#they are fighting over whose brother is better
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cosmerelists · 20 hours ago
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Ranking Cosmere Families Based Whether I'd Want to Attend Their Thanksgiving Dinner
If they, you know, actually celebrated Thanksgiving or if I existed in their universe and could attend. But anyway.
[Last Thanksgiving special: How They'd Cook a Turkey]
1. Kholin Family Dinner: No Thank You
Let the various eras of the Kholin family spread out before you: is there ANY iteration of that family whose Thanksgiving Dinner you'd want to attend? We have the Blackthorn Era, where Dalinar is getting drunk and trying not to make eyes at his brother's wife and also Sadeas is probably there. We have Way of Kings era where Dalinar thinks he might be going crazy and is always in a lowkey fight with Adolin. We have post-Oathbringer where you sit at that table knowing that Dalinar killed his kids' mother. Is there any moment when a Kholin family dinner wouldn't be awkward for a guest? Even Shallan being there isn't enough to win me over. I'm staying home.
2. Kelsier's Crew: Sure!
I think a holiday dinner with Kelsier's crew would actually be delightful. I think that whatever else they had going on at the time, they'd make an effort to put that aside and have a good time.
3. Kiin's Family Dinner: Hell yeah
Kiin (Sarene's uncle in Elantris) is canonically an amazing cook. Like, I'd LOVE to be at their family dinner. Plus, Sarene seems to have a nice time hanging out with them. Sure their kids squabble a bit, but nothing major.
4. Stormblessed Family Dinner: M-Maybe?
I feel like this is strongly era-dependent. Join them when Kaladin and Tien are kids? Yeah, I think that would be all right. There might be tension between Lirin and Kaladin, but Hesina and Tien are there to defuse it. After the two kids are taken to war? I-I'm leaving that couple alone to grieve, I think. Post-Kaladin-Radiant time? That's REALLY book-dependent. Got weird between Kaladin & Lirin for a while there. I don't want to be there for their yearly argument about whether it's ever okay to kill someone. Maybe I'll just help Hesina in the kitchen.
5. Tress Family Dinner: Definitely!
Yeah! Tress is a great cook, her parents are AWESOME, and if Charlie is there too, all the better. Like, this one is a no-brainer yes please.
6. Bridge 4 Dinner: Yeah!
Especially if it's post-Radiants, so that (a) we're not all enslaved in Sadeas' war camp and (b) there are women too. I bet Rock's Thanksgiving stew would be delicious. Kaladin would be late, but you know what, it's okay. He's very busy.
7. Court of the Gods Thanksgiving Dinner: Maybe If I Were Younger...
Listen, I'm sure it's a raucous good time. There's lots of food, it's really good, everyone looks hot, and everyone is very drunk. Not REALLY my scene, though. I might go if I were invited, but if Tress's family had already offered, I mean...
8. Idrian Royal Family Dinner: I'll Pass
For one thing, I feel like the food would not be very good since my impression of Idris is that everything is...gray. But even beyond that, the family dynamics do not sound fun. I mean, their dad sold his least favorite daughter into what he thought was deadly sex slavery. Their mom doesn't even have a name. It just feels so awkward.
9. Noodle Shop Thanksgiving Dinner: Yeah!
Going out to eat is a great way to not have to cook for Thanksgiving dinner. And Design's Noodle shop--or even later under the new owners--feels like a great place to get some food. Depending on why I'm there, I might even get some free sympathy noodles if I have nowhere else to go! Y-Yay!
10. Lopen Family Dinner: Yes!
I definitely would say yes if invited to eat with Lopen and his many cousins. Remember when Elhokar was there for a minute, and Lopen's mother kept making him eat more? I am going to be SO STUFFED and it is going to be SO worth it.
11. Ladrian Family Dinner: Totally
I'd love to have dinner with Wax and Steris and presumably Wayne and Marasi and possibly MeLaan! I bet the place settings will be fancy and that I'll have to bone up on my etiquette rules--but then, Wayne will be there so surely my using the wrong fork will go largely unnoticed. Anyway, these people seem pretty fun to hang out with, and I bet the food and whiskey are both good.
12. Montane Family Dinner: S-Sorry, Can't Make It...
As much as I love Threnody as a concept, I don't want to hang out in a small circle of silver-ringed "safety" while knowing that murderous ghosts await any mistake outside. I just don't feel like it would be a relaxing time. Plus, you know, Silence's grandmother is literally a ghost in a locked room like right over there. That's a family dynamic I don't care to experience.
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insinirate · 7 months ago
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love language
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swordgrace · 4 months ago
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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐋𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍.
⠀ཾ༵ 𑁍┆ cregan stark x fem!targtower!reader.
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SYNOPSIS: a blissful marriage to an honorable man — it is more than you could’ve asked for. with the heir on the way, you make a request of your husband.
anonymous request. unofficial sequel to wolfsblood, dragonsblood.
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{ FORMAT: one-shot — requested by anonymous.
{ WORD COUNT: 6.1K.
{ WARNINGS: SMUT (mdni), overprotective cregan, reader is pretty horny for cregan (valid), pregnancy, reader is pregnant, sexual activities while pregnant, cregan is a father in his mind, oral sex (fem!rec), cunnilingus, cregan loves munching, vaginal fingering, teasing, biting, hair-pulling kink, obvious size difference + size kink, slight face-riding, lots of cregan admiring in this one-shot, very soft ending + aftercare
{ AUTHOR’S NOTE: I love writing for Cregan so much, y’all don’t understand the depths of my adoration for him. I churned this out pretty quickly, but I loved writing it, Father Cregan is the best! I hope that you all enjoy, & thank you for your support! ❤️
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𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐩, 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐬, 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐞��� 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐜𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬.
It was easier to breathe, you’d realized — King’s Landing had always been so stifling and pungent, the population too thick, the air acrid. Here, in the North, it was sprawling with open spaces, regions of untouched forest and unsettled countryside.
The bite of the harsh, Northern chill was not an easy adjustment to make after a lengthy life spent in Southern regions — the gnawing wind often seared your extremities, and it was not any easier on Silverwing. Fire ran through your veins, tempered by your tender heart and kindly disposition.
Your beloved husband would not have it any other way.
What had started as an unsteady, tumultuous betrothal marked by obvious bitterness from your family and wariness from his own House, had blossomed into a fruitful union. You couldn’t have asked for a better partner, and it made you realize how fortunate you were.
Snow was uncommon in most of the South, yet it remained constant in the North, mountains blanketed in endless horizons of white. It was a particularly icy day, winter winds stinging your cheeks, prickling your flesh with its pinpricks.
Mounds of pale, grayish fur swaddled your form, lined in the finest fleece, downy and plush against your skin. The trodden path to the Godswood was marked by frozen dirt, dusted over with a fresh layer of snowfall. Sprinkles of crystalline drops fell from the cloudy skies, and your breath emerged in hot wisps of air.
Lilac hues drifted toward the mountainous form of your husband, whose back was turned to you, swathed in the dappled pelt of a direwolf. Ice hung from his shoulder, a massive longsword of Valyrian Steel, an heirloom passed down through generations of House Stark.
Someday soon, it will pass to your firstborn son.
You recalled the night that you were wed, beneath the crimson leaves of the Weirwood Tree. It was serene, a moonlit dusk that struck the snow with an ethereal glow, your hands bound as you recanted your vows. It had been some moons now since that day, and you had only felt joy since then.
Cregan listened to the light crunch of snow beneath your footfalls as they reverberated throughout the Godswood, the pond frozen-over with a layer of ice. Pale bark marked with a foreign face peered back at him — this was a place that he and Rickon visited many times.
Before his little brother had passed, they pretended to fight wars here, forge their weapons, sticks found from the forest floor, and envision themselves as Knights. He could still feel his brother sometimes, his presence a whisper in the blood-red leaves, somewhere within the forest’s song.
Religion was a complicated thing for you. Your mother wielded the Faith of the Seven like a crudely-worn shortsword, letting it strike to her advantage even when it was rusty, at best. You had little interest in it, and Cregan seemed to respect your growing distance from your old roots. The Old Gods were his — you had nothing.
Inklings of snow drifted from the pale skies, growing darker as evening approached. The North became unyieldingly harsh after the sun began to wane, the sting of biting wind swirling around you, seeping into your bones. You were rather cold, but persisted for Cregan.
“Ser Rodrick said that I might find you here,” Silence dissipated, filled with the sound of your voice, as soft as feathers, a soothing balm. You stepped closer, beneath the boughs of the great tree, the canopy thick with vermillion leaves. “How are you faring?”
With Winter approaching, spreading its cold, brittle tendrils across the North, Cregan’s duties had increased tenfold. Preparing his people for winter, ensuring that food was plentiful, that they were safe — it was the burden of leadership, but there was no one better suited for it in your eyes.
“Well enough,” Cregan murmured, storm-colored hues drifting over the Weirwood tree before they turned to you, completely and utterly transfixed. You stole every wisp of air from his lungs with your beauty, clad in the trappings of his people. “I apologize for running off.”
An amiable smile crossed your features as you reached for your husband, slipping a gloved palm against the crook of his arm. “You needn’t apologize, husband. You are owed your solitude, and I wouldn’t dare tell you otherwise.” You have his bicep a gentle squeeze.
Cregan’s gaze softened, sparkling with a warmth reserved only for you, his beloved. Your presence always seemed to melt away his hardened exterior, but he much preferred it that way. He stepped closer, towering above you in all of his indomitable glory, craning down to press a kiss against your brow.
The gloved leather of his hand moved to cup your abdomen, and the growing life within. The joyous news of your pregnancy had been the talk of the North, the new Lady Stark, preparing to birth an heir of Winterfell. Those thick furs you wore obscured your belly quite well.
“I should be asking you how you fare, carrying our child,” Cregan insisted, gingerly caressing around your stomach with the pride of a doting husband. “Here you are, walking all this way to the Godswood, when it is I who should be by your side.” If there was one word to describe Cregan, it was overprotective.
Gods, he was attentive — if he did leave your side, he ensured that you were well looked-after, under the watchful protection of his guardsmen. You couldn’t fault your husband for his safeguarding nature, given that it was to be your firstborn.
Sometimes he forgot that you were a dragon-rider.
“Being beneath the open sky has done me a world of good, husband,” You mused, canting your head to one side. You were not completely round and waddling just yet — halfway through, as the Maester stated. “I cannot stand to look at that dreadful cobblestone for days on-end.”
Cregan did not protest, nor invalidate your claims. He was not the one carrying a child — he did not have a right to speak on behalf of you. A shiver rolled down your spine, due to the bitter chill of the wind, coupled with the encroaching snowfall.
Instead, he reached for your jaw, cupping your face within the roughened texture of his leather-clad palm, presenting you with a kiss. It was kept brief, yet the ardor lingered, as strong as a burning flame. “You are shivering, beloved. Let us return to the Keep.” He rumbled, shielding you beneath his cloak.
A respite from the cold would be welcome. Even if you possessed the blood of the Dragon, you did not fare well in such blisteringly glacial conditions. The thick cover of your husband’s cloak brought a sense of comfort, coupled with the natural heat that radiated from him.
Snow crunched beneath his heavy footfalls, your own masked by his boots. Cregan made sure to guide you every step of the way, hovering with his impressive shadow. “I have been contemplating a name for our child.” You spoke softly, a smile toying upon your lips.
“Have you?” Cregan appeared appeased, a stoic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t know if we are to have a son or a daughter.” He remarked, letting your hand wrap around the bulk of his forearm, guiding you through the Godswood.
“Perhaps not, but I wanted you to hear,” Such ideas had been stirring around within your mind for weeks, and with Cregan so preoccupied, you hadn’t broached the topic of conversation. “Gilliane, after your mother, should we have a daughter, and … Rickon.” You hesitated. “Should we have a son.”
Cregan’s steps began to slow, and he looked upon you with such love and devotion that it was nearly overwhelming. He couldn’t have loved you anymore if he tried — and he had tried. Towering over you, he pressed a kiss against the top of your head, one that blossomed with fondness.
You gave him the greatest honor of all — that of fatherhood, and now, you had bestowed upon him sentimental names, those of his family. Love flourished within his storm-colored hues, and he seemed to soften at your words. “You would honor me beyond words, wife. Do you not wish to pay tribute to your own family?”
Placing a hand over the growing swell of your stomach, you seemed somewhat indifferent to talk of your family. Helaena and Daeron were the exceptions in this, but it did not pain you any less. “I pay tribute by carrying our child,” You replied, your smile threadbare. “That is enough.”
Solemn, Cregan simply nodded, understanding your strained relationship with the family you had left behind in King’s Landing. From what you told him and from what he discerned, you seemed much happier here, liberated and free of such poisonous clutches. “Of course.” A soft rumble reverberated throughout his chest.
Winterfell’s snow-laden gates were now within reach, as guards in Stark tabards harkened the return of its Lord and Lady. He thoroughly enjoyed watching you interact with the denizens underneath his protection — you often greeted them with smiles and laughter.
He watched you grow into your station as Lady Stark, a growth that showed such promise. You had been shy around Northerners at first, but you now walked as if you had been in Winterfell your whole life. Cregan kept you close, his stance that of a protective husband, hovering above you with his hulking stature.
The Keep was close, and you could feel the crackling warmth of the hearth lick across your skin in the forefront of your mind. Cregan was characteristically stalwart, keeping you wedged against his side, swaddled in the thick furs of the direwolf.
Once inside, you welcomed the gust of warmer air. The Keep burned many fires and braziers when winter became sharp and bitter, your cheeks stinging from the cold. “Shall we retire this evening, or are you lacking in nourishment?” Cregan inquired, knowing that your penchant for foodstuffs had increased while pregnant.
“Could something be brought to our chambers? Perhaps a stew or a broth, that sounds rather warming.” As if on-queue, your stomach lurched with inklings of famish, as if your child also demanded something to eat.
“It will be done,” With his stoic assurance, your husband bent down to press a kiss against your temple, smoothing a palm across your back. “I will join you shortly, wife.” Cregan had a tendency to walk the Keep before retiring — spare a word to the guards, those in the kitchens, and anyone underneath his care.
“Do not keep me waiting for too long.” You mused, lips curving into a warm smile that could melt even the hardiest of ice — including that of your husband. The vulnerability that seemed to come to him in your presence was a comforting thing.
With a soft huff, Cregan cupped your chin, looking upon you with tempestuous hues, as gray as a winter’s storm. “I wouldn’t dare.” He assured, presenting you with a tender kiss. Gods, you had sorely missed his mouth in many ways, and you were swift to reciprocate.
After you had become with-child, fuller and round with the heir to Winterfell, you had not engaged Cregan as much in terms of intimacy. He wanted you to relax, to not have to lift a finger. You missed your husband in more ways than one, giving way to your own basic desires and carnal instincts.
The kiss possessed a charged edge, tension looming above, the fringes of it seeping into your lips. You held onto his forearm, an audible sigh slipping past your mouth when Cregan withdrew. He could detect your yearning — the sentiment was a mutual one, but he feared hurting you, as any man would.
With a gentle hum, you allowed your husband to leave you, watching as his impressive form encapsulated all space within the corridor he walked in. You let him tend to his duties, and you made for the spiraling stairwell, making your way to your chambers without a hitch.
Thick, wooden doors gave way to the sanctuary within, the hearth being stoked and tended-to by one of the servants. “I thought you might want it warm, m’lady.” She mused, having laid out a series of new wardrobes for you across the foot of your bed.
“Thank you, Tanea.” The new gowns and dresses seemed to be made with your new specifications in-mind, accommodating for your growing belly. Part of you felt self-conscious when it came to your pregnancy — you no longer seemed to fit into your own skin.
“You must be excited, with the babe on the way,” Tanea was easy to speak with, an exuberant young woman with cherubic features. “Your Lord-Husband certainly is.” She chimed, finishing with the hearth as she moved about.
“Is he?” Cregan was sometimes difficult to read, countenance permanently etched with that stoic Northern scowl of his, but you knew how happy he was. Knowing that your servants could see it filled you with delight. “I may need your assistance, Tanea.”
“Very much so, m’lady. He speaks as if he is a father already,” She fluttered to your side, assisting you in relinquishing the weight of your fur cloak and overcoat you wore. Tanea arranged the garments back into the large, wooden wardrobe. “Do you need anything else?”
“I do not,” You smiled, moving to sit atop the fur-laden footlocker at the end of your shared bed. “You have my gratitude, Tanea.” The girl curtsied, a proper gesture, before making her way from your chambers.
Intrigued, you happened to admire the new gowns strewn across your bed, many of them styled in the Northern way of dress, save for your evening shifts. One in particular caught your eye, made of sage-hued silk, translucent and frilly, the sleeves billowing.
Pinching the fabric between your fingers, you decided on wearing it to bed, pushing yourself up right as you organized the rest elsewhere, into the space of your wardrobe. Heavy footfalls resonated outside of your door, with it creaking open to give way to Cregan.
Your mountain of a husband carried two bowls of steaming stew, placing them down along the small, rounded table. The intricate carving of a wolf rested along the table’s edge, made of wood from the Wolfswood. “Are you tired?” He inquired, removing Ice from his shoulders, scabbard and all, placing it near his bedside.
After you had become with-child, he kept it close, in case of any unsightly, dire circumstances. He would not ever allow himself to be defenseless in your presence. You had thought it to be somewhat overly cautious, but you did not dissuade him otherwise.
“Not really,” You hummed, reaching for the many pins keeping your braids in-place. You removed them one by one, placing the ruby-studded needles upon your vanity. It felt better to let your hair down, pale tresses cascading across your shoulders in soft waves. “I am perfectly awake.”
Cregan’s visage was one of clear appreciation and adoration as he stepped closer, admiring the way you looked. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” He insisted, hands moving to assist you in unlacing your dress. This was a common practice with each passing night — you enjoyed it.
Warmth crept along your features as you stood still, allowing him to untie your bodice with his calloused fingers, until the garment loosened. “You are much too kind, husband.” Stepping from your gown, you were left in a white slip, one that had grown somewhat uncomfortable with its tightness.
“It is not a kindness, but the plain truth.” Cregan replied, pressing a kiss against the pale crown of your head, inhaling a gust of your saccharine scent. “You are my beautiful wife.” He affirmed with a grunt, and moved away to change into his own smallclothes. Abandoning his leather and armor always felt unusual for him.
There was no debating your husband, whose stubbornness was sometimes renowned. Instead, you smiled, abandoning the snug, ivory fabric for your field of sage, hastily pulling it on over the swell of your stomach.
It gave you ample time to observe Cregan, whose musculature ensnared you time and time again. He was impressively thick, broad-shouldered and built like the Wall itself. Seeing him standing there in just his trousers made something hot stir between your legs.
You crept forward, shamelessly wrapping your arms around him from behind, and you could feel a tremor throughout his body when he huffed. “I have a handsome husband, a perfect husband — and that is the plain truth.” You hummed, cold cheek burying itself against the warmth of his skin.
Wordlessly, you peppered soft kisses against his spine, and to any scars and bruises that you could see. You listened to the sharp exhale from your husband, who did not protest your actions. Your lips felt like the kiss of snow, still cold from the chilly outdoors.
Cregan let you stay that way, and in-truth, he enjoyed it thoroughly. Those large, calloused hands placed themselves atop yours, lifting both to his lips as he kissed your knuckles. He let them drop, and you caressed him wherever you could. The gesture was soft, but he couldn’t deny the growing sensuality present between you both.
