#tange and marrow kiss all the time

[rattoz]

Tange & Marrow then a lil Kizu doodle :3 Tange & Marrow have been old ocs of mine since 2018/2019. Tange was a design concept i let get tossed around from my prior partners but at this point ive entirely decided id wanna work on him myself I also tried a new style with Kizu :3

[thus-spoke-lo]

Pain Management // Trafalgar Law x afab!reader // NSFW/18+

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Chapter 8: Long-Term Side Effects, pt I

Chapter Summary: After his near-confession in the quiet of your room, Law takes time to consider your fate, and makes a ruling on the future of your continued care, one that you refuse to accept. Days pass, and as a decision on your future aboard the Polar Tang looms, you make one last effort to tug at the strings of desire that tether your captain to you.

Chapter CW: afab!reader, no pronouns used; gendered pet names [ex. "good girl"]; angst; abuse of authority; obsessive behavior in reader; vaginal fingering; oral sex [m receiving]

WC: 7.6k

Law’s quarters were more claustrophobic than you recalled, and this time it wasn’t just the oppressive weight of uncertainty and his all-consuming presence making the walls close in around you. Stacks of books and papers threatened to topple over at your feet, clothes were heaped in small piles, half-opened boxes blocked the doorway to the lavatory attached to his room; it was barely-controlled chaos, nothing like you remembered from the night you ended up in his room. It wasn’t clear what he had been looking for, but you did have to wonder if he ever found it.

Law sat in his desk chair, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers folded beneath his chin, steely eyes settling on anything and everywhere in the room except for you and the space you occupied. He scratched at the scruff of his chin, moved his hand to the back of neck and rubbed at his skin, jiggled one leg, then the other, then both at the same time; he didn’t have to say a damn thing to tell you where this conversation was going to go. You stood with your upper arm pressed against his door as though hoping to be absorbed into the metal and escape this discomfort, silently trying to will him to say something—anything—to break the thick tension that was trying to suffocate you, as a sharp twinge manifested in your lower left side.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, wading into the uncomfortable silence. “For earlier—for the way I behaved, and the things I said. That was—well, I wasn’t quite myself.”

Yet, down to the marrow of your bones, you knew Law had been more himself in those moments than he had been since you’d begun your treatment plan, more honest in the way he looked at you with a covetous desire and the way he seemed to claim your body with his mouth, as though he had something to prove to you, to himself.

“It’s okay, I didn’t mind,” you mumbled, a sudden heat overtaking your ears.

“Whether you minded or not isn’t the issue. Every time we’re near each other, these feelings just start to bleed through and I—I can’t stem it. And what I’m doing to you”—his mouth hung open for a moment, as he fumbled for what should come next—“I can’t keep treating you, and acting like everything is fine. I just can’t.”

“Captain, please.” The way you heard yourself ready to beg was degrading, but you couldn’t stop, even if you tried. It was as if you’d wilt without his touch, wither like a summer bloom in the cold of winter, no matter how the ever-dissolving rational part of you knew otherwise.

“The damage is already done, but I can stop making it worse. Just look at yourself. You’re telling me I haven’t made you like this?” Law’s eyes scanning every inch of your face, analyzing the twitch at the corner of your lips and the rapid blinking of your eyes as you tried to suppress a wretched flood of tears.

“So what if you have?” You threw up your hands while you searched for words. “What is it you said to me that night—the night you kissed me? That maybe I just needed the right man to bring it out of me?”

“Stop. I don’t want to think about that.”

“Why not?”

“That’s. Enough.” The way his nostrils flared and the way he drew out each word made something crumble within you, feeling the last vestiges of whatever romance you thought was tethering the two of your together starting to slip from your grasp. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. “I’ve taken this time to consider your situation.”

“Which situation?”

“Your medical care.”

“Oh.” Not the situation of his manipulation and your willingness to be malleable for him. Not the situation of the unspoken needs and desires. Not the situation of the feelings that enrobed you both in some warmth you couldn’t seem to handle without burning each other in the process. “And…what have you concluded?”

“I know we’ve seen a lot of progress with your current treatment plan.” He paused, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “But I think perhaps it would be in your best interest if we went ahead with surgical intervention.”

Your mouth opened, then shut as you groped for a response. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s the most appropriate thing to do at this point. It’s not a guarantee, though. I’ve done some reading and I should be able to treat most of it, but it’s possible it may reoccur. If it does, it shouldn’t be for quite some time—possibly years. It’s hard to say. You may still need, at some point, to have everything removed, but this should at least improve your quality of life significantly in the meantime.”

You almost laughed at the absurdity—that just a short time ago, you had practically begged him in the exam room to do exactly what he was proposing right now, to use his devil fruit and take out whatever it was that made you double over in excruciating pain whenever your body saw fit. Yet here you were, more than ready and willing to deny yourself a long-term solution in favor of spending more of your afternoons in his care and more of your nights rutting against your pillow until your next session, the time in between spent ruminating on the extent of his affection for you.

“Take some time to think on it,” he added. “Just try not to mull it over too long, since we’ll need to contact Strawhat.”

“For what?”

“So we can coordinate your return.”

There it was, the fact that you wanted to conveniently ignore—that this submarine was not your home, that this was supposed to be temporary, that you were always meant to go back to the Sunny—was now shoved directly in your face. Your eyes darted around the room, an overwhelming feeling of being trapped suddenly coursing through you.

“And what if I decline the surgery?”

Law finally looked you in the eye and said your name softly, as though he was trying to cajole a stray animal. “Please.”

“What if I decline the surgery?” you reiterated with more conviction, despite the quaver in your voice. “Then what happens?”

“Let me make myself clear,” he said slowly as he stood, his movements careful and calculated. “I have reached a point where I can no longer, in good faith, continue your treatments.”

“But—but they’re working. I’m barely in pain anymore.” You flinched as another jolt shot through you, as if to taunt you, to remind you just how deeply your need for him was rooted. “This is the first time I’ve felt anything close to normal.”

“I know. And I want to help you. You know I do. It’s all I want.” He winced, looking pained as he spoke. “But this—this has to stop.”

“You want it to stop but you did this to me.” It was petulant and immature, but it was true, at least in part—he exploited the way you felt, somehow must have smelled your desire on you like perfume from the moment you came aboard. And yet, while he may have initiated the manipulation, you played right into it, letting him consume your every thought, your every breath, letting that little infatuation overcome you and almost bury you alive. And you learned, all too quickly, how to tug at the strings of his own yearning, to keen just right and say you needed him through the panting breaths of your orgasm, in an effort to pull him ever closer, to try to stoke coals of his heated desires.

“So then I have to end it.” Law’s voice raised slightly. “I don’t want to see you in pain. And that’s why I’m recommending surgery—I can at least do that for you.”

“You never answered me. What happens if I say no?”

“You know you can’t stay with us forever.”

You felt yourself slowly, surely, beginning to spiral in a way you couldn’t pull back from. “I-I can keep my distance.”

“I don’t think you can. I don’t think I can, either.”

“Then don’t.”

“I can’t have you here anymore.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the floor, rocking back on his heels. “Besides, wasn’t this supposed to be temporary? Don’t you want to go home?”

“But it doesn’t have to be temporary.”

“I think we both know it does.”

You ran your tongue along your teeth, trying to ignore the acid that was roiling in your guts. “Am I free to go now?”

Law wore his concern blatantly in his darkened eyes, more than you were accustomed to—it was clear he wanted to comfort you. He wanted to make the pain stop, just as he always did, make you forget for a moment that you were ever hurting to begin with. But you knew it was impossible to expect—he couldn’t give in to you again that quickly, not when he’d already expended the effort to push you away.

“You’re dismissed, if that’s what you want,” he said flatly.

You scoffed as your palm landed do the door handle. “Is it what you want?”

He moved backwards and leaned against his desk, tattooed fingers gripping the edge tightly, his knuckles turning white. He said nothing, and the only sound in the room was the soft groaning of the ship as it propelled you forward into the darkened depths.

“Well then. Have a good night, captain.”

You waited until you returned to your quarters to become untethered, and you wept foolish, irrational tears into your pillow while your abdomen throbbed, the sound of Law’s voice in your head reminding you not to cause yourself too much stress or else you’d work yourself into an episode ringing in your ears.

It was what you wanted all along—a solution that would provide long-lasting relief, and would let you live a life unencumbered. And yet, you wanted nothing more than to reject it, to stay ailing and helpless, so long as it meant that Law would coo and praise you while he gave you respite on his long fingers, even if he would never return the feelings that grew inside you and consumed you, body and soul. The heaving and bitter tears stopped eventually, and you tried to focus on thoughts of your old crewmates, picturing how excited their faces would be when you came aboard again, faces that faded and smudged like old photographs as you drifted into a dreamless sleep.

----------

You walked past the door to Law’s quarters, just as you had been every evening now for days while your impending decision loomed, following you like an stray dog during your work shifts, nipping at your heels as you tried to converse with your crewmates and act as though you weren’t crumbling inside. And every night, you’d find that the door was shut; you’d stand just outside, holding your fist aloft, preparing to rap your knuckles on the metal but never quite committing before you’d retract your hand and return to your room. There was a part of you—the part that was bound tightly in those vines of obsession and desire and some perversion of love—that knew if you could just spill everything that you held inside you, if you could only make him understand, that you could have what you wanted, what you knew you both desired.

The idea of parting with the Sunny—of walking away from the only family you had left in this world, who knew everything you were and everything you dreamed and hoped to be and still loved you anyway—hurt; it hurt in a way that would leave a scar that never would quite heal properly. But truth be told, you weren’t even sure what your dream was anymore; you weren’t sure why you had become a pirate on a whim, running out of the tavern where you’d worked, bottles of booze tucked under your arms while your boss yelled after you, chasing down Luffy and the rest to tell them you’d come with them after all. It was spontaneous, and it was senseless, but it seemed like the only right choice you had made in your whole life up until then. So what was one more reckless decision to add your list of sins? Was the frantic pull to remain here with Law, to devote yourself to him as your captain and your lover, to follow him wherever the ocean took you, really any more absurd than jogging after some group of near-strangers to hitch a ride to somewhere unknown?

Tonight, you noted on your approach that Law’s door was cracked open just slightly, a low light creeping out, seeming to invite you in. You padded towards the sliver in the doorframe and glanced inside—Law was sitting on his bed under the porthole window, his black bedspread wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak, knees pulled to his chest, a book held tightly in his hands. The lantern above his bed swung gently with the movements of the submarine and cast delicate shadows over him now and again, highlighting the sharp lines of his jaw, the hollow of his cheekbones, the dark circles under his eyes.

It was striking how, in the dim light, he simply looked like a man. Not the stoic and alluring stranger that you’d met aboard the Sunny, not your captain, not your doctor, but just some man—a handsome man that, in another life, you could see yourself meeting for the first time in the dark corner of a bar, or in between the shelves of a musty bookstore, a man with whom you could easily imagine the beginnings of a dreamily ordinary romance. But that was not the fate that either of you had been dealt.

The way the light moved over him was so mesmerizing, your thoughts of what could have been in some misty, watercolor other life so compelling, that it didn’t even register when his low voice uttered, “Yes?”

The dull drumming in your ribcage turned into a flutter as you processed that Law had addressed you, despite the fact that his eyes were still on the book in his hands; only a stammering whisper of nothing managed to make its way from your lungs.

“Are you just gonna stand there, or did you want something?” Law asked, loudly flipping to another page.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” you fumbled, only partially lying. You hadn’t meant to interrupt him yet—you had wanted to enjoy that moment just a little more, revel in the quiet comfort of existing near each other for just a little longer.

He set the book down next to his hip and gestured. “Just come in, before someone sees you.”

After a quick glance down the hallway, making sure it was only you who felt compelled to wander the ship in search of something at this hour, you slipped inside his room, carefully closing the door behind you. You crossed the still-cluttered space, gently moving a stack of textbooks aside with your ankle, and sat down in his desk chair, waiting for him to say something to you, something that would surely sound like “No,” with no preamble or closing statement, but he only smirked at you from the shadows.

“You know you’re not supposed to be here,” he said, his voice as smooth as ever, enough to send a spark up your spine.

“You're the one who invited me in,” you responded, one eyebrow raised in accusation, earning you a soft laugh and shake of his head.

“So what is it you want?” He tilted his head, pulling his knees in tighter to his chest. “I don’t suppose you came here tonight to try to sway my decision?”

“Mm…not really.”

“So why are you here, then?”

It was, at its core, a shameful desperation that compelled you to his quarters—you wanted him to see the mess he’d made of you, how he’d ruined you a hundred times over and made it feel like nothing else would ever be enough, like no one else would ever do. But it was also a desire to lay yourself bare that brought you here, an aching need to grant him the gift of seeing the love that had flowered in the depths of you, to lay your heart in his hands and hope he accepted it, held it close, made space for it beside his own.

The words to tell him that you wanted him—not just his hands, or his sweet condescension, or the way he shattered you into pieces with expert precision—but him, with all his flaws, and all that he was and all that he dreamed, never came, never found purchase in your mind. Instead, you finally muttered a stammering, “I don’t know.”

Law sighed and leaned his back against the wall, pulling the bedspread around him a little tighter. “I suppose you don’t have to.”

“Well,” you asked, the word stretching out slowly, as you rested your elbow on his desk, “why’d you let me in?”

A subtle smirk crept across his mouth as he chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Then we’re in this together, aren’t we? you laughed in your head as you both avoided each other’s gaze and sat there in the cool quiet of his room, the groaning and whirring of the submarine filling in the spaces between uneasy breaths. As your eyes moved around the familiarity of his cluttered space, the glossy cover of his book caught your attention.

You couldn’t help but smile as you asked, “Is that a Sora comic?”

“Oh. This?” A dusting of blush coated his cheeks as he glanced down at it, then back at you, fiddling with the ankle of his sock as he did. “Yeah. Just something I like to re-read now and again.”

“How funny. I used to read those—many years ago.” You smiled briefly as the few decent memories of your youth—the ones you could actually recall with any degree of clarity—skimmed through your mind.

“Really?” It was all but impossible to not hear the excitement in his voice, to ignore the way his pupils expanded as you spoke. It was unexpectedly charming to see him like this, all his masks having been removed, leaving you with something close to the truth of him.

“Yep.” You leaned closer and inspected it, tempted to pick it up and hold it in your heated hands, suddenly overcome with the urge to connect yourself to the past you barely recalled and the future you stood on the precipice of. “Lost mine after a lot of moving around, but I remember them pretty well.”

“I hate to admit it, but they’re still some of my favorite things to read,” he grinned sheepishly.

“Maybe I could borrow one some time?”

“I have a few issues with extra copies. I could send some with you.”

—when you go, you finished for him in your head.

The urge to resist—to beg, to plead, to dig your heels into the floor and refuse—was unnervingly strong, but you only nodded, croaking out, “That would be nice,” as you felt the weight of reality press down upon your shoulders and you hung your head, staring at the floor in hopes of melting straight through it.

Another moment of strained silence passed, before you heard a hesitant, quiet question: “Would you, maybe—would you want to read with me? Right now?”

You glanced up and saw Law’s tight-lipped smile, his gaze flitting back and forth between you and some spot just beyond you, his book held aloft like a lure, waiting to see if you would accept the bait.

“Um, sure,” you said as you stood up and crossed the small gap to the mattress.

He held the bedspread out to one side like a bird’s wing, beckoning you to join him. You moved to the bed and sat down, shifting into place beside him, and he gently draped the blanket over your shoulders. You sat there in a strangely comfortable quiet for a moment, listening to each other breathe, feeding off each other’s warmth; you leaned your head sideways and rested it against his upper arm, wanting to absorb every bit of this kindness, to keep it and tuck away inside you like a precious gift.

“Shall we get started?” he asked after a beat, looking at you out of the corner of his eye, a twitch of a smile at the edges of his mouth.

“You don’t mind starting over?” you asked as you saw him pluck a bookmark out of the center and move it to the back.

He shook his head. “Not for you I don’t.”

His tongue poked out between his lips as he flipped back to the beginning, moving through the glossy pages with you, pausing now and again to explain some obscure lore, filling in the things you couldn’t remember about the characters with a charming jubilance that seemed to make his entire body vibrate on a frequency compatible with your own. You kept him buzzing with a barrage of questions—some genuinely necessary to jog your memory, others only intended to get him talking again—and basked in the glow of his excited explanations, wanting only to stay in this space as long as he’d let you. A burning heat spread in your cheeks as you occasionally stole fleeting glances at each other instead of the book, feeling his body press into yours even more as you huddled together under the soft light, unspoken words haunting you from just beyond the shadows.

