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lovelyyandereaddictionpoint · 2 months ago

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Force in Nature | Platonic Yandere Trey Clover x Toddler Reader

Part 2

Being a child, in your experience sucked. Even with a developing mind there were constant reminders of all your faults. Short, weak, disadvantaged and constantly at the whim of adults. Most children wouldn’t mind so much, considering that the adults in their life mean well but not you. Never you.

“(Y/n) don’t give those fat brats anymore then that. They’re already eating us out of house and home.”

The drivel of your mother rings like a bell in your head. Always chastizing, always negative. It had gotten better now that she had found your father but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. In her mind she figured his children were the only obstacle left between her ‘happily ever after’ with your father.

“Ace! Deuce! Did you break into this pantry again?!”

It didn’t help that the twins were rambunctious spitfires that were prone to trouble anyway. Which meant they were often forced to reach out their hands to suffer the wrath of the ruler. Their father was a popular man, often more focused on updating the town’s bulletin boards than disciplining his children but it was clear he loved them.

But love was never enough to save the duo from your mother’s accusations.

At least once a day, your mother would report the twins for doing or saying something awful. It would always lead to an exhausted sigh before stomping over to the children to give another lecture and dish out some chore as punishment.

“This so unfair, we didn’t even do anything this time.”

“Well I know I didn’t. Maybe you did something Ace.”

“What!? How dare you blame me! Don’t you believe me, (Y/n)?”

You usually were a witness to their innocence, often spending your time with them anyway. But for whatever reason not being able to speak meant your written testimonies were invalid. No matter how many times you wrote in you’re book and presented it to your father it never seemed to work.

“You’re so sweet (Y/n). Trying to save your big brothers; you know that lying doesn’t help their case anymore.”

It was fine when it was only that. Baseless accusations and then the punishment of simple chores. Every now and then a prank in return for their suffering but then the chilly warning of Autmn came around. While the likeness that the snow would pile too high was low, the scarcity of food was a guarantee. Already aware of the set portions you’d receive suddenly decreasing and the way your father didn’t dare eat with you all any more spoke volumes.Unfortunately your mother wasn’t all too fond of cutting material costs.

“Cater I’m telling you, we’ll never get to eat if we have those kids in the house.”

“But love (Y/n) would never survive the trip into town.”

“Not them you idiot! They hardly eat more than a rat! It’s those boys of yours! They’re so big they ought to be hunting for their own by now.”

“The boys…not them they are still children too.”

“Stop whining. I’m going to take them out tomorrow, to learn how to hunt.”

“You?! But you’ve never—”

“Shut-up! Maybe then I can get those kids to do something worth the wasted meal.”

Reporting to your brothers the plan for the day felt like being the espionage detail for a secret operation. It made you proud when they used their information to concoct their own plan. They deduced that she planned to ‘lose’ them during her hunting lesson. Thus Deuce’s genius-plan to leave stones leading to the house was born. It was a shame that this plan didn’t involve you in any way but you were happy to see Deuce leaving stones behind as your mother led him into the forest.

Trying to comfort your father for a decision he didn’t protest felt odd. Of course, you wouldn’t understand the emotional struggle of his love life and the love of his trouble-causing twins. You are a kid, you aren’t supposed to know. Still, you let him hold you, mumbling curses to himself about cowardice as your mother opened the door. She huffed and puffed about him not greeting her before going off to prepare dinner.

Unable to resist the urge you settled on the chair beneath the window. Watching the opening into the forest being led to by the stones. Sure enough, before the sun had set and the fourth time your mother had called you for dinner they were there. Appearing slightly dirty but determined they came just in time, much to your mother’s dismay.

Of course, what followed was a new plan for tomorrow.

“I’ll take them deeper in! And I’ll make sure to kick all those pebbles away”

“Please let’s just–”

“Starve!? We’ll barely have enough for dinner tomorrow! They must go!”

“But it’s so cruel.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

The silence from your father was telling and like before you reported to your brothers. They took your notes with just as much urgency as the last, instead trading their stones for crumbs from the sliver of bread they’d be given for lunch. At the time it sounded like a great idea.

But as the sun set and the critters of the forest picked at the crumbs left behind, it dawned on you.

This was a terrible idea.

With a quickly scribbled note left on the window sill, you took a ball of yarn tying it to the bush near the forest opening. Following the disappearing trail of critters, you were walking in the direction your brothers went finding that it stopped in a clearing. From there the moon could no longer illuminate the crumbs still left and the critters weren’t leading you accurately anymore.

It was getting colder. The woolen sweater and mitts are your only comfort. With a rumbly tummy and the heaviness on your eyelids increasing, you settled into the dirt. Promising you’ll find your brothers when you wake, staving off the fear from your shrunken spool of wool.

When the sun rose again you woke with renewed vigor. The pain of hunger leaving you for the time being you set your gaze to the ground. Of course, the crumbs were gone but vague indents in the dirt gave you enough of a guide. During your tracking you start the game of letting your smaller shoes take a fraction of their tracks following along as you replay a song your father would sing.

Eventually, the tracks stopped at a paved pathway, it smelled sweet like a candy you’d seen the twins eat. It made you curious but you trusted your judgment to ignore your hungry thoughts. The tracks didn’t continue past the pavement and knowing your brothers they’d certainly gave the brightly colored path a try.

The grumbling desires of your stomach weren’t spoiling your resolve— or that’s what you were telling yourself. Going down the hill the path led over it’s destination led you to a place you swore shouldn’t have existed. In a clearing, the candied path led to a gingerbread house, decorated with various frosting, gumdrops, and red vines. The fence around it was peppermint canes surrounding the sugary house invitingly. A perfect garnishment for an already delectable house. Your stomach agreeing you found yourself closing in on the gingerbread foundation perfectly level with your small mouth.

Before you could dive in, you stopped. Thinking back to nicer days in the forest you remembered thanking the squirrels buried in the trees surrounding your cottage. Instead of burrowing inside your warm, inviting home they kept to their holes in the nearby trees. Of course, your young mindset wouldn’t have comprehended why animals that wanted to survive avoided the cottage. But that was beside the point.

Your manners for the owner of the candy house would not be affected. Even though your stomach churned almost painfully at your denial. To make it easier you turned away from it crouching down to hold the grumbling organ. Repeating that you could eat when you returned with your brothers to share—no matter how little was left.

“You are allowed to eat you know.”

The sultry voice of a man stopped your internal thoughts, peeking your head over your shoulder to look at the interruption. In the doorway of the house was a tall and handsome man, he reminded you of the young bachelor in town. Wearing a tight black long-armed shirt lined with rhinestones, your mother would envy. The dangling sparkles matched his pants which were long and wide at the ankles. His attire was interesting because you’d never seen it before, the man’s face was just as alarming. Hair as green as the surrounding trees was flowing to his waist contrasting his black outfit in a ragged but neat look. It was like a halo of green against his pale skin, golden eyes, and pink lips.

“You look hungry, why don’t you take a bite?”

The way he said it was hypnotic. An inviting and comfortable thrum of a voice that started to pinprick into your morale. You shook your head as if that would expel the greedy thoughts threatening to take hold. You hurriedly pulled out your notepad writing as neatly as you could. Holding up your notepad, you hoped he could read.

'It’s your house��that’d be mean.'

He leaned in to see what you wrote, retreating back to the arch of the gingerbread door.

“I was the one who chose a candy house. It just comes with the territory.”

He flashed a smile, white as milk. You licked your teeth beneath your mouth, feeling the plaque build-up that you’re sure makes your teeth yellow. Thinking of brushing, your memories trickled the moments you’d had with your brothers. The excitement that came with using your toothpaste for anything but. It reminded you of your real objective.

'Have you seen my brothers?'

The man tilts his head. You proceed to draw them to the best of your ability; trying to use the charcoal to detail the colors of their hair, and their height compared to your own. It’s hard to tell if he knows anything as his small smile hasn’t waivered. But as you scribble and point you worried he’d stopped listening.

“How about you come inside, have a bite, and I can help you find your brothers. That sound like a plan?”

You nodded. Standing up, you rushed to his side to grab his extended hand letting him lead you inside.

'My name’s (Y/n), what’s you’re name?'

“Trey. You can call me: Trey."

'Nice to meet you, Trey!'

“Likewise.”

______________________________________________________________

Trey Clover loved to eat children. It was in his nature to come from a long line of baking witches. It wasn’t a trade secret that children extend your life and beauty; the real secret was how to craft the potions with the children to make delicious desserts. Forest animals and pesky adults were fine ingredients but nothing was more fulfilling than a child’s soul. They were also much nicer to have as victims. They cried sure but they were dumber, more gullible, and so much easier to fatten up. But for all the children he’d consumed over the past century, there was something Trey could definitively say was the truth.

That Trey Clover loved children. His family ruled him as demented for such a thought but it was the truth. For all the fulfillment he’d have after his rejuvenating meals, there was still a resounding sorrow that nothing he could make would overshadow. Nothing but the shining presence of another child.

Trey rationalized that he wasn’t crazy, humans had pet pigs all the time. He’s no different in that way. That every now and then the thought of keeping one crossed his mind, diminished at the thought of one thing or another. Whether it was a spark of brattiness that was hidden behind a sunny demeanor or just the undisciplined actions of a bully in the making. It reminded him why he’d never let himself feel too bad as he tossed their belongings into the basement after a satisfying meal. He figured it was natural selection. Like any other predator, he looked for the weakest, the slowest in the pack to pick off and sustain him for another ten years.

But he’d begun to waiver with such an innocent soul in his grasp.

“How was that? Was it good?”

'But my brothers–'

He'd close the pad before the question was asked.

“Your head is so warm, I think you’re coming down with a fever.”

Cradling the young child, he settled to swaying them to sleep. His usual victims were not so young, often much older and more defiant. That is why it was such a treat to have a well-mannered impressionable little toddler to care for. With a resolve to their mission that was unavoidable, it still was nothing against the bedtime routine he’d been taught long before. He couldn’t remember if it was his mother or one that he’d eaten but she detailed the way to care for small children with such pride. In his heart of hearts, he’d admit to having eaten her out of envy. But now she proved more useful than her bones as he ran a bath for the yawning toddler.

Distracting them with talks of nothing as he gently wiped the grime off their little body. He had to refrain from frowning at the signs of a rash on their back. He was blankly staring at the untreated patch, cursing the adults who’d allow a sick toddler to run through the woods. But from their other children’s stories, they weren’t all that good to begin with.

The sound of a sneeze reminded him of his task.

“Bless you. After your bath I’m just rub a little ointment on your back before you settle down okay?”

They tiredly nodded, Trey resisted the urge to coo.

“You’re doing a good job staying awake. Let’s finish up before you fall asleep, okay?”

His parents were completely right about him. What sane witch would have a room decorated for a toddler already made, already infused with sleeping herbs that’d erase the thoughts of the past?

“Goodnight, my sugar cube.”

The notepad had been abandoned long ago. The urge to burn it was growing.

“Tomorrow we can look for your brother.”

The demanding sign of '2 brothers', made him laugh. Not after today you wouldn't.

“Maybe one day sugar cube, sleep tight.”

Kissing (Y/n)’s head and waving as he closed the door, Trey was elated. It was difficult to wipe the smile off his face when he unlocked the basement door.

It wasn’t just as he left it per his instructions to the bratty boy. Ace was far too skinny to be worth a good meal and from what Trey could tell a decent worker under stress. Trey figured it’d be hard to break his spirit if the other boy was around. Of course there was a chance it'd return with his little one. Trey would bet on fear and duty overwhelming him and he’d fall right into place.

“I see you’re working extra hard. Good.”

______________________________________________________________

Ace stopped sweeping, his little knuckles white as he fought the urge to scream at the witch. He only wanted to see his brother. After the first night, he knew rebelling would get him nothing but trouble.

“Can I see my brother now?”

Trey hummed closing the door behind him, he didn’t bother to lock it. He knew the boy wouldn’t want to leave. He took the ring of keys from his belt twirling around his lithe finger as he stepped deeper into the basement. Ace stuck close to his side, waiting anxiously to see his brother again.

The last time he saw him, his face was wet with tears. His hands were still sticky from the treats they’d gorged on, angrily shaking the unmoving metal bars around him. Ace couldn’t sleep if he tried.

“Before we go in, you two have a younger sibling. (Y/n) was it?”

Ace’s already sped-up heart-rate, went seconds faster. The collection of little papers in his hands with a tattered cover was far too familiar.

“They sound so determined to find you two.”

“What did you do to them!?”

When Trey turned his head over his shoulder the sneer he gave, bore into Ace's soul like a needle. Flashes of the suffocating pain the night before demanding he fix his demeanor immediately.

“Quiet boy.” The command was like a heat rod, sweltering from such a short distance. He looked away from those golden eyes for his own sake. “I won’t be doing anything to them if you behave.”

The final warning hung in the air with the door now unlocked. The metal door swinging open was a cruel mirror of when they first accepted the invitation to eat some more. There were tables of sweets and pastries along the cracking walls of the room. A table with a checkered tablecloth and a painted chair were placed off to the right side of the room; waiting for someone to enjoy the decorative plating on its surface. But unlike the day they first arrived a metal cage was hanging from the ceiling and his brother Deuce was in it.

“I’m glad you ate. At least hunger won’t be the last thing on your mind.”

Trey’s off-handed comment was ignored as Ace ran to clutch at the bars separating him from Deuce. As best as they could they hugged one another, the cold and rusted bars a constant reminder of their unfortunate circumstance.

“Deuce I can’t let this happen! I have to do something!”

Deuce shook his head,” No, if you do anything bad he’ll eat you too! You’ve got to get back home and find Dad!”

Ace pulled at his orange strands, “I can’t he has (Y/n).”

Deuce’s serious face, quivered. His brave instructions became mute as he imagined their youngest sibling unknowingly falling into the same trap they did.

“You have to protect them. Please, Ace.”

The blue-haired boy couldn’t speak anymore his nose running and tears falling again. All he could do was clutch at Ace’s hands, attempting to put his forehead against the bars to feel his brother's. Ace was crying too, barely standing as he held onto his brother.

“Are you done? I’m not getting any younger over here.”

Trey's snide remark was not appreciated, nor was his giant hand pulling at the rags of his clothes, shoving him toward the oven. Ace didn’t need to ask for Trey to point at the brush and pan on the floor.

“Clean up the oven. The metal earrings from my last meal will make him taste worse.”

Ace murmured his distaste as he opened the oven door. Looking into the deep black mouth of the oven, it amazed him that whole people could fit in there.

It also gave him a devilish idea.

“Uhm I don’t know how to.”

Trey turning towards him was frightening, the black coloring around his eyes flaring with such disgust.

