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gaiuswrites · 3 years

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King of Cups || Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Hanged Man

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | eight

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: After some time apart, new conclusions are met.

Word count: 7.8k~

Rating: Explicit

Warnings/tags: SMUT, fingering, unprotected piv sex, emo emo emo (are we even surprised any more), mature themes, abandonment/family trauma, loss

Notes: Friends, wow. I'm honestly embarrassed by how long this took. Thank you for your patience. I hope you find the reward worth the wait. This chapter is nearly all in Din's POV until it switches and blends in the last chunk. If you’re new to KOC, you’re more than welcome to start at this chapter! Love you guys x (gif credit: @bestintheparsec)

“Din.”

Familiar fingers brush through his hair, a hand he knew once combing over his overgrown locks. He feels the drag of nails across his scalp, tucking a truant curl behind his ear, and the act feels like home— like hearth.

Somewhere beyond his open window a morning bird trills, perched in its roost nestled into the forked branch of the elm.

He breathes a sigh, the sound thick with sleep, and turns to his pillow, burying himself deeper into the linen.

“Din, honey.”

He blinks— lazily, molassesed— her shape clearing into focus.

Green eyes peer back at him, fine lines framing the corners of them, and crescents crease around her lips, pulled warm into a soft curve.

Small toys— wooden things, baubles and bits, dolls made from scraps of old fabric—litter the floor, spilling from the chest butted against the stone of the wall. A book, well-loved and dog-eared, rests on his nightstand—the one he insisted she read from each night, the story he couldn’t possibly fall asleep without hearing—the images written on the page, dancing in his small mind to the tune of her voice.

It’s all there now as it was then before.

“It’s time to wake up.”

She sits at the edge of the bed—his bed—the weight of her arm draped over his shoulder like a blanket— like shelter. Like never being fearful again. Like never dying. Like summer, forever.

“I am awake,” he murmurs, and it is with his own tongue that he speaks. Not that of a boy, but a man—unfiltered, unmodulated. Stripped of his helmet, he hardly recognizes the tenor of it, of its richness, but he feels the words reverberate against the hollow of his throat and he knows they belong to him.

Light casts through the window behind her—particles of dust, trapped in the tines. Floating there, suspended on strings.

She only smiles, and strokes a thumb across the sweep of his cheekbone, there in the room he last felt safe.

“No, not yet.”

It’s time to wake up. It’s time to wake up. Wake up wake up wake—

“Not yet.”

His eyes blur open with a flutter of his lashes, the lifeless durasteel ceiling coming into view—the jade of her gaze fading, fading. Blowing away.

He shifts a hand through his hair— through the long strands in dire need of trimming— lying on his bedroll, spine knobbing into the thin mattress. The cold metal overhead stares back at him.

His chest rises. Falls.

Din can still feel her, the warmth of her, there on his cheek.

///

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He knows what you’re thinking, he can see it in the guard you’ve encased yourself with— your glass walls, your glass house. Transparent but impenetrable, Din can only look. A spectator, watching as you go about your routines— a stranger on the outside.

And he sees how you look at him.

You think he’s fine.

You think he’s marble. Unbreakable. Impervious to time, to cold, and he does nothing to correct you; no, he allows the belief. He lets you believe the calloused veneer of his beskar— lets you assume he is more machine than man.

Din thought it would be simpler. Convenient. Din thought it would hurt less.

Because how can he tell you? How can he possibly communicate the imprint you’ve left on him— how his mind revolves around the imagery of that evening in vicious figure-eights. How he can’t unremember your heat curling around his fingers, how he can’t unbridle the pulse of his cock in your palm. How he can’t unspeak that which he called you, his virgin tongue flicking new and flighty around the word.

Cyare.

It tripped—in the midst of his pleasure, it sprang clumsy from him how the inevitable always seems to where you are concerned: transport to Coruscant, his past, his history, his identity— it just happens, reasonless, illogically. Some driving magic beckoning him to buckle, wishing him to give.

Your moans, your gasps, how you prayed his name— this is the white noise murmuring through the ship, harmonizing with the tinny mechanical beeps and settling groans of the bulkheads. You churn like smog through his helmet. Ever present, the memory of you is constant— invasive. It’s suffocating him.

He’s been dealt plenty of injuries and contusions— he has the scars enough to prove it— but it’s this. It’s this that’s killing him. It’s you.

All of these paintings, life-like and lurid, and yet it is this wound - untended, uncauterized - that scalds most: the moment Din, that beskar apparition, slipped away from you. You were there, hip under the weight of his glove, and he simply

went, like fog.

He watched your face crest and fall—felt your heart, skipping nervous like a stone over a morning pond, little waves rippling lightly, lightly out and out until it puttered quiet and

sank.

He abandoned you there. He left you before you had the opportunity to convince Din that you wouldn't do the same to him. Because Din has learned this, his suit of armor a trudging reminder of the inherent fact: good things leave.

You’ll be gone soon. You’ll leave him—he’s taking you home and you’ll leave him. His son will leave him.

He’ll be alone again. He’ll have the Crest, he’ll have the Guild—he’ll have the life he once cast in stone for himself, the life he’s worn as proudly as the Mudhorn emblem he boasts on his pauldron. But that was then - before - and he can never find his way back to that now; now that he knows what he knows—of breakfast and bitter caf and laughter like church bells and warmth and goodness and you.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

There in the galley, lamp-lit iridescence caressing your countenance, you asked him once if he was scared of anything and he told you he wasn’t sure— not yet.

Din lied.

As a rule, he doesn’t make a habit out of dishonesty; it doesn’t typically suit him, he is blunted to a fault— earning allies and enemies alike with the very attribute—but he lied to you then. Maybe his fears are the same as everyone else’s, maybe they’re simple. Human.

Maybe he’s scared that you’ll unchain him from his armor, of his shortcomings and tragic flaws and see the pulpy heart of him—that you’ll look and look and look, and you will like nothing that you find there. That he’s just a man.

And perhaps, he’d rather remain unknown than risk the chance of being unlovable.

For there is a certain hollow you befriend in the aftershock of loss—there is an aperture loss gores you with. There are some holes time can never fill; they remain trenched, dug from rusted trowels— left to fester, left to ill.

Sometimes, in the surly vacuum of space, in those dulled moments in which he has nothing but to count the seconds as they tick clocklessly away, Din attempts to conjure the last word his mother gave to him. He didn’t know it then—he didn’t know it was intended as a gift, boxed and ribboned and bowed. He didn’t realize—a child, wide-eyed with naivety, drenched in fright—that he should cherish it. Remember it. Keep it safe.

No matter how hard he tries, how hard he strains, he can’t recall it. He practices the nightmared memory of it, transports himself into that war zone, dodging shrapnel and brimstone just to catch sight of her face— and he can see her lips moving, can feel the fan of the flames as his world is reduced to cinders, but he cannot hear her.

Was it goodbye? Was it I love you? Was it be safe? Was it hide? Hide hide hide for me. Be good and hide, kind boy—

It dogs him. The nothinged mumble, his silent passenger.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He heard you. There in Valentia, the city buzzing cacophonously like an orchestra tuning their instruments, he overheard the Twi’lek translate for the older woman.

Family, she said. You have a beautiful family.

Din has never in his life considered forsaking his Creed— forgoing the thing that saved him, made him, honed him to tungsten, sharp as a blade.

But he did then.

It was a flash, something fickle and brief— like the flicker of a candle before it diffused to smoke— but in that nanosecond he saw himself ripping off his helmet. He saw himself going to you, pulling you close to his plated chest. He saw the surprise wash over you—the shock that bubbled to elation. He saw you smile, that crippling gorgeous thing, with his own naked eyes and—

And then suddenly you were there before him, snapping Din from his reverie, blanket snug to your chest, the child — his child— slung beside you. He wished he had an explanation, but before he could process his actions his hand was drawing itself to your body, tugged by some unseen force—robbed of his autonomy— and rapturously, he touched you. He felt you.

His knuckles grazed your arm—your warmth, radiating past the aged leather of his glove—and the wisdom that woman uttered, the plain truth only the ancient could learn— only a mother could know— rattled around his mind, unanchored and barreling.

Yearn for the past. Reclaim time.

Hold onto them hold onto them hold on—

Never let them go.

Ready? he asked you, arm resigned to his side, feigning monotony beneath the cover of his visor.

You threaded an even smile to your lips, as if Din were none the wiser— as if he hadn’t catalogued every lick of your expressions, every curve and bow and wrinkle as your emotions sung across your face. As if he didn’t know when you were lying. As if he didn’t know when you were falling apart.

Ready, you replied, swallowing past the disappointment welled in your throat.

Both your hearts broke then. Perfectly—the same.

This is the Way.

///

Din is gone over a week. It’s the longest he’s ever been away for a hunt—it’s the longest nine days of your kriffing life.

The ship feels vacant without him; she’s cumbersome, too cavernous for the likes of only you and his foundling. Her durasteel sidings yawn morose against the wind beating restless against her—her metal stretching like a lothcat in a patch of sun. The doors and hatches complain ajar and gripe shut, as if she’s recalcitrant to go about her standard operating procedures without Din’s presence. The old gal misses him, down to her steely bones and dual ion turbines, and in truth — and despite yourself— you suppose a small part of you feels the same, shares an inkling of that same loneliness.

The rituals and dog-eared routines you’d drawn comfort from are now rinsed in a forlorn wash.

The single bowl of food you prepare looks wrong without its twin beside it.

You scroll a finger over your display screen, flicking through various articles, the faint light from the holopad basking the contours of your face in a lonesome shade of inanimate blue.

Anything good you hear him ask, there in your inner ear— the memory of his voice leaving a nick among the many wrinkles of your brain.

You sigh, quietly— alone. Never.

Even Munch misses him, although he expresses it differently. He’s been a downright terror with Din gone. At first it was a vacation, a luxury retreat; you and the child gorged yourself on crackers and grava berries and dried bantha meat—mindful of sweeping up the crumbs on whichever surface you snacked. You giggled and ran amok and shared secrets in code only the two of you could decipher.

But one day grew to two, and two to three and three to four and by the fifth you were out of treats and your patience too had dwindled to short supply.

The child is special— unquestionably unique. And as much as you adore him, would lay down your life for him if it came to it, Maker he is uniquely qualified to send you round the bend twice over. He’s baffling, infuriating— just like his father. Of all the things he could have inherited from the man, of course he decided to latch on to his vexing penchant for mystery.

You lost him for half a day. He was somewhere aboard the Crest, of that you knew that for certain, but he managed to enact a stunt that could’ve puzzled even the most illustrious of illusionists with how quickly and effectively he vanished, seemingly out of thin air.

He emerged eventually for dinner, babbling wickedly. There was that, at least: you could always count on Munch to — well, munch.

Over a week of this— nine days, sixteen hours, and twenty-two minutes, to be exact… But who’s counting.

The sky glitches with lightning, sparking like a bulb in dreadful need of changing, and veins of violet skitter along the horizon, chased by the clapping hammer of thunder. Fat drops of rain trace down the transparisteel, the metalled drum of their pattering against the Crest lullabying your eyelids to a slumbered close. You drift, weightless, waxing and waning in and out of a reoccurring dream that always blurs to mere suggestion - to shadow - as soon as you wake.

The harsh sound stirs you—the ramp’s gears springing to life, signaling the Mandalorian’s return. Rapidly, you blink clear the slog of sleep from your eye, re-emerging from the forgotten depths of your subconscious and half-roused, you bound from the copilot’s chair. You rally from your stupor, instinct urging you to meet the bounty hunter by the entrance—some tittering, foolish part of you still so glad and girlish just to see him.

Hobbling down the ladder with veteraned coordination - one leg one arm one foot one hand - you hop the last two rungs to land catlike on the balls of your feet, heading towards the stern of the ship and—

You don’t make it three steps.

He’s there. Din is there— nine days later and finally, like a hallucination, he’s here— ominous and backlit by the glow seeping in from the galley. An obelisk, undaunted.

Your gut somersaults, flipping until it dizzies.

Knee-jerked and reflexive, the basest part of you demands you go to him, to cross the threshold separating you— the time and space and uncertainty dredged like a moat between you two. But instead of greeting him as you wish— two arms thrown around him, welcoming him home—back to the Crest, to the child, to you—you stand there, dumbstruck and wanting.

The passage of the corridor is like a strait. It's so narrow you can smell him— his carbon musk, his petrichored sweat—and it furls thick into your sinuses, fogging up your vision, clotting the faulty wiring of your mind. He’s brought the wet in with him, drip dropping from his hulking frame to splat puddled onto the deck.

plop

A beat ferments, hanging ripe from its branch as the tempest rages outside the sheltered hull of the ship. Distantly, thunder booms from above.

“Din— hi.”

“You’re up.” He doesn’t move from the archway. Stiffened, composed from granite, the man hardly breathes. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” you offer hastily—untruthfully.

Din scans you: your obviously tousled hair, the drowsy flush kissing your jaw, the tell-tale crinkle of your tunic. Your tongue darts out to skip over your lip and his lungs pull, aching beneath his ribs.

Maker, you’re pretty even when you lie.

“Go back to sleep,” he assures, but you hardly register it; it’s scarcely above a murmur by the time the words hum through his modulator.

“Can I make you some food? Can I—"

There’s a tarred shake of his helm, tiredly dissuading you. “No, you—you’ve done enough.”

“But you must be exhausted, Din. Let me help you,” you urge, sincerity shaping the lilt of your voice. “Please, I—” You falter. Vision finally adjusted in the dimmed hall, it is then that you spot it.

Your mouth runs dry.

He’s dappled in a violent scarlet, foreign red splatters contrasted against all that silvered grey, bleeding with the rainwater to roll sanguined down the rounded edges of his armor.

Blood. He’s covered in blood.

Something pitted—something vital— in you contracts; horror, prickling the fine hairs along your forearm. “Maker, what happened?”

Eyes gaping fearful, you skitter around his breastplate, his vambraces, the paneling of his flight suit, roving meticulously in search for the source of his injury. Thoughtless, consumed with only one concern - is he hurt? - your hand flies to his chest where it rests—solid. Fretting. “Stars, are you—”

He can see it—he can see you, always—how your gaze swells, laced with a surge of adrenaline, of care, and Din lays his broad palm flat over your knuckles, grabbing your frantic attention. “It’s not mine—hey, it’s not mine.”

Your shoulders deflate, relief visibly relaxing the rigidity in your spine, and for the first time in what feels like minutes you release the breath you’d fostered high behind your teeth.

He doesn’t know what overtakes him. Perhaps it’s your sleep swollen lips or the soft petal of your cheek— taunting Din, daring him to feel you again, as he did before— or perhaps it’s the all too apparent fact that you simply give a shit about him— despite everything he’s done, all of that which he has left unsaid. That you worry. That you care.

Puppeted, arm hoisted by some invisible strings of fate—those unseen threads of inevitability—he reaches for you. Din’s thumb roams the slope of your cheekbone, the buttered hide of his glove gliding over your skin. Something rattles flustered in your chest, and you must look pathetic— how your eyes bat at him and your mouth parts, breathy and demure.

“Dala.” He sounds pained when he says it, as if it’s poisoning him; the very syllables like hemlock dripping down his tongue—slowly gradually, ending his life— this life.

This life as he knows it.

You nuzzle into the cradle of his palm, encircling a hand around his wrist, urging him still. You both know he could break away from you without an ounce of strength squandered, but he doesn’t; he listens, he quiets for you. Enchanted, neither of you dare move— neither of you, willing to shatter the profound spell of intimacy you’ve stumbled onto.

He holds you like this, and you hold him to you. His hand on your cheek; yours over the birdcaged throb of his heart— burning - devouring - its entombed aril like the heart of a dying star.

“Where’d you go?” you whisper, heathered, into the heel of his hand. There is something broken in your cadence, like the chipped rim of a fragile cup, and it punctures him just there beneath his sternum.

Where’d you go?

Where’d you go before? When you left— where did you spirit away to?

Why didn’t you take me with you?

A sick wave rots his stomach. He couldn’t answer you then, not when you were wobbly and coltish beneath him—Din can barely answer you now. His digits twine into your hair, cupping the arc of your neck. The gesture is not unkind. It is delicate— urgent, too—and the following hush you share speaks tomes for the both of you, the sob of his leathered fist admitting what he cannot utter.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

Maker, if you could see him. See how his face folds for you, grief lined into the shallow grooves that mark him. The cycles of it— how they bend him into something contorted. Something in need - I need you I need you I need - something ugly, he thinks. Leftover. Hidden. Hide hide hide hi—

You turn, pressing a kiss into the rough of his palm. It’s a soft thing— trepid and cautious—too worried you might frighten him away to offer anything more than a chaste brush of your lips—too worried you’ll send him scurrying back into the cratered unknown he crawled out from.

But he doesn’t.

Din doesn’t turn tail and run, he stands firm—weaving his hand further into your scalp, guiding you closer to him with a throaty sound. The forehead of his helm sinks to yours, and through its filter you discern the tremor of Din’s breathing, made fuzzy by the tinny modulator.

This is nothing like before. Din was hot blooded and vicious then, possessed by the infernal likes of some great beast, but he has since been tamed, if only momentarily—coaxed into a certain meekness by the frail ache of his heart—by the grace of your kind mouth, kissing his gun-worn glove.

He groans your name, mumbled and brassy. The two of you so close, so merged, that if it weren’t for his helmet, you’d feel the tickle of the syllables as they sweep over your face. Din repeats himself, repentant—praying for forgiveness on the cross of your name—your kiss, a benediction.

Again, he calls you. I’m sorry.

Again, you kiss him. There is nothing to forgive.

Again. Again.

With a flutter of bravado, you sling a lumbered arm over the span of his neck, notching yourself into his chest, an interlocking piece finding it’s match. Din’s forearm comes to coil around your waist, wide hand spanning the small of your back, and if possible, gathers you nearer— a growl emanating somewhere from under his beskar.

“Tell me to stop,” he breathes, bullet riddled—grating—warring with the countless shards of himself he has yet to reconcile; but his body betrays his intentions as Din’s grasp finds itself lower, filling his fingers with the plush of your ass. “Tell me, please.”

Arousal rushes to pool in your depths—at the proximity of him, the hungered way at which he paws you—and it’s a reaction you feel mimicked by the iron rod straining against Din’s flight suit, pressing into your thigh. You shake your head, gaze colored earnest, and you shift, applying a grind of your hips against him in response.

Din lets out a defeated groan; weak to you, a fabled Mandalorian warrior brought to trembling knees by the guile of a good woman. And suddenly, like striking a match in a room swarmed with gas, you are incendiary.

He’s everywhere— groping and kneading your arms, your ass, your neck and waist. You are malleable beneath him, sculpted like wet clay under his eager touch—as if he is committing your form to memory; the fervor of his grip, reclaiming time.

He hooks a hand under the crease of your knee, yanking you to the column of his armor, sealing your bodies together. Gyrating your hips against him, your clit yearns against his thick outline as you dig into the cowl draped over his shoulders.

Sliding his hand down your backside, he presses his palm into your clothed heat from behind, pads of his fingers insistent as you saddle your spine into his touch, granting him better access. His cock brays, straining beneath his many layers, and a withered moan breaches past your lips.

“Gods, Din.”

Din. He can’t stand that—his name, lush in your wet mouth—and without ceremony, drops your leg from where he’d glued it to his hip. Like a beggar, impoverished and need-stricken, he begins to fight with your clothing, half tempted to rip the damn things off you, leaving you tattered; he’d happily buy you a new wardrobe if it meant having you as he’s wanted for these long months—naked and vulnerable and his.

Your tunic and pants come off in a flurry, your underwear too, discarded hastily in some forgotten corner—and with a hand on your chest, he walks you backwards until your bare ass connects with the durasteel, a jagged inhale tearing through you at the chill. A question knits your brows to meet as Din paces away from you, increasing his distance.

“What are you-”

He interrupts you with a groan. “Just - gedet’ye - just let me—”

His gaze drips like wax down your body—eyes dressing over your clavicle, the supple weight of your breasts, the gorgeous dusting of hair at your mound, the sweet press of your thighs as you clench them together, your pretty knees, your pretty ankles, your pretty feet, pigeoned inward nervously.