As he neared the end of the volume, he lingered on a page, and you looked up to see his eyes focused somewhere across the room. He leaned forward and set the book on the floor, before muttering, “I want to tell you something.”

“Captain?” An icy feeling flowed through your veins, and your heart started to pound just a little faster, moving the thin fabric of your shirt.

“When we met for the first time…” He trailed off, running his tongue along his lower lip for a moment. “The night before I left, when everyone was drinking, Nami may have let something slip to me.”

“Oh, did she?” Goddammit, Nami.

“I mean, I didn’t see why you’d—it just seemed like something she’d say to mess with me and get some sort of reaction from me, I don’t know. I just figured she was drunk, and I didn’t really trust her.”

“No?”

“I mean, I wasn’t blind,” he said, bringing one hand to the back of his neck. “I saw the way you looked at me across the dinner table, and how you seemed to light up whenever we talked, and—I think I knew somehow that she wasn’t just making it up. I just didn’t want to believe her.”

You turned to look at him, seeing the strain in his expression, how his admission seemed to agonize him. “Why not?”

“Because I can never lose what isn’t mine.”

He slid his hand under your palm, interlacing his fingers with yours, his skin cool to the touch. A soft puff of air left your lips as you held his hand tightly, and you let yourself wonder frivolous thoughts about what could have been—what would have transpired if he’d said something before you parted ways last time, if he’d only taken you by the hand and confessed his own blooming crush, kissed you softly in the light of the setting sun, held you close to him until you had to watch him leave. Maybe you would have followed him then, or maybe you would have accepted it as just another part of a life constantly in motion. But you weren’t given the option, and instead, a feverish obsession grew inside you like weeds.

“Just ask me to stay and I will,” you whispered, leaning into him more.

“You’re telling me you don’t want to go back?” he questioned, tilting his head back against the wall. “You don’t miss them?”

“Of course I miss them. But—”

“Then you need to go home.”

“Please, Law,” you said, your voice hushed and wavering. “What I need is you.”

His eyes fell shut and he let out a shivering exhale as his name left your lips. “That’s not fair. You know that’s not fair.”

“Neither was making me want you the way I do.” You ran your fingers up his forearm, tracing the outlines of his tattoo.

Law reached across your body and grasped your chin between his fingers, turning your head towards him, your body following, your eyes locked on his. His hand moved up and drifted across your face, his fingertips dragging along the contours of your jaw, memorizing the soft round of your cheek, his thumb sweeping across your lower lip, tugging it down gently.

“You sure you really want this?” he asked, his eyes flitting over your face, as if trying to read whatever words you were about to say before they even formed. “You sure you want this with me?”

“I’m sure.”

It was every bit of permission he needed to drop those last layers of formality that separated the two of you; he leaned forward, his nose grazing yours, and you felt his warm breath spread over your skin. Law’s eyes drifted shut as he tentatively pressed his lips to yours, holding them there as his palm slid down your cheek and came to rest at the back of your neck, cradling your head in his hand. The hesitance gave way at once to hunger, and he softly groaned as his warm tongue slipped between your lips, impatient and demanding, his mouth engulfing yours in long, drugging kisses as he gripped the back of your neck tighter and pressed you into him like he didn’t dare let you slip away.

He laid you down, pulling your body against him as he bit and sucked at your lips, and he slotted his firm thigh in between your legs, pressing up into your clothed cunt as you laid face-to-face. Everything suddenly felt jumbled, hearts racing, hands moving over clothed flesh, tongues tasting the salt of each other’s skin, quiet noises of pleasure mixing in the air between you. Law’s wandering hand found the hem of your shirt and moved under it, the warmth of his palm welcome against your skin. A low growl lingered in his chest as he carefully grasped your breast, kneading it in his hand, feeling how your skin tightened under his palm, before rolling your pebbled nipple between his thumb and index finger until you moaned into his mouth.

He broke away from the sweetness of your mouth to hush you. “You have to be quiet for me, okay?”

“Of course, whatever you say.” You would have agreed to almost anything if meant he wouldn’t stop, if he’d keep you wrapped in his addictive embrace forever.

A familiar shameless grin stretched across his mouth, as he rewarded you with the praise you coveted, the sweet words that echoed in your head: “That’s my good girl.”

His lips captured yours again, as if to keep you quiet by occupying your mouth, and you slowly started to grind against his thigh, needing something to satisfy the ache that was beginning to build. Law groaned under his breath at your movements, and you felt the weight of his own arousal start to press into your leg as he rutted against you, the two of you building a slow and steady rhythm as you extracted your own pleasure from each other’s bodies.

Law gradually moved his free hand down your form, as if he was trying to map every curve, every dip, every peak and valley and commit it to memory. He removed his thigh from between your legs as his large hand slipped down the front of your sweatpants and meandered past the waistband of your panties, his fingertips moving down your soft mound to the apex of your slit. You sucked in air through your teeth as he wasted no time, making firm, persistent circles over your swollen clit, sending a warm rush of pleasure through your lower half.

After a few moments, he unhurriedly slid his fingertips down your dampened pussy lips, slipping his middle and ring fingers inside you, biting down on his lower lip and drawing in a sharp breath as he felt how drenched you were for him, how he was making you as desperate and needy and malleable as he liked you to be. Law crooked his fingers upwards and shallowly thrust in and out, while the heel of his palm pounded against your tender bundle of nerves repeatedly with every movement of his wrist.

“Fuck, I love the way you make me feel,” you huffed into his shoulder, as you rocked your hips in time with his movements, pressing your pulsing clit more firmly against his hand.

“I know you do,” he purred, “why do you think it’s so hard for me to stop?”

It wasn’t going to be long before he’d unravel you, days of wanting and yearning built up inside your core, an impatient heat burning away for him, one only he knew how to quell. Your quaking thighs pressed together around his forearm, and an unbearable need to feel yourself spasm around those long, skilled fingers of his obscured your every rational thought.

“I know you’re close,” he whispered through a cocky grin as his fingers moved a little faster, plunged a little deeper while you moaned into his pillow, a familiar tremble moving through your core. “I can feel it.”

“Fuck, ‘m gonna cum, Law,” you whined against the softness of his shirt, your every nerve feeling like it had been set ablaze.

“That’s it, stay nice and quiet, and breathe through it for me,” Law panted in your ear. “Cum for me. Cum on my fingers like a good girl.”

A sharp wail hitched in your throat and you clenched your eyes shut as you groped at his shirt, grabbing a handful of fabric in your fist. That wire inside you wound tighter and tighter, and with a few last hard thrusts of his fingers, you felt a blinding, white-hot moment of release, your walls fluttering and pulsing around him while you keened his name into his chest, singing it straight into his heart, finally feeling that ache begin to fade with every shudder.

“I love the way you say my name,” he whispered hotly in your ear, his soft lips caressing your jaw and neck. “It’s like a fucking drug.”

He slowly pulled his hand out of your pants and slipped his arousal-covered digits past his lips, sucking every drop of your juices off them. A shudder ran through you as you watched how his eyes fluttered as he pulled his fingers out of his mouth with a soft pop; he eagerly reclaimed your lips afterwards in a greedy kiss, and you could taste yourself on his tongue as it swept inside your mouth.

“You always know how to ruin me,” you murmured as he tugged at your kiss-swollen lip with his teeth, before soothing it with the tip of his tongue.

He nuzzled against your cheek. “I think maybe I was always meant to.”

Your shaking hand nervously worked its way up Law’s shirt, wanting to finally feel what you’d only admired from a distance, touch what you’d dreamed of as you writhed in bed at night. Soft little moans crept up his throat as you ran your hand over the contours of bone and sinew, fingertips brushing over the hard, warm muscles of his chest and trailing down the corrugated leanness of his abdomen. The stiff fabric of his sleep pants scratched against your hand as you moved further down and rested your palm on his clothed cock; he inhaled sharply and you felt him throb into your hand.

“Is this alright?” you asked, stilling your movements and feeling the heat of him against your palm.

“Y-yeah,” he choked out. “S’good.”

You slowly moved your hand over his length, feeling the head swelling against the heel of your palm, feeling how he pulsed with every gentle motion and how a darkened, wet spot began to form from how his aching cock leaked for you with every subtle stroke. Law’s eyes were closed, his eyebrows knitted together in something that looked like blissful torment, soft puffs of breath leaving his lips. His hips rocked against your hand as you palmed him, and you couldn’t help but want more, to have him in your grip without the barrier of fabric between you—to know if the way you’d imagined how he would feel and look so many times was anything close to reality. Your hand moved up and you tried to maneuver past the waistband, but found it to have little give.

“Wait, here, let me—” He hastily pulled down his pajama pants, moving to lay on his back, one arm behind his head, the other stroking the top of your hand. He eyed you nervously, as you took in the sight of his cock for the first time—the thick shaft was nestled in a dark bramble of pubic hair, his length as significant as you had pictured it in your lust-addled mind as you’d grind against your pillow on sleepless nights, the swollen head now a dusky pink as it throbbed for you.

“Fuck,” you remarked without thinking, noticing how it curved upward just slightly, wondering how that might feel inside you, if he’d stretch you deliciously as he slowly pushed into you, if it would hit all those sensitive spots deep within your walls in the way his fingers always could—or better. “It’s…yeah.”

A deep and pervasive blush spread over his face while an incredulous smirk formed on his lips. “So good you’re almost speechless, huh?”

“That good,” you grinned as your hand moved up his thigh, fingers lightly moving over his skin, teasing him with every touch that wasn’t yet concentrated on his twitching length. His quickening breaths were intoxicating, and the way he watched your every movement through his dark lashes, his pupils blown, was heavenly; if you weren’t so very eager to feel his hardness in your hand, you would have tormented him a little more, until his he was practically drooling and frantic for your touch. As it was, you thought he had gone long enough without knowing how it would feel to have you give him as much relief as he always gave to you, until his muscles were sore and he was desperate to cum, and you certainly didn’t want to make him wait any longer.

You wrapped your hand around the base of his shaft, squeezing it gently to watch him swell, before lowering your mouth to him, kissing and running your tongue over the head, tasting the salty, sticky precum that had smeared over it as you had palmed him through his pants. His abs tensed and his hands gripped the sheets as your tongue flicked underneath the tip, then moved to lavish him from top to base, making soft sweeping motions over every inch of his length, coating him fully in saliva that glistened in the dim light.

His mouth hung open as he watched your tongue moving over him, your fist lazily pumping his shaft. “God, it’s even better than I imagined.”

“Yeah?” you asked, the word muffled as you tapped his pulsing length against your flattened tongue. “You’ve thought about this?”

“Y-yeah,” he blushed, his ears reddened. He reclined back on the pillow and laid his forearm over his eyes, not wanting to meet your gaze while he surrendered to some impulsive urge to tell you every sordid secret he held in his chest. “How could I not? I’d come back here at night and sometimes my hands would still smell like you. And—fuck—I’d just lay here and—god, I’d feel so guilty, but I wanted you so bad it hurt if I didn’t.”

“Good to know it wasn’t just me, then.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Law muttered breathlessly as you finally took him in your mouth, two fingers and your thumb gripping the base where your lips couldn’t quite reach without a struggle. Even still, you choked a little as he reached the back of your mouth, and the tightening of your throat around his sensitive tip made him thrust his hips, forcing him deeper into your warm, wet mouth. A low whine left his lips as you felt him swell on your tongue, and he hastily moved his hand over his mouth, breathing heavily through his nose as he adjusted himself on the pillows to watch you.

You steadily bobbed your head up and down, moving your flattened tongue over the underside of his shaft as you did, maintaining a steady rhythm as you felt swells of your own arousal hit you with every moan and grunt that he tried to contain. His breaths became quick and shallow as you felt him tensing his body, his free hand now in a tight, shaking fist at his side. A deep groan of satisfaction left your lungs, and the resulting vibrations in your mouth made him whimper quietly, softly repeating, “That’s it, that’s it, don’t stop,” over and over into his palm.

His eyes clenched shut and his hand clamped over his mouth harder, a low groan reverberating in his chest as everything inside of him seemed to coil, every nerve growing taut as your spit dribbled over your hand and pooled around the base of his cock, small rivulets dripping down his aching balls. He tapped your arm frantically, as if you alert you to something, then grew still for a moment and held his breath. With a series of warm and erratic pants, his whole body shuddered and he reached a jarring, pulsing climax, his hips bucking into your mouth as he throbbed and flooded himself into you, hot ropes of his spend landing on your tongue and coating the inside of your mouth while he grunted your name again and again like some lewd mantra. You drank him down as he desperately sucked air into his lungs, letting the last pulsating waves of his orgasm move through his muscles. You slowly pulled yourself off him, sucking on the tip to coax every last drop from him, before giving it a final, gentle kiss and sitting up beside him.

Law’s eyes opened finally, and he blinked hard, glanced down at you to study your satisfied, shameless expression. He finally removed his quaking hand from his mouth, panting, “Shit, did—did you swallow?”

You nodded gleefully, sticking your tongue out at him, as if to prove it, wanting him to see the extent of your willingness to satisfy.

“Oh fuck, you’re such a good girl for me,” he said through shivering breaths, waving you towards him. “C’mere.”

You laid down and he quickly turned over and wrapped you in his sinewy arms, leaning in to kiss you, not seeming to care if he tasted the last drops of himself on your tongue. His hands pressed into your back as he drew you closer, digging into your soft flesh, and you wrapped your leg around his waist in return, pulling his hips against yours until you could feel the weight of his half-hard cock resting against inner thigh, wanting him as close to inside you as you could get him for the moment.

Your body seized mid-kiss as a sudden urgent rapping at the door cut through the thick, sex-tinged air in the room, a muffled “Captain?” coming from the other side.

“Dammit,” Law hissed as he pressed his forehead to yours.

“What should I do?” you mouthed at him, knowing the answer before he could say it.

“I’ll be right there,” he shouted in the direction of the door. He wrested himself away from you and out of bed, untangling from your limbs and the twisted bed-sheets, almost tripping over the pajama pants that were still pooled around his ankles. He stepped out of them, and despite the sheer panic flowing through you, it was all but impossible to not admire his frame, the muscled planes of his shoulders, the dip in his lower back that led down to the slight curves of his ass. He bent down and grabbed his jeans, quickly pulling them on, his breathing still labored as his still-shaking hands struggled with the fly.

He turned back towards you, and you watched as his wrist instinctively flexed, a small ball of blue light forming. You closed your eyes and braced yourself for impact, wondering if you’d get the wind knocked out of you again this time, or if you’d be spared with a softer landing; instead, you felt the mattress shift beside you, a clammy hand settling on your forearm. You turned to see Law kneeling beside the bed, and he reached up to stroke your cheek, worry settling in the lines on his forehead.

“Just wait here for me,” he said, barely audible. “Stay quiet, okay?”

“Sure,” you said with a nod, your words almost eclipsed by the persistent hum of the ship.

“One second,” he said towards the door as he maneuvered over boxes into his bathroom, and you watched as he rinsed his mouth with water and scrubbed his hands, trying to wash any trace of you from his skin. He returned to the door, wiping drops of water from his scruff, and slid out into the hallway, shooting you a quick glance before he shut it behind him.

The lantern above the bed swung a little more energetically as you laid there, inhaling the scent of him from his pillows, wrapping yourself in his sheets, letting yourself live in the delusion, if only for the moment, that this was your everyday—this was the room you returned to at night, the bed you shared as you drifted to sleep, the sheets that would crumple and wrinkle underneath you as you fucked the loneliness out of each other.

A short time passed as you let yourself indulge in fantasy, dreaming of an ordinary kind of love, and Law slid back into his room like an apparition, offering you a tight-lipped smile as he carefully closed the door behind him.

“Everything okay?” You sat up, still clinging to one of his pillows.

He nodded and collapsed into the chair at his desk, interlacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back. “Just something in the engine room, it’s fine.”

“Look, I-I know I shouldn’t be here,” you stammered, suddenly feeling like you didn’t belong in his space, knowing that despite your desires, this wasn’t meant to last, and it would only be a matter of time before he asked you to leave, so you may as well go of your own accord and try to hang onto the whispers of dignity you had left. “I’m so sorry for this, I’ll come by tomorrow and we can work out things with—with the surgery and all that.”

