#I know he says a line that alludes to him training his mind and body but what if he misunderstood how to control his emotions y'know | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

raitonsfw · 4 months

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𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚘𝚛𝚒 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚜 | 𝚝𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚘𝚔𝚊 𝚐𝚒𝚢𝚞𝚞

synopsis: You thanked the deities above you that you had noticed the rope that hung from Tomioka’s sleeves, eyeing you with compulsion. You knew it was only for missions, like if he had to tie someone up if they weren’t cooperating, but your mind went elsewhere and who could blame you? That’s why he’s laid out like this now, the shibari technique threaded down his chest, against his thighs... he was the perfect art form waiting to be painted with watercolors.

warnings: 18+ mdni, fem!reader, hashira!reader, shibari (or bondage), grinding (against one of the rope knots), teasing, dirty talk, slight dom!reader, slight sub!giyuu, begging, rope markings, gagging with rope, a quick mention about edging, p in v intercourse, riding, creampie, giyuu and reader are a couple, naive giyuu who just doesnt know how to socialize, shinobu outs the reader’s crush, alludes to giyuu being able to tear rope likes its fucking paper, (no idea how to put this as a warning but cbt?? reader presses her knee to giyuu’s cock a little too hard, but he’s a slut for it), pet names (princess, baby), use of honorifics in the beginning part.

a/n: so you guys can thank the inosuke scene and a random person on reddit for this. Like you know what, why does giyuu carry rope on him, idk but here’s food for thought. wc: 1.3k. m.list

divider credit: @benkeibear

It wrapped around him with intricate lines and tight knots adorning the middle of his chest. You were proud of your art, of your boy, laying against the sheets with nothing but the best shibari work entwined against him. You made sure you secured the knots, even double checking them, there was no way he would be able to get out of the soft embrace of the ropes.

Days prior, you found out he carried rope with him on his missions and you were more than intrigued, for all the wrong (right) reasons of course. You knew he was quiet and well kept, nothing out of the ordinary ever really piqued your interest to bother him on dangerous missions until you saw the rope hanging from one of his haori sleeves. You swore at first you saw a thread loose, but upon further inspection you realized.

“Tomioka-kun, you carry rope on you?” You asked, an innocence veiling your voice.

“And you don’t?” He didn’t snap at you, it was more of a question answering yours as he kept his hand still on the hilt of his katana.

You stepped over a rock, humming to yourself whilst following him down the forest path. “I don’t believe I would ever have to tie someone up.”

“You’d be surprised.” He muttered as he stuffed the rope back into his haori sleeve, the rest of it flowing with him as he sensed danger at the edge of the trees. “Stay close to me, princess.”

You genuinely loved Tomioka, though you knew he didn’t pick up on it during the first few months he knew you. He seemed oblivious to a lot of social norms and tended to isolate him away from the Hashira group when everyone trained together. But you tried to stay as close as possible, offering him traditional gifts and food every chance you got. He took it with an aloof thanks, still so seemingly confused about why you cared so much about him.

Until Kocho told him flat out at one of the meetings in front of everyone. You covered your face within your haori as the other Hashira muttered little sayings amongst each other. And there was Tomioka, blushing like an idiot and trying to apologize for being so naive. He stumbled over every word and chased after you as you ran towards the bridge that cascaded the water.

“Y/N-san!” He caught up to you, his breath wavering as he slipped his fingers around your wrist. “I apologize for Kocho, she’s quite crude, isn’t she?”

“I’m used to it.” You wiped the tears from your eyes as you looked over to him and you swore you saw his heart break in two.

“So am I.”

And here you were a few months later, learning shibari techniques as Giyuu laid out his entire body to you. He was naked from the waist up, the rope denting his skin and his boxers bunched against them except for the sleek waistband that crowded against his waist.

“I can tear these easily, baby.” Giyuu said, looking at you with a straight face. You frowned at your partner, smacking him on his bare thigh and he jerked it away with a silent chuckle. His hair came to lay against his back, out of the ponytail he normally wore and you tangled your fingers in it for a moment, reveling in the way he gasped as you suddenly pulled it.

“Well, don’t. I tried really hard to make you look pretty underneath me.” You pouted, leaning over his face. He yearned for your kiss, but he knew he wasn’t going to get your soft lips on his anytime soon. Not when your hands held extra rope that was pushed into the crook of his mouth, his teeth baring down onto it. He groaned around it and you tutted at him sharply.

“Stay still or I won’t ride you.” You said plainly, kissing at the flesh of his thigh as you looped a part of the rope around it. Your fingers then ghosted over the swell of his cock and he breathed out a light sigh, relief about flooding through him; but they moved past to pull another knot against his thigh.

“Please, it’s enough...” He said slowly, trying to enunciate properly but failing as a tiny groan escaped him from you pinching his inner thigh. “I want you on top of me.”

“What’d you say, couldn’t hear you properly?” You finished the knot and sat against it, grinding onto the knot on his thigh with a purposeful smirk. You let out a moan as the knot knocked directly against your clit as you rolled your hips onto it. “C’mon baby, use your words.”

Giyuu watched you with wide eyes and he threw his head back against the pillows as your knee pushed up against his cock, pleasure shooting up his spine. He panted out around the rope as you continued, pressing your shin into him harshly. His eyes squeezed shut and he trembled, wishing to so desperately touch you and get you to sit on him already but his hands had been bound by his back.

“Oh you’re really enjoying yourself, aren't you?” You cooed, trailing your finger down the knots on his chest; some had been adorned within a heart while others were a typical knot. You smiled at the redness that laid beneath it, digging into his skin and you knew they’d leave marks only you could see afterwards. He practically writhed against you know, so fucking desperate, you knew once you sank down on his cock he wasn’t going to last very long. You’ve been edging him for hours prior whilst you tied the knots after all.

You pulled down his boxers, letting his cock spring out onto the flat of his tummy and you noticed how much precum had leaked out of him during your teasing and rope knots. You kinda felt bad for him and you crawled over him, pulling your lace aside to take him into your entrance. “Fuck, I’m sorry Giyuu.”

“Please, please, fuck me already.” He pleaded around the rope, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth and you sank down in earnest. A long moan was drawn out from him and he thrusted up into your tight heat, nearly knocking you off of him. You steadied yourself on his chest, looking at him as he twitched inside you. His blue eyes were half-lidded, lust clouding them over and you rolled against him slowly so as to not overwhelm him too much.

He bucked up in time with your hips and you clenched around him each time, hurtling towards your own orgasm as you picked up the pace. Whimpers and pleads slurred from his mouth the best he could and you were so grateful that the boy underneath you had been kind to your advances, once Kocho told him.

You were absolutely in love with him.

You felt his hips falter underneath you and you watched as Giyuu arched into his orgasm with a loud whine, his mouth open and the rope falling from it. You followed right after, bouncing on his cock at a fast pace as he whimpered at the oversensitivity. A few moments later, you moved off of him and his cum dripped out of you, down your leg and you cursed quietly.

“I’m sorry, baby.” He apologized, his hair disheveled and there was a shine to his skin, as if he had been sweating. “I couldn’t help it.”

