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rise-my-angel · 10 months ago

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Heart of the Great Wolf

33 - Blood, Roses and All Lies

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 16.1k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, past character death, mentions of rape, mental duress, disturbing imagery, descriptions of blood and gore

Notes: No, I'm fine, it's cool. Nothing at all is wrong, everything is fine. Don't look at me. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here

As you had sat down, it was already suspected what the response was going to be. Some would be fine with it, others wouldn't be as happy and a spare few left would likely stand and argue over the matter in principal but there was no more room left for chance. Beside you, Jon stood tall as his voice projected in the vastness of the main hall. “Everyone aged ten and up will drill daily with spears, pikes, bow and arrow.”

A laughter waved across the hall as Lord Hornwood spoke up with an air of amusement in his tone looking to the men by him and over. “It's about time we taught these boys of summer how to fight.”

Biting your tongue, you held your expression as still as could be knowing the protest about to come, but Jon had the confidence in the decision to not waver. “Not just the boys. We can't defend the North if only half the population is fighting.”

Room falling quiet, many eyes found Lord Hornwood as he stood with a narrowed expression and judgment sitting upon his tone. “You except me to put a spear in my granddaughters hands?”

Considering the one who started you on your own path of weaponry stood beside you, it was easy for Jon to find a calm but collected response.

“I mean no offence, my Lord, but that was a command.” Many heads turned to either their King with pride, or Lord Hornwood with a question of doubt sat upon their eyes of what he would say. Jon however, was not finished. “I'm not asking you, any of you, to be comfortable with your wives, daughters, granddaughters learning how to fight. But this isn't a normal battle we are preparing for. If we fall, there will be no one left to protect them and these things will not care how young they are.”

More silence rippled through, and unnerved speculation fell upon the crowd. But Jon was at Hardhome, he had seen who the army of the dead rose up with and not for a second did how young any were make them not as dead as before. Or as blue eyes to terrify as every other. Children died that day the same as their mothers and fathers falling beside them.

Your voice was quieter then Jon's, but the silence of the room heard it all the same. “If your granddaughter knows nothing of how to fight, it will be far more difficult to expect her to know how to defend herself when the time comes.” Something sat at the edge of his mouth, but you stood up with a voice finding itself louder. “As a parent, you do everything in your power to protect your children. But there is a strong difference between protecting them, and coddling them. When they come, they will not pass by our daughters and granddaughters because we wish to keep them away from it.”

Raising an eyebrow, you knew that without looking despite the flatness of your voice and face a smirk found it's away onto Jon beside you. “Besides, I assure you my lords, your King is none to happy when I've been on the field of battle but he suffers through it all the same.”

Your eyes found Maege Mormont and she stood in agreement. “She's right. I lost one of my girls that night at The Twins, but I haven't let that stop me from making sure my four youngest can fight as well as my Dacey did until the end.”

The Frey's were only men, the Others were not. The death to follow when they come through these lands would be worse then the ones which killed so many already. Any who had no training whatsoever would stand not a second of a chance this time as Jon continued. “I'm not preparing our children for battle, I'm ensuring they know how to protect themselves. I'm not asking us to like it, but I am telling you, telling all of us, that this isn't about what we want anymore. It's about survival.”

Many waited to see if Lord Hornwood had any left to say against his King's word but sense seemed to find him more as the eyes turned to him in waiting judgment. None had noticed the figure slinking in the back of the room, short and unseen by most. Just as he begun to speak, “No one here is questioning-”

But the voice spoke up. Similar to you, it was on the air of quiet and soft spoken but as many turned to the voice they clearly felt the certainty in their words. “Your granddaughter does not need your permission to defend the North. My daughter is the fighter between her and her brother, and if they have no issue with it, neither should any of us.”

It took a moment as eyes watched for it to click, but it was easy for Jon. Catching a better glance at him as the crowd parted somewhat to make the man visible. Clothes made in tones of black and deep greens and the sigil etched into him of a black serpentine lizard. Judging by both age and wear in his eyes as the man found that of Jon's he knew right away who had stepped into his hall.

“Lord Howland, I've never had the pleasure.”

Howland Reed had looked up at Jon in silence for a moment. Something behind his eyes that had your lungs catch as if you recognized the hidden intent. But found little in your present mind to focus on it as such. He stepped between the standing crowd, pulling the hood down to properly address him. “I had not the courage to come before now, your grace. I ask to be given the chance to make amends for not stepping foot into the fight against the Boltons. Forgive my silence and allow me to serve you now when I had not your brother, our late King.”

It was quiet in the room as Jon had nothing but respect in his eyes. “You saved my fathers life during the Rebellion, without you many of us might not be standing here as we are today. You will always be welcome a place here, my lord. There's nothing to forgive.” Howland Reed nodded, as did Jon before the former took his time taking his leave to slink at the wall of the main hall and hide amongst the larger men as a shadow would.

Jon turning once more to the crowd, as you had not sat down as he hadn't. Finding a silence with sharp, narrowed eyes but listening as intently as all others. “While we're preparing for attack, we need to shore up our defences. The only thing standing between us and the army of the dead is the Wall, and the Wall hasn't been properly manned in centuries. The last we had seen them was at Hardhome, the closest fort to there is Eastwatch by the Sea. Now if they do breach the Wall, the first two castles in their path are Last Hearth and Karhold.”

Interrupting, a womans voice came from the back of the room, “The Karstarks betrayed the North.” A rumbling ran through the hall, and you spared a glance with Jon. Both of you sitting with unease at the riling up which easily could come through and a question on his at how deep did this issue run he did not know the details of. “Their Keep should be torn down with not a stone left standing.”

As voices begun to rile up, you glanced through the room, eyes finding Smalljon Umber, sitting himself quiet with something trying to breach his tongue. Your own voice spoke first, “The Karstarks did not betray the North. Rickard Karstark betrayed his King, that is a far cry from-”

Even as other voices spoke up, you were thankful this was not your first time acting as a speaking leader to a rowdy crowd of Northerners . But you did not quite grasp why it seemed Lady Barbery Dustin was so intent on vocalizing her disagreement when before she had not. “So there is no punishment for treason?”

Glancing to Jon, there was a darker tint in his eyes that did not reiterate whatever it was they were aiming towards as he addressed her. “The Karstarks have fought beside the Starks for centuries. They've kept faith generation after generation-”

“And then they broke faith.”

You didn't like that you couldn't place her tone. Something was frustrating that put the hall into silence as heads all turned to Jon, many you could see teetering on speaking up in defence of their King. But he was not a man who needed others to do that for him. Not now. His brows narrowed slightly as he once more let his voice speak loud and verging on losing his patience. “I'm not going to strip a family of their ancestral home because of the crimes of a few reckless sons.”

Baited breath all waited, the tint of anger seeping in Lady Barbrey's voice making your own eyes narrow. “So there's no reward for our loyalty, but the House you fought against with the Boltons receive nothing for their treason?” Something kept banging in your head, but you didn't know what and it had been a long time since you felt it for something not so urgently dire. You just couldn't place what the feeling was.

Not for a moment however, did Jon entertain this debate. Waiting for the whispering to settle before he addressed the room as a whole. “When I was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, I executed men who betrayed me. I executed men who refused to follow orders. My father always said, the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword, and I have tried to live by those words.” His eyes found hers, and he too, couldn't place something standing out of her comments. “But I will not punish a son for his father's sins, and I will not take a family home away from a family it has belonged to for centuries. That is my decision. And my decision is final.”

But, it instead seemed, the question found its way to Smalljon Umber as he stood, “Your grace, if I may. I have been close with many of the Karstarks my whole life, and I do not disagree with your decision but there is one who has not come forth.”

Say it, you thought. Say what you had all been thinking since that day in Deepwood Motte. Tell Jon how his little brother ended up on the path to his burial in the crypts below.

“Ramsay Bolton spent much time trying to organize manners in which to get our Queen back in his captivity. And it was through those plans which he found Rickon Stark, knowing if one Stark could be found he assumed you would be willing to negotiate a trade.” Looking guilty, you knew it wasn't going to be easy admitting it. He and Harald had been close friends as long as you had known both men and whispers begun once more to flourish through the halls at his words, but he continued regardless. “Harald Karstark had held bad blood between him and our Queen for his fathers execution, and saw his vengeance fit as leading men to search out for Rickon Stark and bring him to Ramsay.”

Anger rippled through as the sight of Rickon falling to the ground played right before your eyes, and a burning in your veins at what you didn't do to stop it. In your chest the increase of your heart felt unkind. Jon's voice beside you was as tight and restrained as you could see in the clenching of his jaw as your eyes flickered to his tone. “Lord Glover put the same accusation forth, but if you have no more proof then we had then-”

The court went back and forth, but you couldn't hear. Or feel or see anything as something dark encroached your vision. The voice of one man screamed in the halls over the sounds of pouring rain that all boomed so loudly you almost flinched. “Kill me and be cursed. You are no King of mine.”

What were they saying around you? Your pounding heart cut every path to your lungs and it burned within you as you suffocated in the sounds of yelling and whispering all as voluminous as the other.

“If Rickard Karstark was alive, Rickon would be alive too.”

“If you stayed dead, his brothers wouldn't be.”

“They all know its your fault.”

“Jon blames you.”

“Ramsay's whore.”

Was anyone speaking anymore? Were you alone in the hall and yet not many noticed how white from strain your knuckles had turned as your palms braced against the wood. What was anyone even saying all voices felt as if they were fading away and the room dimmed from the afternoon to something dark and only just as you lifted your head to the room did you hear it.

The voice calling your name clearer then anyone and in the hall at the end was one you knew, and yet in your waking hour your understanding escaped you of who you had seen. You had no voice though, you found no way to call out to him as he was finally in front of you after so many years. But he walked carefully, an arm outstretched as he spoke almost upset and desperately. “I didn't mean for this, any of this, to happen this way. I was trying to help but now I don't know how to make it stop..”

You once more failed to open your mouth with words instead only blood spilled out. He came forward looking more and more upset and as he to stand in front of you? An arm reaching out to you like a boy desperate to fix things did the strings begin to play.

They played and they increased so loud you knew the both of you no longer could hear any including each other as they grew enough he had to cover his ears it was so painful. But then you heard one more voice behind you. “Afterall, my King is long overdue a wedding gift for he and his Queen.”

The boy tried grabbing you with both hands to pull you away but the stringed music was so loud you couldn't even hear him call your name until the music stopped and the hall was silent was you heard Catelyn yelling Robb's name in desperate warning.

A different set of hands grabbed you from behind to pull you back and the other reached around forward and just as the sharpness of the blade sunk deep into your stomach did you startle back to the world.

The cup in front of you had been knocked down in your startle as it clanked against the ground and the contents spilled across the table and dripping to the floor. Interrupting what was seemingly a display of commands from Jon as a few other men now stood in the clearing near the high table but all eyes looked at you.

The only pair of eyes that were not looking in worried fear, were in the very back from a now very curious Howland Reed.

By the time the meeting had dispensed, Jon instantly almost threw his hand down on one of yours against the table the second you made to move. Not a thought in your mind in that second but the list of things you were intending to do that day, but Jon squeezed it and it kept you in place, if not willingness of your own then by his strength alone.

You had almost missed half of the meeting, and part of you worried that it was a scolding coming your way, in what you knew was a strangely childish notion. Ser Davos made his way from the now depleting crowd towards the high table as Jon glanced at you with a raised eyebrow for a moment. An almost indiscernible slow blink that told him enough to decide to let your hand go. “Not common from what I've seen that one of your own people argue with you so freely.”

Giving the benefit of the doubt, Jon exhaled out the irritation to let it simmer. “Northerners don't tend to hold back how they feel. Can't blame her for that.” Still, not one of the three of you looked with any ease as if the strange scenario of the whole meeting sat amongst everyone still now.

Footsteps came approaching, directing the attention to Howland who gave a courteous bow as he approached. “If I could spare a moment of your time, your grace?” Jon nodded and Howland closed the gap stepping up the small stairs to the high table where you all stood with much less authority. “Your father was a friend who meant a lot to me, but I feel as if I've failed my duties to what remains of his family. I sent aid but did not join Robb Stark's war in the South, nor did I come to your aid in either battles you have lead since.”

Jon shook his head, tone deeper now as it fell in volume to a more normal softness. “One of my brothers from the Nights Watch met your two children, told me that they're part of the reason why Bran is still alive, still out there. They may not be here to thank, but I can thank you for sending them to help him.”

A fond smile on the mans face formed, thoughts of children he could sometimes barley understand and yet knew them better then a soul else. “Hardly my choice, your grace. I raised them to be too much like myself, made that choice all on their own once they knew what needed to be done.” Crossing his arms he inhaled, “My boy, Jojen, he was the one who realized it was your brother who needed help. He has the Sight. He can see things in his dreams, from the past and things that haven't happened yet.”

“Promise me, Ned.”

Ser Davos could see your unnerved silence, and decided he had not the patience for such mysteries, not after seeing what happened that night on the ship with you. His tone was short and verging on an irritation that didn't mean to be directed at anyone, but came off at the man anyways. “And how would he be able to do that?”

“I'm afraid I don't have all the answers for you. Jojen had the Sight, not myself. I only know what he told me and that is very little compared to the power behind this sort of thing.” You wanted to flee the room but you were glued down in your very feet rooted in place. “But whatever counsel I can offer to both of you, I am here to make available to you, should you wish to have it.”

Directing his attention back to Jon, you could only glance to Davos as you both felt more uneasy about what was being said on this day then either Northerners seemed to come off as. And it wasn't until you both made your leave, did either of you say word of it. “I'm not here to pass judgment, but the more people talk around you of magic and visions the more stress it's putting on your shoulders.”

Standing out in the breeze of the walkway overlooking the training yard, you both kept eyes on the men begin running through some very basics with the the young ones around. You voice distant as was the glaze over your eyes watching as if years ago looking back to yourself. At least this time you knew it was that of only a memory. “Everything always falls on Jon now, it seems only fair I take some of that burden for myself.”

Your forearms were leaning against the railing, hands clasped together as Davos moved to mimic the posture as to speak quiet to only you. “And he's far better at handling it then you.” Only a single nod was given in return, you had nothing to deny of that. “What was it they said about the Targaryeans? Every time ones born the gods flip a coin? Maybe we should check with Selyse, make sure your father's not secretly one of them, that's making you lose your mind.”

It was a joke, it was Davos making light of the worry to quell it in both of you for the conversation but it strangled you until you felt your heart pounding so hard you felt dizzy. Trying to utter out in jest, and failing at the tone, “Not sure that's how it works. You don't become mad, you're born that way and only time and power will bring it out eventually.”

He could sense something rigid in your posture that wasn't there before, but no idea what would be running through your mind to cause it. “Put a lot of thought into it, have you?”

Your eyes found Jon in the distance, and you felt that strangulation surround you and overwhelm your senses. Vines stemming from blue roses wrapping around each limb until it consumed you as they burned and pleaded of a promise.

“I grew up in the shadow of the Targaryeans. Difficult not to.”

It was in a moment alone did you finally reread it. Alone now up on the landing, you leaned down enough to grab something hidden in your boot, a long standing way you've kept papers from hidden eyes when you needed to keep it on you. Wolkan said the letter had come in while away on Dragonstone and he had only shown it to you, the contents being unusual as it was addressed to you specifically.

After learning what you had, you didn't want to risk anyone finding it out until you could ensure they were somewhere safe, enough had been done to them all at that point and so few of you left. But Jon would want to know why and for what you had to go there and you didn't want to risk that answer before you understood what was going on. Any hint of who was there in the wrong hands could mean the worst, and enough of that had happened already.

Writing in a crude style of code seemed to be a habit in that line of blood. You knew right away what was being said, however. Repeating something particular he once said. The day you and Eddard Stark had gone to the armoury of Tobho Mott, that was what the boy had said when asked if Stannis had questioned him at all.

“He never said a word. Just glared at me like I was some raper who done in for his daughter.”

You could only imagine how alone he was, for you to be the one he found a way to reach out too.

Met once and never forgotten that feeling as you looked him in the eye. Like you were looking at your twin. And now you knew two things for certain, he knew you were blood family and the only living one of Robert Baratheons bastards was Gendry.

You were glad he was alive, but you also felt somewhat ill that it wasn't Barra. She would have been what? Four years old? How horribly was she ripped away from that young girl who was her mother? All the years passed, and the young girl in Petyr Baelish's brothel likely still wouldn't even be the age you were when you met her. The brightness in her eyes as she looked at you cooing at what was your newborn cousin, asking if you agreed that she looked just like him.

And she did. Dark hair growing fast as Baratheon babies always did, bright green eyes and a look of mischief you knew was present as well in your blood. You desperately hoped the girl was doing alright. That she had gotten free of such a life and found love elsewhere that wouldn't be stricken by blood.

Knowing the kind of man Petyr Baelish was, you doubted it.

It was later Jon had startled you when he finally came across you in a moment of quiet. Very suddenly a warm presence at your back as two hands slid across before pulling you gently back against his standing position to your sitting one. “Do you know how to relax anymore?”

A hum left your throat, as a small half smirk formed on your face. “For your information, I have been scouring through letters looking for desperate marriage proposals.” A deep grunt barley made it out of Jon's chest before you huffed a laugh as the feeling of his hands increased in tightness. “I never said they were for me, my King.”

Glancing up and slightly behind you, Jon raised an eyebrow teetering on his own amusement before leaning more down to put his head more level to where yours was. Tone a deep rasp in your ear as one hand left your arm, “And I'd say no to them before I even got to their name.” Grabbing the raven scroll in your hand he mindlessly tossed it onto the table in front of you before turning you to look back at him enough he could press his lips to yours.

Soft and gentle they were, nothing but a coaxing for you to follow his lead as you relaxed into his touch with a sigh into his own mouth. A motion causing Jon to pull away only long enough to laugh a smile into his next kiss which was a little more innocent of a peck then the other. Yet just as you were to melt into him, your own hand reached up suddenly and grasped at his hand wandering towards sneaking into the top of your dress.

A chuckle left him deep as you pulled away with narrowed eyes as he pressed another kiss to the side of your head. Mumbling at him in playful disapproval, “How am I supposed to help run your kingdom when every time I get somewhere, you come along and distract me?”

Almost without even thinking, or without any effort much to your constant surprise. Jon all but yanked you up off the seat to take the place himself, pulling you back down onto his lap sideways with a yank at your dress. A small yelp leaving you as you steadying yourself with arms around his shoulders and back of his neck as you glared at him. Jon barley even reacted to your irritation. “I'm the one running this Kingdom.” A hand wrapped around your waist keeping you to him while the other gently begun to run through the hair loose at the side of you face. “You, are here to keep me from losing my mind, and to relax for once in your life.”

The same hand now danced along and begun raking through the hair at the back of your head, gently readjusting every time he came across a slight tangle to not jostle you as he did so. Your nails mindlessly scratched very lightly along his neck and what you could reach of his collarbone. “We both know one of those two things I am abysmal at.”

Grey eyes bright as he looked at you, Jon gave another half smile only a little softer to match the genuity behind the rest. “You're right. I can lose my mind just looking at you too long.” He laughed more freely the second you rolled your eyes, making your own cheeks warm at the sound. It felt like you so rarely got to hear him laugh anymore. There was rarely reason for it. Saying your name gently, he prompted you to look at him. “Everything you've been through, sometimes I think you forget that you've barley had a chance to breathe since getting away from them.”

He wasn't wrong. It hadn't even reached a year since you escaped that day with Theon, and yet it felt as if more then a lifetime had passed between you all. Many lifetimes had passed for you and Jon especially.

It was one thing after another and the only time in between them were a day or two before something else. Biting your tongue as your eyes narrowed lost away in thought, one of your hands instinctively reached up to run along the facial hair scratching at his jaw, while the other slipped right down and pressed over his heart.

Only months ago you had stepped into the Ice Cells of Castle Black and traced over the wounds in Jon's chest. Dead and cold long enough he had turned tints of blue creeping into his skin. If that was months, then the Twins felt like decades. “Hard to remember that sometimes.”

Quiet between you for a moment, you instead couldn't move past the thought. It lingered a second too long and now took up space in your consciousness that couldn't be ignored. Slowly and deliberately, you had begun the process of unlacing the shirt covering his chest. Shaking your head as he spoke your name in a question, to just let you work.

Not all the way, but you opened it enough that a hand could slip inside of the material and trace along his chest. Pulling back more naturally as you did so, you exposed the scars littered about. They looked truly just as gruesome as when they were hours fresh. You weren't sure you'd ever be able to look at them, and not feel as sick and horrified as you did the first time.

Your eyes far away as you traced them, narrowing in sharpness following the path of each and feeling how they both had not healed, but seemed to just exist outside of him. You could feel the skin around your wounds but not when one touched the scars itself, and you imagined it was the same as you did so now.

Only feeling your touch when your fingers jumped from one scar to the next and never when tracing their red path. Glancing up suddenly, you found the ones by his eye. One faint and white now as it sat at the top and bottom of his eye only visible if you were close enough. The other, sometimes it was easy to forget about. You had been used to seeing Jon with blood and scratches on him, but then there was this one.

Reaching up, you traced along it as your face could have come off as cold or angry to any who weren't the man in front of you. It still sat red. It was red and painful looking now but didn't heal since, long and curved along the side of his face by his other eye. That one wasn't healing either. You still had marks from an arrow lodged in your upper back and by your shoulder, even though at the time, you didn't even register it.

They hit you, but you barley comprehended it. You had barley comprehended your stomach, as you looked up at Robb before collapsing to the ground as you grew freezing cold in seconds.

“Why us?” Jon watched you closely, his quiet speaking the question for him. “Why only us that came back? No one else came back, that woman was trying to do some ritual to accomplish it..but we..no one did anything for us. We just..woke up..” Your hand still sat on the scar beside his eye, voice far and lost. “I didn't understand it then, and I still don't.”

Grabbing your hand for himself, Jon pressed his lips to your palm before holding it over the mark right on his heart. “Maybe we're not meant to.” Your eyes dropped, but Jon moved the arm around your waist back so he could tilt your chin back up gently to look at him. “Everyone wants to be special, or look to someone else like their special. But you and I both know coming back like this doesn't feel like that. I'm tired and walking around worried I came back so angry I'm going to lose it one day, you came back and think that you're the one everyone wants to lose it on. Coming back didn't make you and me some chosen ones, it just brought us back different.”