“Are you troubled? You just go in and sweep the ash at the floor of the oven.”

Ace pretended to look into the oven before jumping back, “Are you sure there’s not someone down here?”

The witch was prepared to punish the boy but he thought of the toddler upstairs. He had dreamed of the day, he would be called to check the closet for monsters. He figures if he’s keeping the defiant one, he should show some of the same care that he’ll be showing for (Y/n).

It’s all too easy for Trey to climb inside, having done so on his own, hundreds of times before. Crawling to the back he felt the child coming up beside him, immediately making him grab the head of the boy.

Ace felt his stomach flip. Had he figured him out?

“We can’t go in at the same time, wait ‘til I’m done.”

“O-okay.”

As instructed Ace crawled back out, watching how the witch's body fully disappeared into the oven. Once his feet passed the threshold of the oven’s opening, he didn’t hesitate to close the oven door. Jumping up to flick the lock closed, Ace ignored the angry banging as he pulled at the red-colored lever to turn on the oven.

The feeling of the heat flickering to light brought a successful comfort to the orange-headed boy. The frantic banging from within the oven was as frightening as the demonic screaming from within.

“W-wait but the keys! He still has them!”

Ace assured his brother with the jingling object in his hand. Deuce pulled him into a teary hug once he’d been freed from the metal cage. The smell of sweat and burning flesh, never being so enticing. The moment between the two stopped as the banging became more and more apparent; the lock clicking as it held the oven closed.

“Let’s get out of here before he breaks out of there.”

“I agree.”

Deuce is the first to run through the door and out the basement; likely because of his time in the metal cage. Ace on the other hand faltered, snatching an armful of the pastries lining the room. He flipped the bird at the furnace and ran to lock the door to the basement door. Before he did, he took a moment to pay his respects to those before him. Bowing his head at the rows of shoes and belongings he’d organized, he apologized again before snatching a satchel. With the final locking of the basement door, Ace lets Deuce run up the stairs to search for their little sibling.

Allowing Ace to have free reign of the upper floor that had deceived them before. He was never considered a good kid but he hardly saw the appeal when he had no qualms about breaking whatever he couldn’t take.

“It almost makes this all worth it!”

Deuce, on the other hand, found you easily. The room had a distinct smell that almost made him feel safe. Going out on a limb he found his baby sibling curled up underneath a fluffy blanket. He easily tucked his arms underneath to carry them, he stopped to notice the spool of wool falling from their hand. Deuce put two and two together; smiling at the sleeping toddler in his arms.

“Thanks to you, (Y/n). We’ll all get to go home.”

The trip back was like a minor stroll. The original dangers of the forest were diminished to minor nuisances in comparison to the horrors they’d endured. Of course, the two still had other things to worry about when they did return home.

“What are we supposed to do about the step-lady?”

“Hm, I don’t know maybe we should push her into the oven too.”

Ace laughed and usually, Deuce would scold him for the macabre joke. But Deuce didn’t really consider that a joke nor was he completely against it. The brothers had plenty to think about as they each took turns holding their snoozing sibling.

It’s probably best they didn’t look back at the candy house.

For they might be filled with dread at force they awakened.

296 notes · View notes

milliesdiary · 2 years ago

Note

Imagine if the reader is friends with Jace and Luke but also betrothed to Aemond, so when he makes that offensive toast at dinner, reader gets mad and confronts him. She says that if he actually loves her, then he would stop doing those things, which leads to a confession <3

𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄

𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭; after a fight-provoking tribute at a family dinner, you ask aemond — your friend and betrothed — where his feelings lie.

𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐬; princess!reader from an unspecified house, fluff, a bit of spice ♡

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞; thank you all for the support! also a big thank you for those who wanted to be tagged :) you keep me going! for anyone who reads this, please reblog and comment with your feedback. i fall in love with everyone who does and it means so much! i appreciate you & be sure to consider following to stay updated ✨

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬; @deeeeexx @cassianas @sweet-andromeda @thedeathofduty @evasgreentea @burningcoffeetimetravel

𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐁𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄.

It started off a bit rocky, to be fair. But then Viserys’ made a plea for peace, begged for the family to heal, and the tension melted like a slab of butter in a warm hand. Everything finally seemed to be falling into place.

Forgiveness was offered. The family was together. Your betrothed was complacent, despite being in the presence of his nephews. Alicent hid her laugh behind a hand, Rhaenyra’s pretty lips were curled into a smile that matched Daemon’s, Jace and Helaena were dancing — it was all perfect.

You’re not even sure where it went wrong. It just did.

You are laying in bed now, hours after the eventful gathering. The insomnia you're experiencing is a classic case; Aemond's tribute plays over and over in your head. You aren’t even remembering the crucial details, like what he said or what you ought to have said.

Instead, all you can recall are the expressions on Luke and Jace's faces, the way the lighthearted mood deteriorated, and the clang of your knife on your plate after dropping it in shock.

You also remember storming out of the room.

Truthfully, you are embarrassed at your future husband’s behavior. His smirk had been so arrogant that you wanted to meet it with a fist, and you probably would have if you could get away with it.

You have been betrothed to Aemond for about a moon, and while you were aware of his distaste toward his nephews, you never thought he would disrupt his family as they attempt to repair the rift between them.

Over a fucking pig.

Maybe you should have expected it.

You met Aemond when you were both children, as your father had established a peace treaty with the Targaryens at the beginning of his reign. You saw the boy get taller, watched his jaw sharpen, and stared on as his charm turned into the stern temperament of a man. He learned to ignore the things that do not serve him.

You knew that Aemond became a person of duty, of justice; he would not let things go that easily. He held a grudge with the incident. Losing his eye.

Taking that into consideration, this should not have been that big of a surprise.

And Gods, do you still want to marry him. When your father informed you about the betrothal, you were overjoyed, fit to burst, chest suddenly stuffed with the warmth of the sun and a billion ‘what ifs.’

Aemond has fascinated you throughout the years; he has always seemed so at ease and still. Unhurried and righteous. He can remain at the fireplace for a considerable amount of time, leaving you to constantly wonder what he might be thinking and how he is able to survive in such solitude.

You love him. Always have, though you are too scared to tell him. Part of you wonders if he shares the same affections.

But there’s no chance of that, is there? Aemond does not allow himself to experience attraction or establish attachments. There is no changing that. He must have agreed to the proposal because it was the right political choice; there is no other reason why he would have accepted.

Aemond loving you back? It’s impossible.

You roll over onto your side and stare at the window that sits across the room, trying to focus on the moonlight drifting through. It takes about thirty seconds of dead silence for you to realize that you might just go insane. You’re literally about to grab an extra pillow and shove it over your face — with the plan of suffocating yourself to sleep — when you hear a knock on your chamber door.

The noise almost makes you jump. For a moment, you consider not answering it, but curiosity refuses to bid you farewell. You crawl out of the sheets and reach for a match on your dresser, flicking it against the wood to conjure a flame. You ignite the oil lamp that sits on your nightstand, the light basking the room in a warm, orange glow.

You are just making your way over to the door when the knock comes again. Straightening out your nightgown and taking a deep breath, you open it.

Despite the darkness of the stone hallway, you recognize Aemond immediately.

No, it‘s not just his chiseled face that gives him away, or the long silver hair that drapes over his shoulders. It isn’t the black leather tunic he wears, hugging his lean chest. It is the way he stands: the confident way he waits for you, chin high, strong and assertive.

He’s too perfect, despite being one of the most imperfect people you know.

“Princess,” Aemond greets. His eye briefly looks you up and down before focusing on your face again. “Green suits you.”

Your gaze flicks down to your nightgown — made from a beautiful silk and a deep emerald, decorated in golden floral designs. It was a gift from the Queen; even though you and Aemond had not married yet, she happily proposed that you start to wear the family’s house colors. You accepted, of course.

Aemond’s compliment is so genuine that you don't know how to respond. You feel a sense of pride at his admiration. “I do not wear the color much,” you shrug, trying to sound unbothered. “But I will get used to it over time.”

“You shall,” Aemond nods. He seems pleased. Pleased that you will become a Targaryen, that you will be dressed in the color of his house until the end of your days. It is a reminder that you’re his. All his.

“My Prince,” you change the subject. “Might I ask what you are doing outside my chambers this late?”

“I have come to talk.”

You fix him with a blank stare. Talk? The last thing you want to do is talk.

“Where did my guard go?” you ask slowly.

“I advised he take a walk.”

You get a feeling that the conversation with your sworn knight did not play out that way, but this is your future husband; it probably would not be a good idea to go to sleep on a bitter note. Biting back a retort and a sigh, you open your chamber door and wave him in. Aemond struts in casually.

He acts like he owns the place with how he stands directly in the center. You dawdle by the doorway, allowing him to observe the space: he takes in the fireplace, the golden decor, and then your bed, draped in silks and the pillows similar to the fluff of clouds. It’s a beautiful room, you must admit. You take pride in it.

“You are upset about the tribute, I presume,” Aemond says finally, turning to face you. That eye of his is the perfect shade of violet; purple like a flowering bruise, unclouded and intense and determined.

“I am not upset anymore,” you lie. “I do not care.”

“You do care.”

“No.”

It is quiet for a second. Not a word uttered.

Then Aemond pries you right open. “You do.”

“Fine. I do.”

“And why is that, Princess?” He almost taunts.

You want to snap at Aemond — ask him what he means and how can he take something like this so simply. It is not a joke. A civil war is brewing among his family, yet he does not take it seriously at all. He even seems to take joy in participating. The idea has you seething.

Here Aemond is, continuing to pretend that he is harmless, that his touch is gentle, that his palms won't burn handprints into your skin. You would almost believe it if you didn’t know any better.

“With all due respect, My Prince, Jace and Luke are my dearest friends. They are kind and loyal to me, as well as their family.”

Aemond hums, uninterested. "A dog possesses the same traits.”

An anger gathers within you. It screams right into your face: this is how it shall be and you will have to deal with it.

“You are playing quite the jester today, My Prince,” you tell him. I would like to slap you across the face, is what you’re truly thinking.

Aemond lets out an amused huff at that. The light from the lamp in the corner of the room dances along his silhouette, illuminating every plane of his face. His hair is a white, jewel-drenched curtain — there’s the urge to run your hands through it.

How can someone so gorgeous cause so much chaos?

"I am exhausted," you finally sigh. You can feel how hardened your expression has become. “I am finished with miscommunications and arguments. I have tried to refrain from intense emotions and confrontations. The moment I entered King’s Landing, I told you that there was to be no drama. You promised me. And what you did at dinner? That is the trouble I stray from, yet you seem so content in dragging me back in.”

Aemond’s mouth threatens to twitch into a scowl then. He’s trying to keep his face neutral, though annoyance peeks through the cracks in his façade. “You are acting as if jests are more harmful than stealing an eye.”

“I am not saying that. I am saying that if you are to be my husband, you should be shielding me from conflict. Not causing it.”

Aemond has nothing to say to that apparently. He just gazes at you piercingly, that one violet eye intently focused on you. You try to remain steadfast, although you do feel like shrinking under the chill of his stare. Somehow, you find the courage to continue.

“If you truly respect me as your future wife — if you truly love me — then you would cease this petty game.” You steel yourself, begging yourself to be bold and ask the question. “Do you love me, Aemond?”

For a moment, you catch how Aemond’s face changes into one of surprise; he obviously was not expecting that question. It takes a couple of seconds before he fixes his jaw, training his expression into something more cool. Practiced. Poised. But then he looks at you; truly looks at you, stares you down from the inside out. “I should be asking you the same thing.”

You freeze, almost shocked by the rebuttal. You can tell he is being serious: there is a sincerity with which he wants to know.

Aemond may be wild and deranged like a dragon, thirsting for havoc, but he still aches for approval and acknowledgment. Always has. Perhaps that’s what he wants; he wants to hear that even though he fails at kindness and charity, you are still able to love him.

“Tell me,” Aemond demands. Before you can say anything, he strides forward until he’s standing right in front of you. He leans into your space, breath fluttering along your cheeks and voice almost threatening. “Do you love me? For my righteousness that drives you mad and for my lack in restraint that you so despise?”

The fire inside Aemond could kill anyone in a five mile radius; he knows it. Yet he still wants you to love him, to bravely walk into the tempest. Locate him amongst each dancing flame.

“I will accept every piece of you,” is all you can choke out.

Aemond seems to mull the words over. His face is terrifyingly neutral as he observes you carefully; he must not know impatience.

“You still never answered my question,” You blurt. “Do you love me?”

Tell me you love me, is what you really want to say.

Aemond’s face remains blank for a second.

Unbeknownst to you, he’s almost offended at the inquiry. After all the years you have spent together, all the conversations and the secrets shared and the plights experienced — how could you utter such a thing? He was the one who spoke to his mother about proposing to you. Do you really think he did it for political gain? To secure a higher seat in the ranks of royalty?

Aemond almost sneers at your ignorance. “How much longer must we be together before you acknowledge that I am not doing this for power?”

“That does not comfort me, Aemond.”

Silence. Dead silence.

The lack of an answer from Aemond makes you worry: worry that you struck a chord within him, that you have irritated him enough for him to leave, that you have made him regret accepting you as his wife.

But something changes. Slowly — agonizingly slow — Aemond takes both of your hands into his, like a silent vow without words. A white flag of surrender. His profile relaxes into something slightly softer, more reserved.

At the end of the day, he is to be your husband. If you need comfort, he will give you comfort, even if it means he has to be vulnerable.

Just for you. Only for you.

“When we were children, you once accused me of not knowing the meaning of love," Aemond starts. "But you were wrong."

You begin to breathe faster, grateful he can only discern the the direction of your emotions and nothing more. Hearing those words makes you feel something; it flutters inside your lower belly and is comparable to hope.

“I do not give a shit about anyone but you,” Aemond admits. His voice is low, deep, sincere. You almost cannot believe it.

“Is that so?” You try to sound indifferent, but it’s not convincing. His face is so, so close: your noses are almost touching.

“I would not say it if it weren’t the truth,” Aemond hums. “I did not know how to deal with my affections before, nor did I accept them. You have tortured me into becoming someone I am not.”

Tortured?

“I don’t understand—“

“You are the sword I gut myself with; that, Princess, is love."

That’s it. That’s all you needed; that reassurance, that validation. Every single ache in your heart is extinguished in a single second, every wound healed, every internalized scar covered in gauze and bandages and the homeliness that accompanies love.

More. You want him to say more. “…And you will continue to love me?”

“You are mine until death, my dear wife. I am your monster for the rest of time. I am your insanity. I am yours.”