“It’s okay.” You smiled at him, moving to start untying the ropes that littered his body. “I think we’re done for tonight, okay?”

You kissed him gently and Giyuu nodded into it, love intertwining your tongue with his. Yeah, thank God for Kocho Shinobu. And thank God for the rope that fell from his haori, threaded with dirty thoughts.

a/n: wanna get tagged in future writing posts? join my taglist!

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smolkuriboh27 · 2 years

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Caught, tiny!Dustin and giant!Eddie

Warnings for cursing, stabbing, and a brief second where vore is alluded to. Will there be a part two? Who knows!

Based off of this by @cyncerity

He was lost. He didn't even know how they got separated. One minute Steve was right there and the next, gone. This wasn't good. Not only was it dangerous to get seperated in an unfamiliar house, Dustin had never been out by himself. Sure he knew the basics of foraging and first aid, but it took someone more knowledgeable to track a human's patterns and understand what could be taken without notice. He'd be fine for a few days but long term? He was screwed.

"Steve!" Dustin hisses out, unsure of how far his voice could travel. "Where'd you go? This isn't funny!"

He grumbles to himself, cursing all the time he'd begged his brother for more lessons, only to be put off.

"You'll learn when you're older, Dustin! You need more time, Dustin! I don't care if Mike knows more about humans than you, you're not ready!"

Most creatures were so big they created their own sounds. Footsteps as they stomped around, vibrations if they were more careful with their footing. Over the sound of his own mocking voice, Dustin misses the way the air vibrates just slightly.

"Shit…"

Later he'd be able to describe it perfectly. How he saw Eddie's fingers out the corner of his eye, how he had just enough time to straighten out before they closed in on him. The almost inaudible clink of his rings. But right now it was all a blur. Arms suddenly pinned to his sides as a hand longer than his body wraps around him from the chest down. No room to grab his pin, the bulky one Steve had given him after Dustin managed to knock him to the ground during training. The only evidence of his struggling are his feet kicking, his shoulders jerking, and the very end of his tail lashing about.

Only to freeze as he turned to face the human.

Wide brown eyes that he swears he can see his reflection in. A pale face framed by wild hair, reminding Dustin of the cat he and Steve saw that one time (his brother having to practically drag him away from getting a closer look). A small part of his mind makes the connection that since cats like to eat Littles, maybe cat-like humans did, too.

The helpful part supplies that that wasn't true. Humans don't eat Littles, they trap them in cages and poke them with things.

Okay, enough of that. What did Steve always say to do.

'Act wild. Don't talk, don't give them a reason to think you're smart. If they don't kill you on sight they'll think you're just an animal. They're always nicer to animals. Use that big head of yours and find a way to escape. But don't ever speak.'