“For the blood of the dragon, your hands run cold, wife.” Cregan rumbled, soothingly tracing his fingers across your wrist, feeling your physique against his back, including the swell of your belly. You pressed your palms against his abdomen, able to feel the taut, subtle muscle there.
“It is a good thing that I have you to warm them,” The silky, soft resonance of your voice brought him comfort. You sounded so relaxed and blissful, feeling him sluggishly turn around within your hold. Cregan cupped your cheek, rough pad of his thumb tracing across your lips. You kissed his thumb. “Kiss me.”
Cregan’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile, and he instead gestured to the meal he’d brought with him. “Once you eat and have proper sustenance, I might indulge you then, beloved.” He mused, noticing the twinge of disappointment on your face.
“Might?” There was an upward inflection within your tone, as if the mere suggestion of might had offended you to some degree. Your burly husband then caged you within his embrace, palms soothingly caressing along your hips. “Must you insist on tormenting me?” You teased.
With a low grunt, Cregan reached for his tunic, eyes twinkling with mirth. “For now.” Tugging on the dark blue linen of his nightshirt, he gestured for you to eat, sitting beside you at the table. His own chair groaned in protest, and before he knew it, you were devouring your stew.
A mouthful of warm, seasoned broth filled your maw, accompanied with hearty chunks of venison and stewed vegetables. The cuisine in the North differed greatly from the South, not that you minded. You often felt more fulfilled after meals than you used to.
“Gods, that was wonderful,” You groaned, the stew satisfying your cravings. It warmed you to the bone, causing a shudder to roll down your spine as you finished, nudging the bowl aside. “I could eat several servings of that.” Your confession prompted Cregan to smirk.
“Famished, were you?” Cregan mused, watching as you moved out of your chair, cradling your stomach with one hand. He very nearly rushed to assist you, but he knew you would’ve swatted him aside.
“Quite, but I am eating for two. Your child needs it as much as I do,” You remarked, wandering toward the hearth as you extended one palm toward the fire. The comforting heat licked across your flesh, the orange light dancing over your features. “Much better.”
Cregan joined you not long after, guiding you to sit atop the large footlocker at the end of your marital bed, closest to the open flames. His rough fingertips glided over the plane of sage-hued silks, as he admired your womanly form through the fabric. “This suits you.” He rumbled, gently tugging on the silk to accentuate his point.
“Tanea had the seamstress craft me new clothing, given that I’ve grown quite a bit,” Admittedly, you felt some insecurity in your current state, afraid that your husband may not enjoy you as he once had. “I am glad that you like it, husband. I was worried that you wouldn’t.”
Perplexed, chestnut brows furrowed together, his countenance one of clear concern. Slipping an arm behind you, he calmly stroked your side, silently beseeching you to tell him of your worries. He knew what it pertained to, even if it was left unspoken. “Your worries are misplaced. I love you.” He assured.
“It isn’t just that, I — I suppose I feared that you wouldn’t still enjoy me this way. Most husbands in the capital seemed so disinterested when their wives began to show.” This wasn’t the South, and Cregan was as far from a disinterested husband as one could get. He kissed your jaw, letting you rest against him.
“You are carrying our child, the heir to Winterfell — I would continue to love you regardless of what your body might look like. Damn the Southerners,” Cregan murmured, planting a hand atop your belly. “I look at you and I see my wife — I see perfection. My heart calls your name.” For a man so rugged and rough, his words made your blood surge with exhilaration.
Joining his hand, you placed your palm atop his, the one firmly perched against your belly. If Cregan were being truthful with himself, he found you to be painfully beautiful like this, swollen with his child, knowing that he put a pup in you. Those lascivious fantasies had now become reality.
“Ñuha dōna zokla,” My sweet wolf — your High Valyrian often brought him to heel, bringing out the siren’s lull within your voice. Cregan had made a valiant effort to learn some of the language for you, but it never sounded as pleasant on his Northern tongue. “I am yours.” You beamed, lilac hues glistening with ardor.
Bringing a calloused palm to your face, he traced the fine plane of your cheekbone, reveling in the velveteen texture of your flesh. A wolf, brought to heel at his dragon’s side. Cregan studied your Valyrian features, basking in your beauty, coaxing you in for a kiss.
Your mouth was disarmingly soft, catching him off-guard, stealing away all of his coherency. He felt you turn inward, palm planting itself against the thick, corded muscle of his thigh, gripping him tightly as he deepened your kiss.
Something warm stirred within him, a longing to feel your body against his, able to detect the hitch within your breath as he drew you closer. Your wanton need radiated from you in thick, permeating waves, enough to bring him into the intricate web of your desire.
“Easy, wife.” Cregan rumbled, wanting to temper your carnality before it raged into that of a dragon’s flame. Your pleading gaze suggested otherwise, prompting him to caress along the length of your spine. “I do not wish to hurt you.”
A begrudging sigh escaped your lips as you incessantly tugged at his tunic, staring at your husband with furrowed brows. “You wouldn’t,” You uttered, tracing your fingers over his heart. “We do not have to commit the entire act. I simply want to enjoy you in other ways — I miss it.”
Subtlety wasn’t your strongest suit, and Cregan knew this. Arousal stirred within him, cock twitching at your lascivious insinuations. “Hm,” A soft growl left him, one that seemed to share your sentiments. “Is that what my lady commands of me?” He murmured, holding you close.
“She does,” You hummed, treating him to a playful smile as you reached for his chestnut tresses. One of your hands slithered beneath his tunic, feeling along the solid, thick muscle of his abdomen. He stroked at your belly, a stern hum reverberating within his throat. “Gods, I need you.” You exhaled.
With your need laid bare, Cregan heeded you with a fire swirling within his gut. His hand dipped down to the apex of your thighs, pushing beneath your silken shift until he found your cunt. Gods, you were wet already, a tantalizing thing, one that he found delight in.
“You are warm already, beloved.” Cregan’s thunderous timbre raked down your spine, effortlessly gaining your subservience with ease. You shivered, feeling his thick fingers deftly caress across your slit, teasing and toying with you, gathering your slick.
Feather-light touches would have to suffice as Cregan lazily pressed one digit against your clit. His mouth found the slender expanse of your neck, delivering hot, passionate kisses against your throat.
A simpering whine tore past your parted lips, one filled with such urgency as you shifted closer, writhing against the sensation of his hand. Any lick of friction would do, consuming your body with its amatory heat. He grunted into the hollow of your throat, kissing you wherever you could.
Your own mouth found the impressive bulk of his shoulder, seeking to bring your teeth into his flesh. A sonorous, rumbling grunt left your husband when you bit him, leaving behind the crescent marks of your teeth. If it weren’t for your pregnancy, he would’ve marked you in this way, too.
Seeking the softness of your mouth, Cregan’s mouth twitched into a threadbare smirk as he kissed you hard, letting it linger as his hand withdrew from your skirts. A groan of disappointment left you, but he intended on making up for it fully.
He moved off of the footlocker, planting a lasting kiss against your brow. Towering over you, Cregan’s shadow eclipsed most flickers of firelight, gray hues swirling with warmth as he bent the knee to you, his beloved. It was a mesmerizing sight, one that you reveled in.
His massive musculature bullied its way between your thighs, warm palms shifting to caress along your legs, from ankle to calf. He had never seen someone as resplendent as you, breathtakingly beautiful, the blood of the dragon, his wife.
Gathering your skirts within your hands, you fisted the silks, dragging them up until they pooled around your hips. Warm lips embraced the crook of your knee, peppering kisses across your leg, until he reached the velvet flesh of your inner thighs.
Your hips began to tilt forward, seeking the pleasant heat of his mouth, a heat that he gladly granted you time and time again. Cregan kissed his way to the slick warmth between your legs, a thunderous exhale escaping him, chest vibrating with a grunt.
Cregan gingerly adjusted your position, letting your legs rest against his broad shoulders, your back sloped against the furs and footboard of your bed. He pressed a kiss against your mound, nose buried near your pelvis before he made his descent.
A warm lap of his tongue dragged itself over your core, like hot embers raking across your cunt. You sighed, blissfully succumbing to wanton desire, reaching for his crown of chestnut tresses, gripping at the back of his skull. “Cregan.” You whined, head rolling forward just a bit.
Pale waves framed your face, countenance contorted into an expression of sheer and utter bliss, brows furrowing together. Your husband happily found his solace between your legs, mouth pressing hot kisses across your cunt. His hand gripped at your haunch, the other trailing against your leg.
It was ambrosial, your taste; a finest stout, sweetest of nectars that stained his lips with your perfection. Cregan lapped at your cunt, dutiful and attentive, ensuring to find every spot that made you gasp for air.
Nimble digits fisted into the furs at your side, mouth agape as a myriad of throaty moans escaped you. Your hand roamed through his tresses, tugging and pulling whenever his tongue graced the pearl of your cunt.
Splitting past your folds, Cregan tasted every inch of you, tongue seeking your cunt with a fervor. He was vigorous in his ministrations, not shying away from consuming every drop of your arousal. His nose brushed against your mound, hands kneading into your thighs to reassure you, let you know that he had you.
Any inkling of roughness had dissipated from him in the wake of your pregnancy, replaced with a passionate devotion, a rapture reserved only for you. His strong hands held you close, caressing you wherever he could.
You tasted sweet upon his tongue, honey-thick and a feast to sate his appetite. If he would choose his fate, it would be in between your legs, listening to the myriad of moans and throaty whimpers leave you. It was satisfying to know how much you enjoyed this; derived pleasure from it.
A tremor gripped your legs, little spasms of delight making their way throughout your body. Cregan’s mouth forged a blazing path from the hood of your cunt to your entrance, tongue greedy and hot, before he went back up again, seeking your sensitive pearl.
“Cregan!” Gods, he brought you such pleasure, a pleasure that seemed to seep into your very bones, sate your endless yearning, for now. Your legs curled inward, tight atop his shoulders as you rocked yourself into his mouth, doing little to suppress the volume of your moans.
He pressed closer with a wolf’s appetite, throat burning with carnal hunger as he continued to lap at your slick cunt. Your arousal felt honey-thick upon his tongue, something reserved only for him, chin glistening with your nectar. Your legs squeezed at his head, and he knew that he pleasured you well.
Molten heat churned within the pit of your stomach, a sensation that you had been longing to feel again. Cregan did not relent, yet he happened to slow just enough to savor you, dragging his tongue toward that clutch of nerves at the hood of your cunt.
As soon as he pursed his lips around your clit, you nearly forgot your own name, thoughts completely derailed, scattered into a blissful abyss. Your body reacted with shivers and tremors, hand gripping at the nape of his neck with a reckless abandon.
Your back arched slightly, collarbone glittering with perspiration through the thick, warm haze of your chambers. The hearth had brought about a feverish heat, coupled with the throes of your intimate entanglement. Cregan derived satisfaction from your pleasure, delighted to please his wife.
Pliant flesh filled his palm as he cupped your derrière, bringing you closer, letting you grind yourself against his mouth, use him and take whatever you needed. A grunt stirred within his chest, reverberating within his throat as he went about seeking your clit, suckling on the pearl of your cunt.
“Oh Gods,” You moaned, nearly clasping a hand over your mouth to hide the salaciousness of your voice. Surely, the servants had heard you by now — you would be fortunate if all of Winterfell didn’t hear you. “I — I’m close!” Rocking forward again, you let out a whimper.
With a strangled whine, you desperately chased after your release, one that you had sorely needed. Cregan’s cock twitched at the sound of your delicious moans, a shudder rolling down his spine whenever you whimpered his name. “That’s it,” He rumbled, hot breath fanning over your core. “Go on.” His encouragement was softly spoken through his Northern timbre.
He wanted to stay there, rooted between your legs, mouth consuming your cunt as if it were his last meal; a man wrought with starvation.
Cregan favored it, thoroughly reveling in the way your body reacted to him, visceral and ecstatic. He gingerly suckled on your clit, feeling your fingers tighten within his chestnut locks, gripping him tight. He wanted you to have your release, built upon this pent-up feeling.
He could feel your encroaching release, feel the tension in your grasp, the way you let your hips continue to lurch forward. Without relenting, Cregan continued to suck at your clit, letting it intermingle with hot laps of his tongue, dutiful and fervent between your legs.
A comfortable silence filled the gap between you, intermingled with the sounds of your pleasured cries and Cregan’s sonorous grunts. That heated coil within your stomach began to unfurl, bringing an onslaught of arousal with it as you bucked into his mouth.
At last, your peak consumed you in a white-hot oblivion, and you very nearly saw the stars themselves. With a strangled gasp, your legs tightened on either side of his head, followed by a blissful rush of liquid heat. Your grip began to slack upon his tresses, chest heaving from exertion.
Cregan lingered there for a few moments more, tongue caressing your cunt, cleaning up any last drop of your nectar. His mouth glistened with it when he did inevitably withdraw, lashing across his lips before he kissed your thighs, showering you in affection.
“Do you feel better?” He mused, kissing the crook of your knee before standing to his feet. You were positively hot, feeling a feverish warmth crawl across your skin, thighs shaking in the aftermath. You hastily adjusted your slip, regarding him with a gracious expression.
“Very much,” Your confession made him smirk as he helped you into bed, abandoning his tunic at the iron-wrought foot. As he settled down, you joined him, curled within the space at his side. “Would you like me to return the favor?”
Cregan never expected you to do anything that you didn’t want to — never feel obligated, either. He would survive without a night of release. “Tomorrow, perhaps.” He murmured, moving to rest a hand against the swell of your stomach, caressing your growing bump.
“Thank you, husband — for everything.” A gentle hum left you as you placed your hand over his, allowing him to protectively cradle your stomach. You let your head rest against his shoulder, his arm holding you at his side.
A bemused huff escaped him as he peered at you with mirthful hues, gray eyes that resembled a thunderstorm. “You needn’t thank me,” He assured, briefly pressing a kiss to your temple. “You needn’t ask for it, either.” Cregan enjoyed the taste of your cunt more than anything else.
You couldn’t help but smile, sheepishly moving to press a kiss against his jaw. “I love you,” You sighed, letting your ardor for him be known as you felt your eyes grow heavy. “Tomorrow, I would like for us to see Silverwing. She grows lonely in my absence.”
Cregan knew how much the creature meant to you. He had met Silverwing before, but he dared not climb upon her back — you’d asked it of him several times before. “Of course, beloved.” He murmured, basking in the heat of the firelight.
A sharp, fluttering sensation blossomed throughout your abdomen, prompting you to gasp. It was sudden and unexpected, but not painful. It was foreign, and had been happening on rare occasions.
“What is it?” Cregan questioned, visibly concerned before you dismissed it with a bright, delighted smile. You gently guided his hand elsewhere atop your stomach, pale brows furrowing together as you searched for the source.
“There,” You mused, joyous laughter escaping you as another kick fluttered against your joined hands. “Do you feel it?” It was heartwarming to watch the happiness glisten within his eyes, the way in which he adjusted his position to truly feel. Cregan’s true smiles were a rarity, and you saw it now.
The blood of the wolf and the dragon stirred within, prompting you to smile appreciatively at your husband. This was something the both of you had made with your love, the heir to Winterfell. “They seem strong,” Cregan remarked, leaning over to plant a kiss against your brow. “Perfect, just like their mother.”
His hand never left your belly, even as he maneuvered the furs over the both of you, letting you move to lay against the warm expanse of his chest. Cregan exhaled, staring into the dying embers of the heart, tracing his digits along the swell of your stomach.
“Strong, just like their father.” You whispered, pressing a kiss against his jaw before you settled down for slumber, shielded by the protective grasp of your Lord-husband.
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aealzx · 5 months ago
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(This one is pretty long info dumping. Warning: mention of mild gore)
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Prologue
Previous Next
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With the state of the one named Danny, the safehouse Barbara directed the group to was one that was a little more well stocked than the others. It was only because of Jazz that they were able to reach it, being the one to accept all of them being blindfolded after Jason had suggested they could hold each other’s hands the whole time and let the rest of his team put the blindfolds on. It made walking a little awkward with Jazz firmly hanging onto her unconscious brother’s hand, but it was an annoyance Jason was willing to accept for the comfort it gave them. It was only when they were in a room without windows that they took the blindfolds off, and pulled chairs over for the kids to sit on.
“Don’t touch me,” Sam hissed when Cass took her arm to start cleaning a cut she had, snatching her limb back and glaring.
“If it gets infected and you get sick then you’ll have one more of your team in need of care. That seems detrimental to your state of affairs,” Damian commented after catching sight of Cass’ sad expression.
“Robin,” Tim hissed, not wanting to stress this group of teenagers out more than they already were.
“He’s not wrong,” Jason interjected, keeping a hold of Danny not only because there was only one table open that he’d directed Stephanie to set Danielle on, but also because he knew the others would behave better with their seriously injured friend in obvious custody. “You guys should take care of yourselves too, otherwise no one will be left to look out for him.”
It was effective. Sam flinched before lowering her head and hunching her shoulders like a scolded puppy, then offered her arm back to Cass.
“Dude,” Tucker protested weakly, but didn’t say anything else and aso looked to Tim to accept his own check up. He had to wait for Tim to stop facepalming first though, a heaved sign from him before he decided not to further comment on his two brothers’ unnecessarily blunt comments.
“Are you feeling a little better sweetie? Sorry we roughed you up so much, but you were quite the fighter and it was hard to deal with you,” Stephanie decided to also ignore her brothers, resting Danielle on the table while Dick was clearing the other.
At first Danielle was about to be snarky about whose fault it was that she wasn’t feeling okay, but Stephanie’s expert inclusion about her fighting ability effectively changed her thought process. “Heheeh. And don’t you forget it,” Danielle chimed with a proud giggle. “I’m feeling much better now. Thanks for carrying me all the way.”
“No problem! Thanks for listening to your sister and not fighting us again,” Stephanie returned. “Jazz said you’re different from the others. Do you need anything? It doesn’t look like you’re injured anymore.”
“I heal fast, so I’m okay. But do you have any food? We haven’t really gotten much lately,” Danielle asked shamelessly. She didn’t need any bandaids or antiseptic like the others, but fights had still taken a lot of energy on top of being short supply of food for the past few months. If they were willing to finally give her a good meal then she was going to take advantage of it.
“Sure thing,” Stephanie giggled, appreciating the honesty. “I’ll be right back,” she bid, leaving Danielle on the table and heading to another room where they kept food supplies.
Letting Stephanie pass by them, Jason shifted towards the remaining table where Dick was finishing clearing the surface of spare parts and supplies. “Get two blankets, he’s cold as ice,” Jason directed Dick, the concern in his voice being the only hit to his hidden expression.
“...Still breathing?” Dick asked after obediently pulling a thick blanket from a nearby cupboard and spreading it on the table first. They were both keeping their voices on the quieter side, letting Stephanie and Tim take care of keeping the other three occupied. Jazz was the only one staying near them, having not let go of Danny’s hand just yet.
“Yeah, it’s weak though,” Jason confirmed, carefully setting Danny down and helping Dick spread the second blanket over him. “How long has he been like this?”
That question was directed to Jazz, who pursed her lips both in reluctance to answer and to fight back more tears. “Since we got here. He collapsed and hasn’t woken up since,” she admitted, almost a whisper.
“What?” Dick smothered his outburst so the others didn’t notice, but couldn’t keep it quiet completely. “He’s been comatose for months without life support?”