“And me?” You whisper. You’re struggling to focus, trying to remember that you’re mad at him, but his lips are right in front of yours.

Your question nearly makes Aemond chuckle. He holds it back, a sharp exhale of air coming from his nose instead. “You are my refuge.”

“Your refuge?”

“My refuge,” Aemond repeats, his expression more resolute. “I can envision no other peace beyond the one that exists when our bodies are bound.”

“And you prefer me?” You want to be showered in his love, again and again. “Over anyone else?”

“I would choose you over all,” Aemond purrs. His tone, his accent — you could crumple to your knees. "The world is cruel and it steals from everyone, so I shall do the same. I will take what I wish. I will take you every time you are offered.”

Goosebumps threaten to rise from your body. Aemond’s hand comes down to rest on your waist, causing your breath to come out as a stutter. You’re not sure how you haven't disintegrated into nothingness. “I have loved you forever, Aemond.”

A warmth akin to sunshine rises in his face and he almost looks humored. You need him. And he needs you, though he may not outwardly admit it; needs you like you’re oxygen and he's trying to catch a breath.

Suddenly, Aemond’s hand grabs the back of your neck and he pulls you in for a kiss. Your fingers fly up to grip his shoulders when your lips touch, opening your jaw for him on instinct. You grab a fistful of his leather tunic and kiss him as hard as possible, allowing his hands to conquer your body. He tastes of peppermint, smells musky like dragon.

Everything seems to be on fire. The pit of your stomach, your blood, his mouth. All you feel is the strength of his silhouette against your own and you want to remember this forever. With how Aemond holds you so firmly — almost like you might disappear any second — you can tell he feels the same. You have the power to kiss away his suffering, his years of self-hatred, his doubts, and the crushed dreams of an irrelevant future that he always imagined.

Aemond’s hands roam to your lower back, thumbs digging into the silky fabric of your nightgown. You draw him closer, brushing your thigh against his crotch to get a reaction out of him. He lets out a ‘hmm’ into your mouth.

There is nothing you desire more than to examine Aemond in full view with all lamplights on and his clothing off, to have him slowly remove this gown from your body and take his time with touching every inch. You want to run your fingertips across the ridged skin of his scar and trace it all the way down. You want to feel the weight of him flush against you, wrapped around you. You want him.

Finally, you draw away, only to whisper.

“You said you would take me whenever I am offered. Take me then, Aemond.”

A fire alights in Aemond’s eye — he’s considering it — but the flames quickly freeze over with that sense of duty. Self-control. “Not like this,” he murmurs. “But I vow to treat you to obscenities when I bed you. I will leave such marks on your body that anyone you entertain afterwards will have to know me in order to know you.”

Aemond’s words have the ability to make you shiver. It only makes you more excited for your wedding day. Even then, you still want him in this moment. Need his presence.

“Stay with me tonight, at least,” you plead. “Just share the bed with me. Nothing else. I will bribe the guards tomorrow morning so we will not get caught.”

Aemond considers you for a long while. Then, without a word, he smiles. It’s sly, yes, but oh-so beautiful.

“So you will stay?” You ask again. Aemond hums in agreement, cradling your cheek in a palm. It is a tenderness that you were not expecting, but one that you accept heartily. He nods his head before speaking.

“If you put your hand in mine, my dear wife, I will always hold it.”

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond smut #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond fic #house of the dragon #hotd #hotd fanfic #house of the dragon x reader #hotd imagine #hotd fic #millie’s works — 📓

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imagine-darksiders · 22 days ago

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Idk how to describe it but there's a distinct and clear difference between comments like these <3

And comments like these.

And I can tell you which ones I love to receive and make me happy, and which ones make me feel like I'm just a content machine who doesn't work fast enough.

Please comment, I love comments and I'm sorry I don't get around to replying to them all, I crack through several ever other day or so. But I feel like some of them are guilting me into continuing stuff I was going to continue anyway, and copy/pasting the 'shame' comments on stuff I haven't updated in a while is kind of ehhhh.

I hate to complain about this because commenting ought to be massively encouraged, but just be mindful that there's a tone.

#fanfic #venting #Sorry

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autolenaphilia · 1 year ago

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The main reason to use Firefox and Linux and other free and open source software is that otherwise the big tech monopolies will fuck you as the customer over in search of profits. They will seek to control how you use their products and sell your data. When a company dominates the market, things can only get worse for ordinary people.

Like take Google Chrome for example, which together with its chromium reskins dominate the web browser market. Google makes a lot of money from ads, and consequently the company hates adblockers. They already are planning to move to manifest V3, which will nerf adblockers significantly. The manifest V3 compatible chrome version of Ublock Orgin is a "Lite" version for a reason. Ublock's Github page has an entire page explaining why the addon works best in Firefox.

And Google as we speak are trying to block adblockers from working on Youtube, If you want to continue blocking Youtube ads, and since Youtube ads make the site unuseable you ought to want that, it makes the most sense to not use a browser controlled by Google.

And there is no reason to think things won't get worse. There is for example nothing stopping Google from kicking adblockers off their add-on stores completely. They do regard it as basically piracy if the youtube pop-ups tell us anything, so updating the Chrome extensions terms of service to ban adblocking is a natural step. And so many people seem to think Chrome is the only browser that exists, so they are not going to switch to alternatives, or if they do, they will switch to another chrominum-based browser.

And again, they are fucking chromium itself for adblockers with Manifest V3, so only Firefox remains as a viable alternative. It's the only alternative to letting Google control the internet.

And Microsoft is the same thing. I posted before about their plans to move Windows increasingly into the cloud. This already exists for corporate customers, as Windows 365. And a version for ordinary users is probably not far off. It might not be the only version of Windows for awhile, the lack of solid internet access for a good part of the Earth's population will prevent it. But you'll probably see cheap very low-spec chromebookesque laptops running Windows for sale soon, that gets around Windows 11's obscene system requirements by their Windows being a cloud-based version.

And more and more of Windows will require Internet access or validation for DRM reasons if nothing else. Subscription fees instead of a one-time license are also likely. It will just be Windows moving in the direction Microsoft Office has already gone.

There is nothing preventing this, because again on the desktop/laptop market Windows is effectively a monopoly, or a duopoly with Apple. So there is no competition preventing Microsoft from exercising control over Windows users in the vein of Apple.

For example, Microsoft making Windows a walled garden by only permitting programs to be installed from the Microsoft Store probably isn't far off. This already exists for Win10 and 11, it's called S-mode. There seem to be more and more laptops being sold with Windows S-mode as the default.

Now it's not the only option, and you can turn it off with some tinkering, but there is really nothing stopping Microsoft from making it the only way of using Windows. And customers will probably accept it, because again the main competition is Apple where the walled garden has been the default for decades.

Customers have already accepted all sorts of bad things from Microsoft, because again Windows is a near-monopoly, and Apple and Google are even worse. That’s why there has been no major negative reaction to how Windows has increasingly spies on its users.

Another thing is how the system requirements for Windows seem to grow almost exponentially with each edition, making still perfectly useable computers unable to run the new edition. And Windows 11 is the worst yet. Like it's hard to get the numbers of how many computers running Win10 can't upgrade to Win11, but it's probably the majority of them, at least 55% or maybe even 75%. This has the effect of Windows users abandoning still perfectly useable hardware and buying new computers, creating more e-waste.

For Windows users, the alternative Windows gives them is to buy a new computer or get another operating system, and inertia pushes them towards buying another computer to keep using Windows. This is good for Windows and the hardware manufacturers selling computers with Windows 11 pre-installed, they get to profit off people buying Windows 11 keys and new computers, while the end-users have to pay, as does the environment. It’s planned obsolescence.

And it doesn’t have to be like that. Linux distros prove that you can have a modern operating system that has far lower hardware requirements. Even the most resource taxing Linux distros, like for example Ubuntu running the Gnome desktop, have far more modest system requirements than modern Windows. And you can always install lightweight Linux Distros that often have very low system requirements. One I have used is Antix. The ballooning Windows system requirements comes across as pure bloat on Microsoft’s part.

Now neither Linux or Firefox are perfect. Free and open source software don’t have a lot of the polish that comes with the proprietary products of major corporations. And being in competition with technology monopolies does have its drawbacks. The lacking website compatibility with Firefox and game compatibility with Linux are two obvious examples.

Yet Firefox and Linux have the capacity to grow, to become better. Being open source helps. Even if Firefox falls, developers can create a fork of it. If a Linux distro is not to your taste, there is usually another one. Whereas Windows and Chrome will only get worse as they will continue to abuse their monopolistic powers over the tech market.

#my writings #mozilla firefox #google chrome #microsoft windows #linux #open source #foss

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kunasthiast · 6 months ago

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My God (1)

In the world of the Yakuzas, women are always on the sidelines and that's what you ought to change. But when your father chose Sukuna instead of you, that's when you know that you need to carve your own path.

But with Sukuna leading the family, how are you gonna get away? And, fuck the pterodactyls in your stomach!

I've always wanted to write a Yakuza!Au with Sukuna and I'm doing it now OTL I plan on making this as a series. This is different from 'Fortnight'. I will be updating this with a link to the masterpost of this au which will include its chapters, spin-offs, and drabbles in the future!

Updates will be once a week and since I'm excited about this, I might upload updates twice a week <333

Hope you'll enjoy this one ~

Pairing: Sukuna x Reader (female) Genre: fluff + angst, Yakuza AU, Enemies to Lovers Word Count: 1,525 All characters are of age. This story is 18+. Minors don't interact.

next ->

The pouring rain outside has been the source of calmness for you. You’ve always loved the rain, the thundering clap of thunders, and the violent winds. It’s calming for you. As the rain cascaded down your bedroom window, you’re getting ready for the urgent meeting your father has arranged for tonight.

He’s never arranged a meeting this late, you somberly thought. Knocks were heard from your door.

“Come out now, darling. Everyone’s waiting.” It’s your father.

“Coming!” You glanced one final look at your vanity mirror and stood up to shake off your dress. Walking towards the door, you sighed and couldn’t help but feel a pang of apprehension. This is nerve-wracking.

You opened the door to find your father waiting for you. He never fails to give off his presence which commands respect, authority, and intimidation.

Even in the privacy of your own home. His eyes softened by the slightest hint of weariness when he looked at you. His tall and imposing figure still left no room for doubt of power. He’s wearing his most expensive tailored suit, impeccably pressed despite the late hour. He has to, being the family boss of the clan. And you know this suit, you had it made for him as a gift for his 70th birthday. This made you smile a bit while looking down.

“Let’s go.” He called with his voice carrying a note of urgency. Definitely matches the severity of the storm outside.

You nodded in response, steeling yourself for the impending meeting just beyond the corridor. Despite the facade of the intimidating and powerful aura he projected, there was the weight of responsibility that burdened him. You know it all too well.

The unspoken sacrifices he made for the sake of his family and clan. Yet, you never felt who is his family. With the way things are and have been, all he did shaped your upbringing and eventually molded you into the formidable woman you had become.

With a deep breath, you followed him down the dimly lit corridor. Tumultuous thoughts swirled in your mind but everything’s getting rained down thanks to the comforting sound outside.

—

Walking into the room, you saw everyone important in the clan. From your father to his assistant and lieutenants, with you as the only woman in the room. This meeting must be of utmost importance if all key figures of the clan are here.

As your father walked towards his seat at the head of the table, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride and nervousness. The tables are laid out with expensive tea cups and teapots for everyone. As your father sat down, your heartbeat quickened with the room growing quiet around you. You find yourself seated next to him at a reasonable distance, being just the one and only daughter of the boss.

Your father’s presence commanded respect, with his assistant and lieutenants expressing a mix of deference and readiness to hear whatever he had to say.

Scanning the room, you caught the eye of your father’s most trusted person, Sukuna. His right-hand man. The one who always does his bidding, from the legal side to the dirty side of everything.

Sukuna always looks imposing with his piercing gaze and confident, intimidating demeanor. He’s scarier than father. His face tattoos compliment his tousled pink hair, which by the way makes him look sexier than ever. He’s wearing a white button-up with rolled-up sleeves, accentuating his muscles and some of his tattoos peeking through.

You’ve always had a secret attraction towards him. The secret glances every time he’s in a room with you. The fucking pterodactyls with their intense fluttering in your stomach. Feeling your gaze upon him, he looked towards you with a smirk which made you shift your eyes toward your father as he began to talk.

“I’ve called you all for an important matter that needs urgent attention.” Hearing this made your heart pound with a tingling sensation to fidget your fingers, below the eyes of everyone but you.

“It’s time for a new era.” Your father declared. “And I have chosen Sukuna to lead us into it.”

As your father’s words hung heavy in the air, a wave of shock rippled through the room, followed by the hushed silence and just the sound of rain. Suddenly, the rain doesn’t feel as calm anymore. It feels suffocating and unsettling. This is not the calm you’ve always loved.

What's more, you can’t believe everything your father just said. He’s chosen Sukuna to lead the clan into a new era. He passed over you, his own daughter, for the family succession.

A swarm of emotions swirled in your mind — disbelief, doubt, confusion, shock, anger, and a bitter sense of betrayal. How could your father overlook you, his direct heir, in favor of Sukuna? You furrow your eyebrows as you continue to process this news.

Across the room, Sukuna stood up from his seat with a calm demeanor and a tattooed smirk on his face that spoke volumes. He looked at everyone with intensity and his eyes gleamed with triumph, ending up meeting your gaze that sent a shiver down your spine.

As everyone processed this new change, all key figures gave their respect and support to Sukuna. Amid the collective acknowledgment, you felt a profound sense of betrayal by your own father. Your dreams, the cornerstone of your existence crumbled like fragile glass under the weight of this revelation.

From the fluttering pterodactyls in your stomach, a tide of anger surged through your veins, drowning out any semblance of affection towards Sukuna. And your deepest regards to your father, once a sturdy pillar of respect and trust, crumbled like ancient ruins replaced by a bitter taste of betrayal, doubt, and hurt.

Sukuna walked towards your father, who welcomed him with a tight hug. And as the storm raged outside, so did the storm within your heart.

Your father continued to speak, outlining his reasons why he chose Sukuna. You can’t hear anything anymore. The thundering claps and violent rain drown out everything. The room seemed to spin around you, the expensive tea cups and teapots on the table, all the lieutenants, your father, and Sukuna blurred into a haze as you grappled with what was happening.

This couldn’t be real.

—

As you retreated to the solace of your room, the events of this night continued to replay in your mind like a broken record. The fake smiles, the hollow congratulations, the sense of betrayal that hung heavy in the air – it was all too much to bear.

With trembling hands, you reached for the bottle of champagne you grabbed from the pantry earlier, the cool glass offering a welcome respite from the storm raging both outside and within. You walked towards your bathroom with the bottle.