Your free hand continued it's path, tracing gently along his jaw and thumb brushing briefly over his bottom lip before you relented. Leaning forward to press your lips to his, leaving but a light peck that lingered as your held hands over his heart tightened together but did not leave one another. Resting your forehead against his you ran that hand along his jaw once more. “Says the one who can warg into his own direwolf.”

“That's not exclusive to me.” A small grin on his face as you almost shook your head at him.

Both of you sat in the quiet for a little while, nothing but the crackling of fire to accompany you until you spoke up once more. The dry tone returning to your voice. “By the way, your grace, you in fact did get a proposal of marriage.”

The swiftness in which Jon pretended to find interest had you drop your expression so flat it made him laugh quite a lot. Standing up from him, you pulled your dress from his attempted grasp to yank you back to him, with a childish glare. “If you're so interested, my King, go right ahead. Shame you won't have much time though, your new betrothed is rather old in her years. Bearing children might be something of a challenge, I'm afraid.”

If he had expected someone to know something of that secret, Howland Reed certainly did not think it would be the Queen in the North. Accosting him in his quarters the evening after he arrived in Winterfell for the first time in decades. But the moment you had knocked on his door, you all but barged in and locked the door behind you. Walking in towards the fireplace before turning to him as your hands braced on the wooden table in front of it.

Looking up at him as he tried to speak, you chose first. “You saved Lord Stark's life during the rebellion. Why?” Howland looked taken back for a moment when you repeated yourself but with much more sternness behind. “Why save his life? Why were you fighting to the death in the first place that day?”

Squinting in curiosity at you, he certainly played it safe. “I'd expect you know the story as well as any, we had gone there to rescue his sister, and the Kingsguard keeping her there did not take kindly to us accomplishing that.”

Once more you asked why, your eyes dark and your nerves racing like fire in your blood. “Rhaegar Targaryean took her there at the start of the rebellion, but by the time you had reached it? He was dead, the Mad King was dead. There was no one left to follow. Why fight to your death to keep an already dying teenage girl locked in a tower she can't escape from?”

Walking up to the other side of the table, Howland rested his hands more calmly at the top of the chair across you. His voice low but collected. “Kingsguard uphold their vows to a fault, even when it goes against protecting the innocent. He ordered them to keep her there, and they were going to follow it.”

The room was painfully silent before you shook your head. “She was dying, she couldn't run, she couldn't escape, there was no way to save her by then why not just let her brother come through and see her one last time? Why keep them away when the ones who gave them that order are dead, and it wouldn't make a difference to let him in the room to see his dying little sister?”

There was a pause in the man's eyes that you didn't miss for a second. It was a painful subject, you suspected few had ever asked in an aggressive manner as such before. Not to him at the least.

“If I could tell you why they would not allow it, I would. But I can't-”

“Can't you?” Standing up with an inhale you paced mindlessly deeper in the room before spinning to face him, arms crossing in front of you. “Lyanna was dying, you all would have found out eventually, it doesn't make sense to act as if they could hide that forever.” Your eyes found his, and he didn't move an inch. “Unless Lyanna wasn't the one in that tower they were trying to hide.”

The tension could be cut thick, it was brutal as both parties gave nothing away in their expressions almost in expert. “How did you-”

“I dreamt it.” You knew to a man like him, he'd take that without explanation but it sounded so silly as it came from your mouth you instantly stepped forward to justify it in ramblings. “I saw something in my dreams, more than once I saw it and it all kept leading me to that day and I never quite could figure it out until..” Sighing out, you leaned against the table with your back turned against it.

Your voice was hardly a whisper. Looking over to Howland he stood in stillness watching with any breathe hardly passing through him. “Everyone used to say Arya looked like Lyanna, but in truth she just looked enough like Ned that being a girl made the connection in their minds. But that also means if Ned looked enough like Lyanna that his own daughter was similar in appearance to her..then he would have an easy time passing off Lyanna's son as his own, wouldn't he?”

Once more he didn't speak, and you knew he wouldn't until you stripped this secret down to it's raw truth no matter how much you hated it. So you looked right at Howland Reed, giving him one more chance. “Who is Jon's father?”

His only response was but a whisper, “Ned was the man who raised him, who loved him. That's the father that matters.”

But it made you upset. It wasn't just about that, it wasn't a doubt of love. It was about a truth that had plagued Jon his entire life that was the core of so much of what happened. Turning to him, you spoke just as quiet. “Jon's wanted to know who his mother was his whole life. He's never felt without a father, he knows he had a father who loved him. But he deserves to know who his mother was.” Stepping closer your voice dropped more. “I know she begged him to promise to keep him safe, but look around. What of his life would put him at such risk anymore if he knows? It'll hurt, but it's always hurt him not knowing.”

Howland was dreadfully serious, “Ned kept that secret for almost twenty five years and he died with it. I've kept it now almost thirty, we did it to protect him. What happens if people knew? We could have done anything. Do what was done with the Mad Kings youngest, ship him off to Essos. Hid him somewhere in the realm with a no one family where he'd never find out, have him raised somewhere in the North away from Catelyn and her children but he didn't.” His whisper was angry as it was upset in your eyes. “He took that child in and raised him as his own son, because he loved him as his own son. With him, Ned knew without a doubt he could be safe.”

It choked in your throat, turning away as you ran a hand over your mouth to force it back down before you spoke. A sick memory coming back up and it felt dizzying to know. It was never just about right or wrong, it wasn't just about honour.

“You'll dishonour yourself forever if you do this.”

You almost didn't say it but it came out of its own accord. “Robert would have killed him.”

Looking to Howland, he stepped closer much less defence in his posture as you both ended up sitting down at the table to steady you on your uneasy feet now. “She was dying, covered in blood gods know how they had so little care that they left her there like that. He was no more then a week old when we got there, so she had to spend a week with her newborn son. Knowing the whole time she was going to die, and not knowing until that final day what would happen to him when she did.” It choked in Howland's voice too, a long time likely since he thought of what happened in that room.

Finding his eyes you recounted that day in the small council chamber, what the news was, what Roberts reaction was and Ned's too. “Gods it was never about honour, it wasn't about what was right. He stood there listening to his closest friend prove that even now if he found out the truth, it wouldn't make a difference.”

“Why do you think he let him join the Night's Watch?” You looked away from him, something choking in your throat. “His family was about to be deeply intertwined with the royal family again, and letting him go to the wall meant he was as far from anyone who would know or find out as could be. He was doing what he thought was best to protect him. That's what he always tried to do, he loved that boy until his last day I can promise you that.”

It was quiet in the room, and what you said next broke that as if your whisper was a shout. “I'm going to tell him.” Standing up, Howland followed coming to your side instantly in protest but you shook your head. “He needs to know-”

“We've kept this secret for decades to protect him, what was this all for if we just-”

Your voice however, wavered in more shattering upset rather then the anger you wished it sounded as instead. “Jon deserves to know the truth. He deserves to know he had a mother who loved him, and he deserves to know why she isn't here.”

Trying to move in your path, Howland kept you from reaching the door. “Twenty five years Ned let people think he was unfaithful to his wife to keep this a secret, let Jon be raised thinking he was the one who caused that smear on his honour.” Trying to keep you at arms bay, “Ned Stark did not do this to spend all of it in vain-”

But you shook from his grasp in an anger. It wasn't about them anymore, any of them. “This may have been Ned's secret, but it's Jons life.”

You hadn't been in the crypts since burying Rickon. You hadn't really been in Winterfell long enough to spend much time of any in here since that night. But you knew the path without any effort into figuring it out, or even paying attention.

Which you couldn't do, not now. Walking down here close to the ground where beneath the castle floors laid hot springs which kept the halls as warm as could be in the winter. You could feel your heart racing and your head filled with a lightness that made you dizzy but you had no choice now. It wasn't about you.

It was cruelly fitting, that Jon was down in the crypts to see his father as you walked to him. The truth was going to be all around him with no one but you to force it onto him and you hated it. You wished you could let Jon be ignorant and happier for it, but he deserved better then that. Everything he has been through, you wanted him to have the truth of his life.

But as you approached, Jon turned to the sound of your footsteps. Your name gentle on his lips and it carved a horrible agony in your lungs that stole your remaining breathe. Coming up to him, you paused as you took one last look before you ruined it. Again.

Hair still pulled back from the day, and not quite kicking the habit of his once position, the leathers and fabrics on him were sparser then before but dipped in black. A Snow, a Northerner more then any you'd ever met, and that was who he was inside, but you had to say it anyways. It was the right thing to do, but it didn't feel it.

You didn't notice you hadn't said anything until Jon gently cupped the sides of your cheeks, tilting you up to look at him, grey eyes bright and soft that made you want to cry to shatter them. His voice was a gentle rasp as he leaned down to you more, “Darling, talk to me. What happened?”

Looking up at him, you could only think in retrospective, that maybe you should have stolen one last kiss. You were already forgetting what it felt like in the days since. Sitting at a table inside of a tavern in Barrowton, looking across to Gendry certainly felt like another lifetime away from that night in the crypt however.

Tilting your head in question, you drew the sound of the letters out. “Satin?” Narrowing at you back you opened your mouth slightly to guide him into mouthing the fake name you had so he could say it out loud in the ruse. Keep it up as long as you two were in public at least.

“Mya? Would say I almost didn't recognize you, but think we both know that's a lie.” Pointing down at Olly he asked, “Whose this?” A suspicion on his face that you easily dismissed with a wave of your hand in his direction.

Your tone trying much more to fall into something a little less proper, a little less practised in formality then your father taught you for in public again. “Let's call him my ward. Ward this is Satin, Satin this is my ward, Olly.”

Leaning with a narrowed whisper, the boy asked why you got a fake name but he didn't, but it was Gendry who answered for you as he sat down. “Beacuse your a kid, and no one cares about the name of some kid in the middle of the North.”

Looking at you, and you back, there was a strange moment between you, where you two almost laughed simultaneously. Choosing instead to lean your arms against the table, “So, I heard my father tried to kill you. Glad we have something in common.”

Olly watched the tense silence, before watching in even more confusion as it was that which made the pair of you give a disbelieving laugh. A ridiculous set of events and ruin brought you here finally, but you at least knew one thing so far.

Gendry thankfully seemed to have inherited Robert Baratheon's ability to laugh in the most bizarre or uncomfortable situations. Ordering something for him to eat, you had a feeling the three of you were going to have a long night ahead.

Perhaps it should have been weirder, how easy it was to talk to him. But also, in a way it wasn't totally dissimilar to the way in which you got along with Renly. An easier going personality without as much smugness that made you want to slap your uncle sometimes, that was a major difference in a positive way. It was clear Gendry wasn't looking at things in terms of the life he could've had but rather the one he always did anyways.

“Nothing left for me in Kings Landing, tried figuring out where to go. Spent some time on and off ships anyways since, finding work, failing to find work. Not much out there.” Leaning forward, your gloves taken off as you had tried to find yourself more settled as you had asked him about how he even got this far North in the first place.

Glancing up, noting it getting at least somewhat darker out in the back of your head. “How bad are we talking?” Your mind trying to stretch all the way to the Riverlands and knowing you were simply without reach and even if you could who was left there to care who you used to be.

Shrugging, “Kept away from it mostly.” Biting your tongue you glanced a few times to the night sky out trying to keep the thoughts back again as he continued. “Anywhere that isn't at war is just poor and hungry. Think up here is the only place anyone has anything even sort of together.”

Arm crossing over the table, you narrowed your eyes at a spot of nothing in thought. “Wasn't easy getting here, only have barley begun even..” Looking up, it was as if both knew a conversation to happen but not here in the public view. “It's rather late, especially for this one.” Olly protesting as you nudged him as if a young child.

“If you've got nowhere planned to say, I have a spare room.” Gutting his chin outside to an Inn nearby explaining, “As long as I do the lady there free work, she lets me keep a room. Knowing how to smash metal with a hammer comes in handy anywhere turns out.”

The night was far cooler then when you had entered. The sky black and stars shining above as if none of the world turmoiled below them. Wrapping your cloak around you more tightly, and without a second of your own notice forcing Olly to do the same as if fussing over him. The air showing your breathe with every step. “How in seven hells do you get used to this?”

Glancing to you specifically, you shrugged. “Spent half my life here, either you get used to the cold or you complain and everyone is annoyed for it.” That glare wasn't meaningful but you didn't pass by how easily he looked at you in a familiar bantering as if you hadn't met more then just once over four years ago.

Teeth almost shaking as he walked, “Well I'm not used to it. So you best get used to me complaining about it.”

As Gendry made his way to the Inn front, you paused as you stepped right before the doors threshold, a strange feeling making something in your spine crawl up and leave a tingling behind. People were walking and passing but nothing that stood out and yet you watched anyways. As if sensing eyes on you, but there was nothing in your sights, and you walked in regardless.

“You're being silly.”

An almost indignant tone came over Sam as he looked at Gilly with a look he hoped was serious. “I am not, I think we have good reason to be careful. What we have?”

Giving him a doubtful look, Gilly turned to Little Sam who was now actively taking things from her own bowl of stew and putting it in his mouth. It had been a long trip, and just getting to the North itself had taken its tole on the small boy. “Who are the maesters going to send? Or know where we are?” Trying to feed her son now instead of letting him run rampant, she then gave Sam a look. “You should eat too.”

Grimacing, the sheer idea of it now made him unwell. The journey to Oldtown the first time was no pleasant experience, but this time it was a smaller ship on even rockier waters. The moment they sailed up the smaller rivers to where they were to stop in Barrowton, Sam had to all but put the texts he took with him on the other side of their small room he was so sure he was going to throw up on them.

Now they sat with their small amount of things at his side, or would stay in their room as long as they were here. The small set of tables sat on the bottom floor of the Inn, not many were around as the night grew colder and people settled in. Not that cold bothered them the same way, not where they met.

“If I eat now, I'll be getting up in three minutes to bring it back out as soon as it hits my stomach.” He glanced with a playful glare at Little Sam, who when catching the look playfully gave one back. “I wish I was as good as you are, napping whenever we set sail. Would save myself a lot of trouble.”

For the most part they ignored everyone else, they weren't staying here long. Enough to rest, and make a plan to get to Winterfell easy as possible. It was weird to think about, Sam had never seen it before and never thought he'd have reason too. But now, he was heading there not just for one person he knew, but to request an audience.

Glancing back to Gilly, Sam leaned in a bit as if keeping a secret, when in truth everyone around him obviously was entirely aware of who Jon was. “Hard to imagine that he's King of this, all of this. How do we even think that happened? He turned down King Stannis's offer of being Lord of Winterfell, turned down being made a Stark but now he's King in the North. You think he wears a crown?”

Little Sam laughed, trying to get out half decent sentences in his young age and on top of being just tired enough to not swallow his food before doing so. “He'd look funny,”

Gilly turned him more to face her with a grin, “Do you even remember what he looks like?” Her hands poking at her son playfully. The small little family sat there, minding their own when the front door opened to let the cold wind blow in. Just enough that mists of snow flickered about the floor.

Two dark haired figures walked in, one looking more at an ease while the other had sharp eyes looking around with a more stern expression which matched the cold outside. A shorter, younger one came in close to the woman, but instinctively Sam drew his attention elsewhere. But, just as fast as Sam glanced away, he looked back suddenly with his own sharper gaze. But the third person he had looked back for now was turned with his back to them and a thick cloak covering most of him.

Gilly had to call his name twice before Sam looked back to her, as she asked what was he looking at. But Sam watched the now empty staircase as they disappeared down the hall, eyes blinking heavily as he shook them out. “Been at sea too long. Think we could all do with some sleep.”

Too many nights with his head overboard, and Sam was already starting to see things.

“He seems attached to you.” Glancing to the now closed door where Olly slept, both you and Gendry shared a more sullen glance. “Just something I've noticed in the whole two hours I've known you.”

Shrugging, you turned from the sight with more down trodden of a tone then before only hinted with a tinge of amusement. “If we include the first time we met, we can make it a whole two hours and three minutes.” The chuckle shared was genuine from him, not from you and he easily picked that up. A long beat passed before you turned the mood down significantly, a weight heard in your throat. “I almost don't want to ask how you found out the truth.”

It shifted in him as well, something more serious and uncomfortable to think on. “Where do I even start? Where I left Kings Landing the first time, or when the red woman showed up.” Your eyes flew over to him with a dark tint as your jaw clenched, and you felt that sinking inside you. “I ended up in the Riverlands, was with the Brotherhood Without Banners and they told me I could stay on with them, serve Lord-”

Interrupting him, a hand waving out as your face twisted in confusion. “Maybe we should begin where I had last actually seen you, because I feel as if I've missed a few key details.”

It was simple, explaining how his master got sick of him, sold him to the Nights Watch and left him on the Kingsroad. That was until he mentioned the Gold Cloaks. “They showed up, came looking for a bastard named Gendry. Yoren threatened them, told them to piss off and they left. Until more came in the middle of the night a while later..killed a bunch of people and took the rest of us hostage to Harrenhal.”

Everything as Lord Tywin Lannister showed up, and you felt a sickness in your blood trying not to think of that night. Explaining that they had escaped when you once more interrupted. Asking when this all had happened. Trying to estimate a time, you had begun doing your own thoughts in your head and you not in any way liked the implications that you came close too. By the time Tywin had left, they escaped soon after and you realized how close you had missed him by.

Were you already on the road to Harrenhal when this happened? How close to Edmure's attack did they come? “I don't know how she did it, but Arya managed to get this Jaqen fellow to help us-”

“Arya?” If your blood cooled before it ran fast and dizzying now.

Nodding, he seemed to think perhaps you knew but judging by the slightly agape of your mouth and wide eyes in disbelief, he realized that no, maybe it made sense you didn't know about this. “Yoren was taking her to Winterfell, disguised as a boy, or trying to at least. Convinced this guy Jaqen to help us and we escaped, ended up running into the Brotherhood and in turn ran into The Hound.”

Your arms came up to the table between you, resting your forehead in your palm as your elbow sat perched. The world spun too much then and now, too much here and there and names you never thought you'd hear of again. The last you had seen Arya was the morning you were arrested, she had been upset she was leaving, but still otherwise was just a girl. But this tale Gendry spun wasn't one that would have let her stay that way.

No one had heard from her, and every mention from the capitol didn't include her and you, Robb, and Catelyn all didn't like to talk about what you felt that implied. Most seemed to presume her dead, and you had none the reason to think otherwise, and yet you sat with a pull at your heart that she had been so close.

She was so close to her family, Robb came so close to getting to her and now it was all for nothing again. “Anyways, the red woman showed up, and they sold me to her. Dragged me off in a cage and I never saw Arya again. Don't know where she is, or if she's still alive. All I know is how mad she was when the woman came and took me. Not that things went well after that either.”

You two were there for a while, a back and forth of what happened, what the red woman did and what your father almost let her do until Ser Davos was the only one who did the right thing. It was nothing short of a miracle Gendry would even want to try and find you after all of that. The quiet burned around you both, and there was little left in either of you to say.

You lacking the ability to have words you knew to say, and Gendry used up the remains of ones he had all spoken. Nothing meaningful at least. “Said something about how there's power in our blood, whatever that means.”

It burned under your dress, the scar. There was something in your blood, blood from Kings as you sat alive with a wound so fatal you faded in but minutes. But how would you even tell him that? Tell anyone that. No one understood, no one but one, and you had no idea if he even still cared. Or you were just too much of a coward to want to know.

“So what now?” Gendry meeting your eyes, finding a purposely colder and stiff look giving little away in your own. “You're in the North, what do you do now? Stay here or what?”

Shrugging, he leaned back in his seat. Glancing to the window shining bright before speaking with a casualness you wished you had ever possessed. “Don't know. Most of my life I've just been dragged from one thing to another. Never really had much choice all on my own before now. Think I'm just trying to enjoy what that feels like for the first time.” You nodded absentmindedly before he gestured to you. “What about you? Queen in the North all the way out here pretending to be some commoner like me, what's your plan?”

Nothing of how you were here was like you, but what else did you know anymore? Who were you but a liar, and liars don't get to have detailed life plans as you had done so before. You had no answer, and it seemed he filled in the blanks for you.

“Maybe you could try being me for once. Just do whatever comes your way until something else drags you away from that. Not very Queen like but it's not like you care about looking like one.” Your eyes narrowed in a playful glare tinged with an exhaustion as he chuckled to himself. “Came all this way to meet me, we might as well stay here a bit and find out if we hate each other or not.”

You almost laughed, and he at least caught the intent in your eye. “Won't take long I imagine. Not like my side of this family is known for our charm.” Your eyebrows raised in a passive amusement as his brightened with more of a nodding grin. “Though, I can't say Robert was exactly the perfect image of an admirable man.”

As you stood up, Gendry followed with a question of his own. “Is that meant to be mocking me?”

You shrugged one shoulder, “Do you drink a lot?” He shook his head no, “Spend a lot of time with whores?” The shake of his head that time was a fervent no. Waving a hand in the air before letting it drop to your side, you relented. “Already have two things more going for you then Robert did.”

It was quiet again for a bit, at least until like children you found things both to be petty about. Gendry it seemed, wasted no time in finding ways to make fun of you for with your title. “I would be humbled for the Queen to take my only remaining bed. Sleeping on the floor would do me a great honour.”

Throwing a small pillow at him, which he caught with ease, you shook your head as you passed him by, moving towards the main room away from both chambers. “I slept on the floor of a dungeon for six months, I think I can manage one more night without a bed.”

Gendry turned with a point. “Is everyone in our family this insufferable?” When you smirked, he tried not to as well. “At least we're consistent.”

As the night progressed and more silence fell over the quarters of the Inn, you could at least find any semblance of solace that this truth of family did not destroy the only good thing you had in your life, not yet anyways.

Sam could not figure out why the trio he saw the night before was still fresh on his mind. It was as if in another life they were people he had met, when Sam had hardly been anywhere in Barrowton yet beyond the docks and the path to the Inn. Even now as Gilly and Little Sam were beside him, as she was enjoying the sights as she always managed too, Sam was still thinking about it.