Jazz flinched and shrank back slightly at the outburst, but Jason rested a hand on her shoulder to keep her from fleeing. They needed her to talk if they wanted to be able to help them. “He’s not a regular human, remember?” he reminded Dick, speaking up to try and help Jazz feel a little less interrogated.
Jazz didn’t offer any further information, just pulled her gaze back to look up at Dick, lip wavering despite her trying to keep a defiant expression. She wasn’t looking for pity, but she wasn’t good enough at pretending to be a tough girl that Dick didn’t notice her distress. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to... I know you were doing your best,” he apologized, pulling back a little as well.
“Dr. Thompkins has reached you guys. Penny-one opted to call her after hearing Danny's initial condition,” Barbara’s report came over all of their comms, able to keep tabs on everyone through secure video feeds of the inside and outside of the safehouse. And as each of her team members got DNA samples from their captive rescuees she was also starting an identity analysis for each of them in the background.
“Robin?”
That was all Dick had to say, calling to the youngest who was leaning against the frame of the only door. Damian simply raised his hand in a brief acknowledging wave before he left to let Leslie inside. As he left Stephanie returned a moment after, a plate of warmed up frozen burritos in her hands and a bag of bottled water over her shoulder. The bag caught Jason’s eye, and he moved over momentarily to grab one of the bottles and bring it to Jazz.
“Our medical contact has arrived. We’ll have her look at your brother first. Just make sure you stay hydrated,” he commented, handing her the bottle and letting her open it so she could see it was still sealed and therefore wasn’t contaminated. If that was even a concern that crossed her mind. It was starting to quickly seem like these kids weren’t criminals at all, and many of them were starting to have a hard time treating them as such.
“...Thanks,” Jazz responded, taking a moment to be willing to let go of Danny to open the bottle. It was much needed, and she ended up drinking half of it before lowering it again.
Jason watched her for a moment, noting how tense she was and her reluctance to speak with them. He couldn’t blame her for being secretive, having no idea what had driven them to where they had been. But he couldn’t help notice it was strange they were all still distrusting of the group they were with. Didn’t they know Batman’s group of birds were a trustworthy lot? Were they still hiding something illegal? Or maybe… they simply didn’t recognize them. Where were these kids from? “Before the Doctor gets here, I just want to strongly recommend that you don’t keep anything from her, alright? I know it’s scary to reveal things about your brother to a stranger, but the more she knows the better she can help. Got it?”
Jazz looked up at him at the half request half demand, eyes trying to see him beyond the mask as she considered his words. She hadn’t thought about that yet, being so used to keeping everything about what Danny was a secret from everyone. But what Jason said made sense, and she wasn’t going to risk Danny not getting better just to stay paranoid. Two months was a long time for them to have tried to figure things out for themselves, only to have every attempt fail. But if there was one thing they’d all learned in the past months, it seemed ghosts were practically nonexistent in Gotham. So perhaps there was much less risk than back home. “...Okay,” Jazz agreed, giving a small nod.
“This way Doctor. The young meta is over there,” Damian was quick to return, refraining from entering the room for a moment in favor of allowing Leslie to get by, but still gesturing his open palm towards the group of four to the right side of the room from the entrance.
“Thank you, Robin,” Leslie responded, stepping into the room and heading over to them. She didn’t sound too happy to be there. But considering the circumstances it was hard to be joyful about it. She did end up pausing when she laid eyes on Danny though, momentarily taken aback. “If I didn’t know any better I’d be questioning your ability to tell when someone was still alive,” she commented, looking at Dick and Jason for a moment before setting her medical case on the edge of the table with a small sigh. “Let’s take a look. What kind of injury is under the wrappings, dear?”
Her voice had softened, being able to recognize each of the kids who were there from the rundown Barbara had given her on the way there. As she gathered her tools Jazz watched her, hesitantly nudging herself to respond honestly. “...Burns,” she said quietly, willing herself to move as she saw Leslie pull out some scissors to cut the bandages with. “From here to here,” Jazz added, rising from the stool to gesture the entirety of Danny’s left side of his torso, and onto his shoulder somewhat.
“Thank you, dear,” Leslie hummed, slipping the scissors under the bandages on the opposite side to make sure she didn’t aggravate any of the injuries. It only took a moment to cut through the stolen wrappings, and then she was very gingerly peeling them away.
Jazz still felt nauseous whenever she saw the blaster inflicted burns marring a good portion of her little brother’s body, and was glad she was already sitting. Leslie didn’t seem too phased though, simply humming once the wounds were revealed even as Dick and Jason made tense noises. “Hmm. Those are definitely third degree,” Leslie commented, slowly cutting away the rest of the bandages around Danny’s shoulder. But then she noticed something unusual that caused her to look closer. The tissue that wasn’t destroyed appeared irritated, as if exposed to an allergen or poison. “What caused them?” she asked, looking closely.
“...A shot from a Blood blossom blaster,” Jazz almost whispered, clenching her hand as the memory of her brother screaming when the red tinted blast had caught him in the side made her feel even more sick. She wasn’t sure if that was worse than seeing him stand up afterwards with a gaping hole in his side dripping green blood. At least in his ghost form there hadn’t been much to see in terms of insides. But after having expended all his energy to take out the GIW’s machines he hadn’t had any left to heal, and the injuries had carried over his human half.
“Wait, you said third degree?” Sam suddenly spoke up, the whole room having stopped conversations when Leslie had come in. “You can’t see his ribs anymore?” she continued, standing up and intending to check for herself before Cass stepped in her way.
“Don’t interfere. You’ll get in the way,” Cass directed, holding her hands out to block Sam’s path and ignoring the glare directed at her.
Tucker made a gagging noise at the question, covering his mouth for a moment. “Dude, could you not remind me of that?”
So Sam wasn’t just being dramatic? Dick and his team ended up looking at Jazz when they heard her draw a breath of realization, turning from Sam back to check for herself. “Oh-... Oh thank goodness. You’re right,” she breathed, sagging to her knees and letting out a sob of relief. “We were right. He is still healing.”
It was a strange thing to hear, but for the first time since they’d caught them Sam actually gained a small smile. Danielle also ended up giving a short giggle too, kicking her legs once. “Told you,” she commented.
It was admittedly a very confusing conversation, but Dick had to just remind himself once again that Danny wasn’t completely human. Following Cass’ lead, Dick gently helped pull Jazz back to the stool she’d been on. “Let’s keep out of the Doctor’s way,” he suggested. 
“Can you guys explain a little more though?” Tim spoke up now, trying to piece together everything that had been hinted at. Apparently Danny had actually had fourth degree burns, but they had healed despite him not having proper medical care other than clean dressings, and having been asleep for months. “I’m having a difficult time understanding how he’s not…. in worse condition,” he added, catching himself from being too blunt like his siblings had been before.
“You mean how he’s not dead?” This time it was Danielle that was strangely blunt with a calmness that made the others think she didn’t fully understand what she was saying. “That’s easy. He and I are both halfas. It’s harder to kill someone who’s already half dead.”
Tim’s brow twitched, and Jason didn’t miss the few glances taken at him. He doubted they were the same as him, considering he unfortunately couldn’t phase through solid objects or fly like they had seen Danielle do many times already.
“Halfas?” Stephanie repeated, pulling her gaze from Jason and looking back to Danielle.
“It’s short for half human half ghost,” Sam answered, as though it was an obvious connection to make.
“Yup. See,” Danielle confirmed, pushing off the table midmorph and floating in the air instead of landing on the floor as her now stark white hair wisped gently in a soft wind unfelt by anyone else. It didn’t look like much of a change other than she had different hair and eye colors now. But it definitely felt different. That eerie skin crawling sensation that people usually associated with ghosts that almost never actually existed.
‘...Huh, I guess it’s kind of like Captain Marvel, but with their ghost half as the other side,’ Tim thought after a moment of consideration after watching Danielle. “And being halfas give you guys accelerated healing, but… Danny’s is… hindered?” he asked next, clarifying that they were on the same page.
The nod from Danielle turned into a grimace, and she floated back to sit on the table once more. “Something like that. We have to have enough energy for it to work, and he used up a lot. This place kinda sucks too. There’s no natural portals to the Ghost Zone, and no ecto hot spots that we can gather energy from either.”
“The closest supplement we could find that we thought would work was the Lazarus water. But after getting a hold of some we decided we shouldn’t risk using it,” Jazz added, feeling the despair starting to sink into her shoulders again.
“Yeah, that stuff is freaky bad. I only took a little bit and it was horrible,” Danielle agreed, shuddering and wrapping her arms around her knees.
The others weren’t sure how to answer that fully, most of them being lost in thought about the unfamiliar data they’d been given. Eventually Jason shifted with a short comment. “We’re not too fond of the stuff either,” he huffed, then switched his gaze back to Leslie.  “Have you finished looking him over?”
While they had been discussing half ghosts Leslie had continued her exam and treatment of Danny, having cleansed the obvious injuries, rebandaged them with Dick’s help, and added a simple saline IV, oxygen mask, and heart monitor. When Jason addressed her she was making notes about her results. “Mm. Aside from the burns it looks like he’s been exposed to an allergen or toxin as well,” she began, turning to face them.
“That’s the blood blossoms. They’re poison to ghosts,” Jazz supplied quickly, then looked apologetic for interrupting.
Leslie didn’t seem to mind though, just nodding and continuing her report. “There’s also the expected signs of malnutrition. If the human half still needs regular human nutrients then Vitamin IV therapy would be of benefit. The strange part is it looks like all of his bodily functions are significantly slowed, similar to that of cryogenic stasis. That could explain why he’s still alive after so long.”
“That also explains why he feels like an ice cube,” Jason noted, “Could you tell what’s causing it?”
“It seems to be self generated. I imagine this ‘meta’ potentially has ice related abilities,” Leslie answered. None of the teens said anything, but their tight lipped reactions and expressions of sudden understanding were enough to confirm Leslie’s guess.
“Do you have the details of the Vitamin IV needed? We can get that brought here,” Dick requested, moving closer to Leslie to look over her shoulder at the notes she’d taken. Leslie just shifted the tablet slightly, letting Dick get a good look since it seemed he was trying to formulate the next steps of action.
“Alright, it looks like everyone is stable for now. We’ll keep two people here at a time to keep an eye on everyone, and make sure people get fed and taken care of. Unfortunately none of you are allowed near any of our technology still, so we can see about bringing you some books or something to keep from being bored,” Dick started to plan out, giving a sympathetic shake of his head when Sam and Tucker groaned about not being let near technology. Jazz felt like it was fair enough, she wouldn't trust them either and at least they were going to make sure they had food and water. Plus they seemed to be pretty serious about taking care of Danny. Even after learning about the unique difficulties in his condition they hadn’t abandoned them yet. “The rest of us will work on getting the rest of what Danny needs, that we know of so far. Something to neutralize the blood blossom residue, IV vitamins, and ectoplasm. Does anyone else have any unique needs?”
At that point Sam raised her hand, letting Dick gesture to her before speaking up. “Vegetarian,” she said simply.
“Not a problem. I’ll make sure everyone in charge of food knows.” Dick nodded, noticing how Damian very subtly gained a smile about that. “Do any of you have a picture, or description of the blood blossom plants? It doesn’t sound like anything I’m familiar with.”
“The only ones we’ve seen look like rosebuds, red with black leaves and stems,” Sam spoke again, seeming to be more favorable to them now. The same care for Danny that was winning Jazz over was winning the rest of the team as well.
“Got it,” Dick nodded, gaining a pleased smile when Leslie also passed over a sample of the blood blossom affected tissue that she had taken from Danny before covering the wounds again. A tiny sample encased in glass, but it should be more than enough for them to figure out how to neutralize the remainder of the toxin without hurting the lad further. “Orphan, Spoiler, are you okay with taking the first shift?”
“Sure thing,” Stephanie agreed, giving a thumbs up along with Cass.
“I’ll stick around too for now,” Jason added, for no other reason that he felt like he should stay there for a while. At least until they knew for sure who these Phantom kids were.
Dick seemed surprised, but didn’t argue. “Fine. Keep in touch, we’ll let you know as soon as we find anything,” he nodded, motioning for those who weren’t staying to head out. He knew Leslie would stay to double check their work on the other kids, so it ended up being just him, Tim, and Damian filtering out the door.
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I actually had this one all typed out before I even started the prologue one. So I just had to draw something today to get it all up.
Drawing this I looked up canon heights for the first time and found out that Danny is a tiny lil nugget, and that's adorable X'D
I also complained to Na about "having to draw Jason's stupid helmet instead of his pretty face" and she gave me the suggestion of having his face on the side.
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thesummerestsolstice · 9 months ago
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I love it when Elrond is portrayed as someone who is a little bit incomprehensible to most of the elves at first. Not even just because he's a half-elf, but because he reminds them all of so many other people, and that layering can be kind of jarring.
He sings beautifully, with a voice that sounds like no elf or man, and it reminds many of the Sindar of Luthien. It reminds some of the Noldor of someone else, another singer with raven-dark hair and starry gray eyes.
The braids he does his hair in– and he always keeps it braided at first, because letting it run loose is another thing that makes people whisper of Luthien– are in the traditional Noldor style. The survivors of Gondolin love that; Turgon always wore his hair in classical styles too. The other part of the House of Finwe that clung to traditional braids goes unmentioned. But everyone knows.
And he was clearly taught about court manners; taught to be gracious and charming, and a very good listener. The elf who could have taught Elrond those things is usually skipped over entirely, in favor of those reminiscing about Idril's graceful poise or Melian's endless patience.
He looks very much like Luthien, but there is a particular Finwean sharpness in his facial structure; something that makes him look a lot like Fingolfin, as well. Fingolfin looked very much like his father. And his older brother.
His smile is just like Earendil's (whose smile is just like Tuor's), and his strange, birdlike laugh is from Elwing. He fights and writes with his left hand– but then, so did Earendil, because while all elves are right-handed, not all humans or half-elves are. He eats no meat– just like Beren, they say, but the way Elrond tells it the choice had nothing to do with that history. There is ainuric power in him and something very human in the set of his shoulders. The flowers grow around any place he stays long enough. He gets sick in a way no elf, and certainly no maia, ever would. His accent is odd, and archaic, and changes noticeably when he's too tired to obscure it. His mannerisms are a mixture of about twelve people, almost all of whom are dead, and several of whom are not spoken of by the time he shows up in Gil-Galad's camp.
And the reflections of Elrond unsettle a lot of people; because one moment they see a fallen hero or loved one, and the next they see the person that took them. Or perhaps someone else, that they never knew at all. There is reverence and fear and uncertainty. It's messy.
Elrond himself is coming to peace with this by the War of Wrath. There is love in carrying the parts of your ancestors with you, even when they aren't around any more. And he knows better than anyone that he is always himself, first and foremost. Still, it takes everyone else a while to stop seeing a ghost and start seeing Elrond.
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illycanary · 9 months ago
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Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident
I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.
For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 
We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 
And we saw ourselves in Katara. 
Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 
Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 
Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.
Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?
Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 
After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 
And do better he does not.
The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.
Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.
Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.
The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 
Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.
I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.
I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.
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yandere-daydreams · 1 year ago
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Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who crash-lands on your balcony in the middle of winter, long after he should've migrated somewhere more hospitable to his animal counterpart. He's badly injured, half-frozen, and clearly in a state of shock, but you manage to drag him inside after a few minutes of struggling and fussing over his massive wings. An emergency vet is called, a small fortune dulled out in exchange for anti-biotics and bandages, but Diluc only wakes up hours after the chaos has blown over, after he's been moved to your bed and most of his blood has been scrubbed out of your carpeting. If you didn't have such a soft spot for birds, you might've been more mad at him.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who's surprisingly calm for a man who was on the verge of death less than a day ago. He apologizes for the trouble he's caused you, explains that his injuries came from a 'minor altercation' with his brother and promises that you'll be repaid for everything he's cost you so far, even if you can't say you're sure how a hybrid would have that kind of funding. His composure only falters when he realizes that he won't be able to fly until his wings heal, and even then, he manages to limit his frustration to a thin scowl and a wary sigh. His poise is a relief. He'll be stuck with you for a while, and a temper would've made a bad situation even worse.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who clearly isn't as wild as you initially thought. If anything, your meager apartment seems too a little too modest for his tastes - you're not sure if you've ever heard anyone mention the thread count of your sheets so casually, let alone a hybrid. Still, he adjusts quickly. By the end of his first week with you, you can't stop him from helping around the house. He's a good cook, especially, and he seems to enjoy being able to take some of the stress off of you. You've heard that it's a common trait for hybrids, some universal base instinct to 'provide for a pack'. To be honest, you don't really care. He's nice to have around, even if you know he can't stay forever.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who only ever blushes whenever you tend to his wings. You're not a professional, but you do your best to clear away all of the bent and broken feathers, to replace his bandages as often as the vet recommended, but you're still clumsy, still slow enough to mean he has to spend the better part of the hour sitting between your legs with his wings splayed out in your lap. He tries to keep up a conversation, but he trips over his words, balls his fists, pulls his hindlimbs against his chest and tries to pretend he's unaffected. It's cute, watching a creature as stoic as Diluc lose a few of his reservations.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who's too massive to sleep anywhere but your bed. You resign yourself to the couch for a while, but it's not long before you give in to his constant offers to share and end up spending most nights pressed into his side, one of his wings draped over you and an arm loosely wrapped around your waist. You learn quickly that hawks are creatures of routine, which means that you now have a very, very strictly enforced bedtime. He's not afraid to sling you over his shoulder and put you where he wants you to be, and there's only so much you can do to fight against a bird-man twice your height and more than double your strength.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who gets... protective of your apartment, after a few weeks. It's not much - a small frown when you mention a friend he doesn't care for, a certain caginess when you have guests over - but it's far-cry from his normal, gentlemanly behavior. It might just be the instincts of a wounded animal attempting to protect his nest, but still. You worry about him, sometimes.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, whose wings are getting better every day. He's able to make short trips, now, and you make sure to praise him as heavily as you can whenever he comes back from a lap around your apartment complex. You swear, when you're at work or running errands, you'll see a scarlet shape circling miles above you and convince yourself it's Diluc, but he's not the secretive type. You're sure, if he was really that far along, he wouldn't be able to hide it from you. You're sure, if he was really able to fly that well, he wouldn't stay any longer than the time it took to tell you that he was going home.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who's cuddled against your chest when you come to, your skin still numb from the windburn and your vision still blurred with tears. You can barely keep yourself awake, barely lift your head, but you can make out a lavish, crimson bedroom; a bed of sheets and pillows that goes on as far as you can see. No, not a bed, a nest. One big enough for a hawk and its mate.
Red-Tailed Hawk!Diluc, who's always been territorial. You just weren't able to see that until after he decided you were a part of that territory, too.
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i-cant-sing · 2 years ago
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Jason with baby reader whose very affectionate with him but a total menace with everyone else?
Platonic Yandere Batfam x reader
Yesss obviously 💖💖💖 okay but like imagine something with me:
Reader being the youngest addition to the batfam, could be Bruce's bio kid or not, doesn't really matter. The only reason she even ended up at the Wayne Manor was because perhaps Gordon kinda begged Bruce to take you in because he doesn't want you to end in the horrible foster system of Gotham, just asking Bruce to look after you for a couple of months until Gordon can find a good home and adopt you himself.
Anyways, that doesn't happen because Gordon dies. So what was supposed to be a few months, ended up being an indefinite stay.
Okay usually this would be the point when their yandere tendencies start to show but let's say this time- it don't happen.