Standing before the mirror, your reflection seemed to mock the turmoil raging within you. As you stared into your own eyes, the facade of composure you had worn for so long began to crumble, revealing the raw emotions simmering beneath the surface.

At that moment, you made a choice — to reject the false comforts of that alcohol or face the harsh reality of your situation head-on. With a determined flick of your wrist, you poured the champagne down the drain, soullessly watching the golden liquid disappear.

The weight of expectation had always rested heavily on your shoulders, a burden you bore with a mixture of pride and determination. As the family boss's only daughter, you had been groomed from a young age to inherit the mantle of leadership, carry on the legacy of your forefathers, and guide the family into a new era.

Your father had promised you that one day you would lead the family, that you would shatter the traditions that had long relegated women to the sidelines of power and influence. It was a dream he had instilled in you from the moment you were old enough to understand, a promise that had fueled your ambition and shaped your identity.

You had immersed yourself in every aspect of the family business, from the legal intricacies of corporate dealings to the ruthless strategies of the underworld. You had learned to navigate the murky waters of power and politics, to command respect and fear in equal measure.

But now, as you stood on the precipice of your destiny, that dream lay shattered at your feet. Your father's decision to pass over you in favor of Sukuna had blindsided you.

You couldn't understand how he could break his promise, how he could deny you the opportunity to fulfill your rightful destiny. The traditions that had long bound women to the sidelines of power seemed more entrenched than ever, casting a shadow over your hopes and aspirations.

“This is fucking bullshit! I won’t be cast aside like this,” you declare, facing the mirror with a steely resolve. You threw the empty bottle at the room with all the strength you could muster, the release of pent-up anger, frustration, all the emotions you felt tonight washing over you like a tidal wave.

Fuck it. Fuck Sukuna. Fuck father. Fuck everything.

#sukuna x reader #sukuna #jjk x reader #jjk x you #sukuna x you #yakuza au #yakuza!au sukuna #my god #jjk sukuna

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padfootagain · 6 months ago

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Only an Almost (XI)

Chapter 11: If We Break

Hello!! We’re back with… angst… **diabolical laughter**

I hope you’ll like this chapter! Please, tell me what you think!

*************************************

Pairing: Hozier x fem!reader, friends with benefits AU

Warning: No explicit smut or nsfw content, but there are sexual themes and heavy make-out sessions (it’s a friends with benefits AU, I can’t really escape it), so 18+ only!

Summary: Andrew has been in love with you for years, and yet he has never confessed his feelings. But a night out celebrating the engagement of his best friend changes everything. However, you don't seem ready to be with him just yet. You make him an offer that he can't refuse... but will certainly regret.

Word Count : 1809

Masterlist for the series – Hozier’s Masterlist – Main Masterlist

You had never talked about that night, the one when you stayed.

Andrew didn’t dare to bring it up. He hated to admit it, but he had cried in the morning, when, after looking all around his house, he finally accepted that you were gone. You left a post-it note on the fridge, to thank him for the night and remind him of that afternoon you meant to spend with Sam and Daphne to plan the wedding. And that was all. It was a mix between a farewell note left to a one-night stand and a reminder to a friend. Polite. Factual. The opposite of how you behaved the previous night.

What was killing him was that he didn’t know what to make of your behaviour. You were still you, still the person he thought he knew so well… and then you pulled stunts like that. They were almost cruel, really. The pain that they left behind was enough proof that this relationship was slowly destroying him. Things needed to change. And they needed to change quickly.

Now that he knew for sure that you cared, that he wasn’t projecting feelings onto you, he needed to talk to you. This… arrangement needed to evolve. And the first step was to talk about that night.

Which was easier said than done, when your lips were glued to his neck, nibbling on the tender skin, right over his pulse, and then there was your warm tongue that made his head spin, and under his hands were your hips, and then your ribs as he slipped his fingers under your shirt…

“You’re so handsome, Andy…”

His breath caught in his throat at your words, his heart making a happy jump at the praise. His breathing was heavy and irregular into your ear.

You shifted on his laps, and he needed to stop you… he had called to talk to you, not to have sex with you. This was… incredible… but then he thought back to that empty spot in his bed, and it acted like a cold shower.

Gently, he pushed you upright.

“You’re okay?” you asked, surprised by the interruption.

He nodded, but shifted again so you would climb off him, and your expression grew even more worried.

“Did… did I do something wrong?” you asked with earnest worry, but he was quick to reassure you.

“No, of course not. That was amazing…”

“Why did you stop me then?”

“I… as lovely as this is, I didn’t call you to have sex.”

“Oh… okay. Well, if you wanted to go for a walk or something, we can still have sex and then do whatever activity you had planned.”

“I… I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh…”

You stood straighter, settling more comfortably on his couch.

“Okay… what did you want to talk about?”

“Us.”

“Oh…”

He noticed how tensed you were now, defensive, ready to run. He hated the sight, but this needed to be done. You cared. You cared, he knew that now. It ought to mean something…

“I just… it’s been over three months now. Don’t you think we should… make an update on things?”

“An update? On what?”

“I don’t know… but this is… like, it’s lingering. It’s been going on for a while, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop soon. So… maybe we could update some rules.”

“What kind of rules?”

“Staying at night would be a good start.”

“Andy…” you sighed, looking away.

“It’s ridiculous, Y/N. We’re having sex, we’ve been having sex for months… we can sleep together.”

“No, we can’t.”

“We did, though. You stayed.”

You sucked on your teeth, and he wasn’t sure if the gesture came from annoyance or anger, but both possibilities made his blood boil.

“I couldn’t drive. And it happened once.”

“It wasn’t just that, and you know it.”

“Andy… don’t…”

“You asked me to hold you. You asked me to hold you and to not let you go! Have you forgotten that?”

You shifted, clearly uncomfortable, fleeing his gaze, but Andrew didn’t back down.

“It was more than that, and you know it. And that’s alright. Why are you reacting this way? Why the fuck did you leave that morning?”

He saw the way you struggled to swallow, as you ran your fingers through your hair because of nerves, how you blinked tears away.

“Why did you leave? You could have stayed. I would have made you breakfast, we would have talked over pancakes and bacon, you would have taken a shower, and you would have left like a normal person, instead of a fucking asshole.”

You looked at him again, throwing him a glare.

“Hey! Why are you insulting me all of a sudden?!”

“How do you think it made me feel to wake up to an empty bed?”

Your lips parted, and again, you were averting your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I shouldn’t have stayed.”

“No, Y/N. You shouldn’t have left.”

“No! No, you don’t get it! I shouldn’t have stayed!”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes everything complicated! Look at us now! We were having fun, and now we’re fighting! God, I shouldn’t have stayed. I should have gone home.”

“Why are you so fucking scared to let me in?”

You let out a bitter laugh.

“I’m not afraid…”

“No? Then why are you building so many walls between us?”

“Because it’s the only way we won’t get hurt!”

There was a moment of silence. Andrew’s throat had tightened, and he was the one to turn away now, resting his elbow against the armrest of his couch, and his cheek against his knuckles. When he spoke again, his voice was shaking, but his words were out all the same, loud and clear, despite his voice deepening.

“Well, I’m hurting.”

Silence. Nothing. Andrew waited for you, long minutes spent motionless. But he was patient and afraid, and it was your turn to speak.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to,” you spoke after a while.

You sounded sorry. But you didn’t offer anything else.

He heaved a painful sigh.

“Y/N… I just… I don’t get where this is going.”

“What do you mean? We agreed on that at the beginning.”

“It was three months ago. Haven’t things changed at all for you?”

“I don’t want a boyfriend. I’m still attracted to you. Nothing’s changed.”

But when he looked at you, he could see the truth in your eyes.

“Now, you’re lying, Y/N. If you respect me at all, then don’t lie to me.”

You shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t back down.

“I’m not lying. The situation hasn’t changed. We can stop though, if you don’t agree with our plan anymore.”

You offered the solution that easily, like it was that simple. Like it wouldn’t break him to lose you. Would it really be that easy for you to let him go?

“I don’t want us to stop seeing each other,” Andrew protested.

“What do you want then?”

“I’ve told you what I want. I want you to stay the night. That would be a good start.”

You seemed to ponder his words.

“Not all the time,” you negotiated. “Only if we’re really tired.”

“Only if we feel like it,” he fought back, and you took a minute to nod, but eventually you yielded.

“Okay… okay, we can do that sometimes.”

Slowly, he nodded.

“Grand. That’s grand.”

“It doesn’t mean that we’re together. Or exclusive.”

He frowned at that.

“We agreed to stop this if we want to see other people.”

“Yes… yes, that’s what I meant. I meant that we can meet other people, and choose to see them again.”

He narrowed his eyes at you.

“Have you met someone?”

“No,” you answered, and he wondered why you were so defensive. “I was just reminding you.”

Andrew wasn’t convinced, but he nodded anyway.

“I know that. No need to remind me.”

“We… we’re still friends, right?” you asked, and he frowned again.

“’Course.”

“And if… if we stopped this… would we still be friends?”

He stared at you while he thought of an earnest answer. He didn’t want to lie to you. But he didn’t want to lose you either.

“Honestly… I don’t know, Y/N.”

You looked at him with so much fear in your eyes…

“I mean… this changes things, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

He blinked at how fast you answered, how absolute your tone and words were.

“Y/N… we’re sleeping together.”

“Yes, and we agreed that this was a casual thing. Nothing more.”

“I… I know, but…”

“There’s no ‘but’, Andy. We agreed.”

He heaved a frustrated sigh.

“We can still stop if we don’t want the same thing. Before it’s too late for our friendship.”

He slowly shook his head. You weren’t ready for more. You weren’t ready to let him in. You were clearly in denial, because he wasn’t stupid nor was he blind. The signs were all over the place.

He took a deep breath.

It was okay. He just… needed to be more patient. It was okay, you were just scared.

“I don’t want to stop,” he answered firmly, and you nodded.

“Good. I don’t want to stop either for now.”

For now. Andrew’s heart was breaking, but he ignored it, pushed the words away until he couldn’t hear them anymore.

“Do you want some tea or something?” he asked, trying to get the tension down again.

But you shook your head, and he was surprised when you moved to straddle his laps again. Still, it was a reflex by now, really, when his hands came to rest on your hips as soon as you were settled above him.

“I’d rather pick up where we left off… if that’s fine by you,” you whispered in that suave tone that made his brain mushy and his heart melt.

Your lips came closer, but remained a breath away, and when he tried to close the space between your mouths, you moved away just enough to remain out of reach. He looked into your eyes, and read desire in your dilated pupils.

Slowly, he nodded, even if a voice in his head was ringing a warning. He ignored it as he answered in a tempting voice.

“Yeah… that sounds like a good plan. Mind reminding me where we were exactly?”

Your smile was full of mischief.

“There, I reckon,” you answered, sealing your lips back to his pulse, making him shudder, and audibly making his breathing stagger.

“Yeah… yeah, I remember now.”

He placed his hands back on your ribs, gently tracing circles on your soft skin with his thumbs, and you gasped under his touch. He let his head fall back on the backrest of the couch.

God… you would kill him one day… you would kill him with either pleasure, or pain…

#hozier #andrew hozier byrne #the hoziest #hozier x reader #hozier x you #hozier x y/n #hozier x fem!reader #hozier fanfiction #hozier fic #hozier series #series #fanfiction #fanfic #writing

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cleo-fox · 2 months ago

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As the Clock Strikes Midnight - Part VIII

Series Masterlist Chapter Summary: In which you lie to yourself. Chapter Warnings: Sex, p in v sex, dirty talk, praise kink, wall sex, semi-public sex, library sex, unrealistic refractory periods. Tag List: I don’t have a tag list for this fic, sorry! The best way to hear about updates is to follow me on Tumblr or subscribe to the fic on AO3.

You don’t know what this is and you don’t know how to navigate it.

Every night from dusk to midnight, you are in his bed. He makes you no promises and you don’t ask him to. You tell yourself that it’s meaningless, harmless, a bit of fun.

You ignore the fact that most sensible people would not define bedding a prince as a harmless bit of fun. Especially not when you’re a servant. Especially not when there’s so much that you could lose.

You ignore the fact that the longer it goes on, the more the meaningless parts start to feel substantive, the more it nudges at something in the center of your chest.

You ignore it all because if you don’t, if you stop and think very carefully about it, that’s when you will realize that you’ve wandered too far down a path that you ought not to have taken in the first place and by that point, it will be too late.

It is getting late and you are trying very hard to keep your eyes open. Your head is resting on Loki’s chest, your ear pressed against his heartbeat. His fingers have been trailing up your spine and into your hair and back down again. It’s soothing and it also gives you chills—a pleasant contradiction, much like Loki himself.

“I must leave tomorrow,” he says suddenly. “I have business on Midgard.”

“Oh,” you say. You’re not really sure how to feel about that. You’re not really sure whether you’re supposed to feel anything about that. Probably not. “How long do you expect to be away?”

He sighs. “Two months, at least. Likely more.”

“Long enough to cause trouble, I imagine,” you say lightly. There is an unexpected lump in your throat, but you’re doing your best to ignore it. There’s no reason there should be a lump in your throat; therefore it does not exist. You repeat this to yourself confidently, like saying it more than once will make it true.

“Well, naturally.” He rolls over, pulling you with him so that you are on your back and pinned beneath him. “I am the god of mischief, after all.”

“I suppose you are.” You recognize that look in his eyes. “And what mischief are you planning now, your highness?”

He hums and presses a kiss against your collarbone. “The usual sort.” He is growing hard against your belly. “I must have you at least once more before I depart on my journey.”

Despite all your complicated and confusing feelings, your body is warming to his touch, that all too familiar aching need stirring in your hips. “Only once?” you say as you open your legs to him.

“I said at least once. Try to pay attention, darling.”

In the end, he has you twice more, though the last one is quicker than you’d like, motivated by the lateness of the hour. He helps you dress and delays you once more at the door with a long and lingering kiss that you will find yourself returning to many times over the next several weeks.

“I really must go,” you murmur against his lips. “I’ll be missed if I’m away much longer.”

“Surely another minute won’t hurt,” he says, lowering his head to nuzzle the place where your neck and shoulder meet.

“I’m afraid you underestimate the power of very nosy kitchen maids.”

“Well, we can’t have that. I shall speak to Fritjof about the staffing.”

You know he’s joking, but there’s still a flicker of fear that runs through you at the sound of Fritjof’s name. “You wouldn’t,” you say, forcing your voice to sound light and unbothered.

He laughs quietly. “You’re right. I avoid speaking to that old bat whenever I can.”