He could see closer to the water front, two figures. Backs to him, but one with long dark hair against a thin cloak which reminded him of before until he realized it was in fact them. The boy was next to her, and the third of the group was nowhere to be seen as of yet. He hadn't wanted to seem as if spying was what he was doing, but as Gilly was distracted, and he couldn't help himself.

Closer, but far enough away a man like Sam appeared no out of the ordinary, he could barley hear voices. The boy sounded familiar, but not recognizable through the fading distance and the woman was closer anyways. He was sure he had not recognized hers, but she spoke more refined then her appearance would speak of.

“Have you never been this close to the open water before?” The boy shook his head no, and the girl nudged his shoulders for a moment, leaning more against the stone. “This is nothing, you should see how the sea looks on a ship. Only water for miles, like it never ends.”

“Maybe it doesn't.” The boy still didn't peel his eyes from the view. “My father used to say the Sunset Sea never ends, no one's ever survived a journey out there.”

What sounded like a smile could be heard on her voice, even from where Sam strained. “Is that what sounds adventurous to you? Well let me know when you plan dying at sea, I'll pay for the ship myself if you are so inclined.” Another pause between them, Sam wasn't sure what the boy said, he was rather quiet against the sounds of the town around them, but she once more spoke far clearer, making her the one Sam could listen too. “You follow along the river long enough, you'll reach out to Blazewater Bay and from there the sea is yours to follow as much as you want. Maybe you'll end up on the other side of the world eventually.”

He said something and the woman laughed fairly freely. “I don't know if I have ever heard something sound so amusingly forced coming from your mouth before. But I'll have to pass on that opportunity. I have no interest in seeing that far West, or East for that matter. Westeros is large enough as it is for how little I've seen of it.”

“Sam?” Turning his head, Gilly has rejoined him with a question bright in her eyes. “What are you doing?” All three of them looked the way Sam did, the pair speaking too quiet to catch either of their voices now.

Tilting his head, he wondered if he had spent too much time around Maesters and the open sea. He was starting to read into things which didn't exist. He had too much on his plate to start that now, he would have too much to look into anyways when they got there, part of him still hoped he would be allowed to stay, just for a little while.

Looking back to Gilly, he shook his head. “Thought one of them looked familiar, is all. Are you ready to go back, yet or is there more you want to see?”

Thinking to herself for a moment, she adjusted Little Sam in her arms, before both of them glanced back to each other with a more amused look. “I think Sam here might start getting cranky if we're out here much longer.” The poor boy looked tired, spending that much time so young at sea must not be good for a young one his age.

Trying to look as if he was fine, Sam smiled as he didn't buy it. Running a hand over Little Sam's bright blonde hair, he leaned in. “Then how about we find you and your mother something to eat before she gets cranky right with you.”

Indignant as she was amused, Gilly protested. “I do not get cranky.”

Sam could only laugh as they begun to walk. “Oh, yes you do.” But it was then he looked over the closer they walked. The perfect moment did Sam look and the boy turned around to the town and Sam stopped in an instant.

Looking at one another, Sam knew he recognized him. Nudging Gilly, he whispered as his eyes kept on the boys, now wide as it registered to him as well. “Gilly isn't that-” Sam had no inclination as to why, but he looked not in a register of familiarity as they parted was of, but something fearful.

Her own eyes narrowed in confused recognition. “What is he doing all the way out here?” Too right a question Sam thought, what was all the way in Barrowton a place Olly just so happened to be in? With a pair he didn't recognize and certainly given a woman was by his side, not from the Nights Watch either.

Both had approached that direction, but Olly had turned to the woman by then. Speaking in low tones, her head turned around and a dark, narrowed look came about her eyes as she whipped it back in whispering tones. Back and forth they went until she turned to face as they approached.

All but forcing Olly to stand behind her protective stance. Whatever they were whispering about, it left Olly more on edge then Sam had seen the boy in a very long time.

Sam knew they were not ones looking threatening, but the woman glared at them as if they posed one all the same. Regardless, Sam asked, “Olly, what are you doing all the way out here?”

But he glanced over to the woman, who kept him behind her without question. As she spoke without wavering or question, there was more then just something refined in her tone, there was something that of a stern authority as she only asked a question in reply. “How do you know him?”

Head tilting back a back, Sam was a bit on air of confused as Olly seemed tense and her even moreso. It was a strange way to see him again. Sam trying to explain himself as not confronting as possible, but he barely got half a sentence out before she struck another question. “I, he came to Castle Black, we met-”

“What's a man of the Night's Watch doing in Barrowton then?”

Truly he, Gilly and Little Sam couldn't possibly look that much of a threat. But as she offered up no information, Sam realized he wasn't sure what to say either. After everything it took to get all the way North again, he had not prepared such an explanation for that wasn't the only truth he thought he'd need to share. So caught up in where he needed to go, forgetting what he'd tell people on the way. “Olly, is everything alright? You know this woman-”

“You think he's with me against his will?” More taken back, Gilly beside him was quiet as she was also watching the woman with a curiosity that she seemed to not appreciate. “He is with me under my protection, no less, no worse.”

It was then Gilly stepped forward, trying her own hand with a quiet but lulling sound to her voice, “Look, maybe we should start over, we meant no harm. Just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

Olly's voice was short but Sam wasn't sure why. He seemed defensive in a fearful way, not aggressive as the woman was. “I'm fine. I was sent here to look for someone, and Mya was helping me. She's my friend.” Easing up a bit it seemed, she moved so her arm wrapped back to pull him more into her side, still not quite as openly hostile but refusing to ease up on her distrust.

Sam paid no mind right away. “Sent by who? Jon- well I suppose not, if he isn't Lord Commander anymore. Whose there if he's King now? Oh, I'd hate for it to be Ser Alliser.” Something uneasy sat between the two of them that was hard to understand. But Gilly once more spoke up.

Readjusting her hold of her son before looking around and back. “We just wanted to know if he was okay, we meant no harm. Right, Sam?”

Sam, looked at her almost offended for a moment as if that thought never crossed his mind. That he could look the one who was threatening. “What?” Before whipping back to the woman, Mya. “No, of course not. I just..I know what you've been through, Olly. I just wanted to know why you were all the way out here alone.”

“Well, he's not alone.”

He hadn't answered why if he was from the Nights Watch why he was here and neither had she explained what she was doing there with Olly, and yet the tension was broken by a growing familiar figure walking up almost the most confused. The dark haired man Sam saw enter the Inn first the night before. He spoke far quicker, and with a much more casual attitude. “I leave you alone for a few hours and you get yourself into trouble?” Their eyes almost glared at one another before he turned around to face Sam with a far more simple air of apology. “Sorry about my sister, I got our mothers charm, she got our fathers attitude.” Turning to her with an amused glint in his eye, “Just so talented at making friends everywhere you go, aren't you?”

It was hard to tell if the look in her eye was wanting to shove her brother, or tell him to shut up. A close tie it seemed, that won draw in doing nothing but glare. Sam looked between them both, before turning to the two beside him. “You're right, we should start over. I'm Sam, this is Gilly.”

Gilly nodding to the young one in her arms, “And you can call this one Little Sam.”

If anyone, which was everyone, was surprised at how easily Mya lightened up, it was tenfold as she gave a little wave to Little Sam, who gave a shy wave back that had her smile gently. Her brother directing attention back. “I'm Satin, this is my sister Mya. We're just helping Olly here out is all, meant no trouble for the Nights Watch or anything. Gods know it's cold enough here without being forced the way up there for getting in your way.”

Gilly looked at her curiously, and still she and Sam could tell Mya didn't like it one bit. But despite the distrust, she ignored the look in Gilly's eye, and came up with the suggestion anyways.

Mya's green eyes more then once had glanced to how closely they kept their things on them, and Sam could only hope they didn't think her a thief or anything. He'd keep their things close no matter what, it was just not simple to explain that. Little Sam now sat on the opposite of the table to her, as all six of the group had agreed to sit down and perhaps start over a little less hostile. Olly stuck by her side, deathly quiet but calm.

“I'm not sure there's anything nice I'd say about Bravvos. Crowded, and it feels like every other person is judging you knowing you don't fit in.” Somehow the discussion had turned to what places they all had seen and without revealing much details as to why he was there, Sam found himself going on about their time in Bravvos.

Sipping at the ale in the mug given to him, Satin tilted his head a bit. “Anything's better then Flea Bottom. Crowded, dirty, everyone's poor. Half the nobles there are too afraid to go to the sept without protection like we're going to attack them at random or something.”

Gilly asked if that was where they both were from, and for a moment they glanced at one another in a matching expression he couldn't figure out before Mya answered for them. “Was. Sometimes it felt though like I'd go years without seeing you, how busy we both were down there.”

Not quite realized at the table, the degree of lying happening on all sides and yet it wasn't being even slightly addressed.

“So is he yours?” Nodding to Little Sam and then to Sam himself, Satin gestured with a pointed look. “I mean he's named after you, just wondering why someone from the Nights Watch is allowed to have a kid.” Mya whipped her head over in a glare, making him raise his hands back slightly in defence. “Just making conversation, not like you're doing anything about that one.”

Sam however, just chuckled. “No, it's alright. It isn't normal, I know but-”

“He's not breaking his vows.” Olly looking up, glancing between he and Mya. “Our vows say we will take no wife and father no children. So really, you haven't done anything wrong, right?”

Something on the air of relieved came over Sam, nodding as he looked at the two with him. “I'm not his blood father, so I don't think that's actually breaking a rule. Besides, I'd guess there are a few brothers who probably have one or two somewhere and don't know it. The amount of them who used to sneak off to Mole's Town for a little sally on the side,”

Leaning a bit forward, her eyes narrowed at him almost in mocking. “Sally on the side?”

Saying he was trying to be discreet in front of the child, Olly ironically spoke up with a more boy like ingidnance. “I'm thirteen, not seven. And I do know what a brothel is.”

At the same time amusingly enough, in a flat tone both siblings simply said “You shouldn't.”

His hands smacking down on his legs, as Mya turned back. Her question was innocuous, or so she had thought. “I was wondering, if you're going back to Castle Black why come through Barrowton? Don't most go through to Eastwatch by the Sea since the path from there is straight?”

Sam and Gilly glanced at each other, “Well, we need to make a stop first. And it was easier to do it getting on the Kingsroad.” Her brows narrowed in question, and only her posture slightly tensed as she found such an answer. “We only stopped here to rest, and find an easy way to stop at Winterfell first.”

“Why?”

Mya was blunt, not rude but didn't quite mince her words trying to get to the point of what someone was saying. In a strange way, in fact, in a guilty way, Sam almost briefly had thought to himself that Jon would like her. “I have..information that I think the King in the North should be made aware of.”

Her quiet afterwards though, spoke something odd in and of itself.

It wasn't until evening fell upon the town, Sam and Gilly spoke amongst themselves, did it come up. Glancing to Mya, Satin, and Olly all in a smaller circle discussing something did she turn with a curious look back to Sam. “Doesn't she remind you of someone?”

Sam looked with furrowed eyes but from here the girl had turned enough he struggled to see her face from anything but the side. “I don't know, I can't really see that much detail from all the way over here. Why who does she remind you of?”

Confident in her voice, she also had no way to know. “Shireen. The princess, King Stannis's daughter.”

Sam squinted from where he sat, only to relent with ease. “Oh, you're sort of right. She does look sort of like Shireen. Of course, unless King Stannis has a pair of twins he doesn't know about.” The two of them however, just looked back at Mya again. It was odd, to Gilly, she really looked strikingly like Shireen just as her twin brother in his way looked like King Stannis.

Sam however, was distracted thinking of something else entirely. He hadn't seen Jon in over a year by now. What happened to make him a King? How did that relate to him fighting against the Army of the Dead? Was Jon coping with you being gone any better, or was it worse? Living in the castle he both grew up in and fell in love with you in. It was only a matter of time before he found out, he supposed.

Sam just hoped that Jon would understand why he came all this way to see him. Glad though, that he'd be seeing him in Winterfell and not Castle Black right away, where he knew Ser Alliser likely would be ready to take charge and demean Sam for just one more thing he failed at.

Much later into the night, it was a fire that started the events. Rumblings outside that grew until they became yells. Many wandered out into the cold of the night only to see a glow of orange and red light the sky up as a building in the distance was engulfed in flames. All walked out the doors to see what appeared from nowhere, only for that of arrows to fly out.

In the watching confusion, many were hit and warnings were yelled of “Raiders,” and it was from the opposite sides of the flames they came out. Using it as a distraction to sneak from the dark behind and screams yelled as blood was spilled.

Sam had grabbed Gilly, her clutching Little Sam to her chest and taken back by the sudden onslaught of chaos. Pulling her into an alcove, he held Heartsbane as if he was confident enough to use it. Not so far away, he could see the girl, Mya, grabbing Olly imploring him to hide, and Olly protesting. “I'm not lea-”

Grabbing him by the upper arms, she seemed to give him one firm shake, “You hide, understand? Hide,” Pushing him to the side of the street did Sam and Gilly grab him. The later pulling the struggling Olly to her front as she held Little Sam tight in the other.

Eyes wide, Sam watched as Mya did what he wished he could. Finding a dagger on her person, he watched her fight with such a practiced ease it was no fluke. Her move to attack and defend in a way commoners didn't know how to, or shouldn't.

Pulling it out did it slice through a mans neck, Mya then turned and dodged another before shoving that same blade into the back of his neck. Fire blazing that drew people to an area, and men everywhere that appeared to only be here to cause chaos and death as Sam felt his heart begin to pound. Fighting up close in one on one combat wasn't how he killed a Thenn, and this time he felt the fear that he knew Gilly and Little Sam were nowhere safe if he left to fight here and now.

Brave men of the North did what they always did though, fight to protect their people. Swords, axes, blades, many came out and some were slaughtered while others cut down those coming at them.

More then once did he watch Satin and Mya both yank the unarmed and innocents back behind them, and sneak up to run the blade through those attacking them. Turning in time, did one man almost get the best of the girl, pushing him back enough before she could get hit. Flipping the blade in her hand, she moved faster then he did, only to confuse him enough as she almost spun to duck under his thrusting arm.

His body turning to her, only to have it shoved deep into his eye, splattering it across the side of Myas face. If this was one thing she could do that was impressive, as her eyes caught Sam she gestured to Heartsbane and yelled, “Do you know how to use that?”

Glancing down, he responded, “Probably not as well as you.” He held it out as she grabbed the hilt and not for a second did she seem to consider anything more. Sam watched, and it hit something odd in him, that in her own way, Mya's way of fighting was quick and graceful.

It reminded him of Jon.

As the clashing of metal dimmed in one's ears did figures come from the distance of where the fire was. They looked more put together then the wild men sent the people's way and as the dark haired twins pushed a group into the nearest door, they both turned with a heave as the men spoke with a yell of authority. A yell of a name Sam hadn't heard in a long time.

“We seek your Queen in the North, that is all. No one else needs to die tonight, but you will have to hand her over.” Satin glanced at Mya, as did Olly, and it was only then did Sam catch the way both of them felt a fear did something unknowing grow inside his chest. No, he thought, she was dead, everyone knew she was dead, and yet these men seemed to think she was hiding here.

An arrow came and hit from random, sending someone to the ground, and quick another as the figure thought none of it. Those Sam did not know the name of held bravery as they stood defiant, “The Queen isn't here, and even if she was we wouldn't hand her over.”

Chuckling the man looked almost uncaring in his eyes. “We don't need you to do it, your precious Queen will hand herself over. Isn't that right, dear?” Arms held out with no weapon and no fear he shouted. “The longer she hides the more of her people suffer on her behalf.”

Two arrows quick shot out, as soon as screaming came to follow, Satin had aggressively moved in an instant to hold his sister back. Turning with something painful and red in her eyes, she tried to move again only to have Sam step forward as well. Arm outstretched as if he wanted to do something, but there was a feeling deeper behind his eyes that made the weariness in Mya's look worse.

And suddenly, he knew, that you knew, Sam just figured it out.

Jon's girl was alive and right in front of him and Sam hadn't realized it until it seemed like it was too late. The men shouted more as you now stood shaking in the group with a jaw so clenched Sam thought it might snap.

“See we don't want any trouble, you people've done nothing wrong yet. But your Queen has a higher power she has to answer to, sins that demand she pay for and if not? We'll just keep killing people right here until she does.”

Sam and Satin both went to stop you again, but you shoved against them, stepping right into the clearing. A smug smile came over the one leading them as he stepped forward as well. Whispers rippled through those still watching. Loud and yet controlled, Sam could see your your eyes blazing strongly almost as the fire behind the men. “Who are you?”

“Come with us and find our for yourself, your grace. Or we could always decide to approach the King in the North to let him decide, I'm sure a man as honourable as he would graciously take your place.”

You were silent, and everyone watched in worry. The moment you spoke Satin tried to walk to you as Sam did, Gilly holding Olly to her as he seemed in a panic. Your voice however, when you did speak finally was heavy.

“On one condition.” Protests waved through the people but you held a hand up as they obeyed in quiet without question. “You leave this city, and these people. I go with you, and when we are done, you leave the North and do not come back. Not for them, not for my King. You want me to answer for my sins? Then I answer for the rest of the North. I'm not here to send any of my people to a slaughter.”

Just as he smiled with a deal, did Gilly have to pull Olly back again. “You can't-”

“It's too late, lad. Your Queen has given herself over for your safety. Very admirable, if the accused stands true it might be the only honourable thing she's ever done.” Sam watched as you said nothing in a glare, only for it to soften when you looked to the group then finding Olly. Shaking your head, but he tried to protest as this time, he didn't hide the tears in his eyes watching you.

Holding your hand out, palm to the men, you made a slow path to go to Sam as he closed the distance. Handing him the blood soaked blade, your eyes begged him in what almost looked like a sorry as he grabbed it from you. Sam wanted to do too much he wasn't capable of. You were supposed to be dead. But it was Satin who broke the silence again. “Anguy?”

The one with the bow raised an eyebrow, “Would you look at that. It feels like it's been a long time, Gendry. Happy to see you aren't dead, yet.” So Mya was really you and Satin was hiding his true name as well, and you travelled with Olly? What in seven hells had Sam stumbled across?

Coming forward, the archer seemed he was the only one to be recognized by Gendry and the rest remained in the dark. “You come with us, but we're taking Gendry and the fat one too.” Pointing to where Sam was close to you. “As collateral. You run, we kill them. You see your trial through to the end and we let them go. So you don't run, your grace. Understood?”

Only the two next to you could see the conflict. The water behind them wanting to fall and the way your muscles and jaw all tensed as it all went to hell once more. Gilly yelled for Sam, and Sam shouted back. “Take Olly and Sam, get to Winterfell, find Jon-” But he was grabbed as was the weapon in his hand as the innocents yelled in protest. Sam could see the devastated way you and Olly watched one another before his vision was over taken just as the men put a hood over you and Gendry as well.

You knew painfully, it had turned into a mess mess. The way he looked at you as you said it was bad, but the way he barley could look at you now that it was out there, was worse.

Jon stood so many feet away from you as his face twisted into a heartbreaking betrayal, you had to tell him the truth and it went as badly as you feared he'd one day look at you with. “My father was the most honourable man I ever met, and now you're going to stand there and say he lied to me all my life.”

You felt the sting in your eyes, he'd been horribly upset the second it came out. But you couldn't know and not tell him. Your voice cracked trying to keep it together, barley able to even come a single step towards him before he'd make that distance even greater. “He was trying to protect you-”

“From knowing who my own mother is?”

He rose his voice and you had to as well, only yours was tinged in guilt and his anger. “From everyone else, from the very family who left three of yours dead, from a life of danger. Robert would have killed you if he knew, if he ever knew.”

You don't think Jon has ever been angry with you, not like this, and it begun to spiral something in your mind that overwhelmed each time he spoke angrier. “So he lies to me, lies to everyone. How long have you known?”

Stammering, you didn't have the right words or calm to explain the dreams and how confusing they left you feeling. Only able to mutter out, “I've..suspected since Dragonstone-”

Not wanting to cry, but you felt your eyes sting with tears anyways. “You've thought this for weeks and are only now just telling me? So this is it? I was born and everyone started lying their asses off. Is any of what he told me even true about her-”

You didn't mean to yell the way you did, but it came out like a scratch as even in his state, Jon could sense a sob trying to claw it's way out of you. “Why do you think he never wanted you around Robert? What do you think would make him want you dead more, if you were born from some secret romance or if you were born because Rhaegar- I knew Robert, and if he knew that's how you came to be, it didn't matter you were Ned Starks son, he would've killed you no matter what.”

Running a hand over his mouth he turned away, taking a few steps before looking back at you. “I've never hidden something like this from you, never. And you let me marry you holding this over my head?”

“I told you as soon as I learned the actual truth. I married you because I love you. Who do you even think I am?” You couldn't come down to earth, Jon was angry and he'd never been angry at you before, never truly yelled at you before and something inside you was losing your grip. Something was scratching at your insides the longer he looked at you almost in hate. Like you were losing the only thing keeping you tethered to this earth the worse that look got.

Not for a second could you figure out what was behind his eyes. They spoke thousands of words and you had not the language to read a single one like this. “I always loved you, but maybe I don't know you anymore. Maybe I don't know anyone, or ever did.”

“Loved? You loved?”

If you were of a less raging mind of chaotic screams of panic, you might have caught the look on Jons face. The one realizing he had just worded that in the worst way he didn't mean. But he was too worked up to know how to figure out how to fix that, and the way he found no way to break the silence from the noise in your own head only made that gap between you both feel like a nightmare.

He knew how badly it came out, and he didn't have the strength to say it in any other way that wasn't going to give you the worst image even when he didn't mean it. But his head was too loud, and his heart wanted to crack into pieces and he didn't want to cry only feet away from his mother's own burial place. “I need to be alone. I can't do this with you right now. I can't think when your around me..”

In truth, Jon didn't know if you actually heard half of this conversation. He had a horrible feeling, that what he said to you, was spoken in a different voice entirely. Beacuse as much as he had never been angry at you like that before, you had never looked at him in fear before. You had though, looked at one other that way.

But there was too much in his mind and heart to recognize that in the moment. So he left, and didn't look back to see that you still hadn't quite come down to earth.