Look Bruce and the batfam are like super busy with that crime fighting life, believe it or not, vigilant-y life takes a lot of their time. When their not busy saving Gotham, they're either at home resting and recovering, or at work/school. They simply do not have time for family bonding.
Or so you thought.
You've seen the boys going to the "secret" batcave (u found out soon about their hero identities, cause you're smart like that.) and they spend a lot of time training, so they're definitely bonding. While you don't reveal that you already know about their identities and continue to play the fool, it still kinda... hurts to be surrounded by so many people who are supposed to be "family" yet don't treat you as such. Damian snaps at you anytime you ask if you could join him and the others on anything theire doing- even something as simple as just playing video games.
(And then i found out about Damian and Dick being each others fav siblings) Dick tries to be amicable but even he'd turn down hanging with you in favour of taking Damian out to the carnival, saying something along the lines of "Oh Y/n, its just- I haven't seen Damian in a looong time, and it'd be unfair to him if I brought you along because he's just been lookin forward to this outing for so long. Maybe we can do something next time?" But next time doesn't come around, with Dick always prioritising Damian over you.
You thought that Tim would be easier to spend time with, since he's home a lot more than others, but he's a workaholic to the core, and even of you did swing by with a coffee, just to check up on him, he'd plain out tell you to leave, to bother someone else because he just doesn't have the time. And yet there he was, talking for hours on the phone with Conner.
Jason was nice to you even though you initially thought he'd hate you like he hated Damian and well... his other brothers and Bruce as well. But surprisingly, you got along with him. Probably because he thought of you as this sweet kid who didn't know any better about the world, who just needs to be shielded by Gotham and more importantly- Bruce. Maybe that's why Jason talked to you- you're the only one in the house who's not a hero. Maybe that's what he needed: a healthy relationship with someone normal. And it would've been great if he actually hung around more than an hour. No, he was far too busy with ending criminals, or as he liked to tell you "my job doesn't allow me any holidays. Also, I hate Bruce and would swallow a cactus than stay in his home." But at least he brought you souvenirs from the around the world! His "job" had him travelling the world.
Perhaps the boys are just too busy, or don't like spending time with girls, so you decided to go to Bruce. But he's always busy, either with work or with Gotham, or with one of his sons. He is aware of your presence, he just doesn't exactly know what to do about it. With you not being a vigilante or exhibiting any qualities that he would deem extraordinary or impressive, he doesn't know what to do with you. Sure, he's set you an account where he's given you more than enough money to cover all your expenses and everything else, but that's all he gives. Just financing you until you're independent. He doesn't check in with you, not really interested in your average life, and he won't say it out loud but sometimes, he may have even forgotten about you. A few times, he may have taken you along with him to some galas with his sons, and when you're alone with him, you can sense that he's not... pleased? Content? Happy? Sure, he puts an arm around your shoulder and smiles for the cameras, but you can see the way his eyes wander around the room to find something more interesting, more worthy of his attention. The way he taps his fingers with unease, giving you curt replies and dismissive smiles when you tried to talk about schoo or anything, it all made you realise that you are not a child in his eyes.
You are a burden.
No. No, that couldn't possibly be the case. I mean, he took you in. Bruce wouldn't do that if he didn't care about you, right?
Still, to test that theory, you left the gala, alone and without informing anyone. Surely, he or one of the boys would notice your absence. Surely.
They didn't, even as the gala ended, they all left in their own cars, no one even thought to stop and wonder if you were riding with any of them. Hurt and depressed, you made the stupid decision of walking home in your fancy gown. Of course you'd be pulled in the alleyway and be mugged. The low lives decided that they wanted more than just your money, and when you realised their vile intentions, you began thrashing in their arms to break free, resulting in one of them punching your face repeatedly. Just when you thought all was lost, suddenly those pervs were thrown off you and were shot dead. You looked up and were surprised to find out who was your saviour-
Red Hood.
"Jason?"
"Y/n? I mean, who?" Jason was shocked to see you here, more so when you recognised it was him under the mask.
You rolled your eyes. "You can drop the act, Jay. I've known for a while." You groaned in pain as he helped you up. "Shit, you okay?" He asked, helping you walk towards a nearby bench. "Yeah. I mean I got mugged, but yeah..."
"Wait, what are you even doing out here this late?" You told him about the gala. "Soooo... why didn't you go home with them?"
You shrugged. "Just needed to confirm something."
"Yeah? And what's that?"
You remained silent, not wanting to discuss the topic further. Jason sighed before pulling out his phone. "I'm gonna call, Alfred. Have him send a car so pick you up." You grabbed his hand before he could dial.
"I cant- I don't want to go home." He raised a brow. "Why? What's wrong? Did Bruce do something? I swear to god I'll beat-" you shook your head. "No, Jay- look, I just need a break. If it's not too much to ask, can I spend the night with you? Or you can lend me some money and I'll stay at a hotel or something. Promise I'll go back home tomorrow."
Jason stared at you, trying to figure what's bothering you, but he also didn't want to push you by asking. So he nodded. "Of course, you can stay with me tonight. But only if you promise to make me your delicious chocolate chip cookies tomorrow." You smiled, nodding.
Jason took you to his apartment, cleaned up your wounds, cooked you dinner, cracked some jokes and then tucked you in bed. He actually tucked you in bed. He'd never know, but that simple gesture had you crying until you finally fell asleep.
When you returned home the next day, you weren't really surprised that no one had noticed you didn't return home last night.
No one in that house even knew how you were almost rap-
"Miss Y/n?" Alfred called from the kitchen, eyes wide as he took in your bruised face. "What happened? Are you alright?"
You nodded. "Yeah. I fell on the concrete pavement, someone pushed me accidentally-"
"Alfred?!" Bruce called from the dining room.
"You better go. And Alfred-" He stopped. "-don't mention this to him. I don't want him to worry over nothing."
Alfred nodded, leaving to serve Bruce and the boys breakfast. You don't think he'd tell Bruce and even if he did, you don't think he'd actually worry-
"Y/n?" Bruce was standing at your door, eyes narrowing at your face. "Alfred told me you fell?" He walked upto you, inspecting your face. Wait, did he actually came to check up on-
"How many times did you fell? Face first? Because that's a lot of bruises."
"It was a concrete pavement."
"We don't have concrete pavements in the house."
"I was out leaving from a cafe when I fell. Just wanted to eat some bagels." You continued to lie.
Bruce narrowed his eye at you before sighing. "Look, I don't have time for this. If you're in trouble, just tell me."
"I'm not."
"Then do you really expect me to believe that you fell? Is this a desperate cry for attention?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "If you really did fall in public, "multiple times" as you claim, did you at least get a cab? I don't want anyone taking pictures of you like this and make headlines tomorrow about one of the Wayne kids being abused. I won't have you tarnish the family name."
What? Did he just- did he really say that?
"No. Its not-" you were interrupted by his phone ringing, and Bruce left you to take the call.
You sat there on your bed, dumbfounded and even more heartbroken than before, mind replaying the words over and over again, trying to make sense, make EXCUSES for him, that perhaps you misunderstood him.
But you didn't.
That day, you had finally given up on the batfam. You refused to make a fool of yourself any longer by hoping that one day they'd accept you. You were and always will be an outsider to them. You won't depend on him any longer, even for your finances.
Years went by and you worked hard on yourself to get admission in a highly prestigious college with a fully funded scholarship, all while you worked to handle your expenses. When you got your admission letter, you didn't even bother telling anyone at home about it. Instead, you went out for lunch with Jason to celebrate (who had been dropping by more regularly ever since that night you were mugged), who was more than overjoyed, ruffling your hair and telling you how proud he was of "the only sibling smart enough to bust him out of jail and retirement homes." Jason truly did want this for you- to be normal and go to college like other normal people.
You moved out of the Wayne Manor quietly and moved into your college dorms in a different city, where you found an even better job on the side. The job that now helped you save up enough money to start paying Bruce back for all the years he had to spend housing, clothing and feeding you.
After a couple of months, you were able to wrote your first cheque to Bruce. And if it weren't for the large sum of money and your name attached to it, Bruce wouldn't have realised that he hadn't talked or even seen you for a while. He didn't allow himself to feel guilty for thinking that he may have forgotten about your existence for quite some time.
Picking up the phone, he called you and asked you about the cheque.
"I'm paying you back." Bruce was a little surprised to hear the monotonous tone.
"For?"
"The money you spent on me all these years?"
"Why? And how are you even paying?"
"I've got a job." What? When did this happen? "Look, I gotta go. I have class." You cut the call, and what class? As far as he remembers, Alfred had said something about attending your high-school graduation earlier this year.
Were you in college?
No, no. If you were attending college, he would know. Surely, you'd tell him. And even if you didn't or he forgot, he would remember paying for your tuition. Or maybe he already was, from the account in your name where he sent monthly payments.
Curious, he called the bank, only to be informed that you haven't used the account in years! They did inform him that you opened a separate account, and since Bruce owned the bank, they let him see the account and what you've using it for.
That's how he found out about your college.
You were just leaving your class to go home when you spotted him leaving the Dean's office. Apparently you were not the only one who spotted him, as your classmates all started talking about the famous Bruce Wayne. As Bruce's eyes met yours, you immediately turned and walked the opposite way until you had left the campus, and you went home.
You weren't surprised to see his car outside your apartment. But you were a little surprised to see him in sitting inside your apartment, sitting on the couch with an unamused expression.
"What do you want?" You asked, dropping your bag.
Bruce raised a brow at you. "What? No, hello?" He sighed. "Why did you leave the campus after seeing me?"
"I don't want to be associated with you."
His gaze turned stern. "Why? Are you embarrassed?"
No, I hate you. "No one will take me seriously if they knew I was related to you. I just want to be-"
"-independent? Is that why you sent me this cheque?" Bruce pulled out the piece of paper and dropped it on your coffee table. "Why are you doing this?"
"I told you, I just wanted to pay you off."
"You don't need to. You're family."
Only on paper. You thought.
You shrugged. "Doesnt matter. I'm paying you back every cent."
Bruce stood up, walking right in front of you and it was just then that he realised how much you'd grown up. You looked nothing like the scared little kid who was always peeking from around corners. You had matured, far too much for your age. He could see the little bags under your eyes, the wrinkles on your forehead, the disdain in your eyes.
"Why are you trying to cut me out of your life?" Before you could argue, he put a hand up. "I saw the documents. You didn't list "Wayne" as a surname on your college documents. You're trying to distance yourself from the Wayne name? Are you in trouble? Have you done something... dishonourable?"
You scoffed. All these years and all he cares about is his public image.
"Dont worry, I haven't done anything to bring down your family name." You spat. "Look, just take the cheque and leave. You'll never hear from me again, either in the media or otherwise."
Bruce glared at you, clearly slighted. "You're being difficult for no reason." You had to bite your tongue to stop yourself from going off on him.
He turned around to leave, not bothering to pick up the cheque.
"How'd you get inside?" You asked when he opened the door. You wanted to know, especially since you took all the right measures Jason taught you to stop anyone from breaking in.
He looked over his shoulder and smiled.
"I bought the building."
-
You moved to a new place the next day, after you found out that the landlord refused to accept payments from you, since "your father owns the building. You don't need to pay rent." You wish it was easier to change schools though because apparently the everyone now knows you're Bruce Wayne's kid, which everyone figured out when someone called "Y/n WAYNE, please report to the Dean's office", who showed you that he had the college administration fix the little mess up of "forgetting to add Wayne to your name in all the documents" and then told you that he's very grateful to your father for his very generous donation to the college.
Bruce didn't bother you much after that interaction, except for monthly cheques and cash he'd send you, but you're never using cashing them. He also sends you regular invites to galas and social gatherings or even family dinner at home. You don't go to Wayne Manor anymore, not unless absolutely necessary.
Like today, when Bruce called you to come home for a "family portrait" for a magazine or something because the article is covering about all the Wayne kids.
You could already feel your throat closing up as the Manor came into view. You were greeted at the door by Alfred, the man saying he missed your presence at the manor. You just smiled and nodded.
"No luggage?" He inquired, noting that you only brought backpack.
"No. I won't be staying long."
You started making your way towards your room when you passed Damian's room.
"Y/n?" Dick called out, surprised to see you after so long. Or at all? You'd wonder.
"Hey." You said, eyes darting from him to the room where Tim and Damian were, both just as stunned to see you there.
"So, um... how are you?" Dick asked, unsure how to proceed this conversation.
"Great." You replied before turning around and walking to your room, leaving the boys befuddled.
Luckily, the photographer came soon and started with the shoot, and if it weren't for the photographer continuing to tell you to scoot closer to your brothers until Dick just pulled you and you ended up being squished in between them. Had Jason been here, things would be way more comfortable. But since he's been declared dead to the world, he can't be a part of the family portrait.
And later on, its time for dinner and reader is leaving but Bruce calls her back, telling her to at least stay for dinner if not for the night, and you tell him "I can't, exams are coming up." And he replies "really? The schedule your Dean sent me doesn't show any exams coming up." And after some back and forth, you finally sit down at the dinner table, chewing your food silently while the others talked. You were almost finished and this miserable reunion was coming to an end when one of them started to talk about something that triggered you.
It could be anything, from badmouthing Jason to even telling you to get off your high horse and stop thinking that you're better than them just because you've been living on your own and shit.
That's when you just couldn't hold back your anger and went off on them. Everything you'd experienced, all the emotional abuse and neglect you'd been subjected to from them, you told it all.
With tears in your eyes, you left the manor, only to be kidnapped by the Joker. Bruce and his sons didnt say anything to each other that night, except for replaying your words over and over again, simmering in their own guilt silently. Well, that was until-
"She wouldn't know the sacrifices we had to make to keep her blissfully unaware and ignorant of all the crime outside!" Damian yelled. "Just to keep her wrapped up in this bubble, outside of which is a world where she wouldn't ever truly survive if it wasn't for us!"
"Damian-" Dick sighed frustratedly. "-she never asked us to do this all. We chose this life, long before she came along. It's unfair."
"Unfair??? Then how could she claim she didn't feel "protected" when all we've done is slave over making this hellhole safe! How can she say that from the comfort of this home? She's nothing but ungrateful to us and to father! I'm telling you Grayson, if the tables were turned, she wouldn't ever make the sacrifices to save us!" Damian yelled before slamming the door on his way out.
Dick pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as he asked Tim. "Do you... think we've failed her?"
Tim was staring at the ceiling, keeping his thoughts to himself. He definitely felt guilty, he remembers the way he would dismiss you.
Tim's silence was enough answer for Dick, though the two didn't know what to do next.
Thankfully, Alfred did.
"Miss Y/n forgot her phone here last night. Should I parcel it-"
Tim was already out of his seat, grabbing it. "No, I'll take it to her." Turning around, he saw Dick also standing.
"We'll take it to her. Thanks Alfred."
-
10 hours later, the two brothers stood outside your apartment. They knocked, but you didn't answer.
"Maybe she's at college?" Dick wondered. "Wanna wait here or go- Tim, wait for me!" His younger brother was already down the stairs when they saw Jason outside.
"What are you two dimwits doing here?" Jason asked, actually surprised to see them there.
"Y/n forgot her phone." Tim said, pulling out your phone. "She's not home. We're going to her college."
Jason's brows furrowed. "Why? She doesn't have classes today. We were supposed to meet for breakfast."
Dick couldn't help but feel slightly jealous of your relationship with Jason. Were you always this close to him? And why Jason, he was home far less than any of them.
Jason moved past them to your apartment, a spare key in his hand. "Maybe she just doesn't want to see you two."
Again, Dick couldn't help the envy that creeped up on him at the sight of Jason using a spare key to let himself in, the feeling only intensifying when he spotted many frames with pictures of you and Jason together.
After checking the whole place, you weren't there. Now, it was time for Jason to start panicking, as he asked them what happened at the manor, and he blew up at them as well for pissing you off like that.
When they had confirmed that you weren't in college or had ever returned to the city yesterday, they all went into panic mode as they informed Bruce about you going missing.
They all rushed back to Gotham, where Bruce had already pulled up CCTV footage of the place where you were last seen, hearts dropping when they saw someone come up from behind and knock you out, before kidnapping you. But no matter how much they searched for you, how many goons they beat up, they couldn't find you.
It is during this time that their yandere tendencies start to develop.
And it wasn't until a week later when they received a hint about your whereabouts, and they finally found you, in a warehouse, chained to the ceiling, a shock collar around your neck, all bruised and beaten because come on, Joker ain't gonna go easy on you.
The torture he subjected you to, it was almost comparable to the one Jason had to suffer. You were unnervingly still, and they couldn't help but wonder whether you were... dead.
That was until the shock collar went off and you screamed as your body jolted, Joker's manically laughing in the shadows.
"She's a tough one, much better than the wannabe Robin! I've been shocking her, waterboarding her, whipping her all week but she refused to tell me your real identities! I was starting to believe her when she said she didn't know, but it's just fun seeing her writhe in pain-!"
They beat Joker up, while one of them takes the collar and chains off you. You'd passed out from pain and exhaustion, and when you woke up, you were back in your room at the manor. While you were unconscious, Jason did end up revealing about how you actually did know about them being vigilantes, further intensifying their guilt and increasing their yandere tendencies, after all they do realise how they've failed to protect you.
So the story from here progresses on to when reader is actually forced by the family to stay in the manor to heal, all while their need to protect you increases the more you refuse their help.
When your injuries have healed and you're ready to leave, but they don't let you. Bruce tries to approach you, gently telling you that you need to be at home with your family, where you're safe. He wants one more chance at righting all his wrongs, he won't shy away- he admits he's made mistakes in the past with you. You back away when he tries to come closer to you.
"You don't get to choose to make up for your mistakes when you feel guilty, not when I had to spend all those years learning to live with your horrible parenting."
Tim spoke up next, telling you to just listen to what he has to say, but you cut him off with a dismissive hand.
"This is how you used to brush me away whenever I came to you, like I was some sort of fly, always too busy, too much of a hassle to even reply to a simple hello. So, why should I give you my time of the day now?"
Dick tries the comforting approach too, surely you don't hate him as much since he wasn't even around that much in the first place to cause you any hurt, promising you that he will do better this time. But you shut him down quickly too.
"I was never a priority for you then. I used to sit on these stairs, waiting for you day and night to finally be able to spend time with you. I know better by now than to trust your false promises."
Damian had a melt down next because you insulted his favourite brother. He went off on you that you never had to suffer through the same trauma as he or any of them did. How it's unfair that you don't give them another chance, how you don't understand that the Wayne's aren't a perfect family because of all the horrible things they've had to and still do go through on a daily basis.
You stared at him for a few moments before replying.
"I was almost r*ped."
The room went deadly silent, Bruce's mouth agape, Damian's eyes widening, while Dick and Tim turned pale.
"The night we went to that gala, you guys all left without me. I was pulled in an alley, mugged and almost r*ped if it weren't for Jason." You chuckled dryly. "What's worse is that none of you even bothered to call me, or even noticed that I hadn't returned home that night. I could've been dead in a ditch and none of you would've noticed for months, if not years." You wiped the tear that escaped your eye. "None of you attended my graduation, none of you noticed I had left for college, not until I sent a cheque to Bruce. I've buried you all in my past, and if it helps you sleep at night, I have forgiven you as well but I will never forget."
You looked at Damian. "And just because you've gone through some shit Damian, doesn't mean I'm undeserving of love and respect. I've experienced traumatising incidents too but the difference between you and me is that I don't use them an excuse to be a fucking dickhead."