You stood, tugging up your sweats and pulling your shirt down, trying to make yourself look like you had been doing anything other than deep-throating your captain, knowing there was no way to hide your kiss-swollen lips or the smell of desire on you, but you could at least make your clothes appear respectable. As you started to shuffle past him, he whispered your name and a long arm extended out and hooked around your midsection, stopping you in place, and you gripped his firm shoulder to keep yourself from pitching backwards from the momentum.

“Captain—”

“Tell me you need me again,” he cooed as he placed his other hand on your hip and guided you in front of him, his knees bumping against your unsteady legs. “Say my name and tell me you need me.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said in that low voice in that way you couldn’t resist, a glimmer of desire in his eyes, “I want to hear it.”

You straddled his lap, and he placed his hands firmly on your waist, gripping you and pulling you down against him so hard you gasped. Your arms found their way around his shoulders, and you carded your fingers through his thick black hair, gently massaging his scalp until his eyes fluttered and he could only gaze at you through the fall of his dark lashes.

“I need you, Law,” you murmured, your lips brushing against his ear as you spoke, before leaving a trail of soft kisses down his jaw.

“Good.” He shivered under your touch, his voice now a low and hungry growl. “I need you, too.”

“Then don’t make me leave.”

One hand slid up your spine to grip the back of your neck, holding you still, and he placed a careful kiss on your lips, smiling as he pulled away. “As if I could.”

[ficsnroses]

— 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝑰'𝒍𝒍 𝑩𝒆 𝑺𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑻𝒐.

—𝑳𝒂𝒍𝒐 𝑺𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒂 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓— 

prompt: lalo hasn’t come home well into the night, leaving you worried. when he does arrive, you find it tough to let each other go. 

warnings: lots of fluff, angst. brief sm(u)t mention. 3.3k words. 

notes: sigh. gotta love two idiots in love. anyway, hope you enjoy! gif credit: (x)

a/n: if you’d like to see more Lalo fics, feedback much appreciated to lemme know. there is very minimal dialogue in this piece, I hope I was able to execute their thought processes adequately. enjoy! (also, I apologize if the Spanish is incorrect, google translate was used). 

title creds: everything i write uses a hozier lyric at this point lmao.

You don’t become acquainted with the cartel by choice.

No one sane enough would.

You’d heard the sentiment often. The devil is in the details.

You knew of the Salamanca name.

The first time you’d met him, his eyes sparkled with life and he’d grinned broadly. You’d ignored the shiver down your spine that whispered ever so delicately how this wasn’t a man smiling at you, but a predator baring teeth at its prey.

You’d ignored it, nonetheless. And then it never came again.

Lalo Salamanca became for you a what the sun is to the moon.

He cannot run from what he is—what he was born into. Cannot dispose of the very blood that electrifies through each lively course of his veins.

But you?

You’d drowned willingly.

And perhaps, there is some rotten thing inside you, too. For holding the devil’s hand so tenderly. Funny that— the tightness of that grip made you think that your hand would never be only yours ever again.

Something inside you whispered that you will burn. And there will be no relief.

Not for a long time.

The pangs of longing, of regret that cut through your chest are sharp; nearly acidic.

2:53am.

He always calls, always reaches out to let you know he’ll be home soon.

The bubble of uneasiness that had been smouldering inside your chest all day had finally seemed to boil over. By the time you’d paced the corridor of your shared home a little over a million times, an onslaught of gentle tears had finally begun to escape and you were in desperate need of a steadying breath. Your heart had begun to beat just a few beats too fast.

You knew the Salamanca name, and everything it entailed.

It could all come crumbling down in a mere second.

Just one, measly second. After which all you’d be left with was little flickers of him in your home. The lingering sound of that rich laughter that rolls up from his chest, the songs he’d hum for you buried in the walls. The smell of him on your pillow, and they very shell of you cold, because it would no longer be warmed by his.

It’s a funny thing, damnation. How some are destined for it, how some fall into its arms willingly.

A knot forms in your chest. Your eyes squeeze shut and you breathe in deeply, trying to push each bitter thought out your head. Lock yourself away from it. Push back the way his words are an anthem in your heart.

They pierce through you. To the very marrow and back.

‘I won’t go anywhere, cariño. No sin ti.’

Most people fear damnation.

You tug on a memory. A memory of Chihuahua night sky, a dark room, and hands cupping cheeks. The heat of them on his skin—a blessing and a curse all in one because you can hardly live without that touch now. Callous hands gentle on your back as he kisses and claims, the bittersweet, almost nostalgic tang of cognac on his tongue. The warmth of soft, caring lips against your forehead followed by a tentative, faint murmur into your hair.

It’s a funny thing, damnation.

And perhaps, you are damned. And maybe, nothing is much of a sacrifice when part of you wanted to stay from the start. With him.

Some people call him a sin. An angel of death, a wicked fool. Effortlessly foul, a curse that easily lights up the room.

Not you. Never you. You have reached the deepest parts of him, the suppleness buried underneath a frighteningly sharp exterior. Those closest to him know all too well. Lalo Salamanca is warm.

Cold eyes, warm hands. And a warmer heart, if you could get to it.  

He will burn castles for the ones closest to his heart. You do not believe in fate. You do not believe in destiny, either. But then he’d came.

Destructive, big, bold, beautiful, and you’re forced to reconsider everything.

He is a mountain of a man and he is yours. And you don’t remember when every part of you had become his.

You tried not to keep track of time.

It made it easier.

You pace the corridor a little more, the gnaw inside painful and raw, ripping through your chest. Blinking twice, your expression slackens as a pair of fresh, noiseless tears roll down your cheeks. You feel heavy and worn in the worst way possible— the kind that makes one slow and vulnerable. Worry splits you apart and suffocates you with every breath, so much so, that you had barely registered the click of the front door when it opens slow with a creak.

Its not long before you breathe a soul deep, gut wrenching sigh of relief. Your eyes close as your chest fills, and you waste no time in hastening his way. The distance between you two is cut in just a few rushed steps, tears welling in your eyes anew.

And suddenly, everything feels as if a ripple in the very movement of time itself.

He sees the look of distress on your face, the way you breathe a pained breath that rattles in your lungs.

A pair of arms curl around you like irons. The powerful ripple of his chest and arm muscles melt against your body and you sigh, burying your face into his frame with a weary exhale. The warmth of his skin sinks into you and seems to revive you to the bone, and you cling to him softly with your cheek pressed tightly to his chest, close enough to hear the subtle beat of his heart.

And you keep it there.

Quietly listening as your drowsy limbs and fatigued mind register the feat. He is home. Right where he belongs.

It’s a funny thing. How you knew what those hands were capable of.

They’d killed before, and you knew how dangerous they were— how dangerous he was. But Lalo touches you with care; tense and careful as he wraps you in his arms, expression contouring with every small weep you’d let out.

He could tell you were executing your greatest attempts to halt your distress—to quiet your ever so small weeps, so quiet that he could hardly hear them. But sense them, he did.

And they withered something inside him.

Lalo’s voice is calm, baritone vibrating against you as he quietly whispers into your silky tresses, leaving a soft kiss to the crown of your head. “Hey, Princesa.”

You smile mildly for the first time today to those words, still listening to the sound of his beating heart. Pressing closer to him, you breathe softly at the sensation of his nose brushing against the gentle curve of your neck as he rests his head there, moulding into you so easily, so familiarly. Your skin tingles where his fingertips stroke, and you arch into his touch with a tight swallow.

Lalo’s eyes slip shut, and you both simply savour the moment.

No words are needed, no tender confessions or difficult details. Your fingers sink into his thick salt and pepper hair and you shift yourself closer.

It’s an amusing thing, damnation.

Reflecting on the paths we take.

     Maybe he didn’t deserve this. But he wanted it, anyway.

So he nuzzles into you further, smells your hair a little deeper. Remembers the way there is a subtle chill in the AM air, but your embrace is warm nonetheless. So warm, that for one, irrational second he wishes to never let you go at all.

He longs to stay suspended in this moment, cocooned by your warmth and the quiet lull of the night.

A part of you almost feels upset when he pulls away slightly, but it is replaced with something tender not too long thereafter, when you feel Lalo’s larger hands cup your face delicately.

Lalo Salamanca has always been a man of minimal sentiment shown. Stoic, frighteningly efficient in emotionless conduct. Understanding what was going on inside that clever head of his would always prove to be a challenge. And he liked it that way.

Salamancas protect their interests.

Only with you would that startling exterior thaw slightly. Only ever you. But even then, it surely still did prove difficult for Lalo to allow the indulgence willingly.

There was something in those eyes that made you ache for him. Something you couldn’t quite put your finger on, despite your greatest attempts to smother it.

His expression remains patient, stoical when his eyes look into yours, and in them, he sees raw, honest pain brewing. He observes you thoughtfully, eyes glossing into you as if he is carefully trying to calculating why you would be so startled, to the point of waterworks for a sinner like him.

As if his own mind could simply not comprehend the weight of what you feel for him. Despite the fact that he feels the exact same measure for you, if not more. He simply cannot understand how someone like you could fear so endlessly for someone like him.

A long pause.

Then, your fractured whisper. “I…”

He doesn’t answer. Only his slow, steady breaths do and his patient eyes scanning your features. Your beautiful, soft features he has come to adore far more than he’d care to admit to the world.

He doesn’t answer. Not until his warm fingers brush against your skin, the pad of his thumb lovingly skimmed under your eye, wiping a rogue tear.

And when he presses a soft kiss to your forehead, you seem to crumble right beneath his touch.

And suddenly, you realize. That you can be homesick for people, too.

“I…I got so…” you note quietly, trailing off, and Lalo notices the sad break in your voice. There is a part of him that almost tells himself he is better off not knowing.

But.

“I just got a little scared, when I didn’t hear from you.”

Your voice is a mere breath that seals the space between you, and suddenly, a million little things burn at the back of his throat. This man— this wicked, soft, immoral, fascinating man wants to say so much and yet—

What could he possibly say?

What string of carefully calculated words could possibly do this— you, justice?

     It’s a funny thing, damnation.

He hadn’t feared it his entire life. It was all part of the grand scheme of things. A mere landmark in the cycle.

He knew he didn’t deserve this. But he wanted it. He wanted it so badly, anyway.

He could never do it justice. Not if he tried with everything he’d had. And it was a tough predicament to admit— that he could spend the rest of his life doing nothing but good, nothing but saints work and still be unworthy of you.

Perhaps it is a curse.

A beautiful, unjust, painstaking curse.

Perhaps you are both destined for it. Lalo had realized a bitter truth long ago.

He loves you.

Lalo Salamanca loves you.

Love, love, love. A foolish sentiment. A sickness. A weakness. A blessing.

He fears it will become all he knows or cares about because it is the very best of him. The part of himself that he likes the best. It had been that way for a while now. The mounting, growing dream of a future with you by his side. The desire to build a life with you, to melt into you so deep that he forgets the taste of his very own name.

Casting your eyes down, you’d endeavoured to swallow the lump in your throat, trying to force casualness into your tone. It was then, that his work tethered hand softly lifts yours, his fingers lacing comfortably warm around it, and he lays a heartfelt, gentle kiss to the back of it.

You tried not to focus on the heat of his lips, or the scratch of his facial hair when it brushed against your skin. And especially not the way you’d watched his eyes slip shut when he’d done it. Even, if only briefly. As if the feeling of your supple skin against his lips was the only one he’d ever wanted.

And then, he rests your still entwined hand over the earnest flesh of his beating heart, eyes never falling off you. The weight of Lalo’s hand on top of yours is nearly electrifying; and through the weight of his stare into your very own, you feel the gesture more of a statement than a mere action. His eyes burn with certainty and a thousand nameless things.

A pleasant shiver races down your spine at his nearness, at his touch, and you revive when his eyes slowly trace over your features.

His hand lightly squeezes yours, and you seem to melt for him in the very moment. The way his eyes read into you, the way his unyielding embrace around you feels like more of a home than any other one you’ve known.

This, his hand over yours on his beating heart was his way of saying it. I’m here. I made it home.

It all comes rushing back. The very words you hold nearest to your heart.

     ‘I won’t go anywhere, cariño. No sin ti.’

Something used to scratch from under your skin. Something indescribable, something you hadn’t been able to pinpoint despite your greatest attempts to identify it. From the start of it all, Lalo had always been kind to you. Charming, effortlessly pleasant. You relished his often biting sense of humour, too, even.

Still, you’d been dreadfully aware of the penance that comes with him. The blood on his fingertips, the hold of the cartel that will refuse to let one of their best men go. His very own family name, a damnation of its own.

But there had always been something inside you that refused to part from him. The gravitational pull he had on you had become harder and harder to dethatch yourself from day by day— because some part of you didn’t want to let him go.

And it wasn’t until today. In the cold linger of the day’s chill, through the uncertain feat of his whereabouts. Today’s events had spoke to you once and for all.

You are unwilling to be parted from him. A simple truth, one you had happily dedicated yourself to the moment you’d seen him walk through the door. A part of you had whispered delicately in your ear all day, buried, raw thoughts scratched their way to the surface through each uneasy breath.

A part that selfishly wonders.

What kind of existence would it be without him?

If the soft pad of his thumb never brushed lovingly against the apple of your cheek again? If you’d never felt the way his lips curve into a smile, between the juncture of your neck when he’d embrace you? If you’d never feel the tingle of your name being whispered by that low, silky voice?

If he’d never made love to you again?

His smooth voice tears through your thoughts. Lalo’s thumb coaxes over the soft skin of your inner wrist, and you realize that neither you or Lalo had been able to take your eyes off each other the entire time. You’d both been sinking into one another, so deep, finding it tough to look away.

As if you both feared the other would disappear. As if you both feared that if you looked away for too long, this dream in front of you, that you both often feared you might have just simply conjured up, might just disappear.

“Join me in the shower?” he voices quietly, composed and calm.

Damnation.

Perhaps, a curse. A carefully measured calculation by the very universe you were made in.

It’ll all go the same. A routine, a tune you’ve played a thousand little times. He’ll try to crack a joke or two to distract you, shift your focus elsewhere, anywhere away from this heartbreak.

Because perhaps, he needs it too. It feels far too much as if he is trying to swallow down his own heart.

Sometimes, he’ll catch you looking at him. With those eyes of yours— those beautiful, loving, thoughtful eyes of yours that whisper to the very marrow of him. I’ll follow you anywhere.

And sometimes— too often, even, it terrifies him how easy that assertion of yours is to believe.

His life had always been just that. His. His to gamble, his to decay. But perhaps now, it belongs to someone else, too.

Someone good, someone great. Someone magical.

Your lips gently curve upwards into a small smile, and you bring the gentle arch of your hand to press to his skin, cupping his cheek. He savours that sight, locks it away in the deepest pits of him where he will keep it forever. You, with your easy smiles and kind eyes.

His personal sun.

You have easily hid your once prominent sorrow. Masked it away. “I’ll grab us some towels.”

It feels worryingly nice to know he is the source of that subtle joy that grows on your pink stained lips. And worse, to remember that he was the cause of tears that brewed in its place before it.

To remember that maybe, this is all he will ever be to you. A harmony of sorrow and joy. The source of pain but also the antidote.

And he wonders.

Is this punishment, then?

The penance he is damned to pay?

Your fingers are slow, careful, oh so gentle— when you soothe them along his temple lovingly, sweeping a stray hair away. It’s brief, none more than a flickering brush of softness and warmth alongside his rugged skin. And it was then that Lalo realized just how tightly his tense arms had been enveloped around you. The smell of your perfume lingers in his senses, something sweet, something so uniquely you. The way the rise and fall of your small breaths against him had felt so routine, as if they had always been destined to accompany his. Everything about this moment—the smell of your dewy skin pecked with flowers, the gentleness of your movement. It all gets committed to his memory.

Some part of him whispers from deep within.

Let her go, you fool. Let her find her peace. Let her be happy. She deserves someone good. Someone clean.

And he realizes another bitter truth. He can’t.

It is damnation.

To see the dread in your eyes each time he comes home like this. To watch you relive your very own, terrible nightmare. Again and again and again. Lalo knows he will never be free. Not from the cartel, not from his family name. And he does not want to be, either.

The same way in which you hold an unwillingness to be parted from him.

They say the devil is in the details.