It was Jon's voice, but whispers of Ramsay's words in your mind.

#jon snow x reader #robb stark x reader #jon snow #robb stark #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #jon snow x you #robb stark x you #jon snow imagine #robb stark imagine #game of thrones imagines

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silverynight · 1 year ago

Text

The Sun hashira

<---Previous

Part II

At first Yoriichi thinks that not inviting them to his estate will be more than enough to keep them away, Michikatsu doesn't agree with him, but they try anyway.

Of course it's useless; they keep appearing to pay "them" a visit (although they all know they just want to see Tanjirou) and bring his son all kinds of gifts that unfortunately he likes very much.

At least Nezuko and Rui are on the same page as Yoriichi because they keep glaring at the Pillars every time they see them.

He tries to talk to Ubuyashiki about it, although the man seems to be really amused by the whole situation. However, he agrees to have a conversation about it with all the hashira.

Ubuyashiki decides to send a message to everyone and gather them for a meeting; he invites Yoriichi and Michikatsu as well since they're part of the problem.

"I believe the right thing to do would be to ask Tanjirou himself if he'd like to keep seeing us or not," Shinobu says at some point to which every single hashira agrees with a nod immediately.

Michikatsu rolls his eyes at them and even though Yoriichi would like to do the same, he knows at least one of them has to behave like the adult there.

"He's too young to decide for himself."

"He's eighteen," Giyuu reminds him, to which Yoriichi can help but respond with a growl.

They all know Tanjirou would agree in a heartbeat; he likes the Pillars and even if he didn't, he's too kind and gentle to say 'No' to anyone.

"I'm his father," Yoriichi says then; years ago he would have hesitated to say that, especially because Kie was still alive and he didn't want to overstep his bounds, but now that he knows he's the only thing that Tanjirou and his two siblings have, he won't hesitate anymore.

At least no one dares to argue with him about that.

"He's still an adult who can decide for himself," Tengen breaks the silence before smirking: "I married my three wives when they were eighteen, so Tanjirou is–"

"No," Michikatsu cuts him off with a snarl. "Don't say one more word."

"He's right, Tengen," Obanai scolds him. "Just shut up."

Yoriichi decides that the sound hashira is the one he dislikes the most at the moment. Although Sanemi tried to attack the box, he apologized to Tanjirou almost immediately afterwards.

"I think Tanjirou should have a say in this," Ubuyashiki finally cuts in. Michikatsu looks like he's about to protest, but Yoriichi puts a hand on his shoulder before he makes it worse. "However, Yoriichi has been Tanjirou's guardian and father for years now so his approval is very important."

"Then at least we should have the opportunity to prove ourselves," Gyomei says suddenly to which Yoriichi sighs in defeat. Yes, that's more than fair, even though he doesn't want to give them a chance.

The thought of someone taking his children away, even one of them scares him too much. And thinking that they could hurt Tanjirou makes his blood boil, even though he knows all of them are good people.

"That sounds fair," Ubuyashiki agrees. "Maybe you should come up with different kind of tests to determine if they're a good match for Tanjirou."

"Alright," Yoriichi takes a deep breath. "The first test is simple, the one who manages to defeat my brother gets to spend an hour with Tanjirou."

The only reason he doesn't do it on his own is because he doesn't trust himself not to kill them in the process.

Michikatsu looks like some sort of devil when he finally grins at the Pillars, but none of them seem to be afraid of him.

It's worse than Yoriichi thought; they're not just attracted to his Tanjirou, they're halfway in love with him.

"Deal." Shinobu agrees, which prompts Ubuyashiki to approve of it immediately.

Since his brother looks murderous, Yoriichi changes the rules and tells them that it's a hand to hand combat and the first one to hit the floor loses.

Of course Michikatsu easily starts defeating them one by one until... Well, neither Yoriichi nor his brother realized that Gyomei was that strong. Although they should've seen it coming.

The stone hashira is the first one to get a "date" with his son.

***

The day Himejima comes to pay them a visit, his uncle Michikatsu is in the estate too and he looks a little bit irritated the whole day.

Tanjirou wants to ask his uncle if he's okay, but he gets distracted when the stone hashira stops right in front of him (making him feel very small because the Pillar is very tall, the tallest person Tanjirou has ever seen) and gives him a beautiful necklace.

"For me?" The redhead asks, unsure, staring at the expensive piece of jewelry with a light blush on his cheeks.

"Yes, it's for you, Tanjirou." Himejima says, smiling kindly. "The woman who sells them told me it was beautiful. I hope you like it."

"I love it!" Tanjirou beams, taking Himejima's hand to lead him inside the house and make him some tea. "Come with me. I'll make you something to eat."

They stay inside, sitting next to each other, talking about training and meditation; Himejima gives him amazing advice about how to get to the next level of his training.

Tanjirou quickly realizes that he enjoys talking with the stone hashira a lot; the Pillars have been visiting them lately, although they spend all the time with Tanjirou and have to go quickly. This is actually the first time one of them stays that long and Tanjirou really hopes it's not the last time that happens.

"Can I touch your face again?" Himejima asks quietly, looking a little bit shy.

"Of course!" Tanjirou agrees immediately.

"I think it'd be better for you to sit on my lap," the hashira tells him.

"Sure," the redhead says, allowing Himejima to carry him and place him on his lap. Tanjirou's heart starts beating inside his chest like crazy, he's not sure why.

Himejima is very gentle, almost like he's afraid to hurt Tanjirou; his thumbs start stroking the boy's cheeks and forehead delicately before his index finger touches the tip of his nose.

It makes Tanjirou chuckle.

"You're beautiful."

"I'm not," the redhead mumbles, giggling again. "But thank you."

"I think you don't realize how pretty you are, Tanjirou."

Suddenly, his Dad appears in the room with a frown upon his face.

"Time's up," he says, almost growling.

"Dad!" Tanjirou moves away from Himejima, looking at Yoriichi like he can't believe it. "He's our guest!"

Immediately, Yoriichi's face softens as soon as his eyes meet Tanjirou's.

"It's alright, little one. Gyomei told me to remind him after one hour because he has important things to do."

"That's right," Himejima agrees, leaning to give Tanjirou a kiss on the forehead. "Don't worry, I'll be back soon."

"Who knows... you and the others need to train a lot lately," Yoriichi says, looking very irritated. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

"I'm sure I'll be back, Tanjirou. Can't wait to see you again," Himejima insists, turning around to look at the boy.

Yoriichi has to hold back a growl. Tanjirou pouts, wondering why his father seems so upset out of the sudden.

***

Yoriichi is sure he'd be great at hunting Pillars for sport, but they're, unfortunately, very useful for the Corps.

"I think I'm ready to train again," Tanjirou tells him, making Yoriichi smile at him.

He takes his son in his arms and nuzzles against his hair like he did when he was a little child.

Tanjirou hugs him back, chuckling the whole time.

"Give a hug to your uncle too," Michikatsu says, spreading his arms as Yoriichi hands him the happy boy.

"Gladly!" Tanjirou says with a huge grin.

"Now go wake up your siblings, the sun is completely gone now. They can help you with your training."

Tanjirou nods and disappears inside the house almost immediately.

Yoriichi turns to look at his brother. Almost as if he's reading his mind, Michikatsu says: "Don't worry, nobody will be able to defeat me in the next test; there's no one faster than me."

***

Next--->

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#demon slayer #kny #kimetsu no yaiba #tanjiro kamado #yoriichi tsugikuni #michikatsu tsugikuni #gyomei himejima #shinobu kocho #sanemi shinazugawa #tengen uzui #muichiro tokito #giyuu tomioka #kyojuro rengoku #obanai iguro #mitsuri kanroji #giyutan #kyotan

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yamayuandadu · 1 month ago

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do you know much about the story わが身にたどる姫君? i've heard it's an even older text potentially discussing lesbianism than tamamizu monogatari, but i can't really find anything on it in english

I’ve heard of Wagami ni tadoru himegimi before but, truth to be told, I had no clue there’s a lesbian scene in it. A series of cursory searches on Brill, De Gruyter, Persee and JSTOR indicates it usually comes up in English in the same context I’ve seen before - the discussion of belief women could be reborn in pure lands and its reflections in literature (ex. Regenerating Narratives: The Confessions of Lady Nijō as a Story for Women's Salvation by Kimura Saeko, p. 98; Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan by Lori L. Meeks, p. 72).

The main exception I’ve managed to find is Donald Keene’s 1989 article A Neglected Chapter. Courtly Fiction of the Kamakura Period. He offers a quick introduction (the text was most likely written between 1245 and 1271, as of 1989 was poorly known even in Japan let alone overseas - i don’t think much changed in that regard - in part because it was only discovered in 1933 and wasn’t published until the 1950s, and so on). He provides a summary of the lesbian section (p. 18-20) - mea culpa, I was unaware of this when I wrote the Tamamizu article, there's undeniably sex there. In my defense, evidently so was Bernard Faure, since he doesn’t bring it up in his discussion of (lack of) references to lesbian sex in historical literature.

Keene argues that the whole section is meant to be a condemnation of the characters involved - “everything in this section of Waga Mi ni Tadoru Himegimi is not only decadent, but ugly” (p. 21). I am unable to evaluate this statement without being able to read the work itself, though the only fragment I found in english does have the narrator call what is going on "bizarre". If I understand correctly the jp wiki article seems to present a somewhat similar sentiment as Keene (and also mentions the work has sections focused on incest and sexual assault in addition to a lesbian one and a gay one; not very fond of this bundling of gimmicks if I have to be honest though I will say the gay section seems to have an interesting premise considerably better than the typical chigo routine). So, I was wrong when I called Tamamizu the oldest example (it was a common sentiment online last I've checked), but jury's out on whether this story is similarly positive as Tamamizu in its evaluation of the characters. I feel obliged to also mention Torikaebaya monogatari and Ariake no wakare here, since they are arguably even earlier (late 1100s), though in both of these cases your mileage will vary. While they are labeled as “same sex romances” in scholarship every now and then, whether they count is debatable imo. In both cases an AFAB character ends up performing a masculine courtly role and marries a woman (at least in the former case it’s an arranged marriage); in both the wives are not aware of this setup (they presume they married cis men) and the narrators make a point out of the impossibility of consummation of the relationship (which tracks with Faure’s observations on perception of sex between women, fwiw).

I haven’t read the latter story (yet), but truth to be told I’m not very fond of the former. It has a very unpleasant sexual assault scene which is presented favorably and leads to the reveal that the protagonist’s gender nonconformity (or however you choose to interpret their identity) was really just a result of a tengu curse from a previous life (in the beginning there’s no indication of that) and the happy ending involves giving up on it. Tamamizu no diffs this, I’m afraid…

#japanese miscellanea

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te-pu-si-ti · 2 years ago

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ALL PLAYS ARE TIME LOOPS

(Source: https://medium.com/@cpeartre/a-double-cautionary-tale-bela-bartoks-bluebeard-s-castle-5e152d34b0bd )

#you know in a way in TBC the 6th and 7th doors are reversed #the lake of tears is last #the previous wives... one could argue... come before #after the 5th door #i will say no more #punchdrunk #the burnt city #bluebeard's castle #bartok

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taleasnewastime · 2 years ago

Text

Dating advice | Part ten

Summary: It’s been months – ok, it’s been years – since you last went on a date. And you’re sick of it. Sick of seeing couples kissing and holding hands in the street. Sick of your friends settling down. Sick of everyone buying houses and having families. You’re going to do something about it. You’re going to snap up a man, you’re going to tie someone down, you’re going to finally commit, you’re going to – you’re going to need a bit of advice.

Pairing: Yoongi x reader

Genre: fluff; angst; smut

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: Alcohol consumption, reader gets angry, swearing, low self-esteem, angst, awkwardness.

Authors Note: … It’s a big turning point …

Previous | Next | Series masterlist

“And then she leaned over and said that’s never happened before.”

Erik lets out a massive belly laugh, his eyes closing, his head flopping back. You can see his whole chest rising and falling through his shirt.

You don’t find it as funny, but you still force out a small laugh. The sound so low over Erik’s laugh and the background noise in the bar that he probably doesn’t even hear it. By the time he’s looking at you again you’re sipping your drink, he doesn’t seem to read the fact you didn’t find the story funny, or at least doesn’t care.

“How’s the drink? Better than your last?”

His smile is large, kind, makes him look incredibly handsome and yet even while it’s all directed at you, it does nothing to you. Not flutter in your chest, no heating of your face, no desire to shy away from him. Still, you smile back, look down at the half gone pink drink in front of you. It’s your second drink, a French martini.

“It’s my favourite drink, and they haven’t disappointed.”

“Your favourite, huh? I’ll have to make a note.”

You give him another small smile. There’s a beat of silence, not awkward, but you realise he’s leaving it open for you to say something.

“Oh, what’s yours?”

“Probably whiskey.”

Of course. “Ever been to a distillery?”

“No, can’t say I have. Would love to though.”

“Yeah, I’d recommend. Some of the good ones are expensive but you walk out feeling tipsy after all the samples. Plus, you get great discount on bottles at the end.”

His lip curls at the edge as if impressed. “Well, maybe an idea for another date?”

“Yeah,” you say lightly.

Why doesn’t the idea excite you? If this was before you would have been jumping in your seat at the prospect. But now, somethings changed. Maybe the fact he ghosted you and is now acting like nothing’s wrong, like that never happened. But you also know it’s something else, because when he mentioned alcohol all you could think of was the pub and when he said it would be a good date, that you should go together, all you could think about was how much Yoongi would love it. About how much you would love to go with Yoongi.

Yoongi. He's getting in your head. He’s ruining your date.

“Anyway,” you try to steer conversation onto something safer. “I was listening to a podcast about this Wagatha Christie case on the way here. Are you following it?”

“Oh my god. Who’s not?”

You smile, genuine this time. The way his eyes brighten at the thought of two footballers wives suing each other is a sight to see.

“They were saying Rebekah’s agent lost her phone at sea so they couldn’t search it for evidence. I mean how convenient it that?” You carry on, glad to be on a topic you can both get behind.

“It’s ridiculous. The amount they’re spending on legal fees just because of a tweet.”

“Footballers get paid too much.”

“I always wanted to be a footballer growing up.”

You laugh and Eriks smile brightens at the sound. “Come on. Every boy wants to grow up to be a footballer.”

“Yeah, well, like you said it’s the money and fame. For literally kicking a ball around.”

“Yeah, can’t argue with that logic.”

You finally relax back into your seat, take another sip of your drink before smiling at him.

“Come on then,” you say. “Millions of pounds a week, what would you do with it all?”

“Firstly, take you somewhere better than this shit hole.”

You laugh, roll your eyes. “Real smooth.”

He takes a sip of his drink, his eyes dark as he looks at you. Still nothing stirs inside you. The conversation is easy, you like him enough, he’s hot, maybe you just need a little more time.

The conversation carries on for a couple more drinks before you head home. There’s a couple of awkward pauses at times, but nothing major. It feels the same as the first time you met up with him. Fun and you had a laugh, a nice date.

You both head the same way when you get outside, end up chatting and walking. You don’t think too hard about it, end up subconsciously walking towards your house and Erik just follows along. But as soon as you indicate your place and pause by the door you can’t stop thinking about it. Is it weird he didn’t ask to walk you home, just did?

You stand in silence for a bit, Erik trying not to show that he’s fidgeting on the spot, you trying not to overthink this too much. When you don’t open the door or say anything he speaks up.

“So,” he pauses, looks from you to your door.

“It was a nice night. Thanks for asking me out again. And for the drinks.”

“You know,” his voice has dropped, he leans in a centimetre and your eyes naturally fall to his lips. “It doesn’t have to end here.”

“Oh,” you quickly look back to his eyes then over his shoulder, you don’t want to give him the wrong impression.

Your thoughts immediately go to Yoongi, the fact you never invited him back to yours after your date even though you wanted to, the fact that he warned you not to invite men back inside. And then you catch yourself before you can keep thinking down that trail. It’s not the first time you’ve thought of him tonight, and it annoys you that even when on a date with another man, another very attractive man, you still can’t stop thinking about Yoongi.

Your fingers twitch at your side, your jaw working as you grit your teeth.

“It’s alright,” Erik obviously gets the wrong impression, and when you look back at him, he’s already starting to draw away. “If you’re busy we can do it another time.”

He’s giving you an out, you know. He’s misread your annoyance for nerves and has taken it upon himself to retract the invite. Even though he’s got the wrong reason, you gratefully leap on the excuse.

“Sorry, I’m just tired.”

He smiles, nods, and you don’t miss the way his eyes flick to your lips. More annoyance flares within you, a perfectly hot man, clearly wanting to kiss you and yet you’re pushing him away.

“I’ll text you,” he says.

You don’t even make a joke about how that’s what he said last time and yet it took him weeks to do just that. Just wave him off, mind slowly whirling with anger, building up and up into a storm.

It’s ever since you went on that date with Yoongi, he was supposed to be doing it to help you and yet he’s seemed to make you more undatable. He’s constantly on your mind, even when you’re with someone else you can’t stop thinking of him, comparing your date to his. And then that piece of advice, don’t invite any men back to your place, why did he have to plant that in your mind? Why did you have to follow it?

You become more and more irrational until you decide that the only thing to do is go and have it out with him. As if he’s personally sabotaged your date. As if by going and shouting at him will make anything better.

You don’t care. Reason doesn’t come into it. You need to let this anger out at something.

You storm into the pub, are a little annoyed that the door has one of the jams on it which means you can’t slam it shut. But never mind, because as soon as you spot Yoongi your gaze becomes like a tunnel.

He spots you when you’re halfway too him and despite the fact that you must have a face like thunder, he still smiles. You try not to let the way his eyes brighten at seeing you stop your anger. But it’s tough. That cute round face, those dark eyes, his cheeks lifting as his lips curl up. The pure delight in his face at seeing you. And then the realisation that you don’t look happy, that you are in fact storming towards him. His smiles dips and something flashes in his eyes.

“Hey, everything –”

“Your advice is shit,” you cut him off.

“Ok,” he elongates the word, clearly confused.

“Did you say it because you knew it would get in my head? Is that why you did all of this? Am I joke to you?”

“I’m not –”

“It’s that, isn’t it? You saw me that first day and thought you could have some fun.”

“I don’t know what you’re –”

“It wasn’t pity at all was it? Have you been mocking me this entire time?”

“Y/N.”

“Having a good laugh behind my back?”

“Y/N,” he repeats your name, his voice level, his face flat. But you’re on a roll, are deaf to what he’s trying to say. You don’t even fully know what you’re saying, are so worked up that you’re just spouting whatever words come out of your mouth, half of it rubbish, most of it you don’t believe.

“I mean, I don’t know why I listened to you in the first place. I’m a grown woman, I should be able to make my own decisions not just listen to yours. I just can’t believe –”

You finally pause when Yoongi takes a step away from you. You look at his retreating figure about to shout after him before he speaks.

“Priya, you alright to cover me for a bit?”

Your eyes glance to Priya and your heart drops, you’ve never seen the look on her face. Sadness and then such anger when she looks at you. You look back at Yoongi and watch as he continues to walk away. When you speak again your words come out softer and less sure.

“Hey, where are you going?”

He pauses, back still to you and then twists. His features are dark, his mouth a tight line. He doesn’t look happy.

“Believe it or not, I’m not about to stand around in my own pub and be shouted at,” he turns back away from you. “Now, you can either come with me or get out.”

You glance back to Priya who gives you the barest hint that she thinks you should follow him, even then she rolls her eyes at the idiot you are.

As Yoongi slips through the door to the back you make your decision and slip behind the bar. Half jog to follow him, eyes doing a quick glance of the room realising that though it’s not busy, everyone has just watched what’s unfolded.

Ducking your head in shame you head into the back. Think you hear Priya mutter something about how you should be treating him how he deserves and not abusing him. Your shame only deepens. Part of you wants to run away, but you continue to follow; you’re not about to run away from this colossal mess you’ve created.

You’ve never been back here before. A hall with doors leading off, you’re sure one’s to the cellar he took a picture of for you and as you head down the hall you see that the one that’s been left a jar has stairs. You catch Yoongi at the top just before he disappears behind another door at the top.

His flat is not what you expected. You expected dark and moody colours, little to no decorations. But what you find is a bright space, a large comfy sofa facing a large TV. Walls of bookshelves, littered with photo frames and well-read books. There’s a small kitchen at the back of the room, partitioned off by a breakfast island. The space is homely, lived in while also being incredibly clean, not a thing out of place, and not a spot of dust.

And then there’s Yoongi. Stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed, face broody as he watches you take in his home.

Even if it wasn’t for the shock of coming up here and seeing all of this, the fight would have already seeped out of you. The short walk here and the looks of disapproval from everyone doing enough to make you realise what a mistake you’ve made.

It’s not Yoongi you’re annoyed at, it’s yourself. And yet you were so caught up in yourself that you came here and took it all out on him.

You are well and truly messing this up.

“I’m sorry,” you start. “I – that – downstairs.”

You take a breath. Yoongi lets you have the time to stop and start again.

“My heads all over the place, and that’s not an excuse. But, I went on a date today and I couldn’t even invite the guy inside my house. He obviously wanted to come in and I said no.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“You told me not to invite anyone back to mine.”

He rolls his eyes, this apology isn’t going very well. His arms remain crossed over his chest, his stance defensive, but he seems to relax a little, as if amused by what you’re saying. It only irks you more.

“It’s not like I forced you. I didn’t stand guard outside your house stopping rouge men from coming in.”

“No,” you huff. “You didn’t”

“So you’re pissed I recommended you do something, and because you did what I suggested?”

You work your jaw, unable to meet his eyes, especially now he has a wider, more obvious, smile on his face.

“You’re right,” you say feeling completely deflated. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Still, you don’t move and Yoongi doesn’t confirm that he agrees with what you’ve said, that he too thinks you should go. You both just stay standing facing each other.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat.

“It was pretty shitty.”

“More really shitty,” you correct him.

“In my own pub too,” he continues to dig, the smile still on his face despite his words.

“I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

You do. It was him, in your mind, which is why you took it out on him. And staring at him now, you feel like you’re cracking at the seams. All this built-up emotion starting to spill out at the seams.