You are used to hiding your true feelings about Fritjof. “He’s particular,” you say.

“He’s abhorrent,” says Loki. “If I were king, he would be the first I’d release from service.”

You can’t help but feel a little relieved by this statement. Sometimes it’s easy to feel like Fritjof’s unpleasantness is all in your head, or even just an overreaction.

You can’t say any of this, though, so you keep your expression neutral and polite. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m sure you do,” he says, a hint of a laugh evident in his voice. “You’re simply accustomed to being well-mannered about it.”

“I certainly wouldn’t say so if I was.”

He laughs quietly and runs a fingertip along your cheek. “I suppose not.”

There’s a beat of silence and the lateness of the hour strikes you once again. “I really must go,” you say.

“I know.” He looks at you carefully before leaning in to kiss you. It’s soft and gentle, almost tender in a way that makes you want to indulge in silly daydreams.

But the kiss ends, though his hand remains cupped against your cheek as he rests his forehead against yours. “I’ll send for you when I return,” he says.

You want to believe him, but there’s a part of you that’s afraid that this might be the end of your extraordinary little dalliance. Surely his attention will wander elsewhere once he returns. You hastily dismiss the thought and force what you hope is a believable smile.

“Safe travels, highness.”

You’re surprised by how immediately you feel Loki’s absence.

It’s not just the sex, though you certainly miss that. You miss his company, his dry and sarcastic remarks, the way that his eyes light up when you say something sharp or clever. His smile, his quiet huff of laughter against your shoulder, the way his long fingers curl around yours. The way he listens, the way his brow furrows when he’s deep in thought.

You try very hard not to think about what any of that might mean.

You resume your clandestine trips to the library, but you find it’s hard not to think of Loki in a space that you associate so closely with him: here is a book that you know he likes, there is the chair he prefers. The memory of his kiss burns on your lips, the ghost of his touch seared into your skin like a tattoo.

Deep down, you know what this means, though you won’t admit it just yet. Not even to yourself.

The first few days are difficult, but after a few stumbling missteps, you slowly find your way back into the rhythm you found back before Loki upended your days.

You’re soon reminded, though, that these forbidden trips are not without their risks.

It’s only blind luck that saves you. You are coming back from the library, cutting across the dining hall to save time when you notice the lace on your boot has come undone. You bend down to tie it and it’s only then in the sudden silence that you hear footsteps approaching.

You draw back quickly into the shadows, pressing yourself flat against one of the large stone columns. From this vantage point, you can just see the doorway at the far end of the room.

A figure appears and your heart nearly flies out of your chest.

There in the flickering torchlight is Fritjof.

You hold your breath as he crosses the room. It might be your imagination, but you would swear he looks more sinister in this light, with his beady eyes and the torchlight casting gloomy shadows across his face.

He’s a little past your column when he pauses, the sharp flare of his nostrils the only sign of life in his eerily still frame. Your heart is pounding so hard that you worry it might somehow give you away, impossible as it seems. He doesn’t know about the library, you tell yourself, willing it to be true. He doesn’t know I’m here.

His gaze sweeps over the room, his eyes squinting against the torchlight. The permanent line between his eyebrows deepens, almost as if he knows something is not quite right.

But finally, after a long moment, he seems to think better of it and continues on his way, footsteps echoing ominously in the large room.

You only let out your held breath when he leaves. You wait until his footsteps fade and then you make yourself count to one hundred before you tiptoe your way back to your room, your heart pounding the whole way.

If you were sensible, you would give up going to the library. You know that.

But with Loki gone, it’s the only thing you have to look forward to, and for that reason, you can’t quite convince yourself to give it up, though you do start taking a different route back.

And agonizingly slowly, those first four weeks pass.

On the first night of the fifth week, it occurs to you that you’re a little over halfway through. Assuming, of course, that it’s only two months and not longer like he thought it could be.

Assuming, of course, that he still wants you when he returns.

You decide that you’re not going to think about either possibility or the little blip of melancholy that creates strange tightness in your chest. It’s nothing. Nothing at all.

On the third night of the fifth week, you hear footsteps in the stacks.

It must be Fritjof.

You try not to panic as you set the book carefully on the shelf, listening intently. There was always part of you that knew that this was too risky to continue, that being discovered was always the inevitable conclusion. He’d nearly caught you once already, why didn’t you think this time would be different?

A voice comes from behind you. “And what business does a kitchen maid have in the palace library?”

There’s about a half second of terror before you realize that the voice is not Fritjof’s.

It’s Loki’s.

Before you can turn around, strong arms are wrapping around your waist from behind, a broad chest pressing against your back. You relax almost instantly, your fear turning to something that you will later recognize as joy.

“You’re shaking,” he says, pressing a kiss against your neck.

“You frightened me half to death,” you say, your heart beating wildly, half from joy and half from fear. “I thought you were Fritjof.”

“Such grievous attacks on my character already?” he tuts against your neck, though you can feel him smiling. “Any sensible man would be offended by such a comparison.”

“He nearly caught me last week. And you’re much earlier than you said—I didn’t think to expect you.”

He presses a soft kiss against your neck. “Are you disappointed?”

“That depends on how churlish you intend to be,” you say.

He laughs and it only makes you ache for him. He turns you around and before you can get a proper look at him, he’s pulling you flush against him and kissing you deeply.

The restless, yearning ache that you’ve felt in your soul since he left finally stills when his lips touch yours. Kissing Loki feels like coming home—it feels so perfect, so right that it would scare you a little bit if there were room in your heart for any feeling other than joy.

It’s a minute or so later when he finally draws back just a little—only enough to speak. “Did you miss me?” he breathes against your lips.

Happy as you are, your first instinct is to deflect. You can’t be vulnerable. Not yet. “I would ask the same of you,” you say.

Instead of answering you directly, he presses his hips against yours so you can feel the hard length of him already straining at the confines of his trousers. You suck in a breath through your teeth.

“Now give me a proper answer,” he says, his voice dipping into a slight growl that awakens that familiar, aching heat low in your hips.

A shiver snakes up your spine. “Yes,” you say. “Very much.”

His eyes flash and suddenly he’s pressing you back against the shelf and kissing you deeply. Desperately. You arch against him as his hands palm your breasts before dropping to your hips to pull you closer still, close enough that you can’t help but feel the hard press of his cock against you.

He pulls away abruptly, grabbing you by the wrist and leading you deeper into the stacks.

“Where are we going?” There’s a breathy quality to your voice that you hope doesn’t reveal too much.

“You’ll see.”

His destination is a dark, secluded corner near a collection of atlases. Before you can ask more questions, he’s pressing you up against a wall and you realize with a thrill that he intends to have you right here in the library.

“We could be seen,” you say as he hitches up your skirts and hooks your leg up around his waist. But your voice lacks conviction and you can both hear it.

“It’s late and no one ever comes back here.” His hand slips between your thighs, pushing your undergarments aside. “And I need you now.”

It’s a thrilling admission made all the more compelling by his long fingers stroking your slick folds and circling your clit.

“Oh, you did miss me,” he breathes as he slides a finger inside of you. “My poor little kitchen maid, so slick and unsatisfied.”

You are aching and a whimper catches in the back of your throat as he presses the heel of his hand against your clit. You grab his shoulders as a second finger joins the first. “Please, I need—”

“What do you need?” he purrs as he curls his fingers. “Do you need to come before I fuck you into this wall?”

You nod, panting. “Please.”

He chuckles darkly. “Darling, you know that’s not good enough.”

Your clit is throbbing as you tense around his fingers. You’re so close and his time away has left you needy and desperate. “Make me come, Loki. Please.”

His grin is wicked. “Good girl.”

His eyes take on a particular kind of focus that you only ever see when he’s got you hot and bothered and chasing an orgasm. His fingers are fucking into you with a slow precision, the heel of his palm grinding against your throbbing clit, nudging you closer.

“You’re so close,” he says, looking at you hungrily. “I love it when you’re like this, all wild and wanton.” He licks his lips. “You’re going to have to be quiet, though. Can you do that, darling?”

You manage a nod, but barely. The leg that’s not hooked around his waist is trembling.

“I’ve got you, sweet,” he murmurs, his arm firmly squeezing your waist. “Let go. Come for me.”

Your breath is coming in quick, shallow bursts. The instruction to be quiet seemed doable at first, but the feeling that’s cresting inside of you is so much bigger and stronger than you thought. You’re not going to be able to keep quiet.

“Loki,” you gasp in the last few seconds. “I can’t—”

Somehow, he understands your meaning because he covers your mouth with his, muffling your cries as you come hard, your fingernails digging into his back as you shake so hard your leg threatens to give out.

He doesn’t stop kissing you until the last shudder pulses through you.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” he says reverently. “Just lovely.”

“Please—”

You don’t have to say any more. He fumbles with the fastenings on his trousers and frees his cock. There’s no teasing, no delay as he positions himself at your entrance—he wants you too badly to play his usual games, his desire heightened by your weeks apart. He slides into you easily, lifting you fully off the floor as he sheathes himself in you. You whimper and he sighs, mumbling a string of curses under his breath.

“Norns, I missed this,” he murmurs, leaning back in to kiss you.

If you’d planned things properly, you would be back in his room or somewhere private where you could be as loud as you needed to be. This reunion has awoken something primal and hungry in both of you and staying quiet is a struggle. His hips take up a quick pace, driving into you with a speed and force that speaks to the profound need that had brought you to the corner of the library in the first place. He quickly finds the angle that makes you see stars and soon enough, you’re trembling around him.

“You take my cock so well, darling,” he mumbles against your throat, teeth scraping against the tender skin. “So good for me, so tight.”

“I’m so close—”

“I know, lovely, I can feel you.” He presses his forehead against yours, emerald eyes intent. “Come with me,” he grits out.

You keep your eyes locked with his until the force of your orgasm tips your head back against the wall, your eyes fluttering shut as you clench around his cock. He is close behind, gasping out your name as he buries his face in your neck.

It’s a good minute or so before he withdraws, and he seems reluctant to do so. There is something decadent and scandalous about his spend dripping down the inside of your thigh, but you decide you rather like the feeling. It makes you feel like his in a very raw and primal way.

You try not to think about the fact that you have any desire to be his.

He takes your hands in his and a green light spreads over the two of you. When it dissipates, you find yourself in his chambers, in front of his bed.

“You couldn’t have done that earlier?” you ask.

“It requires some concentration and my mind was singularly occupied,” he says. “I can’t imagine that you would have been very pleased had we arrived in separate places.”

He is right, but you don't want to say as much.

“I’d thought that your skill with magic was too great for such silly mistakes,” you say instead.

“I see my absence has not blunted your tongue.”

You smirk. “I hope you didn’t expect it to. I could not bear for you to be disappointed.”

He chuckles. “Not at all.”

He kisses you again and it’s slow and intimate in a way you don’t expect, in a way that warms you from the inside out.

“I’ve quite forgotten what you look like in my bed,” he murmurs against your lips.

“I suppose I could remind you,” you say.

He kisses you once more. “Turn around.”

He undoes the buttons on the back of your dress with achingly slow precision, pressing soft kisses against the back of your neck and all along your shoulders and spine. Your dress and then your shift and undergarments fall to the floor until you are bare before him.

His fingertips lightly trail along your rib cage and under the curve of your breasts. You suck in a shaky breath. You’ve just had him, but you’re already aching for him again.

His thumbs brush against your nipples and a soft moan falls from your lips.

“You can’t possibly need me again so soon,” he says, but you can tell from the rasp in his voice that this is not one-sided in the slightest. “You’re still dripping with my seed.”

You arch your back so that your ass presses against the growing bulge in his trousers. “You speak as though I am the only one with such a need.”

He hums, pressing back against you. “Perhaps you’re not.”

You look over your shoulder. “Well, your highness?”

He laughs low in his throat, one hand sliding between your legs, gently circling your still sensitive clit. “And here I thought you would be too sated for such boldness.”

“Perhaps you’ll have to try harder this time.”

You’re immediately gratified by the feeling of his bare skin at your back and you barely suppress a shiver. Typically if he resorts to magic to remove his clothes, it ends quite enjoyably for you.

“Perhaps I’ll fuck the boldness right out of you,” he says, his voice growing dark in a way that makes the muscles of your cunt ache in anticipation. You bend at the waist, bracing your hands against the edge of the bed to support yourself as he drags his cock along your dripping folds. “You speak sharply now, but we both know that you turn into a whimpering mess the moment you have my cock in your tight and greedy cunt.”

Quite suddenly, he’s at your entrance and pressing into you, his passage eased by the heady combination of your slickness and his come from earlier. Your back arches and you push up on your tiptoes, trying to take him deeper.

You can’t quite help the sigh that escapes your lips, even though it causes him to chuckle because it proves his point. His fingers massage your clit and you shudder, letting out a soft moan.

“Oh, you’ll have to do better than that, darling,” he says. “It’s been weeks since I last heard you scream for me.”

You cast a glance over your shoulder. “Like I said, highness: you’ll just have to try harder.”

His eyes darken in a way that makes you shiver. “You’ve grown bolder in my absence, love.”

You smirk. “Then teach me a lesson.”

Your intention is to goad him into fucking you hard enough to make the ache of these last few weeks disappear. His wide, feral grin makes you think you might have succeeded.

“Well, darling,” he purrs, his hips snapping hard against you in a way that makes your toes curl, “if you insist.”

He slips easily into a brisk pace, his fingers rubbing languorously at your clit. The contrast between the two is enough to make you moan in a way that’s so so wanton it’s almost embarrassing.

“Yes, I want to hear all of your lovely noises,” he purrs. “Let me hear how much you missed me.”

His slow pace on your clit is still at odds with the way he’s fucking you and it’s driving you absolutely wild. You’re only getting the added stimulation on every other thrust and while it feels good, it’s not helping you get any closer to coming.

You tolerate it for as long as you can stand, but eventually you can’t help but moan. “Please, Loki.”

“Please what, my love?” he asks and you can hear the smirk in his voice.

“More.”

He knows your body well enough at this point that he doesn’t have to ask what you mean—he simply begins massaging your clit in time with the thrust of his cock, making you keen.

“Like that?”

You can only moan in assent and he lets out a low chuckle as he continues with his new pace.

This is what you really needed, you think. His large hand firm on your hips, fingers on your clit, his movements just a little rough, his skin slapping against yours as he drives into you with hard and steady thrusts. You can feel the edge starting to approach, all of your muscles tingling and tensing in anticipation of your release.

He knows your body well—too well, perhaps—and he recognizes how your muscles tighten and twitch around his cock right before you come undone.

And he stops, withdrawing from you completely. “Not yet,” he says.