A curse, even. To begin to love so fiercely. To have and to hold, but not without knowing that he is a thorn that bruises the very paradise that is you. To know that he is slowly becoming a completely smitten fool for you. To know that each time you part, he watches you walk away and every step feels painful, leaves him feeling bruised and raw even though it shouldn’t.

You are the weakness the devil himself did not have planned.

There is a lull of silence, your bodies still entwined together. It’s a unique type of heartbreak—one you can’t do anything about. The type that bubbles, silently simmering underneath the surface— quiet, nonetheless, always there.

Perhaps you were both destined for a path of destruction from the start.

And it is true.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve you. But he wants you, anyway. Only you.

You will hold him tighter tonight. And he’ll hold you, too. And you’ll promise yourself a million little times, and him too, that you will never leave his side.

His heart is yours to protect now.

     Maybe he,

     is the kind of damnation you don’t mind.

woohoo!! you made it! gotta love some soft! lalo content. i’m sure he has a human side buried under all that monstrosity (or...not). please let me know if you enjoyed, and maybe I’ll write another :)

[teencopandthesourwolf]

The Cross He Bears

sterek fic, established relationship, 645 words, MATURE, pre-slash, wolf!derek, cw injury (not too graphic), dom!stiles, stiles takes care of derek, sub!derek.

.

Derek licks at the wound, long tongue lapping away the copper tang of shiny blood and smoothing out the matted fur around it. The laceration that's spanning three of his ribs on his right flank is mending itself but the slash marks are deep. Could take a while.

Heal

Air puffs from Derek's snout and a quiet growl rumbles at the back of his throat as he rests his head on his front paws for a moment. The loft is muggy this time of year. Stiles always leaves a window cracked open somewhere for him, allowing what little breeze there is to curl through their space, rendering the bed sheets at least mildly fresh-feeling. The sounds of August rain on rooftops, and faraway traffic, are almost lulling. Almost. Nothing like the soft, organic noises down on the Res, but a different kind of comforting. More… human. 

Stiles—shirtless, visibly hot and languid—now leans his firm and lean body into Derek, draping a slender arm around him which fully circles Derek's wide, wolf neck.

Mate

That mole-peppered ivory face looks quite unreal in the low light. Ethereal. Terrifyingly beautiful. Derek watches attentively as Stiles watches his own long fingers sinking into Derek's thick, black coat, non-existent fingernails now grazing lazily, but with intention, at the fur just behind his ear. Derek sighs, relaxes a little more. Stiles' touch pulls Derek back to more human thoughts.

Need him. Want him.

Derek would heal faster if he stayed in his wolf form but... no. A small whine curls out between shrinking fangs and Derek shudders, rolling onto his side as he shifts back to his human form, fur disappearing and claws retracting. 

He's already hard.

Stiles knows exactly what Derek needs. He always knows. The kid climbs on top of Derek—sleek, with an uncharacteristic grace that comes only with desire—and turns him over, cautiously, minding the wound, onto his back. Derek's freshly morphed body is now shaking with urgency for a different kind of bodily contract.

Fighting, like he was not but a half hour ago, means lingering fury. And that fury needs channeling.

Stiles. All of Stiles.

Jean-clad thighs clamp Derek's hips, and sharp brown eyes laser in on a still glowing unnatural blue. Stiles smooths some of the burden and rage from Derek's brow with a thumbpad and ease, the other brushing what suddenly feels like a burning heat across his lips. Derek wants Stiles to bruise them with kisses, and he feels that it his dick. His tongue begins to lap again, this time working at pulling that thumb between his teeth, to lave and suck on it like marrow, to tell Stiles to hurry the fuck up.

Stiles likes to draw everything out of Derek before he fucks him after a fight, wise to what Derek's head needs, not just what his wolf wants.

"Stiles," Derek growls around his mouthful of thumb.

Stiles is a wry, sly polaroid picture looking down at Derek. Derek wishes he could take each moment like this and put it in an album, to keep forever.

Stiles hums gently and pulls out of Derek's mouth, rough. In direct contrast, the thumb at Derek's forehead continues to stroke softly across thick brows, before weaving its way down to cheekbone and jaw. Stiles ducks his head, cocking it a little to his right, silver tongue a Viper that flicks out and licks at sinful lips. Derek opens up, ready to snatch a kiss. He reaches forward only for Stiles to dodge, only mouthing at Derek's face, infuriatingly, those plush lips barely touching the skin around Derek's nose, Derek's stubble, Derek's own lips. Derek snarls his impatience and grips at pale, bony hips—his now-human, blunt fingernails digging his own grave which Stiles is going to bury him in by holding Derek down by his throat.

Derek takes another mental polaroid of Stiles.

Fuck

He is pure sex right now.

Then, Stiles begins.

.

[sellyoursoulforagoodfic]

Shelbys at Somme Chapter 16

Thomas X Reader

Word Count: 1715

Summary: Some realizations are had and Inspector Campbell is a creep.

by @adventuresintooblivion

Thomas couldn’t bloody take it anymore. With Grace being escorted home, and Y/N getting ready for bed, he felt like his skin was on fire. A part of him, a much larger part than he’d like to admit, was selfish. He wanted nothing more than to bury his fingers in her hair. Feel the touch of flesh against his own. He wanted nothing more than to rid himself of the ghosts of Somme, by losing himself in the tangle of limbs and sheets. The problem was he couldn’t figure out which ‘her’ was actually driving him up the wall.

Grace had crawled up under his skin during her days at the Garrison. He wasn’t sure why it had happened, something between her brash curiosity or open eyed innocence. Or maybe it was the sheer fact that she just wasn’t afraid of him. That fear he’d spent years cultivating on the streets meant nothing to this beautiful, foreign girl who asked him all the right questions.

He attempted to still his shaking hands as he threw cold water into his face. His fingertips pressed into his eyes, willing the tiredness away. A soft hum drifted through the threadbare door. Y/N. Thomas’ ears heated, not even the freezing water was able to stop it. 

One of her songs, it intertwined with his soul, working out the sharp bits. His muscles began to slowly follow suit. The bathroom walls melted around him. His feet no longer stood on tile but the mud of a far off battlefield. He was hungry and cold and in that moment, there was nowhere else he’d rather be. 

“You’ve got that far off look again, Tommy.” Suddenly he was once again staring at his reflection. Y/N’s hand is on the bare skin of his shoulder. He leaned into it; he couldn’t help it. It felt like an eternity before she stepped closer. 

Thomas’ voice was thick as he spoke, “I...didn’t get to ask. Grace was so pale, and you?”

“I know how to stay warm.” Y/N’s arms closed around herself. “It also helps that I’m not skin and bones. You, um...seemed pretty shaken up by the whole thing.”

Thomas didn’t register the words at first, “Of course I was.” He turned to face Y/N for the first time since he’d stepped into the room. But now he faced the unspoken question they both craved the answer to. Which one of us? 

That selfish part of him, the greedy part, wanted them both. But even he knew that, in the end, even he couldn’t stand the idea of sharing. So how on earth could he ask them to do the same? 

“I am far from a good man, Y/N. Hell, the Devil probably has a special place already set up for me. But when I ask ‘Are you alright?’ it’s… not a question I ask often. And it’s not a question I ask a lot of people. Don’t ever question that, deep down under all this mess that the war left behind, I care about you.”

He wasn’t sure when he’d done it, but his hand had found her cheek. His calloused skin brushed over too soft skin. Thomas marveled at the feeling of it but it wasn’t until she turned into his touch, kissing his palm, that he felt something in him shatter. He silently wished he’d read more growing up, then maybe he’d have the words for what the fuck was happening to him.

She kissed his palm again, then whispered, “You called Grace ‘love’ today.” Her voice thin and broken against his skin.

Thomas’ tongue turned to lead as he watched the glisten of tears in her eyes. She was right. He had. And he probably would’ve done it again if he could start the day over. The air weighed down with sorrow as the realization settled into Y/N’s heart. 

“So that’s that I guess.” she pulled away quickly, scrubbing the tears away before they could fall. She disappeared back into her room, leaving Thomas alone in the bathroom.

“I...guess it is.”

〜

Grace had hurried home after as soon as she could get her legs beneath her. Her skin itched under the sense that the world was watching her. Every window, every wall, even the stones themselves grew eyes just to stare her down as she passed. 

She silently cursed as stumbled over cobblestones, her heel almost catching in a crack. She’d killed a man only minutes before Y/N had returned to the Garrison. That IRA officer. She had pulled the trigger, the ringing still in her ears as she stared at the muddy footprints Y/N dragged in with her. 

It was over all too quickly. She remembered the anger. It had boiled in the very marrow of her bones until it had become this unrelenting energy that carried her feet outside. She didn’t remember pulling the trigger, but she’d felt the recoil. And just like that, a life that had taken decades to cultivate, gone. Just gone.

The recoil had startled her at the time and almost made her drop the weapon. But she needed a place to hide it. If Thomas ever found out about what she’d done, he’d kill her. Her fingers clenched on the strap of her purse. She began mentally running through all the times she’d been separated from her bag. Harry definitely hadn’t found it. He would’ve harassed Grace for being a pretty girl that’d hurt herself. Scared of her own shadow and all that nonsense. Y/N had been trapped in the room with her so there was no opportunity for her to rifle through her things. Then Grace went cold.

Y/N had been alone with her things for who knows how long, before Thomas had woken her. Of their own accord, her fingers pried open the latch to search for any sign it’d been tampered with. Unfortunately, she was too hasty and the mere act of opening it had almost spilled the contents on the street.

“Fuck!” She growled.

She was so absorbed in her search that she hadn’t quite realized she’d made it home. Grace hesitated for a moment. If Y/N had found the gun she had most definitely told Thomas. He couldn’t have made it here first. Hell, he would’ve had to send runners to get anyone ahead of her. But what if he was waiting inside? 

Grace shakily put her key in that lock. All she could think about were the stories she’d heard. Of the cold dead eyes staring her down her first night working at the Garrison. Those eyes had softened over time and his touch had become a casual thing between his scheming. But all that would disappear in a moment if he even suspected she’d endangered his gang. And if he found out she worked for Campbell?

Her fingers went numb. It took several attempts for her to open the lock before finally, she shuffled inside. The door gave a loud groan that announced her arrival. If anyone was upstairs, they’d have heard her enter. She paused a moment to gather her courage, then stormed up the steps.

Despite the late afternoon sun, her drawn curtains shrouded the place in darkness. It all felt too still, a hushed air settling over the furniture as she let her eyes scan every dark silhouette. There. On the couch sat the figure of a man. Grace’s hand plunged into her purse, fingers closing around the metal handle. Her other hand desperately fumbled for the light.

Blinded momentarily, it took a little too long for her to realize that Inspector Campbell was the one sitting before her. She let out a long huff of air. Suddenly, she grit her teeth. She’d never given him a key.

“Why, hello there. Didn’t expect you to be quite so jumpy in the middle of the day Ms. Burgess. Is everything alright?” Inspector Campbell asked. He stood and gazed about the place, in that imperialistic way that made it seem like he owned it. 

Grace schooled her features a moment, “It’s not everyday a woman comes home to find a shadowy figure waiting for her. I believe I’m allowed to be startled, in this case.”

He gave her a solemn nod, “I don’t typically make a habit of such things but I was...concerned. You’re awfully close to this whole situation, and Mr. Churchill is getting impatient. I’m not sure if... I’ll be around much longer to offer you protection.”

“You’d leave me here?” She felt a cold shiver run down her spine as she pressed her back against the door frame.

“Oh no, never.” His brow furrowed and he closed the distance between them. He went to wrap his arms around her but stopped himself. Still, he leaned in far too close for Grace’s liking. A metallic tang hung on his breath as it washed over her.

“I would never leave you here to fend for yourself, amongst these… these dogs!” He tipped forward. To Grace, it seemed like he was having trouble with his balance.

She took a breath to steady herself, “I appreciate it. I’m close, I promise.” All she could taste was the staleness of used air as she remained trapped between Inspector Campbell and the wall.

He blinked slowly, then finally took a step back, “Yes. Well, meet me in a few days' time. A museum should do. You like museums, right?”

Grace didn’t get a chance to answer before he began gathering his things, “What time?”

“Wednesday. After your shift.” He quickly strode to the door, mumbling a quick goodbye before Grace was left blessedly alone.

 She swayed numbly over to the couch. Her weight made the derelict thing groan. After a few long moments a whimper escaped her. Then her hand shot out, hitting the poor excuse of a pillow beside her. Then again. And again. Her clenched fists rained down, frustrated cries accentuating each strike. It wasn’t until drops of water darkened the fabric that she realized she was crying. Or until her voice echoed off the walls that she realized she was shouting. And in the moment, her soul raged against the knowledge that she was truly and utterly fucked.

[sasorikigai]

[ what a rush ] ( for Hitman AU, likely after a prolonged fight :^) )

the  intimacy  of  hands. || @sonxflight || accepting

[ what a rush ]  –  for the long long overdue kiss to end, only for the sender to rest their head on the receiver’s, and comment “do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

💥 || Hanzo Hasashi finds himself dying thousands of deaths everyday; sometimes Hanzo can hear Harumi and Satoshi’s haunted voices and find himself in front of the furious passing train. When it is his face, grinning like a demonic child, wandering in the back of his head, brings ferrous stench of sanguine blood in his mouth. So many times, his memory would play the villain in his little hideout by the shinkansen station, ready to drawn the pulverized house filled with shrapnel of firearm with brutal cruelty of human flesh splattered and bone fragments littered like fallen snow. Such barbaric, inerasable memory remains blue and gray-faced, an animated corpse of sorts. Through Hanzo Hasashi’s eyes were as alive as anything, those coals of his burnt heart and soul centered in a cold, frigid flame rattling and throbbing as the indestructible fuse of his entirety burns with such heated retribution of conflagrations tearing asunder anyone and anything that stands opposite his side.

The efficient fluidity of his finessed appendages are wild and devouring in their sheer force and deadly precision, as though night’s pieces did not stick and scatter as shadows would. The seasoned hitman is a specter darting; half-alive and half-not, as if possessed by fierce and zealous dedication in order to seek vengeance. How his tongue still speaks of the masquerade of blossomed crimson roses, petals dipped in nectar, as poetic spillages of sweet nothings would caress and tickle his beloved’s ears. 

The rose would perpetually suffer, being rendered naught from the thorns and up, bleeding its crimson beauty with thick rivulets of red drops as it would wither and desiccate with passing construct of time. However, even amidst the destructive wreckage threatening to tear through his mortal body, Hanzo Hasashi feels like the feverous irreversibility of spring’s blossom. How his wistful, melancholic smile would reflect Ryou Sakai’s proverbial sun, as fissured cracks seemingly impervious would widen and disintegrate as effulgent radiance of his beloved’s warmth melts the bitter, obstinate cold of his heart and soul that had been consuming him. 

His own clashing, impassioned kiss bestowed towards his beloved quenches the sweeping inferno heat licking the expanse of his chiseled, broad form, lest the end is as bright and delicate as the familiar petals as the bruised lips and traces of metallic tang coalesce in the atmosphere. How they seem to be pressed between the pages of his favorite book, others all scattered and burned as gripped violence relinquishes with the slow unravelment of their intimacy. The carnal sensation twists and twirls inside him, as breathlessness crawls up his lungs and tightens up his throat. How his dearest heart, lest filled with a wound that would never heal, would burn ablaze without elegiac breaths, emptying his marrows of everything that would drain him and befall him towards sinking nadir of depression. Hanzo Hasashi feels excruciatingly solid and supple concurrently, as the spiked adrenaline of the intense, enervating battle soon would plunge, and exhaustion would settle into his slick, heavy form. 

“It’s as if every fucking kiss seems to transform parts of you into me, and vice versa. For you would make your way into every infinitely small crack and crevice and will reside there forever. So many parts of me are you, and whenever I leave you, I hope to leave pieces of me in you,” his own blood may seep on his tongue, potent enough that Ryou Sakai would taste it, but amidst this precipice of moribund darkness, they had been given precious moment where the permeating of electricity rushing through his veins. “You of all people know that I would just like to love you and be with you; inside of you, around you, in all conceivable and inconceivable places. I would like to be where you are, weeping in the gardens of hope instead of fallen from grace as I become fucking tattered and broken, never again to raise myself back up.”  💥 ||

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Poison Kiss (But, Like, In A Good Way)

A poisoned Tang Fan is hot, then cold.