Pretty pretty pretty—fuck, all of you. So fucking pretty.

With the cock of his chin, his gaze returns to the heave of your breasts—tracing over your nipples pebbling in the everpresent draft of the Razor Crest— and you rile under him, heart stammering loud—so loud you’re convinced he can hear it with the aid of his helm. And Maker above, the way you’re fucking staring at him—all hooded lids and flushed cheeks. Din wants to fucking ravish you.

Dismantle you.

Pick you apart bit by bit until you’ve come undone completely.

And as if slogging through gravity itself, movements prowled, he steps to you. Din finds your hips, running the whisper of his gloves along the slopes of your sides; a master of patience, commanding time to his will, he crawls up your skin

slow

deliberate.

You’re all but helpless to the shiver that traverses the planes of your body, zipping along your synapses like the fault lines of a quaking planet—cracking you open, exposing your molten core. You’re not proud of the noise you make when he cups your breasts. Starved, you whine as he takes you into his hands, pinching and groping until you’re pert and sore and you drive your pelvis into him, rutting yourself against his frame like some flea ridden slum-mutt in the prime of her heat.

Din seethes, mumbling in Mando’a—spitting curses you can’t pretend to comprehend, but that blot warmth along your cheekbones at the oaky depravity of which he utters them.

He seals over your mound, blood pumping at your seam, bundle of nerves pulsing steady against the heel of his hand. Immobile, he waits, hovering stagnant and teasing before his lust to feel you outweighs his desire to make you be good and wait—and parting through your curls, he kisses the tips of his orange gloves into your honeyed cunt.

It’s dirty. He’s dirty, he’s fucking filthy—covered in foreign blood and alien soil—and you feel depraved, unclean. Powerful. You feel, perhaps, as the Maker intended—wild and without shame, to roam his gateless garden and sully the soles of your feet.

You feel raw. Din Djarin sands you raw.

The pump of his wrist is merciless, pistoning in and out in shallow thrusts, knuckles angled to prod at that spot— that piece of primordial heaven sequestered at the channel of your cunt—and he keeps discovering it over and over again with a sharp shooter’s precision—zeroing in on his mark and releasing the trigger. Dead eyed.

You grab greedily at his bulge, at his cock begging for regard beneath the protective fabric covering him, and you squeeze the best you can. The angle is awkward and unweildy and it’s not nearly enough for either of you, but it conveys your intention well enough.

Can I have this? Will you give this to me?

Din growls his reply, leaving your pussy to fumble with the waist of his trousers, fidgeting over the pesky buttons—the final of the flimsy holdouts separating you and the tempered steel hanging solid between his legs. It bobs free from his pants, ruddied tip straining and pining for you, and without spending another moment idle, he rediscovers the warmth of your naked body— molding himself to your form, his grip once more finding the pit of your knee and bracing it to his side.

He ruts the underside of his shaft through your slick folds, his blunt head nudging at the swollen cleft of your center—each pitch of Din’s hips sending bolts of pleasure crackling through your core. He’s stifling a string of moans while he does it, while he undulates against you, the sighs and gasps digitized to near silence as he coats his cock in your gloss—and not for the first time do you find yourself considering how fucking colossal Din is. How fucking virile and engulfing, like blaster smoke and tabacco and cedar. Like coaled smog from a cremulator. Like giving life, like taking it away— like mercy. Vengeance.

Din swipes your standing leg up to match the other in a fluid motion, effectively levitating you off the ground with only his palms secured beneath your hamstrings and your strangled hold around his neck to suspend you.

“Tell me to stop and I will.” He’s practically begging you now, anguish wrecking through the timber of his voice—grasping blindly for an excuse not to lose himself in you completely, not to bury his primal drives and fears into the chasm of your sex.

You’ll leave him you’ll leave him he’s terrified you’ll leave him

“I-I don’t want you to stop— I want this. Din, I want you, I missed you. I miss you.” You miss him. He’s right here, cock streaking through your middle and still, you miss him. You’ll never stop missing him—wanting him. An unscratchable itch at the median of your back, burning for his affection, for his touch.

He releases a husked sound at that, as if hearing it from you hurts— your words, purpling a bruise into the bloody beat of his heart—and like a dipping sun sinking below the crust of a darkening planet, the last of Din’s resolve fades to utter black as he finally - finally - buries himself into where you weep for him.

Oh Maker. Fuck, fuck—

You muffle a relieved cry, forehead collapsing to the slope of his shoulder. Your walls shutter, blinking and gasping around his cock as he rolls up into you, lips pulling taut around his girth with each drag through your cunt. Din fucks you slurred and languid—his pace, sweltering like a summer fever—heavy, punitive. Smothering and thick. You can feel every vein, every silken ridge, as he notches himself inch by inch— the cant of his hips meditated, aiming to melt you open with each wave.

Stuffed to the hilt inside you, he rakes in a ragged breath, calming the race of his bloodstream drumming percussive in his ears.

It occurs to you then that he might be trying to be careful with you, curled around him like this, crushed up against the bulkhead. You think he might be treating you as a jeweler would handle a rarified gem— gentle and tip-toed, afraid of letting you clatter to the counter, of scuffing your facets— devaluing you.

But you don’t want that. You don’t want cautious or considerate or any of those awfully pious things. You want to be owned. Devoured. You don’t want to feel anything else but him. You want him to need you so terribly, so primally, he bleeds. You want to forget your own damn name and replace the memory of it with his—just his, to sit besot like liquor on your tongue. Din Din Din.

“Fuck me— please - please - fuck me harder Din.” Fuck me like you need to. Fuck me like you want me— please just tell me you want me. Tell me I’m wanted. Tell me I’m worth this.

You can see the deliberation span over his mask, the light glinting off the steel there hesitant, wary. Are you sure?

“Fuck me.” I want this. I want you.

He wants to give this to you somewhere soft— somewhere you deserve. With a feathered mattress and molted down pillows and gauzy curtains billowing in a sea breeze as light dapples prismed patterns on your dewy skin. He wants to give this to you somewhere beautiful—perhaps on that planet you once probed him about - Adega - with its red trees and warm nights and friendly natives you’d cherish and keep aloft in your breast.

He wants you to feel safe. Adored.

But what he wants and what he needs are two vastly different things—two opposing extremes at odds with the other. Because he needs to fuck you here— it has to be here. Needs to score your backside with metaled bites from the Crest’s unforgiving interior; needs you crumpled and sloppy, panting out his name to echo shamelessly into the deviled bowels of his gunship.

He needs you charred for him. Scorched earth.

And with your panted pleas, lilting addictive and irresistible, he is all but helpless to deny you— to deny himself. Relenting, resolved, his voice bottoms out.

“I-I’m gonna fucking ruin you.”

He fucks you frenzied. The snap of his hips drives you into the wall; he lifts you off his cock just to spear you on it once more, fucking up up up into you, unleashing all his strength— his neglected need—into the grail of your womb. The salted slaps of skin are loud enough to make a lecher blush. It’s a chorus of beskar rattling, wet and ugly and Maker, he’s splitting you open and all you can do is mewl.

You screw your eyes shut, lost to oblivion—crown of your head shoved back, jugular bared for him like prey before the slaughter.

“No.” Leveraging his mass against you, Din clasps at the nape of your neck to command your focus, forcing your chin. “No, look at me,” he orders, brutal and sinewed and there’s desperation there. Din needs you looking at him — seeing him— the embrace of your gaze like a life raft, tethering him here, grounding him to this plane of existence, the one where he has found salvation—if only fleeting, if only like hourglassed sand sifting through his fingers—within the temple of your body. Struggling and led-lidded, you pry your lashes apart, shivering as you drink in the punishing expression leering across his visor; and as you always do, you peer past the murky T there, meeting his eyes camouflaged in their sockets behind it.

“There you are. There you are, my pretty thing - hnng—” He silences himself with a hoarse moan, the sensation of you clenching firm around him, gripping Din like a man would a rope, dangling some feet above the ground, hiccuping him to stutter. “T-That’s it, dala—fuck, y-your pussy is so godsdamn tight.”

You go boneless at the praise—at how he tongues out those fond epithets, vehement and covetous and brined in sincerity—and your breathing quickens as you soak the coarse weave of Din’s flight suit, chafing your clit to shambles with each bow of his starved sex.

You’re close. Stars, you’re so kriffing close—reach out and touch it and you’re there, a promise fulfilled dancing at your fingertips—and you almost tell him; you wish you could - don’t stop don’t stop please right there Din - but you’ve lost your voice, vocal chords stricken with tension. More than that, you’ve lost the wedge of your brain that recognizes articulation all together. Speech itself. You’re wasted. You’re shattered. You’re being fucked within an inch of your sorry life.

Nimbled, without a word of warning, Din relocates— grappling under the plats of your thighs and bracing you featherlight to his chest—negligible in comparison to the ton of armor he dons cycle after cycle, weightless when compared to that of his Creed, hanging like a yoke around his gullet. You yip in surprise and scramble around him, calves digging into his back, forearms clamped around his shoulders—his cock remaining delved within your pussy with each footfall.

Four long strides and he’s reached his destination: a large crate, stranded just outside the hallway leading to the galley. Stooping at the waist, he lowers you down with astonishing ease until you’re flush on your back, knees flanking his frame. You heave a sigh, petulant and wanting, when he slips from you mid-adjustment, a lewd squelch accompanying the movement. It is to the fervor of your clawing, desperate nails scratching down metal - please please please - that he glides back into you with one deft sweep, a satisfied gasp tumbling loose from him.

He looms over you now— Din, a tower unyielding—thrusting into you rough and hard and perfect. He’s filling you in undiscovered places long gone unrealized, nooks you didn’t know you had—the length of him completing you, making you whole.

“Tell me to stop,” he pants, orange pads of his gloves dimpling your hips.

With a tremor of your chin, you moan—broken and chirping. “Don’t - please - please don’t - shit - don't stop—” Your prayers convulse, dying in your throat, sentence cut short as he circles his thumb over your clit, catching at your slippery bud. Ever the marksman, he’s debilitatingly attentive to you, the hide of his glove snagging against your cleft, and combined with the steady rock of his dick shredding you open, you’re all but defenseless to the dawning of your release, crawling closer and closer and—

“Din,” you pant, ”Din Din Din, I think I—I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna, oh Maker—”

The muscles in your stomach seize, a twisted expression cramping your brow. You scamper to his arms, reaching out for something - anything - a parcel of real estate to clutch onto while you unravel. You’re grappling with his pauldrons, the pulsepoint at your wrist humming over the symbol welded to his shoulder, and you mage into starlight. You’re fizzing. You’re blind. You’re atomic and phasing in and out of realities and you burn— a meteor hurtling through the upper atmosphere crashing crashing crashing and—

Language exhausted, all there is left for you to do is cry, the evidence of your orgasm ricocheting like a hail of gunfire against the Razor Crest walls.

“That’s a good girl, that’s a good girl for me—f-fuck." It’s like taking a jab to his solar plexus, how you cinch around him— the corset of your walls milking his cock until he’s shaking, stumbling. The drive of his pelvis has gone erratic, the throbbing bloom gnashing its teeth in his gut—that rabid thing desperate to be released, uncaged—teeters on the identical ledge you’d just leapt from.

“Tell me to stop - please - tell me to, tell me to stop—” You’re all eyes. Your whole face, swallowed by the sweet, glassy orbs notched below the quiver of your forehead, and you’re looking at him like he could hang the damn moon and it’s too much— it’s too much too much he can’t levee this raging need— and with a hurried gasp he pulls out of your heat to tug at his slicked cock— panting ragged as he gushes onto your stomach, your legs, your pretty pussy made pink and puffy with abuse.

His breathing is labored; you can see it in the mountainous rise and fall of his chest plate as his strokes slow, his other hand digging into your flesh, indenting you. He exhales, scraping clean the fissure between his lungs, and Din tips his head, angling it backwards— granting you a rare sliver of the stubbled swath along his neck. The sightly patch, treasured behind his silvered grotto, shouldn’t be the thing that plays upon your heartstrings like one would pluck a harp— not after he’s burrowed himself inside you, not after he’s carved you to his likeness— but it does. You’re butterflied and cherry blossomed and you grin— not so much on your lips but in your soul, and there is a purring warmth that’s radiating like candle flame from the anima alive beneath your breasts and—

And then, suddenly — like time, like memory— he is gone.

He leaves you. Mirrored, he does as he did that night—laying a squeeze into the meat of your hip, he transpires to atoms, dissipating round the unknown bend of a corner and you’re alone again—alone, with only the citric bile steeping in your insides to accompany you, threatening to rise up your windpipe.

No. No no nonono—

Din’s presence, a beacon in the moonless night, disappears— leaving you orphaned and moored and mortified. He’s done it again— he’s left you, he keeps leaving you— and it renders you sick; viscerally, you’re angered and ill and green-washed with naivety.

Fool you once, shame on them. Fool you twice, and what in Maker’s name did you expect? A declaration? An about-face? As if a Mandalorian could let the beskar from his blood. As if Din could reanimate the cadaver of his past—could slip into that old snakeskin he’d shed cycles before.

It paralyzes you. Immobile, you are chambered flat on your back in the resin of your embarrassment, bereft of your vision as you stare sightless into the steel. You’ve separated—your mind and your body disjointed like oil and water, and you don’t hear it. You don’t hear the tread of Din’s feet, you don’t register his aura, Illuminous in the archway; you don’t see the stray towel fisted in his grip, you don’t feel the clench of a frozen hand around your heart as he does his. For he sees you there—a tick in your jaw; eyes distanced, fogged—and he knows he’s done this to you. The scarring of how he derelicted you then tarnishing the new-leaf flesh of the present.

He steps towards you, closer now, and your alerted gaze pins to him. A surprised expression makes a home there, astoundment freckling your face— and although he hasn’t earned the right, it strikes him bullseyed between his plated ribs because it hurts— the obvious shock of him returning for you hurts. Din is not a good man— not all of him. Sometimes, you and all your heaven-lit gleam, you make him forget that.

But sometimes, you make him remember.

And Maker, if you don’t look good like this. Streaked with his seed, creamy white pearling the maps of your body, the shine of it catching in the cannistered shafts of filtered light.

There’s a word for this—for you, for how you look, splayed and painted with his cum—with him. It puffs up like petals would, there in the square of his center. He’s never said it. His mouth doesn’t know the feel of it, his lips don’t know its shape. It’s scribed in Mando’a, and as native as the language is to him—as fundamental as Basic, if not more so—the word itself is foreign. Gawky. The thought of it alone hobbles through his mind on foaled legs. Din keeps this word barred, its essence clinging to the iron partitions of his skull, its perfume clouding his senses, his better judgement, his confounded rationality dangling precarious by a string.

Beautiful. Mesh’la.

You shift under his watchful eye, knees steepling mousy, and gingerly, he prizes the two apart and you let him.

You let him you let him of course you let him.

Din runs a damp cloth up your seam, up those hypersensitive folds, towards the expanse of flesh leading to your belly, and you hiss—a startled chill icing through your body.

“It’s cold,” he informs you, well after the fact, and you chortle a note in response. He continues to lave you clean, the drag of the material smoothing over your stippled planes and it’s intimate—how he takes you under his care, how he unmakes his mess.

Your heart, silly flustered thing it is, it tells you the act feels worshipful—reverent, maybe—but your head convinces you to look away, to cower, to do anything but address the blaze left in the wake of the rag he’s swiping over you. It’s too much. You feel vase-like— fragile and dainty, for the bounty hunter to either fill with wildflowers or crush under the heel of his boot— and it’s too unbearable. Bringing a hand to your sweat-sheened face, you shadow your eyes, ostriching shyly— if I can’t see him, he can’t see me.

A clipped tone escapes his helmet and it’s a sound you can’t place— it’s short, a blip—and you presume he’ll remain mum until he speaks. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

You don’t have to hide from me. I don’t want you to hide from me.

You nearly whimper at that. There’s something endearing and bronzed about how he says it, something torn, too—and you peak through the curtain of your fingers to watch him perform his ministrations. Almost begrudginly, you remove your hand from it’s shelf, resting it on the swell of your breast while he passes the cloth along your inner thighs, erasing the sticky traces of himself. There’s a quiet pause, a moment of distilled nothing before—

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” you admit, small.

He soothes his thumb into the crook of your hip, voice blunt with guilt. “I know.”

Sighing, you nod a little thing, a half-gesture, practically creeping under the Mandalorian's radar undetectable. Thunder shouts, lightning cracks— the bombastic storm outside apathetic to the lull within. Din clears his throat, rasping. “Was that okay?”

You resist the temptation to snort. Din is such a juxtaposition—one you don’t imagine you’ll tire from any time soon. He’s dangerous and protective and clever and strong and kind, despite his best efforts to snuff his compassion to ash like the butt of a dead cigarette. Lifting your palm from its perch, you extend to him, measuredly sliding your fingers against the crate— stretching stretching until he meets you, dubious and toddling like a child’s first steps, orange-dipped digits touching nude flesh. Your everbright grin brightens all the more— bewitching, back-breaking—as you entwine your hands to mesh.

“More than okay,” you say coyly. “Was that-was that good for you?”

Din huffs out an airy chuckle rich with disbelief, like he can’t fathom you’re even asking him—like you’d even have to ask at all. “That was—that was good. Very good,” he confesses gruffly, never a man for poetry, breathlessness still apparent in the bleed of his vocoder. “Even better than I imagined.”

A feline grin unfurls your lips, boldly quirking the droll corners of your mouth. “You imagine this often, Mando?”

Smirking wry and devastating, Din ushers you up by your woven hands, your body pliable and easy to his will; uprighted, his hips slot between your pretty knees, and he expertly twists your arm behind your back, snaring it there. Spine swooped, breasts brushing against his beskar, your nipples pebble cold. “Don’t let it go to your head, dala,” he gravels, visor tilted down at your dwarfed form, tenting you.

“Well," you tease lightly, "I’ll try my best.”

And you look at each other with all the tender awkwardness of two people standing on the edge of a brave new unknown.

Nervous, girlish, you smile.

Fluttering, pussy-drunk, he smiles back.

///

Nested in the pronged branch of a tall tree spindling up from the graveled soil, Din— a man, a boy too— reclines supine against the bark. His feet dangle like they did then, back when he wasn’t so afraid, and the air is dusted with a rosy haze as dusk settles upon the tired day.

The sun sets. The world twinkles a midnight blue, winking starshine as she spins.

Somewhere, behind him, his mother calls him home for supper.

tags: @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @pedros-mustache @miranhas-art @djarrex @djarinsbeskar @bookloverfilmoholic @keeper0fthestars @misguidedandbeguiled @bookishofalder @helmet-comes-off @grumpymuffinmama @niiight-dreamerrrr @spideysimpossiblegirl @janebby @greatcircle79 @gracie7209 @thatonedindjarinfan @altered-delta @email2ash @stevie75 @shegatsby @onebrownoneblue @uniquebiscuitmongerdonkey @severinsnape @kirsteng42 @justanothersadperson93 @mrsbentalmadge @radiowallet @librariantothejedi @whataperfectwasteoftime @babydarkstar @punkremus @mandobloggin @alma-rt1 @not-the-droids @pedrostories @kylieann0716 @jk7789

#King of Cups #din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem!reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x ofc #din djarin #the mandalorian #mando x you #mando x reader #mando x fem!reader #din djarin fanfic #din Djarin smut #the mandalorian fanfic #star wars fandom

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selfproducingfanfictionauthor · 3 years

Text

BTS scenario: Yoongi finds you after 1,871 days (1)

Summary: It takes 1,871 days for Yoongi to find you. Five years, one month, and four days. He’s turned over every house in your village, every pack in your province, and chased your family to every distant home you have before arriving to a quaint apartment in the middle of Seoul. Warnings/Notes: The continuation to Yoongi’s part in this scenario drabble. Please read because it might not sense if you don’t lol. No warnings as of now.

Word Count: 1,500+ words READ PART TWO HERE

It takes 1,871 days for Yoongi to find you.

Five years, one month, and four days. He’s turned over every house in your village, every pack in your province, and chased your family to every distant home you have before arriving to a quaint apartment in the middle of Seoul.