The whine you let out is perhaps the most pathetic noise you’ve ever made in your life. “Loki, please.”

He turns you around, silencing your protests with a slow, deep kiss. “I need you closer,” he mumbles against your lips.

You let him guide you down onto the bed. While you like it when he takes you from behind, there’s an intimacy to having him on top of you. You can catalog his expressions, count the flecks of gold in his green eyes. You feel simultaneously as though you are perched on a cliff of great height and peering down, but also warm and safe.

It’s a feeling that you probably ought to interrogate; instead you push it from your mind.

He kisses you as he eases back into you and you wrap your legs around his waist, urging him closer.

He’s slow and gentle with you. You thought you wanted fast and rough, but this…this is an unexpected perfection. You can feel every inch of him stretching and stroking the velvety inner walls of your cunt and every movement is somehow better than the last.

The buildup is slow and unhurried, the opposite of the library, the opposite of how he’d been driving into you mere moments before. He looks deep into your eyes, interrupted only when your lashes or his flutter shut against the rising tides within you both. It’s stirring something in your heart and you find yourself wanting to tell him that you missed this, you missed him, but the words stick in your throat and you suppose that’s probably for the best because these sort of things shouldn’t be spoken aloud when you are a servant who is bedding a prince in secret.

You shouldn’t be thinking about this. Not now. Probably not ever. Instead, you draw your focus to the coil that is slowly winding in the pit of your stomach and roll your hips up to meet his slow thrusts. You pull him down to kiss you, hoping that his focus on taking you to your peak eclipses the fact that there’s far too much feeling in your kiss.

And moments later, your toes curl one last time and you cry out as you completely unravel. He groans deeply and gives two more sharp thrusts before he succumbs to his own bliss.

He gradually slows to a halt, dropping his head to your chest as he catches his breath. You close your eyes, relishing the feel of him on top of you, still pressed inside you, the feel of his sheets on your back. You missed this. You missed him. You—

You shouldn’t continue that thought. You shouldn’t admit to that feeling, even to yourself. It’s stupid. It’s dangerous.

Don’t say it. Don’t think it.

Loki gives a satisfied sigh, breaking you out of your thoughts. “The next time I say I need to be away for weeks at a time, tell me I’m a fool,” he mumbles.

“I’ll tell you you’re a fool regardless of your travel plans,” you say.

His laughter rumbling against your bare skin might be one of the best sounds in the world. “I would expect no less.”

He eases out of you, vanishing the mess and quickly pulling you to his side. You rest your head against his shoulder and wrap your arms around his chest, draping your leg across his stomach for good measure.

“Did it go well?” you say after a moment of quiet. “Your business on Midgard, I mean.”

He sighs. “It was tedious. I’d rather have stayed here.”

You wonder if he means here on Asgard or here in bed with you. You’re not foolish enough to ask, though you are foolish enough to hope.

“I think it sounds exciting,” you say. “I’ve never left Asgard.”

“I’ll take you, someday.”

The promise in those words—and their sheer impossibility—raises a lump in your throat. “I rather think that would be frowned upon,” you say lightly.

“All the more reason for it.” He strokes a hand along your thigh. “And how did you occupy yourself without my stimulating company?”

“Oh, nothing terribly exciting,” you say. “I started reading in the library again.”

“I suppose I have been monopolizing your evenings,” he says, fingers tickling your thigh. “Though I don’t understand why you don’t simply take a book to your quarters.”

You swat at his hand. “You know that’s not permitted.”

He catches your hand, lacing his fingers with yours. “Neither is this, technically.”

“Yes, well.” You clear your throat. “I’d rather not give anyone more reasons to look more closely at my evening activities for that reason.”

“Am I to understand that you prefer my bed to the finest Asgardian literature?”

“That may be your understanding, but that’s not what I said.”

“Well.” He presses a kiss against the top of your head. “I suppose I’ll have to make my bed more tempting, then.”

It’s the sort of offhand comment you write off as a silly flirtation—he doesn’t mean anything by it, surely. It’s entirely forgettable.

Except…the next night, there’s a stack of books for you beside his bed.

“What’s this?” you say, trying to ignore the lump in your throat.

“I told you I intended to make my bed more tempting,” he says.

His eyes are glittering with mischief, but the gesture itself is achingly sweet, one that plucks at your heartstrings and reminds you of all the feelings that you’re pretending you’re not having. He had retrieved the book you’d been reading last night, along with titles by authors you mentioned liking back in the garden so many weeks ago.

That night, he makes you read aloud from a book of love poems while he buries his face between your thighs, his tongue moving in iambs and dactyls on your clit until you come with poetry and his name on your lips. In the afterglow, you curl up next to him and read while he does the same, until you need each other again. It’s a new part of your routine, one that you’ll repeat many times in the coming days.

It’s there in the hazy paradise between prose and the bliss of his touch that a small, secret voice inside of you begins to admit that as much as you say it’s a harmless bit of fun, the situation has spiraled out of control in the worst possible way:

You’ve fallen in love with him. And you know it’s only a matter of time before he breaks your heart.

Next chapter coming soon

#loki smut #loki x reader smut #loki x reader #loki x female reader #loki x female reader smut #loki laufeyson smut #as the clock strikes midnight

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ewanmitchellcrumbs · 1 year ago

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Rev. 22:20 - Chapter Five: Eat You Alive

Warnings: Mentions of death, male masturbation, canon typical violence, smut. Word count: ~3.9k

Summary: Aemond runs away from his problems, only to find they're right where he left them when he returns.

Main series masterlist.

Author's note: I do not have a tag list. Please follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications to be updated when I post a fic. Community labels are for cops.

Aemond strides through the winding streets of King’s Landing, hood pulled firmly over his head, back towards the Red Keep. Despite the chill that lingers in the night air, his blood runs hotly through his veins, making his skin feel flushed.

He can still feel the press of her lips against his, his skin tingles with the memory of it. He is certain he can see the rumpling of the material of his cloak where she’d clutched desperately at the front of it, but it is likely no more than his imagination, clinging to the feeling in the same way he convinces himself the softness of her face is still beneath his fingers. He rubs his fingertips together, his pulse racing at the fact he’d caressed her jaw with those same digits just moments ago.

Shaking his head in an attempt to erase the thought, he shuts himself in his chambers. It is no use fantasising any more. She is no better than a common harlot, given over to the Faith because she is no longer worth anything to her family. Worse still, she wishes to use her vantage point as Septa of his sister’s children to torment him for his lustful indiscretions.

Silently, he curses his treacherous heart and mind. Despite all of this, he still yearns for her. He has been painfully hard from the moment he saw her undressing for bed. He hopes relieving the tension will bring him peace.

The maidservant he summons to his bedchamber is a slight, pretty little thing. He has made use of her before. She is always discrete, and diligent in ensuring she drinks moon tea afterwards. However, this time as he thrusts inside of her, her tight wetness provides little comfort. Where he seeks the novice’s scent of camphor and cloves, he is met with the faint scent of ash - likely from her having swept his fireplace earlier. Her breathy moans do not match the cadence of the way the novice had sighed softly into his mouth as her tongue had moved against his own.

It’s unsatisfying. Even when he reaches his peak, spilling himself across the maidservant’s thighs, the relief he feels is miniscule, as though he has half heartedly scratched an itch. Nothing will compare now.

He groans in frustration, climbing off of the bed and throwing her dress back towards her.

“Get out,” he hisses, not bothering to turn and look as she hurriedly dresses and rushes from the room.

He ought to have strangled that pretty little novice when he had the chance. Instead, she will reside beneath the same roof as him, making a mockery of him, forcing him to remember the humiliating swiftness with which he had allowed himself to be enamoured by her - to still be enamoured by her.

Aemond cannot bear it. He decides he won’t ask his grandfather for permission to go to Oldtown to be with his younger brother, he will simply tell him. If putting distance between himself and the object of his obsession is what he needs to do in order to snuff out the flames she ignites within him then nothing will stand in his way.

He sends a raven to Daeron, informing him of his imminent arrival, before turning in for the night.

His sleep is restless, plagued by dreams of his lips against hers, but when he pulls away he is greeted by a mirror and it is only himself he sees, the marred flesh of his scarred left eye socket reflected back at him, ruined and empty.

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

Awakening early, Aemond dresses swiftly, instructing his chambermaids to pack his belongings and have them sent on to Oldtown. He packs lightly himself for what he will need in the meantime and what he can manage to carry on Vhagar’s back, before donning his riding coat. He has no intention of coming back once he has sought out his grandfather.

Also an early riser, he finds Otto already in his study, quill in hand as he scribbles across a length of parchment.

The older man looks up as Aemond enters, raising his eyebrows slightly in question at his grandson’s appearance.

Before he has a chance to query it, Aemond speaks. “I am going to Oldtown to be with Daeron. I do not know when I will return.”

Otto draws in a breath, placing his quill down upon the parchment before leaning back in his chair. “Do you think that is wise?”

“I am not needed here,” Aemond says cooly. “I wish to see my younger brother.”

“Your father’s health worsens by the day. Your mother needs you.”

Aemond quirks his lips, huffing through his nose. “I am well aware of who you and Mother intend to crown once Viserys is dead,” he snaps, “I do not need to be here for that.”

He notices his grandfather bristle. Without giving him time to say anything further, he walks quickly towards the door, but a sudden pang of guilt squeezes tightly at his heart, causing him to look back once more. “Look after them both, please,” he says softly, referring to Alicent and Helaena.

Otto simply nods, lifting his quill and dipping it into the ink pot, beginning to write again.

On dragonback is the only place where Aemond’s mind ever feels truly clear. It is a full day’s flight on Vhagar from King’s Landing to Oldtown, and the meditative peace is blissful for Aemond, focusing only on the whip of the wind around him, and directing his dragon’s movements with slight tugs of her reins.

It is nightfall by the time Aemond finds somewhere suitable to leave Vhagar and makes his way to where Daeron currently resides.

He receives a warm welcome, despite the short notice of his arrival and the brothers settle down to share roasted venison and fine red wine from Arbor.

The conversation is kept light, the two exchanging pleasantries, as Daeron enquires about the wellbeing of their mother and siblings, and Aemond tells him about how quickly Jaehaerys and Jaehaera are growing up, as well as the rapidity with which their father is deteriorating.

“So, how are your studies going?” Aemond asks, fingers plucking absentmindedly at the stem of his wine goblet.

“I think we have exhausted the farcical pleasantries, brother,” Daeron says with a wry smile, placing his fork upon his plate. “Tell me why you are really here.”

Aemond scoffs derisively. “To see you, of course. Why would I have an ulterior motive?”

“Because you are running away from something,” he replies with a raise of his eyebrow, “tell me I am wrong.”

“I do not run away from anything,” Aemond mutters darkly, his grip tightening around his goblet as he feels himself growing hot with anger. “I claimed the largest dragon in the world when I was a child. I am not a coward.”

“And yet here you are,” Daeron quips with a light shrug.

“You came here to study, did you not?” Aemond asks defensively. “Why can I not do the same? I have exhausted the Red Keep’s library.”

“I could send you books,” his younger brother muses, narrowing his eyes. “You are not here because you have run out of things to read. So tell me. Is it a woman?”

“Stop it,” Aemond glowers.

Daeron simply sits back, sipping his wine, lips turned upwards in a smug smile.

His brother is right and he hates him for it. He is running away from her, but he sees no other option.

They retire for the evening, and Aemond is grateful that Daeron does not pry further into the matter.

Life in Oldtown is peaceful. Daeron makes for a more interesting conversationalist than either Aegon or Helaena, and he feels spoiled for choice with the selection of reading material that the Citadel boasts.

The days he does not spend poring over books and scrolls, he flies on dragonback. The great, elderly bulk of Vhagar moves at a glacial pace through the skies, while Daeron speeds ahead, propelled by the sprightly wings of Tessarion.

It would be idyllic were it not for the fact that he cannot seem to stop thinking of his novice. A month slips by and he can still remember the slope of her delicate neck, the way the sunlight shone upon her hair, the curve of her hips and legs as she’d undressed, how warm her breath had been against his skin, the softness of her lips against his own.

He is frustrated that even hundreds of miles away he cannot seem to escape her. Hard as he resists it, he still finds himself fucking his fist to the thought of her each night, thinking about what could have happened if he had not have fled from her.

Would she moan wantonly as his flesh slaps hotly against hers, or whimper quietly into the crook of his as she tightens around him, his fingertips pressing bruises into the soft flesh of her thighs?

Repeatedly he has to remind himself that she is just toying with him, bored with her own forced servitude she is preying upon his lust for her, using it for her own advantage. To return home would be his ruin. He is certain she must reside within the Keep now, caring for Aegon and Helaena’s twins. If he goes back she will only seek to make his life miserable, and when he eventually crumbles and gives into her, she will humiliate him. He will not allow it.

Each week two ravens arrive, carrying letters for Daeron and Aemond from their mother, sending news of Helaena and the twins, and asking after their own wellbeing. Each week they diligently reply. As much as Aemond loathes to admit it, he misses King’s Landing, he misses his mother and sister. It is a sentiment that is apparently unshared by his younger brother. He is suited to life in Oldtown, he seems settled and happy here, far more relaxed than he ever was in the capital.

It is three days before they are due to receive their weekly letters when a singular raven arrives, carrying a small roll of parchment addressed to Aemond.

He sits at the dining hall table, breaking his fast with Daeron when the maester deposits the message on the table next to him, before bowing his head and taking his leave.

Aemond picks it up and unfurls it between his thumbs, his breath catching in his throat and his eye widening slightly as a cold wave of dread washes over him.

Where his mother’s handwriting is usually careful, neat, precise, it appears rushed, the two words scrawled in a state of anxiety.

Come home.

“What is it?” Daeron asks, pushing his plate away and eyeing Aemond with concern.

“Our father is dead,” Aemond says in a hushed tone, sliding the parchment across the table for his brother to look at it.

Daeron swallows thickly, nodding as he reads the message before hastily screwing it up and hiding it within his sleeve. “You need to leave today.”

“Will you come with me?” Aemond asks, anxiously rubbing his index fingers against his thumbs.

He shakes his head. “It would look too suspicious if I were to disappear suddenly. You know why mother wrote only to you. You know what she means to do.”

“Yes,” Aemond sighs, “and it is not me she means to crown.”

“I know, Aemond,” Daeron says sympathetically, leaning forward across the table. “Believe me, there is no one that understands your frustration better than I. But mother needs you. You know he will not make it easy for her.”

He has the right of it. He always has the right of it. It would anger Aemond if he did not admire Daeron’s wisdom so much.

“Then I suppose this is farewell.”

“Until we meet again, brother.”

