enough, he instructs the two to open their eyes, and for the first time, they see what has been built.

It is a small cottage, rectangular and stone, with picturesque window frames and ivy climbing up toward the thatched roof. There is a chimney standing along one side and a small bench facing the cherry tree. The front is a riot of flowers, all varieties and colors, and when they dance in the breeze, the house looks as if it has come to life.

The woman with the fire hair claps her hands over her mouth. Her husband is grinning a child's grin, staring up at the cottage with the awe of one who has just experienced a miracle.

"Papa...it's beautiful," the woman breathes, gripping her father's hand in both of hers. "How did you hide this from us?"

The father smiles knowingly and taps his nose. "When you are the sovereign, you will learn how to keep such secrets."

The husband faces the father. "This is...I have never been more honored in my life, Your Majesty." He starts to bow, but the bow is interrupted by a hand in front of his face, which he tentatively accepts and shakes.

"We are family, Vax. I believe you can call me Korrin." He pauses. "At least, when we are just us."

"Yes, Your—Korrin."

The father gestures toward the cottage. "I know how much it meant to your mother and I to have a place to go that was just our own, a place where pressures of the crown could not be felt quite so keenly." There is suddenly an impish look in his eye, and very casually, he says, "Of course, there are two bedrooms, for...whatever you might need them for."

The daughter's face flushes the color of her hair, but she throws her arms around her father's neck. "Thank you," she breathes, and the sound is so quiet it must be delivered to the cherry tree on the wind.

The father kisses his daughter's cheek and shakes her husband's hand one more time before bidding them goodbye. The young couple is left standing in awe in front of their cottage. The husband comes up behind his wife and wraps his arms around her. "We have a home," he whispers in her ear.

The wife smiles, and the tree imagines that smile on another queen's face. "You're my home," she whispers back, and together they stand, hair dancing in the autumn breeze, and as they watch the early morning sun dapple along the stones of their little home, the tree watches them, making a silent promise to the one it guards to do so through each season to come.

[cest-la-vieve]

A Court of Pain and Pleasure (Ch. 6)

Summary: Evelyn prepares for the trip to Prythian... dreading some of the things she has to do before then

Word Count: 2.3k (sorry this one is so short but it’s just to set up for Ch. 7 👀)

Warnings: Chronic disability/pain, slight cussing, another cliffhanger but hey that’s how it goes

Notes: okay we are catching up to all that i have written but i literally cannot wait to post this soooo guess i’ll just have to write more! please enjoy and let me know what y’all think!

Next Chapter: Chapter Seven

ACOPAP Masterlist

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I spent the next day giddily packing my bags. I had refused any help from the servants, too full of nervous energy to allow anyone to do anything for me. I paced from my dresser to my bag and to my dresser again as I debated what to pack. Would it be cold? Or would they have magic preventing anyone from feeling it? I decided to just pack of variety of clothes, thinking I could go shopping with Feyre once I finally got there. 

The piece of paper Rhys had given me sat on my nightstand, waiting for me to use it to go to the place of my dreams. I glanced at it every once in a while as I packed, using it to confirm that this was, indeed, real. I had planned to take today to pack and tomorrow to… let Cyril know I was leaving. I hadn’t quite decided what I was going to tell him about where I was going. Maybe I could reuse Feyre’s excuse of a sick aunt, I snickered to myself. Cyril, unfortunately, would demand to go with me and spend excessive amounts of items to help me be comfortable while I aided said aunt.

I told myself to pack at least half of what I wanted to bring, unsure if I would need to travel lightly or not. So that’s how the day passed, packing and puttering around the house. The day came and went, much quicker than I would have liked. I fell into a fitful sleep, plagued by nightmares of the war that could destroy the things and people I love most. The worst dreams were the ones where something terrible befell Cyril as a result of my choice to leave him.

When I woke, I was covered with sweat and exhausted from a night of not-quite sleep. The sun was just barely rising over the horizon and the birds were likely just waking to spread their wings and start their songs. I took a moment to soak it in, the mortal world, a place that was so simple yet so beautiful in its own way. The people here cared more about parties and who rewear a dress, how much they could sell a pelt for, and who had the higher-ranking family name than anything happening beyond the Wall. I wondered what the faeries were plagued with, what their day-to-day worries were.