"What the fuck are you?"

~~~~

He's not yelling. In fact, he's almost sure he barely breathed the words out. But the thing (mouse? guy?) still flinches. He's gone still, which Eddie is partially grateful for cuz it felt weird having something squirm in his hand.

Eddie tries very hard to ignore the fact that he can feel the little guy's heart racing.

His hand felt too loose, yet the feeling of fragile limbs against his palm kept him from tightening his grip. It was hard to tell how much of a mouse this creature was, but the longer he stared the more his initial shock wore off, and the more he admitted that this guy almost looked human.

"No, no, no" Eddie points a finger as the little guy gapes and pressed his lips into a thin line. "I know you can talk. I heard you." No verbal confirmation, but there's another flinch and he goes pale.

Squinting, Eddie brings his hand closer to his face, trying to ignore the feeling of that tiny heart beating faster. Under a homemade cap is a head of brown curls and pointy ears pinned back in fear. In the dim kitchen light he thinks he can make out full cheeks and a shirt that's been stitched back together multiple times.

Brown eyes meet blue, wide with realization.

"Oh. Oh shit, you're a kid."

Fingers unfolding, Eddie tilts his hand back to let the guy kid sit up, bringing his thumb down on his legs to stop him from backing up off his palm.

Which is how he ends up with a pin jammed into his thumb.

"Son of a-!" Voice high pitched with pain, Eddie jumps, tossing the offender on instinct. Immediately scrambling to catch him, sighing in relief and clutching the little body to his chest. Looking down and tugging to break Tiny's grip on his shirt when he tries to cling on. He's fully prepared to go off, but one look at the kid's face and he freezes. He's trying so hard to look intimidating but his lips are wobbling and Eddie swears he saw a tear fall. So he closes his eyes, making a low groaning noise in lieu of the colorful language that wants to bubble out.

'He's just a kid. Just a scared little kid.'

"Yeah, okay. I deserved that."

A glance around shows him a cluttered counter. Boxes, forgotten glasses of water, various containers and bottles of whiskey, all places he could lose Tiny should he bolt.

So 'no' on setting him down.

With a sigh, Eddie carefully closes his teeth on the pin and yanks his hand away. Spitting it in the general direction of the sink and sucking on his thumb while inspecting the kid for any more weapons.

Speaking of, the kid was squirming and pushing against his grip. Trying not to dwell on the fact that even with all his strength he can't even make a finger budge, Eddie opens a cabinet and grabs the tallest glass he can find, tilting it slightly so the kid slides into it rather than fall.

If it weren't for the panicked sounds he could almost laugh at the way the kid tries to hang onto his hand. Now that the sting of his injury has worn off, curiosity takes over again. He brings the glass closer, but the kid scrambles back so fast he hits his head so Eddie sets it down with a wince.

"Okay. Let's try this again," Eddie says as he leans an elbow on the counter and rests his chin on the heel of his hand, trying very hard not to loom over the kid. "Eddie, Eddie Munson. And you are?"

#g/t #g/t stanger things #giant!eddie munson #tiny!dustin henderson #giant!eddie #tiny!dustin #g/tstrangerthings #my writing

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disemboweled-fish-pastry · 2 years

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☆ I'm stupid but finally I have proof!!! ☆

orz or not/// urrrkkkk I thought I did, but somehow I can't feel convinced.

I dunno who all remembers my post asking if anyone knew Yoosung's canonical height in the Valentine's after story and that I'd found a couple images circulating the internet stating that he had grown to 5'11'' or something, which I've still never seen proven.

See, I've come back to this tangent because my loser meticulous ass decided to start making a character style sheet of him for essentially no real reason only excused by "research" for my art, when I already know my mind just sometimes demands to study data points and overanalyze everything.

Anyway, originally my brain clicked and I realized Yoosung's arms are present in both his sprite images. I measured his wingspan because I remembered wingspan roughly equates to the height of that same person, and the arm lengths were the same.

Of course the thought that they just.. used Yoosung's old sprite when they made his older version sprite.. Made me want to keep looking. I thought to myself, man I need to find a point of reference. Is everyone's skulls roughly the same height? No, right? The 7 1/2 to 8 heads rule... did not work for Zen's full body reference... orz He ended up being like... 9 1/2 of his own heads. Then I thought, "What age does one's skull stop growing in height size?" Google didn't have much for satisfactory answers, merely alluding to the idea that the skull stops growing to it's full size capacity at around 16-18, but will keep changing otherwise throughout life. But that 16-18 just kinda sounds like it grows in proportion to the rest of you, full body height included. Then, I thoght "Eye balls?? Don't they pretty much stay the same size all your life?" I think this would be the closest indicator if he grew, and they do match up one to one when sized up.

Somehow, still didn't feel secure in my findings. I had another click moment while google searching Mystic Messenger heights images. I remembered the visual novel mode has the heights comparable to the other characters. Then I giggled jovially as I set up the visual novel reference of Yoosung standing next to Seven, then him in the Valentine's After Story. ohohohoho I got it this time, I thought to myself.

I'd also say this is some pretty solid proof that he didn't grow any taller, but I still had to keep in mind that they very obviously used the same base. I thought about how his face seemed narrower, but then I realized they copied and flipped the side of his face that showed his ear to accommodate his hair change, though.. the neck from the other side was copied and flipped too actually...

On that thought, I became somehow curious about his dimensions again, "for research", trying to find his waist line under all the baggy clothing he tends to wear. I think back to how he said he used to be fat, and considering... For one, he weighs almost 20 lbs more than Saeran (Y 149 -> S 130) who is actually an inch taller than him (Y 5'7''-> S 5'8'', an inch shorter than his own twin.), but also Saeran is pretty frail. Saeyoung is 2 inches taller than Yoosung, but only a kg heavier, which is potentially muscle (Potentially *le shrug*). To my knowledge Yoosung doesn't do much for exercise or weight training, if not a sufficient amount at all. Of course we all carry our weight differently, so that's absolutely a thing.

If you take BMI into account, which is a bit more accurate if you don't do weight training, honestly, I'm not entirely sure where he is carrying the weight. lol

I did actually look into examples of real people with the same sizes as Yoosung, and yeah, not a single one of them was without some softness, especially around the mid section, which could explain the baggy clothes... Yoosung's calculated BMI was 23.2, which according to asian BMI charts is pretty much at the cusp of normal and overweight (It does matter, supposedly Asians carry weight differently than western ethnicities and are susceptible to weight related illness at lesser weight/ body fat indexes than western people as well. Says medicine. On average. Apparently their bone mass tends to be less dense as well.) Of course, based on this data, I'd say Yoosung is pretty safe, but of course the sedentary lifestyle and consumption of not so healthy foods could be a cause for concern. I kind of came to a soft conclusion that Yoosung did used to be in what would be considered "over weight" territory before, but considering how beauty standards can be over there, I venture to wonder if it was like... 10 to 20 lbs heavier. If I were to guess, the weight pretty evenly distributed throughout his body, probably mostly in the mid section, as it tends to more so in men, then a bit more in the thighs, and a bit more in the upper arms. Of course to the pinchable cheeks. :9 I dunno man, his full body sprite looks so skinny to me lol.

If I were to consider the waistline I originally came up with, which was mainly based on his Valentine's after story, it does seem like he potentially lost more weight since getting into a relationship. That makes sense to me, as it was insinuated that together with his partner, he became more active and most probably ate more healthy foods. (I cry, it seemed like he doesn't really play games anymore by the Valentines after ending. T__T I'll just choose to believe he'll still game from time to time if his partner is also a gamer.) Come to think of it, looking at that gif comparing his VN sprites, his face really is narrower...

Personally, I embrace soft Yoosung. I'd bet he'd still be just as cute as he always is, and squish♥. :"3 But mostly of all, I'd want him to be as healthy as he can be and happy for a very long time (forever!) ♥

#Mystic Messenger #Mysme #Yoosung Kim #Mysme Yoosung #MM Analysis #Please don't hang me for talking about weight. T __T I just want to imagine what he looks like. under the baggy shirt. >>#ok you can hang me. ill accept death #MM*Analysis