“Maybe I should leave,” your voice comes out hoarser now, the smile dipping on Yoongi’s face. “I mean, I’ve been a complete bitch, treated you like shit – I can’t just stand here, in your flat and pretend it’s ok.”

“Hey,” Yoongi takes a step towards you, his arms dropping to his side. “You’ve apologised.”

“And yet it doesn’t feel like that’s enough.”

“I accept it.”

You pause. He sounds genuine, looks genuine. Yet you still feel so guilty.

You shake your head, eyes flick to the sofa and while you’ve said twice now that you’re going to leave, you slowly move towards it and take a seat. Your head goes into your hands, so you feel rather than see Yoongi come to sit next to you, the cushions dipping down with the extra weight.

“You’re too nice to me.”

“Maybe I’m just nice,” you can still hear the joke in his voice even though it comes out quieter, softer.

You shake your head again, still unable to look up from your hands. You flinch when a hand comes to your back, the contact so delicate you weren’t expecting it. To your relief Yoongi only draws away for a beat before placing his hand on your back just as delicately. When you don’t flinch a second time, he must decide it’s ok to keep it there.

“What’s this really about?” He asks, his hand rubbing soothingly on your back.

How is he always able to read what’s really going on? It’s like a blessing and a curse. You feel embarrassed by the reason, feel like you’ve really built it up and if you tell him the truth it’s going to make it that much more ridiculous. But you’ve never imagined Yoongi laughing when you think about telling him your feelings. He may not return them, but he wouldn’t shoot you down for your own.

You take a breath, sit up straighter so your head is no longer resting in your hands. Your heart is beating a mile a minute and with Yoongi’s hand still on your back you’re surprised he hasn’t expressed his concerns.

In the second or two it takes you to sit straight, you mentally prepare to look at Yoongi. Still the concern etched on his features doesn’t make anything better. You remind yourself of what you thought earlier; don’t run away from this problem.

“It’s not that serious,” you try to lighten the mood even though your smile is forced, and your words feel heavy. “I haven’t killed anyone or anything.”

Yoongi doesn’t crack a smile, just stares you down with those soul eating, yet still soft, eyes.

You feel sweaty, feel like you want to bolt out of this situation, feel like you would literally rather be swimming with sharks then say what you’re about to say. But you try not to overthink it, try not to think of the what ifs and buts. If you truly care about this man, if you truly have feelings for him, then you need to say something.

“I like you,” your voice husky and weak.

You clear your throat, eyes drift and snap back to Yoongi as if unsure where to look, too scared to look at him but feel like you need to say this directly at him. When you speak again it’s clearer and more convincing.

“I don’t mean in the same way I like Priya or Jimin. I mean, I like talking to you, I liked our date together, I like your smile and your hair and I don’t know, I like you. And you don’t have to say you feel the same way, I know the date wasn’t really a date, but I can’t get you out of my head and it’s driving me insane – which you clearly saw tonight.” You pause, take a breath, and then say, “I really like you, Yoongi.”

#yoongi fanfic #yoongi fic #yoongi x reader #yoongi x y/n #suga fanfic #suga x reader #suga x y/n #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi series

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bobbyseyesmile · 2 years ago

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Pride and Passion | 6

Chapter 6

⤝ Previous chapter | Next chapter ⤞ ➻ Pride and Passion masterlist

You left the room shortly after Negan took Amber with him, you weren't sure if she would come back but if she did, you figured that she didn't want to see you there. After all, it was your fault that Negan chose her.

So, you decided to give her some space for a day or two and returned to your old room. Your stuff was gone, already moved to the wives bedroom, but you found your old clothes in a dust bin. You decided to put on the jeans and baggy shirt instead of wearing that short dress- after all Negan never said you weren't allowed to change clothes.

You stood in front of a small mirror, combing your hair a few times with your fingers before you put them in a more convenient braid.

After some time, you decided to leave the room again, it had to be afternoon by now, and you checked the hallway for people before stepping out and suddenly bumping into another person. Amber. "Amber..." you whispered, and she gave you a small smile.

"Hey."

"I am so, so sorry, I never wanted this to happen-"

"Thank you." her words surprised you so much, you just stood there struggling for words. "What you did today, speaking up and defending me, no one here ever did that..."

"But Negan-" you argued, and she shook her head.

"No, it's okay. I hate his guts but it's true, he never hurt us. Sleeping with the leader really isn't the worst thing that could happen to you here."

"I don't understand..."

"We voluntarily agreed to be his wives- it was either that or becoming a worker and you really don't want that." She shrugged her shoulders, but it seemed more like she tried to convince herself instead of you.

"What's the deal with the workers?"

"Uhm, well... they do all the dirty work here. In return he protects them, gives them shelter and food. But they always look sad... can't blame them though."

You agreed by nodding your head. "Yeah, I also caught that impression."

"Maybe you are exactly what this place needs." Amber squeezed your hand before turning around and walking away. You watched her till she turned around the corner and was gone.

Your next mission was to apologize to Negan- as much as you hated that idea, it was something that had to be done. Maybe he would forgive you, maybe he would spare Alexandria with further repercussions or maybe he would let you regret what had happened today.

Either way, you needed to wait for him to return from Alexandria when you suddenly heard loud noises and cussing in a foreign language. Rosita?

You ran to the closest window and shockingly realized that you were right with your assumption- it was in fact Rosita.

When you ran down the stairs, nearly running down some Saviors, you stopped at Simon who shook his head. "Nuh-uh, turn around. Now."

"Y/N?" you heard Rosita's scream and weighed your options if you could be fast enough to escape Simon. You had to try; this was your best friend who was restrained. Simon knew what you tried to do and grabbed your arm, giving it a painfully strong grip but you twisted it around and slipped through his fingers.

"Shit! Stop her!" he yelled to some men nearby, but you were smaller and more agile than all of them. Rosita saw your struggle through the crowd and gave the Savior who restrained her a kick with her elbow. Blood shot from his nose and in shock he let go of and she ran towards you.

You reached each other the second Negan walked around from one of the big trucks, putting Lucille between you and giving Rosita a hard push. She landed hard on her back and gasped for air.

"No!" you screamed and kneeled down to her. "No, no, no..." Rosita started coughing when her lungs finally opened up again and you tried to help her sit up.

"I can't believe it! Are you fucking kidding me?" you heard Negan laugh "You gave me a real hard time before I left for Alexandria and when I come back, what do I see? My wife- screwing things up. Again."

"W-wife?" Rosita asked confused but you brushed her off.

"I'll tell you later."

"I wouldn't bet on it." Negan gave his men a sign and they helped Rosita to get up. "Get her in one of the cells and unload the trucks. I'll have to talk to my wife in private."

Taglist: @toxic-ink@jaywinchestersalvatore@crosshajr@neganswoman@tone-stark (if you want to be added, pls let me know)

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demonslayedher · 3 years ago

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I lost a bet to myself and paid the price by making another demon sibling AU. Was originally just going to be headcanons and doodles, but I wound up writing the parts I felt like. The names of Tengen's siblings are entirely made up. This will come in two parts due to length.

Clicking each bone in his spine, Yogen stood to his full height, taller than Tengen remembered. It wasn't uncommon to go long periods of time without seeing his siblings when they were on their own missions, but Yogen shouldn't had changed that much. "I'll spare you. It wouldn't do for the Uzui clan not to have a head. Now you're the strongest one."

"...Yogen..."

"I wouldn't had been able to take you on, if not for the fact that you'd never have done it if you knew. You should thank me, Aniki. You know what I've spared you? Father was going to make us all have a fight to the death. You'd have done at least half of this."

"What have you done!?"

"I ate them," he laughed, something Tengen had never heard Yogen do in his adult voice. He had the most infectious laugh when they were children, and this rang with the same pleasure, however dissonant. "I was stunned too, at first. When I came to, I had eaten two of them, they were still warm in my mouth, their cells already nourishing mine. But you know what? I decided to eat the others. I was going to kill them anyway, what difference does it make that I should eat them?"

Tengen's face pearled back into a snarl, his eyes flaring.

"One, two, three... Eizen got away before I could bite him, though. That whelp would had done nothing for me. The one I really wanted to eat was the strongest," he said, his glowing white eyes shifting down to their father's fresh corpse. "And now, even he's nothing to me."

Tengen could stand no more of this. "Yogen!!" he screamed and gripped one of the swords at his back, and charged at Yogen all in one motion. A hard sickle burst out of the flesh of Yogen's arm and caught it, but when Tengen pulled his other sword down through Yogen's shoulder and chest, the sound of ripping sinews what different than it should had been. A look over to the injury revealed that the shoulder was repairing itself before Tengen's eyes. When had he learned any technique like that?

The momentary lapse in focus caught him, Yogen swiped up against Tengen's forearm. It felt too varied to had been spiked knuckles--those were his fingertips, he had grown claws. Tengen drew a sword up to lop off Yogen's forearm, and then his brother let out a shrill scream as his features lit up and revealed how contorted they had become. Yogen didn't look human anymore with how his veins bulged and burned. Burned? From what? Tengen took a look over his shoulder to the sun rising and casting light through the wide open door, and when he looked back, Yogen was gone.

---

Tengen watched the flames consume the house and the bodies of his slain family. He had combed it for any trace of Yogen, but his brother left none. Hope though he did that the flames may consume Yogen too, he knew in his gut that he was still out there.

Behind him, Suma sneezed in a gust of smoke that wafted into her face. Hinatsuru handed her a handkerchief, as she and Makio were already covering their faces in case of poison. Tengen didn't bother, he was resistent to most ninja poisons, and the scratches down his forearm were already less swollen. "You three should go back to your homes."

"No!" insisted Suma.

"We're already members of the Uzui clan," said Hinatsuru.

"Your revenge is ours," added Makio.

Hinatsuru made the most important point, they were already seen as his property. He could hear whispers and feel them all being watched; the other ninja clans knew what had befallen the most powerful family, and the Uzui name was now shunned. Even if Tengen wanted to stay, he had no place in the village, and neither did anything that belonged to him. The only thing left for him now was to track his brother down and drag him to hell.

Someone else was approaching, and Tengen reached for one sword. Uneven footsteps. One didn't have the splat of a foot, it was the thunk of wood--a cane, or two canes? A leisurely, but determined pace. Self-assuredness, even for entering ninja territory. A robust heartbeat. Who was coming?

"Well, is that what you all look like? I feel like I've wandered into one of those storybooks," said an old man. He had one missing leg, a full head of hair and moustache to rival it, a grin, and a telltale scar lining the underside of his left eye. "I had always left your kind alone, but I couldn't when I felt the presence of a demon over here."

"Who are you?" Tengen asked, stetching one arm before his wives while the other hand stayed at his weapon.

"You didn't chop its head off, did you, ninja boy? It's long gone by now, you know. It'll hide from daylight. Be even more trouble to find if it's one of your folk."

"How do you know about us?" Makio shot back.

"How do you children not know about demons? Aye," the old man huffed to himself as he set down a stool he carried. He planted his rump on it, then folded his arms. "The name's Kuwajima Jigoro, former Roaring Pillar of the Demon Slayer Corp. I figured this would be out of your expertise, so I've come to help."

Tengen felt in his gut he could trust that. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, his wives all doing likewise behind him. Jigoro seemed to enjoy that, but insisted they do not. Instead of bowing, he'd appreciate the ladies rubbing his shoulders to display their gratitude, he said.

While Hinatsuru and Makio set about at each arm, Suma kneeled at his remaining foot with a gasp. "Aren't old people not supposed to be this beefy?"

"Can it, Suma!" chided Makio.

Hinatsuru said nothing, but could feel something was different in this man, not only in his physique. Whatever he had to say was going to change their lives more than the previous night already had. They all listened carefully as Jigoro orated about the existence of demons, how they eat humans, how they are near impossible to kill, but also the methods of those who hunt them, with specialized blades and an organization to support them. As he began describing Breath, however, Tengen stopped him. "I already know all that, that's ninjutsu basics. That's not giving me anything I don’t already have."

"Oh? I figured as much. Always made me curious about you pups. So you you've got the basics of Breath technique, huh?"

"It's beyond basic," he shot him an annoyed frown.

"I'll be the judge of that. See that tree over there? That's probably about the strength of the usual demon neck. Go hog wild on it." As much as showing off was against the ninja code, Tengen wasn't in the mood to argue and made short work of that tree, the only sound being the pop of it seperating into two halves. Jigoro gave him a clap, then stood with his cane. "Good accuracy. Spot on. Now you pick one out for me. Take some mercy, though, I'm only working at half-strength." He balanced on his foot and his peg, plopping the end of his cane in his palm to show off that he meant to use it in place of a sword. Tengen hated when other people tried to be show-offs, so he pointed to a tree a few rings thicker than the one he had cut.

The old man eyed it, then slid his good foot through the dirt, and as he leaned forward, clouds of steam rose from his lips. "Breath of Thunder, Fifth Form. Heat Lightning."

The sound hit Tengen so hard that he covered his ears, and the old man was gone--on the other side of the tree, which was not only cleanly chopped, but split itself in half vertically as it fell. A rarity, Tengen's jaw dropped. Jigoro looked back with a fierce grin, knowing he'd have left them all impressed.

Rather than one knee, Tengen planted his palms and face to the ground. "Please teach me this technique, Master."

"When did I ever say I wanted a student like you? You already said you know Breath technique, don't you?"

"You won't teach him?" Suma sat straight up, little tears in the corners of her eyes.

"I only want students with talents I can mold. You're already set your ways and would just try to make Thunder Breathing into what you want. You can't fill a full tea cup, as they say."

Tengen wanted to insist he's do anything to take his revenge, but the old man was right. As he was, he wouldn't be able to unlearn everything he always knew, it was as much a part of him as every experience and memory, like every scar, such as the ones running down his left arm.

"The true nature of Thunder Breathing would escape you, you'd get too caught up in how powerful it looks. You're too flashy!"

His cheeks flushed. "Say that again."

"You're too... flashy? I don't think a ninja should find that a compliment."

"You can't tell him all that and then not train him!" insisted Makio. "Please! There's got to be something you can do! Tengen-sama works really hard!"

"Tengen-sama works harder than anyone!"

"Please, Master. Tengen-sama can think flexibly, please give him a chance."

"I won't! I can already tell he's not the sort of student I'm looking for!" he barked back, and Suma burst out into sobs, while Hinatsuru hid delicate tears and Makio's face turned dark red. Jigoro flinched at the sight of the upset girls, then looked back to Tengen. "I--I didn't come out here to leave you high and dry, you know. I already told you about the Corp, didn't I? That's where you really need to go. I can't teach you Thunder Breathing, but if you really think you can pick up something new, there's an old scroll I've got of an off-shoot Breath. Someone like you might be able to pull it off. What do you say, ninja boy? How about I give that to you and you teach yourself Sound Breathing?"

---

From there, Tengen took much the same course as in canon. When he became a Pillar and had his meeting with Oyakata-sama, he was upfront about his reasons for entering the Corp. Oyakata-sama appreciated his frankness and assured him that the entire Corp would support him if they found any information on Yogen, but Oyakata-sama was also keen on the undercurrent of Tengen's heart; that he was relieved to leave the murderous ways of ninja, and that he wanted to live an upright life. This finally gave words to something Tengen always felt, but thought he had no right to wish for. He and his wives were moved and they swore loyalty to Oyakata-sama.

However, as time went on, there were no clues whatsoever about Yogen. Around the time they all got antsy, Makio finally couldn't stand it anymore and suggested they may never find him. "Think about it," she said. "This Corp is full of strong swordsmen. Someone might had already chopped off his head long before we got here."

While that should had come as a relief, Tengen couldn't help but find the idea frustrating. That revenge was his to take. He could think of only one person stronger than him who might had done it, so he described Yogen to Himejima one day and asked if he remembered seeing a demon like that. Himejima plainly replied that he was blind.

As they began to accept that they may never have closure, Hinatsuru proposed that they be satisfied bagging an Upper Moon. That should be enough for them to earn their peace, she said, and as much as it grinded away at Tengen's heart, he agreed.

In the course of performing Tengen's Pillar duties, they closed in on what was likely an Upper Moon in Yoshiwara. Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma slipped in, but when he lost contact, Tengen went looking for some female Corp members to sneak in and see what was up. That's when he reencountered the boy whose head he meant to spill at the last Pillar meeting, as well as his two annoying buddies. Inosuke would had been satisfyingly flamboyant, if not for the fact that he was gross. The other whelp was named Zenitsu.

"You write that 'Zen' with the kanji for virtue?"

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

"Nothing," Tengen replied, never saying anything of it ever again. It didn't take long for him to notice that Zenitsu had ears on par with his own.

The boys managed to get in, and soon the plan went awry. Tengen's first encounter with an Upper Moon broke out, and that went awry in the most horrifically flamboyant of ways. Tengen found himself unconscious, needing to stop his heart to keep the demon poison from spreading, as it was many times more potent than any ninja or demon poison he encountered before. There was fire in the wreckage nearby, he'd be consumed if he doesn't move soon. In the odd space where consciousness was returning to him, his hearing reached into a deeper plain, where he could hear the most carnal thoughts pounding though the bodies of those around him.

Tanjiro was panicking.

No scent! No scent! Upper Moon Five--where did--but--no scent! No scent!!

Tengen could hear Upper Moon Six, in both bodies, but he couldn't hear any other demon. It gave off no sound. He struggled to look in Tanjiro's direction, and was stunned by the sight of a demon partway sticking out of the shadow Tanjiro has cast, guarding Upper Moon Six with a kunai stuck in his arm.

"Sakage!" growled Upper Moon Six. That is not the demon's name. "I don't need you here! Were you intruding on my thoughts?"

"I didn't need to. I heard the cacophony from ages away. You wouldn't had seen wisteria coming anyway."

Upper Moon Six looked to the kunai, while Tanjiro panicked that the poison had no effect on the newly arrived demon.

"Quit with all the fuss. I'd appreciate it if you hurry up and silence that Pillar over there," he turned his glance to Tengen. His eyes had writing in them, but that was Yogen. "I can't be bothered."

Yogen disappeared into the shadow as suddenly as he appeared, and Tanjiro fell forward with a stumble. He'd be a sitting duck like that, Tengen had to go save him, he pushed himself off the ground to--but--but his arm was missing--the scars were torn off-----

---

Yogen had been quick to learn some of the ins and outs of being a demon, but not all the finer details. He gathered from the surrounding demons' fear of the drum demon that the "Twelve Moons" were the most fearsome demons, closest to their progenitor, but didn't those other demons notice that the drum demon couldn't stomach humans as he ate them? That demon was weak, and Yogen wouldn't stand for it. He cut off his head.

It did not kill the demon, who screamed at him with the characters "Lower Six" in one of his eyes, but he shut up quick when Kibutsuji Muzan arrived. Despite warning Yogen that this was not how fights between demons were done and he should kill Yogen for acting without permission, Muzan smilingly decided to allow it, and instructed him to absorb the former Lower Moon Six and assume his role. Muzan did not care for how Yogen's name referenced sunlight, though. He renamed him Sakage on a whim.

Sakage went on to learn very quickly how to please Muzan, and how to climb the ranks. While not immune, he could resist wisteria poison, which Muzan was more than pleased to borrow from him and see how he could try to adopt it into his own cells. Sakage could move between connected shadows, and in spying on the Corp, he picked up on the hand signs the swordsmen used and quickly deciphered them, and openly reported so to the demons that outranked him. With hearing far more advanced that his brother's ever was, he listened to the information shared between crows, piecing apart their language to the best of his understanding.

Lower Moons Three and Two later, he used his spying abilities to identify his next target: Upper Moon Five.

Gyokko was startled by the challenge, and under Muzan's gaze, he could not refuse. Sakage made short work of him, and the other Moons all felt a chill. Akaza's chill was excitement.

Akaza wasted no time in chatting up the new Upper Moon, for Sakage likewise had a stated hatred for weaklings. While Sakage did find it a bit of a bother, especially since he knew he was a long way from ever being able to pose a real challenge to Akaza, he learned that the quickest way to stop Akaza from pestering him was to spar. Akaza loved to chit-chat even while sparring, though, and this became a useful way for Sakage to catch up on a hundred years of gossip about the other Upper Moons.

While it did feel they had somewhat of a friendship, one day they got on the topic of poison. "I hate people who use poison," said Akaza, between punches. "It's as cowardly and low as you can get."

Sakage, who could create a myriad of weapons from his cells as needed and always laced them in poison, was not offended, but disagreed. "I see no problem in being effective."

This gave Akaza pause, and an uncomfortable drop in his stomach. He excused himself, and bothered Sakage not so often after that.

Muzan was typically pleased with Sakage, which made Hantengu tremble that the ambitious demon had it out for him next. When Muzan was in a foul mood after Upper Moon Six's defeat, Sakage was likewise in a bad mood for the annoyance he encountered out there, someone who should had stayed hidden away instead of bearing free his inherently show-offy personality by joining the Demon Slayer Corp, especially since he was sure to have his ears set to the ground now for any new sign of him. He was certain Tengen witnessed him. But, for as much of an insult as it was to the Upper Moons that Gyutaro let him live, Tengen wouldn't be much of a threat anymore.

Still, Sakage knew to keep his cool. He had news to report, and he was certain of his deciphering. When he declared where the swordsmith village was located, Muzan had no doubts, and sent Hantengu alone. "Now why couldn't you find that, after all this time?" Muzan smirked to Nakime. She, not being of any rank, could merely apologize. Sakage took no pleasure or pride in looking better than a peer whom he knew he was stronger than. Muzan's mood could never be sustained for long, though, and he very soon frowned back to him. "You've brought no word of the blue spider lily."

"My apologies."

"Aren't ninja supposed to have knowledge of these things? Weren't you of a high ranking clan? Go back and order them to search."

And, at that moment, a dangerous thought escaped Sakage's inner filter, it leaked though to his mind at the same moment it leaked to Muzan's: But I can't show my face back there.

The way Muzan's face bent with disgust drove more terror into Sakage than when he was still a human and first encountered the demon lord. He felt certain of a swift death, but Muzan let him be. Sakage was still too useful. But, Sakage knew he'd have to crawl back to Muzan's graces by providing something of more use to him. He had to unveil a secret of more value.