Inside the car and behind the tinted windows, Yoongi stares up to your apartment. It’s small, but it comes with a balcony where clothes hang to dry. He recognizes a familiar red blouse, and a blue jumper.

What he doesn’t recognize are these: a small pair of shorts, a school uniform, and a plain shirt - all in a size of perfect for a child.

1,871 days is a long time but you split it like this: the time before Yongho and the time after Yongho.

It didn’t take long for you to leave the pack after that night with Yoongi. You knew then that if you drag your feet, you’ll never be able to leave. So, with your family’s promise and blessing, you packed your bags, your savings, and your heart and boarded the next plane out of the country.

You didn’t think Yoongi would look for you (but you hoped, desperately, sometimes even too much) but still, you took serious precautions. Running away with an alpha’s child is not a slight offense regardless of the reason.

With no family and no friends, you hunkered down in the outskirts of Taipei. You watched summer turn to fall, and then by winter, your arms are warmed by the small bundle of joy that is your son.

Yongho is a precious boy, with your nose and lips, and Yoongi’s feline eyes. He’s curious, energetic, and affectionate, and not a day goes by that you’re not thankful for his presence.

When he turned three, and with no new news of Yoongi coming from your family, you opted to return to your homeland to finish your post-graduate studies. You never planned on hiding Yongho from his father forever, but for years after you left, your family urged you not to reveal yourself.

The pack has splintered, stay hidden until everything settles. They are invoking the old law.

And so you did, however, now, circumstances have changed.

“Yongho, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

Yoongi watches a few steps behind you as you kneel down to your child’s height. Even with your crouching form, he still couldn’t see his son’s features. He’s small for his age, he muses, just like he was in his youth.

Yoongi hears a sound of high-pitched approval from his child, before your lips curve into a familiar smile.

“Good,” you say, “Why don’t you change clothes and then you can join us in the kitchen?”

The little boy scampers away with a giggle and you silently turn to Yoongi, leading him to the kitchen.

Your apartment isn’t small, but it’s not large either. The kitchen is quaint with herbs growing on the small window by the sink. Yoongi smells the leftover scents of bacon, milk, and eggs from the air mixed with the tea you placed in front of him.

For a while, it’s silent and Yoongi takes care to observe you.

It’s been five years but somehow, the difference startles him. Though your features remained the same, there’s a certain hardness to it now, like a polished sword - a calm protective air.

“Mama! I’m ready!”

Your scent immediately spikes with warmth as you hear your son’s steps down the stairs. You turn in your chair, catching him so readily in your arms.

“I combed my hair too, see?” Yongho peers up to you with a smile, one of his front teeth missing. Smiling fondly, you touch his hair lightly. “I see that, my love, good job.”

Yongho grins before turning and glancing at the man with his eyes, sitting at the other end of your dining table. His smile wobbles at the seriousness in the man’s face but he perseveres. He’s a guest, mama said.

Seeing that Yoongi has caught your son’s attention, you clear your throat. You’ve never lied about your son’s father ever since he first asked about it when he was three, and so this conversation shouldn’t be hard.

“Yongho, this is Yoongi, your father.”

The secondary gender’s characteristics manifests early into puberty. However, with the advancement of science and technology, people have found a way to determine an individual’s secondary gender as early as they’re 6 months old.

You tried avoiding these tests for Yongho to give him a shot at a regular, unburdened childhood but it became unavoidable when you tried to enroll him to his first pre-school class.

It had taken all of your family’s dwindling connections to scrub the records clean but even that isn’t enough to keep the news from reaching the elders ears.

Your son, little Y/L/N Yongho, is the rarest of them all - a male omega.

And so you called Yoongi. It’s less of him finding you, and more of you allowing yourself to be found. With nothing left to possibly do, you reached out to the only one you think can help.

Things have settled quite quickly, your son is young, forgiving and eager. At the sight of his father, he quickly warmed up and you watched Yoongi struggle faintly at the overwhelming energy of your pup.

They spent the whole day in his room, watching movie after movie, and playing with every toy Yongho owns. He even showed his father his drawings, most of which were of the town you lived in Taiwan.

“So that’s where you went.” Yoongi observes, finger touching the crayon drawing of you and Yongho making pineapple cakes.

The sun has already set and Yongho’s knocked out in his room. The two of you are once again across each other, on the other sides of your mahogany kitchen table.

“Yes,” you respond calmly, “We stayed there for three years.”

Yoongi breathes, closes his eyes and tries not to think of you, heavily pregnant and alone. There’s time to discuss the past, but that’s not today. Still, he couldn’t help the bitterness seep into his voice, not after he’s known what he missed for five years.

A son, a beautiful son.

“Had I known you’re craving pineapple cakes, we would’ve sent for it.”

I looked for you, he wants to say, I nearly went mad, looking for you.

You let out a pained chuckle, “Funny. I actually couldn’t stand it when I was pregnant. Yongho loves them though.”

“Why am I here?” Yoongi cuts, his alpha rearing its head. That’s our blood she hid, it snarls, our seed, our son - she took him away!

Wordlessly, you took out a red envelope from under your seat. The familiar seal of the pack elders broken into two. You slide it towards Yoongi and watch as he reads it contents.

You watch as his eyes grow sharper and his jaw clench reading the request of the elders. He too, has changed, you observe. The wild energy you’ve associated with him is gone, perhaps veiled under the surface.

After all, an omega’s chosen alpha should be a man of discipline.

“They can’t do this,” Yoongi grits out. “It’s against the law to take a child from their family.”

You shake your head, nights poured over the texts of your youth heavy on your mind, “The pack only recognizes families of mated individuals.”

Yoongi’s eyes flicker at your unmarked neck and his alpha curls into himself. Unmarked. Our son’s mother is unmarked, it whimpers. Before he could speak, you continue on.

“I’ve read the books, and sought advice from the Wong pack of Taipei, there are two ways to avoid this—“

Marriage, Yoongi thinks, and the box in his pocket suddenly weighs a ton. He’s carried it around for five years, hoping to find you.

“—but since mating is out of question—“ a flash of the old you passes in your eyes, and Yoongi opens his mouth to protest, but you don’t stop.

“— I’ve invoked the ancient law.” You pause, taking a deep breathe. “A month from now, I’ll be battling the primary alpha of the pack for the custody of our child.”

Yoongi gasps. The primary alpha… is Jeon Jungkook, one of their strongest and most devoted to the omega. He’ll tear you apart if she so asks.

Yoongi startles when you push your chair back, standing suddenly in front of him. Your eyes are brimming with unshed tears, but your back is straight, as you kneel down- your forehead to the ground, a few inches from his feet.

“Min Yoongi, alpha of the Min family, father of my son, my former betrothed — for all that we were and we cannot be, I beseech you.”

Yoongi’s alpha is snarling inside his head, confused, scared, angry at your thoughtless decision and his own thoughtlessness that lead you here. It’s a visceral reaction - an alpha doesn’t bow to another alpha, but here you are. Everything for your son.

“If I lose, take our son. He needs your name.”

END NOTES: Well, this got out of hand. There’s a lot unsaid between these two and a lot of time passed by between the them in the drabble and this one. Let me know what you think! I’m thinking of where to bring the other hyungline members’ plotlines still. Hearts are great but comments and reblogs will reach a lot more readers. Let’s spread the love! Should I continue Yoongi’s story? What do you think will happen? TAG LIST: @justmewondering-recs @cloudbuffalo @blushingatyou @aroseharder @neverthefirstchoice @xanny91 @sugaaddiction @flirtygerty @darkskin-buttercup

#thetruthuntoldnet #bangtanarmynet #yoongi x reader #alpha yoongi #alpha reader #bts scenarios #jeon jungkook cameo #daddy yoongi #hidden child trope #ABO dynamics #BTS Alpha #bts angst #yoongi angst #bts fanfiction #bts scenario

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morosemagick · 3 years

Text

Warriors of Menace | Finan x Reader One Shot

My entry for Rosie's 100 Follower Challange!!

Prompt: “You are very well behaved today. What have you done?”

Warning: Absolutely none, just a shit ton of fluff lol

Words: 2121

Tagged:

@solinarimoon @emilyhufflepufftlk @for-bebbanburg @evelynshelby @lauwrite1225 @obipoelover @magravenwrites

Life is much different for you now than it was five years ago. Long gone are the days where there was a shyness about you, and your nerves rattled at the idea of forming friendships of this ragtag band of warriors. Time has been good to you, and after years of being a part of this little, mix-matched family founded by Uhtred of Bebbanburg, it’s safe to say you knew these men well. You understand all of their quirks and knew all the signs of how they behaved. The good days and the bad days were easy to recognize, and when mood swings would accord or the occasional argument between them would happen you’d know just how to put out the fire.

It’s this ability to understand these misunderstood warriors that brought you close to Finan, and in what felt like a blink of an eye… you were his wife.

And he was an excellent husband.

You understood him the most. Finan could not hide his moods from you. Happiness, frustration, anger. You knew the calling card for all of his moods, and he knew all of yours. When you first realized he had feelings for you, you could pinpoint all the little things he would try to do to get you to realize he loved you. It was heartwarmingly adorable and you didn’t let him go long without telling him you felt the same. Since your marriage, you have been a unit in sync. There is nothing Finan can hide from you after almost four years of marriage.

Including when he’s being an absolute menace.

You're in your kitchen making lunch, a large pot of stew over the fire because part of you already expects to feed more than just your family. It’s what you do at this point. You may have married Finan, but you feel like you married the whole crew of warriors with the way you care for them. The food is just about done when, just as expected, Finan comes bursting through the front door with Sihtric in tow.

By the way they come in giggling like children, you know they’re up to no good.

“I know you are not tracking dirt through my home, Finan,” You tell him as you stir your wooden spoon through the pot, and you can hear your husband coming up from behind you.

He kisses the side of your head, “I would never, darlin’,” Finan snickers, placing a hand on your rather round belly, “And how is the wee man today?”

“You are going to regret calling her that when she reveals herself as a daughter,” You smirk as you glance his way and he gives you another kiss, “Speaking of wee men, where is Aethelstan?”

“With Osferth and Eadith,” Sihtric explains as he sits at your table, and you can hear Finan walk around your home. When you glance back, he’s making the table for four.

“And what is he doing with Osferth and Eadith?” You ask as you fully turn around to look at both men, only to find them poorly failing at hiding their smiles, “Finan?”

“Yes, my love?” He asks as he returns to your side, and by his smile you know he's up to no good.

"Where is that boy of yours, and do not lie to me," You tell him with a raised brow and arms crossed so he knows you mean business.

You call Aethelstan just his when the two of them are on your nerves, but the boy is yours. Even though, technically, he is not.

"He's doing us a favor, Y/N, he will be home shortly," Sihtric tells you, trying to save Finan from whatever hole he's currently digging himself.

"Uh-huh," You smirk and now Finan is carefully trying to push you away from the food you are cooking, "What are you doing?"

"Finishin’ for you," Finan tells you with another kiss on your head, "Go sit, I'll bring the pot to the table."

You glance between the two men and head to the table anyway, sitting down next to Sihtric, "Who are you two, and what have you done with my husband and his best friend?"

"We are always this compassionate, Y/N," Finan chuckles as he brings over lunch, "Oi, go grab bread," he whistles to Sihtric and the Dane stands and does as he's told, "You shouldn't be workin' so hard when you're busy makin' us such a wonderful child."

Okay, now you know they're up to no good.

Before you can ask what they’ve done, Aethelstan all but bursts through the front door, slamming it rather hard for a child before realizing you are at the table staring at him. He smiles wide, the cheeky grin a telltale sign of trouble he picked up from Finan in the year of you raising him. He walks directly to you, like he hasn’t done a thing wrong, and places a kiss on your cheek. (Another sign he’s gotten from Finan, as well.) “Hello, Mother.”

“Go clean yourself up before lunch, you little trouble maker,” Your smirk at the boy, and Finan ruffles his hair as he runs off. The two of you aren’t really supposed to let him call you by those names, but neither of you has the heart to tell him otherwise. Besides, it’s already been a year and if he wants to call you Mother and Father that’s exactly what he’s going to call you.

Aethelstan cleans himself up and then joins you all at the table, sitting down across from Sihtric and next to Finan. The two of them move in sync as they fold their hands over together above their food, and to the side of you, Sihtric lowers his head in respect for your religion.

“Thank you, Father, for this delicious meal we are about to receive, and for this family you allowed us to grow,” Finan prays and you just stare at him with eyebrows scrunched and your lip curled into a smirk.

Because you know that getting Finan to pray before meals is usually a hassle.

“In your name, we pray,” Aethelstan continues, “Ahem.”

The three of you sign to your God and Sihtric just keeps his head down till you are done, and then the three men start to eat. You, however, just continue to stare at your husband until he finally looks at you and smiles, “What?”

“You are all very well behaved today,” You start to tell them all, and Finan just smiles wider as you lean forward and rest your chin in your hand, “What have you done?”

“You know us, Y/N, nothin’ too awful,” Finan starts to explain.

“It’s true, Y/N,” Sihtric adds as he rips himself a piece of the bread loaf, “We only do things out of love. That’s just the kind of warriors we are.”

“Aye, he’s right.” Finan agrees as he continues eating.

“Oh, I am sure,” You say in response even though you don’t believe any of them, but luckily enough for them your too hungry to push the topic further. So instead, you start to eat the lunch you’ve slaved over and enjoy this time with your family.

The meal is mostly quiet, albeit some sweet words of gratitude from the men at your table, thankful for the meal you prepared for them. You almost make it through the whole thing in peace, when a knock at your door startles the men.

“Finan? Sihtric! I know you are in there,” It’s Osferth, and he sounds rather frustrated. He knocks on the door again, a little harder, as the two men at your table start to slowly rise and head for the back room. “Open up! We need to talk, now!”

Finan and Sihtric start to sneak for the back door, shit-eating grins on both of their faces, “We were not here, Y/N, we have not been home all mornin’.” He tells you as they make their escape, leaving you there to roll your eyes and answer the door yourself.

When you open the door to greet Osferth, he looks absolutely flustered, “Osferth, how are you today?”

“Lady, I have been better,” He’s always so polite, the sweet former monk, and no matter how many times you tell him not to call you lady, he cannot seem to shake his manners, “I hate to bother you, but I need to speak with Finan and Sihtric.”

You chuckle, folding your arms across your belly, “You just missed them, but I have some stew left over from lunch if you are hungry.”

“I should be on my way, I really need to speak with them,” Osferth explains as he rubs at the back of his neck and you chuckle at the shyness he holds after years of friendship.

"Osferth, come in and tell me what my husband and Sihtric have done," You open your door wider and move to the side so he can come in, and after a second of hesitation, he sighs and complies.

Osferth walks over to the table that Aethelstan has managed to vanish from without you noticing and slumps into his seat, "I am going to kill them." He groans half-heartedly.

You laugh, grabbing him a clean bowl before joining him at the table, "What did they do?"

"Sihtric told Eadith I am interested in her, and then Finan had Aethelstan pick flowers for her saying they were from me," Osferth sighs heavily as you serve him some stew, "They've ruined everything."

"I thought you did fancy Eadith? What's the problem?" You ask him as you put the bowl of stew in front of him.

"She does not think of me in that way," He groans, looking defeated, "Now she'll think I'm a pervert who only wishes to hump her."

"Or she will think you are shy, and that Finan and Sihtric should mind their own business," You tell him as he eats through his frustration, "My husband may be a menace, but he does the stupid things he does out of love."

"She does not think of me in that way, Y/N," He tells you as he temporarily lowers his spoon, "She is beautiful… and I am just- a baby monk."

You laugh with a big smile across your face because your friend couldn't be any more wrong, "Is that really what you think? Osferth, she is clearly fallen for you."

"Do not pity me, Lady, I do not need your lies to lift my spirit," He tells, looking defeated as he finishes his stew.

"Enough of this," You tell him as you take away the dirty dishes and rise from your seat, "You will go to Eadith and confess your feelings, or I will send Aethelstan to do it for you."

"Y/N-"

"Go! Now, before the day is over," You command, shoo-ing him from your table, as he reluctantly rises, "And be sure to come back to thank me when it's over."

He groans as he walks out of your home, making you laugh as you start cleaning plates. A moment or two after he's gone, you can hear creaking coming from your bedroom, and then two big arms wrap around your body.

"Where is Sihtric?" You ask your husband, not needing to turn around to confirm it's him because you would recognize these arms anywhere.

"Gone home to his own wife," Finan tells you with a kiss, "Enjoyin' his final days before Osferth certainly murders us all."

"He will not murder anyone," You chuckle as you turn around, still in his arms, "Osferth may not have your confidence or Sihtrics' flirting skills but I am positive he will find that Eadith shares his feelings."

"How are you so sure?" Finan scrunches his brows in confusion, "And what do you know of how Sihtric flirts?"

You chuckle, standing on your toes to reach your husband's lips as you give him a kiss, "I just know things, my love, it is my gift from God."

Finan grabs you by the cheeks as you lower yourself, kissing you with much more passion, his lips still on yours as he growls, "If I find out Sihtric has tried to bed my wife-"

"It was long before you were mine," You tell him with a smirk, "No need to start anything over it now."

"That is my gift, mo ghrá," He snickers as his kisses move from your lips to your neck, "I am a Warrior of Menace, after all."

You couldn't argue with that as your warrior brings you back to bed, determined to show you just how much he was yours.

An excellent husband, indeed.

#finan x reader #finan #finan the agile #the last kingdom #tlk fanfic #tlk #tlk osferth #tlk sihtric #tlk finan #tlk aethelstan #rosies100 #mcloveproductions

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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

Text

Serenade (Daniela Dimitrescu/Reader) Pt. 12 FINALE

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T for language Warnings: Nope! Notes: How lovely it has been, to go on this journey with you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to every person who has liked, reblogged, or left a kind comment on this story. Combined, you all have genuinely changed my life. I'm writing more than ever, more consistently, and I'm having a blast. So if you like this story, and wish it wasn't ending, well... maybe don't worry too much. There will be a sequel of sorts, same timeline but new reader, instead focusing on Cassandra. Also oops this is hella long. And mostly dialogue. Past Chapters: Pt. 1: Nocturne, Pt. 2: Overture, Pt. 3: Accelerando, Pt. 4: Toccata, Pt. 5: Poco a Poco, Pt. 6: Elegy, Pt. 7: Harmony, Pt. 8: Obbligato, Pt. 9: Berceuse, Pt. 10b: Hymn AMAB, Pt 11: Cadence

Chapter 12: Cadence (Reprise)

(Cadence: Two chords that mark the end of a song)

Truth be told, she had never expected much of anything to come from this. ‘Twas not that she thought her daughter to be talentless, or that she denied the capabilities of the servant-turned-teacher, rather that she knew just how difficult it was to keep Daniela’s attention for any measure of time. Even as the weeks went by with undeniable progress, there was a part of her awaiting the collapse of it all. How long would this instructor last? How long before they were drained of blood, either for some perceived insult, or merely out of boredom? Surely, in the end, Alcina would not need to lift a single finger.

And yet here she was, at the end of a concert, pride roaring within her chest. What had she missed? What clues had eluded her, what had changed within her child’s nature? She knew that there were hints of deeper affections, fragments of a would-be love, but she had thought them miniscule. Thought that those feelings were doomed to crash and burn, unable to live up to the expectations set by decades of romance novels. Well, maybe they had failed. Maybe, somehow, Alcina had missed something else entirely.

The thought might have sent a shiver down her spine, if she weren’t so readily distracted by praising her youngest child… or by the looming shadow of a life-changing revelation.

“Mother… we need to talk. I… I have a confession to make,” Daniela explains, hesitantly slow, but with a conviction she rarely ever showed. Taken aback by the unexpected announcement, Alcina pauses, silently awaiting some form of elaboration. Instead, Daniela takes her hand, pulling her towards a set of chairs. They sit gingerly, each feeling the weight of terrifying possibilities upon their shoulders. When she at last continues speaking, she does so without a trace of showmanship or false bravado, trading it in for heartfelt sincerity. “I love them. All of this- these lessons, this concert- has been for them. For my sweet, innocent little songbird.” So here it was, the birthplace of her fears, brought forth from her mind into reality.