You heard a car honk from outside. "Jason's here to drive me home- my home."
But before you could take another step, Tim had injected you with something. You jumped back, holding the puncture wound on your neck.
"W-what did you do?!" You yelled at him, and Tim only shrugged. "What's necessary."
You heard another honk, and this time, you opened your mouth to yell for Jason, only to have a hand slap over your mouth, muffling your screams for help. It was Dick, as he quickly wrapped his arms around you and pulled you to his chest, dragging you away from the door as Bruce ordered Tim to put the whole house on lock down mode (essentially an impenetrable fortress), while Damian went outside to release his anger on Jason, both for failing as a brother to you (not that he'd ever admit it) and for Jason being clearly your favourite.
And from here on, you're being constantly coddled by the batfam (except for Jason since he does actually want to save u from the batfam). Bruce is always the first one to greet you every morning, and if you're still asleep when he comes, he might get away with patting your hair without you flinching away. He'd greet you, tell you he's expecting you to join him downstairs for breakfast. You simply turn your back to him, pulling the covers over your head, not bothering to reply to him, hoping to catch a break in this goddamn house.
You're only able to spare yourself for a few moments before the covers are yanked off you and you're greeted by the cheery voice of Dick. "Good morning, baby bird!" He'd yell before pulling you up and of the bed by your arms, and then to his chest, spinning you around as you try to escape his crushing grip. He's not fazed at all, mostly because he views you as a tiny little feral kitten who just needs a lot of love and snuggles. He drags you down for breakfast, everyone else already seated. You're seated between Dick and Bruce so that you can't run away, and also because Bruce makes it a habit of talking to you on various topics, usually about the book he'd leave on your bed. You would talk to him at first, but after a few weeks, you got bored with the silent treatment.
If its Dick's day with you, he spends most of the time trying to do anything and everything. No activity is off the table. Baking? Hell yes, but he's the only one who laughs after he intentionally throws flour at your face and fails at starting a food fight when you just leave. You wanna play board games? He's pulled out every board game in history and he very obviously let's you win. Movie night? He's build a fort (that he claims you two built together. You didn't, you just stood there while he built it.) And has all the classic films, pulls you close so that he can nuzzle his cheek with yours (again, not fazed by you trying to scratch his face off). Sometimes, he'd even bring you to the gymnasium (because Bruce can afford to build one in his house), where he lowkey forces you to learn about gymnastics, but at least he's a good spotter, cause you never get hurt.
If its Tim's day with you, he makes you spend the whole day just... with him. Look he's sleep deprived, he's lanky, he doesn't have a lot of energy like Dick or Damian, but what he does have is... perseverance. Tim will literally handcuff you to him if it means making sure you stay by his side. If he's getting coffee, youre getting coffee with him (he makes you a cup). If he's sleeping, you're right there, either get comfy and sleep next to him, or stay up and be bored because he's dead asleep. If he's in the batcave reviewing CCTV footage, you're there with him all day and even nights. He just wants to the remorse of dismissing you before to go, almost like he's trying to make up for all the time he wasn't there when you needed him, to now being in your business every second of the day.
If its Damian's turn with you, he's... weird. He doesn't actively make you do anything with him, it's more like having you observe him. He'd have you sit on the side and watch him train for hours on the end, rudely refusing to let you go do something else, or even train with him. He's playing with Titus? You're supposed to be watching him teach Titus tricks. He's going for a walk? No, you're the one who's walking while he's running laps past you. It's like he's trying to impress you to make up for his shitty words and behaviour.
As for Bruce, he likes to spend his time with you on a schedule. Have breakfast with him, then go on a jog around the estate, then accompany him to his home office where he works while you do college work (because obv, he shifted you to online education), and he definitely annoys you by standing over you while you study, not helping you until you ask for it but also not leaving so you feel intimidated under his stare and continue to make mistakes. Then have lunch at noon, followed by him giving you a puzzle or one of those fake crime files to solve, he likes to stimulate your brain and see how it works. This activity takes time so by the time you're done, Alfred has prepared supper. You both have dinner and then you both go to the library to read, because he wants to something less stimulating to the mind as your bedtime nears. Then he tucks you in bed, sits by your side and gives you a lot of positive affirmations (which he picked up from the parenting books in his library), before kissing the top of your head and leaving.
As for Jason, since he still insists on "saving" you, he's not allowed to see you. He can try breaking in all he want, he can't outsmart the Batman.
Or can he?
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I had to type this on mobile with henna on my hands.
Yall better be grateful.
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bluerosefox · 2 years ago
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Double Troubles
Another Damian and Danny Twins Au idea but they decide to mess with their families once they get over the whole "I thought you were dead!" And "I wasn't sure if you would ever wanna see me again!" And basicly switch places for a while to see whose family would notice first. (They do set up rules for each other though)
Damian pretending to be Danny and 'explaining' to Danny's friends and Jazz his 'powers' are on the fritz due to something the Fenton's parents did with a new invention and "don't worry, I asked Frostbite and Clockwork, they say it has to wear off on its own.". Does he use Fenton Works weapons to fight ghosts. YES. Does he stare down the Ghosts that are confused why the 'ghost boy' doesn't feel ghostly anymore only to play along with Damian (and Danny, when he explains over the phone) theyre just having some fun (ghosts love causing chaos so they'll play along. For now.) Yep. Damian wearing contacts so his eyes are blue. Damian taking care of Danny's bullying problem in secret? Yes.
Meanwhile Danny is having the time of his life pretending to be his serious brother. He even is letting some of his ghost aura out so his eyes are green, not enough to glow neon but a shade lighter than Damian's though. And then doing things so out of character for Damian to do at odd hours of the night and trying to see if he make the rests of the Bats think they're going nuts (A very sleep deprived Tim caught him floating one night in the hallway, they both stared at each other before Danny says in his best Damian voice "No one will ever believe you." Before phasing into the floor). Things get even better when Dani (who was traveling around and felt him nearby) stops by, gets the info on what's going on, and pretends to be Damian too that's been hit by magic and turned into a girl for a day. (Danny totally was just watching in ghost form above everyone invisible)
All the fun ends when Jason returns from a mission with the Outlaws and can legit sense 'Demon brat' feels more dead than he should be.
"DANG IT JASON! I WAS GONNA WIN. JAZZ WAS TOTALLY GOING TO CONFRONT DAMIAN TODAY TOO!"
(Being silly today, take my silly story idea)
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paulyenvol6 · 3 months ago
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Byka Atroksia (Chapter 1)
Contains: No trigger warnings really just Rhaenyra being mean and tension between uncle and niece
Wordcount: ~2.68k
Masterlist of this story
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You looked out of the window in your chambers in the red keep, watching the approaching ships.
You knew that you should be down there. Like your sister Rhaenyra, waiting at the dock, waving to your uncle and the other people and welcoming them back kind – heartedly in the capital. But you couldn't.
It was too much and you knew if you did what you were supposed to do, you'd feel bad afterwards.
Your sister was three years older than you, 19, beautiful, feminine with full lips and warm eyes. And then there was you. A bit too tall and a bit too thin.
Of course you hadn't always felt that way. But when your cousin Aelon had said that you looked like a boy a few years ago, that had stuck with you. Ever since that day you always had these words in your head and you indeed felt like a boy.
You were 16 now, a grown woman but you didn't have a large chest, beautiful soft curves like a real woman does. Your chest was too small, your hips too slim and your arms and legs were too long. You felt like a fool, a boy… And you knew that a man didn't desire to lay with a boy.
Having a sister like Rhaenyra didn't exactly improve your situation. She was desired by all men in the seven kingdoms. Her grace, her charme and her wide smile had enchanted the grumpiest and rudest lords and knights.
And it had also enchanted your uncle Daemon, you were certain. Daemon Targaryen, brother of your father, Viserys Targaryen. Daemon was chaotic, wild, messy and dangerous. And all these traits had always made him so interesting to you and your sister.
Your father was the exact opposite. Rhaenyra and your mother had died when you were little and your father had wanted to protect you two ever since. Perhaps it was because you were the only two things left of your mother or it simply was because he didn't want to lose what he loved again. It didn't matter, he guarded and protected the two of you as if you were made of glass.
That was probably why your uncle had always been that interesting because he was different. Rhaenyra and you knew him as dangerous ever since you were born. He brought excitement, risk and thrill. When he came around you knew that it wouldn't be boring and you knew that everything would be different to what you expected.
Perhaps that was the reason why you and Rhaenyra had been fighting for your uncle's attention as long as you could remember. It was about who Daemon looked at longer, whose jokes he laughed about louder and who he brought the more special gifts.
You were competing and battling for his gaze and appreciation. Each of you wanted him to like you just a little bit more than the other.
When he made you a compliment you could feel Rhaenyra's angry gaze burning a hole in your back. But when he asked Rhaenyra for a dance on a name day of some distant cousin it was not rare for you to cry your eyes out in your chambers from anger and desperation.
You couldn't even exactly pin point when this competition had started and you didn't even exactly know what it was about. What was the prize, what were you fighting for? It simlpy was like a unspoken game between you, even though game seemed like a word too kind for this battle. You couldn't even exactly tell whether Daemon knew about the battle between you and your sister. At least he had never shown any sign that he did so you were not able to figure it out.
Over the last couple of years though, you had felt like you were losing this very game. When you were 12 you had seen Rhaenyra change. She had been growing and becoming a woman and you had feared you'd lose your uncle's attention.
You didn't entirely, but at the same time you felt as if he liked Rhaenyra better. Perhaps because she was more like Daemon than you were.
She was brave and witty, she made jokes while there were important men with important positions at the table. She was cocky and wasn't afraid to speak up to a lord who was twice her age. Rhaenyra was bold and it had happened more than once that she had gone out for a midnight stroll in the city, something that you wouldn't dare to do.
Maybe you were more like Viserys, you followed the rules and kept your head down. But you didn't do this to impress your father, no, you didn't want to be that way.
You wanted to be special, someone the people were talking about. You wanted your uncle to raise his eyebrows impressed when you told him about your adventures and wanted him to laugh about your quick-witted temper. You wanted him to flirt with you and wanted to be able to answer just as charmingly. But you knew that you couldn't.
Perhaps it was just the way you are, you weren't able to act that way. You looked down when important people spoke to you and you laughed at your sister's jokes instead of making some yourself.
So that's why you sometimes considered the competition with Rhaenyra finished. You couldn't even be mad at Daemon for prefering your sister. She was indeed more like him and she definitely had more to offer. Not only a more beautiful face but a smart and funny mind. Things simply were the way they were and you couldn't change them.
~~~~~~~~~~
You couldn't watch everything out of your window but you could see the boats arriving and tiny people stepping from the boats to the ground. Daemon had been at the Stepstones the last weeks fighting a war against the Triarchy. You hadn't seen him in four months and actually were looking forward to have him back at the red keep.
Your ongoing battle with Rhaenyra wasn't everything. You always had a good and exciting time with Daemon and enjoyed spending your hours with him in the gardens or at dinner.
Then after a while all the tiny people had stepped inside the carriages and there was nothing to see anymore. They would drive to the red keep now and then there would probably be a little welcoming and then a big feast in the evening to celebrate the King’s brother's safe return.
You stepped away from the big window and sat down on a chair. You knew you couldn't hide in your chambers all day. You knew you would have to attend tonight's feast and it wasn't like you had to be forced to go there.
You couldn't even exactly say why you had refused to go to the bay to welcome the ships. Because once again, you didn't despise spending time with Daemon at all, it was the contrary. He made you giggle and blush and smile. You just felt like competing with Rhaenyra for his attention took all of your energy and it sometimes could be very exhausting. Now you took the book next to your bed and turned the pages bored. You couldn't really focus on the letters and just wanted time to pass. You didn't even know what you were waiting for, perhaps it was the feast tonight.
You were really looking forward to seeing your uncle but you didn't have the courage to leave your room to make a special entry down in the hall either. That exactly was a good example of how you were different to Rhaenyra because your sister most certainly wouldn't have a problem doing something like this.
You were still trying to focus on your book when there was a knock on your door. "Come in.", you said surprised and then the door opened. "Uncle?!" You couldn't supress a wide smile and stood up.
He had come. He had come to see her shortly after his arrival. He hadn't gone up to his room, hadn't strolled through the gardens with Rhaenyra (at least not for a very long time because some time had passed since his arrival and you obviously couldn't tell what he had been doing since he had arrived), no he had come up all the steps of the staircases to see you.
He wore black trousers and skirts with a red shirt underneath and of course, looked handsome as always.
You fastly walked towards him and wrapped your arms around him. He returned the hug and buried his face in your hair. "My beautiful niece. Wonderful to see you." You smiled softly, which he couldn't see and felt your heart beating faster at his words. You ended the hug and you could see Daemon watch you closely.
"I must admit I was a little disappointed to not see you at the dock.", he smirked. "I'm sorry, I… I wasn't feeling very well earlier.", you lied and Daemon immediately took a step back.
"Do not tell me that you're ill and I'll be walking out of here with the fever.", he hissed with small eyes but smirked. You laughed and crossed your arms over your chest.
"No I'm not ill. It was simply a headache." "I’m glad, little owl."
'Little owl'. That was his nickname for you and you didn't know what to think of it. You found it cute that he even bothered to have a nickname for you but at the same time you were wondering whether or not it once again confirmed your apprehension. Weren’t you nothing but a boring, quiet, night owl to him after all?
Daemon called Rhaenyra little storm sometimes but the nickname definitely wasn’t as established as yours and he only used it very rarely, but you still didn’t know if it was good or bad.
"But how are you, uncle? What are the stepstones like?" Daemon threw his head back. "Let me think, there is…. Bad wine, bad climate and no feather beds. In other words, I’m happy to be back.", he smiled and you couldn’t help but softly smile as well.
You were so happy to have him back after all. "I have something for you, by the way." You looked up to him to meet his gaze and he grinned crookedly.
"Turn around.", he spoke and you did as he had told you. Once your back was facing him he gently moved your hair out of the way. You helped him and exposed your neck and then you felt Daemon reaching around your neck to put a necklace on you. His hand brushed over your soft skin and you could feel yourself getting goosebumps and just hoped Daemon didn’t notice it. His hands were so close and you felt the blood pulsating in your veins.
He had closed the claps and you slowly turned around. Daemon smirked and watched the pendant on your skin.
"Beautiful.", he whispered and you could feel the blood rising in your cheeks again. Then you stepped in front of the mirror to watch yourself. The pendant glistened golden and it had a red flower on it. It was incredibly beautiful and you happily played with it.
"Thank you uncle. It’s lovely." Daemon stepped behind you and watched you as well through the mirror. You could feel his arm against your back and slightly shivered which made you angry. Why couldn’t you just play it cool for once in your life?
"You’ve become a woman, little owl.", he then whispered and didn’t take his eyes off the reflection of you. Your eyes searched for his‘ in the mirror and you didn’t know what to answer. You felt his chin brush against your hair. He was so close to you, you could literally feel his warmth.
"I’m 16.", you said and wanted to slap yourself. That had literally been the worst answer one could think of. Daemon chuckled in response.
"I feel like you have changed in these last four months." You smiled softly. "I don’t think I have." Your uncle smirked and you could feel his hand ligthly over your arm.
"Perhaps I should look at you more accurately then." You could feel your breath fasten and helplessly bit on your lip just to do anything. Daemon looked down to your naked shoulder as you could see in the mirror when he suddenly stepped away from you.
You exhaled loudly and all of the tension was gone. You aimlessly walked around in the room and tried to collect yourself.
"I’ll go now, I have to rest before the feast tonight." Your head turned to watch your uncle still smirking. "Yes, yes. I’ll see you later.", you spoke with a weak voice and didn’t look at him while he left your room.
'What was that?', you thought and tried to get more air to reach your lungs. Had you imagined this or had there been tension between the two of you? You knew your uncle and you knew that he liked to be a bit flirty but this right now…. He had been so close to you and what did he say? He should look at you more accurately, what did that even mean?
You supported your weak body by resting your hands on the desk. Slowly you could feel your heartbeat slow down and after a while dared to stand on your own without the support of the desk. Your hands were still slightly shaking but after another 5 minutes you almost felt like yourself again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Two hours later you were finally walking down the stairs and headed to the hall. You had spent the last two hours overthinking every second of your encounter with your uncle and had come to the conclusion that after four months of fighting a war, Daemon had simply wanted to play with her a little and she shouldn’t read anything into it. He probably had just felt like confusing her a bit and it honestly made a lot of sense, considering it was his nature to be a bit coquettish.
You now wore a red gown that exposed your shoulders and collar bones. It fell down to the ground and was tight at your waist. When you were about to step through the door to enter the hall in which the feast would take place you could feel a hand on your shoulder.
"Sister.", Rhaenyra hissed and you turned around. "Rhaenyra.", you greeted her.
"Where were you all day? Why didn’t you come with us to welcome uncle?" You raised your chin, promising yourself to be brave and self confident today. "I wasn’t feeling very well, sister. I prefered to spend the noon in my chambers."
Rhaenyra frowned. "I don’t believe you." "Then don’t, but I’m telling the truth." Your sister took a step back from you and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Is this about uncle?" You chuckled. "What about him?"
"You didn’t want to see him, did you?" You laughed loudly. "Why shouldn’t I?" "Because you don’t like to see him put his attention on any other person who’s not you." Rhaenyra smiled evily and you just wanted to punch that smirk out of her face.
"That’s not true, I told you I simply had a headache." "You NEVER have a headache." Slowly you got angry. "Well I did today and this is none of your business anyway."
Rhaenyra smirked even wider and took another step back. "I’m going to go fly with uncle tomorrow, by the way. On Caraxes. We’re going to Dragonstone and he said he’s gonna show me around the caves."
Your heart was beating faster and you could feel your anger and pain going to your head. With all your energy you tried to make the tears that you started to feel in your eyes vanish but you knew that Rhaenyra had noticed them. "I hope you have a good time.", you pressed and then turned around and entered the hall.
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gh0stsp1d3r · 9 months ago
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ℳ𝒶𝓎𝒷ℯ ℐ 𝒸ℴ𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝒻𝒾𝓍 𝒽𝒾𝓂
𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
A/n- This is my third time begging for rafe requests 😵‍💫 I’m desperate
Warnings: 18+, mdni, smut, secret relationship, p in v, fem!Reader, hickeys, your brother is jj, readers adopted so anyone can read!!! Readers also kinda a jerk but she’s just a girl, mention of daddy issues,
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︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
“He’s fucking insane.” Your brother mumbled under his breath, talking to Sarah. They were talking about Rafe, the same man whose bed you had been in no more than 24 hours ago.
She nodded, still upset about the arguement. You just looked out the window, the breeze felt amazing.
John B’s fingers tapped against the steering wheel as the music blared.
For some reason, your brother had managed to drag you on one of their trips, this time to the beach for a break. Your phone vibrated on your thigh, you looked at it to see a text from Rafe.
You looked around, at Pope who sat next to you, making sure no one saw the name light up on your phone. He wasn’t paying any attention, luckily.
The two of you had managed to keep the relationship secret for months, it was safer and better that way. For the both of you.
You opened up the message. He wasn’t much of a texter so it was odd.
“hey.”
You texted him a hi back, and he automatically responded by asking you what you were doing.
“Going to the beach with my brother and the rest of them. Why?”
“Oh i was gonna ask if you wanted to come over cuz I’m alone.”
“I would have come over if i knew earlier. Sorry. I’ll see you later maybe?”