Sui Zhou takes care of him.

(come for the overdramatic beginning, stay for the fluff!)

The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty - Suitang - 1.7k - T - pretty fluffy overall - AO3

_____________________________

Heat, flaming heat, melting his skin and cooking his marrow—

Something wet. Water? Cold, wet, all around him—

Tang Fan opens his eyes. He’s in the bathtub, with Sui Zhou and Old Pei standing over him. Sui Zhou is bent over the rim of the tub and holding him from behind as if afraid that Tang Fan will slip beneath the water if he lets go. He does so slowly, keeping a grip on his arm as he moves around the tub to look down at Tang Fan.

Old Pei breathes a sigh of relief as Tang Fan blinks. “How do you feel?”

Tang Fan blinks. The room is spinning, Sui Zhou’s worried face the only thing in clear focus. “I feel—I feel—hot—”

“I need to get more ice.” Sui Zhou ladles cold water over Tang Fan’s shoulders. “I’ll find someone—”

“No.” Old Pei’s voice is grave. “I don’t think ice will help. The heat is coming from within…take him out, Sui Zhou.”

Gently, Sui Zhou lifts Tang Fan from the bath, wrapping his naked body in a towel. “Hang in there,” he tells Tang Fan, almost too low to hear. “Old Pei is working on something…”

“Get him back to bed.”

Sui Zhou carries Tang Fan back to bed. His arms are warm, too warm, but there’s a sense of security about him that Tang Fan clings to even as he feels himself begin to float, mind adrift again.

Hot. Too hot…

Something soft beneath him as Sui Zhou lays him down in bed. He removes the towel, draping it modestly over Tang Fan’s midsection but leaving the rest of him bare to sweat into the sheets.

“What now?” he hears Sui Zhou’s asking. A tugging sensation at his scalp, and he hazily thinks that someone must be combing out his wet hair. “He can’t go on like this.”

“I know—I know—let me think—”

A damp cloth dabbing his jaw, his throat, his chest. The familiar scent of Sui Zhou’s soap, the soap he’d brought home from the army, a clean fresh scent, as Sui Zhou bends near him. The faint scent of cooking, still clinging to Sui Zhou's clothes. Sui Zhou’s hair, tickling his bare chest as Sui Zhou sponges his skin. His face, magnified by Tang Fan's fever: his eyes wide with worry, usual dark circles under his eye even darker, well-formed lips slightly parted as if about to speak—

Tang Fan reaches up with a shaking hand, hooks a finger in Sui Zhou’s collar, pulls him down, pulls him close.

Kisses him.

He’s too hazy to have put much thought into it. Any thought into it.

The kiss is soft and sweet and broken abruptly by Sui Zhou as he jerks away.

A small gasping sound, and Old Pie’s amused voice: “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, but—”

“He’s delirious!”

A clucking sound. “It’s alright, Sui Zhou. I’m a broadminded man, though I can’t say I’m—”

“Doctor Pei, this is not—”

A laugh. “I’m not judging you. Take care of him. I have a lead on some ice. Keep sponging him down! Give it another hour, then you can bathe him again. I’ll be right back—”

A flap of material, and the sound of a door closing.

Sui Zhou looks down at Tang Fan. He stares up at him, eyes bright, face flushed. He’s in just his kun, or drawers, looking even thinner and frailer than usual after days of fever and malnourishment. He's begun to move again, as if the heat in his skin has become painful. Gently Sui Zhou pins him to the bed, his skin hot beneath his hands.

"Just lie still," he whispers, keeping his head back this time, out of kissing range. "Hush. Lie still...."

The sound of his voice seems to sooth Tang Fan, and he stops moving, though he still grasps at Sui Zhou's robe, as if trying to draw him closer.

Leaning away, Sui Zhou dips a cloth into a bowl of tepid water and begins dabbing at Tang Fan’s narrow chest, sponging the ice-cold sweat from his skin. He’s still alarmingly warm to the touch, damp hair stuck to his throat and shoulders, skin pink and splotchy, lips white and chapped.

Lips that had…

Delirious. Tang Fan must be delirious…

Tang Fan reaches up a long slender arm, resting his hot sweaty hand on Sui Zhou’s cheek.

“Where did Old Pei go?” he asks. His voice is rough, almost inaudible. “Don’t leave me too…”

Sui Zhou swallows. “I’m not going to leave you.”

“Don’t…”

“I won’t.” He removes Tang Fan’s hand and wipes it down, laying it gently on the coverlet. “I’m here. I’m still here…”

Tang Fan tilts his head. “I knew you wouldn’t, Guangchuan. I can always count on you. Always.”

Sui Zhou swallows a surge of anxiety. Tang Fan, for all his surface frivolity and friendliness, is not one to speak about his feelings, or anything truly intimate. Sui Zhou can count on one hand the number of times he’d said anything like that.

And as for the kiss—

Tang Fan closes his eyes.

Gently, Sui Zhou runs the washcloth over Tang Fan’s flushed limbs. His skin is smooth and unscarred, the long slender lines of his throat meeting his frail-looking collarbones, his whole appearance of that of something fragile and beautifully delicate.

Something to be protected.

He turns him over on his stomach, moves his damp hair aside, and sponges the sweat from his bony pink-and-white back. His shoulder blades are sharp, his backbone a long bumpy line, his ribs visible.

Tang Fan twitches, rolling over on his side. “Guangchuan?”

“Still here.”

Weakly, Tang Fan pushes the damp cloth away. “I’m cold now.”

Sui Zhou feels his forehead. Tang Fan is right. With alarming abruptness his hot pink skin has gone white and cold to the touch, his entire body wracked with sudden chills.

Sui Zhou straightens in alarm. “I’ll go heat water for a bath—”

“Don’t leave me!” Tang Fan is speaking more clearly than before, but there’s unmistakably febrile panic choking his voice. “Don’t leave me alone—”

“I can’t let you freeze—”

Tang Fan clutches the front of Sui Zhou’s robe. “You’re warm.”

“I…”

Tang Fan moves aside, one trembling grayish hand on the sweaty sheets beside him. “Please, Guangchuan, I’m so cold—haven’t you ever been cold?—”

That settles it for Sui Zhou. He has been cold. Many times, while serving at the border. Cold, and hungry, and alone, and—not that he would admit it aloud—afraid, at times, as Tang Fan is now. At least until the creeping numbness took over as he kept surviving, and surviving, and surviving while everyone around him died...

He removes his damp outer clothes and crawls into bed beside Tang Fan, pulling the blankets over them. Tang Fan curls into him, a shivering bundle of bones. He wraps his arms around him tightly, moving Tang Fan’s hair away from his cold clammy skin so that it can dry without chilling Tang Fan further.

Tang Fan’s face is pressed against the hollow of his throat, his shallow breath cool on his skin. Sui Zhou pulls him closer, making sure the bedclothes are tucked tightly around them, keeping his warmth contained for Tang Fan to absorb.

He’s never shared a bed with someone before, definitely not someone pressed tightly against him like a sick kitten. Tang Fan is trembling, shivering violently, ice-cold hands inside Sui Zhou’s undershirt and pressed against his chest as if seeking his warmth.

Sui Zhou reaches around him, runs his hands up and down Tang Fan’s arms, tries to rub heat back into him. Tang Fan's arms are too lean, with little flesh or muscle to warm his fragile body. Hesitantly, fearing he’s going too far but uncertain of how else to help the shaking bundle of bones in his arms, Sui Zhou wraps a leg around Tang Fan, pinning Tang Fan’s long thin legs between his.

Take it, he wants to say. Take my warmth, take all of it…

Slowly, Tang Fan stops shaking, his violent trembling tapering into a gentle shiver. He moves slightly, resting his head on Sui Zhou’s shoulder. His eyes are still hot and glazed, but his breathing is deeper, steadier, chest moving against Sui Zhou’s.

Sui Zhou is afraid to move. He’s not used to this. He’s used to protecting by using his body as a weapon, not something that can warm, heal, comfort.

But it’s always been like that with Tang Fan, he realizes suddenly. And with Dong’er, brought into his life by Tang Fan. He's never done this kind of thing before, but cooking for them is something soft, something nurturing, something that gives life instead of bloodily protecting it.

“I want soup,” Tang Fan murmurs as if he can read his thoughts. “A brand-new soup.”

Sui Zhou feels his forehead again. He wants so badly to stay like this, but there's a fear again, a fear of what this might mean. A memory of the kiss—not a memory. The kiss has yet to have left his mind at all...

“Are you hungry again, or just cold?" he asks. "I’ll go fix you something—”

“No.” Tang Fan’s fingers dig into Sui Zhou’s chest, his voice a mere whisper. “Stay with me.”

Sui Zhou wonders if it’s the fever talking, as he’s certain it was for a kiss. It’s as if Sui Zhou is a giant puppy or a hot stone wrapped in cloth and tucked under the covers, warming Tang Fan. Nothing more than that. Anyone could do the same thing…

“Guangchuan." Tang Fan is almost inaudible. “You won’t leave me, right?”

Sui Zhou swallows. “I told you I wouldn’t.”

“I mean…if I get well…”

“You will.”

“…if I get well…you won’t leave me, will you?”

“Why would I leave you?”

“Make me leave you. I owe so much in rent…and food…”

"Forget all that." Sui Zhou smiles to himself, suddenly wanting to laugh, not something he feels often. Tang Fan is still cold against him, but Sui Zhou suddenly feels warm. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Tang Fan presses his face against Sui Zhou, fingers beginning to lose some of their chill. “Promise?” he murmurs.

“I promise.” He wants to ask him about the kiss, but he has time.

Tang Fan will get better. He knows he will.

And now that he’s promised him free rent and food, he’ll never get rid of him.

Pulling Tang Fan closer, he closes his eyes and thinks of soup.

______________________

Enjoy? AO3

[wherestoriescomefrom]

The King and Queen of Elfhame (Ao3)

They said summer brought fruit to Elfhame.

Elfhame was never to experience weather in the same way that humans did, hiding in the underside of the world – in the folds where slips of sunlight arrived. Wherever it did, trees grew and blossomed: only at twilight, never before, their roots glittering as their flowers ripened. Summer was when humans were primed with longing, so that by Autumn they could be stolen from their worlds to fall in love with faeries. Summer was when the smell of fruit promised humans more.

But the wind had changed in Elfhame. Even without the stars to guide them, Baphen warned the court that something was different this summer, and he was ignored. Monarchs and courts had never been bothered to disturb a royal seer, not even during battles. They consulted generals more than they did the stars, rarely paying attention to the way the weather changed.

If they had paid any attention they might even have noticed: not that the sunlight was brighter, but that the twilight was a little pinker. There was a sense of briskness in the air, even as the King and Queen of Elfhame consolidated their power, negotiated treaties, and met with tired soldiers. Faeries said the smell of fruit was a little stronger, but the human consorts could swear that the smell was less over powering. Less sweet. There was a tang in the air which was almost pleasant.

None wondered if it was because of the King and the Queen. At times a thought had crossed the minds of some of the generals from the more ruthless courts: was something different about the summer? Was something different about vows made by loyalty instead of blood oaths? The erstwhile Court of Teeth gnashed their teeth as their assassination attempts were thwarted again and again by the Court of Shadows, and complained wholeheartedly about the existence of a Queen of Elfhame occurring alongside the existence of a King of Elfhame.

Never had there been a King and a Queen before – and for good reason. Fairies weren’t trustworthy, never kind, and certainly never loyal. They lived too long for marriages to last, too long for their marriage customs to not be slippery and dangerous.

***

They said Autumn brought trinkets to Elfhame.

The buying and sale of good was a complicated ritual of gifts and giving, of demands and promises. Faeries exchanged trinkets in Autumn because August was the month of courtship, the luring of humans, and the promise of love was in the air. Everything felt like it was a little colder, somewhat more glittery – fireflies lasted all night and even longer. Dances were organised, spectacles held, more feasts and more fables, stories buried deep inside storytellers emerged again. And what story was older than that of love? What could be more fulfilling?

But the orange had changed in Elfhame. Even without the hum of her spinning wheel and what the weaving of cloth told her, Mother Marrow knew that this was a stranger season than the last. Her daughter had never understood her mother and put the warning aside in favour of the intoxication that the end of summer brought. For she was as in love as any of the other faerie were when August came.

The courts and kings of Elfhame had settled into uncomfortable peace, even as Grima Mog redcap yearned for more blood. They watched the King and Queen expectantly, trying to understand, failing to negotiate, unable to grasp the nature of the relationship between them. The King and Queen of Elfhame were powerful and cunning, each with special skills – clearly committed to each other in a way that had never been seen before. This was what confused faeries – it was a union with no head or tail, a marriage that should naturally be more of a liability to the throne than it was a strength.

Fairy love wasn’t the same as human love – it seemed when love happened to humans, they became giddy and strange and bright eyed. Fairy love was difficult to pin down, it ran as eternal as a river, and changed either slowly or dramatically. It was hard to know when fairies fell in love, and when they understood each other, when they loved each other out of necessity, when they loved in loyalty. It was harder, even, to trust Faerie love. Faerie love was slippery and dangerous – in a game where pleases and thank yous upset the delicate balance of promises, love was sometimes more of an intoxicating liability, other times sharply clever negotiation of like minds.

The faeries said that the love of humans was shallow, even as their eyes following cunning Jude Duarte, the Queen of Elfhame. They watched her change from commanding armies to ruling the land, hoping for the tell-tale signs of a waning loyalty, yet they never came. They watched the reckless Cardan Greenbriar, King of Elfhame to see if his immortal life would comprehend the reality of sharing his life with a human girl, yet that never seemed to come either.

The King of Elfhame had never said he loved Jude Duarte. The Queen of Elfhame had never said that she loved Cardan Greenbriar. Least loved as Jude Duarte was amongst the gentry, and least loved as Prince Cardan had been amongst his family, they never attempted to make much of the fact that they had each other. They danced at times, but he had never seen the King kiss her. They never really held hands – a human gesture of affection – and hardly ever seemed to express anything that sounded like a lover’s vow. At least, not to others.  

And yet as Autumn progressed it became obvious that the kingdom had changed – there was a feeling in the air that wasn’t love or goodwill, but a sharpness of colours. Those that had loved humans and had been loved by humans understood it more.

It might have been easier for the courts had Cardan Greenbriar loved Jude Duarte in more obvious ways; it might have been easier if the Queen blushed when he smiled at her. It would have been easier still if the King had threatened the courts with the promise that his love was strong and mistreatment of his wife would only garner anger – at least then, they would have known to scoff privately and use the information to their advantage. Lovers were careless with affection, and it would have been easy – too easy – to take advantage of it.

But rarely, if ever, had the King and Queen succumbed to the exchange of trinkets that came with the smell of Autumn love. It was rumoured that they had once been caught laughing together. It had been rumoured that the Court of Shadows understood. It was rumoured that they were in love.

***

They said that Winter brought ice to Elfhame.

The kingdom froze, and all of the undersea had a film of winter on top. The trees chilled and skin of remaining fruit glassed over. Faeries harvested ghost apples, maintained snow drops and white roses. Hearts froze with the kingdom: winter was a time for peace before spring battles, but it was also a gathering of forces. The winds huddled together and rustled the tops of trees – some even woke before the sunset for to gather warmth.

But the smell had changed in Elfhame. Even without having spoken to the courts with treacherous hearts, the Alderking’s exiled son knew very well that something had changed in the demands between king and court. The land had shifted – the ice had frozen over, but as the King ensured that fires burned in their private chambers for his human Queen – there was a sense of relief and heat in the subjects of Elfhame.

What was love to a Faerie? What was love to a human? And what was love to King and a Queen with all the Folk as their subject? Wild Folk and Shy Folk, Wicked Folk and Clever Folk – for all and every – the relationship between Cardan Greenbriar and Jude Duarte had become formidable, marked by a lack of understanding for those who were not privy to it. Loveless amongst others, but loyal to a fault – they wielded companionship like a matched pair of swords – ceaseless and precise.

They ruled, well matched and clever – each watching the other’s backs until it became terrifyingly obvious to those watching them that the delicate balance of promises and gifts had become more fearsome than any expected from a King and Queen. What was King if he could not be lured from his Queen? What was a Queen if she was not swayed from watching her King? He held power effortlessly while she was cautious, and together it was beginning to look impossible to overthrow them. As long as Jude Duarte and Cardan Greenbriar ruled together, Elfhame would prosper – and no gnashing teeth would ever be rid of either.