It is nightfall when Aemond returns reluctantly to the Red Keep. The entirety of the castle has been locked down, with no one allowed in or out, and the corridors of Maegor’s Holdfast are eerily quiet as he passes through them, his boots echoing loudly upon the flagstones with every step.

He can see light shining through the crack in the doors to Helaena’s apartments, and hushed voices inside. He pushes the doors open, met by the sight of Alicent and Helaena sat upon a settee, both of them turn to look at him with wide, grief stricken eyes.

Yet it is not them that hold his attention, it is her.

Every bit as beautiful as he’d remembered, only now she wears the seven colour corded belt around her waist, and a crystal pendant. She has become a septa, no longer his little novice, but still every bit the temptress he’d left behind months ago. Looking at her makes his pulse race. In the rush to get back in the wake of the news of Viserys’ passing, he had quite forgotten she would be here.

She kneels upon the floor, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera sit either side of her, babbling and playing with toys. They had gotten so big; they look like real, tiny, little people now.

His throat runs dry when he sees the familiar look in her eye as she gazes at him, it holds the same heat and intensity he recognises from the night they had kissed. He has to force himself to look away.

He is met by the soft, sad eyes of his mother, surging forward to tenderly cradle his forearms. “I am so glad to see you,” she says gently.

“And I you,” he responds tenderly, eye narrowing affectionately as his own fingers return the gesture, squeezing softly. “But I am tired from the journey, can plans wait until the morning?”

“Of course,” Alicent nods, stepping away. “Rest. We have locked Aegon in his chambers to prevent him from drowning any further in his cups, so there is nothing that can be done until tomorrow.”

Aemond bows his head solemnly in understanding, before backing away. “Goodnight, mother.”

He gives a nod towards Helaena, purposely avoiding looking in the direction of the twins, not wanting to see her, before walking back towards his own quarters.

From the moment he saw her he has been painfully hard, and he loathes himself for it. Tossing and turning in the sheets, he will not allow her the satisfaction of him pleasuring himself to the thought of her. Not that she would know, but he refuses to do it with her beneath the same roof as him.

He wishes he had ignored his mother’s letter and stayed in Oldtown with Daeron. Not only does he have to navigate the coronation of his wastrel of an older brother, he now has to cope with living alongside the septa he has spent the last half a year lusting after.

Realising sleep will not find him, he throws the covers back, getting out of bed and putting his eyepatch, undershirt and trousers back on before leaving his chambers, intending to go to the library. It has always been a source of comfort to him when his mind is troubled.

Immediately he spots her, padding barefoot along the corridor, dressed in only a cotton shift, her hair loose. Even in darkness she takes his breath away and he hesitates a moment, gathering himself, before allowing his anger to guide his actions.

He lurches after her, gripping her arm and pulling her to him. “What are you doing skulking about the Keep at this hour?” He whispers furiously.

She regards him impassively, surprising him when she does not try to wrench free of his grasp. “I was attending to my duties, checking on the children.”

Her voice causes his stones to tighten. It has been so long since he has heard her speak. Aemond releases her, as though her skin has scalded him and turns to walk away. He cannot be this close to her.

“Why do you shun me?” She asks, causing him to pause. “We both have had things taken from us.”

“We share nothing in common,” Aemond says irritably. “I lost my eye because I dared to claim the largest dragon in the world. You lost your freedom because of your own depravity.”

“I dared to pursue what made me happy, just as you did,” she replies defiantly.

“You are a whore,” he spits, rounding on her.

“And you are a craven,” she juts out her chin with a smirk. “Running away because you–”

She gasps, her words cut off, as Aemond lunges towards her, gripping her throat forcefully, using the leverage to back her into his chambers, before kicking the door closed. Fury guides his movements, he wants to hurt her, make her realise she must never disrespect a Targaryen Prince so brazenly.

“How dare you speak to me like that, you insolent little bitch,” he snarls, shaking her slightly, “I have half a mind to strangle the life from you.”

Her gaze is unflinching as she stares up at him, there is no fear in her eyes. He sees desire dancing within their depths.

His eye softens, his grip on her throat loosening as he feels his resolve crumble, and then his mouth is upon hers, lips moving with greedy haste.

He groans appreciatively as he feels her hands tighten on the front of his shirt, much like they had on his cloak all those months ago. The hand not around her neck moves into her hair, gripping it tightly, directing her movements as their tongues writhe together.

Her hair is every bit as soft as he had imagined it would be, though she smells different. Long gone is the scent of the incense burned in the Sept. Now her aroma is laced faintly with lavender oil, though it clings to her flesh in a way that is unmistakably her. Aemond feels as though he is finally slaking his thirst after months without water.

Pushing her backwards, she falls softly onto the mattress, and he climbs over her, caging her in with his body. Her heavy breaths against his neck cause him to shudder, and he wastes no time in pushing her shift above her hips and freeing his cock.

This isn’t how he imagined their first time would be. He wanted to take his time with her, to drink in the sight of her naked flesh, savour each feeling. Yet when he imagined his first time with her, his father was not dead, it was not the eve of his brother’s coronation and he had not just throttled her.

In this moment he is driven purely by animalistic need, and to his delight she does not seem to mind.

Aemond spits into his palm, smearing the moisture through her folds, his cock aching as it twitches when he feels how wet with arousal she already is. He strokes the combined fluids over the length of himself, before driving forwards forcefully into her.

He is met with resistance, and the squeeze of her around him causes him to screw his eye shut, his jaw going slack at the feel of her tight, wet heat. She moans with unrestrained lewdness as he bottoms out inside of her, and he takes a moment to look at her, spread out beneath him, hair in disarray around her head, lips glossy and slightly parted, eyes darkened by lust.

Snarling, losing all semblance of control, he snaps his hips against hers, setting an unforgiving pace.

“Is this what you wanted? Is this what you fucking wanted?” He grits out, one hand grabbing her hip, the other gripping her chin to keep her focus on him. “Answer me!”

“Y-yes!” She cries out, legs wrapping around his waist, drawing him in deeper, making him feel light headed.

In all of his wildest fantasies she has never felt this good. It is not possible to imagine a sensation that is such exquisite torture. He would have willingly crawled back from Oldtown if only to experience this.

His skin is damp with perspiration, his brow furrowed with exertion as the bed creaks with the intensity of his movements. A lick of white hot heat tickles at his lower spine as he feels her hips bucking in time with his, chasing her own pleasure.

“Whore,” he murmurs hatefully, his hand from her chin back to her throat, squeezing the sides.

Her inner walls flutter around him, her moans and whimpers increasing in both pitch and frequency until he feels her tense up suddenly before tightening around him with a cry, her back arching with the force of it.

His own thrusts become sloppy, the ache inside him intensifying until the world goes black and he pushes hard inside of her one final time, spilling himself with a strangled grunt.

Collapsing beside her, he lays there for a moment in silence, the only sounds in the room are their combined heavy breathing.

A heaviness settles in Aemond’s chest, sullen regret weighing upon him. “So, who will you tell about this?”

“What do you mean?” She asks, propping herself up on her elbow to look down at him.

“You have had this planned all along, to settle yourself as my sister’s children’s septa and make a mockery of me for your own amusement, and I have given in to you,” he says quietly, fingers rubbing together anxiously.

“Aemond, I did not know I was to be placed here,” she tells him with sincerity.

His expression softens, eye widening slightly as he turns to look at her. “You did not?”

“No. Novices are not told of their placement until their training is finished. It is to prevent us from being distracted away from our studies by thoughts of where we will end up. By the time I found out you had already left King’s Landing.”

Aemond furrows his brow in confusion. “Then why? Why did you do this?”

She huffs a soft laugh. “Because I wanted to. Do you not think it is exciting? Perhaps one day I will be the septa for your own children when you are married for political gain, and you can seek me out away from prying eyes and continue to have your way with me.”

His heart begins to race again, despite the fact it had only just begun to slow from having rutted mercilessly into her. The thought does excite him, depraved as it is. He has spent months lusting after her, to finally be able to have her whenever he wants her is enormously gratifying.

“You will be my ruin,” he says, voice filled with a playful, affectionate warmth.

“And your salvation,” she purrs with a mischievous smile. “I mean it, Aemond, you and I are alike. The only difference is I do not have the opportunity for revenge, but you do.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, rolling to face her.

Her fingers trace lightly over the scar on his left cheek and the leather of his eyepatch. “You are a Targaryen Prince,” she tells him, “you have the means to seek atonement for what you have lost, and I shall ensure that you do.”

It is then that he sees her fully for the first time. A reflection of his own darkest thoughts and desires. It both excites and terrifies him. His salvation and his damnation.

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

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anonymouspuzzler · 1 year ago

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Haha Whoops Uh Oh! (UPDATED 6/11/23)

so this isn't the type of post I normally like to make, but! uh! hey! I just got ambushed by a HUGE tuition bill I wasn't expecting, and I'm out of options to pay it - they've already applied my scholarship and loans, I'm already working multiple jobs that are basically just barely paying for rent + groceries, and I only have enough on my credit card to pay for One of the three payments they're requiring, which only gets me through till July (with, again, no options that get me that amount of money by that time).

further full disclosure, this bill came at like, the worst possible time - they've given me four days to make at minimum the first payment (which, again, I can only do by maxing out my credit card), and on top of juggling multiple jobs I'm also in the middle of two classes, including one which involves upcoming travel (that is already paid for, thank god). Hence, me Scrambling a li'l bit!!

as such, I've set a new goal on my ko-fi!! it is, of course, HUGE, but genuinely any small amount people are able to contribute goes a huge way to giving me SOME way to pay it off. note that 3-coffee doodle requests are still A Thing, commissions are still a thing (if you have one active I'll be getting to them this & next week), and I'll be streaming wherever I can to pull together money that way - wherever it comes, any support is HUGE and I mean that.

UPDATE 6/11/23: I am updating the original post to remove the ko-fi link and yet you fine folks know: HOLY HECK, y'all managed to get my tuition dealt with. words truly cannot express my gratitude for that - I'm so, so, SO humbled and thankful for everyone who came out to get me out of a really rough situation.

in the slightest, smallest attempt to pay forward the kindness i've been shown, I'm gonna try and use this moment to direct y'alls attention to some other folks I know who could use some kindness! hardly comprehensive, in no particular order, just top-of-my-mind type type beat. (note that these are all folks' twitter handles - some of 'em are on tumblr too, but I figure best to direct you to where I know they are 100%!)

@/Pochiyaki is a friend & artist who's been trying to get out of a bad money situation a while, and could definitely use some love!

@/rudeboimonster is similarly a dear friend who's been struggling to find long-term work and housing, anything you got would help.

Or, considering supporting the work of a creative you love! A few I've been loving lately that I'd recommend:

@/cosmignon (Runaway Draikana webcoming, and other comics and illustration work)

@/SynthCharmVA (voicework & writing/show development)

@/Tonya_Song (music - including vocals, piano and composition - plus education and activism work)

@/jaypg_art (character design, visdev, and illustration)

@/littlegoodfrog (Matchmaker and other comics)

@/winonaparadise (Girls With Horns and other comics/illustration work)

@/derekmballard (comics, including the upcoming Cartoonshow graphic novel)

@/_PartyCoffin_ (Welcome Home, and just about every art form you can conceive of)

and of course, if you're not following & supporting my amazing partner @/hollowtones, who helped me through this tough situation in every possible way - well you ought to be!! a delight and talent in every imaginable way, and I'm only a little biased on that.

and above all else... THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!

#anonymous puzzler talks #if you are able or willing to signal boost this as well it's deeply appreciated #i love my school but they have a horrible habit of waiting until the last possible moment to tell you that you have to pay for something #and then not giving you any options to finance it #so unless you've been checking the finance portal on your own Multiple Times A Day with no indication of if or when something will change #You Are Just Fucked

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garkgatiss · 6 months ago

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{{esquivalience}}, The Auteur, and Doctor Who the TV Show

alright so this novella.

First, its provenance: I was googling the Twist at the End song last week because it's catchy as hell. I ended up on the Tardis wiki and realized that there was a song by the exact same name that appeared in a licensed DWU novella that was published April 9th. As in, last month. Which is weird. It's hard to say how weird, but given the timing, it either has to be a) pure coincidence (lol), b) someone who worked on the show abusing their advance knowledge of plot details for personal gain, or c) intentional coordination between showrunner and novella-writer, a la Joe Lidster writing John Watson’s blog for BBC Sherlock.

The likelihood of (a) is decreasing by the week. I feel like I have to entertain the idea of (b) happening, but it's hard to square why a DWU-writing supernerd who is also involved somehow with the production of the show would risk a lifetime of blackballing from DW for a bit of cheap promotion for their extended-universe tie-in novella. I am so sorry to be saying this, but I think (c) might actually have legs.

The novella's title is {{esquivalience}}, which is a fake word invented in real life by editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary. The invented word means "deliberate shirking of one's official duties", and it was added to the dictionary to protect the copyright of the electronic version. In S9, Face the Raven showed us a “trap street", i.e. a fake street drawn on a map by a mapmaker to identify any copyright infringement of said map -- a dictionary entry for a word made up by the dictionary editors operates similarly as a copy-trap. The definition is apt for a copy-trap as well, because anyone illicitly copying a dictionary is themselves shirking a job they ought to be doing themselves... it's clever, it's very fun, we're off to a great start.

THE STORY:

The unnamed protagonist applies for a custodial job at this library that serves basically as a databank for the history of everything in the universe. If a book about something is thrown away, that something ceases to have ever existed. Exhibit A: Protagonist works in the Dead & Dying Language Department. They throw away The Book of Belgian Dutch, and a) a couple coworkers with Belgian Dutch heritage either disappear or get completely different names/family trees, and also b) everyone quickly forgets that Belgian Dutch was ever a thing to begin with.

The librarians cover for this accidental deletion of reality by copying/fudging a new book on "Belgian Gerench", their name for what they replace Belgian Dutch with. They try to catch most of the people who were deleted, bring them back, and fit them into that new language/culture/ethnicity bucket they just made up.

(The narration explains that because both Belgian and Dutch still exist separately as concepts, there aren't too many knock-on effects in terms of loanwords in other languages that needed to be modified/recovered. It also explains that time-traveling back to make an exact copy of The Book of Belgian Dutch wouldn't work because of the universe's copyright laws or something.)

Protag then comes after the head of their department, the Head Dictionary Contributor, or Head DC. They find him in a hidden room called the Internal Reference Room. Instead of languages, the books here hold the life stories of every employee, which auto-update as the person lives their life, but can also be edited or destroyed to alter that person's reality. Protag sits down with the Head DC's lifebook and starts adding and erasing things.