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bangtae-sohotddaeng · 3 years

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nugatory | p.jm. | drabble

pairing: jimin x reader (ft. taehyung)

rating: m (18+)

genre: smut | angst | college!au

summary: Park Jimin is many things. Park Jimin is a responsible, smart, handsome and musically talented Taekwondo black belt. Park Jimin is Kim Taehyung's best friend. Park Jimin is a good friend. Park Jimin is a compulsive matchmaker. Park Jimin is many things – but he is not the guy you should be sitting in a car with, right now.

warnings: swearing + sexual situations (nudity, semi-public sexual acts in a car, fingering, penetrative sex) + possible allusions to some infidelity if you squint?

word count: 3.2 k

note: y’all. i couldn’t let butter!jimin keep ruining my life without acting out a bit, could i? this one started off as a pwp, but then i ended up combining it with a plot i had in my head for a while, and this turned into more plot and less porn, but. i’m okay with that, tbh. also! i’ve used one my older styles of writing (going back to 2016-ish) with this one. hope you all like it~ 🥺💜

— masterlist

— feedback is always appreciated!

Park Jimin is many things.

He is an astoundingly handsome, cheerful – and yet somehow mysterious – psychology major that you shared Freshman year's communications class with. He is the only rich kid among the majority on campus that doesn't flaunt his wealth to scholarship kids like you. He is kind, helpful, generous – did you mention handsome? – perfectly athletic and perfectly aesthetic.

Park Jimin is a responsible, smart, handsome and musically talented Taekwondo black belt.

He is also someone that gets excited at the prospect of claw machines at fairs. He is also someone that looks at the universe with galaxies in his eyes. He is also someone that doesn’t realize he will always be more exquisite than any art his best friend might ever create.

Park Jimin is Kim Taehyung's best friend.

He is the guy that stood next to Kim Taehyung when Taehyung asked you to the Freshman dance. He is the guy that told you Kim Taehyung has the most gigantic crush on you. He is the guy that set you up on the first of your many dates with Kim Taehyung.

Park Jimin is a good friend.

Park Jimin is a compulsive matchmaker.

Park Jimin is many things – but he is not the guy you should be sitting in a car with, right now.

"You really don't have to worry about me, Jimin," you mumble, eyes flickering all over his face – you always tend to drink him up the best you can, whenever you can. “I know I stupidly called you here, but I was just in shock. I’m okay, now. I’ll be fine.”

"No, I do have to worry." His fingers thread through his hair, your eyes hopelessly follow. "This was stupid and reckless of Tae. I'm sure he'll come back to his senses soon."

You blink. Jimin really has absolutely no grasp of this situation. But he obviously thinks he knows everything, which is making this conversation progressively difficult.

(His muscles bulging beneath his jeans and the t-shirt he wears are a contributing factor in making this conversation difficult, too, you won't lie.)

You breathe out, partly to collect your thoughts, and partly because you've been inhaling too much of his heady cologne and it’s making you think about—

Things.

It's making you think about things. That you should have no business thinking about. Because you and his best friend have been going on dates. The same best friend who is currently, as you speak, on a date with someone else. Alluding to the reason why you have called up Park Jimin to see you in a confused panic, after ten, at night, at your place.

"Taehyung – he, um. He didn't see us going anywhere. We'd been on nine dates, but… He said he didn't think I was actually as into him as he is into me. He didn't want to go on like that."

Jimin’s lips part. His brows hike up. You shrug, forcing your gaze away from the gloss on his lips.

“It’s been that way for a while. We were barely even texting. I think he has concluded that I don’t like him like that.”

Jimin rests his forearm on the steering wheel, almost leaning over the center console to catch your gaze. "Do you?"

His eyes pull you in like always and you're lost, just staring into their depths, as your mind ceases to think up thoughts that don't involve you and him naked and tangled up with each other in—

"Sweetheart?"

Your intake of breath is sharp, short and cold. Your insides are just as warm, turning everything in your head into incomprehensible mush. "Y–y–yeah?"

"Are you into Taehyung the way he is into you?" he whispers, and you follow the shape of his lips as they move. “Because you must know, he’s liked for a whole semester.”

You lick your lips, mindlessly nod, and then reach out with a finger to trace his cupid's bow. He doesn't pull away, he doesn't even flinch. "What do you think?"

His warm breath washes over your fingertip as you press it against his lower lip. His body jolts when your nail rims the plush cushion. "I… think he's my bestest friend in the world and he's basically in love with you…"

You shake your head, and your other hand travels past the console to grip his thigh. Your nails dig in. His breath catches. "He's on a date with someone else, as we're speaking."

"I just—he was so into you, I thought you'd be good for each other."

Past the cloud of, well, something incomprehensible, there is disappointment in Jimin's gaze. And that is how you know he means it. You shouldn't be surprised, really, because Park Jimin always means everything he does, he doesn't have a single conniving bone in his body, but you still are. Part of you has hoped against hope that he set you up with Taehyung to get closer to you, himself. Which – sounds like a really flawed plan and doesn't really make much sense, now that you think about it.

But you still hoped.

Now—

Now, though. Now you know otherwise.

"How can I be good for someone else when I have never even been good for me?" you don't know why you confessed to that, but the words just tumble out of you and you let them. "I'm a mess, Jimin," you whisper, accentuating your point by massaging his lower lip by your index finger. "I destroy people, and I nearly destroy myself in the process. I am an emotional and psychological train wreck. He's better off without me. Anybody would be better off without me."

Jimin grips your hand on his thigh with his own. “Not anybody,” he murmurs, and through his furrowed brows and muddled eyes, you catch an emotion you have been well acquainted with for years, now.

Longing.

Your heartbeat picks up as Jimin massages small circles on the back of your hand. You remove your other hand from his face.

“Yes, Jimin, anybody,” you say with conviction, even as you desperately hope for him to offer himself up as an alternative. “Everything is a wreck inside of my head. I can’t do relationships, I can’t even date someone without messing up.”

His pupils expand and his tongue flicks at his lower lip. His hand tightens in a grip on your other hand. His gorgeously bleached hair curl over the side of his head. "You don’t have to date, then.”

You scoff. “Taehyung would never go for—”

“I’m not talking about Taehyung,” Jimin’s voice comes out three octaves lower. “And you’re not talking about just anybody.”

You nearly stop breathing as he brings his free hand to your face, pushes a tendril of your hair behind your ear and traces a knuckle down the side of your face, your jaw, to hold your chin.

“You say you’re not good for you. Can you try to be good for me, then?" He pulls your face closer to his. “Would you let me save you from destroying yourself? Let me try to take care of the wreckage, hmm?”

Your body spasms when he reaches for the hand you’d retracted, pecks your finger before pulling it into his mouth. His tongue swirls, his teeth scrape and his eyes roll back as he sucks. He lets go with a pop.

Boy, would you let him take care of whatever he wants.

"Can you, sweetheart? Can you be good for me?" He sounds like he’s at the brink of something, just teetering on the edge, waiting for you to flick a finger before he free-falls.

Well. You’ve been teetering for years now.

"I want to be.” You don’t sound like yourself when you speak.

And you don't sound like yourself when he pulls you on top of him. You don’t sound like yourself when your back hits the wheel, your thighs cage his, your hands instinctively twirl in his hair, and –

Your core presses up against his length.

He's hard and straining against his tighter than sin jeans. You claw at his t-shirt. He takes it off in a swift, smooth motion — agile and rhythmic in everything he does.

You don’t feel like yourself when your eyes feast him. Because how could you ever get this lucky? How could you ever get to feel Park Jimin’s shirtless self beneath you? You had long since succumbed to your destiny of perishing in pining.

And yet, here you are.

You lean back to marvel at his toned, chiseled angles, you let your fingers smooth over every groove and crevice and line of sinew muscle you can reach. You trace his tight abdomen, nails scraping at the last of his eight-pack before veering towards his toned v-line. You shiver at the dark promises it leads to, looking up to meet his eye. And you shiver more when his feral gaze catches you.