Tengen, who remained active despite missing an eye and a hand, was present at an emergency Pillar meeting. Tokito and Kanroji were bandaged up, and they recounted how the swordsmith village was attacked by Upper Moon Four. With two Pillars and a few other reliable Corp members all working together they defeated him well before daybreak, but not before discovering an ancient ability known only as "the mark."

As he was now, Tengen knew he'd never attain this. What bothered him more was how the demons found the village, so hidden that he'd have to put his mind to it to have figured out where it was. He could had resorted to old tricks to figure it out, whether that be silently tracking the smiths after their deliveries or flirting with the Kakushi, but what recourse would a demon have had?

'I heard the cacophony----'

A demon may have had ears that rivaled his own, or were better!

Feeling sure of which demon it may had been, he set to thinking of what he would do next. If the demon moved in shadow, listening for the Corps' secrets, what would be a bigger target than the swordsmith village?

Oyakata-sama!

"Uzui-san, are you alright?" asked Himejima. "You seem quiet today."

"You look pale," added Kanroji.

"I'm jealous I won't get one of those flashy marks," he lief without flaw. "We all know I can't take any demons on like I used to. Maybe I don’t belong here."

"Uzui, what sort of talk is that?" Iguro looked to him with his flamboyant dichromatic eyes wide, and brows knit tight over them. "This isn't like you."

"I've got a different sort of mission to go on, I'll see myself out. You all stay here and keep each other company discussing this."

"Then I'll excuse myself here as well--"

"Not you, you've got no excuse," Uzui forced Tomioka back to a seated position by pressing on his head.

In conducting his own investigation, Tengen set his crow to work investigating from the sky. What the crow learned, tracing a few leaks and scolding the birds involved, was that their mid-air communications may had been what spoiled the secret location. This confirmed Tengen's suspicion about Yogen's hearing. He had a feeling about some other spoiled secrets too, and in following up with Corp members involved in previous mishaps, he concluded that the secret hand signals had been divulged.

(Read the conclusion reblog here.)

#please reblog from the conclusion post thx #tw blood #tw violence #tw cannibalism

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russadler · 3 years ago

Text

All That Remains: Chapter Two

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

A look back to happier times and a defining conversation

A/N: Hey lol once again sorry I took so long. This chapter is relatively shortish (?) because it was originally part of the next chapter, but I decided to split it since it was getting long lmao. The next chapter will actually be coming soon I promise I was like almost finished but decided to publish this section since it was done and yall need to get fed.

Also another note I guess? I refer to Russell as “Adler” even though its third person Sophie centric. I believe since they came to know each other through work, Sophie only initially heard/knew of him by his last name and will still refer to him in her mind as such. I didn’t do this much in the first chapter but I thought about it and also it felt weird calling him Russell all the time LMFAOO

August 2nd, 1980

“…I’m surprised you never had kids.”

It’s more of a question than a statement, and an admittedly nosey one. They’re currently in the midst of a very picturesque picnic in a field of their choosing, the pair of them eating lunch while sprawled across a spare blanket pulled from the back of Russell’s car. The man in question is currently laid on his side, chewing a strawberry and peering up at her with a curiously cocked eyebrow making an appearance over the rim of his aviators.

Sophie wriggles under the scrutiny, a blush rising to her cheeks as she redirects her eyes towards her leather boots with a timid huff. They had been together for more than enough time by now, enough time for the lustre of having Russell Adler as her boyfriend to have worn off. Yet, even all these months later, a mere glance from the man was enough to leave her flushed and stumbling over her words.

“I’m sorry —“ She rushes to apologize, sandwich suddenly forgotten as she picks sheepishly at a loose thread on her dress. She had meant to word things a little…differently, but who was she kidding? it wasn’t her place to ask such things in the first place.

With Russell, the more you pressed him, the further away he pulled. His trust came with patience and time, a small price Sophie didn’t mind paying. There were things he held close to himself, his marriage being one of them. It was obviously a sensitive topic, or at least one he didn’t enjoy talking about. She hadn’t intended to interrogate him about the fact he didn’t have any children despite being married for a little over a decade, it was his business. Only recently had he begun sharing that part of his life with her, and it was a sign of his trust that she deeply valued.

And here she went, utterly obliterating that carefully constructed confidence because she seemed to lack a brain-to-mouth filter.

“You’re fine, kid.” Russell soothes, interrupting her scattered thoughts. The woman manages to to will herself to look at him again, where his enlivened grin signaling he was more amused than offended by the statement.

He sits up, and one of his hands moves to rub at her thigh in reassurance. “I admire that you’re always pretty straight to the point.” He notes lightheartedly, subtly pacifying her current flustered state.

The woman huffs, self conscious despite the comforting words. "It gets me in trouble way too much.” She confesses, biting into her sandwich a bit too harshly. It was true. She had a terrible habit of being too honest for as long as she could remember, and it had made for some terribly awkward experiences throughout her life.

“I’d argue telling the truth is a pretty good thing to get in trouble for.” Adler remarks in return, his hand remaining on her thigh as he continues with his lunch. She could tell he was making a point of appearing relatively unconcerned about the whole thing, likely in a bid to provide her some sense of consolation. The man was leaving little room for her to feel upset at herself.

Sophie releases a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and relaxes, shoulders loosening as she finishes the last of her sandwich.

There’s another beat of silence, and then it occurs to her that Russell had managed yet again to wriggle his way out of talking about himself. It was a common pattern, nearly every time she attempted to make conversation that centered around him, he would artfully steer the conversation away from himself and find a way to redirect the topic towards her.

He was annoyingly good at it, too, and she was just starting to catch on that he was doing it in the first place.

“Wait! You didn’t answer the question!” The brunette gasps, exasperated. “You always do this!”

“Do what?” Russell retorts, behaving as if he were completely ignorant of what was the matter. He always acted as if he didn’t know.

“You always find a way to not answer me! Every time you change the subject and then hope I forget!” The woman laughs, failing miserably in her attempt to come across as annoyed. His behavior was maddening, but Sophie often found she was less irritated and more awestruck that the man was so artful at playing people.

“I’d never do that, you’re just making things up.” Russell quips, mouth twisted with a lopsided smile as he continues the playful banter. “I love talking about myself, actually. Could do it all day.”

Adler just keeps smirking, stuffing a strawberry into his mouth as he does. The younger rolls her eyes, because as much as she loved him, the man could seriously be a pain. “You don’t actually have to answer the question if you don’t want to. ” She adds, humor now absent from her voice as she quietly rearranges the bundle of wildflowers she had picked.

“I said it was fine, sweetheart. Don’t worry about it.” Russell tells her again, his voice calm and even as he continues to rub circles into her skin. There’s a brief pause, and suddenly the hand on her thigh stops moving. “Wait, do you want kids? Is this your way of asking?” He asks, his head suddenly shifting to level her with a steely gaze. Despite the presence of the aviators on his face, she can feel the intensity of his stare. The man’s demeanor had grown suddenly serious, alert even.

“No! I mean…kids are nice and all and I don’t mind them…but I’m not really dead set on having them.” She explains, her own hand darting to grasp Russell’s larger one. From one moment to the next, it had suddenly become her turn to offer reassurance. “In all honesty, I feel I’d quite rather do without them, really.” She returns the man’s heavy gaze with one of her own, both in search of his reaction and in the hopes of communicating her honesty. "I was just…curious.” She admits shyly.

It was the truth, she wasn’t one of those girls whose ultimate life goal was of being a housewife with the white picket fence, apple pies, and endless kids. There was nothing wrong with that ideal per say, but it wasn’t something she saw herself wanting.

The woman wasn’t really looking to make children a part of her life. If it happened, it happened, but she could go without them and feel just fine about it.

Russell, on his part, seemed relieved. Accepting her answer with a nod, his gaze moves towards the sky above as he gives her hand a short squeeze.

Then to her complete surprise, he decides to answer the question anyways. Sophie turns to look at the taller as he begins to speak, shifting to lay on her left side and face him as he leaned back on his hands.

“Well...there’s a lot of reasons, really. First, my job.” Adler then pauses to spare her a brief glance, as if to ensure she understood what he was attempting to convey. It was no secret that Russell was often away, leaving her for weeks and sometimes months on end. She was never allowed to have any hint of what he was doing or even where he was going, all that she could know was that his work was very important and very dangerous.

Sometimes she found herself sitting at home and just hoping he was still alive. Confirmation that he was okay only came when he either called her to say he was coming home (which was rare) or until he appeared out of the blue. It wasn’t a feeling she liked having, and a sentiment Russell hated subjecting her to.

It was just the way it was, the way it had to be. Their relationship would always come second to work, Adler had made that very clear from the start. She was either in or out, and he made sure that she knew the price that she would be paying in being with him.

Russell sighs, the exhale sounding deep and tired before he continues. “It would be unfair to do that to a kid, they wouldn’t understand why their dad was away all the time...And it would have been unfair to my ex, she would have had to essentially raise them all on her own.”

Sophie nods silently in understanding, the living scenario was on she had come to understand personally. The periods of absence would be difficult on both mother and child for various reasons, and it was good that the couple had weighed the risks.

“Some of the guys at work are okay with that, and have wives that were okay with that, but for us..?” He continues, voice even as he grasps one of the flowers she had stuffed into the picnic basket and begins rolling the stem between his thumb and pointer finger. “We didn’t want kids that bad. We were okay, just it being the two of us.”

“You both ended up going your separate ways, too. I could imagine if you had kids that would have been a nightmare.” She adds, a relatively astute observation but one that she felt was worth mentioning. They had made the right choice after all, it had seemed.

“God, I’m thankful we didn’t for that reason especially.” Russell replies with audible relief, thankful that children hadn’t been something to consider in their subsequent divorce.

There’s a moment of silence, and she thinks he’s finished speaking, especially seeing that he officially answered her question.

But then he sits up properly, clearing his throat before speaking once more. “And all these years later my feelings about it are the same and I don’t regret it.” He tells her, sounding confident and assured as he rips most of the stem away from the main portion of the flower with a powerful yank. “Even if I wanted them now, I’m a bit too old to be a dad. So that ship has long sailed.”

Sophie nods. Russell was a man of very few regrets, and his sense of judgement was one she had come to trust wholeheartedly. He turns to her, an arm reaching out to tuck a few locks of her hair out of the way before placing the remainder of the flower behind her ear.

The woman smiles so hard her cheeks ache. Russell Adler was a romantic, despite the fact he vehemently denies it. It was true and no one was going to believe her ever. “I don’t think you really missed out, everyone I know who has kids just complains about them.” She states, still smiling.

The taller’s chest rumbles with a chuckle. Having carefully maneuvering the food out of the way, he then wraps an arm around her shoulders, he pulls her down to lay at his side as she lets out a surprised squeak. “Have we been talking to the same people?” He asks.

“If one of them is named Jason Hudson, then yes.”

Russell laughs then, and it’s music to her ears.

#get into it yuh #anyways next chapter we got some DRAMAAAA #russell adler #russell adler x oc #russell adler fanfic #call of duty #call of duty fanfic #black ops cold war #bocw #black ops cold war fanfic #bocw fanfic #mine #my writing #all that remains #also if u see any errors...no u didnt

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twdbegins · 4 years ago

Note

Can I get some age gap Simon smut, like shes want him super rough with her but he think she wont be able to handle, but she takes all that he give her and more, please and thank you, if you can

I KNEW THE DAY WOULD COME WHERE SOMEONE REQUESTED THIS. AMAZING.

Rough Encounters

Simon x Fem. Reader

Warnings: Language, Smut.

Word Count: 3,003

“Make no mistake, I’ve seen plenty.”

“You’re staring at him again.” Arat said plainly, not looking up from her knife in her hand.

She dragged the blade of her knife along the stick she had picked up, peeling away at the skin on the dead branch. You were leaning against one of the outside walls of the Sanctuary, shifting back and forth on your feet to keep warm. You and Arat were on fence duty, one of the most dull jobs on the planet. You were both trying to entertain yourselves with whatever you had on hand, since nothing really ever happened when you were on a fence shift.

Fence duty was always worse during the winter, because it was always freezing which made standing around watching chained up walkers even more miserable. However, with the dirty thoughts that were running through your mind, you were surprised you weren’t blazing warm.

“Do you think he’s any good in bed?” You asked, not looking away from the man from across the way that you were looking at.

Arat stopped slicing the stick and made a face of annoyed disgust.

“Oh my God. Not this again.” She groaned, recalling the last time you had brought this up.

You laughed at her reaction, removing your gaze from Simon. It was true, and even you wouldn’t deny it, you had the hots for the right-hand man. You had never been drawn to anyone like him before. He was tall, fit, strong, and very charismatic. Not to mention, he was at least 15 years older than you. You weren’t completely sure of his age, but you knew he had to be at least in his mid-thirties. You always ballparked him to be somewhere between 36 and 42, but it really made no difference to you.

“It’s a fair question.” You defended yourself.

She cocked her head at you, leaning forward on the makeshift bucket she was sitting.

“No, no, no. It is NOT a fair question, nor a conversation I want to have,” She scowled, tossing the stick aside; “You don’t have to see him everyday. I don’t want to think of your weird obsession with him every time we’re in a room together.”

“I’m not obsessed. I just want to fuck him.” You said very bluntly.

Arat let out a shriek and brought her hands to cover her ears.

“You damn kids and your high sex drives. My God...do you ever think before you bestow your dirty thoughts onto innocent bystanders?” She questioned, her eyes dead set on her feet.

You threw your hands out in mockery, furrowing your eyebrows.

“Arat, I’m closer to your age than his.” You pointed out.

She nodded furiously.

“Exactly! Which is why you shouldn’t want to bang him.” She argued.

You snorted.

“We’ve talked about sex a million times. Why does me and him bother you?” You queried, a devious smirk appearing on your face; “Do you know something I don’t know?”

Arat slowly turned her head to look at you. She removed her hands from her ears, staring at you blankly as if she were trying to process what you were insinuating.

“Oh, no you don’t! You do not get to make that joke. I have never, I repeat, NEVER had sex with him,” She shrilled; “Never have, never will.”

You laughed out loud, almost doubling over at her urgency.

“I’m the youngest Savior here. No one is that close to my age anyways,” You told her; “But I mean, come on. Have you SEEN him? Those thighs? Those arms?”

She hissed in disapproval, desperately wanting to end this conversation. She leapt up from where she sat, rubbing her frigid hands together.

“Absolutely not. Listen, if you want to get freaky in the sheets with him, then go ahead. If I had a body like yours then I’d put it to good use. Just don’t damage my image of him further,” She instructed; “By the way, it looks like you might’ve gotten his attention.”

You casually glanced over your shoulder to see Simon looking at you with his dark brown eyes. You gave him a flashy grin, which prompted him to make his way over to you. You and Arat still had another hour on fence duty, but she was not going to stick around for this.

“I’ll, uh, leave you to it.” She announced, scuttling away before she had to witness the possibly sinful things about to come out of your mouth.

Simon swaggered over to you, your breath getting caught in your throat. Oddly enough, you had developed a friendship with Simon over the last year. You enjoyed his company, much more than just ogling over him all the time.

“Hi, Simon.” You greeted nicely.

“[Y/N],” He acknowledged you with a grin; “Looks like you lost your partner there.” He said, referring to Arat’s leave.

You shrugged.

“She was cold. I told her I could handle things out here,” You lied; “Mind taking her place?”

His grin morphed into more of a smirk, taking the adjacent spot next to you on the wall. His shoulder just barely touched yours, a flush of heat washing over you. You had to keep it together.

“Since when does Negan put you on fence duty?” You wondered aloud.

Simon rarely ever took a shift to watch the fences, considering that Negan wanted his services elsewhere. You were shocked that he was out here.

“Mark’s sick. I had to cover for him.” He claimed.

“You sure he’s not with Amber?” You chimed.

Simon’s brows raised slightly. Everyone, except Negan, knew that Amber was still sneaking around with Mark even though she was technically Negan’s wife. You had seen Simon cover for Mark before, so you knew this was no different.

“How’d you know?” He asked.

“Amber and I are close. She told me.”

Amber was one of Negan’s younger wives, but she still managed a relationship with Mark. You always hoped that Negan would never find out. More for Mark’s sake than Amber’s.

“We make sacrifices sometimes.” He said dryly, not really wanting to discuss how he had gone behind Negan’s back.

You nodded, but a sneaky smile appeared on your face.

“You know, Amber tells me a lot about Mark.” You began.

Simon was intrigued to see where you were going with this.

“Oh, yeah?” He prompted.

You nonchalantly picked at the chipped fingernail polish on your nails, as if you weren’t really aware of what you were saying.

“Yep. I never would’ve taken Mark to be much of a rough lover if Amber hadn’t told me all about it.” You spoke.

Simon stiffened a little. Neither of you had ever really talked about sex. You had mentioned previous partners and things like that, but nothing like this. You noticed his eyes were not on your face. You were wearing shorts, despite the cold weather. His eyes raked over your legs...your hips...your waist. You gave a sultry laugh. You knew he looked at you the same way you did him.

“You act like you’ve never seen a woman before.” You said suddenly.

His eyes flickered back to yours, feeling his nerves become a little more sensitive at the way your eyelashes fluttered. He chuckled lowly.

“Make no mistake, I’ve seen plenty.” He replied.

You weren’t shocked at that. You had a gut feeling that Simon knew his way around a woman. Still, you faked a stunned look.

“Have you? Hmm...” You hummed thoughtfully.

He raised a brow, turning to you.

“Don’t believe me?” He prodded.

You gave a slight shrug. You knew you could get him riled up enough for him to cave, but he wouldn’t make it easy.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. He had to admit, he was shocked that you were hitting on him in such a bold way. He always assumed you’d go for Negan over him. He was thrilled, but he wasn’t going to show it.

“Sweetheart, I don’t think you know what you’re asking for.” He chaffed.

You pushed your shoulders back a little to stand up a little straighter, but not moving from your casual position against the wall. His voice had lowered an octave or two, which was a little maddening.

“Oh, I think I do.” You returned with the same confident tone.

He laughed incredulously, his eyes darting around before settling back on you.

“How old are you?” He questioned.

He knew you were the youngest person at the Sanctuary, so the fact that this encounter was even happening was boggling his head a little bit. You raised a brow and lowered it. You had a feeling this was going to come up.

“22.” You answered.

He let out a low whistle. It had been a long time since he had fucked anyone that young. The last time he had gotten with a 22 year old was when he was that age. Needless to say, he had a couple decades of experience under his belt by this point.

“So you’re young and eager, huh?” He chided.

You scoffed, a bit offended at his words.

“You underestimate me.” You spoke.

He hummed.

“I don’t play nice. I play rough,” He purred; “You think you can handle that?”

He didn’t think you could. He was seriously doubtful that you’d make it past the foreplay without tapping out. You stood from the wall, standing so close that the tips of your shoes touched his.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself?” You suggested playfully.

He stared at you for another moment before crashing his lips roughly to yours. He brought his hand up and grabbed a fistful of your hair. He backed you into the inside of the Sanctuary, pushing you up against the nearest wall. His hand was still in your hair, yanking your head back and sucking hard on your neck. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but enough to surely get your attention and send waves of pleasure through you. He growled low in his throat and continued to nip at your neck.

“I can have my way with you,” He announced, his voice muffled in the skin of your neck; “I can make a hell of a lot prettier noises come out of you too.”

“I want to see you try.” You tried to say confidently, but it came out more of a desperate whine.

You let out a surprised gasp when he suddenly kissed you again, nothing short of rough and hot. You let out a hum, and he pulled back and looked at you with so much lust that you felt a shiver travel down your spine. His hands were tight and firm on your waist, keeping you completely pressed against him. His pupils were blown twice their usual size.

He pulled you from the wall, not letting your lips leave his. Normally, he’d at least make it to his bedroom, but he wanted to see just how risky you wanted to get. He navigated you into the stairwell, somewhere that was somewhat public, but isolated too.

“You scared Negan’s gonna find us?” You questioned with a sneer.

He stared at you in disbelief. He had to admit, you were holding up better than he thought. He pressed his back against the wall, getting right into it.

“Get on your knees.” He commanded.

He was being intimidating, but it was only more thrilling for you. You smirked as you slowly sank to the floor, your knees hitting the concrete. You looked away for a split second to get situated, but his hand grabbed your chin, forcing you to look at him.

“Eyes on me.” He said, looking down at you.

You looked up at him, eyes shining with desire and expectation. His gaze studied your every move and expression. You went to quickly put your hair up, but he stopped you.

“Don’t touch your hair.” He said, holding it up himself.

You ran your hands over his hips, trailing to his pants. You unfastened his belt and unzipped his pants, letting them fall to the floor. He sprung forth in front of you, and he moved one hand to the top of your head. You eyed his tip for a millisecond, so quickly that he didn’t even notice your break of eye contact. You left a kiss on his tip, earning a groan from him.

You put your mouth over his length, suddenly gagging when he shoved your head further into his crotch. He pulled out.

“You better take it.” He said, shoving back into your mouth again.

You were prepared this time, swallowing around him and working through the reflex. You sucked and kissed, a moan escaping from the man above you. His grip was unchanged on your head, but his fingers were stroking gently. His words came out a bit mumbled as he continued to slam back into your mouth.

“Shit...you’ve done this before.” He muttered.

You hummed in affirmation, grinning around him. His hand in your hair pulled your head back and he rocked his hips roughly into your mouth. Then pulled back and rocked into you over and over. You sucked and ran your tongue along his shaft, kissing each time you made your way back to the tip. He was fighting the urge to praise you, but it slipped out. You felt THAT good around him.

“Such a good girl…” He breathed; “You’re so pretty on your knees for me.”

You stopped sucking for a second, offering a praise of your own.

“I have to say, you’re bigger than I thought.” You said, taking him back into your mouth.

He rolled his hips into you again in response, you almost giggled at the way his eyes rolled back into his head. He thrusted a few more times before removing himself from your mouth, watching you swallow his pre-ejaculation. You noticed the fire in his eyes had returned.

He pulled you from the floor forcefully, snatching the zipper down on your shorts. He stopped cold when he realized you hadn’t been wearing anything underneath it the entire night. You fought the urge to grin at his face. His eyes raked over you, he was hungry for you.

“Seems I’ve forgotten something. It slipped my mind, I suppose.” You grinned.