I stretched my sore limbs and climbed out of bed. Today, I had to confront Cyril. We had scheduled a lunch, under the guise of discussing our wedding, and I was not looking forward to breaking his heart. This, though, I had to do for myself. 

The night that Nesta had asked me about marriage, I had told her I was waiting to live my life first and experience something meaningful. When I had thought it obvious that wasn’t going to happen, I allowed myself to be swept away by Cyril and the normalcy he brought. And now here was my chance to get a taste of that life I was talking about.

Noon came around and I paced the living room, much to Elain’s annoyance. She had brought a gardening book to read in front of our bay window, hoping to master a new kind of plant or flower or produce - I wasn’t sure which.

“Will you quit your pacing? Your stress is beginning to wear off on me,” she asked politely.

“Forgive me for being stressed about breaking a good man’s heart,” I simply replied.

“If you’re that worried about it, then don’t do it,” I shot her an incredulous look, “I’m serious, Eve. Cyril is a good man who would take care of you. You deserve someone as kindhearted as him, someone who loves you as much as he does.” “I also deserve a chance to live my life.” She gave me a sympathetic look but before she could respond, a knock sounded on the door.

I took a deep breath. Here we go.

I swung open the door and greeted Cyril with a pained smile, though he didn’t seem to notice. He greeted Elain where she perched on the windowsill then offered me his arm.

We began our usual trek to town for lunch but I stopped him a little ways from my family’s manor.

I cleared my throat, “We have something to discuss.”

“Yes, darling,” he smiled, “The wedding, which would be more easily spoken about over a hot lunch.”

“Yes, the wedding, but not in the way you think.” He stopped in his tracks.

I noticed his confusion and hesitated to go on. For Prythian. For myself. I gathered the courage before meeting his gaze and stating, “I’m… leaving, Cyril.”

“What?”

“I have to… go.” “Go where?”

I frowned. “I can’t tell you.”

He ran a hand through his blonde hair, mussing it up. “You have to go but you can’t tell me where… is there another man?”

I looked at him incredulously, “Absolutely not! I just… I have some soul searching to do. I want to have new experiences and be free to grow on my own without worrying about what it will do to someone else. I want to make mistakes and learn from them. I want to learn about people who are different from me. I just want to… see something new and exciting and different.”

“So go, then come back, and we’ll get married.” “I can’t marry you, Cyril. I’m not planning on coming back.”

“Evelyn, you can’t be serious.” But I gave him a look that said I most definitely was. “Eve, we just got engaged. We have a wedding to plan - a future to plan. Where is this coming from all of a sudden? Is Nesta sending you away or something?”

I bristled at the insinuation that my sister had something to do with this. “My sister is not involved in the decisions I make.  And it’s not out of nowhere - it’s what I’ve always dreamed of doing. Maybe if you took your head out of your own ass, you’d be able to understand what it’s like to dream of something… more.”

He gaped at me. I could tell he was upset and confused, but he wasn’t even trying to understand how important this was to me. I had known this wouldn’t be easy but I was hoping he would at least try to see that this is what I truly wanted. 

When he didn’t respond, I figured I should end the conversation there. There wasn’t much more to say, anyways. I was leaving and that was that.

I grabbed his hand and opened it so his palm faced the sky. I gently slid the ring off my finger and placed it in his palm before closing his hand and placing a light kiss on his knuckles. “Goodbye, Cyril. May you find endless happiness.” And with that, I turned and began walking back to the manor.

“And you won’t even do me the basic courtesy to tell me where you’re going?” He yelled after me.

I stopped in my tracks and considered it. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt at this point… I turned, smiled as wide as I possibly could, and shouted back, “I’m going to Prythian!” The shocked look on his face didn’t bring me any guilt or pain, only excitement as I spoke the words allowed for the first time.

There was a skip in my step all the way home. I knew it wouldn’t be easy hurting Cyril like that, but in my 21 years of being alive, I had developed a very low tolerance for certain types of people. I learned how to cut people off without dwelling on it. When we lost our fortune and our supposed “friends” refused to help, I simply stopped thinking about them or worrying about their opinions of me. With Cyril, he had been nothing but kind to me, but for my own well-being, it was better to push those feelings of sadness aside and focus on the joy I had about what was waiting for me in Prythian.