Then he pulls you into a kiss and you're lost.

He tastes like stale coffee and breath mints and bad decisions –

He tastes delicious.

His tongue plunders your mouth, teeth bite into your lips—he pulls, pushes, drinks up, feasts. You throw your all into the kiss, meeting him in the middle with your tongue swirling with his, teeth latching on to suck at it. He groans into your mouth – all loud, and guttural and manly. And then he stops. Pulls away.

His wholly black eyes dig into yours. His lips are wet, swollen and bitten. You did that.

"You have to at least talk to him—"

"I have another important business to tend to, currently."

You grind against him and make your point. He bites down on his lip. His arms snake around your waist to cage you against him, he pulls you down on him.

You don't recognize yourself when you moan.

Your shirt is off, your shorts are pulled down and your panties are pushed to a side—

"You can never tell him." Park Jimin glides two fingers over your wetness, making a bigger mess of you. "Never."

You don't intend to, because what you do with Park Jimin in your apartment's parking lot at eleven pm on a Saturday night is nobody's business but yours.

His fingers part your entrance and slide in you abruptly, and you see stars. Your head tilts back on a long, drawn out moan, Jimin’s fingers picking up pace inside you. You rock on his hand, you claw at his arm, you desperately latch onto his shoulders and rest your forehead against his to ground yourself. He watches you with his half shuttered eyes threatening to eat you up whole.

His lips press into yours, tongue swiping through your mouth, curling up behind your teeth – it's messy, it's sloppy, it's the most arousing kiss of your life.

His lips drag down the column of your neck, tongue licking at the sweat droplets quickly gathering above your collarbones, his fingers curl inside you, his teeth latch onto your shoulder.

You explode under his thumb's press against your clit and sob into his neck when he drags its nail over the sensitive bud. “Jimin, Jimin, too much~ ah!”

He presses some buttons in his fancy car and his seat inclines. He pulls you to the backseat with him. “You okay?” he breathes on your face, hovering inches above you.

“Never been better,” you truthfully breathe back, heart coiling in your chest at the radiant grin he rewards you with in response.

A blast of hot air hits your forehead, your thighs and your shins. You jump, realizing he has turned some sort of hot air blower on. “For privacy,” he says, gesturing to the rapidly fogging windows, and then flicks a switch to make the air stop.

You both gaze at each other. Your eyes flicker all over his face to save every last bit of it to memory. You self-consciously swallow when you see him do the same. “Jimin…”

He leans down to sponge a kiss to your sternum, and then your hips buck into his as his tongue licks a path on the wells of your breasts peeking above your bra. A breathless moan leaves you when he scrapes his teeth over your cloth covered nipple.

You both pause for a moment, wide eyes locking in surprise.

And then you’re ravenous.

He strips you bare when you tug at his belt, and you rush to return the favor. You struggle with getting his boxers past his plump ass as he grips onto your flesh, peppering bites down your hips, squeezes your boobs, licks at your nipples—

You grip him, warm and heavy, and glide your thumb over the leaking tip. His head falls into your nape, fingers digging into the flesh of your ass. “Jimin, ple~ase,” you moan.

He plucks out a golden foil from his wallet, meeting your eyes as he tears the packet and rolls the condom onto himself.

Your hands are pinned next to your head in a flash, his tongue teases your pulse point, teeth toy with your earlobe, and you writhe in want under him, eyes watering at the sweet torture.

And then he fills you up with a single thrust.

You freeze on a gasp.

His hair hangs over his eyes, irises lost to the lust storming in his pupils, his mouth gapes open, his chest is heaving.

“You good?” His voice is deeper than the ocean.

You've never been more turned on in your life.

He hisses at your frantic nod. “Words.”

“Yes. Yes, oh my God, Jimin, move—”

He thrusts into you at an unforgiving pace. Your whole world literally tilts off its axis as he meets that spot inside of you, and your body wrings beneath him, twisting up to hold onto some buoy to ground you, but he is unrelenting even as you grip at his neck — his teeth encase his lower lip, brows furrow and eyelids flutter as he drives deep into you.

You groan at the sight, moving your hips to meet him. You rock with him, never catching your breath, and your nails just dig dig dig into his meaty back, drawing patterns all over the smooth, delicious surface.

Your release closes in on you, and you chase it with your mouth clamping onto Jimin’s neck, your eyes screwed shut as you groan into his skin, until—

He draws back, standing on his knees above you like goddamn Adonis in this goddamn huge SUV of his, and the sight of sweat droplets trailing down his neck, framing his pecs and racing down his tight abs has your whine of protest dying in your throat as you gawk. His lips are parted as he breathes, a couple of sweat soaked hair strands sticking to his brow, and his eyes —

Oh God, his eyes have an animalistic gleam in them as he hooks his arms beneath your knees, and drags your hips to him.

You cry out when he enters you at this angle, every thrust pushing at what feels like your cervix, and the pleasure is so blinding it's almost painful. One of his hands maneuvers to your center, a finger rubbing at your clit, and you yelp out a distorted version of his name, completely unwarned when waves over waves of hot, sweet, toe curling climax crash into you.

Jimin chases you into completion, his broken moan of your name filtering to you through the post-orgasmic buzzing in your head. His lips connect with yours as he relaxes your legs. You both pant into each other's mouth after two, lethargic, sticky kisses.

Your sweaty bodies make a disgusting sound when you detach, and both of you scowl together, laughing when you catch each other’s expressions. You sit up on jelly legs, barely able to sit on your ass when your sensitive center protests.

You both dress up in silence, although you don’t feel it to be awkward in the least.

You’re still mulling over how to frame in words what you have felt for him for nearly three years, how to tell him and even what to tell him when you’re such a relationship-phobe, when Jimin releases a long sigh.

You look up in surprise. That was not a contented sound. It was one of… was it defeat?

Jimin looks at you with a serious face.

Your heart plummets.

One of the many things that make up Park Jimin is also his brutal morality. And right now, you can see it in his face that he thinks he’s done something wrong. Your shoulders hunch up in subconscious defense — you will not say a word, you decide.

“Taehyung is my best friend in this entire world,” he begins, stomping firmly on any remaining embers of hope left in your chest. “He can never, ever, ever know this happened, okay?”

You give a numb nod.

“I’m sure he’ll come back around and try to talk to you again. If that happens, don’t feel like you owe me anything, okay?”

You look up to find Jimin’s eyes searching your face. He looks so soft and grave and sad, that it hurts to look at him. You look down and nod again.

“I — I feel like you two will happen, you know, when the time is finally right.” His words sound stiff. Practiced, even. “Don’t let this come in the way of that.”

Even though you decided you wouldn’t say anything, your mouth is nearly bubbling with too much to say, at this point. You take a deep breath. “And what if he doesn’t come back. What then, Jimin?”

Jimin looks at you with wide, clueless eyes. “He…will. At some point.”

“And what about until he comes back? Am I expected to wait around?”

Something crumples in his expressions. “No, of course not. You can do whatever you want. Even after he comes back, you don’t owe anybody anything.”

“Whatever I want, you say?” you ask him quietly, your heart thudding in your throat.

Jimin swallows, obviously catching on. “I mean…I guess?”

“You guess?”

He licks his lips and his gaze zeroes in on yours. “Whatever you want, yes. Certainly.”

“Great.” You take his acquiescence for what it is, and grab his wrist. “Okay, then. Until he comes back, right?”

Jimin nods, haltingly, gaze switching between your hand and your eyes. “Right.”

You feign a smile you don’t actually feel because something about this doesn’t sit right with you. This boy, you realize, deserves a lot more than being someone’s dirty little secret. He is Park Jimin, after all, a guy that is so many things that you could never run out of listing them and—

Park Jimin is a gorgeous celestial metaphor in himself.

Because he may look at the universe with galaxies in his eyes, but he is your only galaxy, and all your stars shine at you through him when he smiles.

Park Jimin is many things — but he is not the guy you want to just casually fuck.

But your pathetic self would take anything he would allow.

And so you pull his hand and stumble out of his SUV, sharing shy glances with him as you pull him with you up the stairs, all the way to your dorms.

Park Jimin is many things—

To you.

nugatory (adj.) – worth nothing or of little value.