And if some knew that behind the cunning and clever, behind the caution and care, were half touches of gently held affection – it was a secret buried deep into the heart of winter. The subjects wondered and the courtiers feared, because there was a sneaking suspicion that the King and Queen had forced the land to be in love.

***

AN: Man it was so interesting writing this - I sort of wanted to explore a story where we see what happens to Elfhame with Jude and Cardan in love, since the monarchs have a connection to the land and all that. When I first wrote this - in it’s first draft, I was telling the story from Baphen’s perspective, but I really didn’t like how it was coming out. I thought I might try the more omniscient style of a fairytale (repeated patterns of sentences and all), and I really liked how it came out. 

The other theme I really wanted to explore here was faeries not knowing what to make of Jude and Cardan’s relationship. I know a lot of us write stories where Cardan is expressive of his love (and don’t get me wrong, I LOVE those stories), but I thought about what it would be like if they were King and Queen - and how Jude might not like her vulnerabilities exposed. So I wrote it that way, and thought about how formidable it would be if they were together with love being less of a liability and more something faeries wouldn’t be able to quantify. Can you imagine faeries being like......... wtf.......... they trust each other?? wtf. 

Anyway hope you liked it!!!! I am here I like TFOTA and this was my first time writing for this fandom!! Hope it was fun for you :D 

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Prompt: Promise.

Set during 05x09 “Monsters and Heroes”

He wasn’t entirely surprised to find himself standing in the passageway once more.

It wasn’t dark, yet it wasn’t light, either. Similar to the half-light of dusk or dawn, when the familiar shapes of the world became formless shadows.

Four times now he had stood here.

Strange that the first time hadn’t been after his flogging - perhaps because he had every will to live, to survive, to avenge. No, the first time in  the passage he had only caught a glimpse before the cold, cold stones of the abbey floor pulled him awake, the wound at the back of his head still seeping blood.

The second - at the abbey again, but this time he recognized the passage for what it was. His body was healing, but his mind, his soul - those wounds he did not care to heal. Not when it would be so easy to walk away from it all, to leave behind the horrors of that cell. Especially when his wife’s touch only pushed him  further down the passageway. Only the scent of lavender had pulled him awake this time - surprised and hurt and confused, body roiling with tension.

The third - after Culloden, when he wanted so desperately to be dead. Claire was with him in that passageway, that time - his worst fear realized, that she and the bairn had not survived their passage through the stones. He had reached for her, his anchor - but she couldn’t touch him. The searing pain in his leg had pulled him awake this time - cursing, spluttering, so angry to be alive.

And now, this time. He had survived the axe, and Wentworth, and the duel, and the loss of his wife and two daughters, and the loss of his son, and the loss of his culture and rights and freedom after Culloden, and the loss of his land and extended family. 

By the grace of God, his wife had been restored to him. But now - now, a wee snake would get the best of him. 

The smallest things always had the largest impact.

The passage had not changed since his first visit, thirty years before. It was so quiet. No colors. Very cold.

The pull was undeniable.

He took one slow step, than another.

So cold.

Another step.

Claire’s scent - her sweat, and the tang of crushed plants - overwhelmed him.

“Sassenach,” he rasped.

And then, like the last time, she was there. Hair all curled around her face. So serene and beautiful.

She was the beat of his heart. The poisoned blood in his veins. The marrow of his bones.

“Touch me,” he pleaded. Like the last time.

But this time, she did. Hands and breasts and lips. Enveloping him, permeating him. Beseeching him to stay alive.

Her voice and heart warmed him.

Her soul stirred him.

He gripped onto her. Turned away from the portal, with Claire tucked against his side.

Together.

He gasped. Returned to their bed - their sanctuary. Tasted the salt on Claire’s lips as she kissed him alive.

[lululawlawlu-writes]

Softly Stained with Spring

Part 5: Memento

note:  This fic was written for @lawlu-week!!  

rating: T

tags: canon universe, fluff and angst, hanahaki possible trigger warning: mentions of death, dead bodies

_______

“You ever hunt beetles?” Luffy asks, his feet shwish-shwishing back and forth over Law’s thick, weighted blanket.

Law doesn’t begrudge Luffy for having followed him back to the Polar Tang, to his room, to make his bed his own for the night. Conveniently enough, it will make it easier for Law to scan his body for spores once he falls asleep. Law just wishes that he would sleep so he could get to it.

“No,” Law says simply, sitting on the corner of his bed. He runs his fingers through Luffy’s knotted hair, muses around the thought of disguising his scan as routine medical procedure, though now is neither the time nor place. He can’t give Luffy any undue anxiety, knowing how grim his situation may read.

“Don’t worry Torao, I’ll show you how to find the best ones.” Luffy’s smile curves wide across his face. Anxiety—what a strange thing to have to diagnose Luffy with. He just has no other plausible explanation for the mysterious pains that have been plaguing him even before he’d eaten the flowers.

“How do I know you won’t just give me bad advice to make sure I don’t find the biggest one?” It’s hard to resist the urge to engage in banter if Luffy will go along with it. Luffy inspires this kind of lighthearted feeling to slip into his words, his actions, his life.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Luffy’s smile flips into a slight pout.

“Sure,” Law teases, doing his best to subdue a smile. He catches himself still stroking Luffy’s hair, and it suddenly feels a little too soft, too intimate. He ruffles his hair instead, ends the physical contact there.

“No, you-“ Luffy’s words seize in his throat. His smile twists into a grimace he holds just long enough to tip Law off that something’s not right.

“You feeling alright?” Law jumps to ask, ignoring the topic of beetles.

Luffy hums in thought a minute before answering with “I’m okay.”

Law’s personal involvement may have his judgement clouded, but he feels that Luffy shouldn’t have needed to think about his answer. He can hear Luffy's shaky breath as he sits there tracing the hem of the blanket beneath his fingertips, suddenly so much less chatty. Law wants to say something to cut the awkward quiet, do something to make Luffy feel better.

“This blanket is heavy,” Luffy notes then, crawling under it.

“It’s supposed to be,” Law explains. “It‘s a weighted blanket,” he adds, leaving out the part where he confesses that it gives him a feeling of security, eases his own anxieties. It helps to keep away nightmares that would have him relive his past. Maybe it could help Luffy too.

Luffy squirms, turning this way and that until he finds a comfortable position. “It’s like it’s hugging my whole body,” he notes.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Law confirms, crawling in beside him. He wants to hold Luffy, comfort him with his own embrace. He inches closer to the possibility of more physical contact, no matter how nervous the prospect makes him.

“Hugs from you would feel nicer than the blanket,” Luffy presses.

“How about this then?” Law asks, slipping an arm around him.

“Yeah,” Luffy confirms, “all hugs from all sides. A kiss would be good too.”

Law’s already so close. The tips of their noses are nearly brushing. He can almost taste the sweetness on Luffy’s breath. He’s aching to kiss him back with the same kind of passion Luffy showed him earlier, but only if Luffy’s really alright now, his pain subsided. It would be so easy if Law could just quit overthinking enough to act.

“I’ll have to win another one tomorrow,” Luffy chuckles, and Law’s will to act falls away. The moment dismissed, there’s no way he can try to kiss him now.

His thumb smooths over Luffy’s shoulder. His eyes follow the curve of his face, count the few sparse freckles that dot his sun-kissed skin. Luffy just blinks at him slowly, tired eyes full of shared emotion still too fragile to put into words.

He should probably be thankful that Luffy assumes kisses are only part of their game. It buys him time to completely consider the implications of getting in too deep with an ally, but he doesn’t need it. Even though he’ll never admit it, Law’s already in over his head.

Luffy curls into him, tucking his head in the nook of his shoulder and Law wills time to slow, wishes he had that power. This time they’re sharing in private, however fleeting, is sacred and precious. It should be terrifying how much Luffy has warmed his way into his heart, but it feels natural, feels right. He can’t resist placing a soft kiss on his temple. He hopes Luffy will forgive him for bending the rules.

… … … … ...

The morning sun wakes Law before he realizes he’s fallen asleep. Thankful for the wakeup call that comes with having the sub surfaced, he wastes no time summoning a room. He shambles himself out from under Luffy, gets right to initiating a scan with his powers.

Scanning his body for spores isn’t as hard as anyone might expect. Law’s so well versed in anatomy, he could even construct a human from the marrow up if given the right ingredients. It’s so easy for him to locate foreign presences, signs of things that shouldn’t be. His ability is so great it’s almost shocking even to himself—almost as shocking as his evident ignorance.

His oversight could cost Luffy his life.

Law has been careless. He’s been stupid. He’s a doctor and he should know better. He should never have been dismissive about Luffy’s symptoms. The situation is now deadly serious and he’s to blame. The spores have already rooted themselves into the walls of Luffy’s lungs. They’re so well fused now that he’d have to cut out the majority of the organs themselves.

His quivering hand reaches for Kikoku, his mind racing to come up with options. He considers for a moment swapping Luffy’s lungs out for his own. Not simply changing whose body they are in, but actually transplanting them. He’s not sure it’s possible for him to even do such complicated procedure involving himself without passing out, but he can’t stand the thought of how much pain Luffy must be in. It’s his fault for acting like some lovesick youth around Luffy instead of a medical professional as he should have.

It will do Law no good to obsess over his mistake, but he’s finding it difficult to focus on anything else. He has to fix this. He’s going to fix this before it gets any worse. What he needs is more knowledge about the illness in order to cure it. He just hopes Luffy won’t be too disappointed if he heads out to the island first. He’s going to seek out the religious devotee they’d met before instead of hunting beetles anyway.

The forest is already awake and lively with birdsong and chirping insects by the time he reaches it. Morning dew soaks through his pant legs but he’s far too preoccupied with his thoughts to really care.

Law’s instincts had cautioned him not to trust Luffy when he said he was okay. He was not okay—not in the least. Law should have picked up on it before now. He should’ve taken into account that he was dealing with Luffy of all people—Luffy who hasn’t let being beaten, poisoned or stabbed hinder him. This is the Luffy who he’s had to put back together, who even after suffering vicious wounds, was still more concerned with his brother over his own pain. Law of all people should know well Luffy’s ability to bear pain—that Luffy’s own judgement may be skewed. He’s got to be suffering badly whether he fully recognizes it or not.

He’s too busy thinking of Luffy, he doesn’t consider what he’ll do when he reaches the clearing on the hill to find no one there except the stone gods. He has an impulse to vent his irritation by slicing them up, leaving them in ruins, but that won’t help him cure Luffy.

There aren’t any flowers offered to those gods yet this morning it seems, so he can’t even take a sample to study. He’ll have to find their source if he wants to take one. He hadn’t seen any of them growing along his way up even though he’d run into the odd religious woman on his way the first time. She’d had an armful of them then.

Law backtracks down the hill, through the trees, looking for subtle signs of a side trail. The birdsong trills overhead as if they’re laughing at his expense. It makes him think of how he’d been lied to, lead to believe that poison was the least of it. It irks him to consider how much of an idiot he’d been for not taking Luffy’s symptoms more seriously.

He uses his haki to sense for life around him, picking up only on the native creatures skittering about, wary of him. He can’t find any indication of a human presence, but off to his left there does seem to be a void—a strong force either repelling of any kind of life or blocking out his haki. Evidence of a trail is still lacking, so he follows his senses, brushing aside briars and undergrowth as he goes. The forest seems to be growing dimmer, dark clouds gathering over the canopy. Wind carries a chill through the air, picking up a faint, metallic scent. The closer he gets, the more the scent starts to sour his senses, turning sickeningly pungent as rotting flesh. The rain finding its way through the canopy does little to diminish the smell.

Red catches Law’s eyes through the trees. The vibrant display entices him in on fixation alone. The colour spills out from a small fenced-in area on the petals of crimson flowers. They drip red, dying the rainwater that pools in their centers. It trickles out over the petals, bleeding onto the ground.

A tiny stone structure—almost like a house of some sort sits opposite him on the property, flanked by two hooded stone figures much like the gods on the hill. The atmosphere feels so abstract, otherworldly. It’s as if the flowers have crept into the garden to choke out anything else that may have been growing there, and the residents have simply allowed it, or even encouraged it. The sight of it feels all the more foreboding in light of the ever-present stench.

A chill crawls its up Law’s skin from fingertip to the nape of his neck, making his hairs stand on end. He can sense death in this place. This place is heavy with it even if he can’t see it. His instincts prickle against him, warning him to be afraid. Law smirks—after the life he’s had it’ll take far worse to get him to run.

His fingers tighten around Kikoku, ready to call on her the moment there’s trouble. He cautiously crosses the fence into grounds, paying no mind to the flowers he’s trampling. He almost takes pleasure in it as a kind of petty revenge. His footsteps sink into the soil, unsettling. He’s no gardener but he’d imagine such loose ground would be too unstable, though he hasn’t uprooted any flowers.

His heels slip, uneasy against the slick foliage, sending him reeling forward. He can’t hope to find balance over the slippery foliage, tripping forward, catching himself on hands and knees.

Tinted rainwater splashes against his jeans, staining them bloody-red. The loose soil beneath his fingertips yields something solid, yellow-white. He feels with his fingertips to unearth it, feel the curve of it—unmistakably bone.

“Careful or you’ll unearth the bodies.” It’s the woman’s voice—the one from before, the religious devotee he’d wanted to meet. She’s lying among the flowers just out of his reach.

“Bodies?” Law questions.

“The ones buried here,” she offers as way of explanation. She sits up, long hair falling in her face, making her look near-ghoulish.

“Seems like an extreme thing to use for fertilizer,” Law says, rising to his feet. His fingers curl around Kikoku’s hilt.

“Don’t disrespect the dead or our customs,” she barks, standing to face him. “Especially when you’re the one trespassing in our cemetery. You damned pirates have no manners.”

“How about you tell me about those customs then?” Law proposes coldly. He won't confess neither his ignorance about not realizing this place is a cemetery, nor his oversights as a doctor. He’s short on time and needs information.

“You’re not interested in why we bury the unloved here,” she accuses. “By the way, how’s your friend?”

How dare she—the smug look on her face is all too telling. She gives as much of a shit about how Luffy’s doing as Law does about her people’s customs. She probably wants him dead. She probably wants to bury him here, to let the flowers that are growing in him to consume him. She likely thinks he’d deserve to rot in her cemetery for having defiled her gods or some such thing.

“Is he really resistant enough to the poison?” She asks stepping forward.

“You liar.” Law seethes, his hands shaking as he forms a room. “There’s not really any poison in those flowers, is there?”

“Well, legend has it this flower, the Lover’s Curse, is poisonous,” she says apathetic, turning to walk away from him, “and people really used to think so”.

The audacity of this woman, sparing no thought to how badly this plant is affecting Luffy—how he’s suffering because of her. Law strips the blame from Luffy for having eaten the flowers, from himself for having dismissed them as a threat. Instead he arms himself with it—the blame, the fear and the rage that stem from his oversight.

He affords himself no time to revel in his enemy’s fear. This woman likely wouldn’t give him the satisfaction anyway. She appears unsurprised, unbothered at being at his mercy, having her heart safely in her chest one second, and in Law’s hand the next.

He ought to crush it, make her feel the pain Luffy’s feeling tenfold. He ought to murder her nice and slow and merciless, but something’s not right, hasn’t been right. She looks back at him like she’s more curious what he’ll do than worried for her life. It’s because she’s really not concerned for her life in the slightest. The heart in his grasp, it’s still. It’s cold. It’s dead.

“Oh look, now mister Surgeon of Death has stolen my heart,” she speaks, patronizing. “You want to keep it as a memento to remember the time you let your ally die?” she asks.

“I could still-”

“Cut me to pieces? You’d better not. That would ruin your chances of me helping you save him,” she states with a frown, her eyebrows drawn together.

“What do you want in return?” He asks cautiously, unsure if he’ll play to her wishes, short as he is on time. She’s going to trying to manipulate him, but he’s not guaranteed help elsewhere. The locals who had been friendly when they first arrived had later leveled heavy stigmatization at Luffy for being afflicted. Their hospitality turned to whispered pity. Nobody had offered help.

“Your heart,” she says. “You trade your heart for my help to save his life.”

“Why should I trust you?” He doesn’t think he should agree to the deal, but Luffy’s suffering is getting worse. He’s dying. “You’ve already lied to me once. About the poison.”