It turns out that Head DC knows how wrong editing these books can go from personal experience. Years ago, wanting to leave his mark on the universe, the Head DC chose to add his own copy-trap into The Book of Dutch -- the fake word "esquivalience". This action seemingly created the concept of cutting corners at your job, leading to the insufficient vetting of Protag for this job and therefore their subsequent hiring, which results in Head DC's eventual death.

Head DC pleads with Protag for his life, but Protag is undeterred. They finally tear out the final page in Head DC's book, which kills him. Protag then writes themselves in as Head DC. Settling into their new role, they turn their attention to The Book of English (8th to 25th Century). They first look up the dictionary entry for “esquivalience”, which says it came to English from Dutch, and then flips to the entries for “ravel" and “unravel”, described as contranyms from Dutch roots, both “meaning variably to tangle or to fray”.

This is the central story of the novella. There is also a Prelude and Postlude that describe the lives of two young men, first in a reality in which they never meet, and then in a reality in which they do meet and fall in love (their meeting is enabled by one of them skivving off work in time to make it to see the movie where they first meet -- esquivalience!)

Just before the Postlude, there is also printed the lyrics to a song (see below), and an excerpt from The Book of English, this volume covering the 4th to 5th billionth centuries of history. This excerpt again gives the definition of “unravel”, but refers the reader to an appendix for the full list of definition, and notes they are “largely in usage as reference to Unravel, The” and “N.B. to be used with extreme care and caution”.

NOVELLA-SHOW CONNECTIONS:

Mavity [Wild Blue Yonder]: Mavity happened all the way back in Wild Blue Yonder, so it's not necessarily surprising to see it in a novella published in April 9, 2024, but there's a whole scene establishing that the M has seemingly replaced the G in all Romance languages, while Domhantarraingt in Irish-Gaelic is unaffected.

Rope [The Church on Ruby Road]: We're all learning the vocabulary of rope now! The Unravel is what the novella calls the meta-historical revisions caused by making edits to the books. There are also rope/weaving metaphors everywhere. Again, the rope themes of the TV show predate the April 9 novella just far enough that in theory it would have been possible for the novella to have taken inspiration from the 2023 Christmas Special. Except. The wiki page for The Unravel credits ownership of the concept to Jamie H. Cowan, the author of the novella. Not just that, but The Unravel was used – with credit to Jamie – in a DWU short story collection published December 26, 2023 – the day after The Church on Ruby Road aired.

Dot and Bubble [Dot and Bubble] : At this point, “Dot and Bubble” is a contextless episode title to me, first announced on March 31. In the novella, we get this:

The Twist At The End [The Devil’s Chord] : Just before the novella's Postlude, there are the lyrics to a song called “The Twist At The End”. Just listed there, no context, like an azlyrics.com entry. They are not the same lyrics as the song in The Devil's Chord, but then, meta-historical revision would kind of be the point, wouldn't it? There's just this sentence to connect it to anything happening in the narration: "Somewhere, in the far distance, as ______ continued to erase, an old 1960s Earth tune began to play."

EDITED TO ADD: @corallapis has pointed out to me that not only did the existence of the song "Twist at the End" by John Smith and the Common Men leak, but the novella's author tweeted about it in December 2023.

The Chumerian languages of the planet B’llauit, for instance, needed much consideration. Particularly Krulvan. There was still a great deal of work to be done in compiling the post-technoweb aspects of Krulvan. Like how most emotional words and phrases contracted more and more, until finally, they were little more than abbreviations. The old dot-and-bubble effect.

A parent’s love was no longer expressed post-technoweb as “Kal-at lur amoi”, but instead as merely “KLA”. Which needed to be carefully distinguished in the relevant encyclopedia from another abbreviated Krulvan phrase “Kal’ati Lepr’en Acrumpsal” – which was something rather equivalent to the expletives of other languages like “D’Arvit”, or “Bleno”.

It's only a brief mention in the book, so it's possible in theory that it was added after the episode titles were released, or even after the novella’s publication (Amazon allows post-publication changes up to 10% of the text, and it’s not possible to track those changes). I’ve included the second paragraph because it’s interesting that the example they’ve given is the word for a parent’s love, which we can see as a running theme in this season of DW (though Moffat has said before that the only thing he writes about is a parent’s love, so who knows).

Not the strongest evidence of two-way coordination, but we may learn more when the episode airs.

Dutch [Space Babies, Boom]: Yeah, as in, the Dutch language. The words “spoor” & “smelt” both get a "oo, good word!" callout, spoor in Space Babies and smelt in Boom. These words both have Dutch roots. Splice, the daughter's name in Boom, is not only from a Dutch root, but also means the joining two pieces of rope. I read this novella just before Boom dropped on Disney+, so I can personally confirm that this is not a post-hoc addition to the novella. It hardly could have been anyway, this element is much more integral to the novella’s narrative than any of the other pieces.

The Auteur

This is where this all becomes relevant to the “Doctor Who is a TV Show” theory.

While the Protag is shredding the Head DC’s book, the Head DC is in the room, and what follows is an extremely meta narrative-aware pre-death monologue from the Head DC. He's pleading with Protag to stop changing things in his book, but he also refers to an "It" whose power surpasses them both.

He held eye contact with them as they looked up, “You didn’t pick up Belgian Dutch by chance. It’s how it plays. In weaving coincidences.”

“Just stop reading. Stop changing things. Stop, and we can be spared. Be free! If you keep going, then it will get what it wants. It is a happening [sic]. Out there, and in here in the basement. Everywhere. It will win if you keep going.”

“One day, you’ll make the same mistakes. Goddamn, you will. Because it’s all already written. It has already written it all. The paths, the choices. Rewrites, erasures, and even the contradictions. If you don't just... stop... it will... Unravel us all."

The "It" in question is presumably the author. Like an author writing a story, "It" plays by weaving coincidences, "It" gets what it wants when we keep reading, "It" has already written everything.

The Head DC mentions a special disposal chute, which had recently appeared as if by magic, which enabled Protag’s destruction of Belgian Dutch. Head DC’s references to this “It” suggest that his decision to create a word meaning cutting corners caused his eventual death, not by inventing the concept of cutting corners, but by creating a set-up that the Auteur, a godlike being that cares only for the rules of narrative, was compelled to write a satisfying follow-through for. The Auteur changed reality in order to weave a narratively-satisfying coincidence.

The Auteur is a character from the DW-spinoff series Faction Paradox. The creator of the Faction Paradox universe describes it as “on the surface an SF universe, but it works on the same principles as traditional folklore.”

I am but a humble Moffat scholar, so explaining the character of The Auteur is immediately getting into lore that I cannot even begin to decipher.

But it seems plausible that in the show we’re dealing with a godlike being, someone along the lines of Maestro or the Toymaker, but instead of caring only for the rules of play, cares only for the rules of narrative.

And this being, The Auteur, is altering reality and creating the narratively-satisfying coincidences in 14’s and 15’s timelines, possibly starting all the way back with the coincidence of 14 regenerating as David Tennant and immediately bumping into Donna Noble.

And it seems plausible that this season was created in cooperation with these DWU authors to whom concepts like The Auteur and The Unravel are licenced, and the novella is a tie-in text full of references to the current season to lead savvy superfans on a merry chase that foreshadows the season’s big bad.

Because I... don't really have another explanation for the existence of this novella at this point.

#doctor who #esquivalience #what to even tag this #dust off the old clown costume

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0daylighthours0 · 7 months ago

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My Mother's Unbiased Byler + Milkvan Opinions - Viewing ST for the 1st Time!

(UPDATE)

My Mama has now witnessed Stranger Things in its entirety. Her favourite season was the third, her favourite characters Hopper and Joyce, her favourite pairing would be those guys too, and her most disliked pairing? Can only assume.

I wanted to write out her thoughts on the second to last episode previously, as she'd held many, but before I knew it we'd finished the whole show and I was forced to an income of NEW opinions which ruled out my memory of any old ones. Shucks. But boy did this lady have much to say. The only way I can break it down is by providing a sample of quotes she'd delivered, in order, a day after having finished the series.

All are just things she said about milkvan and byler, as they're this post's main focus. There's simply much to say about these relationships too, being so up in the air over where they ought be expected to turn out. These are all direct quotes too (as I typed as she talked, unkown to her) so you'll have to excuse the natural way in which some lines come off as unfocused, being written after real time conversations. Let's get into it:

Ok I really don't know whether she likes Mike very much. She actively disliked the guy earlier on, and now her feelings appear to be more mixed. A lot of her discussion was solely around this guy's actions.

"It's almost like he's [Mike] forcing himself like- ok Hopper he was kind of very passionate and kissing, you know he sort of instantly- with Mike, from being obsessed and spending so much time with her [El], suddenly he starts cooling off more and more and suddenly- they even separated right? I mean yeah that was out of his control but he, but he didn't really seem like he missed her you know it's like he just got on with it."

This point caught me off guard. I don't know how much I agree with my mother on this. It made me realize that during Mike and El's separation, there weren't many quiet Mike moments in which he expressed worry for her, beyond a couple that blend into him simply having breakup concerns. Any time Mike mentions distress for her whilst she's away, his talk evolves into him simply anxious over the state of their relationship. As a group, everyone in our Cali gang clearly wanted to save Eleven, but Mike really should have gotten more heartfelt moments in solitude (that means without Will you suffer bros) in which it is demonstrated to the audience that he really does miss her, as someone who is in love. Her being away shouldn't simply come off as a writing excuse for him to vent to Will. There wasn't enough of that tenderness milkvan desperately needs, and if anything I watched was an attempt then it really wasn't translated well - never trumping everyone else's familial or close frienship-like fret for El, never showcasing his concern to come from a more personal place. I mean how hard is it to have him in her room, staring longingly at a photo of hers, with a background composed of soft music. Then literally leaving it at that. I mean that is it. No Will rushing in there to insist, "you can tell her that thing when you see her k? It'll all work out trust me ight, you're the heart you're the HEART!" que affectionate gazes, constructs a byler scene for no reason I guess .

"I mean how do we know that he missed Will? He articulated it. Why didn't he articulate this the same way to El?"

True. I mean the fact that I can't remember a moment after they find El in which milkvan ask oneanother how they are, and communicate how much they missed eachother, does indeed say something. They shared a hug and touch when they first reunited, which was gladly interrupted by Will. That pineapple + pizza thing was not long enough, or sensitive enough, to be their moment. There was clear bonding, but it didn't breach a level of romance and chemistry nearly decently. It's good that they got at least that, I mean we need to know that these guys are at LEAST really close friends. And then the camera just felt like panning over to Will about to burst into tears in a corner. Like huh? Bruv you've now made it so that milkvan's pizza bit leaves a bad taste in our mouths. If I were a milkvan I'd be furious.

"You know what, I think it's done purposefully to create that sort of cold, distant, confused, you know they wanted to make people say he's [Mike] bisexual. For people to question. They want to get people to think that."

My Mama believes writers intentionally soured milkvan for viewers to "confuse" audiences, build up anticipation, make them question milkvan's relationship and wonder if our main man will spin to Will. I agree. They want that good ol' triangle comeuppance.

"They really are trying to bring that across- so that people start thinking Mike, you know he doesn't love El, he loves Will. They're really trying to, make people think that. Giving them [milkvan] a really nitty gritty relationship."

Yup.

"When you're gay. Coming out like that it's- it's terrifying. You have to be very careful. And Will could, he could tell. You know when someone is attracted to you. I think, things became sort of- sort of complicated. And Will sensed, he could feel that Mike is attracted to him. And that's why he could open up like that. Because you can always tell. You know, you just know, so that's why Will was able to confess these things to him [she sees painting scene as a confession, whether Mike realized it or not, and so do I]."

Well damn Mama. And there you have it folks. My.. I'm not gonna call her the h word but.. my- notabigfanofgaythingsandwouldbehappytopretendtheydon'texist mother, perceives Mike as a homosexual kid, and just that. Well bloomin heck that's all the confirmation I need.

I didn't expect this as a turnout, I mean so particularly. My Mama actually didn't like byler - I think. Well. Bloomin heck. She actually enjoyed Vickie x Robin, and this shocked me to my core. I don't know whether this is simply due to her being a fan of Vickie's actress (recognizing her from Anne With an 'E'), but I do know that my mother has a bias in gay relationships and sees ones involving females as more "pure" than that of two males. So her language when describing Will has changed since her realization that he loves Mike for sure (which became undeniable in the van scene). She describes him as being 'obsessed' with Mike, and says writers really wanted to get that obsession across. I agree with Will having been one note during season 4, him hopefully having more time to shine in the approaching season, but I thoroughly disagree with him coming off as obsessive. I suppose our camera man displayed the guy's little glances at Mike so often that my Mama felt it was overdone, and unable to be ignored. I also think she's just avoiding use of the word 'love' when describing anything homosexual.

She still doesn't think Mike demonstrates how much he loves El enough to leave no room for debate. According to her, his moments with her seem surface level. Just as a reminder she does not know my thoughts. She watched that entire 'I love you' thing and still isn't secure in any genuineness of the guy. I believe she supposes that we're intended to acknowledge milkvan's romance, but also probe it.

I now wonder whether my Mama was good enough representation for the average audience, because she actually does own a bias - this being that she usually actively dislikes gay things. So I puzzle over whether her brain overanalyzed any of the boys' highlights, wanting to "expose" their homo intentions. At first things were up in the air, but it became clear that Mike did not pass her gaydar, he was simply too intimate with Will to make that pass. And this wasn't the case in other seasons, she never questioned their friendship til now. She also hasn't acknowledged any supposedly queer relationships besides rickie (vobin?) and byler, meaning that other fan favourites such as elmax, steddie, ronance and such else didn't stand out as gay to her. This doesn't signify those other relationships to not have a chance, I'm elmax's personal cheersquad, it's plainly clear that my mother didn't have a tendency to point at every same sex relationship and yell suspicious. Byler was purely undeniable. You can thank Will's love being canoned for this, otherwise noone would have a need to read into Mike.

I don't know whether she supposes byler to have a chance moreso than the milk in the van, even with Mike's ambiguity. It would seem that as of right now her guess is that watchers are intended to second guess both relationships in order to build up interest. However, she doesn't know how unlikely Will's love life is to turn out negatively seeing as those damn writers manipulated crowds into consistently sympathizing for him. Dunno about the rest of you but that sounds like good news to me.

I have no idea how to close this analysis. Is it an analysis? There's much more I want to say, much more she said, but I fear this to be too jam-packed and aimless as is. I'm writing a third part to my most recent milkthevan failing relationship deep dive, and that'll possibly consist of thoughts I wish to input after gathering so much data from my mother.

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