“Okay”
You left him on read when JJ called your name, making you turn your phone off and look at him.
“Yeah?” You looked at him.
“I was asking if you brought the towels.” He said, voice laced with annoyance. He said your name twice.
“Yeah. I did.” You nodded, fighting the urge to roll your eyes. You seriously needed to stop letting your younger brother telling you what to do.
Soon after, the car was parked and you all left the car, you opened the trunk and everybody carried their things to the sand, where you all set up your things.
You lifted your arms, throwing your shirt onto the towel and then your shorts, so you were only in your bikini.
You sat down on a folding chair that was there, shutting your eyes. They all laughed and had fun, while you stayed away from them.
Later, Rafe texted you with a video. A video of him jerking off with a little message underneath saying he missed you. The man was always horny.
You got up, sighing and making your way to the group. You threw your shirt and shorts over your bikini.
“I gotta go do something. So I’m gonna take the car, you can find another way home.”
“What? That’s bullshit.” Jj started, his words slurred.
“It’s my car, and I have shit to do.”
“We’ll find another ride. It’s fine.” Sarah interrupted, you looked at them, she handed you the keys and you said goodbye.
“God I fuckin’ hate her sometimes.” He mumbled when you left, downing his drink.
“She’s your sister, she’s probably just going through a rough time.” Kiara defended.
“Yeah. You’re right.” He mumbled, remembering the argument that you had with your father before you left.
︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵
“omw” you texted Rafe as soon as you got into the car, practically speeding to his house. You got out the car, and you texted him you were there.
He came to the door and opened it, you were met with the sight of a towel wrapped around his waist, hair wet. He had just taken a shower.
You walked in, and the second you did, his lips were on yours.
“Missed you.” He mumbled when you left his lips for air, you nodded and kissed him again, your hands running through his hair.
His hands traveled to your ass and he pat it gently, a silent sign to jump. You did so, your legs wrapped around his waist as you were against the wall.
Your lips never left his until he softly put you down onto his bed.
“Missed you too.” You giggled out as he unwrapped the towel from his waist, seeing his cock already hard, the tip red and angry, some pre cum already leaking out. Your shorts were gone and you were left in the bikini now.
“I saw you in the post Sarah made- in this fuckin’ bikini.” He mumbled, he was on top of you now, his lips ghosting yours.
“Is that what the video was about?” You said quietly, a small smile on your face.
He nodded, and crashed his lips into yours again, your lips were swollen from all the kissing at this point, but you loved it. You loved every second.
You moaned into the kiss when he slid his tongue into your mouth, a free hand went to take off the bottom, and the top you had on.
“God, fuckin’ hate your brother and his friends, they’re keeping me away from you.” He mumbled, his lips leaving yours again to suck on your neck, leaving hickeys.
“Rafe! Everyone’s gonna see!”
“Shh. It’s okay. Jus’ cover them up with your makeup or some shit.” He grumbled over, continuing to suck on the skin, making you cry out.
Once his assault on your neck was over, he kissed your lips one more time, a quick peck. Then he was collecting your arousal on his fingers, a small smirk on his face as he looked you in the eyes.
He brought his soaked fingers to his face, and put them in his mouth, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he savored the taste.
You moaned out, fuck that was hot. His eyes went back to you and he held your thighs apart, jerking his cock a few times before lining it up with your entrance.
Luckily your wetness was enough for him to slide in with ease, you both moaned out now, his hands gripped your thighs.
“Fuck, you’re so fuckin’ tight.” He mumbled, he struggled to not come right then and there when your walls pulsed and you gripped onto his cock like a vice.
He began to move, and if there’s one thing you learned about Rafe Cameron, it was that he did not like going slow.
His thrusts were quick, having the bed squeaking underneath you everytime. You cried out his name, you clawed down his back as his body was against yours.
“Oh- oh my god-“ you said, voice loud.
“Not God, only me baby.” He chuckled, but his words didn’t even register in your head. He had fucked you dumb, completely.
Your eyes were glossy, you felt full, your eyes screwed shut as you moaned out.
The coil in your stomach felt like it was about to burst, and you shouted out his name, so loud that the neighbors could probably hear. He wanted everyone to hear, though.
“R-Rafe!”
“Cum for me, Angel.” He mumbled, he already knew with the way your walls gripped onto his cock and the way your toes curled.
You came with a loud cry, your eyes opened to see him over you, panting and groaning. You tried to close your legs, it became too much.
“T’ much, Rafe.” You moaned, but he was focused on his own orgasm. He groaned and mumbled your name was he came inside you, his cum shooting into your womb.
He sighed and panted above you, you breathed heavily.
“You’re on the pill, right?”
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towriteloveontheirarms · 7 months ago
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The princess´ favour (Criston Cole x Targtower!Reader)
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synopsis: Your love may never be accepted by the people around you, that doesn´t hold you back from expressing it in the privacy of your chambers.
warnings: age gap, kinda forbidden relationship, smut, oral sex (m receiving), afab reader
word count: 1.9k
taglist: @hopelesswritergall @urmomsgirlfriend1 @bucknastysbabe
(If you want to be tagged for a specific character/fandom or in general let me know in my asks, comments or DMs)
Dividers by me
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As a girl you never understood what was so great about tourneys. Sitting beside your mother, flinching away from the raw violence of it all, while your brothers watched with a fascination you had rarely seen them have for anything. However, now as a woman grown, you began to see the appeal. Not for the fighting, but for something entirely else. Or rather someone entirely else. Sitting all the way in the front row of the stands with your brother Aemond, who was just under the age of being allowed to participate himself, watching on as knight after knight gets knocked off their horse. Analysing and talking on and on about what they could have done better, while your eyes solely rested on one knight, sitting on his horse waiting for his turn to most assuredly destroy his opponent. Your knight, as you called him in the secrecy of hidden places in the gardens, empty hallways around the keep and your chambers in the dead of night.
When it is Criston Cole's turn to compete against some knight from the Reach, whose name went in one ear and out the other almost immediately, he rides up to the stands. As his horse comes to a stand, his helmet finds its way under his arm and those dark eyes search for your own.
With a poorly concealed wide smile you lean over the railing. "Ser Criston."
His eyes light up with the way his name sounds falling from your lips and his own lips split into a smile, nodding to you in greeting.
“Your highness. I am sure to win this tourney. Would you do me the honour of doing so with your favour?” His voice carries over the background of excited chatter and knights barking commands at their squires.
Without hesitation you skip over to the small table to grab the ring braided from acacia blossoms to let it down the lance that is safely propped up against his side.
“Good luck, Ser.” You chirp, waiting for him to bow his head ever so lightly and then ride away to take his position. Only then you sit back down by Aemond´s side. The side eye he gives you easily goes ignored, as in the moment he opens his mouth, the horses start to race towards each other.
Of course, Criston ends up successfully knocking his opponent off his horse, having you jump up to applaud him enthusiastically. Along many other Ladies. Yet one look of his beautiful, dark eyes is enough to quell your doubts about his loyalty. It would be your chambers he would be sneaking into later.
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“Have I told you how much I hate seeing you get hurt like this?” Your thumbs run over his cheeks to assess the extent of his wounds.
“You have, princess.” Criston smiles up at you, brown eyes watering as you run one of the digits over his busted lip, despite his victory he naturally had taken a few hits himself.
The heavy plates of his armour discarded and the clothes underneath unbuttoned to reveal his muscular chest.
“My apologies.” You mumble upon hearing him suck in a sharp breath.
Criston shifts ever so slightly before he lets you put the washcloth to his skin again, wandering down steadily. When you reach his chest, the backs of your noses brush against each other ever so slightly. Your breath catches in your throat and almost reflexively Criston's fingers twitch against your thigh.
"How are you feeling?" You mumble, still fully concentrated on cleaning his wounds.
"I feel quite alright, now that I have you all to myself." Criston looks at you, the glimpse of something sparkling in his eyes.
"My attention will always be on you only, my sweet knight. My affections will only ever belong to you." You put down the cloth you had used to clean him up and run your hands through his hair, before kissing his forehead.
After that you barely separate until your foreheads rest against each other, noses rubbing against each other playfully, before Criston´s lips find their way onto yours. They lap at each other in tender, languid motions while eager hands run over clothed bodies they had explored a multitude of times before. Still, even if you knew each other’s bodies like the back of your own hand, you would never grow tired of it. In all this time the butterflies never calmed.
In the blink of an eye Criston joins you on the bed, straddling your hips and pushing you onto your back. The world spins around the two of you from the abruptness of the motion, as the rough pad of a thumb traces your jaw line first, before running over your lower lip.
Instinctively your legs wrap around Criston´s hips. Before your lips can seal in another kiss though, you roll the two of you around, to comfortably kneel above the knight with a triumphant teasing smile.
“You have done enough already. Let me reward you for your win.” You whisper against his neck.
The tip of your tongue traces a line down the middle of his chest and abs to the hem of his pants.
On the bed Criston propped himself up on his elbows to look at you better, his breath hitching as you teased just under the material.
“As you wish, princess.” He breathed, hiding a half smile, by biting his lower lip.
You follow this up by pulling his pants and breeches down to his ankles to set the tan hardness free from its confines. The same action makes your mouth water at the thought of what was to follow alone already.
In a matter of moments, you gently take the base of his cock into one hand to lick up the length of the vein on its underside. When the wet muscle reaches the tip, your lips wrap around it eagerly, teasing the weeping slit. Underneath the hand resting on his strong thigh, the tired muscles begin to shake from the teasing actions.
“Princess…” Criston's shuddering voice sounds through the room.
His dark eyes, though half closed, are trained as you give his cock an experimental suck. Taking it in just a bit deeper. As an immediate reaction you can see from the corner of your eyes how the knight’s hands grip the sheets a bit tighter. With a happy sigh at the reaction, you set a comfortable pace. His hips meet your mouth, thrusting up with trembling legs.
After a while his thrusts become harsher, hitting the back of your throat now to elicit the most enticing moans mixed with quiet gagging sounds he had heard from you.
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Amid trying to concentrate on breathing through your nose and the view of him vanishing under a veil of tears, the hand on his thigh wanders upwards. Immediately his body trembling turned into a full-on shaking. Your hand barely cups his stones, yet the touch pulls a groan from him, that has the juices from between your legs dripping down your own thighs. The sound is more rousing than anything you had ever heard before. You gently roll them in your palm and the knees on either side of your shoulders tighten abruptly and Criston´s hips push off the bed and into your mouth on their own volition.
“So good… I don´t think I am able to hold back much longer.” The cries of pleasure from his lips grow louder, uncaring of who outside the door might hear them.
The tip of the knight’s length slips past the back of your mouth and into your throat to make you gag. The wet sound fills the room for a moment followed by sputtering and panting, as you desperately gasp for air. At the same time, you never stopped pumping his hard cock.
The quick motions and have his body shaking uncontrollably, even more so when you put your lips to his big sack, placing gentle, wet kisses onto it and sucking it into your mouth. The two of you moan in unison. The vibrations again send shocks through Criston’s body, his eyes rolling back into his head and arms underneath going limp, unable to hold him up any longer.
“Please, princess.” The begging whimpers get repeated like a prayer.
You barely manage to separate long enough from laving affection onto his lower body to answer. “Please what, my sweet knight?”
“I'm so close." Is the desperate, needy whine you get to hear in turn. “Please, I want to finish.”
It's truly adorable how he still asks for permission to let his climax overcome him. Hips trying to hold back from trusting into your hand until you answered his pleads, swollen lips hanging open and a sheen of sweat coating his face.
“Go on then. Paint my face with your seed.” You encourage him, before going back to pay attention to his stones. Your tongue flicks out to play with them, while your hand tugs on the knight’s hardness just a bit faster. The other hand, which rubs circles into his inner thigh again, wanders up just far enough to let one finger put the lightest amount of pressure on the point right behind the sack. The reaction it earns in return is all the bigger.
Criston´s hands fist into the sheets and the groan that breaks free from tightly pressed together lips has you praying that no one would storm into the chambers while Criston does as you have told him. Painting your face with his seed, making you look like one of the women serving in the pillow houses in flea bottom. The ones Aegon would talk about, whenever he wished to upset either you or one of your siblings.
And in the moment, there exists no more beautiful sight in the entire world to your secret lover. You continue pumping his cock until he has nothing more to give and the whimpers from above have turned even more raw and high pitched. For a moment after that you sit back on your haunches to just revel in the glow that shines from Criston after his climax. One finger collects the seed on your face to get it into your mouth.
After that moment of respite, the washcloth is picked right back up and wet again. This time to wipe your face first and the knight's privates afterwards.
But the second you crawl onto the mattress the both of you know that there is not much time left to cuddle. Outside the sun started to set, colouring the sky in all kinds of beautiful shades of red and orange. Alerting you that you would be expected at a dinner in your mother's chambers and Criston needed to go back on post. Perhaps you had taken a bit too long to take care of his wounds, but when your knight’s lips graze yours, his chest still heaving underneath your hand, you can't find it in you to care about any of that. Not as long as he would be lying there with you.
“I do not know what I have done to deserve you, princess. You are too good to me.” He rasps against your lips, noses brushing against each other to make the moment more intimate, as your hands wander over the other´s sides and arms.
“You deserve only the best. I hope you know that.” You answer in a raw voice.
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goldenroutledge · 2 months ago
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champagne problems
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pairing: lando norris x fem!reader
word count: 3.2k
summary: you catch lando’s eye at an art auction in monaco, so he challenges you to a friendly competition for one of the paintings. little does he know, you’d stop at nothing to get it. inspired by this request.
warnings: swearing, alcohol, illegal things vaguely mentioned, gossip girl au
a/n: thank you to @monzaaasharl for letting me use the request! based on events from gossip girl s6 ep6 but can be read without seeing the show! it is mentioned the reader is chuck’s stepsister, à la serena van der woodsen 🥂
lando norris masterlist
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The reception was glamorous. Everything you would expect at an event like this, in a place of this caliber. Monaco was one of a kind that way; tuxedos were tailored to perfection and designer gowns flooded the room. The people adorning them certainly had the bank accounts to match.
For you, these scenes and crowds weren’t out of the ordinary. You’d been a part of them for many years at home in New York City. Sometimes alongside your mother at parties where her husband, and one of the city’s richest businessmen, commanded everyone’s attention.
The name Bart Bass spoke for itself, for better and for worse. You could only be so lucky that you were a teenager when your mother married him years ago.
Your step brother Chuck was not as lucky, being the one and only son of Bart’s. Under the weight of the Bass name, he could only hope to change the legacy that had been left for him. One that wasn’t tainted by duplicity and deceit.
If you could help him change that even a little bit, you would. It wasn’t a lonely effort either. Your entire friend group seemed to stick together in defining moments like these. When Chuck discovered a trail that would lead to the exposure of his father’s illegal business practices, there was no hesitation in your offer to help.
Bart often got away with any and everything, always facing little to no consequences for his wrongdoings. Paying off associates or officials using tens of millions in hush money was hardly a dent in the bank to someone like him.
Tonight, all of that could change. The justice you were looking for was right here in Monaco; a thin piece of microfilm enclosed in the back of a 1998 Richard Phillips painting being auctioned off tonight. Titled— The Spectrum.
On the film were numbers, nearly too small to see with the naked eye, that directly incriminate Bart in an illegal business deal. With a favorable social status and a hefty trust fund in your name, your logic tells you that it’s crazy to get wrapped up in all this knowing that if Bart finds out, he would likely turn your mother against you.
But your conscience reminds you just how many lies and just how much loss your family has endured at the hands of Bart Bass.
The soft touch of Nate’s hand on your shoulder interrupts your daydreamy stare into a flute of champagne. He’s out of breath and looks slightly panicked.
“Bart knows we’re here for the painting.”
“What?!”
“But Chuck’s following Bart’s guys, he won’t let them get near it.”
“The bidding starts in 10 minutes!”
“He won’t get here in time, it’s up to us. Think you can handle it?”
You give your best friend a knowing smirk, one that he returns.
“I know I can. These people may be rich as hell but Chuck would give his right arm for that microfilm. I won’t back down to anyone who bids on it.”
Your eyes flicker over to the painting, before they lock with a pair of blue ones across the gallery. He offers a subtle smile before turning his attention back to the painting. Whoever he was, he seemed to be a little too interested in the piece for your liking.
In a room full of deep pockets you knew you wouldn’t win a bidding war without a fight, but the challenge made it all the more entertaining. You turned to Nate, whose phone started ringing with a call from Chuck.
His eyes searched yours for reassurance and promise that you’d execute the plan.
You smiled at him, embracing your inner confidence mixed with a little liquid courage. “Answer him, I’ll take care of this.”
He nods, chuckling slightly as he follows your line of sight to the man admiring the painting. “Good luck.”
-
Lando fixated on the beautiful hues of The Spectrum. Though he can admit that the art doesn’t hold a candle to the woman that caught his eye across the room. He couldn’t tell if he was blinded by her smile or the sparkle of her dress, catching subtle glimpses of her throughout the evening.
His trance was broken by the soft clicks of stilettos inching closer and closer towards him, though the sounds were muffled over chattering guests and classical music.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? No wonder you’ve had your eyes on it all night.”
Lando’s head turned towards the woman’s voice, cheeks warming as he recognized you instantly. He wondered if you had been noticing him too, or at least knew who he was. Lando smirks and takes a subtle step closer to you.
If you weren’t about to psych him out of bidding on the painting, you’d be enamored by the scent of his cologne.
“Can’t help it, I’m naturally drawn to beautiful things.”
“Well, I guess you’re in the right place because this room is full of them.”
“That it is.” He teases, holding your eye contact while taking a sip of his drink.
“It’s almost impossible to find something I like best, but I think this one will blend in perfectly with the rest of my collection. Do you collect?”
“Art? No, I don’t collect art.”
“Then what is it you collect…?” Your sentence fizzles, realizing you hadn’t exchanged names.
“Lando.”
“Okay Lando, what is it you collect?”
He raises his eyebrows, almost surprised at the question, but chooses to be coy.
“Cars.”
“So then what brings you to an art auction?”
He shrugs in response. “Is it my turn to ask questions…?”
“Y/n.”
“Y/n, what brings you to this auction?”
“I already said, my collection.” You smile, matching his coyness. If he wanted to be short and sweet, two could play at that game.
“Which is…?”
“In my apartment. In New York.”
“Wow, long way from home. You wouldn’t happen to be in need of someone to show you around, would you?”
“Not really, I’m just here for the painting.”
“Maybe you came for the painting, but I could give you a reason to stay.”
You roll your eyes at his flirty attempts, ultimately brushing him off. “And what reason would that be? A private tour of your car collection?”
“You’d be surprised. What happens if I decide to take home the Richard Phillips myself?”
“You mean if you’re able to outbid me for it?”
“Trust me, I’ll be fine.” Lando assures. “I promise I’ll let you come over and see it.”
“No need. The painting is what brought me here, remember? There’s no way I’m leaving without it.”
Maybe it was the competitor in him, (it probably was), but seeing you get more and more eager about the work of art fueled something inside of him. Sure, the gentlemanly thing to do would be to step aside and let you have it. But where was the fun in that?
“You mean the painting that you only noticed about 5 minutes ago? If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were using it as a cover to come over and talk to me.”
“Forgive me for sounding rude but… who are you?”
“I don’t just collect cars, Y/n. I‘m a Formula One driver.”
Your unimpressed stare makes him feel like an idiot, once he quickly realizes that maybe you really don’t have an ulterior motive.