“Nobody else on this island knows as much as I do about the Lover’s Curse,” she speaks, snatching her heart back. “Everyone else wants to stay as far away from ‘the curse’ as possible. They don’t even come here to visit the unloved dead.”

Law isn’t wholly convinced, but he has to act quickly. Luffy might not last much longer. His illness is already beyond something Law can handle alone whether his pride wants to let him outright admit it or not.

“Make your decision now,” the woman demands.

_______

Sorry but updates will happen when the happen since my brain keeps trying to abort itself... err I mean the chronic migraines have been more troublesome than usual lately. So pls be patient and thanks for reading~~

[poonyo]

For @garglyswoof who asked, I couldn't include dragons but I think I added something almost as good. Inspired by this post.

Step 6 of kcxmas, @klarolineshippersclub.

Warning: Canon-typical violence.

No Light, No Light.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear a star exploding and above, the sky filled with colours of fire and destruction.

It was a canvas of red and oranges and purples, firelights dancing in her line of vision.

Then she was falling, this thing called gravity pulling her weight to an unknown destination until the Earth grew closer and closer, until she fell with a loud thud that rattled the area.

She let out a low guttural moan, every inch of her moving with difficulty and feeling like lead. If she were human, she would've said she was dying.

That train of thought had her frowning, head all foggy from the pain that shook her being, what was she then if not what she'd called human?

“Caroline.”

Startled, she tried to lift her face from the rough ground, the voice familiar. She only spotted shadows floating around feet before her eyes rolled to the back of her head, convulsions raking through her.

“Caroline!”

The voice sounded far away now, like that of a distant dream. Or nightmare, for the flames burning though her and digging at her marrow, her mouth opened in a soundless scream couldn't be anything else.

Unexpectedly, the pain faded away, and she was left with dull senses and aching muscles.

The voice spoke again, this time with a hand on her shoulder, “Caroline, you have to open your eyes.”

She did, bleary and weak, her lashes fluttering open til she was able to see clearly. Those shadows she'd seen clinging to black clothed feet moved with fluidity around her.

A man knelt at her side, looking like he was vaguely concerned with the subtle furrowing of his brows. A blink and she was able to place where she knew those violet eyes and brown skin.

But not something to call the creature in front of her, her mentor. She searched and searched her mind and came up with nothing, every time she tried to grasp on a thread that would lead her to her answer, it'd be cut off and she would be left spiralling.

She could remember naught, but she knew one thing for certain.

“That’s not my name.” “It is now,” there was no hint of kindness in his tone, but she thought she detected some pity underneath. “Who you were, the life you lived before you got to this world, forget all of it. You need to become someone else, someone better if you want to survive.”

She parted her lips to speak but was cut off.

“You can never utter your name. In this world, names are powerful dangerous things, to mention yours or mine or that of any of our people would have unforeseen consequences.”

The shadows furled and unfurled around her.

“I have to go.” Panic gripped her so tightly she almost choked, but the touch of her mentor became soothing as he ran the palm of his other hand across her forehead. “You'll be alright, my dear. I have no doubt of that. It's such a strange place what’s left of us have found ourselves into but you, I know will thrive the most.”

His cheeks curved in a genuine smile, the first in many centuries that she'd seen. He stood, his height disconcerting from her position then all the shadows engulfed him and he disappeared.

Distinctly, she could hear another star erupting.

It took a few human days before Caroline could support her weight and move from the earth, galaxing spinning out of order.

The world changed, of course it did. The Earth rotated around its axis and civilisations rose and fell. She walked on sea shores and climbed mountains, repeated her new name in her mind as many times as she could to get used to it; Caroline, Caroline, Caroline.

She watched as kings and queens ruled and rebellions sparked, saw human death and plague, learned the taste of despair on her tongue.

But it was discovering what happened to her people, their magic, that had almost destroyed her.

Her people were scattered and lost to realms beyond her, powers almost nullifies from how much was stolen. Those that her mentor had mentioned were stranded on earth as she were, she'd found no clues to.

A smart move on their part, for Caroline had left no trail for anyone to follow herself.

The elders of her kind had grown greedy with their lust for more power, and they’d had no qualms about ripping apart the fabric of existence and putting it back together to suit their tastes. To be caught by them would be the height of idiocy.

Demons were no longer free as they'd once been, their magic bound to bargains and servitude. They had to drive nourishment from mortal blood, and iron burned.

The first time she was forcibly taught what a summoning was, she feasted on the human for days.

It had been delicious.

She groaned at the peek of sunlight in her room, delving deeper under the covers, burrowing in the softness of the bed covers. The twenty first century might be too loud for her but the quality of things more than made up for it.

Her phone alarm beeped but she ignored it, manipulating the device to be silent with her powers; today was her me-day.

A bubble bath, a tiramisu and her favourite novel were to be her only companions and it was an incredibly pleasing prospect.

Unexpectedly, Caroline felt the unyielding pull of a summoning tugging at her. Eyes wide open, she sprang up from the bed, an animalistic growl in her throat; suddenly thirsty for the blood of whoever foolish enough to call her to them.

She lifted the sheets, wanting to go change before she faced the person who decided to ruin her day and subsequently bring about the end of his life, but she stumbled and fell, the pull far too strong as it transported her through space.

Caroline scrambled for bits and pieces of her magic; using it to hide herself from immediate sight when she found herself sprawled over some hardwood floor.

If she ever had the displeasure of meeting The Elders in person, she was going to punch them straight in the face.

She stood up, allowing herself a minute to pick up on clues on where she was, grimacing when she smelled the strong aroma of demonsbane, the tang of iron in the air, the calm of the forest.

Caroline was not in the mood for witches.

After a few minute passing, she let her black bubble slowly fade, seeing a circle of witches around her, spotting three more people in the back. Heads bowed, candles flickering, the witches had their eyes closed with obsidian stones in their hands and she wanted to snort.

How very cliché.

She was pleased by the gasp that followed as soon as they broke out of their trance. She knew what they saw, the illuminated skin and sharp cheekbones, the vibrant blue of her eyes, so vibrant they could be seen light years away, her fangs out, sharp and lethal.

But it was the shadows that her type of demons possessed, enveloping her like fabric, shimmering and infinite in their appearance that made mortal hearts beat rapidly.

“Hmm, so the summoning did work,” a female voice said. Caroline glanced at the group at the back, spotting the blonde. “Looks like you dears are not going to die, today. Pity that.”

The witches gave a collective shudder.

Curiosity welled up within her at the interaction. She'd already seen the daylight rings those three wore - another blond, with a scruff and dangerous eyes and another, dark haired, wearing a suit - but didn't know how to proceed.

Vampires and demons rarely dealt with each other, both too similar, and when they did, witches were most certainly not involved.

She tended to mostly avoid them when she could.

The blond haired man stepped forward, just an inch from the circle.

“What a pleasure to meet you, sweetheart.”

An arched brow was all she bothered with as a response.

She was already missing her bubble bath.

Caroline looked at the man with intrigue, fascinated by the ancient feel to his monster, the other two were old too, but he had a bit of an edge to him.

He smiled as if he knew it.

Clasping her hands behind her back, she circled around in her limited, confined space, noting all the symbols made from salts and stones, the runs carved in the soil.

A particular letter grabbed her attention and she moved as close as she could to get a better look, felt her blood freeze as she read the word.

No. It couldn't be.

It just wasn't possible.

Her magic reacted to her fright, reaching out to the witches and choking their throats. Dimly, she heard the gurgling noises they made, though couldn't find it within her to care.

They'd written her name.

Not her mortal title, not her description but the name she had been called before she was stranded on Earth. The lines scrawled were methodical and elegant but that meant nothing.

All she could hear was her mentor's voice in her ears.

Names are dangerous things.

No wonder the summoning had pulled at her so strongly.

“So Kol had been right,” The blond said from behind her. She whirled to see him standing inside the circle of salt, a satisfied curl to his mouth.

The witches were all dead, bodies thrown haphazardly by the wild burst of her power, blood streaking faces.

She almost reprimanded herself for not making it last longer, wanting to quell the deep anger that was contained inside her. Caroline couldn't hurt the vampires; tethered to the bargain-to-be as they were, but some of the the witches would have done just fine.

“Shame he isn't here to see the fruit of his labour himself,” he continued. “I'll be sure to tell him once we retrieve him from The Other Side.”

Caroline stilled; there was rage there, in his eyes, a fury that spoke to her old forgotten one at losing her entire world.

He picked her hand, bowing to press a gentle kiss before he straightened.

“I'm sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement, love. But for now, call me Klaus.”

[lysmune]

90° N

Get a little higher, drown a little deeper.

(Obi-Wan Kenobi/F!Jedi)

Some more angst Obi-Wan. Inspired by a friend that says nothing forbids a Jedi from having one night stands.

     Between the nebulous spaces that their twining bodies can’t seem to close, the breaths on the tip of his tongue that he distinctly remembers as hers - saltwater and mint, underlined with an alkaline tang that burns his throats just enough - and the faint hum behind her teeth, he’s all but lost, a man in a universe too large.

     He etches the map that is her body into his memory as she shifts underneath him, fingers brushing across the coordinates inked into her bones and he watches, waits, to see how she changes. When the old architectures disappear, he kisses unmarked ground and when new ones are built, he blots the scroll of paper in his mind; he keeps them in record, whether or not they’ve withstood the ages irrelevant.

     She does not tally his injuries, but she’s so much more proficient in finding the cracks that mark him. She fills these with starlight so he glows instead of flickering, embedding a splintering of hers inside him that settles in his marrows and congeals. Other times, she is passive, lets them heal without her, makes him into him because she has some sort of twisted, gnarled faith in him.

     It’s an odd thing.

     He dips, she rises, meeting his lips for a kiss as her arms drape across his back, bunching his flesh in between fingers while a moan falls into his mouth, his hand on the arch of her back pulling her closer to him. With each move, they’re an undulating wave that crashes against cliff sides, a pair of strangely stitched creatures whose clashing orbits rip at their seams, but gnaws them inside out a distance away.

     What are they?

     The nights they spend are cloyingly sweet, sickening, an intimacy that verges into an affection that intends to choke him dry, her fluttering touches leaving a trail from the column of his neck to the bone of his hip, tracing the remnants of their sex while he listens to the thrum of her heart in his ear, a hundred and eighty beats per second.

     Come the morn, she’s an arctic blue, not a warm gold. The love marks on their flesh are war wounds when they maintain a polite distance that cuts through their closeness too cleanly for him, as though they’ve never once converged, and it should bring him comfort, but it makes him bleed, instead. Even after each promise that this will stop, after all the times he’s snapped that string between them, it grows back, their absence pulling it taut as it turns from a skimming cut into a biting gnash over time. It’s a vicious cycle that they thrive on, one that he prays will end at some point because he cannot live like this, with her poison in his blood and he wants to laugh at how foolish he is for dwelling on such bygone ages because fate has made it simpler for him, yet he’s the one screaming, grinning, dying.

Her heart is a silent smile in his ear, long replaced by the whisperings that form his name, their syllables drenched in the mismatch of her voice, a white noise that statics and breaks, and snaps as he watches her glance at him, her eyes frigid, molten, withholding the sand dunes, the axises around their fragile pulses behind.

“I loved you.”

And he crushes the starlight inside his heart in his hands, wrenches the flower covered bones, retches the bitter ichor that’s settled between his ribs, drowning the staccatos with murmurs, pointed fingers, cold sheets.

Between the nebulous spaces that their twining bodies can’t seem to close, he’s all but lost in a universe too large, in a universe too desolate.

[yellowfeather84]

Everyone talks about the last night of JC before Culloden but I havent read the book. Could you post it here please ? Thanks

Here you go. It’s long so the second half is under the cut. And please note that I am not responsible if you’re pure raging after reading this and then realizing what actually made it to the screen, All the love to Sam and Cait for their “dance” between Jamie and Claire to get her to the stones and for Cait insisting that their last time having sex will not be up against a tree no matter how much snow is on the ground. 

They were true to the book when Jamie convinces Claire to go back, so I’m not going to include that. I’ll start when they are in the abandoned cabin that is at the base of the hill where the stones are.

He was slow, and careful; so was I. Each touch, each moment must be savored, remembered— treasured as a talisman against a future empty of him. 

I touched each soft hollow, the hidden places of his body. Felt the grace and the strength of each curving bone, the marvel of his firm-knit muscles, drawn lean and flexible across the span of his shoulders, smooth and solid down the length of his back, hard as seasoned oakwood in the columns of his thighs. 

Tasted the salty sweat in the hollow of his throat, smelled the warm muskiness of the hair between his legs, the sweetness of the soft, wide mouth, tasting faintly of dried apple and the bitter tang of juniper berries. 

“You are so beautiful, my own,” he whispered to me, touching the slipperiness between my legs, the tender skin of my inner thighs. 

His head was no more than a dark blur against the white blur of my breasts. The holes in the roof admitted only the faintest light from the overcast sky; the soft grumble of spring thunder muttered constantly in the hills beyond our fragile walls. He was hard in my hand, so stiff with the wanting that my touch made him groan in a need close to pain. 

When he could wait no longer, he took me, a knife to its scabbard, and we moved hard together, pressing, wanting, needing so urgently that moment of ultimate joining, and fearing to reach it, for the knowledge that beyond it lay eternal separation. 

He brought me again and again to the peaks of sensation, holding back himself, stopping, gasping and shuddering on the brink. Until at last I touched his face, twined my fingers in his hair, pressed him tight and arched my back and hips beneath him, urging, forcing.

“Now,” I said to him, softly. “Now. Come with me, come to me, now. Now!” 

He yielded to me, and I to him, despair lending edge to passion, so the echo of our cries seemed to die away slowly, ringing in the darkness of the cold stone hut. 

We lay pressed together, unmoving, his weight a heavy blessing, a shield and reassurance. A body so solid, so filled with heat and life; how could it be possible that he would cease to exist within hours? 

“Listen,” he said at last, softly. “Do you hear?” 

At first I heard nothing but the rushing of the wind, and the trickle of rain, dripping through the holes of the roof. Then I heard it, the steady, slow thump of his heartbeat, pulsing against me, and mine against his, each matching each, in the rhythm of life. The blood coursed through him, and through our fragile link, through me, and back again. 

We lay so, warm beneath the makeshift covering of plaid and cloak, on a bed of our clothing, tangled together. Then at last he slipped free, and turning me away from him, cupped his hand across my belly, his breath warm on the nape of my neck. 

“Sleep now a bit, mo duinne,” he whispered. “I would sleep once more this way— holding you, holding the babe.” 

I had thought I could not sleep, but the pull of exhaustion was too much, and I slipped beneath the surface with scarcely a ripple. Near dawn I woke, Jamie’s arms still around me, and lay watching the imperceptible bloom of night into day, futilely willing back the friendly shelter of the dark. 

I rolled to the side and lifted myself to watch him, to see the light touch the bold shape of his face, innocent in sleep, to see the dawning sun touch his hair with flame— for the last time. 

A wave of anguish broke through me, so acute that I must have made some sound, for he opened his eyes. He smiled when he saw me, and his eyes searched my face. I knew that he was memorizing my features, as I was his. 

“Jamie,” I said. My voice was hoarse with sleep and swallowed tears. “Jamie. I want you to mark me.” 

“What?” he said, startled. 

The tiny sgian dhu he carried in his stocking was lying within reach, its handle of carved staghorn dark against the piled clothing. I reached for it and handed it to him. 

“Cut me,” I said urgently. “Deep enough to leave a scar. I want to take away your touch with me, to have something of you that will stay with me always. I don’t care if it hurts; nothing could hurt more than leaving you. At least when I touch it, wherever I am, I can feel your touch on me.” 

His hand was over mine where it rested on the knife’s hilt. After a moment, he squeezed it and nodded. He hesitated for a moment, the razor-sharp blade in his hand, and I offered him my right hand. It was warm beneath our coverings, but his breath came in wisps, visible in the cold air of the room. 

He turned my palm upward, examining it carefully, then raised it to his lips. A soft kiss in the well of the palm, then he seized the base of my thumb in a hard, sucking bite. Letting go, he swiftly cut into the numbed flesh. I felt no more than a mild burning sensation, but the blood welled at once. He brought the hand quickly to his mouth again, holding it there until the flow of blood slowed. He bound the wound, now stinging, carefully in a handkerchief, but not before I saw that the cut was in the shape of a small, slightly crooked letter “J.” 