#bangtanarmynet #thebtstown #ksmutclub #clubjimin #bts smut #jimin smut #bts angst #jimin angst #bts jimin #park jimin #bts imagine #jimin imagine #*mine #f: nugatory

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junova · 3 years

Text

𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞.

notes: howdy guys, it's been a while. i've been taking a break and finally starting writing again, yay. it's been a rough few months and still treading through it, but i hope you enjoy a piece of my heart with this one.

if it's any consolation, my heart broke while writing this. </3

pairing — boxer!steve rogers x fem!reader

concept — steve has to come with terms of you not wanting him just as much as he wants you.

wc — 6.7k+ [yeah...]

warnings: 18+, themes alluding to sex, emotional cheating, soft!steve, heartbreak, kind of unrequited vibe going on, over all ✨ angst ✨

Even if it was the thousandth time to watch his body move in the ring, you still were memorized by the way he moved. You were in complete admiration of how his hips flowed so fluidly through his punches. Just like always, he was aware of your presence as you stood next to Sam and Wanda, both of them with proud smiles on their faces as he defeated yet another opponent.

Watching as they raised his arm, declaring him as the champion, something he’d been striving so intensely for, the past few months. Even if his body was bruised and littered with the hits Rumlow had been able to mark his body with and not to mention the busted lip, making him taste the blood with nearly every swallow.

It didn’t matter because he had followed through with what he had set his mind out to do. The looks Rumlow was giving him after all the smack talk he had served him was satisfying enough. Even if he didn’t think you did, he saw you standing there alongside his friends, celebrating the win of his life.

He couldn’t but smile proudly at your presence, even if the disapproval you have against his lifestyle was well known between the two of you and everyone else in your friend group.

Steve knew you weren’t a fan of the injuries you brought home in your shared apartment, the nights you actually stayed there. With Jordan’s absence from New York, you’d been staying there more consistently than ever.

He would never admit it out right, but it made his heart full. With you home, he could protect and he worried wherever you weren’t there. Even if he knew you were fully capable of defending yourself if need be, it would always make him feel better when you were close to him.

Just like him, you could confess it even to yourself, but when you were back in the apartment you shared with Steve, you’d always felt safer.

He went straight to the locker room, to clean himself up as best as he could without making his friends and Tony wait too long. He’d usually go straight to them but the group took notice he held himself back when you were around.

The first match you went to and he came up with bruises running along both rib cages, a bloody nose accompanied by a busted lip, he immediately took notice of the way you cowered away from him. Barely even looking at him as you congratulated him. From then on out, he realized how much it bothered you to see him physically injured.

When you’d come, he’d always make sure to clean himself up before. It really worked out on the days he didn’t want to be around many people. Only the stragglers from the crowd would be left, and his friends who supported him nearly every time.

As soon as he made his way over to the group, he was met with Sam’s warm smile pulling him into a warm hug. You found yourself wincing as soon as Steve did. “Easy there big buy, bruises are still fresh.” Sam let up just a tad, before everyone was congratulating him. You stood back with Tony, watching the proud smile grow on his face as he watched his prodigy surpass his monumental goal.

“You should think about coming to more matches. He fights better when you’re here watching him.” You twisted your neck so you could see his coach more clearly who was standing right beside you. “I’m sure he plays just as well when I’m not here. I still watch them everytime, just from home when it’s too much for me to stomach.”

You looked forward away from Tony, Steve coming into your line of vision as Sharon, his ex who had surprisingly shown up to corral by his side, someone you’d hadn’t seen near him in the past few weeks since she’d been out of the country for work.

“His technique and endurance is the same, but his intensity always rises higher when you’re here. I’m not the only one who notices, maybe the only one bold enough to say it to you.” Tony spoke as watched the man he took in when Steve was just sixteen.

Truly, it made his heart swell with pride to see him reach the level of success he had been dreaming for him since the pair had met. Knowing Steve for the past five years, also made him hyper aware of the girl he never seemed to shut up about, not that you’d ever find out.

No matter how much Tony was dying to let the words slip off his tongue.

“I’m just happy to be here for him.” Keeping your words short as you watched Sharon move closer to him, her hand resting on his chest and he didn’t even move away from it. You tried to ignore the ugly shade of green rising in your chest, but with him it always seemed to show.

Not that you’d had a right to, you weren’t single or emotionally available by any means, but the thought of him being with someone who had hurt him so much made you more protective of him than you had a right to be.

“C’mon little dove, have you thought about why you’d rather stay in the dinged up apartment with Steve than be with your boyfriend of three years across the country?” He pressed harder, making sure you were careful of your response. “My friends are here and so is my family. I can’t just leave everyone I love behind.” Your gaze never left Steve’s as he finally was out of Sharon’s grip.

“Steve’s here, too. You sure it has nothing to do with him?” Part of you couldn’t stand there with Tony and lie to him because you weren’t sure what was the nature of your relationship with the boxer.

Thankfully, you were saved from responding by the devil himself as made his way over to the two of you. Much to your dismay, he had to get in a few more words before Steve was in earshot. “Just think about why Steve lives with you when he’s had more than enough to move out for a while now.”

Before you could even process the words leaving his mouth, your favorite man in the ring immediately has you wrapped up in his arms. Holding you so close and so tightly, not even caring if it put more pressure on his lungs than he wished.

“Congrats on the win, Champion. I’m so proud of you.” The arms you had around him were placed gently, too afraid to put any weight on the new bruises. Not to mention the old ones which were still healing.

Once he pulled away from you, just enough so you could look at him. He hummed at Tony and with one nod of his head he knew when the young boxer wanted to be left alone. More times than not, it is usually with you.

“I thought you weren’t coming tonight. Isn’t Jordan in town?” Not even when it was the biggest moment of his career thus far did he care to indulge in his victories. Always it seemed to be looking after you.

“Stevie, this is your night. We don’t have to talk about me — we’re always talking about me.” For a moment he almost bought your act until he looked into those dazzling eyes of yours, ones he never seemed to grow tired of in the past few years.

“I’m not happy unless you’re happy. So, if you need a night where we just watch romcoms and chow on cookie dough ice cream, you know I’m all yours.” Unknowing to the two of you, everyone of your friends was watching the encounter and still couldn’t believe you still were with your current boyfriend.

Or that Steve was just waiting for you patiently. Something that didn’t come easy for him around women. Before you, he didn’t really do relationships with women that didn’t end with him in their bed at some point. Somehow, much to everyone’s dismay, he managed to keep his interactions platonic with you.

At least in their eyes.

“No, Stevie. I’m fine. He just didn’t follow through this time. It’s not the end of the world, I’ll be fine. Tonight, I just wanna be by your side and celebrate you.” Although, he didn’t really believe you Steve decided he would let it go.

“Regardless of it, thank you for coming tonight. Means the world to me.” It really did. Even more so, when he felt like he was one of the reasons you were still in Brooklyn and not in California living with your boyfriend instead.

“Oh, hush bubba. You’re getting so soft on me and you haven’t even had a proper drink in you yet. Let’s just celebrate with our friends, yeah?” You kissed his cheek sweetly, before you were off to Bucky and Nat’s place to get properly fed and surely get Steve drunk off his ass.

It really was the elephant in the room you were choosing to ignore. The fluttering feeling of adventurous butterflies traveling to spaces you didn’t know existed. Everytime he pulled you close to his side or kissed your temple.

When Bucky would do something monumentally stupid, he would whisper a line in your ear humorous enough to hear you laugh. Even right now, when you knew he was exhausted, muscles sore and aching — Steve was still tending to whatever you needed.