I opened the door and heaved a sigh, letting the negative energy out of me in one fell swoop. Elain looked up from her book, in the same spot she had been when I left but she didn’t comment as I trudged upstairs.

Instead of going to my room to stare at more boxes and bags, I walked to Nesta’s study and knocked on the door. Her voice came through the door in a shout of invitation. I opened the door and slid my way into the room, shutting it behind me.

One glance at my empty finger and her face hardened before focusing on whatever papers were in front of her.

“Nesta,” a hum of disinterest came from her, “I only have a few days left before I leave, and I… Well, I was hoping to spend them with you and Elain. No wedding planning, no talks of the future, perhaps some games or walks in the garden and a family dinner?”

She looked up at me again, “Perhaps,” was all she said.

I glowered at her. So that’s how we were gonna play this. She was going to keep that cold front up all the way until the moment I left, so she didn’t have to face the reality of me being gone. I understood why it was easier for her to do it this way, but it was still damn frustrating. If that’s what she wanted, though, who was I to argue?

I left the room without another word and spent the next two days as far away from Nesta as the manor would allow. 

I spent one day with Elain in the garden and despite her hesitance and discomfort with all things Fae-related, she asked me to write to her and describe the plants they had in the foreign land beyond the Wall. I told her I would be more than happy to do so, maybe I’d even draw her a picture of one. We both laughed at this, knowing that if I truly wanted to capture a Prythian flower, I’d have to go to Feyre. She got all the artistic talent of the family.

We sat outside, enjoying the sun and each other’s company, before retiring and having a lovely dinner together. Nesta’s absence was noticed by both of us, but not mentioned. 

The other day, I spent finalizing my packing and walking alone through the large estate that had become home. I realized that while I lived here and could call it home, it had never really felt like that. Sometimes I would have glimmers of it when Nesta would shove me playfully after I would make a particularly distasteful or inappropriate remark or when Elain and I would chase each other down the halls when the other had teased us. It was home in the same way that the small cottage we lived in had been home. The nights spent with Feyre preparing the meat she had hunted for us, curled up with Elain as she would comb my hair to soothe me, or even seeing my father sitting in his chair with his leg placed near the fireplace. 

They were home, my sisters. And while I was leaving two of them behind… I knew I could also find that sense of home in myself, by doing something I wanted to do.

That day was my day of peace and reflection before everything went to hell.

My final day was when it happened. I was meant to message Rhysand that day with my final decision and be picked up the following morning to be taken (how, I had never asked) to that magical city. I put it off until the last possible moment, hoping to bask in the remaining time with my older sisters. 

Nesta had actually lingered near me all day, though she didn’t speak up about my coming trip. She simply kept her presence around, whether she was reading in the same room as me or even just silently observing. I appreciated it more than she knew. I knew it was her way of saying goodbye.

We even had a family dinner, as I wanted. The three of us joked around with no mention of weddings or anything else that normally plagued our conversations. Just friendly banter between sisters. Sisters who truly cared for each other and would do anything for one another.

Nesta told me as much when she hugged me tight outside of my bedroom. All three of us had changed into our nightgowns but were loitering in the hallway, not wanting to say goodnight just yet. She crushed me to her and whispered in my ear, “I would burn the world for you. If they touch you or look at you the wrong way, I’ll be there.”

I smiled as a tear slid down my face. She would. She would burn the world and sacrifice much, much more for me if I just said the word.

Elain gave me a more delicate hug and made me promise to take care of myself and keep them posted about my activities. I told her that she could update me about her wedding plans in return, but I couldn’t promise to feign excitement about it. We all shared a small laugh over that.

Eventually, we began to yawn and realized we had done all that we could to delay the inevitable. I retreated into my room and was settling myself into bed when the entire house shook.

I jumped to my feet when I heard Elain’s screams. Nesta’s cruel voice cut through the house with demands about what was going on. I barely had time to process and come up with a plan when my door burst open and two High Fae rushed in. I ran to my dresser and scribbled a single word on that otherwise pristine piece of paper before the High Fae grabbed me.

Help.

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