His expression was dead serious, as he pulled you to his half-naked body. You began to unbutton his shirt, whipping it off of him in a flash. He removed your shirt and bra, taking one of your hard nipples into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around your soft flesh, you held back a high-pitched moan. Which made Simon stop.

“You scared Negan’s gonna hear you?” He mocked; “I want to hear you.”

He took your other nipple into his mouth as you let out a loud groan. He gripped one of your shoulders, spinning you to where you were against the wall. He hoisted you up, wrapping your legs around him. He licked his fingers, quickly lubricating you. He was moving so fast and so precisely that you knew one thing for sure.

He wasn’t going to go easy on you.

His hands gripped the backs of your thighs to hold you steady. He lined himself up and pressed into you finally. Your heart fluttered at the feeling you had been craving for so long now. He pulled out almost completely and slammed hard back into you. He didn’t even wait for you to get adjusted to his size, but it didn’t take you long. You raised one of your arms above your head, pressing your palm into the wall behind you.

“Oh, God. Yes, Simon.” You huffed out.

He knew now that you were much more experienced than he formerly realized.

“You feel so good.” You panted, bringing your other hand to the back of his head.

He held you higher for that, giving him a better angle so he could go deeper. Simon then slid out and slammed in as far as he could, groaning at the feeling and the sounds you were making. Delicious noises were coming from both of you, pure feelings of ecstasy and desire. He began to fuck you hard and fast until the sounds of your cries and his moans were echoing off of the walls. He sucked a hard hickey into your neck, moving even faster at your pleasure filled moans.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me. I know what’s going on in that head of yours,” He grunted; “Wondering what it would feel like for an older guy to fuck you senseless.”

“Please, Si.” You pleaded.

“What, baby?” He purred.

“Harder.” You said, not even able to string a sentence together.

He was totally stunned now, not even sure he had heard you right. He obliged though, pounding so hard into you that you moaned each time he went back in. He’d be surprised if you could even walk tomorrow.

“Is this what you wanted?” He huffed, feeling his release building fast.

“Yes. Oh, fuck yes.” You confirmed.

In response, he rubbed hard circles on your clit. A new round of whimpers escaping your chest. The hot coil in your belly was growing quickly. He could feel it. He sped up his pace, feeling you tighten around him as you released.

He slammed into you again, his cock pulsing hard before filling you completely. He groaned into your shoulder as he came. Your final squeak announced your finish as well, your body going limp around him.

Your mind was reeling. You never thought he’d be able to do that. Your breathings were erratic and fast, as you tried to recover. He rested his forehead against yours. He kissed you lazily, knowing that this wasn’t the last time this would happen.

“I have to admit that you were right.” He said after a few moments.

You looked at him with flushed cheeks, your head in a total fog. You smiled.

“About what?” You wondered.

He kissed you again.

“I totally underestimated you.”

#the walking dead simon #simon x reader #simon twd #twd #simon x reader twd #simon twd x reader #simon twd fanfic #simon the walking dead #simon twd imagines #twdbegins

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pascalpanic · 3 years ago

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Caffeine Rush: Chapter Twelve / Peppermint Mocha

W/C: 2.6k

Warnings: discussion of marriages, discussion of a failed relationship, impulsive decisions, SMUT 18+, dirty talk, oral (f receiving), protected PIV sex

A/N: Not gonna lie, I wanted to make you guys wait longer, but I couldn’t. GAH im so excited fjrnehssdidnfnfjdj

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist

Peppermint Mocha: espresso, steamed milk, and chocolate, with added peppermint.

Javier’s face is dumbfounded. He certainly didn’t expect that one. “What?”

“You heard me,” you laugh excitedly, grinning up at him. “You said wives get special treatment. We’ll get married and I’ll move with you and work at the embassy. I have a Master’s, they need people who work in psychology.”

Javier’s brow furrows as he looks at you. “It’s- no, it’s not as easy as that.”

“Why can’t it be?” You say with a giddy voice, eyes begging. “Neither of us are religious. It’s not some sacred contract. It’s a piece of paper.”

Well, you’re right. But Javier was raised Catholic; whatever sense of Jesus he has inside of him nags him to respect the sanctity of marriage or whatever. He doesn’t even fully remember it, to be honest. He scans your face, trying to read your mind. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. “Lay out your plan for me,” he asks. His tone isn’t condescending, but curious. He genuinely hadn’t thought of this one, or if he had, he dismissed it immediately.

“Okay,” you nod and lead him to the couch, sitting him down. “So, it’s December 22nd.”

He nods. “Right, okay.”

“You need to be down in Colombia by…”

Javier thinks on it for a minute. “They said I had a lot of personal time. I could always take extra.”

“Give me a date here,” you ask, your mind running a million miles a second.

“Uh… January 2nd,” he blurts, for the sake of the plan.

Nodding, you entwine that in your plan. “Okay. Well, we can get married anywhere. We could fly to Vegas,” you shrug. “Anywhere. I mean it. But it has to be soon; I’m talking next couple of days. Probably between Christmas and New Years?” You ask.

He nods. “I guess that could work, yeah.”

“We can even take a short little honeymoon, then be at that wedding in Laredo. Both of us. Stay there for a while, then we fly to Colombia. It works!” You laugh excitedly, taking both of his hands. “It works, Javi.”

As his brain tracks along, he has to admit it. “It does,” he laughs incredulously, running a hand through his hair.

There’s a beat of silence for you to both work through it. You don’t want to rush him, but you’ve given him all the points; all he has to do is decide. Before he speaks, you give him one last selling point.

“Marriage for this purpose is a piece of paper. If we don’t work out, we can come back and get a divorce. Seriously. I won’t argue about it. The moment you say it, we’ll do it. I know it’s spontaneous, but we can undo it in a minute. It’s not as permanent as people think. Not for us.”

“Not for us,” he murmurs in response. His eyes are far off.

You know the story of Lorraine. You know that he left her at the altar, yet you still want to marry him, even this soon. You know you’ll be coming to a country full of danger and put on a depressing and time-consuming job, but you want it. You want him.

You stay like that for a moment before he turns to you and nods. “Fuck it. Let’s get married.”

“Let’s get married!” You squeal and throw your arms around him, kissing him happily, unable to stop giggling in absolute glee.

Javier kisses back, absolutely lost in you. The thought of this proposition even happening never crossed his mind. The fact that he said yes surprises him even more, but he couldn’t be happier. It’s easy enough to undo, but he has a feeling he never will. Not when it’s you he’s married to.

Breaking away, his eyes open and he smiles. “I have an idea.” The sight is rare on him, but when he grins, it’s huge. It’s beautiful. It makes his eyes crinkle and his cheeks crease. God, you love him.

“What’s your idea?” You ask, high on adrenaline rushing through your body and filling you with excitement.

“Well, I…” he looks down for a minute. “Yeah, it’s a piece of paper, but I love you. We work. I think we really should get married married. Not just for the paperwork.”

His words melt your heart and your face softens, body relaxing into his on the couch. “Yeah, I agree. So this is the real deal, huh? You want it to be?”

Javier nods and takes your hand. “I do, yeah.” He kisses your forehead quickly. “So… what if we got married in Laredo?” You frown a little and Javier’s expression drops too. “Of course we don’t have to,” he begins, assuring you quickly. “Vegas is good. Here is good.”

“No, no,” you quickly backpedal. “I’d love to. Just… how? Walk me through it. Is there a courthouse or something?” You ask him.

Javier thinks for a second then shakes his head. “No, but there’s one nearby. A few towns over. My dad, he’s friends with the church’s priest. He could pull some strings and get a wedding snuck in there for us.”

“A real wedding. In a church and everything,” you muse, smiling wistfully. “You really do love me, huh?” You laugh and fall into him. “That sounds amazing.”

Javier squeezes his arms around you tighter. “Done. Let’s do it. I’ll have my dad set it up.”

Squealing, you straddle his lap and kiss him again, desperately lovingly. All of your love flows through your lips and into his, excitement making your body practically vibrate.

Beneath you, Javier’s hands roam your body, grabbing for whatever he can find. They reach your waist, squeezing you there. His head falls back to kiss you, hovering above him, and he sighs.

Somewhere in the kiss, the excitement and giggles fade into sighs and breathless noises of content. God, he loves hearing those noises from you. “Baby,” you murmur into his lips, voice low and desperate.

Javier’s hands slide lower to grip your ass, angling his head to kiss your jaw and neck. You gasp softly as he works a bruise into the soft column of your neck over your racing pulse. His fingers dig into the curve of your ass as he traces his tongue across your skin.

Using your position, you grind down into his hips with your own. Javier lets out a soft and unintentional grunt. You can feel him growing harder beneath you and it only increases your desperation. “Fuck, baby,” you whimper. “Imagine. I’m gonna be Mrs. Peña.”

The thought certainly goes straight to his tight jeans. Javier bites his lip as he grinds back against you. “The guys in the office are gonna think you’re so hot, baby. Go home and torture themselves over you, but you’re mine. Only I get to fuck you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you confirm, head falling into the curve of his neck and nipping at his collarbones. “Hunting narcos by day, destroying my pussy by night,” you chuckle softly.

You get off his lap and stand, and Javier follows. Neither of you say a word, but it’s understood. Bedroom. Now. At least you think it’s conveyed. You watch Javier in confusion as he walks into the kitchen. “Hey, what the fuck,” you chuckle.

“Calling my dad first,” he teases.

“What the fuck, Javi?” You whine and go after him, laughing at his weird behavior.

Javier picks up the phone, ready to dial, but as you remove your shirt and toss your bra aside, he changes his mind. He slams the phone on the receiver and pins you against a counter, kissing you and groping your bare chest with one hand while grabbing your ass with the other. “So fuckin’ perfect,” he mumbles as he undoes your pants with his hands, pushing them and your panties to the floor. “Get on the counter, baby,” he orders.

You comply, your clothes falling fully to the floor. Javier sinks to his knees, on top of your clothing for a little extra support on his aging joints. Spreading your knees, the cool air of your apartment is a shock on your core, radiating heat.

The making out did a number. You’re already fairly wet, and Javier groans as he kisses up your legs, feeling the warmth there. “Oh, dulzura,” he groans as he traces two fingers through your folds, starting at your entrance and finishing with a soft circle around your clit.

From there, he wastes no time in tasting you; his lips meet your clit and he drags the supple skin against the pulsing bud, making your blood rush even quicker through your veins. He teases with his lips for a few moments before going in with his tongue, lapping at the sensitive skin.

Your knuckles grip the edge of the counter, head falling back into a cabinet with a soft knock. “Baby,” you groan and in response, he pushes two fingers inside of you. You shiver and he curls his fingers softly, scissoring your tight entrance open. You hook your calves over his shoulders, your thighs closing around his head, and Javier’s found the next best thing to the rush of caffeine from a coffee.

He teases and sucks and nips, drowning himself in your pussy. The sight of his eyes closing in pleasure as he works you is nearly as orgasmic as the high slowly building in your stomach. “Fuck,” you whimper and your clit throbs against his tongue. Your toes curl from the pleasure, bare feet against Javier’s still-clothed back.

It grows and grows until it’s too much. “Javi, Javi please,” you beg and wind your hips into his face. “God, I’m so close, don’t stop, just like that.”

He obeys your orders, working just slightly harder until your body quivers, shaking and crying out his name as your orgasm washes through you.

When he pulls away with a self-satisfied smirk, you can’t help but laugh when a reluctant smile. “God, you little shit,” you chuckle. He licks his lips dramatically and you laugh even harder. “If it was anyone else, this would be sexy.”

“You’re telling me I’m not sexy?” He asks jokingly, standing between your legs and putting a hand on each thigh. His fingers dig softly into the tender skin. “I’ve used that move plenty of times.”

“Too bad I’m not an informant,” you tease and raise your eyebrows.

“Too bad.” He unbuckles his belt and slides it off, tossing it aside to clank against the linoleum flooring beneath him. “Because then I could detach my feelings from it.”

“Aw, do you like me or something?” You pout as you drape your arms around his neck, hooking your thumbs over the spot where his shoulder blades nearly meet.

“Maybe. Still making my mind up on it,” he chuckles dryly as he opens the drawer next to your legs, sighing to find a condom there. He slips down his jeans and boxers and slides the condom on. The anticipation is practically killing you.

“Might wanna figure that out before the wedding,” you say, slowly and seductively, wiggling your eyebrows at him.

“Give me a minute, will you?” He shakes his head and buries his face in your neck as he pushes into you.

Even with the prep he always gives so generously, he’s so goddamn thick. It feels good already, the stretch, and his breath catches next to your ear. “How about now?” You practically purr.

“Okay, yeah,” he laughs breathlessly, pushing all the way to the hilt. “God, you feel so fucking good. My wife,” he grunts as he feels his balls against your skin.

“Fuck, yes, your wife Javi,” you nod in agreement, feeling too full to even breathe. “Come on, baby.”

Javier nods and rests his forehead to your skin as he pulls nearly all the way out and pushes back in. “My. Wife.” He grunts with each thrust as he establishes a rhythm.

“All yours, querido,” you breathe next to his ear, your arms wrapping around his sides and grabbing at his back.

His hands find the counter, resting where yours did just minutes ago as he ate you out. His breathing quickens, you can feel, as his chest is pressed to yours. The soft feeling of your tits squishing against his bare skin makes him ache even harder for release.

“Promise you’re not marrying me just for this?” He chuckles with hardly any air in his lungs.”

One particularly hard thrust makes you cry out and your head fall back. “Maybe,” you try to laugh, but his fingers find your clit and you cry out again, making you whine his name.

Sex with you has always been special, different for Javier. Sex before you consisted primarily of detached, primal urges; scratching an itch he couldn’t quite reach himself. He was good at it, and he gave mutual pleasure even when he was paying the woman for her time and her warmth. There’s no doubt about that.

But it’s even fucking better when it’s you. It’s laced with the memory of you smashing a cupcake into his face. The taste of a peppermint mocha. Early morning bleariness being chased away by a coffee with you in his arms. Stinging knuckles after punching someone in a crowded bar. It’s not just sex, it’s not just a place to spill his load, it’s you. It’s your love and his mixing like thick chocolate and steaming espresso to make the most delicious thing you could imagine.

Javier licks a hot stripe up your neck and swears he can taste the memories in your sweat. He thrusts harder, desperate to bring you the pleasure and love you bring to him constantly. “Come on, pretty girl,” he murmurs in your ear. “You gonna come for me? Let me feel you?”

Nodding frantically is all you can manage. Your thighs squeeze his hips and your fingers dig into his back. It’s like the hard gravel he landed on, but it’s also the tender touch of your fingertips cleaning his cuts. It’s pain and love and happiness and aching muscles and iced black eyes. It’s everything you’ve brought him and more. Even with the bad parts, it’s overwhelmingly good, the way your tight cunt is making him feel.

His fingers swirl around your clit in time with his thrusts until the wave crests and crashes into itself, leaving you whining and shaking in his arms as he thrusts harder. “Good girl,” he murmurs, your fluttering hole making him endlessly harder.

“Fuck, I love you,” he groans as he puts a hand on the back of your head, lifting it from its tilt and kissing you desperately before you can respond. His thrusts are slower and more deliberate before you can feel his body’s tension break, his own pleasure finally peaking and sending him somewhere else entirely.

He finally comes down, and he breaks the kiss and lets his head fall to your shoulder. “Fuck,” you laugh, throat already beginning to feel sore from the shouting. “Oh, man.”

Javier laughs breathlessly too. “I love you so fucking much,” he says as he lifts his head, pupils shrinking as the pleasure fades and letting more of that warm brown shine out. “I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Javi,” you coo and kiss him again, slower, gentler, more tender. Your heart rates slow together, breathing deeper and bodies more relaxed. Breaking away, you squeeze him in a hug with both your arms and your legs. “You better call your dad now,” you giggle. “Let’s get this fucking thing going.”

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twistnet · 4 years ago

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official [ angel reyes ]

⋯ SUMMARY ; in which angel asks his girlfriend a very important question

⋯ WARNINGS ; female!reader + general fluff [ proposals + kisses ]

it was something angel had been planning for weeks. a commitment he never would have seen himself making years back. but seeing as he had found someone who was willing to not only put up with him, but his way of life and the family he had chosen to become apart of, he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

he had gotten the idea when the third anniversary of your relationship came up. it had struck him that he had been with you for three years, a feat that he hadn’t accomplished as al his previous relationships hadn’t lasted longer than a year. yet, there was something different about you.

maybe it was the way you celebrated his achievements. seeing as before you, no one had even batted an eye at anything he did. but you were there, cheering him on or telling him how amazing something had come out.

or it could have been how you just fell into the life that he lived, taking it in stride and moving to take part where you could and were allowed too. many of the wives of the patched members were quite surprised to see how quickly to had taken to the club life. seeing as some of the girlfriends didn’t take to it quite as well as you had. however, all you saw was that you were there to be the support for angel and you were going to support him no matter what.

so it was there at your homecooked dinner anniversary, that angel made the decision to marry you. or make you his official ‘old lady’. he always laughed whenever he heard someone say that to their wife. seeing your face scrunch up, as according to you, “they aren’t that old!”.

planning went into effect and angel snuck around as best as he could without raising suspicion to his actions. playing small tricks on you to get you to answer his questions, like your ring size or what metal you preferred and style. he prided himself in the way he had gotten you to answer all three in a short conversation and you were none the wiser.

he saved up, almost passing out at the price tag attached to the rings in the display case, however he felt like the salesman was upselling them just based on the fact he looked like someone who would rob the store. or maybe it was because coco had lingered in the back and kept looking at the saleslady with funny eyes.

after securing the ring, he kept it on him at all times. in the inside pocket of his kutte. he felt that he didn’t need to plan out an extravagant way to ask someone to marry him, he just needed the right moment. something that just felt special.

he had wanted to go traditional, asking for your families permission to marry you. however, asking was more for the sake of you, as even if your family had said no, he was taking you to vegas and eloping. end of story. but he wanted to ask, at least get some recognition and get accepted by the your family.

so at a small family gathering, he pulled the heads of your family and quietly asked for their permission while you were busy helping your younger cousins with their plates. the heads smiled, after hearing him lay his heart out and ask for your hand in marriage. they agreed, excited and happy to see that someone had made you so happy.

with the two most important things done, all that was left was to ask.

he thought about it for weeks, even months. just waiting for something to feel right and seem special for the two of you. this was going to be a moment you remembered for the rest of your life, and he wanted it to be one that always brought a smile to your face.

so it came as a surprise, more to him, when that moment presented itself. he couldn’t quite understand why that exact moment felt right, but he wasn’t going to argue with it.

the moment was right after you had just come down from a sickness. you were all sweaty, filled with snot and just in an overall achy and tired mood. he had taken care of you, as best as he could, but luckily remembered some of the things his mother had done for him and used them on you. yes, the good ol’ vicks on the chest. it made your shirt so sticky but it was worth it to breathe.

there was just something about the moment for him that cemented his love for you. regardless if you had been in the worst state he had ever seen you in. to him you were perfect. so when you had come out, taking the last of your prescribed medication, he asked you.

he had dropped down to one knee behind you, waiting for you to turn around and find him waiting there with the ring box in hand. and when you did, angel almost cried himself. he bit back the tears, licking his lips as he looked you in the eye as spoke to you. asking you to marry him as he opened the ring box, not getting far as you had run over to him, tears streaming down your face as you kissed him, telling him yes over and over.

he smiled, slipping the ring on and watching as you smiled back, kissing him once more. you sat up, cupping his face with your hands, tilting his chin up so he could meet your eyes, “te quiero, angel.” you whispered, leaning down to rest your forehead against his as you repeated it once more, smiling brightly. angel’s own hands came to rest at your cheeks, brushing your hair back from your face as he pressed a kiss to your lips, “ te quiero también.”

blog navigation ⇢ [ mayans mc masterlist ]

#mayans #mayans fx #mayans x reader #mayans imagine #mayans mc #mayans mc fx #mayans mc x reader #mayans mc imagine #angel reyes #angel reyes x reader #angel reyes imagine #female!reader #twistnet #twistnet works 2021

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avengerscompound · 4 years ago

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The Tower: Family - 31

The Tower: Family An Avengers Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Pairing: Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)

Word Count: 2069

Warnings: Pregnancy, labor, surgery, breastfeeding

Synopsis: With new powers, Thor now living on Earth full time, a wedding to plan, and Natasha and Wanda expecting, a lot is changing for Elly and her large and rather unconventional family. When Elise’s parents try to reestablish connections, Elly questions what being a family actually means.

Chapter 31: The Whole Family

I was in full active labor seven hours after I lay down to nap with Steve. My water broke at around nine that night, but it was just a small trickle and it took a little while for me to realize it had happened.

It was quite a strange feeling to be in labor while everything was just going on as normal around you. We were experts at it this time, so babies were being breastfed and given tummy time. Dinner was served and eaten together. Riley and Pietro were given their stories and a bath before being put into bed and all the while I was getting these strong, debilitating pains that lasted barely anytime every 20 minutes or so. There was a rotating roster of people who stuck by my side depending on what needed to be done in the house and when all the kids were down for the night Tony suggested that maybe we should just go down to the Medbay and see how things were going. Turns out the answer to that question was; ‘not well’.

“Elise, honey,” Doctor Schroeder said, as I lay back on the bed with a bunch of probes attached to me, and one inserted inside me and attached to the crown of the baby’s head. “The baby is in distress, we really need to do the c-section.”

“What?” I said, the alarms beeping around me as my blood pressure shot up. “No, no, no, no, no.” Beside me, all the color had drained from Tony’s face and he started fidgeting where he stood.

“It’s going to be fine,” the doctor said. “But he needs to come out. We need to put you under as soon as possible.”

“But… I…” I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t know why he would be in distress now. I had made plans. I’d gone into labor, I was supposed to deliver like Wanda and Natasha had.

“El, princess,” Sam said, stepping close to me and crouching down by the bed. I looked at him, still panicking. “Honey, I’ll stay with you the whole time. Okay? I won’t leave your side for one second. We’ll get Edwin out and when you wake up, we’ll all have a happy and healthy baby boy.”