“I was afraid you would say that,” Alcina muses, leaning back into the chair with a deep sigh. Something itches in the back of her throat, and she yearns for her pipe, or even just a normal cigarette to distract herself. Without one, she is left to metaphorically chew on her thoughts. Realistically, there has to be some way to deal with this, some way that she can convince her daughter of the sheer foolishness of this mess. “Daniela… how can I put this in a way you will understand, hmm?… The two of you have only known each other for three months. There is no chance that you truly love them, or them you. How close can you possibly have become?”

“When have I cared about anything for three whole months? I dedicated myself to-” Daniela is cut off by the sound of the door opening, revealing the rest of her little family. It was guaranteed that they would have heard the conversation from outside, seeing as they were all inhuman, though they perhaps intended to intervene. A single hard glance from both of the room’s occupants convinces them to change their minds. “Wait, Ava, can you get us some tea, please? Something tells me I’ll need a soothing drink soon.” Hesitating in the doorway, the butler in question eyes the both of them, naturally tempted to stay and fill the role of a therapist.

“I do believe my daughter gave you an order, Ava. Don’t tell me you have forgotten the stipulations of your agreement with Mother Miranda?” Alcina interjects. With that said, the butler finally moves, exiting with an apologetic bow. An awkward silence hangs in the air once xe closes the door behind xerself, as Daniela takes a moment to recall her place.

“Three months is a long time for me. I put all of my energy towards both them and what they taught me, almost every single day. Even when their work kept them busy for too long, I still practiced, because I wanted to make them proud! For all my flirting, I’ve never bonded with anyone this way before now,” she says, hating the way her voice gets a little shaky. No matter how much confidence she has in her own writing, it is another thing entirely to be convincing out loud, with a truth she had been hiding for so long. All of her practice had been with lies. Now she had to contest with the hope that the strength of her emotions would be enough. “That song we played together, at the end, they wrote that for me. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“Oh, my dear… I want you to be happy more than anything. But we both know that your ‘history’ is stained with a number of incidents. You have always been absorbed within those books you read, and the fantasies that they provide for you. It is one thing to enjoy these stories on the side, but another matter entirely to let them corrupt your relations with others. As your mother, it is my duty to keep you safe, first and foremost,” Alcina proclaims, sitting up straighter, trying not to let her frown evolve into a full out scowl. Beneath the table, her hands ball into fists, clutched tight to stop herself from breaking the table. In the back of her mind she could think of little other than dismembering that damned piano instructor. Focusing on the discussion at hand, she takes a deep breath before finalizing her point. “You don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like, nor what it feels like. Your books are not ideal models for reference. One- or both- of you are going to end up suffering, and that is something I cannot allow, regardless of how ‘happy’ they make you before then.”

“You’re right,” Daniela whispers in defeat… or a feigned version of it. A split second later she’s making eye contact with her mother again, lips curling up into a smile. “I didn’t want to admit it, especially not to someone as attractive, talented, and charming as my Songbird, but I didn’t have to. They understood from the very start. We talked about it, about my expectations and my shitty behavior, and we worked on it. We’re still working on it. Maybe there will be bumps along the way, just like in every relationship, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be worth it in the end. What we have is still real, and they make me want to be a better woman. I know they’ve already helped me make the change.”

Once more the door opens, making the conversation pause, as Ava near-silently brings in the requested tea. If a pin had dropped at that moment, it would have felt as ear-shattering loud as a gong. Every second that passed felt like it dragged on, stretched out by the tension in the room, as though xe was moving in slow motion. The ‘clink’ of ceramic against the table makes xer flinch, almost spilling the tea. Neither Alcina nor Daniela react, or even acknowledge xer presence with anything more than their eyes, instead remaining impassive until xe makes a hasty retreat.

“Use what you’ve learned on someone else, then. Perhaps another one of Miranda’s experiments will someday provide a suitable match. But this ‘songbird’ of yours? They’re nothing. A human, a servant, they are not worth your time, nor are they worth mine. No matter what words or songs they weave, or illusions of grandeur they show you, you will end up getting bored of them. I’m afraid it is inevitable, my dear,” Alcina says, as soon as the door is closed once more. Then she attends to her tea, with the composure of someone convinced that they had just won an argument. On the other hand, Daniela was not so quick to give in, some of her worry melting into anger.

“How can you say that? How can you be sure? We were all human, once! Even Mother Miranda was human. And my Songbird is no mere human- they are wondrous, with flowery prose and lovely melodies, with soft-lipped smiles and reassuring eyes, and don’t even get me started on how beautiful they are!” She rambles, voice getting louder with every word. All at once it is too much for Alcina, who sets down her glass a little too hard, nostrils flaring as she stares at her daughter. When Daniela speaks again, she does so with love coating her tone. “We have weathered each other’s anxieties with no signs of stopping. I promised that we would weather yours.”

“I only want you to be happy. I need you to understand where I am coming from. This may be your longest lasting infatuation so far, but you have yet to honestly convince me that this is any different from your past ‘distractions’. I’m sorry, Daniela, I simply cannot allow this to continue,” Alcina sighs, hating to break her youngest daughter’s heart like this. There was only one thing that Daniela had yet to try. Maybe two, if she was willing to resort to begging.

“Can’t you trust me enough to give us a chance? Cassandra of all people seems to understand. Bela went as far as to lie to you, for our sake! She never does anything she thinks will hurt me, or you, or any of us. Please, mother, please. How can you ever know if what I have will last, if you cut it down now? Are you going to wait forever for some ‘perfect candidate’ for me? And what if that person loves someone else? Or what if the ‘perfect’ person doesn’t exist! What if we’re stuck waiting for them like Mother Miranda waits for another child, hmm? Would you have me spend another century alone, my only memory of genuine romance being poisoned by the thought that you broke us apart?” Daniela’s words ring throughout the chamber, echoing a damning accusation, somehow more bitter than the taste they left in her mouth.

All at once, Alcina’s heart takes a hit like no other. Her hands damn-near tremble, her lungs ache, her lips purse, and her brow furrows. So be it, she thinks.

“Bring this ‘Songbird’ here. Let me talk to them.”

—————————

Goddess, you are practically vibrating at the speed of sound, palms sweaty, nervousness trashing your mind. What the hell had Daniela done? Last thing you knew, she was determined to keep your secret, even if meant being unable to celebrate with you. But now you were getting tugged along by her, while tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She had said something about “mother” and “important”. That was all the context that you had been given. When you round one last corner, pulling up in front of Lady Dimitrescu’s study, you are shown a sight that somehow makes you feel worse: Bela, Cassandra, and Ava are all resting outside of the room. They appear exhausted, and motion for you to be quiet as you approach.

“They’ve been listening in on our conversation,” Daniela admits with a whisper. Then she’s pulling you into the study, ensuring that the door doesn’t open wide enough for the eavesdroppers to get spotted. Something told you that Alcina was already well aware of their presence. “Alright, mother, here is my Songbird. What did you want to ask us?”

“Daniela… leave us. My questions are for ‘Songbird’ alone,” Alcina replies, seemingly confirming the absolute worst of your fears. This was where you would die. By her hand, without your lover by your side, after what could have been the happiest night of your life. Of course. But Daniela is not willing to go without a fight. As soon as the words leave her mother’s mouth, she is moving between the two of you, just as she had when she first called you her teacher. Before she can speak, her mother stands up and stares her down. “Don’t make me ask again- there will not be a third time.” When she still hesitates, it is your turn to be brave.

“Hey, it’s okay, we’ll be okay,” you promise her, reaching out to take her hand. Instantly she’s returning to your side, hand cupping your cheek, eyes filled to the brim with sadness. “Firefly… ‘Tell me love, we shall last until the end of days’. I love you. Nothing is going to change that, not now, not ever. We’ll be okay.” Maybe not now, you think, but you’ll be okay eventually. Cassandra and Bela, and Ava I suppose, will make sure of it.

“Okay. We’ll last until the end of days. I love you too,” Daniela says, swallowing the lump in her throat. With one last kiss she pulls away, wishing that her departure didn’t feel so much like a betrayal. She pauses in the doorway, meeting your gaze, unable to bring herself to move until you give her an accepting nod. The door swings into place with a click, sealing the room and your fate.

“So,” Alcina begins, returning to her seat as she does. For now you stay standing, unsure of just about every part of this situation, especially your upcoming role in it. “You have been deceiving me. That alone is a crime worthy of severe punishment, and yet you stooped so low as to do far, far more. I had hoped you had, somehow, managed to teach my daughter a real lesson, that you had inspired a love of music in her, that you had made an honest difference in the way she learns. But all this time… it has been nothing more than a ruse.” The last word comes out dipped in venom, acidic enough to make you flinch. Thankfully, your beloved was not the only person who had a gift with words. More than that, this was a topic that you had spent numerous nights thinking about, making you as prepared as you could ever hope to be.

“You know, as much as I desire to claim that I am that interesting, or that Daniela felt so strongly from the very start, I can do no such thing. The truth is this: Music is what brought us together in the first place. It was the catalyst for our first real interaction, the first time she ever looked at me as more than just another servant or bloodbag. We bonded because of it, and so when we went to play together, to learn, Daniela honestly did connect to it,” you explain, despite the fire in Alcina’s expression. To your surprise, she does not interrupt you, and you take it as permission to keep going. Which was very good, considering that being nervous only made you ramble more. “Music is something we’ve shared for the entirety of our relationship. Even if it’s not something she would do much of on her own, I know that she’s grown to care for it more than she might be willing to admit. And, well…

“Even if you decide that what I’ve done is unforgivable, even if I’m destined to die within the hour, I know in my heart that everything the two of us worked on still matters. Because, like it or not, she is capable of growth, of change, of progress. And even if I die, someone else will come afterwards. Daniela will get to use music as a way to forge connections for the rest of her life, now that she knows it works, now that she knows how it works. And every goddamn time that she plays, or Bela plays, or you play, she’s going to remember me. She’ll remember every moment we spent together, every piece we ever played. I’ll live on in the melodies we made. In the song that you can’t quite place, that gets stuck on loop in your head. In the song the maids sing to themselves between shifts. In the quiet evening when the rain against the window feels so much like a familiar rhythm that your daughters can’t help but start humming along, without even thinking, muscle memories in sync.”

“Are you trying to convince me that there’s no point in killing you? That, regardless, you will be in my life until the end of time?” Alcina’s eyes are narrowed, but there isn’t even a hint of anger in her tone. Just curiosity.

“No, not really. Guess I’m just making peace with my fate the best way I know how- by remembering the echoes I’ll leave behind,” you answer, pausing to wipe a few tears from your eyes. All you can think about is how much Daniela will miss you. How much pain you think she’ll go through. Because at this point, who are you trying to fool with your hope? Yourself, or the people listening?

“Hmm. I think I understand. Now, tell me… what was that you said to my daughter a minute ago, before she left the room? It sounded familiar, though I cannot place it,” Alcina questions, idly toying with her glass of tea. You’re not entirely sure why it matters to her, but you have no qualms delaying the inevitable by answering. Besides, it was a chance to talk about how much you loved Daniela (and you’d never skip such an opportunity).

“It’s a line from a poem she wrote for me. “Tell me love, we shall last until the end of days”. A promise. The song Daniela and I played together… I wrote it in response. My way of doing what she asked of me, I guess. Like I said, she’ll always have the music we shared,” you answer, unable to stop yourself from smiling.

“Damn this… I can hardly believe I am asking this, yet I feel I have no choice: Tell me, do you love my daughter? Do you honestly, with your entire being, desire a future with her? Or was this a game of survival you couldn’t afford to lose, that turned out to be more ‘fun’ than you had anticipated? Show me your heart, as it is, bare as it would be if I tore it from your chest, this very moment.” There’s no room for argument in her voice, using the very same tone she reserved for maidens who got a tad too close to refusing her.

“Alright. It was a game. At first. Daniela wanted a distraction, something to entertain her. I didn’t want to die, like I had heard so many of her ‘playmates’ did. I can’t tell you when things changed, at least not for her,” you confess, with a shaky breath. Did that make you a monster? One worthy of death? If so, you wondered if it actually made you more fit to date Daniela. “For me… I just remember her smiling wide at me, hand on my cheek, having just cracked some lame joke. Next thing I knew, well, I knew. We had a spark of something, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to make her happy, you know? All the sudden there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I just wanted to see that smile again, everyday for the rest of my life.

“To answer your question: Yes. Goddess, yes. A thousand times yes. A ‘yes’ for every smile she’s ever shown me, for every butterfly in my stomach, for every time she’s held my hand, for every breath she’s stolen from my lungs, and for every single time my heart has skipped a beat in her name. I love her. I know we haven’t been together long, but the things I feel are undeniable. I will give her every part of myself, for as long as she wants me, for as long as I am blessed to live,” you pour your heart out, weaving your heartbeat into every turn of phrase, spilling your lifeblood onto the very conversation.

“And what will you do if she does change her mind? If she grows bored of you, as she has done with a dozen others?” Alcina counters without hesitation.

“I will weep. I will fall to my knees, and mourn this beautiful thing. But I will cherish every memory she leaves to me. Every moment where I am hers is a moment worth living, worth remembering. It will be better to have loved her with all my heart for a little slice of her immortality, than to love another, lesser so, for all of my life.” With that, Alcina sets her empty glass of tea onto the table, eying you with an unreadable expression. Something seems to stir in her chest, and at last the mask crumbles. She smiles.

“I see. Daniela, you may come back in now. Do not bother pretending that you have not been eavesdropping.” Not even a full second passes before the door opens, revealing a shaking Daniela, both of her sisters quite visible behind her (though they quickly move out of frame, leaving behind Ava, who gives a cheesy thumbs up as the door closes in xer face). She rushes to your side, taking your hand, looking stunned that you were still alive. But what shocks her more is what her mother says… “Of all the women I have ever known, family or otherwise, you are, perhaps, the most determined. Normally only in… ‘spurts’. Yet here you are, defying what I have come to expect of you. It almost feels as if I have been fooling myself this whole time, falsely believing that there is more than one possible outcome. So, ‘Songbird’, I say this: Three months ago, I agreed to give you a chance to prove yourself worthy of my daughter, for the sake of her happiness. Now, I suppose it is only fair that I do so once more.”

“Wait. Are you saying-” Daniela is once again cut off by her mother, who seems eager to avoid a trademark rant.

“Yes, yes I am. For the time being, the two of you have my blessing. I cannot say that I am entirely convinced of your chances at success, but, having seen the strength of your affections for one another, I sincerely hope that you will prove me wrong. Now come here, Daniela. I never got to finish telling you what I thought of your concert…”

—————————

In the glowing comfort of your girlfriend’s room, with the fireplace keeping things warm and cozy, you lay with your head against Daniela’s chest. One of her hands absentmindedly plays with your hair, and you release a sigh of bliss. Ava had assured you that xe would let Daphne know the good news, as xe thought that having one of the castle ladies visiting the servants’ quarters might cause a stir (and Daniela was far from willing to let go of you so soon). Now the two of you were just enjoying time holding each other close. Regardless of Alcina’s concerns, you knew that everything would be looking up from here. Assuming that Daniela didn’t have any more surprise confessions to involve you with.

“That was one hell of a surprise, Firefly. But I’m glad we don’t have to hide anymore. I love you, and I don’t know how long I could have survived without being open with it,” you say, a light teasing to your voice. Beneath you, Daniela chuckles, but holds you just a bit tighter. Then she places the softest of kisses to your forehead. “I’m always gonna love you, Firefly.”

“Until the end of days?” She asks, in a delighted whisper, grin practically audible.

“Until the end of days.”

—————————

Elsewhere in the castle, a caring mother takes another long, hungry drink from her glass of wine, staring intently into the fireplace. By her side is a silver-haired servant, who wordlessly watches her every move.

“There’s still a chance that this will all end horribly. Only time will tell, of course… but I can’t help worrying for her, she’s my daughter,” Alcina proclaims, gripping the glass hard enough for a web of cracks to form along its bell. But it does not fully shatter. No, it remains just steady enough to still be of use to her. For now. “Of course, you knew about this all along, didn’t you, Ava?... I know that you value how close you are with my children, and I know that they trust in you as much as I do… but if there are relationships or entanglements that I am unaware of, I expect you to tell me, or there will have to be consequences, regardless of your affiliation with Mother Miranda. Do you understand?”

Sighing, the mute servant pulls a notebook from xer pocket, opening it up to pen in a fresh script. There’s much tension in the air, and it only gets worse when Alcina catches a glimpse at what the note reads. As xe hands it to her, she scowls, and the wine glass fully breaks into countless shards. Immediately, Ava gets to work, picking up the largest of fragments with xer bare hands, refusing to complain about the resulting cuts. All the while Alcina stares into the fire, thoughts racing, wondering if maybe this time she could end her daughter’s problem before it was too late. Beginning to brainstorm ideas, she sets the notebook aside. Inside, in perfectly penned cursive, is a very, very dangerous piece of knowledge. The sort that could affect not only Castle Dimitrescu, but the entire village.

“In that case… there’s something you need to know about Cassandra- and Mother Miranda’s lovely little ‘pet’.”

#daniela dimitrescu x reader #daniela dimitrescu #resident evil: village #re8 village #it's really here lads #this is it #gonna go cry now #oh my god #i can hardly believe it

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alinastracker · 3 years

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malina week day two — hurt/comfort

Malyen Oretsev lies awake, thinking about how he will die tomorrow.

He’s accepted it, even if Alina hasn’t. All along, he’s been looking for a way to be useful. He doesn’t have a royal title or a Grisha order, but he has this. Mal had meant what he’d said about the words on his back. He would do anything for the girl laying in his arms, snoring softly.

He breathes in her scent now, committing it to memory. If there is another place after this life, he wants every detail tattooed on his mind. Then he can at least have the memory of her. He’ll need it to last. She is a powerful Grisha, after all. It would be centuries before she joined him on the other side, in this hypothetical other place. And maybe there, they could be happy.

Sleep, Oretsev, he tells himself. He’s accepted his martyrdom, so there should be no reason to avoid slumber, to avoid tomorrow. Sleep, Oretsev. Even a dead man needs his rest.

So Mal sleeps, and understands why his mind was avoiding it.

In sleep, he watches himself die. I’ll be waiting in the meadow, he whispers. Alina, his beautiful, stubborn Alina, trembles. She does not want to kill him. He must help her, and so he does.

One moment he’s in the fold, a knife in his chest, Alina paralyzed with a scream on her lips, and the next he’s not. Mal opens his eyes. So this is the other side. The place where he will spend eternity waiting for Alina. But there is no peaceful meadow waiting for him. He realizes that he is very, very cold.

He sees them then. Mikhael and Dubrov, looking just as they had when he’d last seen them. Still covered in their own blood. Lifeless eyes stare unnervingly at him. Bile rises in his throat. Why are they like this here? Shouldn’t they be happy here, in this other place?

“It’s your fault,” Mikhael says. It’s his old friend speaking, and yet it is not. “We’re dead because of you.”

Dubrov speaks next. “My family relied on my army earnings. They’re starving now, Malyen. Their deaths will be on your hands, too.”

Somehow, Mal is in more pain now than when he had the knife thrust into his chest. “I’m sorry,” he cries. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Not enough,” Mikhael says.

“Not enough,” Dubrov repeats.

A pack of deer appear. The stag — Alina’s stag — leads them. They surround him, and though he tries to move, the snow engulfs him, gluing him to the frozen ground. Slowly, they peck at his skin. He cannot fight them. He doesn’t deserve to fight them. It’s all his fault, everything is all his fault.

“Mal.”

Someone is calling his name. He can barely hear it over his own screaming, but he wants nothing more than to cling to the familiar sound.

“Mal, wake up.”

His eyes finally open, met with the ceiling of the conservatory. The snow is gone. The deer are gone. Mikhael and Dubrov are gone.

One blink, two. Mal turns his head, his eyes finding the comfort of his best friend, the whole of his heart. She is looking at him, concerned, and only then does he realize there are tears streaking down his cheeks.

“Mal,” Alina says, so gently. She reaches for his hand, but he pulls away.