I looked up to see that he was holding out the tiny knife to me. I took it, and somewhat hesitantly, took the hand he offered me. 

He closed his eyes briefly, and set his lips, but a small grunt of pain escaped him as I pressed the tip of the knife into the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb. The Mount of Venus, a palm-reader had told me; indicator of passion and love. 

It was only as I completed the small semicircular cut that I realized he had given me his left hand. 

“I should have taken the other,” I said. “Your sword hilt will press on it.” 

He smiled faintly. 

“I could ask no more than to feel your touch on me in my last fight— wherever it comes.” 

Unwrapping the blood-spotted handkerchief, I pressed my wounded hand tightly against his, fingers gripped together. The blood was warm and slick, not yet sticky between our hands. 

“Blood of my Blood …” I whispered. 

“… and Bone of my Bone,” he answered softly. Neither of us could finish the vow, “so long as we both shall live,” but the unspoken words hung aching between us. Finally he smiled crookedly. 

“Longer than that,” he said firmly, and pulled me to him once more. 

“Frank,” he said at last, with a sigh. “Well, I leave it to you what ye shall tell him about me. Likely he’ll not want to hear. But if he does, if ye find ye can talk to him of me, as you have to me of him— then tell him … I’m grateful. Tell him I trust him, because I must. And tell him—” His hands tightened suddenly on my arms, and he spoke with a mixture of laughter and absolute sincerity. “Tell him I hate him to his guts and the marrow of his bones!” 

We were dressed, and the dawn light had strengthened into day. There was no food, nothing with which to break our fast. Nothing left that must be done … and nothing left to say. 

He would have to leave now, to make it to Drumossie Moor in time. This was our final parting, and we could find no way to say goodbye. 

At last, he smiled crookedly, bent, and kissed me gently on the lips. 

“They say …” he began, and stopped to clear his throat. “They say, in the old days, when a man would go forth to do a great deed— he would find a wisewoman, and ask her to bless him. He would stand looking forth, in the direction he would go, and she would come behind him, to say the words of the prayer over him. When she had finished, he would walk straight out, and not look back, for that was ill-luck to his quest.” 

He touched my face once, and turned away, facing the open door. The morning sun streamed in, lighting his hair in a thousand flames. He straightened his shoulders, broad beneath his plaid, and drew a deep breath. 

“Bless me, then, wisewoman,” he said softly, “and go.” 

I laid a hand on his shoulder, groping for words. Jenny had taught me a few of the ancient Celtic prayers of protection; I tried to summon the words in my mind. 

“Jesus, Thou Son of Mary,” I started, speaking hoarsely, “I call upon Thy name; and on the name of John the Apostle beloved, And on the names of all the saints in the red domain, To shield thee in the battle to come …” 

I stopped, interrupted by a sound from the hillside below. The sound of voices, and of footsteps. 

Jamie froze for a second, shoulder hard beneath my hand, then whirled, pushing me toward the rear of the cottage, where the wall had fallen away. 

“That way!” he said. “They are English! Claire, go!” 

I ran toward the opening in the wall, heart in my throat, as he turned back to the doorway, hand on his sword. I stopped, just for a moment, for the last sight of him. He turned his head, caught sight of me, and suddenly he was with me, pushing me hard against the wall in an agony of desperation. He gripped me fiercely to him. I could feel his erection pressing into my stomach and the hilt of his dagger dug into my side. 

He spoke hoarsely into my hair. “Once more. I must! But quick!” He pushed me against the wall and I scrabbled up my skirts as he raised his kilts. This was not lovemaking; he took me quickly and powerfully and it was over in seconds. The voices were nearer; only a hundred yards away. 

He kissed me once more, hard enough to leave the taste of blood in my mouth. “Name him Brian,” he said, “for my father.” With a push, he sent me toward the opening. As I ran for it, I glanced back to see him standing in the middle of the doorway, sword half-drawn, dirk ready in his right hand. 

The English, unaware that the cottage was occupied, had not thought to send a scout round the back. The slope behind the cottage was deserted as I dashed across it and into the thicket of alders below the hillcrest. 

I pushed my way through the brush and the branches, stumbling over rocks, blinded by tears. Behind me I could hear shouts and the clash of steel from the cottage. My thighs were slick and wet with Jamie’s seed. The crest of the hill seemed never to grow nearer; surely I would spend the rest of my life fighting my way through the strangling trees! 

There was a crashing in the brush behind me. Someone had seen me rush from the cottage. I dashed aside the tears and scrabbled upward, groping on all fours as the ground grew steeper. I was in the clear space now, the shelf of granite I remembered. The small dogwood growing out of the cliff was there, and the tumble of small boulders. 

I stopped at the edge of the stone circle, looking down, trying desperately to see what was happening. How many soldiers had come to the cottage? Could Jamie break free of them and reach his hobbled horse below? Without it, he would never reach Culloden in time. 

All at once, the brush below me parted with a flash of red. An English soldier. I turned, ran gasping across the turf of the circle, and hurled myself through the cleft in the rock.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Hi sorry to be a pain but will the be more HRH ? Thank You

Part I: The Crown Equerry | Part II: An Accidental Queen | Part III: Just Claire | Part IV: Foal | Part V: A Deal | Part VI: Vibrations|Part VII: Magnolias| Part VIII: Schoolmates | Part IX: A Queen’s Speech | Part X: Rare | Part XI: Watched | Part XII: A Day’s Anticipation | Part XIII: The Location | Part XV: Motorcycle | Part XV: Cabin | Part XVI: Market | Part XVII: Stables

Her Royal Highness (H.R.H.)Part XVIII: Alarms

In the bounded sanctity of dreams, Fraser had free rein.

With his eyes closed and separated from the world, he could touch Claire freely. He could carefully catalog each reaction that his fingertips drew from her at his leisure, drawing each exquisite noise and breath and prickle of goosebumps into full relief.  

(The diamond-shaped parting of her bee-stung lips, dry from sleep, posed in an invitation.  

The catch of her breath, one that was always accompanied by her head tilting and her lashes pulsing together like they had a main line to her heartbeat.)

With his hand low on his belly and creeping lower (alone in the dark of his flat consisting of square rooms and artificial light), Jamie could taste her (the sea-salt spray of sweat and clean linen tang of a single dusky nipple as it hardened under his lips and a humid bath of his breath).  He could envision her (the almost invisible tenting of the bed sheet that just barely covered the other nipple as it beseeched him for a fair and equal treatment).  

Inhaling and then holding his breath, Jamie found that he could recreate for himself the improbable way Claire resituated herself onto her side when she was spent, her cheek pressed against her forearm.  He could feel the wisp of her breath as delicate as dangling wisteria as she grumbled quietly, somnolently, insinuating a single ankle between his legs.

“Ye look beautiful in the mornin’ sun,” he whispered in his mind’s eye as he traced a finger up her arm. Pulsing beneath his hand and led by imagination alone, he found that his fingertips followed an aimless road (a hearty green vein at the sweat-tacky inner crease of her elbow). His curiosity led him off a marked path and over the culvert between her arm and body to test the curving munros of her buttocks.

“What is that you think you are doing, Fraser?” she asked into the pillow, those well-trained lips heavy in a pout (sated and sleepy, but somehow still aroused).

“Nothing,” he said truthfully.

He had never felt so content to have not a thing to guide him, to limit him.

They had no curfew.

They had no prying eyes to find them.

They had no fear that loose lips would sink ships.

He found himself mesmerized by the silly bits of her – the pulsating, soft heat of her armpit, the mole at the base of her spine (one he suspected she barely knew was there) that grew a single jet-black hair, the almost invisible sliver of toenail on her strangely fat small toe.  

He scaled the soft curve of her breast and rappelled its opposing slope like a reckless mountaineer, and carefully walked his fingers across the stable bridge of her well-formed sternum.

“Are ye awake, my Sassenach?” he inquired vaguely, hand slipping beneath the sheet. He hated that she slept in this dizzy waking dream of his.  And so he ghosted across the gentle curve of her belly to the thatch of trimmed hair between her thighs and the heat that resided there like a siren song.  To wake her, to rouse her further.

“I am not even here, Fraser,” she said sleepily, “but you can touch me properly.”

Outside of the dream where his fantasy resided, he wrapped a careful hand around himself. He licked his lips as he tried to transform his calloused fingers and broad palm into her small, delicate touch.  Fingers sinking into bed sheets, he could not recreate the sensation of touching her “properly,” the bits as slick as waterweed and thrumming and begging to roar beneath his attentions.

But some things he could recreate with near one hundred percent fidelity.

Her breath.

Her smell.

Her intonation as her pupils went fathomless.

Her femoral pulse hammering away beneath his lips as he kissed her carefully with his chin clumsily (on purpose) brushing the heat of her.

Those were things that he had memorized.

Those were things that he could call to mind with the easiness of breathing or blinking, reaching to scratch an itch or drifting off to sleep.

He did not pause to entertain the threat that someday all he would have was the imitation of her.  (A memory as fine as could be, but ultimately only the forgery of a masterpiece.)  Instead, he gripped, tugged, let his mouth fall open as he set a rhythm, knowing that his wanting would always be just this way.

His alarm, though (the bloody thing), had a mind of its own.  The twin brass bells chattered and shook. The clock danced across his nightstand and clipped the edge of his water glass with a disconcerting ping, begging to be slapped into silence by his palm.  At the jangling announcement of another day, he groaned, fisted the bed sheets, and tilted his head back.  His fingers (the poor substitute for any lover, let alone one as perfect as Claire) released his cock, and he willed himself to think of something (anything) to make the bobbing, throbbing ache of arousal subside.

Friday.  It was Friday.  

Inhaling, he ground the heels of his hands into his eyes.  He wondered what kind of pressure it would take to make his eyeballs burst as he expelled the granules of his dream from the pinched pink corners of his eyes.

In ten hours they would be together.  In ten hours they could drift away together.

He rose from bed with a back that ached in the sweet way that brought a river’s torrent of recollection of the previous evening (Claire glowing on the hay in the stables, her cheeks pinked and glistening, her fingers trembling as she pressed them over what he knew was a hammering heart).  Colonel James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser smiled as he parted his curtains and looked out into the gray of early morning.

Another day.

Those ten hours passed like a century, and when they were reunited and riding north for his cabin from the city, she squeezed his side (quick, pulsing, seeking).  She may have screeched her request (stop!) into his ear, but it was unheard over the mechanical grumble of the motorcycle’s engine and the fierce whipping of the wind past their helmets.  He didn’t need her to say it, though.  From her touch, he knew to stop, and so they pulled into a dusty lay-by dotted with oily puddles and the orange butts of cigarettes.

“Ye okay then, Sassenach?” he asked once they were at a full stop.

“Never better, just seems a shame to let it all pass by at fifty-five miles per hour.”  She inhaled, wetting her lips (it was an unguarded instinct so easily obliged by her that he felt a tightening in his wame like a fist holding on for dear life). “It is truly a beautiful part of our country.”

She stepped over one of the puddles and hoisted herself up onto a great moss-covered rock, brought herself over a gap to another, and then another until she towered over him.

“I am sure you agree.”

“About?”

“That it is beautiful,” she sighed, a hint of faux exasperation shining through as she unfastened her helmet, tossed it to him without warning, and spread her arms out.  He fastened the helmet carefully to the handlebars, watching her tip her head backwards and inhale.  “It is exhilarating to think of land that no man, no woman has touched.  Where no feet have tread.  Where it is just open except for nature. Our kingdom is untouched.”

His voice was light as he teased, “It’s most certainly yer kingdom, ma’am.”

Humming, Claire tented her eyes with the palm of her hand and looked out at the landscape.  “It is yours, too, Fraser.  Maybe we could live here.”

This time (knowing that it was an impossibility - the idea of living here - and knowing that she knew it all the same), his lips released some combination of vowels, and he rose off of the motorbike.  He raked a hand through his hair as he approached her.  “My mam was a fierce nationalist. Didna want a thing to do with the commonwealth.  England was her main problem, no’ so much Wales.  Northern Ireland, weel, that was enough of a mess when she died that I dinna ken what she thought about that. But ye’ll see a white rose bush at the cabin.”

A poem rattled about in her swimming head –

The rose of all the world is not for me.

I want for my part

Only the little white rose of Scotland.

That smells sharp and sweet - and

Breaks the heart.

– and she inhaled, unsteady.

“That’s her doin’, her way of putting a middle finger up to… weel… yer family I’d suppose.”

Claire turned on the rock, the toes of her camel-colored oxfords collecting moss and smudging with grit in the process.  He was smiling at her, his eyes glowing under impossibly long lashes.  She fisted her small hands on her hips and gave him a smile that threatened to steal his breath. ‘Christ ye’re beautiful,’ he thought to say, his lips poised to set the compliment free. But she laughed, interrupting the sentiment, and said, “I am flattered she thought of us with such frequency.”

“Ye’re no’ concerned that she’d likely no’ approve of ye then?” he asked, voice full of mock reproach.  With a mind of their own, his hands fastened to her hips with his thumbs searching out the soft skin of her belly and fingers gripping her waistband.

“I have made a decision where it comes to all things involving you, Fraser,” she said plainly as she cupped one hand along his jaw and laid the other to rest loosely on his shoulder. “And it is that no one will stand in judgment of us.”

“No one?”

“No one,” her echo confirmed as she drew him close. His face was level with her sternum, and she sensed his reaction to the broadness of her statement in the marrow of her bones when his grip tightened.  And with a stunning amount of naieveté for someone so savvy (she was no fool, after all), she concluded, “We have some things to figure out, of course, but time is ours right now, Fraser.”

He kissed the center of her chest (a wayward kiss that was not symbolic as it did not land over her heart and one not meant to arouse; it was undesigned and merely the outlet of his affection for her). He sighed when she brought her fingertips to his hairline.

“We’ve an entire kingdom, Claire.”

“Aye,” she whispered, the affirmation coming from her like slanted cursive.  “That we do.”

After a not insubstantial bit of time there soaking in the pure silence of the place (of each other), they returned to the motorcycle and rode another twenty miles, slowing only for a wayward pair lambs unaccustomed to moving at the pleasure of a human (even for a queen).  At the front of the cabin, Claire took the key from Jamie as he juggled her small bag along and a larger one of his own (she had teased him mercilessly about the size of it before they departed, resulting in a pinch to her arse that made her squeak).

The interior smelled like their previous weekend.

Her perfume.  His aftershave.  Burnt sausage and tattie scones.

She stepped inside and turned to Fraser. She looked at him through the open door and quickly shed her clothes.  He dropped their bags on the front stoop and stuttered a step as he made it up the stairs with his trousers slipping to his knees. Freed of clothes, he lifted her, made a perch on the table behind the sofa where a week earlier their bodies had been joined again and again.  

“Take your kingdom, Fraser,” she whispered.  

And then her mouth absorbed his growls, his body joined her fully, and his lips procured unendangered moans that rolled from her belly and through her lips.  

Sixteen miles away Jenny Murray (wife of Ian Alistair Murray, mother of three - James Fraser Murray and Margaret Ellen Murray and Katherine Mary Murray – and sister of her son’s namesake – in that order, thank ye verra kindly) was sitting down for the first uninterrupted portion of her Friday afternoon.  Her lower body ached from carrying an angry, teething Kitty around on her hip all afternoon, and her eyes burned from the ceaseless exhaustion of merely having three children.  Her finger carefully holding the lid on her teapot as she poured, she let herself indulge in the almost-foreign quiet of her home and the lavender that rose in the steam.

And then the phone.

It rang once.

She cursed and considered not answering.

It rang again.

“Fuck,” she hissed, remembering her reluctantly slumbering and teething bairn only separated by twenty-two stairs and a half-closed door from the jangling phone.

It rang a third time.

She leapt up then, hissing a curse as her knee knocked into the side table and sloshed her tea onto its saucer.  

“Murray residence,” she said, her voice still slicing with its curtness despite her low tone.  Her brow furrowed, her fingers curling into the spiral of the cord. She swallowed, knowing the news conveyed to her by the primary school’s headmaster was true even as she asked for clarification. “Maggie brought what to school?”

The answer did not change.

But the world would.

ETA: The poem in the text is The Little White Rose by Hugh MacDiarmid. You can take a read through a short biography about him and his other work here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hugh-macdiarmid.