In this moment, your body nestled between his legs as he draped his arm across your chest, letting him hold you close was exactly what you needed. Even if you tried to remove yourself several times because of the new injuries, he would never let you.

“What’s next, Rogers?” Steve watched as he craned his neck towards Sharon. You’d almost forgotten she was here, she’d been so quiet most of the night.

“A whole lot of rest and then in a few weeks, right back into training.” He spoke with pride because winning the title went hand and hand with defending it. “You should come to the club. Danielle’s been itching to see you, again.”

Steve grimaced, not just as Sharon’s words, but with how stiff your body became. The way you rubbed back and forth with the tip of your fingers against his forearm came to a halt.

You weren’t really sure what to do because now you felt horrible for even feeling like you had a right to be upset in the first place. Because you didn’t. You weren’t single and Steve was. In this space in time, he did nothing wrong.

When you followed Nat back into the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine, away from him, it felt like he had made a mistake.

Just watching as you followed Nat up the pathway, in your pretty green dress, as you messed with the necklace adoring your neck. Something he learned you did when you were anxious.

“Why would you bring that up now? In front of her?” He was slightly pissed off she had driven you away and out of his arms. Steve would have you within his grip constantly if you would let him. Not that you did, but it was still a certain something he found himself wishing for. More than not though, someone else always seemed to hold your attention whenever he wasn’t in the ring.

Jordan. Tony. Sam. Natasha. Bucky. Wanda.

Tonight had seemed it might go in a different direction, until Sharon steered your mind elsewhere. One where you were a girl who missed her boyfriend. Or at least that’s what he thought.

Unknowingly to Steve, Jordan was the last thing on your mind, which allowed the guilt to settle in. Maybe, just this one time it was rightfully placed. The thoughts you were having scared you senseless — making you want to do something you knew you shouldn’t.

You just sat there on the padded bar tool as Nat grabbed a bottle of white with a bottle of red. Like time and time again, Nat read your mind just as she often did. “So, why couldn’t he come this time?” She drilled into you, her iridescent daggers as piercing as ever.

“He said he forgot his mother asked him to help her move out of the house. He said he’d make it up to me some other time.” Just like always.

But you held your tongue before voicing it to anyone other than yourself. It’d been months since you’d seen him in the flesh, and it was the first time he spoke to you in days when he informed you he’d been unable to spend any of his time off with you.

“He’s just never here and he keeps asking for me to move to Los Angeles, but my whole life is here. Before, he never seemed to really pressure me. He was always patient with me to travel at my own pace but I think he ultimately thought I would eventually go there with him.” You breathed out, scared of the truth dripping right out of you.

“I just-, you know what? Nevermind. It’s isn’t important.” She was never one to bite her tongue, but she found herself trying to when your feelings were involved.

“Tell me. What is it?” Your curious, bambi eyes peering into your soul, dying to pull the confession right out of her.

“Do you even miss him when you’re apart for so long? I’m not judging but it just seems like you’re okay. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but why don’t you ever go to him or Jordan to you?” Natasha spoke softly, afraid she might be poking the bear just a bit.

“Of course I miss him. I would see him if I could. I’m just a little too busy right now with work and my family.” You attacked back, feeling the need to defend yourself.

“Are you really going to make me say it?” With both bottles of wine on the counter, she went to grab three more wine glasses — for Sharon, herself, and you.

“Say what? What the hell are you talking about?” You pushed her as she put out the bottles of wine as she managed to link the three vines of the glasses in her left fingertips. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She was regretting it now, because maybe you weren’t quite ready to hear the words everyone else knew to be true. Anyone who was around the two of you could see it.

Perhaps, Nat never spoke a word of it because at the very least, she thought you wouldn’t be as naive to see his feelings. The ones he seemed to offer you on a silver platter, whether you wanted to reject or accept the offering, giving it to you wholeheartedly.

Following her out the patio door where the two of you stopped, not moving a step further. She didn’t really say anything either. Letting you bask in the glow before the fall.

He was laughing so hard, his hand clutching his chest as him. Golden hair shining bright by the fire pit, almost as

lively as his smile. Even if it looked like his spirit could have been beaten out of him tonight, he’d never show it.

When he had trouble keeping his eyes open, he’d force himself to stay alert because moments he could spend with ones he loved seemed too precious to pass up. Especially over the past few months — he didn’t even have to think twice about it.

Through the schedule Tony had him on, his life was eating, breathing, living boxing. Training every day in the gym, whether it be furthering his techniques in the gym to Tony making him regret any mistake he made in the ring.

Even some days he was just weight training when Tony told him he could rest. He couldn’t though. Not when he could taste the sweetness of his dreams on the tip of his tongues.

Every day, dawn till dusk, training consumed every moment of his time. Steve thought his body was restless before, but now? Nothing came even close to this.

Leading Steve to be blissfully unaware of what was actually going in that fantastically bold head of yours.

“Just spill it, Romanov.” You pressured her, but your eyes were too weak to redirect your directions elsewhere. Only Steve holding your attention at one.

“Remember when Steve left for Spain for three months with Tony?” Your body stilled, having a feeling you knew where this was going. Regretting you told her what had happened with Steve in the first after promising him it would just stay between the two of you.

“It was the year Jordan and I had split for two months.” The memory of what happened always clouding your better judgement. The way his eyes shined still haunted you. “Steve had already been there a month when it happened and the second I told him he insisted on flying me out.”

Looking at him fondly, across the greenery before speaking so softly as if he was right next to you, “I could never say no to him. I still can’t.” Nat tried to ignore it but she could see through the fog of your first love fading even if you were trying your hardest to avoid the inevitable heartache.

The care you held for him was oozing out of you, bursting and breaking at the seams. When you kept thinking of him more than a roommate, more than a friend.

“Dove, you can’t just keep pretending your feelings don’t exist. The more you try to bury the root deep the more it will grow.” You knew she was right, but you really didn’t want to hurt anyone.

You supposed you were already causing pain unintentionally. “His biggest insecurity is him. Jordan thinks I’m still here because of him.” You confessed, the ongoing fight no secret to anyone, really.

“Aren’t you?” Maybe if you had been a better liar, you could’ve convinced her but everyone could read you like the back of your own hand.

You hated the spotlight she was putting on you, but even more so because she was right. Moving forward with Jordan meant leaving someone else behind, something you couldn’t seem to prepare yourself to do.

“I love Jordan. He’s my first love and I thought he would be the greatest one, too.” You really want to stop the love and admiration flowing out of you, but you couldn’t choose who you love and maybe it was time for you to stop fighting it.

“Then, I met Steve. He responded to the ad I put out for the spare room in my apartment and we met for coffee.” If you had listened to your mother, her wishes of you not to be in the company of a man who was a complete stranger, you’d never meet the most important person in your life.

“He looked more like a boy back then. Clean shaven. No beard. Steve was still muscular, but not nearly as toned as he is now. But his eyes? They pulled me right in. Still do, every damn time.” You should have held some sort of shame, but you didn’t.

“You should do something about it, Dove. He isn’t going to be single forever.” Nat questioned as you followed her lead, back to the roaring fire.

“Nat, I love Jordan. I could never do that to him.” You really couldn’t, but you also couldn’t find it in you to move with him either. “I know you love him, but you aren’t in love anymore.” Growing closer and closer, back to the group, you saw him clearly.

“What do you mean?” Trying to ignore the pain in your chest as Natasha spoke. “I think you’re scared of ending it with Jordan. Dove. I’ve known you for a long time now and I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you do with Steve.”

The words spilling out of her lips left you a little broken — the truth spearing you through. She wasn’t wrong, not one bit. Nat never nearly was, especially when your feelings were involved. Steve had become such an enigma to you in the past year.