“In any case, The Spectrum will look much better decorating the halls of my apartment than it will look collecting dust in your bachelor pad. It’s not like you’ll even be at home to enjoy it.”
“We’ll see about that-” Lando continues, before the bid caller starts introducing the pieces of art, the Richard Phillips being the crown jewel of them all.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if we’re ready to begin, I’d like to start the bidding for the Richard Phillips at $500,000.”
Lando raises his bidding paddle immediately, quick reflexes and all. “500.”
“I hear $500,000, going once..”
“520!” You respond, before lowering your voice so only Lando can hear your next statement. “You may be an athlete but I promise this is a race you won’t be winning.”
“Lucky for you, I’m up for the challenge.” He teases, raising his bidding paddle once more. “540!”
“560!” You announce with confidence, eyes shooting daggers at the man beside you.
Another guest made a bid for 570, prompting Lando to bid 580.
“580!” The announcer calls. “Do I have 600?”
“$750,000!” You shout, turning heads.
Oddly enough, your bid inspires others to chime in also. There had to be something about what they wanted to prove to everyone else in the room— there was always someone richer in Monaco.
Lando certainly looks at you in disbelief, wondering how far you’ll take this. “Oh, now you’re just showing off. You only want the damn thing because I do anyway!”
“Oh please, don’t flatter yourself. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Then why do you want it so bad?”
“It would be a nice treat for my family and I, that’s all.” Your eyes flicker around the room to the other bidding paddles, the number climbing quickly. “What’s it to you? Why do you want it so bad?”
Lando shrugs, raising his paddle to bid $920,000. “It’s for a good cause.”
“920… Going once, going twice…”
“1 million dollars!” You shout, looking around the room, daring anyone to exceed your bid.
Lando’s mouth hangs open and for a second he almost wants to challenge it.
But then he imagines the heart attack it would likely give his business manager to see a surprise million-dollar charge to his account.
“What?” You question him insincerely. “It’s for a good cause.”
“1 million dollars! Going once, going twice…. Sold to the lady in silver!”
You smile graciously at the applause from the crowd. After all, this was a victory for the charity of the evening. Little did they know you just secured a victory of your own.
Lando sighs. “Well, congratulations. I’m sure your husband will be thrilled.”
“Husband? What are you talking about?”
“That man you’ve been whispering with all night. You said the painting was for your family?”
“Who, Nate?” Your face scrunches up in perplexity, following Lando’s line of sight towards the back of the room where Nate is standing with Chuck, clapping and beaming with pride that everything went according to plan, the painting is yours now.
“Yeah, whatever his name is.”
“We’ve been friends since we were kids. And if you must know, I’m not married.”
Lando chuckles, part amused and part embarrassed that he jumped to conclusions. He reminds himself that he needs to stop doing that.
“And he didn’t send you over here to flirt with me in hopes that I wouldn’t outbid you?”
“He didn’t put me up to anything, I am way above those childish antics! And I’d hardly call any of that flirting.”
“Whatever it was, I guess it worked, didn’t it?”
You smile at him, contemplating your answer. “I suppose. If it makes you feel any better, I promise I have only good intentions.”
“Well either way, I still have to find my mum a new birthday present.” He grumbles, taking a swig of his drink.
Your smile falters and you give his arm a nudge, taken aback by his confession. “The painting was for your mother? Why didn’t you say that?!”
“I’m not sure if anyone’s ever told you this, Y/n, but you’re not that easy to negotiate with.”
“I’ve been told. But for the record, neither are you.”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t have given up the painting. So I don’t hold it against you.” Lando concedes, but starts eyeing you suspiciously. “Although… I still don’t know your motive. I mean all of that drama simply for your art collection which is 4,000 miles across the Atlantic? I don’t believe it. So tell me, Y/n, what’s your motive?”
Lando chuckles at the stone cold stare you give him in return. “It’s only fair, Y/n, I told you mine.”
“Are we in first grade or something?”
By the look he’s giving you, it’s obvious that he’s actually dead serious.
At which you sigh, surrendering to the man’s relentless attempts to get a real answer out of you. Moments prior you did the same to him, except it’s not as fun when the tables are turned.
“The Richard Phillips painting, it belongs to my mother.”
Lando’s eyes widen in disbelief, like a deer in headlights. “You bid a million dollars on a painting you might as well already own?! Fucking hell, why on Earth woul-”
Abruptly, you take him by the arm and escort him away from the main crowd, an action that shocks you both.
But the last thing you needed was for him to blabber out all of your secrets, draw attention to you both and blow your cover in this crowded room.
“Long story short, my stepfather has been involved in some…not exactly legal business practices. And I’m not talking about some common white collar crimes, he makes Madoff look like a fucking Saint. He’s been hiding his proof in the back of that Richard Phillips painting, sort of in plain sight to throw the scent off. My mom’s had that painting in the apartment as long as I’ve been alive. By the time I found out the evidence was in there she had already sold it. My stepbrother tracked it down, and here I am.”
Lando looks like he doesn’t know what to say, equal parts confused and concerned for what kind of danger you might be in or just how deep this all goes.
“There’s not enough time in the world to explain everything but just know that he’s hurt a lot of people, not only my family and I. He deserves what’s coming to him and it starts with what’s hidden behind that painting.”
His heart softens at the look of purpose and conviction in your eyes, understanding that whatever this is, it’s bigger than you and him.
“Well if he’s facing your wrath, I should probably be wishing him the best of luck. Whatever the consequences to his actions, the U.S. government is no match for you.”
At that you let out a laugh, one that’s genuine and full of heart. You can’t even remember the last time someone made you laugh like that, and it was refreshing.
“That’s very sweet, Lando, even if you didn’t intend it that way. I just hope I’m not going to all of this trouble for nothing. I don’t want it to be in vain.”
“It won’t be, you’ll see.”
“How could you be so sure?”
“Just a hunch.” He muses sarcastically, feigning uncertainty.
For the first time tonight you feel appreciative towards him, to the kindness and listening ear he’s giving you, a total stranger until about 20 minutes ago.
The irony wasn’t lost on you that while he was bidding on the art for a gift to his mother, you were bidding on it to repossess evidence that would send your stepfather to prison for the rest of his life, likely devastating your own mother in the process.
“Let me help with your mother’s birthday gift. Please?”
He raises his eyebrows at your sudden offer, wondering how or why you would be interested.
“You don’t need to do that. Aren’t you a little busy with your own family?”
“Somewhat. That doesn’t mean I can’t make it up to you.”
“You won the painting fair and square, Y/n.”
“Please?” You nearly begged, widening your eyes.
Lando sighs jokingly as a way of admitting defeat. “We really are in first grade.”
“See, I knew you’d come around! Art Basel will be in Miami soon, I’ll stay for the whole week if I have to. Surely I can find some amazing pieces for your mother there, I might even find another Richard Phillips painting!”
“I don’t dare underestimate you again.” He quips, raising his glass to you. “I have no doubt that we will find something.”
“We?”
“I’m a Formula One driver, remember? We’ve been racing in Miami for a couple years now, I hope you’re prepared to stay there for the weekend.”
You roll your eyes at his bargain, of course he already has plans laid out for you. “You’re as persuasive as you are slick, Lando.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s not a no.”
“You’re as sharp as you are stubborn, Y/n.”
“You haven’t seen the worst of me yet.”
He laughs, impressed at how you manage to stay one step ahead of his banter. “Just promise me one thing?”
You humor him with an unsure look, knowing you would accept his terms anyway. “What’s that?”
“Don’t get into anymore bidding wars with handsome strangers.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because it’s our thing.”
“Okay, Lando. I think I can agree to that.” You muse, holding out your pinky for him, the two of you subconsciously moving closer into each other’s space. “From here on out, bidding wars will be our thing.”
Lando accepts, but decides to challenge you further. “I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think pinky promises are binding, Y/n.”
You nod slowly in acknowledgement, realizing just how close the two of you are standing now, and how intensely he seems to be focusing on the beautiful features of yours he’s had yet to see up close.
Now that you think of it, you haven’t had a chance to take a good look at him either. His eyes are as captivating as his smart aleck wit that’s been keeping you on your toes from the moment you two spoke.
And in a split second, you forget all that was stopping you from noticing what drew you in to Lando to begin with. Your lips collide with his, the stress and tension you’ve been carrying melting away into the kiss, and he’s certainly eager enough to take it on for you.
Mesmerized by each other, you then forget how the hell you both ended up here, tucked away in a dark room from the art you were just competing for.
Until you do remember that you are still proving a point after all, breaking away from the kiss just a moment too soon and smirking in his face.
“How’s that for binding, Lando?”
He appears amazed, out of breath and slightly shocked that you went there. You, however, were carrying on with ease, your thumb brushing over his lips at the faint stain of your lipstick on him.
“Close enough.” Lando coaxes, this time bringing his thumb to brush against your cheek delicately.
His fingertips may as well have been on fire by the way his touch made you feel red hot, and yours to him. Instead of backing away from the burn, Lando leaned in, giving into temptation and meeting your lips once again.
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💌: this is my first time writing for lando! likes, reblogs, comments & feedback is greatly appreciated! thanks for reading <3
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deadsetobsessions · 4 months ago
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Cassandra Cain wandered. It has always been so, it will always be so. The moment she clutched the bloody remains of her own freedom in her hands, Cassandra flew and flitted between the cracks of the places she finds.
The only thing that ever made her stay was her dad and their family. The only place she ever settled in for more than a scant number of months was Gotham.
But they’re in a place- a universe- Cassandra could never return to, could not follow, because they had forbidden her to do so. Tim’s grip on her arm, two textures of bloodied skin and torn gloves, told her everything he wanted to say. Her little brother all but shoved her through the crack between planes and universes, and begged her to live with fearful eyes and the grim set of his shoulders.
She has never been good at denying Tim.
The first few weeks were… difficult. She ran- liberated a boat, from men with sabres and cruel hands- and learned to feel the desperate pull of freedom on her hands amongst the waves. She was lost, adrift, silent in her grief. She could be free. She has never been freer. But Cass had never wanted to be free from those she claimed as her own.
Cassandra was built and trained to survive. To walk into a fight and come out the victor, no matter the cost. So she adapts and overcomes and tries not to wallow in her grief.
This new world was different. Brighter, in many ways, than her home dimension. Not that it was hard, considering her home was a wasteland by now, with the moving corpses of what once was her family. The former vigilante knew better than to take it at face value. The brightest places tend to have the darkest shadows. And so, she travels, looking for a purpose. Looking for Hong Kong, because she’s well aware she’ll never find a Gotham again. She braves the sea, travels in between groups of pirates and struggles to understand the slips of sounds that did not make sense to her. It was like before Bruce found her all over again and Cassandra tried a little to learn like how he would have wanted her to. But it is hard, and spoken language was never important to her, never necessary. It was relevant only because her loved ones deemed it important.
Then, she finds a boy on an island, whose words were simple and who was always warm-welcoming-happy-free.
Predictably, Cassandra learns the word “meat” right after learning his name. He was like… the sun. Bright, bold, and unfettered in his will. More stubborn than her brothers and sisters, a feat Cass had not thought possible outside of Gotham, and more than Bruce, only because he could not be swayed by logic. He was Monkey D. Luffy and he wanted to be freer than anyone else.
“Join my crew!”
Cass could not kill. She could not be a pirate.
“Shishishi!” He throws his head back when he laughs, and Cass can tell that he means it. That he thinks her silly for-
“Then my first mate won’t need to kill! We’ll be strong enough to leave people alive! That’s your dream, right?”
Cassandra is breathless. She is still. And- maybe Luffy doesn’t have the training she does, but he understood. She could read it in the lines of his shoulders, the way his rubber limbs don’t snap. She couldn’t believe that she would find anyone that would understand her will to never kill, not after dad, who had wrapped her in shadows that whispered safety and understanding-
“You wanna be free and you want to help without killing! I’m gonna be the Pirate King, and the Pirate King’s crew’s gotta be the free-est! And we can help people if they pay us in meat!”
- but Luffy was a supernova and Cassandra believes.
“Okay.”
“YES!” Luffy roars with happiness, grin wide as the glow in her heart. “I GOT A FIRST MATE!”
——
Cass contorts herself into the barrel- not a difficult feat, since she was already small to begin with- and sighs. She pokes Luffy’s forehead before lightly tugging on his cheek, stretching the skin a bit, in a small scolding.
“Awe, nap time!”
Cass sighs, too familiar with the antics of a chaotic younger brother.
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missglaskin · 11 months ago
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Do you think Rhaenyra and Daemon would work together to get the Reader? I can see them forming a shaky truce and marrying after their spouses die, but still pushing for their respective sons to marry the Reader. Jace and Daemon's son constantly compete for the Reader’s love. I can also see Luke and Joff/Baela and Rhaena backing up their respective bros and adding to the chaos. Meanwhile, Aegon and Aemond are fuming at King’s Landing.
A big reason why Leanor and Rhaenyra’s marriage happened in the first place is under an agreement to share the reader, it was also a deal made between Viserys and Corlys. Daemon and Rhaenyra while marrying out of desire, also did under a similar agreement. But while they agreed to share her they are also simultaneously maneuvering behind each other’s backs on whose son she marries. 
With the marriage done so soon after their children’s death, Corlys and Rhaenys aren’t all too happy. In fact, they had hoped that they take the reader to themselves and have her reside on Driftmark.
Surprisingly, Rhaenys finds herself taking Daemon’s side, trying to persuade the reader to wed Viserion. Rhaenys even goes as far as to propose letting Jace wed Baela and Luke to Rhaena. However, even if Rhaenyra ever agrees to this proposal, she’ll continue to find ways to bring Jace and the reader close, having him accompany her whenever she goes, and even letting her ride Vermax during travels. 
Daemon, on the other hand, relies on Viserion to do it himself, he is his father’s son after all. Viserion is much more forward, participating in tournaments, and vying for the honor of crowning the reader, challenging any suitors who dare come between him and her.
The siblings also choose sides, with Luke and Joffrey supporting their brother and Baela and Rhaena doing the same to theirs. Baela and Rhaena have a better advantage as they can easily enjoy girl time with the reader, akin to sleepovers where they persuade you into giving in to their brother's advances. However, Luke and Joffrey somehow find a way of tricking you to help them with something only to find yourself conveniently alone with Jace. 
Despite, Viserion appearing to have an apparent advantage, it all changes when Viserys comes in. He of course advocates for Jace, in his eyes the reader deserves nothing more than to be a queen, and what a wonderful queen she’ll make. He’s also had his issues over the reader’s namesake, being Laenor’s daughter she had to have his Velaryon name; marrying Jace would solve all that without causing any problems with the Velaryons. Funny enough, Daemon himself finds weding Viserion to be a solution to that issue as well. 
Otto and Alicent, predictably, oppose both matches, with Alicent seeing all faults in Nyra’s sons and Otto is vehemently against the idea of a marriage between the reader and Daemon’s son. The two are doing all they can do to sabotage any potential matches, Otto is sure that all he needs is some time for when Aegon becomes king, they can just wed them.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t take one to say that the animosity between Aegon and Aemond is growing, but it intensifies with Viserion and Jace. Whenever the family visits, it usually ends with a fight breaking out. To prevent any possible accident mishaps, no more than one can participate in any tourneys.
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bitterrfruit · 1 month ago
Text
wild cherries [1]
[masterlist]
Price x f!Reader - tags: modern western AU, cowboy!Price, light sadomasochism, brat taming, spanking, humiliation, chasing, dubcon if you squint 18+ mdni - 5k words
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Tell me why, Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself When you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell?
Daddy used to warn you about wandering onto the Prices’ property. 
The lichen-coated fence that separated their land and your family’s spanned miles; carving through tall dry grass, through woods of white oak and ponderosa, crossing the babbling river that fed water to both ranches. The barrier itself was fairly short and easy enough to climb over, but there was one small gap where the splintering planks had fallen from their fastenings. Tucked under a towering cottonwood tree, hidden by the grass, it was easy to wander through as if it were your own long-neglected cherry orchard on the other side.   
You had almost lost your little gateway, after so many years away; at a college across the country for four, and hopping between jobs like a rabbit for the next few. In that time the grass surrounding the fence had grown long and dense, the thicket far thornier and weedier than it was when you were a girl. 
Then, you really only knew the Prices by name. You were expressly forbidden to talk to, let alone look at any of them. They aren’t nice boys, daddy had told you, I won’t have them near you.
Now there was only one left, and it seemed the rules had changed. 
Jonathan Price, the last remaining, was a reticent man. A shadowy figure, who you might occasionally see on horseback up on the hilltops of his ranch, tan cattleman hat bowed as he surveyed his acreage. You had met him, once, as a girl. Then, he was in his early twenties, tall and aloof. Eldest of three sons, all three of whom had enlisted and served, sent to fight a war whose nature you were oblivious to in your innocence. He had been absent for years, and once his father was taken by whatever cancer he chose not to treat, John was the only one of the three to return.  
His father you had known, vaguely, only as a man that your father despised with an unwavering passion. Some daft rivalry, originating long before you were born, the seeds of which were planted many generations ago. Whatever enmity that existed between dead old men had not quite been passed on to the remaining sons, it seemed – where there might have been out-and-out conflict, existed only cold disinterest.  
Your older brother Miles had told you as much, when he picked you up from the airport a three-hour drive south. More than fifteen years your senior, Miles was thrust into the demanding vacuum your father left, and despite laments, he certainly played the part. 
“It wasn’t a question,” he chided, glancing at you from the corner of his eye. There it was, that glimmer of your father’s spirit, especially bright whenever Miles got away with telling you what to do. 
You hung your elbow out of the window of his carmine red Silverado - a new toy - and rested your chin on the back of your hand. 
Only offered back a grumble; “I don’t even know him.” 
A lie. 
You had encountered him the last time you returned home for summer, and the time before that. Encountered was the sweeter way to put it, pestered might be better suited. 
Once you heard he had finally come home, you found yourself impishly eager to pry, to observe, to take a mere glance at the last remaining man of the family yours hated so ferociously. You were strangely captivated by him, in a nosy sort of way. Intrigued by the mystery that shrouded him, the man you were never allowed to know. 
And you had always been at the mercy of your wicked curiosity. You couldn’t help it. It was an impulse, a compulsion, to stick your fingers where they didn’t belong. You would habitually explore his acres when you came home from college, then during your brief stints of being in-between jobs. When you ventured through the gap in the fence, you’d prowl around his estate like you were attempting to memorise a maze. You’d peek into his old and empty shacks, pet his mooing cattle, pick handfuls of wildflowers from his unkempt fields.  
Sometimes you’d sneak into his stables. You’d coo at his horses, stroke their velvet snouts, feed them the flowers you had plucked with a smile. They had grown to like you, his sweet horses, you wished you could know their names. They probably liked you more than him, no doubt, the mysterious little neighbour that would sneak in at dusk and feed them treats.  
But your most regular habit – one that had gotten you into trouble before – was your proclivity for picking bunches of glossy red cherries from his rows of fruiting cherry trees. The orchard was under-loved and weedy, but those glimmering little baubles of ruby were just too delightful to let fall to the grass and rot.  
The most recent occasion you had slithered into his orchard, last summer, he had caught you. While your arms were stretched far above you, reaching among the droopy branches and floppy leaves to pick the brightest sun-ripened cherries, you heard him holler; 
Hey! I see you in there, missy!