This is all wrong. He promised himself he’d be strong for her. Promised he would take his death in stride. No one would see the pain bubbling under the surface, the fear. Certainly not Alina. He refused to make what she had to do tomorrow any harder than it already was.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and stands. “I just need a moment.”

And he thinks she might let him go. She doesn’t.

“Malyen Oretsev,” Alina says, and her voice has force behind it now. Her stubborn spirit that he knows so well. “Come back here, right now.”

And of course, he cannot say no to her. Mal sits back down, lets Alina wrap her arms around him. She murmurs, please don’t hide from me. So he doesn’t. Mal tucks his head in the crook of her neck. Alina rubs his back. He tells her about his dream between his sobs. I can still feel the cold, he tells her, so she wraps them in a warm glow of light. She murmurs soft comforts into his hair. Mal cries until he can’t anymore. They curl up like that for the rest of the night, sleep coming in bits and pieces, until the sky begins to lighten with the promise of dawn.

Alina whispers, “There is no end to our story.”

He’s not sure if she’s talking to him or the saints. He squeezes her closer.

Alina presses her lips against his neck, presses her next words into his skin. “We will always find each other.”

#malinaweek #malina #malyen oretsev #alina starkov #writing #fanfic #malina fanfic #the grisha trilogy #ruin and rising #wrote this at 3am once again lmaooo #a little twist on this scene kinda #so like #ruin and rising spoilers #obvi #it's normally mal comforting alina after a nightmare so i wanted to switch it up yeehaw #anyway this is last minute so just short and (kind of) sweet enjoy?

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sulphuryasecretcloset · 3 years

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What if...? Part 5

(I know, I knooooow....I said 4 parts. Then adjusted it to 5 parts... Guess what? I’m up to 7 now. I can only hope that will be the final number... T-T And I still blame y’all xD You beautiful enablers, you <3 You know who you are! Writer baiters, commenters and rebloggers, thank you all! <3 <3 <3)

What if Dulsissia hadn’t died, what if she had grabbed Corin and fled? What if she met Davarax? What if...

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

She has to get away. She has to run. She has to grab Corin and run. There are no storm troopers kicking in the doors of the Covert yet, there is still time. They can still try to get away.

The thoughts keep spinning inside her head and her heart is beating so hard she can barely hear anything except the pulse thumping in her ears. Her fingertips tingle and she’s dizzy.

“Just…” Davarax turns his attention to the children staring with horror at them. “Paz, continue the training. Everything is okay. Corin, do you hear me? Your mother just had a scare, but she’ll be fine. You’re all safe. I promise. Just go back to training and I’ll be back in a bit.”

Dulsissia makes a weak sound of protest when he bends down and picks her up like she’s a bride at a wedding and not in the middle of a disaster, but he ignores her and carries her out into the hallway.

“We’re going to your room and then you’re going to tell me what’s going on.” Davarax says, it’s a gentle tone but he’s determined.

“We have to leave…” Dulsissia whispers, strangely weak and helpless all of a sudden, haunted by the countless memories of Macero unleashing his fury on others for much smaller offences than the one she’s committed against him. His pride will never recover and he will never forgive her.

Davarax doesn’t answer, merely continues walking down the hallway and doesn’t stop until she has to reach out and press the button to open the door to her and Corin’s room.

When he steps inside, she notices Davarax pausing for half a second as his gaze goes from cup to cup and whatever else she had used to put the flowers in to place them all around the room, then he snaps out of it and walks over to lower her to sit on the edge of the bed.

Once she’s steady and her feet are on the floor, Davarax crouches down in front of her. “Dulcy, tell me what happened.”

“I went above.” She replies in a whisper, staring emptily ahead. She can feel herself wringing her hands until her fingers hurt and then a pang of absent gratitude when Davarax gently places his gloved hand over them to make her stop. “I saw… There are storm troopers in Nevarro.”

There is a moment of silence before Davarax says the least thing she expects; “I know.” He doesn’t sound surprised or worried at all. “Is that what upset you? A storm trooper?”

Snapping out of her staring, Dulsissia flicks her gaze down to his t-visor. “What do you mean you know?”

Davarax gives a faint shake of his head. “There’s a military base not too far from the city. They come in to get some extra supplies some times. Nobody really wants them here, but it’s safer for the people of Nevarro to just sell them their goods and get them on their way again.”

Confusion battles with her fear and Dulsissia tries to make sense of things. If Macero knew she was here, he wouldn’t send a lone storm trooper to chat up the villagers. The city would have been burning and there would be white armor everywhere. She swallows and exhales. Just a random trooper then? Or a scout? How can she be sure? “If… if a storm trooper came here not to buy goods, but to… look for someone. You wouldn’t know the difference, would you?”

“The Covert is keeping an eye on that base, believe me. And we have ears in the city. If something was going on, we’d know.” Davarax reassures her. He seems to need to gather a bit of courage before asking his next question: “Is… is that who you are hiding from? A storm trooper?”

A bitter laugh slips from Dulsissia’s lips before she can stop it. If only! A single storm trooper she could have handled, but Macero has thousands of them at his beck and call. “I wish.”

“An officer then.” Davarax deduces. His fingers curl gently around hers. “Do you want him dead?”

He is offering. If she says yes and gives him the name, Davarax will go for Macero’s life.

Dulsissia thinks about how in a fair fight Macero wouldn’t stand a chance against Davarax’ muscle and skills, but then she also thinks about Macero hiding away in the heart of the Empire, surrounded by guards and the terrifying amount of soldiers and all kinds of horrible weapons available to him.

“No.” She lies. She will not risk having Macero take Davarax away from her and the children.

Davarax looks at her, knows she’s lying, but eventually gives a nod. He respects her choice.

“I didn’t…” Dulsissia knows she doesn’t have to explain herself to Davarax, but she wants to. She can’t stand the idea of him thinking less of her now. His opinion matters to her. “I didn’t know he was like… that when I…” She exhales, sharp with anger at herself and her own naivety. “I could have handled it if my mistake only hurt me, but… I couldn’t do that to Corin. So I ran.” She looks over at the visor and forces a smile. “I guess you’re regretting those flowers now, huh?”

“Do you still love him? The officer?”

The idea is preposterous. Dulsissia shakes her head. “The man I fell in love with back then wasn’t real. He never was. It was all an act.”

“Then, no,” Davarax reaches up and tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear, “I don’t regret them.”

Her eyes flood with tears and Dulsissia cannot believe just how good this man is. How incredibly lucky she was to have met him in her hour of need. Him, of all the souls in the Galaxy. “You are a bit too good to be true, Sir.”

Davarax hums thoughtfully before speaking in that wonderfully teasing way of his. “As I said, I’m not ‘that’ good.” He then moves up to sit next to her and sighs. “I’ll double check with the others, though I think if there was someone looking for you, asking around, we’d hear about it. But first, we’re going to go back to the kids and you’re going to tell them you had a bad experience in the city but we’ve sorted it out and you’re okay now. Sounds good?”

Dulsissia nods. “Okay. I can do that.” Her son doesn’t need to worry too.

When they step back into the training room, Dulsissia feels another stab of sharp guilt when she sees Paz ordering Din, Raga and Barthor around the room, doing exercises, but has Corin under his arm in his usual protective mode. Corin, who has his arms around the older boy’s waist in return and looks like he’s been crying earlier.

Dulsissia doesn’t hesitate to head over to them and Corin turns to wrap his arms around her waist instead when she’s close enough and she hugs him tight. “I’m sorry, baby.” She kisses his hair.

“You… you need help with… whatever?” Paz asks, looking anxiously from her to Davarax and back again. The other children stop to stare at them as well.

Smiling, torn between guilt for having caused the boy to worry as well and endlessly charmed by Paz’ very real offer to help despite not having the faintest clue about what is going on, Dulsissia reaches out and cups the side of his face with her hand. (She is definitely charmed by the instant flush it causes.) “That is very kind of you, Paz. Thank you. But me and Davarax worked it out.”

Corin looks up at her with badly hidden hope. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She ruffles Paz’ hair, he ducks away with a faint laugh, and then she focuses on her son again. “Everything is fine.”

“So you’re not leaving?” A voice asks, loud and clear.

Everyone in the room turns in surprise to look at the one who’d spoken: Din. Who rarely speaks above a mumble. He is staring at Dulsissia with agonized worry in his eyes.

“We’re not leaving.” Dulsissia confirms in a calm and reassuring voice, realizing he fears losing his new friend like he had ‘lost’ Davarax. “We’re staying right here with you, Din.”

The boy nods, solemn as usual but now with obvious relief in his dark eyes. Much like the relief on Corin’s face as he smiles up at her. “We’re staying?”

“We’re staying.” Dulsissia combs his hair back with her hands. “Mommy was just being silly.”

And while there is a tiny ball of anxiousness in the pit of her stomach, Dulsissia takes one glance over at Davarax, who gives her a faint nod and she feels her strength and courage return.

She’s not alone. Not any more.

Hiccuping with relief, Corin dares to lets go of her, but just as he’s about to take a step away to rejoin the other children, he hesitates and looks back at her. And while it is so very, very tempting to just wrap her arms around him and hold on tight, the fear of losing him still so vivid in her mind, Dulsissia gives him a nudge.

Corin hesitates once more and then heads over to the other children, who include him like one of them. And that is what he is now, isn’t he? Dulsissia can’t let Macero take that away from him.

She’d panicked up in the city. She can’t afford to panic. Macero is a cold strategist, so she’ll have to become one too.

If he thinks he can take Corin away from her and have her back as the obedient little wife, he’s got a rude awakening coming to him.

A bit like the one Dulsissia gets the next day after walking Corin to training. (It’s difficult to go back to the room instead of hovering in case a battalion of storm troopers appear.) Something vicious snarls behind her just as she’s about to press the button to open the door.

Jumping around with a startled sound, Dulsissia fumbles for the blaster that isn’t in the lining of her pants because she didn’t bring it because she thought she was safe inside the Covert because she’s an idiot and… Oh.

Dulsissia puts on a careful smile and tries to pretend her heart didn’t just jump up into her throat. “Aren’t you supposed to be training with the others?”

Glaring at her with murderous intent through the crazy mane of curly hair, Raga makes another growl. The little girl is just standing there, her hands curled into tight fists and her skinny frame radiates waves of anger so strong it’s a miracle she’s not hovering over the floor.

Clearing her throat, Dulsissia crouches down. “Is there something wrong, Raga?”

At first it doesn’t look like she’s going to say anything, not even a growl, but suddenly the girl shouts at her. “Paz is MY friend, not yours! You don’t get to take him away! He’s mine!”

Dulsissia’s eyebrows makes a valiant effort to reach her hairline. Oh dear. Okay, time for some careful diplomacy here. Like Davarax does. “Raga, sweetie, I’m not trying to take Paz away from you. I promise. And he will never stop being your friend. He cares about you very much.”

The furious eyes flicker a little and Raga’s lower lip trembles a little. “But you’re pretty!” It’s an accusation, not a compliment. “Davarax thinks so too. He watches you all the time. But you don’t get to take Paz away!”

Sighing, Dulsissia tilts her head a little. “Sweetie…” She considers her options and straightens back up. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk a little.”

Raga instantly tenses up with another snarl. Her little shoulders draw up and her feet move into a stance where she can attack or bolt into retreat.

Dulsissia presses the button and the door opens. “You can have some cookies.”

Raga’s shoulders relaxes. “Okay.” And she trudges inside.

Dulsissia wants to help the girl settle on the chair, but a warning snarl makes her keep her hands to herself and she gets a plate of cookies to put on the table.

The girl grabs a handful and shoves them into her mouth, chewing noisily and not very ladylike.

Feeling like she’s defusing a bomb, Dulsissia tries to find some clever way to approach the subject. “I’m not going to take Paz away from you, Raga. I just want to be his friend. And yours.”

She gets an angry eye scowling at her through the mess of curls for her effort.

This is not going to be easy. But surely there must be some way to reach the girl. Something they have in common. Dulsissia makes another effort at a smile and gestures towards her. “You have such lovely hair.”

Raga pauses in her chewing, scans her warily before she mutters; “My mom wants me to cut it. I don’t want to.”

“Then you shouldn’t.” Dulsissia agrees.

Shrugging, Raga plucks at the edge of the table. “It’s not pretty. Like yours.”

“You have beautiful hair.” Dulsissia objects, daring to take a step closer. “I wish I had curls like you.”

That gets her another wary glance, but there is cautious curiosity instead of open hostility now. Raga sits up a little straighter. “Have to cut it when I put the helmet on…”

“Nonsense.” Dulsissia scoffs, gesticulating towards the wild hair. “With some braids, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Now Raga is actually paying attention and the anger seems forgotten. “Really?” She frowns. “How?”

Dulsissia shrugs. “I could show you…?”

Raga’s eyes narrow for a second or two, then she gives a cautious nod.

It takes a long time untangling the crazy hair, not because it’s awfully tangled or Raga complains, but because Dulsissia is overly cautious about tugging her with the brush and enjoys doing something she actually have the skills to do. A lovely side-effect is how Raga sags more and more in the chair and almost falls asleep under the gentle treatment. There’s not a single growl.

Braiding most of the hair back from the very top to bottom in a simple but lovely pattern, once again taking her time, Dulsissia lets some hair hang free to frame Raga’s face so she can hide if she wants to, but the rest of her thick mane is now held back from obscuring her vision. That should make it easier for her to fight. She steps into the refresher and grabs a mirror so she can show Raga the final result.

“Look at that.” Dulsissia says, feeling no small amount of pride that Raga had trusted her enough to allow this. “Practical, yes? And you look so beautiful.”

Raga struggles against a tiny smile. “Do not.”

“You do.” Dulsissia reaches out and adjusts the braid a little with feigned nonchalance. “And just you wait until Paz sees this. He’s going to be so amazed. You look like such a warrior queen. The Mandalorian who can kick butt ‘and’ have long hair. I bet he’s never seen that before.”

Raga puts the mirror on the table and ducks her head down, now as flustered as the aforementioned Paz had become when Dulsissia kissed his cheek. “M’not pretty.” She mumbles, but she is smiling.

“You are ‘beautiful’.” Dulsissia insists. “Come. Let’s go show the others.” It’s about time she picked up Corin so why not show off her accomplishment too?

She just isn’t prepared for her heart absolutely shattering the moment they step into the hallway and begin to make their way towards the training room and Dulsissia feels Raga’s hand reach over and take a hold of hers.

And luckily, after seeing how excited the girl was to show off her braid, Dulsissia’s predictions were completely accurate. Not only Paz stops what he’s doing, but the three other boys too, and they all flock around her to admire and try to figure out how the braid was made.

“You got to teach me how to do that.” Paz declares, mesmerized.

“I’ll think about it.” Raga snootily replies, slapping Din’s hand away from her hair.

Dulsissia has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Which is when Davarax sidles up next to her by the doorway where she’s watching the kids.

“Okay,” he says, “show me your hands. Hold them up and let me see them.”

A little confused but mostly amused, Dulsissia holds up her hands and looks over at him. “Why?”

“Because I want to see how many fingers she bit off before you managed to subdue her.” Davarax says, nodding towards Raga.

Laughing and giving him a smack to the stomach, which doesn’t cause him to flinch at all, it’s like slapping a wall, Dulsissia turns her attention back to Raga and feels an intense joy in seeing the smile still on her face. “She’s a sweet girl.”

“Yeah, she is.” Davarax agrees, with no small amount of affection. “But she doesn’t give her trust to just anyone. People have to work for her trust and most adults take offence to that in a child.”

Dulsissia forgets to breathe when he tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear and this time lets his gloved finger trail down the side of her neck as well before his hand just rests on her shoulder.

“If you keep this up, you’re going to end up with every single one of them falling in love with you.” He murmurs.

Dulsissia dares to glance over at him and sees her reflection in his t-visor. Her heart is suddenly racing again but this time not from fear. “I think… I would like that.”

“Yeah?” Davarax asks, his voice low and soft and only meant for her ears. “You wouldn’t mind a big family? Even if they came with their… issues. And were a lot of work.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d want more.” She replies, her voice a little shaky but she means it. “A big family, all that love, why wouldn’t I want that?”

Davarax lets out a soft exhale and he stretches out his finger again, trails it along the collar of her shirt. “I’m starting to think that maybe ‘you’ are a little too good to be true.”

Dulsissia lower her eyelashes and tries for a sneaky smile despite how she can feel her face burning. “Trust me. I’m not ‘that’ good.”

His finger pauses on her skin.

In that moment, it’s like it is just the two of them on the entire planet, but of course that isn’t true and they are sent crashing back to reality at the sound of running feet and Corin’s voice;

“Mommy, can you braid my hair too?”

Davarax yanks his hand away and she turns to her son with a faint laugh. “I’m sorry, baby. I think you may have to grow your hair out a bit for that.”

No storm troopers flood into Nevarro, kicking down doors while looking for her and Corrin. The trooper she had seen must have been from the military base without any connection to Macero. Dulsissia wants to believe she’s safe, but the experience has left her skittish and reluctant to head up into the city again.

At least she can’t cause trouble as long as she stays in the Covert, right? Wrong.

Clearly the training had gone on a little longer than usual because they’re still in the middle of things when Dulsissia enters the room to pick up her son. The sound of the door opening distracts the kids; Paz looks over just as he’s throwing a punch and Din looks over as he side-steps, but Din steps to the wrong side and Dulsissia watches with horror as the punch slams into Din’s face.

Davarax and the other children automatically move over to where Din is squirming on the floor and covering his face with both hands. Dulsissia runs over as well and she’s seeing blood by the time she’s halfway there.

“Easy, take it easy.” Davarax kneels down and helps Din sit up. “Let me see.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…” Paz makes a half-choked sound when Din lowers his trembling hands and reveals the blood gushing from his nose.

Dulsissia, knowing this was her fault, not his, slides her arm around Paz’ shoulders in a weak offer of comfort and support. He just stares at Din.

“It was an accident, Paz.” Davarax says, cupping Din’s face and gingerly prods the already swelling nose. He then lowers his hands with a sigh. “Yeah, it’s broken.”

Paz makes that sound again and Raga moves over to his other side and takes his hand in hers. Her eyes are big and solemn. Barthor is watching with a blank face. But Corin looks ready to pass out.

“You want me to do it or the medic?” Davarax asks Din.

“You.” Din replies, sounding like his sinuses are severely clogged.

Davarax nods, and if not for the situation being what it is; Dulsissia would have been shocked beyond words at the sight of Davarax pulling off his gloves and revealing his bare hands. Strong, confident hands. That move up to touch Din’s face again, focusing on his nose.

“Okay, you ready?” Davarax asks.

“’eah.” Din mumbles through the blood.

Before Dulsissia can really understand what is going on, Davarax does something, there is a disturbing crunch and then he lowers his hands again. “Done, but you’re going to need some ice on that. Up you go. Come on.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Paz offers a little helplessly. “I thought you were going to dodge. Otherwise I wouldn’t have… so hard…” He’s genuinely distressed. “You… you want to punch me?”

Getting up on shaky legs, once again assisted by Davarax, Din shakes his head with a faint smile. “Stob. S’find. Aggsidendt. Mby fauht too.”

Paz steps forward and reaches out to take a hold of his arm, clearly worried Din will just flop over again. “Ice. We’re getting you ice. Okay. Ice. Yeah. Let’s go.”

Corin looks over at Dulsissia, despair in his eyes, clinging to Din’s other arm. “Mom?”

Dulsissia nods. “It’s okay, Corin. You go with him. Come back after, yeah?”

Paz and Corin hold Din between them, Raga marches ahead to clear a path, while Barthor trails slowly after them. He pauses by the door, looks back at Dulsissia with narrow eyes and then disappears along with the other kids.

Dulsissia looks over at Davarax picking up his gloves and how he wipes the blood off his hands on his clothes. There is that golden skin again. He must look gorgeous under that armor and yet all she can think about is... “That was my fault.”

Davarax shakes his head and there is an amused tone when he speaks. “That was not anybody’s fault. It was an accident. Accidents happen.” The t-visor turns towards her. “They got distracted by the door, true, but do you think the fights out there, in the real world, is contained to quiet rooms with Do Not Disturb signs? No. They need to learn to ignore distractions or pay the price. I don’t think those two boys will make that mistake again, do you?”