I felt tears prick my eyes but I nodded, feeling a little bit more sure about things. Everyone backed off a little and I was moved onto a surgical bed and set up with an IV and wheeled into surgery. Everything felt like a blur as I was given an anesthetic and oxygen and talked off to sleep. I remember the last thing I could focus on was the light above me and Sam’s voice telling me he was right here with me and everything would be okay.

The next thing I was really aware of was my throat hurting and how cold I felt. “Hey, El,” Sam said, gently. “You waking up?”

I managed to force my eyes open but they fell closed again right away, I shook my head slowly.

“It’s okay, princess,” Sam said, running his thumb over the back of my hand. “You can keep sleeping if you want to. Everyone is fine. Edwin was crying up a storm as soon as he took a breath. He’s with the others now. His feet and hands were a little blue and his pulse was a little high, but everything settled once he got used to being out in the big bad world. They don’t think he’s going to need to be in intensive care or anything. Just your blood pressure stressing him out.”

I relaxed as Sam spoke and seemed to doze off for five minutes or so before waking again. A nurse came over to check me over. “Do you have any pain, Doctor Cooper?”

I nodded and pointed to my stomach where they had cut.

“Do you want some pain medication?” She asked.

I nodded again and started crying - though I wasn’t actually sure what was setting it off.

“Hey, El,” Sam soothed. “It’s okay, honey. I’m still here.”

“And you’re going to see your baby very soon,” the nurse added as she adjusted something on my IV. The pain started to back off again, but I couldn’t seem to stop crying.

“What’s upsetting you, princess?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know,” I cried, my voice raspy.

“Aww, honey,” Sam soothed. “Having a bad reaction to the GA leaving your system. It’s alright. It’ll back off soon.”

I’m not sure how long it took to start feeling more awake but they brought me juice and crackers and checked me over before letting me go to my room where the others were waiting with Baby Edwin. Sam stayed by my side the whole time, talking me through every little medical thing that they did so I wouldn’t worry.

I was wheeled into the room and was greeted by all the others who were seated around on the various couches and sofa chairs set up. They all stood at once except for Tony who was holding the little bundle in his arms.

“Hey, sweetheart. They said it all went fine. How are you feeling?” Steve asked.

“I'm okay. Feel weird. I was pregnant and now I'm not anymore,” I said. “Usually a thing that happens between those points.”

“You had a baby,” Steve assured me. “He's right there. Tony’s won’t let anyone else hold him.”

“Hey! You all got a turn,” Tony argued. “But I helped make him, I’m proud of my good work.”

“Puh-lease, Tones,” Clint snarled. “You jizzed inside her. Who hasn't done that?”

“Hey, not in front of the baby!” Tony said, covering Edwin’s ears and looking at Clint with a scandalized expression on his face.

“Alright, alright,” Natasha said. “I think it’s time for Elise and Sam to get their chance holding him.”

Tony got up and carried the little bundle over. He was wrapped in a blue blanket with just his face showing and he was sleeping peacefully. He had a fine head of brown hair and a little button nose. “Look at what we made, El,” he said as he put him in my arms.

“I can’t tell who he looks like more,” I said, looking down at him.

“Well he has blue eyes,” Tony said. “But that could just be because they haven’t settled.”

“He’s perfect either way,” Wanda said.

I smiled down at him and ran my finger over his cheek. “Hey, Eddie,” I said softly. “Sorry I missed you being born and stressed you out so much.”

“He’s fine,” Wanda said. “I promise.”

“A hearty lad,” Thor added. “You have nothing to fear, my life.”

I smiled and kissed Edwin’s forehead. “Good,” I said. “That’s the main thing.”

“Not to hurry you along, El,” Sam said. “But I want a turn too.”

I giggled. “Okay, but only because you stayed with me the whole time.”

Sam grinned and took him from me, and I lay down, closing my eyes. “Maybe we should leave you to sleep, honey.”

I mumbled something, trying to ignore the pull of sleep, but finding it hard to resist. “Mishka,” Natasha scolded. “It’s the middle of the night and you just had major surgery.”

“We’ll be here when you get up, and so will Edwin,” Bruce said. “You should sleep while you can and heal so you can come back home as soon as possible.”

I nodded slowly. “I’ll stay with her,” Tony said.

“What a shocker,” Clint teased and came over and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You did good, El.”

“Thanks, Clint,” I murmured.

The others all came over and kissed me goodnight before leaving. I dozed a little while Tony fussed around and eventually set himself up to sleep on the foldout next to me.

The following day I woke up to the sound of Edwin crying. Tony had him cradled in his arms, trying to soothe him as the nurses came and propped my bed up. I have no idea how long I’d slept for, but the sun was up and the room was filled with flowers and balloons.

“There’s your mama,” Tony said. “We were starting to think you were going to sleep all day long.”

“Sorry, Tony,” I said.

He shook his head. “You’re healing. It’s fine.”

“How’s your pain?” One of the nurses asked as she fussed around me.

“About a seven,” I said. “Maybe seven and a half.”

“We’ll get you something. Are you hungry?” The nurse asked.

I nodded. “Very.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll organize that too. And are you going to breastfeed?”

“I’m going to try,” I said.

“Okay, let’s see if we can do that first,” she said, gesturing Tony over with Edwin.

It took a little bit of doing but we eventually had him latched and suckling. I knew I wasn’t really producing anything much yet, the surgery would delay my milk production, but it was important to get him to suckle to bring it on. He suckled with a scowl on his face, staring up at me with his dark blue eyes as he gripped at my breast with one little hand.

The nurse left to go order my breakfast and my pain medication and Tony sat on the side of my bed and started playing with Edwin’s hand. “You ready to see the others?” He asked.

“Yeah. That’ll be good,” I agreed.

“Your mom is here. Those are from her,” he said, pointing to a large bunch of white roses and blue irises set in a blue box with foil balloons attached that read ‘It’s a boy’. “You okay seeing her too?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine too.”

“FRIDAY, let them know,” Tony said.

By the time the very large group that consisted of my husbands, wives, children and mother came through the door, Edwin had stopped feeding and fallen back to sleep and I was slowly eating my way through a plate of French Toast with fresh berries.

“There she is,” Steve said, kissing me hello. “You slept for so long.”

“I guess I was tired,” I agreed. “I’m up now.”

“You otay, mommy?” Pietro asked, coming over to the bed and putting his chin on the side.

“I have a big cut,” I said, caressing his hair. “But I’m okay. I missed you.”

“I misted you too,” he said.

Thor and Bruce lifted both Riley and Pietro up on the side of the bed. “Be careful of your mother, she has an injury,” Thor said.

“Don’t touch her tummy,” Bruce added.

Riley immediately ignored both of her father’s instructions and gently patted my stomach. “Tan I see?”

“It’s just a bandage right now,” I said. “But I can show you when they come and change it if you really want. It has stitches because they had to sew me back up.”

“Otay,” she said and promptly stole a strawberry off my plate and started eating it.

Pietro’s lip began to quiver. “Dey sewed you up?”

“It’s okay, honey,” I said, pulling him in close. “I’m okay and so is your new baby brother. Did you see him?”

“Yeah, he’s borwing,” Riley said, matter-of-factly making me laugh a little.

My mom stepped forward and kissed my cheek. “Congratulations, darling,” she said. “He’s so beautiful. They all are, but Edwin looks just like you when you were born.”

“Thanks, mom,” I replied.

Everyone settled around the room. Some cradling babies while others looked over their shoulders. Everyone was relaxed and happy and completely present as a family. It was a little melancholy to think how back when I was born, my mother had me, and I looked so much like him, and yet I didn’t have this. I would grow up not knowing that this deep love and devotion was a real thing. That I wouldn’t know it until one day when I knocked over an ex-Russian assassin on the way to work and somehow that act would lead her to become fascinated by me.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Every little thing that happened in my life led to this. Me here with the people I loved most. With the people who I had chosen to be a part of my life. I wouldn’t change a single thing if it meant I would lose this. I might not have known it growing up, but my kids would. This was my family.

~ END ~

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Text

extra 2 for Tedious Joys - warnings for adult content, WRH/Lao Nie, slightly dubcon, not necessarily in the same universe as the previous extra, possibly AU

ao3 link

Humans had three modes of dealing with evil things: fighting, feeding, and fucking.

Much to Jiwei’s disgust, it seemed that her Master could not be dissuaded from treating with Wen Ruohan through the last of these.

You’re disgusted any time I pick the ‘fucking’ option, her Master said tolerantly. He was watching Wen Ruohan’s body as the other man moved through the crowd like a shark amidst waters filled with fat fish, merciful and restrained only in his current lack of interest and yet convinced of his superiority. You’re barely more interested when I pick ‘feeding’, and my body would collapse if I stopped doing that.

I’ve heard good things about inedia, Jiwei retorted, but her Master only laughed. You agree that he’s evil, though.

Jiwei, sweetheart, you think almost everyone is evil.

Because they are!

The ethical frailty of humanity was practically a given at this point: one need only look around this sect conference to find examples of it, the hall teeming with the stench of moral corruption. Sect leaders who would sell their daughters for an iota more of power, who had blood on their hands from executions conducted behind closed doors, liars, thieves, cheats, crooks, evil –

To be both good and evil is natural, Jiwei, even for us two. It’s not worthy of a death sentence.

Jiwei was not arguing in any seriousness: she had long ago reached the conclusion that it was not a debate that her Master was inclined to yield upon, and of course he had long ago won the argument. After all, her Master had done his share of terrible things too, in his time, to defend his sect and his family as needed, and she had been at his side, aiding him as she ought.

She was not as rigid as Baxia, that fearsome child, who longed only, as her master did, for righteousness; she would not argue with her master the way Baxia did, quibbling over mundanities as if the human world were something that could be judged through the merits of a saber. But then Baxia had Nie Mingjue, whose soul was very near to a saber itself – unbending in its ferocity and clear in its simplicity – and Nie Mingjue listened to his saber in a way his father did not, too close and too compassionate, too forgiving of his inhuman partner’s flaws and too willing to take the time to convince when he ought to simply order.

Perhaps it was simply different for the two of them.

Baxia had roared to life with an ancient soul, a queen among sabers, and even Jiwei would not so easily choose to face her down, for all that she was more clever and more practiced, more thoughtful and more reserved, her power the greater, but her potential worse. Luckily it seemed unlikely to ever become an issue, what with Nie Mingjue earnestly trying to teach Baxia the meaning of being filial to one’s elders, as if age were at all relevant to a saber spirit.

Still, even if she were not Baxia, Jiwei had her own pride: she was still a saber, stubborn and inflexible, and so she said, Even Lan Qiren thinks you shouldn’t fuck him.

Jiwei rather begrudgingly liked Lan Qiren. She hadn’t at first, of course – not that she’d noticed him much when he was just a fellow cultivator her Master had taken a shine to, a teenager with a strange manner and his own pride, but later, when her only thought of him had been to wonder how he would dare attempt to interfere with her connection with her Master – but he was stubborn in his own way, obstinate, uncompromising, tenacious.

There was even unexpectedly some rage in him, buried deep beneath his rules and the scars left on his heart – not enough to do anything with it, the poor soul, but enough to show that he knew what it was. Jiwei had finally started condescending to give him a little of her time and attention, maybe a little of her rage that he always seemed to be seeking: at least he knew that he needed it.

Lan Qiren doesn’t want to fuck anyone, her Master said, fond as always. He, at least, would be more than happy to fuck Lan Qiren if the other man were interested. He doesn’t understand the appeal, so how can he really make a judgment on the matter?

Jiwei wasn’t sure that was how it worked – her Master respected Lan Qiren’s judgment on all sorts of things that Lan Qiren didn’t personally appreciate, and in all honesty she suspected that her Master was thinking with all the brain in the lower half of his body again – but she also didn’t actually care all that much.

Wen Ruohan hates Lan Qiren, she said instead, not for the first time that day.

Her Master frowned, as he did before. I don’t know what’s gotten into Hanhan over it. He even went and got Qiren drunk again, and I thought he swore never to be in his vicinity while drunk ever again, after last time.

Lan Qiren, when drunk, dropped all façade of caring about other people’s lack of interest in his favorite subjects, and also any reservations about using his strength and body to pin people into place – he’d held Wen Ruohan down by the arm, and ended up at one point in his lap to loudly insist that he pay attention because they were just getting to the interesting part, despite assurances by Wen Ruohan that it was not interesting, had never been interesting, and that he would shortly begin to bite off his own limbs in order to escape if it did not rapidly become more interesting.

Her Master had gone over at that point, nominally to assist but actually in order to enjoy having Lan Qiren on his own lap, and yet somehow that had only made Wen Ruohan’s expression worse.

Humans were so confusing.

Didn’t you tell Lan Qiren that you’d rescue him sooner if he got drunk again?

Her Master laughed, but he put down his drink and went: Lan Qiren had drunk four toasts, which was three and three-quarters more than he could tolerate, and he had cornered some poor sect leader and started in on some subject on musical cultivation that even Jiwei, who had no ears, could identify as being both esoteric and extremely boring.

Wen Ruohan caught her Master by the wrist before he got to Lan Qiren’s side.

“You should come spend some time with me, my friend,” he said, his eyes intent, purposeful, gaze as hot as the sun patterned on his clothing. “I have scarcely seen you this evening.”

Because you were too busy trying to get Lan Qiren drunk for some reason, Jiwei said scathingly, and her Master shushed her.

“The days in your Nightless City are long and the nights longer, A-Han,” her Master said, turning his hand to stroke two fingers along the underside of Wen Ruohan’s wrist – the other man released his hand, recoiling as if he’d been burnt; he had never grown accustomed to her Master’s shameless displays of affection. “There will still be time for us to spend time together.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes narrowed. “But not now.”

“Not now,” her Master said agreeably. “I promised Qiren that I wouldn’t let him embarrass himself.”

“Someone else could do that.”

“They could, yes, but I’m the one that promised him.”

Wen Ruohan’s lips twisted. “You promise him many things. More than you should, with him the sect leader of another sect…”

“So are you, Hanhan,” the Master said. “And don’t I promise you the moon and the stars, if only I could fetch them down for you?”

The poetry of humans was truly insipid, in Jiwei’s view, and yet like all monsters Wen Ruohan both hated and loved the purity of her Master’s emotions, his heart offered on a platter without reservations.

It didn’t seem to be working this time, though.

“Go to him, then,” Wen Ruohan sneered, his jaw tight from where he was grinding his teeth together. “I trust you will tell me, then, when you finally decide to promise him that I will no longer be sharing your bed.”

I like him when he’s jealous, her Master remarked to her, and sometimes Jiwei thought her Master could be a very stupid man. He’s never more ferocious and passionate than he is when he thinks someone has taken something of his.

Never more dangerous, you mean. You always did like the ones that could and did want to kill you.

It adds some spice to life.

Life is not a food. It does not require spice.

You don’t eat, sweetheart; what do you know?

Jiwei considered this comment to fall into the same category as the one about Lan Qiren not knowing a bad idea just because he was sensible enough not to want to fuck it.

“Lan Qiren has no say in who I allow to share my bed,” he said, and stepped forward abruptly: Wen Ruohan, his senses as always tuned to the highest level of paranoia, instinctively stepped back, and so allowed her Master to corner him up against the wall, bringing their faces level and close to each other until their breath was shared. “Don’t think I didn’t see who was sending all those toasts to him, A-Han.”

“You object?” Wen Ruohan hissed, trying to pretend that he was unmoved by her Master’s nearness – as if anyone could miss the blood pounding through his veins, or the hardness beneath his clothing that her Master deliberately pressed his thigh against in a teasing gesture that made Wen Ruohan inhale sharply.

Wen Ruohan was too powerful, Jiwei thought; his wives treated him like a god, and his concubines like something even higher – he had never been treated so intimately, so recklessly and without care for whether or not he approved, and he was fascinated by it.

“Do you like him?” her Master asked, and Wen Ruohan’s eyes went wide in indignation. “The Lan sect breeds for beauty, and he’s got his fair share of it, even if he doesn’t think of it that way.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“There’s something appealing even in his very disinterest,” her Master mused, and Jiwei resigned herself to hearing this again. “He’s above such things, like a statue carved into the mountainside, untouchable and cold, the stone unyielding, and yet his flesh is as soft as any other man’s – it would give if you pressed on it. Turn red if you dug your fingers in, bruising like the skin of a ripe peach.”

Wen Ruohan’s throat worked as he swallowed.

“You like that sort of thing, don’t you? You like it when people are in pain…you like the rush of power it gives you. There are other ways of having power, A-Han.”

Her Master had thoroughly pinned Wen Ruohan against the wall now, even though the other sect leader’s cultivation was higher, his physical strength above their own. Their hips were slotted together, the two of them grinding up against each other, and Wen Ruohan’s mouth was a little agape, his lips and the tongue between them very red.

“There are,” he murmured, eying her Master as if he wanted to peel off his skin and devour him whole, put him in his belly where no one else would be able to reach him. “And this is his: that even now you will leave me and go to him instead.”

Her Master laughed.

“I need to take him to bed,” he murmured, words deliberately ambiguous, and Wen Ruohan jerked in his grasp – perhaps her Master was not so wrong in thinking that Wen Ruohan admired the coldly beautiful Lan Qiren more than he should. “Why don’t you help me?”

Wen Ruohan frowned, even as her Master stepped away. “Help you?”

“Take him to bed,” her Master said, and smiled as Wen Ruohan scowled at him. “It’ll be easier to carry him with two of us.”

Lan Qiren did not especially want to go with them, eager to continue his elaboration on whatever subject he was on now – actually a method for temporarily cutting off someone’s breathing using sound alone, not that anyone would be able to tell unless they had an excellent understanding of musical notation, esoteric cultivation techniques, and the human pulmonary system – although the sect leaders he had cornered were deeply grateful for the intervention. Still, Lan Qiren was a cultivator of song and thought, his strength respectable but nothing in comparison to martial cultivators like Jiwei’s Master or Wen Ruohan; they were easily able to drag him away despite his protests.

Her Master eased the way further by picking up another jar of wine and pouring it into Lan Qiren’s throat as they fought to get him up the stairs, the additional liquor finally acting to push him from wildness into quietude in a single step: he fell asleep at once, instantly becoming as limp as a fully cooked noodle and just as inconvenient.

“Do you have to deal with this every time?” Wen Ruohan complained.

Jiwei’s Master chuckled. “It helps to have experience,” he said, tapping the side of his nose. “Come, get his shoes off while I get the bed ready.”

“You treat me as if I were a common servant,” Wen Ruohan said disdainfully, although he did kneel and remove Lan Qiren’s shoes. Jiwei almost wondered at his willingness, given Wen Ruohan’s usual self-perception as a soon-to-be deity, or at least she did until he ran his fingers up Lan Qiren’s calf and even up to his inner thigh, his gaze firmly fixed on Jiwei’s Master as if in challenge – he was starting something, of course.

“You can’t make him jump when he’s like this,” her Master said, unmoved by the provocation. “He’s utterly insensate; he wouldn’t even notice if you put your hand on his dick.”

“Maybe I should,” Wen Ruohan said, the implicit challenge now outright.

“Maybe you should put it on mine instead,” her Master said. “There’s a second bed in the room.”

Jiwei did not have eyes, but she could enjoy the expression of shock on Wen Ruohan’s face through her Master’s perception of it.

“You’re not serious,” Wen Ruohan said. He did not sound repulsed by the idea – merely surprised that Jiwei’s Master had suggested it, and more than a little intrigued by it.

“I’ve gone night-hunting with him before,” her Master said. “He understands that men who are not him have needs that must be fulfilled; he’s told me before that he doesn’t mind me getting myself off near him, or even while thinking of him, as long as I don’t involve him.”

“You’re rather pushing the boundaries of that agreement, aren’t you?”

Jiwei’s Master had a smile full of teeth – his own type of shark, his own type of monster. “Don’t you like pushing boundaries the most, A-Han?”

It was things like this that drew a clear line between Jiwei’s Master and Baxia’s, Jiwei thought to herself, amused. In the ranking of things that were dear to her Master, his sect came first, and all else second, even family, friendship, or morality; Nie Mingjue, in contrast, would rank family first, morality second, and sect third, and would never take even minimal advantage of a friend, even when the gains were great and the downsides almost none.

Their power over Wen Ruohan was useful to the Nie sect, and pleasing to Jiwei’s Master on a personal basis; the power they drew out from their dual cultivation beneficial to both him and her – they did, in fact, engage in it on the second bed in the room, her Master’s voice rough against his Hanhan’s ear, spinning fantasy and filth at the same time, both their gazes fixed firmly on where Lan Qiren slept innocently on, detached in his disinterest and unlikely to object to anything other than the sheer impropriety of it even if he awoke.

Certainly that had been his reaction the last few times her Master had brought someone back to the single room at the inn that they had been sharing – not that Wen Ruohan needed to know that he wasn’t the first.

Do you intend to court them both? Jiwei asked, curious. It wasn’t the worst idea, even if she despaired at the thought of there being even more fucking instead of fighting: Lan Qiren’s coolness was a good counterbalance to Wen Ruohan’s heat, even if Wen Ruohan’s viciousness was more their speed than Lan Qiren’s level-headed contemplation and compassion. If he obtained them both, her Master could get the benefits of Lan Qiren’s company and conversation, which he truly enjoyed, and Wen Ruohan’s body and cleverness, and perhaps with two of them at his side Wen Ruohan would finally find himself content with what he had, able to stop his endless quest for more, more, more, the yawning pit of greed that lay beneath his arrogance and drove him to do increasingly terrible things.

Perhaps, if they’d let me, her Master replied. His mental voice was tight the way it always was when he dual cultivated with another cultivator, in the time before he reached release – he would be full of energy in the morning, excitable; their morning training together would be especially good for them both, strengthening them as they shared the qi between them. They’d be a force to be reckoned with, especially with me beside them…Qiren doesn’t like sex, but he’s never objected to romance, so it’s not hopeless. Hanhan could be taught to respect limits, and Qiren’s always been remarkably easy-going with those he considers his friends. It would be a good match. Don’t you agree, sweetheart?

You’ve always had eyes for things bigger than you can swallow, Jiwei said. She would roll her eyes if she had them. Well, good luck. Don’t let it be your funeral.

Don’t worry, her Master said, reckless as always. I won’t.

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen ruohan #sect leader nie #my fic #my fics #tedious joys #extras

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