Lips stained red, slick with sweet juice, you gave him a puckish grin before you ran off like a hare and hopped back over the fence.  
There’ll be trouble next time I catch you over here, little lady, he had roared after you, watching you clamber over the oaken planks. You hear me?
Miles chuckled at your retort, dragging you back from the warmth of your rose-tinted reverie. “Well, he knows you.” 
“So?” You bit, shutting your eyes as the warm summer wind lapped at your skin. 
“So, it’d be rude if you don’t go and say hi.” 
“I don’t think he’d care whether I say hi,” you muttered. “He hates us.” 
Miles returned a terse sigh. “I’m trying to change that. I don’t want us to keep fighting the same fight our dads did. I don’t think anyone alive even remembers what the fight was about.” 
You knew you were getting close to home when you drove past the towering boxelder tree with the crooked trunk, the one you had named the wobbly tree as a little girl; it always looked like it was on the verge of toppling over. From that tree onwards, you had committed the landscape to memory. The distant mountain peaks that caught the red glow of the afternoon sun. The dense lumber pines that coated the closer rolling hills. The rows of poplars and cedar windbreaks that protected their plots of farmland. The blue and yellow wildflowers that grew over the edges of the chip seal road. 
You listened to the roar of cicadas, loud enough to be heard over the engine of the truck; a sound you didn’t realise you missed so dearly until you escaped the perpetual industrial hum of the inner city. 
Home, at last. Under the old log archway, boasting the hanging wrought iron sigil of a rearing stallion, and your family’s claim; Fenton Ranch. The truck rolled over the raw gravel of your long driveway, reduced to dust under decades of heavy tyres. You could smell home in the air; distant firesmoke, livestock, cut grass. You drove past the stables, then the sheds, you spotted some of the familiar faces of ranch hands that had worked for your father before they worked for Miles. Among them, some new ones. 
Your generations-old house came into view, two storeys high with a wrap-around veranda, cladded in chipped white siding and adorned in carved cornices. Sat atop a circular hill of dry grass, it was sheltered by a ring of century-old white oaks that kept it shaded from the blistering summer sun. 
At the top of the porch steps stood your sister Evelyn, tall and strawberry-blonde, she leaned against a column and offered an insouciant wave as Miles pulled the truck to a stop. 
Dust rose from under your sandalled feet as you hopped out of the truck and into the gravel, raising your arms to the sky to stretch out the tension that had built in your stomach. As the stretch forced a squeal through your gritted teeth, Evelyn called to you; 
“Hope you don’t think you’re on vacation, Honeybee.” 
There was a touch of humour in her tone, but knowing your ever-pragmatic sister, she was not joking. 
You did think it funny how quickly hearing your nickname hurled you back in time, had you feeling as though you had never left home. A teasing sobriquet stemming from your toddlerhood; having learned that bees get their honey from flowers, you developed a penchant for suckling on them - clovers and dandelions that you had picked from the grass, honeysuckle and lilac plucked from bushes within reach. My little honeybee, mom used to call you. A nickname that stood firm after she passed, repeated in honour of her, so often that as far as those around you were concerned it had long usurped your birth name. 
Miles hauled your old suitcase from the bed of his truck, unrequested; he was a gentleman, on occasion, when he felt it appropriate to be one. You followed him towards the house, stopping to greet your sister en route as he continued to carry your cargo to your bedroom. 
Evelyn gave you a smile and hug with her slender arms, quick and purposeful. Straight to business; “So what happened with Wendell Bishop? I thought you liked it there?” 
The marketing agency that recently had you in their employ, the third company you had worked for in the last two years. You stifled a roll of your eyes with a slow blink, not wanting to argue with your sister in the first five minutes of returning home - though it would be far from the first time. Despite Evelyn being closer in age to your brother than yourself, you bickered like you had been born a day apart. 
“It was fine, I just - it wasn’t for me.” 
“Ugh, for God’s sake, Bee.” She groaned, “it’s never for you.” 
You had no dispute within you but a shrug, and you walked past her to head indoors.
“You know you can’t float around forever,” she barked after you, and you shut the screen door behind you. 
The interior of your house was breezy, windows and doors open to allow the summer draught to flow through every room and corridor like blood through veins. The old hardwood creaked and groaned underfoot as you wandered towards the staircase, catching brief glances at the old family photographs that peppered the patterned walls. Some from your childhood, some faded sepia film dating back three generations; Fenton ancestors whose names you had forgotten or never learned. 
Miles brushed past you as you made your way to your bedroom, and he stopped you with a word. 
“Evelyn made jam,” he said, and the edge in his tone told you that you needed to stop and listen. 
The recipe for the strawberry jam the women of your family would make on special occasions was one passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter since the inception of the line. It incorporated a touch of cranberry to make it a little tart, a sprinkle of salt to deepen the flavour. What made it extra special, mom would say, was that it was made with love. You didn’t imagine Evelyn put much love into it, because it wasn’t written explicitly into the recipe, wasn’t given quantifiable measurements.  
“You’ll take him some, won’t you?” Miles asked, when you only gave him a small grin of pleasant disinterest. 
You chewed your lip, kicked the floorboards with your heel. Inevitably, you would have slinked over the fence and skulked around the Prices’ land once the sun kissed the horizon, once you could be sure the man and his ranchmen would be settling in for supper. Some unfathomable part of you would rather be caught by him in the act of a crime, than to knock on his door like a sycophant. 
There was something vaguely humiliating about the idea, presenting yourself on his doorstep, as though supplicating for approval you didn’t want or need. Obvious that you had been ordered by your authoritarian brother to go and apologise to Mr Price for your past transgressions. While, in actuality, Miles was not at all privy to such transgressions, you knew Jonathan would find sneering satisfaction in seeing you feign politeness, play at being ladylike. 
As far as Miles could tell from your sulking, though, you were merely nervous about being forced to greet an intimidating stranger. Not entirely incorrect, you supposed. 
“Sure,” you finally conceded, with a huff. “I’ll go over in a bit.” 
Miles offered a pleased grin under his sun-bleached beard, placed his sturdy and grateful hands on your shoulders.  “‘Preciate it, Bee.” 
You took a brief hour to recuperate after the long drive. Rinsed your face and combed out your wind-knotted hair, unpacked your well fed suitcase into your old and rickety chest-of-drawers. Everything you owned you had stuffed into luggage - the lease at your little apartment had come to an end, you knew you’d be home for the foreseeable future. You hung your winter coats away in your closet, out of season. You lined up your shoes and boots by the door. 
You greeted the working collies with a scruff of their heads and a kiss on their noses, as you ventured outside into the heat of the afternoon. You said hello to the greying foreman who knew you from your girlhood. 
“Soda’s turned out behind the barn,” he told you, and you gave him a sunny smile as you trudged over in your well-worn boots; their tan leather dry and wrinkly, the thread of the embroidered paisley patterning had come loose in spots after years of putting the boots to work. 
You spotted your painted mare in the middle of the paddock behind the stables, grazing on golden grass, dried to hay. Recognised her by the white splotches on her chestnut coat, the bright stripe that ran down the centre of her head and turned her snout pink. She raised her head at your familiar whistle, and you heard her whinny cheerily before she trotted towards the log fence you leaned over. 
“Hey, sweet girl,” you cooed. You petted her snout with a loving hand, and she nickered softly to greet you. “Missed ya.” 
You led her through the gate into the shade of the barn, adjusted her bridle over her head and fed the bit between her teeth. Using an old step-stool you hoisted yourself up and over her back, with no stirrups to help you. 
You had always preferred riding bareback; Soda’s coat was soft, and her back was narrow and forgiving. You imagined saddles as corsets, that the poor girl lacked the kind of mouth that could tell you how sorely uncomfortable it was. But you thought she said as much in the ways she could, with a toss of her head and a loud snort whenever she was approached with one. 
Besides, you often took her for rides on a whim, forgoing instructions to stay within sight of the house - it was easier to hop on her back and trot off into the trees without having to saddle her. 
Your short powder-pink sundress rode up your bare thighs as you adjusted your legs to bestride your horse. You tugged the linen hem down with a shimmy, to avoid revealing the treats underneath to the odd ranchman that passed by. Mom would always chastise you when you rode in a skirt, hammered on about how indecent and impractical it was. She wasn’t here to tell you so, now. If she was, you would have told her it was too hot for jeans. 
“Hey,” you heard a sharp holler from your sister, she trotted towards you as you rode Soda out of the barn. “Hold up.” 
You looked down at Evelyn - only on horseback did you have the ability to do so - and she raised a crocheted net bag for you to take. Carrying three jars of jam, each a different shape and with multi-coloured lids - you had almost forgotten your homecoming gift.  
“Oh, yeah,” you said, with an apologetic giggle, taking the bag by the handle. “Is there still some left for us?” 
“Plenty,” Evelyn replied through a smile. “He doesn’t get all of it.” 
“What’s a lonely man going to do with all this jam, anyway?” You asked coyly, and Evelyn pursed her lips at the playful derision in your words. 
“Hopefully, eat it with a spoon and think about how kind we were to share it with him,” she answered, with her brows raised. “And come to ask us for more.” 
You tilted your head, a bewildered knit between your brows. “You guys buttering him up for something?” 
She gave you that pacifying grin, the one that told you she believed the true answer would be beyond you. “‘S nothin’ like that, Bee. We’re just trying to smooth things over.” 
Her answer was dishonest, you saw through her simper. But it was never worth the effort to pry any further. “Whatever,” you chuffed, tugging at the reins and setting off.
“You can take the truck, you know,” Evelyn yapped, before you had the chance to give Soda a gentle kick to speed her up. 
Shrugged. “It’s a nice ride.” 
Evelyn frowned at that. “How would you know, hm?” 
Another shrug, you concealed the flush in your cheeks as you turned to trot down the drive. 
It was a nice ride. Soda had a steady gait that never made you sore, and she was pleased for the outing, as easily bored as you were. You decided to take the conventional route to the Price ranch - this was an official visit, after all. Stayed in line with the drive, you mindlessly plucked leaves off of reaching branches as you passed them and tossed them to the grass beneath you. Cars and pickups passed you on the road, kicking up dust and making you squint. The sun of the late afternoon was baking on your back, but the warmth was a tender embrace, and the gentle breeze that cooled you was a kiss to follow it. 
The majority of the trees on the Price Ranch were bunched around its borders, though the odd fir or cottonwood was scattered among the wheatgrass-coated hills; enough shade for his hordes of black anguses to huddle under. 
You passed under the towering arch of the gate, the logs aged and splintering, the stone pillars holding them up were worn down by wind and dust. The sign above you flaunted in great big letters, like a shout, PRICE. Beneath it the head of a longhorn, carved directly into the stained pine shield that hung from its chains. The road to his gargantuan farmhouse was winding but mostly flat, and you gave Soda an encouraging pat on the side of her neck, as if she was the one in need of reassurance. 
Even the house was foreboding, much like the man himself - dark and expansive, constructed with stacked logs and piled stones, rock chimneys climbed up three of its walls. Its windows were vast but few and far between, grids of stained wood crossed over the glass and made it difficult to see in from a distance; to your chagrin. 
You dismounted Soda by a fenced pasture, and hitched her reins to one of its posts. She was a loyal girl, but as helplessly subject to her curiosity as you; she needed an anchor to keep her from drifting away and whinnying at the stallion in the paddock over. 
Patting down your skirt and hanging the bag of clinking jars from your shoulder, you marched with an artificial confidence up the stone steps of his front entrance. Drummed the front door with your knuckles in three sturdy knocks, you hung the net bag by the handle from two demure hands, fingers knitted together.
You swallowed. 
Came the deep thumping of heavy footsteps, they approached the other side of the door, slow and beating. A clatter, a thud.   
The door swung open and just about vacuumed you inside, you adjusted your feet so you didn’t lose balance.
Jonathan was almost as tall, near as wide as the doorframe he stood in. He glanced above you, expecting someone taller, before he craned his head downward to look at you, and you felt your heart flip behind your sternum.
“Well,” he huffed, voice hoarse from a day’s worth of yelling. His stare narrowed as he soaked you in, crow’s-feet creased; piercing eyes raked from your head to your feet, painfully slowly, and back up again. “Ain’t you a nice surprise.” 
His cocksure voice was rumbling and deep, it sunk under your skin and made you turn pink. You had only ever heard him shouting, heard his roars in the distance when he chastised either you or his ranchmen. Now he uttered his words so low that you could hear the gravel in his throat, it made you want to press your ear to his padded chest and feel the vibrations of his sonorous voice directly from its origin. 
You took the same time to inspect him - realising you hadn’t ever seen him up this close, close enough to smell him. He smelt of hard work and cigar smoke, salt and musk, the warmth of his mammoth body reached out and touched you as if the evening air was suddenly cold. His smoky blue t-shirt had stains of sweat between his broad pectorals and down from his neck, the cotton coated in dust - he had only just turned in from a long day of wrangling, hadn’t yet had the chance to shower or to change. 
He lifted a bronzed and furry arm to lean his elbow against the jamb of the door, so thick with well-earned muscle they threatened to tear the sleeves of his shirt with the slightest flex. You wondered if he picked up his cows with his bare arms, carried them around like they weighed no more than bales of hay. 
His cheeks were ruddy with sunburn and vigour, his firm jaw coated by a dark and barely kempt beard, specked with silvers. His expression was stern, though a glimmer of interest in his steel-blue eyes belied his severity. Heavy lids hung low by virtue of looking down at you, his lips in an analytical curl under the thick moustache that grew under his nose. 
You blinked up at him, and opened your lips to speak - but a gruff snicker from him sucked the air from your lungs before you could utter a word to greet him. 
“Brought me a gift?” He asked richly, glare stuck on you and not the sack of ruby-red jam you hung from your fingers. 
Finding yourself, you gave him a pursed smile. “Miles made me come and say hi.” 
“Made you, did he?” He snorted, oozing a knowing arrogance. 
“Yep,” you said, lifting the bag to present it to him. “Eve cooked up some jam.” 
You saw his temples bulge as his jaw clenched tightly, expression sinking into what looked to you like twisted disappointment. 
“Nice o’ you,” he grunted disinterestedly, paying no mind to your olive branch. After a troubled sigh, he asked; “Where’ve you been, lil’ miss Honeybee?” 
The use of your nickname made gooseflesh shiver down your spine. He could only have heard that from your siblings or their ranchmen - how often had they spoken to him? Discussed you while you weren’t there to hear it? Last you thought, they never interacted at all. Now, he seemed to mock you with it. 
But he uttered it so casually, with such a coating of sugar, that it rinsed you like praise. 
“Just working,” you replied flatly, shuffling on your feet, vaguely embarrassed to admit you had abandoned the job already. “In the city.” 
“Mh,” he hummed, giving you a placid nod. “Back for good?”
You bit back the smirk that coaxed your lips. “Maybe.” 
“I’ll have to build a taller fence, then, won’t I?” 
Unable to discern if there was any humour in the forcefulness of his tone, your tongue curled behind your teeth as you tried to find a response that wouldn’t incriminate you. 
And you failed. “I’m a good climber.” 
He didn’t quite smile, you saw his chest rise and fall with a hounded breath. 
“I bet you are.” 
The air became thick, filled your lungs like smoke, and you almost coughed in the loaded silence. 
“Y’know,” he started, crossing his arms over his wide chest, tucking his hands under his arms and inadvertently augmenting the biceps you shamelessly stared at. “Your sister came ‘round the other day. Warned me about you.” 
Your brow furrowed at that. “Really?”  
You could tell he battled a grin, he licked his teeth behind stiff lips. “Uh huh.” 
Wondering how often he had conversed with her, you swallowed the juvenile jealousy that rose in your throat. “What’d she say.” 
“That you’re prone to getting in trouble,” he said, through a deep purr. “But she told me you don’t try to.”
You tilted your head, and the sly simper that had you had been containing finally curled in your lips. “I don’t know why she’d say somethin’ like-” 
“I don’t believe her,” he gritted, steamrolling over your flimsy defence. 
Heat blossomed in the apples of your cheeks. “You don't?” 
“No,” he rumbled, leaning down to you. His face a foot from yours, you shrunk under his glower, watching him cautiously from under flitting lashes. “I think you try very hard.” 
You held your tongue between your teeth, taming it before it gushed out something you might regret. Clawed at your mind for any kind of refutation, but it melted like sugar on your tongue. 
Watching in bashful silence, John reached forward and hooked a finger into your bag. Reaching inside, he plucked out a jar; it was dwarfed within his wide hand, he spun it around in his palm as though looking for a label. He went to open it, and the tendons and muscles of his forearms rippled under his skin as he twisted off the stubborn gingham-patterned lid. It broke loose with a pop.
He dipped his pointer finger into the juicy red preserves, scooping out a lump of it. Thick finger sticky with the sugared fruit, he put the tip of it between his lips, sucked it clean as he looked down the bridge of his nose at you. 
His mouth made wet noises as he evaluated the flavours with his tongue, you felt a flutter in your core. Lips pursed, he raised his eyebrows. “‘S good,” he remarked. 
You smiled sheepishly. “Well, it’s yours,” you raise the bag. “These too.” 
He twisted the lid back onto the jar, then took a step towards you as he reached for your net bag and dropped the jar back in with the rest. And he continued forward, another step, and you landed on your hind foot. You inched backwards as he loomed over you, and backwards again; you felt your heel go over the edge of the top step, your balance tipped - until his firm hand caught your upper arm, and he swiftly held you upright. 
Lost for words, you opened your mouth. “I-”
But he shut you up with a bear grip of both of your shoulders, and adrenaline needled down the nape of your neck. He lifted you a few inches off the step, and spun you around like a doll before dropping you unceremoniously back to your feet, facing out towards your horse.
He was instructing you to leave, unsaid but unsubtle. 
“Go on,” he chuffed, and your breath hitched as he gave you a cajoling pat on your behind with his palm to coax you forward. 
You obliged him, walking abashedly towards Soda with your heart in your throat and your gift ungiven. He followed you closely, not allowing more than two feet of distance to grow between his body and yours; as though prepared to snatch you if you dared to bolt. 
“Tell your sister, I don’t want her goddamn gifts,” he sneered, and you dared not look over your shoulder at him. 
Soda gave you a quiet nicker as you came to a stop beside her, ears flicking nervously at the predator behind you. You shushed her gently as you unhitched her reins, and using the bottom rail of the fence you stepped up to mount her. Reaching over her back, your legs hung over her side as you awkwardly tried to pull yourself upward. 
You felt the evening breeze under your skirt, quietly aware of how much of yourself you bared to him. You wondered whether he might be stealing his glances, if he might have spotted the pink hem of the panties you wore underneath. You wondered if he thought they were pretty. You wondered if he wanted to see what they concealed. 
You yipped as you suddenly felt his hand against your ass, a heavy fist; realising quickly that he had clutched the hem of your dress, when he tugged it downwards to give you some decency. Scolding you implicitly.
With a frayed breath, he growled; “And I don’t want fuckin’ trouble.” 
Swallowing a timid gasp, you pulled yourself up onto the mare’s back and mounted her properly, legs hanging over either side of her torso. You hoped that from your perch he couldn’t see the glowing red in your cheeks, the flare of heat that spread over your decolletage like a rash. 
“You hear me?” He badgered, arms crossed and brow rigid. 
You gave him a winsome nod, an imperceptible simper, as you gave Soda a soft kick in her side to set her off. 
With an innocent grin, you crooned; “I’ll do my best, mister.”
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can you tell i love neil young
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