Probably not. And it might be lesson that could save their lives later. But still doesn’t feel nice.

Dulsissia distracts herself by looking at Davarax’ hands again. The gloves look worn. “You need new gloves.”

Davarax studies his gloves and shrugs. “They’re good for a little while longer.”

“Would it be better if I got you some new gloves?” She asks.

Davarax lowers his hands and tilts his head a little. “Better? Better than what?”

“When you gave me that blaster, I didn’t understand what that meant.” Dulsissia says. “I realize now that bringing you some stupid cookies wasn’t… right. But I’m not sure if gloves are right either. I mean, Decco said weapons or armor. Do gloves count as armor?”

“What? No. Nono.” Davarax takes a step closer. “The cookies weren’t stupid. Or wrong. I’ve gotten weapons and armor before, but never cookies. Cookies that you made. That was… I liked it.”

Stupidly flattered, Dulsissia lowers her gaze and tries to not act like a twelve year old girl. “So, that’s a ‘no’ on the gloves?”

Davarax leans close and murmurs; “I prefer the cookies.” before he walks over to clean up the blood.

At first she thinks it is just coincidence and bad luck, but on the second day when door after door in the Covert refuses to open for her and no one else is having this problem, Dulsissia starts to wonder if it is something more.

That is confirmed on the day when she steps inside and finds her room filled with countless hairy bugs scuttling over the floor and walls and even the ceiling.

Her screams didn’t just bring Davarax running to the rescue, but also half of the Covert; thinking they were under attack by something horrible.

After that incident, she has little doubt as to who is the evil mastermind behind her recent misfortune. There is only one who could do stuff like this and get away with it.

Knocking on the door, Dulsissia puts on a polite smile and when it opens, she asks the person there; “May I speak with Barthor, please?”

The Mandalorian sighs and leans against the door frame. “What’s that boy done now?” There is dry irritation and resentment in that voice. And for some reason, that annoys Dulsissia.

“Nothing.” She chirps. “I brought him some sweets.” Dulsissia holds up the small packet with sweets she’d brought as bribery. “He’s a friend of my son. In Davarax’ group.”

The Mandalorian straightens and shakes their head with a sigh. “Whatever. He’s in his room.”

They point towards a door and walks off.

Dulsissia scowls at their back. No wonder the boy is pulling pranks to get attention.

Knocking on the door and then pushing the button to open it, Dulsissia steps into what is a small but extremely tidy room.

Barthor is sitting on his bed, reading, and the second he sees her; he jumps off the bed to land on the other side and just about cowers there. “You can’t prove anything!”

“Oh, I am aware of that.” Dulsissia says. “Davarax said you were incredibly clever, so I know you know how to cover your tracks. I’m not here to get you into trouble.”

He peers suspiciously at her. “Why are you here?”

“May I sit?” She points at the bed as there are no chairs or any other option in the room. When he just keeps glaring at her, Dulsissia sits down on the bed anyway and starts opening the packet. “I’m here because I wanted to talk to you. I’m hoping we can be friends.”

“Friends.” Barthor sneers, still in hiding. “You don’t want to be my friend.”

“I do.” Dulsissia says, putting a sweet in her mouth before holding the box out towards him and offering him some. She suspects he’d never eat anything he didn’t see her eat first after what he’s done to her. And after a little scowling, he reaches out and takes a sweet. “I just need to know why you’re so angry with me. Did I do something to upset you, Barthor? Do you mind telling me what that was?”

Barthor keeps glaring at her, but she can see the clever mind working and looking for whatever motive she has for doing this. Eventually he straightens up and goes from scowling to defiant glaring. “I don’t want you to take Davarax away.”

Dulsissia shakes her head. “I’m not taking him away.”

“Yes, you are.” Barthor states, calm but definitely angry. “In the past, I could always go to him if I had questions or needed help.”

“You can still do that.” Dulsissia claims.

“When I needed his help on my project, guess where he was.” Barthor dares her.

She shakes her head, having no clue.

“He was out picking flowers.” Barthor throws his arms out in clear disbelief. “Flowers! Stupid, pointless flowers.” He sets his angry glare in her again. “And I’ve seen the way he looks at you and you look at him. You’re not even a Mandalorian!”

Dulsissia swallows down the urge to snap back at the boy. “Here’s the thing, Barthor; Davarax has the right to have a personal life too. He lives and breathes for you children, he really does, but he also likes me. And I like him. That’s not going to stop just because you are mean to me. You know that. The only thing you can achieve is make me upset and disappoint Davarax, and I doubt the latter is something you want.”

For the first time, Barthor lowers his gaze. His shoulders slump slightly.

“How about a deal?” Dulsissia suggests.

The boy looks up at her again.

“How about, instead of you being mean and me supposedly taking Davarax away, we become friends and we all spend time together?”

Barthor scoffs with so much scorn and conviction it hurts. “You’re just saying that. You don’t want to spend time with me. No one does.”

Dulsissia purses her lips thoughtfully. Challenge accepted.

Davarax looks a little confused when she shows up that evening at his door and hands him a written invitation to dinner the next day. He looks at the card and then her and shifts a little uneasily. “I, uh, would love to, but…”

“Oh, I know you can’t actually eat,” Dulsissia waves a dismissive hand at him, “I just need you to be there.”

Davarax looks at the card again and gives a slow nod. “O-kay….?”

“Excellent!” And with that, she darts back to her own room. She’d handed cards to Corin and Din to deliver at Paz’, Raga’s and Barthor’s residences too.

There’s not much Dulsissia Motti knows how to do, but she knows how to throw a dinner!

The resources are limited, the dining area even more so, but Dulsissia makes the best out of it and she has two excellent helpers in Corin and Din.

Poor Din, with his still colourful and sore nose, spends more time at her place than he does his own home and Dulsissia has grown quite used to having the quiet boy underfoot by now. He doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t mind hard work and he hasn’t run off with Corin again.

When the day comes, Dulsissia is a bit nervous, which is hilarious. She has thrown dinners and parties for men who ruled half of the Galaxy and she never broke a sweat doing so, but these children and that man, their approval means everything to her.

The first of the other children to arrive is Paz. He’s early and hangs out in the kitchen with her, interfering with her cooking until she slaps him over the fingers and he instructs her to avoid certain spices (Barthor is allergic.), not to place those vegetables on Raga’s plate (She doesn’t like them.), and that Din loves an obscene amount of salt on his food. (The weirdo.) Dulsissia tries to ask him if he doesn’t rather want to play with Corin and Din, but Paz shakes his head and inspects the boiling pot like a security guard.

However, when Raga stomps into the room, she drags Paz away and they huddle together next to the other two to talk quietly while Dulsissia sets the table.

Usually Corin and Din help her with this, but today she has informed them they are all entirely off kitchen duty.

Today is her gift to all of them.

Davarax is next to appear and he is visibly surprised when he steps into the room and the children all jump up to run over and greet him. Handing out hair ruffles and playful nudges, Davarax sneaks a glance over at her as Dulsissia puts some flowers on the dining table. She gives him a smile.

(Dulsissia has had to rearrange the room, pushing the beds over to one side, borrow a table and chairs, but they will all fit at least.)

Davarax also offers to help her, but she gives him firm orders to go play with the children.

(She does not blush at his faint snort of laughter or the brief touch of his hand to her hip. Nope. Okay, maybe a little.)

When the food is ready and on the table, on time, Dulsissia takes her seat and watches the others choose their own seating. On her right sits Davarax, on her left is Corin and next to him, Din. At the opposite side of the table of Din, there sits Raga, who of course has Paz next to her. But the chair next to him is empty.

Dulsissia feels a tiny stab of disappointment.

She’d known there was no guarantee that Barthor would show up but she’d hoped…

“Okay, everyone,” Dulsissia chirps, determined to make the meal memorable for the others at least, vowing to find some other way to convince Barthor he is welcome, “let’s-”

There is a knock on the door.

Davarax gets up and walks over to open it.

It’s Barthor. He looks tense and wary, but Davarax pretends not to notice and merely ushers him inside. “We were waiting for you. Come on. There’s your seat. Hop to it.”

Dulsissia can’t stop smiling. She beams at Barthor, who greets her with a tiny nod, no scowling, and finally things feel right. Everyone is there.

The children chatter, bicker and eat. Corin laughs at something Din said to Paz.

Paz, who completely ignores the fact that Raga is eating off his plate and merely reaches over to slap Barthor’s shoulder to inform him that he’ll make him run twenty laps during training tomorrow if he doesn’t make a stink-bomb that Paz can plant under Din’s bed.

“No stink-bombs.” Davarax orders, pointing from Barthor to Paz and back again.

Barthor shrugs and focuses on his food. “I wouldn’t know how to make one anyway.” But the smile on his face says otherwise and Paz cackles with glee.

Davarax tells tales from his travels and answers their questions with never-ending patience as usual. Dulsissia makes sure everyone is tended to, takes care to talk to each of them, delights in watching them squirm under compliments as well as some gentle teasing. Even Barthor.

It’s perfect.

This… This is what Dulsissia has always been missing in her own life.

This is what she had been craving, even as a little girl and had no idea what she was aching for while she was surrounded by endless wealth and loneliness. This is what she thought she could have when she got married and didn’t. This is what she wants for her son.

Yeah, this definitely feels right.

This feels like… family.

#the mandalorian his son and the storm trooper #Dulsissia Motti #Davarax #Baby Corin #Fearsome Four #Mandorin AU

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soulshards · 11 months

Note

mega kick — is your muse a good dancer? what kind of dances are they particularly good at or enjoy? (For anyone or all 💙)

Miahka can dance pretty well! She's able to do traditional Ishgardian dances, like waltzing. She also has the dances she performed when upon the Steppe, those of her family for celebrations and war alike.

Her natural movements are graceful and flexible, she absolutely has the capacity to dance more - and wishes to learn them, too. She likes the expression that comes with it, but hardly has the time to learn these days, nor the manner in which to learn without judgement.

She's seen dancers at troupes and circuses and finds them enthralling, and that's the type of movement she wishes to learn as she would enjoy it the most.

Nanako cannot dance, and has never really tried. If she did try it out, I think she would be pretty average at it, but would be a slow learner. She's a little clumsy at times, and skittish by nature, so I don't think it would go too well and she wouldn't have the capacity to do anything over complicated, unlike Miahka.

She does enjoy watching other people dance though, not that she goes to see shows very often, but the theatres in Kugane has some delightful shows she'll sometimes nip in to watch for a bell before going about her day.

Thank you for the ask, allyennah! I picked both <3

#// lips that curl as they speak lies but your heart you cannot hide

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i-drink-and-i-write-fics · 3 years

Text

The Wolf & The Hound

Chapter 4: Blessed Name Day

Summary: Ever since your conversation with Sansa, Sandor has disappeared. Was she right?

Notes: First update on the new blog!

The next two weeks were so crazy preparing for Sansa’s coronation that you barely noticed that Sandor wasn’t around as much as before. It crossed your mind as you lied down in bed at the end of the night, but you were so exhausted from the day that you fell asleep before your mind could begin to panic.

But it was felt, on a subconscious level. Your protective shadow was not there and it left you cold. Maybe Sansa was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t you that he wanted to court, but he told Sansa that to hide his true motives.

The morning of the ceremony, you were up long before dawn and dressed so you could race to Sansa’s room to help her. As Brienne was the only woman of the Queen’s Guard she met you at the door and entered a step behind.

“Good morning, my lady. Are you ready to begin your day?” You curtsied shortly after you entered the room, Sansa standing next to the window to look out over the courtyard.

“Good morning, ___. Yes, please. We have a long day ahead of us. Ser Brienne? While ____ tends to me, can you please have the kitchen bring up breakfast for all of us?”

“Yes, my lady,” Brienne bowed and left the room.

While Brienne was gone, you went to work filling Sansa’s bath with hot water, bathing and dressing her, and finally brushing her hair as Brienne returned with a member of the kitchen staff carrying a huge tray of food. Sansa wanted to wear her hair unbound as she wanted all the attention on her new crown and gown. So you gently curled the ends.

You then helped her dress in her dark grey dress that had many representations of the North. From the red leaves of the Weirwood Trees to a sleeve made of crow feathers to the metallic bodice that was a mirror of Weirwood branches. One sleeved looked like fish scales to represent her mother while the collar looked like a dire wolf for her father. She was beautiful.

If she was nervous, Sansa never let on. Holding her head high as you busied yourself getting her ready for the ceremony. You then stepped back so Brienne could escort her to the Great Hall. Normally, you would follow Sansa everywhere, but you wanted to quickly get her room ready so it was more fit for a queen.

You raced to change the sheets on the bed, clean her bathroom, douse the fire and clean out the ashes before creating a fresh fire. The floors were swept and cleaned and windows opened to air out the room. The last thing you did was dash down to the kitchen to make a small bundle of cinnamon and rosemary and ran back to place it in the fireplace to burn, so her room would smell welcoming when she returned.

Then you went to your room to bathe and change into clean clothes before you raced to the Great Hall. The room was packed with representatives of the remaining Northern Houses, her brother, Bran Stark, as well as Sansa’s uncle, Edmure Tulley from Riverrun, and Robin Arryn of the Eyrie. You tucked yourself into a back corner where you could easily see the dais. The normal high table had been removed and replaced with a new Throne of the North, with dire wolves on each end on the back.

Sansa entered the room and was trailed behind by her new Queen’s Guard. You hadn’t had a chance to admire the new armor this morning. The current five members wore black armor with a grey dire wolf head on the chest plate and grey capes trailing behind them. Sandor looked amazing in the new armor. He had even trimmed his beard to appear less scruffy for his new queen. And like the other guards, he kept his eyes ahead as he escorted Sansa to her new throne.

Once there, the maester placed the new crown upon her head as he announced the new Queen of the North. It was a simple band, molded to look like the Stark pattern with two dire wolves meeting at the front.

The moment the crown touched her head, the North chanted: “The Queen of the North!”

You could not be more proud of the young woman you had helped raise. She looked every bit the queen that she had planned to be when she was a little girl and promised to that monster, Joffrey.

That night, all of Winterfell filled with loud voices, music, and the distant howling of wolves as everyone celebrated their new queen. You took a moment here and there to drink a glass of ale or wine, but mostly you tried to busy yourself so you wouldn’t focus on the fact that Sandor and Sansa were talking once again.

Yes, Sansa told you that Sandor really wanted you. But seeing them together made it so hard to believe those words. Especially when Sandor had yet to confirm them.

So that night you went to bed early to save your heart.

The next morning you were up early again and off to Sansa’s room, where you got a surprise from Arya in the hall.

“And where are you going?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “To Queen’s Sansa’s room? I have to get her grace ready for the day.”

“Absolutely not! We know you’ve been lying to the staff about when your name day is, but you forgot we grew up with you. You have today off while the feast is prepared. Now head back to your room, a bath is being drawn and food is being brought up.”

Your jaw dropped in shock. “But Ser, I’m just a handmaid.”

Arya wouldn’t hear it. “You kept by my sister’s side, especially in King’s Landing when I couldn’t. You are family. Now go.”

Confused, but slowly growing happy at the sisters’ insistence of taking care of you, you went back to your room to enjoy a quiet morning. A brand new dress was awaiting you on the bed, no doubt a gift from Sansa and you couldn’t wait to change into it. You took your time, enjoying the warm bath, the good food, and then sitting in front of the fireplace in your room in a towel as you gently dried your hair, using your fingers to break up any tangles.

After you finally put on the new dress, you left your room to walk the grounds. Fresh snow had fallen during the night and your footsteps were muted as you made your way to the Gods’ Wood. For once, Bran was not parked in front of the giant weirwood tree and so you took a seat at the stone by the trunk.

You were quietly praying to the Old Gods when a deep voice interrupted your thoughts.

“Forgive me, Little Wolf. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

Your heart leaped in your chest at his voice. A voice you had not heard in weeks. Raising your head, a small smile graced your face as you answered. “No. I was merely speaking with the Old Gods. Thanking them for another year and for watching over me so I was able to return home safely.”

Sandor frowned at your words and you wondered what his relationship with religion was. He was from the South, but he never seemed the type to visit the Great Sept while in King’s Landing.

“You believe in all that?” He slowly approached you.

“I don��t know,” you looked down at your hands as he stopped at your feet. “I did when I was a child, but much of that changed when I traveled South. But I know I cannot turn my back on them completely.”

“And why is that?” Sandor questioned.

“I believe they kept me alive. No one taught me to fight like Arya, no one taught me how to scheme my way to safety like Queen Sansa, and no one was by my side to fight for me. And yet, I not only survived King’s Landing but getting home as well.”

Sandor crouched until he was in your line of sight. Snow was drifting down from the deep red weirwood leaves, dotting hit hair and beard giving him a soft look to his tough face.

“I believe you are not giving yourself enough credit, Little Wolf. I saw with my own eyes how you can take down a man when cornered.”

Your face grew warm at his praise. “Thank you. But I hope to never have to do that again.”

He cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. “You won’t. Not while I’m here.”

“You promise?”

A small smile graced his lips. “I promise, Little Wolf. I will never leave your side until you command it.”

You let out a shaky breath. “That’s unrealistic. You’re Sansa’s guard.”

“Aye, I am. But you are her handmaid and where she is, you are. I will protect both of you.”

“Thank you, Sandor. That means a great deal to me.”

“Does it?” Doubt crept into his eyes. “Most might be scared off by the idea of my following them around.”

“Aye. There was a time you frightened me as well. But that was before I truly got to know you.” You held a hand up to stop him from interrupting. “Now, that is not to say I don’t know your past. I am well aware of you who were. But any fool can clearly see you are no longer the man who left King’s Landing during the battle against Stannis.”

“I’ve tried. After my fight with Brienne, I was saved by a Septon. He taught me a few things. And before you comment - I can see your curiosity - he was once like me. So he would be the only religious fucker I’d listen to.”

You gave a small laugh. “Yes, that makes sense.”

His face grew serious. “There is something I’ve wanted to speak with you about. Something that has been on my mind for a while. But with the coronation, I haven’t had the time.”

“Well, you’re here now and I have the whole day to myself.”

“Aye, I know. Sansa told me where I could find you.” He ran a hand over his beard, trying to find his next words. “Little Wolf, I know who I am. I’ve done horrible things, things no one should be proud of. I’m no knight and I’m not a rich man. But I’m trying to change so I don’t- so I won’t be someone so frightening. You are a beautiful, quick-witted woman who can survive, even if she may not believe so. Any man would be lucky to court you.”

You took a shaky breath as he forced himself to meet your eyes.

“Would you...allow me to court you?”

The God’s Wood became still at his words and you tried to comprehend what he had asked you. Did Sandor really ask to court you?

“You...want to court me?”

Sandor tried to hide his face falling, mistaking your words for a no. “I know that may not seem something I would do, but I wanted to do right by you and our queen.”

You reached over and took his hand. “Sandor, I would love to court you.”

While his face did not betray any emotions - as was standard for this stoic man - but he reached up with his other hand and cupped your cheek. You placed your free hand over his as you felt yourself smile. Sansa was right! He really did want to court you.

He shifted on his feet and leaned in, the question in his eyes. And the answer was on your lips as you leaned in the remainder of the way to close the gap. It was the first sign of affection Sandor had ever given and he felt no place was more appropriate for a Northern girl than under a weirwood tree. So you would know how serious he was about you.

His large hand moved from your cheek to the back of your head to hold you closer to him and you moved both of your hands around his neck. Sandor pulled away after a few moments and you could feel how warm your face was, despite winter flowing all around.

“We should get you back inside, Little Wolf. The Queen will have the feast ready soon.”

“You’re right, we shouldn’t keep Her Grace waiting.”

He climbed to his feet and held out a hand to help you up. Then after tucking your hand into the crook of his arm, he lead you out of the God’s Wood and back to Winterfell. You could tell he felt a bit awkward at the formality of courting so you squeezed his arm.

“Sandor, I know you are worried about doing things right for me - for us - with our courting. But perhaps instead of doing what others would expect, we do what truly would work for us?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you are trying to change yourself, but we both know you are not a romantic man. There will be no vase of Winter Roses awaiting me in my chamber. So instead, let us move forward as us. You will show your affection your own way. And I will do the same.”

You looked up at him and could see the smirk forming. “Aye, that sounds like that path may suit us better.”

Inside the Great Hall, many of the lords and ladies who had traveled for Sansa’s coronation were there and the feast was already set up. All that was missing was you.

Sansa looked up from talking to Arya, a smile growing on her face. “There you are! We were afraid we would have to begin without you two.”

Arya snorted. “Looks like the old shit got some words to share.”

Sandor growled. “No one asked you.”

Sansa smirked. “Are we celebrating two things today?”

Your face grew warm. “Yes, Your Grace. Sandor has asked to court me.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “About damn time. You haven’t kept your eyes off her since we found her in the woods.”

“Shut your mouth, you little shit.”

“Whatever. Let’s get the drinks going.”

“Good idea, Arya.” Sansa turned back to you. “If you wish to announce your courtship tonight, just say the word. Otherwise, the kitchen has made your favorite tonight. Blessed Name Day, ____.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Sansa stepped forward to give you a quick hug before she continued around the room to speak with the other lords. Sandor took this cue to lead you to a table where he poured you a glass of wine. Plates of food were brought over and Sandor took a seat across from you.

“So what will you do?”

A smile graced your face as you picked up your fork. “Tonight, I will just enjoy the food and wine. And perhaps, a few moments alone with you. Tomorrow, we can worry about expressing our news.”

“Moments alone?” He raised an eyebrow.

“If you feel up for it later.”

“Anything for you, Little Wolf.”

Tagging Crew:

Everything

@marvelfansworld

@that-chick212

GoT

@harper-emory-writes

The Wolf & The Hound

@imagine-the-fanfics

@imagine-the-fanfics-main

#fanfic #fan fic #requests #request list #game of thrones #got #the hound #sandor clegane #sandor clegane x fem!reader #fem!reader

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astrowitch · 3 years

Text

An Enjoltaire WIP

This is a scene from a big project I’m currently working on. As you may be able to tell, this scene is unfinished, but I’m pretty proud of it so far. I’ve tried to make the dialogue as authentic as I can to the 19th century, but it can be hard to do while still trying to be true to your own writing. It’s definitely ambitious, but I’ve tried my best, so please be patient with me.

June 4th, 1832

“Grantaire, please just listen to me-“

“No! I’m not going to listen to you justify getting yourself killed!”

“You don’t know that I’ll be killed! What if we succeed? Then we still have time…then we have a bright future for France!”

Grantaire sighed deeply, a sense of despair washing over him as he exhaled.

“Enjolras, mon ange,” He began, gripping the blonde man’s soft, slender hand within his own big and rough one, “You are so idealistic. How I envy you and pity you at the same time. Your mind is beautiful, optimistic, everything I’ve ever wanted to be. But it is unrealistic. The National Guard will not listen to the people, much less students. I’m begging, if you just call this off, no one has to die. We can…we can be guaranteed time,” Grantaire’s voice caught in his throat as he finished what he was saying. Of course, right when he had earned a stroke of luck, the thing that he was living for was to be stripped away from in a matter of hours. Grantaire so desperately wanted to wake up tomorrow morning in his rooms with his lovely Enjolras in his arms and the sunlight beating down upon them. He knew that this wish was in vain, for Enjolras was the most selfless person he had ever met. He couldn’t be satisfied until everyone around him was. Grantaire would follow Enjolras to the ends of the Earth, so deep down, he knew that not only were these his last day or two with Enjolras and his friends, but also his last days alive.

Enjolras had a look of frustration on his face, but still had a firm grip on Grantaire’s hand. His blue eyes bore straight into his lover’s soul, and Grantaire wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold his tears back. Hell, Grantaire didn’t even know if this Heaven he had been taught about was real. If God was real, how dare he burden this suffering upon Grantaire’s, Enjolras’s, and all of France’s backs.

“Grantaire, nothing you say can stop me. I know what I must do. My duty lies with France, and I cannot let her down. I would love nothing more than to spend the rest of my days with you, not a care in the world, but none of that is possible until France is reformed! When I feel the crunch of the monarchy beneath my feet, I will be at rest,” Enjolras rambled, his grip on Grantaire’s hand getting tighter. His eyes told a different story than his words, and it was easy to tell just how terrified Enjolras was behind his cover of fearless leader. It was in moments like these that Grantaire recognized Enjolras’ humanity, contrary to when he first met the man.

Alexandre Enjolras was not a god. He was just a boy with a dream.

Cynical Adrien Grantaire was irrevocably and utterly in love with him. Grantaire’s heart was breaking more every second he thought about losing his love.

“Enjolras, please. I can’t lose you. I-,” Grantaire choked on a sob before he could mutter those three words to the boy in front of him.

Arms immediately came to envelope Grantaire in a tight embrace. He felt the familiar soft curls brush up against his neck, and he tried to keep his sobs under control.

“I know, Adrien. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry-,” Enjolras was speaking through tears too, as Grantaire felt them soaking the collar of his shirt. It was even more unusual to hear Enjolras speaking his first name though, then it was to see him shedding a tear.

Shakily, Grantaire brought one of his hands up from Enjolras’ waist to card it through his Apollonian curls. “I…I would call you Alexandre, but I think you might actually kick me,“ He tried joking, but it came out watery and desperate. Enjolras still let out a broken laugh, and Grantaire’s heart soared at the thought of himself bringing Enjolras joy.

“Grantaire, I- there’s just so much I want to say to you and so little time. There are so many injustices in the world, and I feel that this is one of them,” mused Enjolras, his composure clearly cracking.

“I think we’ve finally come to an agreement on something. How bittersweet those words taste on my tongue in a time like this,” Grantaire leaned his forehead against Enjolras’ own. The pair of them were an incredibly melancholy sight.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras broke Grantaire out of his cage of darkness.

“Yes?” He replied, the smallest twinge of hope manifesting in his voice.

“I…I need you to stay as far away as you can from the barricade tomorrow. I may be risking my life, but…but you don’t have to. Do you understand me?” These words looked like they were physically painful for Enjolras to say, like thousands of little knives pierced his throat as they fell from his mouth.

Grantaire let out a humorless laugh at that. “Enjolras, you really believe that I will stay away from you tomorrow?” He started.

“Grantaire, please-“

“Enjolras. My world is nothing without you. I have no one if you and the others are to expire at the barricade. Living alone for eternity is a far worse fate than dying together. I told you that I would never abandon you, and I intend to keep that promise. There…there is no longer an Adrien Grantaire without an Alexandre Enjolras I’m afraid. My soul intertwined with yours the moment I laid eyes on you. Tomorrow, I’ll be there with you. I’ll die with you…and I’d do it over and over again for a million years if it meant I’d get to experience whatever we have,” Grantaire exhaled after he spoke these honest words.

Enjolras surged forward to capture Grantaire’s lips in a passionate kiss. Grantaire felt tears staining both his and Enjolras’ cheeks as they embraced. It was horribly poetic, their tears mixing. All their anguish was shared, much like their fates seemed to be. When Enjolras finally pulled away from their kiss, he buried his face in the crook of Grantaire’s neck, hiding himself from the world. He was holding on to Grantaire impossibly tight, like he’d somehow slip away from his grasp if he didn’t.

It was then Grantaire heard the most heart-wrenching sound; Enjolras gasping for breath, sobbing helplessly into his neck. This was so unlike the Enjolras that he had first met that it was almost disconcerting. This Enjolras was vulnerable and loving instead of cold and militaristic. This was the Enjolras that a lot of people didn’t have the pleasure of seeing. Of course, it was clear that Enjolras cared deeply for others, but he had never broken down like this before.

“Shhh…I’m here. We’re going to get through this…together,” Grantaire soothed, holding the golden boy in his arms close.

“I…I’ve never-“ Enjolras began, “I’ve never felt like this before. Oh, how Marius underestimated me in his speech about the girl he met. I do know how it feels to…to…,” he stumbled.

“To?” Grantaire questioned, hoping that this was going the way he believed it was.

“To be in love. Grantaire, you’ve changed me for the better. How could I have gone on to die without knowing how it felt to be cared for by you? You’ve made my task so much more difficult than it was before, not only because you have a fondness for playing Devil’s Advocate. You have the kindest heart I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. I’m honored that you let me in,” Enjolras didn’t have time to finish what surely would’ve been a long, rambling proclamation of love because Grantaire so quickly captured his lips in another kiss.

“So many call me cynical, but more honest words have never been spoken than when I told you that I loved you from the moment I saw you. I have been your beloved Patroclus from the very beginning, and you my Achilles. How queer it is that we’re also condemned to a tragic end! Maybe it makes our ephemeral romance all the more fascinating,” Enjolras couldn’t help but grin as Grantaire began his waxing of the classics. It was one of many little quirks he adored about the artist.

When Grantaire finished his spiel, the hopeless expression returned to his sullen face. Enjolras mirrored it, pressing his forehead against Grantaire’s own.

“We will treasure this night, live in our own world. Tomorrow, we return to the situation at hand. We honor General Lamarque, and we will rise up and show the king that we are tired and desolate. If we are to perish, at least we have made a point. At least we have perished for the sake of the people,” Enjolras, ever the patriot, insisted passionately. If this wasn’t such a tender moment between the two of them, Grantaire normally would’ve started an argument, but he had the wise judgement to not say anything.

#enjoltaire #enjoltaire fanfiction #enjolras #grantaire #les amis de l'abc #les mis #les miserables #victor hugo #aaron tveit #george blagden #enjoltaire fanfic #romanticism #exr

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hanaasbananas · 3 years

Text

Aftermath

Set immediately after let's get covered in flames and play some games with the smoke

AO3

She doesn’t move for hours.

Head resting on Adrien’s chest, she feels his blood seep into her hair, feels his body go slack, the arm around her shoulders loosening and falling away, feels him go cold beneath her fingertips.

Still, she does not get up.

Thunder rumbles above them, lightning flashing in the distance as the sky darkens, clouds growing heavy with rain before releasing a torrential downpour, soaking her in seconds.

And still, she does not get up.

But as the rain pounds down, Marinette lets herself cry once more, the storm hiding her tears and drowning out her screams.

***

A hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing gently when she flinches. “Sweetheart…”

Papa.

Of course. She’d dropped her transformation in the middle of an akuma battle. Of course he would have found out. Everyone must have found out.

She can’t bring herself to care.

“I can’t let go,” Marinette speaks for the first time in what feels like eternity, her throat hoarse from crying.

“You must,” Papa’s voice is gentle. “the cure, you need to cast it, set things to rights.”

Set things to rights. She almost laughs. As if anything could ever be right again.

“It won’t bring him back.”

A pause. “No, it won’t.”

“Then what's the point?”

***

Marinette doesn’t remember casting the cure.

She doesn’t remember being pulled to her feet and being carried to the car, or arriving home, where maman waits for her.

“Oh,” she breathes when she sees her, rushing forward and folding her into her arms. Marinette’s arms remain rigid by her side, but her legs crumple beneath her, and maman follows her to the ground,

Marinette doesn’t come back to herself until she’s in the bathtub, letting maman wash her clean.

“He was my soulmate,” she whispers, watching as the blood—Adrien’s blood— is sluiced from her skin. Maman inhales sharply beside her, pausing with the washcloth still in her hand. “He should have let it hit me.” Looking up, she meets mamans stricken gaze with her own.

“Why didn’t he let it hit me?”

***

The funeral is on a Friday.

Marinette sits at the back of the church, her face scrubbed clean, covered with a veil so that she won’t be recognised.

Félix gives her only the barest nod in acknowledgement. He doesn’t try to speak to her, and for that, she is glad.

After the burial, when the mourners have gone and the cemetery sits empty, she makes her way to his grave, sitting cross legged beside it.

“You know,” she says “I always knew we wouldn’t have a happy ending. Call me a pessimist but even so…” she swallows, reaching out to trace the words on his headstone. “I never imagined it would end like this.”

***

Time passes. Seasons change, autumn giving way to winter, melting into spring.

Her grief does not fade.

It is not a pretty thing, this grief of hers. It is not simple or elegant or something that she can hide. It is guttural and ugly, clinging to her, crawling over her skin and seeping deep into her bones.

She lies awake, night after night, tears soaking her pillow like summer rain. On some nights, when the pain is too much to bear, a heavy stone crushing her beneath its weight, Marinette wishes that she could simply reach into her chest and rip the beating heart out from within, feel it pulsing in her hand, blood dripping from her fingers and coating her arm. She wishes that she could take a knife and slice away the parts of her heart that ache and grieve for Adrien until the pain is gone.

She imagines that if she did, there would be nothing left of her heart at all.

***

A letter arrives for her on Adrien’s birthday.

There is no return address, and she doesn’t recognise the handwriting on the envelope. She does recognise the ring that falls out of it though.

Adrien’s ring. His miraculous.

Fingers closing around the ring, Marinette feels it cutting into her palm as she reads the enclosed note.

Father believes that you have this. I figured I may as well make that the truth.

Félix

She has both now.

The ladybug and the black cat. Heart beating rapidly in her chest, Marinette looks down at the ring, her mind racing at all the possibilities, the power she now holds.

She could do it. Make the wish. Bring him back.

But what would the cost be?

If it was her life, she would gladly give it. Even if she was granted only a few short moments to see him again.

But Marinette has wielded her own miraculous long enough to know that magic is a fickle thing, unpredictable and unconstrained by the laws of man.

No. The risk is too great; she cannot do it.

Legs bucking underneath her, Marinette sinks to the ground, clutching Adrien’s ring in her hand, and she weeps, her heart breaking anew.

***

Marinette isn’t sure what possesses her to go back to the apartment.

Masochism, she supposes. Maybe, it is because already, she struggles to recall the exact shade of Adrien’s eyes, the texture of his hair between her fingertips.

Whatever the reason, she stands now, in the doorway, surveying the place, a lump forming in her throat. Everything is as they left it. Her shawl is draped over the back of the couch; one of Adriens ties lies crumpled on the living room table beside an empty mug and a newspaper. If not for the fine layer of dust covering every surface she’d think they’d been here only hours before.

Moving carefully so as not to disturb anything, Marinette steps inside gingerly, wincing as the door slams shut behind her.

The apartment is thick with ghosts of the past, memories of all that they did here. She can almost hear their laughter, hear the music they’d dance to; can almost see the two of them pushing the sofa and table to the edges of the room to make space for dancing.

Sitting down heavily on the sofa, she surveys the room once more. Memories are important, she knows. God knows, she’s held onto them as tightly as she can, cherishing every new recollection, as though it is the most precious treasure.

But everytime she remembers something new, everytime she sifts through her memories, going over their time together like a film reel, Marinette wishes that Adrien would come to her instead.

***

“Marinette,” the whisper comes late at night, rousing her from a restless sleep. It’s not unusual to hear his voice—she’s dreamt of that smooth cadence a thousand times before, over and over, but always—absolutely without fail—the illusion falls silent, dissipating the second that she opens her eyes, leaving her cold and alone.

This time however, feels strange. Different.

Lying motionless, Marinette hardly dares to breathe, hands trembling at her sides as she strains her ears in the silence, hoping, praying for his voice to come again.

It isn’t real, she knows, but she craves it nonetheless.

“Marinette,” his breath ghosts over her skin, causing goosebumps to rise on her arms. “This is real.” His voice is laced with amusement “open your eyes.”

“No,” she says stubbornly. And then, more plaintively: “I don’t want you to disappear.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Hands, smooth and strong, reach to touch her. They stroke her face gently, reassuringly, turning her face to the side. Cold lips brush against her closed eyelids and she shudders, exhaling shakily.

Maybe it is real. Maybe...

Opening her eyes, Marinette blinks in the darkness, a small gasp escaping her lips at the sight in front of her.

For a long moment, she can do nothing but gaze at him, drinking in his features. He’s still beautiful; as beautiful as she remembered. Regarding her steadily, the entrancing depth of his dark, luminous green eyes and the ethereal glow of his hair in the moonlight filtering through her window makes sets her heart racing.

He says nothing, simply smiles at her and her breathing quickens. Oh, his smile! How she had missed his smile; it was like the sun. It warmed her like nothing else. Looking at him, it feels like she is finally seeing in colour again—shades of gold, yellow, and green all blooming before her.

Sitting up on her knees, tears spill from her eyes as he reaches out to cup a hand against her cheek. She covers her hand over his, pressing it harder against her cheek until she feels a dull pain from the pressure-a welcome pain, telling her that he is here, that she can feel his touch once more.

“Hello, doll.”

Something in her breaks—a dam bursting in her chest at the endearment.

Her sobs are violent, and Adrien pulls her towards him, into his arms, but she resists, refusing to let him out of her sight for even one second. Despite the fact that fat, hot tears are blurring her vision, she keeps her eyes locked on his, as if he might disappear forever as soon as she blinks.

Still smiling, Adrien runs his hand along her shoulder, consoling her.

“You will be alright, my love.”

“I won-I won’t,” she blubbers “you do-you don’t understand, Adrien. I can’t do this. Not without you. I can’t.”

Sniffling as he wipes her tears away with his thumb, she leans into his touch, letting herself feel his warmth. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she says softly “to live without a heart.”

At this, he finally frowns. “But you do have a heart.”

Marinette shakes her head. “Not anymore. Not without you.”

“You still have me.” the low, calm timbre of his voice soothes her and she watches as he places a hand over her heart. “I live on, in here. You’ll carry me with you always, Marinette.”

Sliding his hand to the back of her neck, he pulls her towards him, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead; his lips lingering for a moment in an all too familiar gesture.

In his face, she sees tenderness in every line, something kind and warm in his expression. There is an insurmountable sorrow too, the edges of his lips curling in a sad smile, and she knows what he is going to say to her, knows now why he has visited her this night.

“But you have to let me go.”

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste

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morkofday · 3 years

Text

some heihua for the soul

so the update for Binding isn’t happening today bc my brain is complete mush after trying to aggressively finish my thesis yesterday and i decided to give my brain two days off bc of that. also, i promised @ashenwren some time to beta read the ending part (which they already did but! now i need some time with it myself) so i am leaving everybody to wait until saturday.

meanwhile, i am offering yall a sneak peek/first look at my heihua fic which is very loosely tied to my pingxie. basically, this is just me playing around with hei xiazi as a character and his and xiao hua’s dynamic’s more... tender side.

i know that @jockvillagersonly and ashen have already read this which has been amazing so thank you for your love ♥ but take this again ^^ also thanks to @cross-d-a for listening to me ramble about heihua and sharing this idea with me. and thank you to @i-am-just-a-kiddo who i’m doing all of this for ♥ you are the best parent-in-law for these two and this fandom!

It’s a bad week for him.

First, it’s the girl he finds while raiding a warehouse full of smuggled weapons and possibly, most likely, drugs. She’s maybe twelve, eyes wide and hair messy, bones poking her skin where Hei Xiazi can see her elbows flashing under her short sleeves. There are bruises around her wrists and burn marks on the inside of her arms. She doesn’t speak but she doesn’t have to, all of her screaming of experiences worthy of a hundred years instead of a dozen.

She presses her face into her hands when Hei Xiazi fires his gun, and he feels something come loose inside of him at the broken, aborted noise she makes that rings louder than the shot itself.

Hei Xiazi carries her kicking and screaming out of the warehouse, leaving behind the slowly ending gun fight and the smell of gasoline. She only goes silent once Hei Xiazi puts her down, flinching bodily away from him but not going far. She hovers, fingers slowly curling around the hem of his long jacket while they wait, shoulders hunching against the cold. Hei Xiazi offers her his jacket with a smile, buys her a sandwich which she then throws up, and helps her into a hospital once they’re safe to leave.

No one else stays behind with her. All the other people they found from that warehouse scattered as soon as the fight began and only she remained, lost in the thought of having to leave the premises that had become her world. She has no family, no house, no money. Hei Xiazi watches her leave with the social workers, bones of her wrists like twigs threatening to snap even after some proper meals and eyes so big they seem to swallow the light around her. She still hasn’t said a word. Hei Xiazi doubts she ever will.

Her pale face looks like a ghost as she turns to give Hei Xiazi one last glance over her shoulder, and that’s what she becomes to him once he goes home and puts that warehouse out of his mind. It’s hard and he feels himself haunted, and whatever it was that got loose in his chest rattles like the tail of a snake.

Then, he hears about Su Wan. Hears about the mission that went south with the three youngsters. Hears about Su Wan getting hurt.

It isn’t anything new in their line of business to get hurt, to even die. When he first met the boy in the desert, he predicted he would find him six feet under after only a day. There was too much softness in Su Wan, too much trust, too much naivete. He had a big brain and clever ideas but his core was gooey, leaking out in way too telling bursts, leaving nothing hidden.

Su Wan had reminded Hei Xiazi of young Wu Xie. Even his floundering with his knife had reminded him of Wu Xie. Even his adaptability had been annoyingly similar to Wu Xie’s, and Hei Xiazi had questioned his taste in students. At least the boy had paid better. At least the boy hadn’t been wishing to die.

He had not expected, after knowing all of that, to experience such fear when he first heard that Su Wan had gotten himself stabbed and had almost bled out in a cave, with only Li Cu and Yang Hao to look after himself and a saving bed of a hospital hours away. His hands had shook, making it impossible to hold anything while trying to breathe, and he had quickly been reminded of the little girl, torn open and going a bit feral just because she didn’t know what to do.

It was a surprisingly new thing to care. As surprising as the fact that he still knew of such things.

“I thought I had taught you better, kid,” he says as he goes to the hospital, in the middle of the night of all things, having to cover Su Wan’s mouth so that he doesn’t scream and wake up the better half of the city. The boy’s eyes are wide and heartbeat rapid under his fingers where he can feel it pulsing against Su Wan’s jaw. Then the boy is scrambling at his fingers to speak from between them. He pulls his hand away.

“Hei-ye!” the boy whispers fervently, like an anchor casted in water. “I thought you were out of the country!”

“I was until yesterday when I heard that you got stabbed,” he explains, voice leaning more towards mockery than any actual care. Su Wan knows what that means. The boy knows more than anyone else has ever known about a person like Hei Xiazi. It’s a strange thing but Hei Xiazi has come to almost like it.

“I’m fine!” the boy chirps, lighting up like a lightbulb. Hei Xiazi helps him sit in his bed, snatching a chair for himself from the corner, and then evaluates the damage. Su Wan is smiling while a thick roll of bandages circle his stomach. There are at least thirty stitches there, curving along his side. Some more adorn his bicep where he tried to evade another blade. A darkening bruise is making his cheek swell, casting an extra shadow under his chin.

Hei Xiazi sighs and closes his eyes when Su Wan starts to tell the story, his voice a soft whisper made even softer with lingering sleep. The beep of the machines tell Hei Xiazi the boy is alive. The painful thrum of his own heart tells him he’s alive too.

Su Wan falls asleep holding onto Hei Xiazi’s sleeve. He cannot remember how the boy got the leather between his fingers but prying his hold away is like bending steel. It feels impossible and burns equal amounts.

Finally, he slips back into the cold night.

He doesn’t go to his apartment, the one he’s currently occupying, his few belongings strewn across the floor and nothing making the place feel like his. Even after years and years and years, some part of him still feels sick at the thought of emptiness. He’s tried his hardest to carve his bones empty and chest clean but after each year spent alone or with someone or wanting, he realizes it’s a battle he cannot win. There’s something terribly strong under his ribs. It refuses to die even before his curse of immortality and the knowledge that goes beyond his comprehension. It refuses to die even when facing the cold, cruel world.

The walls surrounding the Xie Manor are high but not high enough to keep him at bay. If they were, he would’ve never come here. He would’ve never returned, not after he once left.

Climbing up the wall of the manor to the third floor makes his lungs burn, but then he’s pushing the window open already, stepping silently onto the polished floor.

“Xiazi,” a familiar voice says, not even pretending to sound sleepy. “It’s three in the morning. Is it really a suitable time to be visiting the head of Xie family?”

Hei Xiazi smiles, shrugging off his leather jacket and placing it onto the back of a chair beside him. The air in the room feels chilly with the window open but he likes to hear the noises from outside and he likes the line of silver painted onto the floor and across the luxurious double bed. He likes that he can pretend his vision is so clear just because of the moon.

“Hua’er-ye,” he says back, voice like honey because he loves to tease this man and loves how the tone makes his perfect eyebrows pinch. “Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”

“I would dream you naked at least, not dripping mud all over my floors.”

“As you wish,” he says and reaches for his own belt before moving closer to the bed, toeing his shoes off on the first two steps.

Xie Yuchen is warm but firm when Hei Xiazi meets his body, crashing into his lips and then slipping hands down his silk covered spine. He hums, hiding his laugh. He’s always loved the absolute brilliance and practicality and strength of this man but under all that, Xie Yuchen is a little spoiled. A rich family head. A powerful man with more money than Hei Xiazi could possibly imagine. He’s never tried, not really caring. For all his acting, he’s never gone for Xie Yuchen for his money.

He takes care of helping Xie Yuchen out of his expensive pajamas, kissing him wet and shivering after each uncovered piece of skin. There is something beautiful about Xie Yuchen in the stark light of the moon, eyes burning bright and the line of his throat like an invitation. Hei Xiazi wishes he could tell him that, sometimes, but he’s preferred to seal his lips. His poetry would not suit the ears of Xie Yuchen.

He’s never been one for pretty words, crude and almost barbaric instead, tongue made out of barbwire and mind of a strategic plan. Between them, all those edges exist in harmony, and so he’s never felt the need for anything more, enjoying the simplicity of just being.

Ironically, as the sun is already rising, coloring the horizon with its colorless light, he still descends into words. It’s like something is pulling them out of his chest, and when there’s a force outside of his control beneath his ribs, he cannot do anything but unravel upon Xie Yuchen’s white satin sheets.

“There was this girl,” he says, looking into the still remaining dark – or as dark as anything can be for his eyes, that comfort taken from him ages ago. “I saved her from a warehouse a couple of days ago. She didn’t speak, couldn’t eat because she’d been kept hungry for so long. There were burn marks on her arms, probably from cigarettes or a lighter. They told me she was thirteen. She didn’t look like she was thirteen.”

Xie Yuchen’s hands are on his back, brushing lightly against his shoulder blades, drawing something there. His heartbeat is steady under Hei Xiazi’s cheek and his skin burns, burns, burns. He remembers how he had looked at that girl in the eyes and seen himself there.

“I remember,” he says quietly, closing his eyes, “feeling the same burn on my skin. I have no memories of when or why but I know there were cigarettes. I know her pain. I know the scars.”

“Were you a child back then?” Xie Yuchen asks, his body a strong, sturdy thing against him. A rock. A mountain. He never thought he would feel lost in this world but there is something about himself in every child he’s ever saved, in all of their wide, fearful eyes, in all of their screams, their desperate fight, their bared teeth and messy heads of hair. There’s something about him in all of their thrumming, wild panic, like a bird under their skin; in their desperation to get away, to find a place to belong, to find safety and food and trust. To heal a body that has not been their own or has felt like an enemy or a liability or a curse.

He cannot remember the time he was a child, cannot remember the time before he went blind and began to see too much, cannot remember being anything but this eternal man on the outskirts of the world. He cannot remember ever having a family or feeling the absence of it.

But then, there’s this echo in his mind. It rings back from the eyes of every child he’s ever tried to help. He thinks, maybe, he still knows how he lost.

“I only remember being burned,” he says. “I only remember the pain and being afraid. And isn’t that a stupid thing to remember when it could be so many things?” He laughs, as much as it can be a laugh when something twists inside of his chest, bringing tightly together that something that was let loose. He chokes on it, feeling his voice die down. Xie Yuchen turns beside him so that they both lie on their sides, looking at each other. The line of the moon falls over Xie Yuchen’s hips and almost lands on Hei Xiazi’s waiting hand.

“Bad things linger,” Xie Yuchen says with a certainty of a man who knows this to be true. During the years, Hei Xiazi has learned a couple of the bad things that happened to this proud man. “But you are turning them into something good.”

“And how much does it change to save a couple of children?” he huffs, tired of the heart that cannot leave him at peace.

“For them, everything.”

#dmbj #the lost tomb #heihua #hei xiazi #xiao hua #all feedback is appreciated i suppose #just wanted to share this here #expect binding on saturday!#enjoy your weekend everybody!!#also yes i will die #for hxz adopting random kids #cross your brain was so lovely #for providing me with this #my fic

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savethelastdan · 3 years

Text

Sesskagu Week Day Six: Future (White)

CW: child death, grief

DISCLAIMER: This was written weeks ago but no one outside a Discord has seen it, and I thought it fit the prompt.

When he is fourteen, Sesshomaru’s son, Akinori, goes to see a fortune teller.

His mother advises against it; claiming to have killed many witches in her time, she declares that, with a sweep of her fan, “all they tell you is what you want to hear.”

Akinori laughs, but in the end can neither agree nor disagree; for when he arrives, the woman bars the doors and refuses to give him answers.

When will the panther king fall from power - this year, or the next? (Sesshomaru hides a smile, recalling the sword that awaits his son’s birthday to be claimed.)

Will my parents give me siblings, or have I already achieved the height of perfection in their eyes? (Kagura laughs boldly, but her smile is as soft as a feather as she runs a hand through her son’s hair.)

Which will be greater -- my father’s legacy, or my own? (The fortune teller cuts him off, her voice shaking as she tells him to please, please go away.)

It is not the first time that he has lost a child. But Sesshomaru could never say that the experience prepared him for the sight of the broken body stretched before them.

The panther king has shown little care in his work; Akinori’s limbs bend at competing angles, like a tree ravaged in a storm. His mokomoko lies limp in the grass, drenched with blood. Pink replaces the gold in his lifeless eyes.

The youth’s expression is peaceful; not that such a thing could bring comfort in this moment.

“Do something!” Kagura screams; the side of her fist connects with his shoulder. Her other arm drapes over their son’s mangled body, as though to shield the heart that sits still beneath the tattered ribs. “Bring him back!”

Jaken’s eyes meet Sesshomaru’s, frozen with horror. He knows exactly the memory playing in the kappa’s mind: The night of Akinori’s birth, where the child had come from Kagura’s body blue-faced and still. He hadn’t thought twice of wielding Tenseiga in that moment, while his wife was still lost in the throes of a final bloody contraction.

They had never told her -- had never thought it would matter.

“Sesshomaru! ” The raw desperation in her voice - that which she’s always managed to shield from him, before, even when begging for her own rescue - he can not bear it.

He stands, the blood and poison pouring from his own wounds forgotten. Jaken’s head bows at his silent command - stay with them.

The panther king’s demise is neither swift, nor merciful.

“Happy birthday, little brother.” Rin bends before the memorial stone, hands pressed flat together. The surface of the rock is not yet wind-worn, and it’s nice to finally have a place in the village where she can go to remember him.

Akinori’s true grave is at the peak of a tall mountain, chosen by his mother. Lord Sesshomaru searched for weeks to find it, and Rin has never felt comfortable asking him to take her.

She hasn’t seen Kagura or Jaken in years. Somehow, she believes they are together.

A breeze rustles against the back of Rin’s bare neck, tickling the strands of closely-cut hair at her nape. She hunches her shoulders in response, wondering not for the first time if Lady Kagura stays away because of her - knowing that Rin has escaped death twice, a prize that cannot be given to anyone else.

Could I trade one of my lives for yours, Akinori? To see you smile again?

She doesn’t want to judge; Rin has no children of her own, as much as she likes them.

Both hands fall to her side as she stands. Tonight, Lord Sesshomaru will arrive to sit with her. When Kohaku gets home, the three of them will drink, and talk about anything other than what is the only thing they can truly think about.

Rin’s glad he comes, instead of wandering the woods alone.

On the dark night of the winter solstice, something calls him to Akinori’s mountaintop.

Part of him (the weak part, the one that pulled him through the Meido in search of a lost wind goddess’ soul and made him want to smile when his brother pulled a girl out of the Bone-eater’s Well) doesn’t want to go. It’s easier to grieve on the ground, where he can walk a mere ten yards to find some creature to tear apart in order to calm his racing heart.

But he’s long past the days when he would ignore his instincts. When his boots settle in the snow atop the grave’s peak, he sees that he is not alone.

“Lord Sesshomaru!” Tears flood Jaken’s eyes. He trips over the edge of the memorial stone in his hurry to bow. “How I’ve missed you!”

Kagura hunches her back and refuses to acknowledge him. Sesshomaru stands frozen - stunned that she and Jaken have remained together for this long without his servant’s demise, and at how little she has changed in the years since their last meeting.

“How is Rin? And Ah-Un? And Kohaku - oh, I’ve practically forgotten their foolish little faces!” Jaken continues to wail, waving the staff of two heads to emphasize the enormity of his struggles. Kagura clicks her tongue loudly, but the kappa soundly ignores her, and she tosses her head with a dramatic huff.

Sesshomaru resists the almost overpowering urge to embrace her. To do so would be foolish. The rejection would be swift and violent - most likely in the form of throwing him off the mountain. And why not? This particular failure of his has been the ultimate betrayal, far worse than simply allowing Naraku to destroy her. This had been a life she’d nurtured, suffered to bear - one she had cherished.

She swears under her breath in exhaustion, curling herself even tighter against his chest. Their newborn son is pressed safe between them, drooling against her collarbone. “I wish he looked more like me,” she mumbles. “Ah, well. Spoiled little prince...”

“Lord Sesshomaru, forgive me for my impertinence, but...” Jaken steps back slowly, in preparation to avoid punishment. “Are you well?”

He supposes he is not. Food and rest seem rather pointless; times when he can slow down enough to breathe, are also opportunities for memories of his loss to seep in. Other than a few visits to his human wards, and one to his mother (which ended quickly enough, when she used the meeting to make an offer of condolences that he does not wish to accept), Sesshomaru has not engaged socially with another creature since that terrible day. Much of his time is spent as it was in his adolescence - wandering the earth, searching for beings to challenge.

It is not as fulfilling as it once was.

“Oi.”

He blinks slowly in surprise, before turning his gaze to Kagura. Arms crossed over her chest, his wife (if she can still be called that, several years after having abandoned each other) appraises him with a cold stare.

“It’s going to snow tonight.” She nods towards the graying clouds. “We have a cave nearby, if you want to spend the night.”

Jaken squawks, vocalizing the disbelief that Sesshomaru himself feels. Kagura’s face reddens.

“Only because you look like shit,” she spits, words cracking in the air like glass. “What would it do to your reputation, to keel over from a little storm?”

The insult smarts, as though she’s taken Bakusaiga in hand and thoroughly tenderized him with it. Sesshomaru used to be strong, proud. The kind of being that others would come to for help, long ago, only to be dismissed for his own purposes.

Now, he is simply a father with two children who have grown up, and one who never got the chance to.

Now, Kagura is the one who curls her lip and turns away.

Jaken fusses over him. It is a strangely welcome reminder of the old days. Kagura acts as though she doesn’t care, but it’s clear the two have developed a routine of sorts on their own - Jaken’s staff has place beside her fan, and they set up a small fire within the depth of the cave together without a single pause in their bickering.

The sense of unbelonging is uncomfortable. Sesshomaru sits as close to the entrance as he can, cold wind bearing against his back, to mute it.

“Eat this, my Lord!” Jaken bows his head, holding out a hunk of steaming meat. “There are tons of tasty creatures roaming around the mountains. It would be my pleasure to prepare as many as you’d like!”

He eats silently, ignoring the nausea that simmers under Kagura’s gaze. He does not know how to diffuse the unbearable tension between them, and so he will not try.

But when Jaken heads to the rear of the cave to sleep, there is no one else to put between them as a makeshift shield. And, despite his fervent prayers, Kagura does not leave her place on the opposite side of the fire.

It feels like centuries pass before she speaks.

“You left us.”

It’s three little words, but he knows exactly the moment of which she speaks. “I did.”

Outside, the wind screams as it drags snow from one side of the mountain and piles it against the other. Kagura pulls her kimonos tighter around her body, glaring into the fire.

He clears his throat. “I destroyed the panther king that day. Eradicated his tribe and his allies.”

She nods stiffly.

“And I have not known peace for a single moment in the past three years.”

Her eyes flick up. “Do you think that’s what I want to hear?”

“It is the truth.”

Fingers crush the edge of her sleeve in a fist. In one swift moment, she stands and marches over to his side of the fire. Sesshomaru braces himself in expectation for a fighting blow.

Her palms slide against the side of his face, thumbs resting against the spot where his skin purples. Up this close, he can see lines of grief darken under her eyes, as the fire’s shadows bounce against them. The purple crescent moon on the side of her neck, tattooed during their wedding ceremony, has turned blood-red in the light.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she murmurs.

Then, she wraps him in a tight embrace. Her heartbeat thuds loudly in his ears, drowning out the roar of the snowstorm outside.

He doesn’t know it yet, but for the first time in years, Kagura sleeps soundly through the night.

This doesn’t mean I forgive you.

She is wounded while razing a village, and does not object when Jaken calls him for aid.

This doesn’t mean I forgive you.

Sesshomaru travels to meet Kohaku on a slayer’s trip, and a gust of wind floats by his side the entire way.

This doesn’t mean I forgive you.

On the anniversary of the day Kagura lived again, they meet one another in an overgrown forest and don’t part ways until half a week later.

“Please?” Rin begs, tugging on Kagura’s arm. Though she’s well past the appropriate age for such childish actions, no one objects when she spends her parents’ visits practically glued to the wind witch’s side. “Lord Sesshomaru won’t tell me.”

“Ah.” Kagura glances over to where he stands in the corner, inspecting a weapon that Kohaku has mounted on the wall. “So you were listening to me, for once.”

“You said you wanted to keep it a secret,” he drones, carefully obscuring the relief that still arises in him that they can speak like this to one another, again. Things have progressed between them more than he could have ever imagined in the past few months; some days, he can almost believe that things will be like they were before.

Rin sighs in a long, guttural motion that sounds too much like his brother for Sesshomaru’s liking. “Please? Jaken said it was good news.”

“Oh, of course that stupid frog would be the one to--”

“Kaguraaaa.” “Okay, fine.” The witch’s hand travels up to her hair, picking nervously at the feathers twisted into the base of her bun. “You’re going to have a sister by the time it’s autumn.”

Rin’s mouth drops; her head snaps over to where Lord Sesshomaru is trying very hard to look too busy to participate in the conversation. “What? But I thought you two were still--how did this even--” Her hands grip Kagura’s shoulders tightly. “Are you okay?”

He’s apprehensive about the same thing. When everything on Earth still reminds them of Akinori, would another child only bring fear and resentment into the picture? Only by some strange miracle had they salvaged what tragedy had broken - the stress of another birth could easily rupture the wound again.

“I’m okay.” Kagura shrugs in a poor attempt to hide her discomfort. “Definitely didn’t miss the morning sickness, though.”

Rin sticks to her even more closely after that.

Mirai is born during a storm, a week and two days earlier than she is supposed to arrive. Despite the timing, she is red-faced and lively, screaming from her mother’s arms the moment she can breathe.

When she is old enough, her parents will take her to meet her older sister, and the grave of her older brother. Her grandfather’s sword and her mother’s fan will be her sixteenth birthday gifts.

But for now, she rests in the crook of her mother’s arm, lulled asleep by the wind.

“She sure is loud,” Kagura mumbles, tracing a tiny ear with one finger. “Guess we should prepare for a sleepless winter.”

Sesshomaru hums wordlessly in agreement. As he shifts, to shield them both from the cold seeping through the nearby window, Kagura grabs his arm with her free hand.

“I don’t blame you anymore, by the way.” Her words slur with fatigue. “I haven’t for a long time.”

He could tell her that her forgiveness is not necessary to keep them together. That, regardless of what she does, he will always blame himself first and foremost.

Instead, Sesshomaru leans over to rest his chin atop her head. “Sleep, now.”

“Right, right.” Her eyes close, lips turning up in what is unmistakably a smile. “You better stay where you are, or else...”

He would not be able to step away if he wanted to.

#sesskagu #kagura #sesshomaru #inuyasha #sesskaguweek #sesskaguweek21 #savethelastdan #shespitsfire

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