The line of platonic friendship and overflowing emotional intimacy was becoming too entangled for you to even comprehend.

“Just think about it. I just want you to be happy.” The rest of the night, it’s all you could think about. A few days passed and it was still in the forefront of your mind.

When Steve was walking home with you this week, you couldn’t stop wondering all the hypotheticals swarming inside your dreams.

He could tell, too.

You’d never been so quiet, not ever. He’d like to hear you, especially when you were drunk. Like you seemed to be now, at least to him but tequila that lit a fire in your chest a few hours ago was beginning to wear off. Just when the feelings you kept trying to avoid would seep there way back in like your furry, fat cat Thor when he wormed his body through the gate into the apartment.

“What’s wrong? You’ve seemed off this week.” You felt his hand kiss yours, but he didn’t bother to find it’s home. He’d been keeping his distance or at least been trying to. You'd been so vulnerable lately and the last thing he wanted to do was exploit that.

Ever since Sharon had made a comment about Danielle, and you escaped with Nat, something changed. You more guarded around him, more than you'd ever been since you met.

Steve knew there was a reason for it, but he didn't want to push you — not when it looked like you would combust into a breakdown at any given moment.

“I’ve just been thinking about where my life is going and where I want it to go.” You confessed, letting your words linger. “Jordan wants me to move with him to California and I’m running out of reasons to say no.” In perfect harmony, your eyes met his at the same time.

They weren’t joyful what his bright blues usually possess, but this time they were indifferent. Not even you could read them.

“Do you want to move there with him?” Steve asked you, his heart on the verge of dropping into his stomach. “If it will make you happy, you should.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, you watched him drift away from you.

“I don’t know. It might.” Both of you coming to a halt, walking up to the apartment the two of you shared.

“He’s insecure about you. It’s why he’s pressuring me.” The two of your bodies so close but so far away as you stood in the doorway. With a confusing gaze and pouty lips, practically guiding you into temptation.

“He used to always tell me you were in love with me. He was fully convinced, still is. I never thought so. You were just my best friend, that was it. I just never really thought about it unless Jordan brought it up.” You would have loved to blame your sudden outburst on the alcohol, but it was something you'd been dying to do.

Before you never had the guts, but you a felt a pull towards Steve lately, like maybe there was something more trying to burst under the seams.

“I thought Tony was bullshitting me, fucking with me, but I didn’t ever give it a thought. Then, Nat brought up Spain.” Nights you told yourself were a mistake, but deep down it was the probably the safest you felt in a long time.

“What are you talking about? What did Tony say?” Fetching for the key, he slid it in before opening the door for you and following you inside. “Steve, why do you still live here?” Blushing cheeks and a string of incoherent words was all you could make out from him.

As he headed for the small couch, trying to make up an excuse good enough. One which you’d actually believe, he hoped.

“You make four times as much as me, if not more. For some reason, you’ve decided to stay in this shithole apartment — it doesn’t make sense.” He wished you would make sense of it, that way he didn’t have to say a word.

“Do you want me to move out?” He questioned, watching your movements. If you wanted him to move out, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

It was the last thing you wanted, but the line between your friendship with him was always blurred. Only now, when it was vaguely pointed out by the two people close to the both of you — it became more apparent than ever.

“No, I just, I guess I’m asking why. You know you’re more than welcome to stay here as long as you’d like, but this place is a dump, Steve. Why on earth would you wanna stay here?” When he looked up, where you stood above him having a hard time biting his tongue.

Because you’re here.

It’s what he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the right and he would just be an asshole if he put you in a compromising position. He already felt guilty enough with his feelings in the first place, he didn't need to pile on.

“I guess it’s just easier to stay. It’s so close to the ring and I’m maybe a tad too comfortable.” You sat next to him on the couch. Finding yourself trapped in the green of his eyes. “Don’t you want something better?” Maybe it was him or maybe it was you. Neither of you could tell.

The two of you inched closer until Steve was caressing your thigh, just with the tip of his thumb. “I’m more than happy with where I’m at.”

“Well, I’m asking because I need to go to California. Just for a bit. I need to see Jordan, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen him.” He didn’t stop touching, not even with the mention of his name.

Even if it pierced him every time you talked about him. Or when Jordan came to town, he felt like he didn’t exist to you.

He didn’t blame you, not at all. Jordan was your highschool sweetheart, and you wanted so badly for it to work but something was holding you back. Something you were trying to let go of.

“He loves me so much and wants to start building this whole new life, but how am I supposed to tell him?” Steve said nothing, letting you sink into the ground.

“He’s been nothing, but kind and loving. Always there, always supportive. The best partner I could have asked for.” Steve laced your hand in his like it was the most natural thing in the world, making butterflies erupt at full speed.

You couldn’t really pinpoint a moment when he started, but all you knew is how safe his warm, calloused hands made you feel. Since the moment you met, never failing to comfort you when needed.

“Then what’s the problem, Dove?” Steve questioned you, untangling his body from yours.

If he was going to help you, he needed to think and being so close to you wouldn’t get himself where you needed. Above all, you didn’t make any easier when a small whine left your throat — tugging at his heart strings.

“We never talk about what happened in Barcelona.” You watched his body tighten, muscles in his arm constricting.

It made him feel just as uneasy as it did to you. At least you could find comfort in that.

“Dove, there’s a reason for it. You and I both know it.” Steve was right. His self righteous sense of nature always kicked in when you wanted it the least.

“You don’t think about it? Because I do.” Pushing weight on his heart, you were very aware you held. You weren’t too naive to know just how much he cared for you, but coward enough to try and make him admit it first.

“You were broken up, things are different now. We’re home where you have a boyfriend and I have boxing.”

“Yes, where I have a boyfriend who wants me to abandon everything I hold close to me to join him without even bothering to ask me what I want.” You puffed out, exhaustion coming in overflow. “The past year, he hasn’t once asked me what I want.”

The boy with golden locks found himself wanting nothing more than to hold you in his arms, nurse you back to health with all the love he could offer.

But even he knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t keep on spreading himself thin over a woman who was so conflicted, so distraught she was collapsing within herself. If he wasn’t too careful, he might fall right beside you.

“Before we got back together, he asked me.” You confessed, feeling better as soon as the secret flew from your mouth. “He asked you what?” Steve pressed on, a bit terrified of it truly, but even he had to know.

“He asked if anything happened between us the months I was there and I lied. Ever since we met, he’s been insecure. He thinks I’m going to leave you for him and it wasn’t the first time he asked either.” You wish you hadn’t dealt with the two of them so poorly, but with the expression on Steve’s face you knew you had.

“He knows I lied and it hurts even more he stayed with me anyways.” Steve didn’t move, his fear keeping him still.

“I don’t know how to be his after you, but I don’t know how to let go of my high school sweetheart either.” You felt trapped, in between an impossible decision. An old love, who loves you past your mistakes, past the hurt and a soulful heart admiring you from where you’re at and nothing less.

“Those nights don’t have to mean anything if you don’t want them to.” He spoke softly, his beautiful orbs catching yours in the moonlight peeking through the window.

“They mean too much to me, that’s the problem.” If he didn’t move as you inched closer to his body, planting yourself in front of him, you could tell he was straining himself.

“Do you remember the first time?” He looked confused, wondering if you truly were bold enough to speak of something you shouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. Your hand found his chest, feeling the pulse of his rapid heart beat. “I was so shy and timid the first time with you, but you guided me so well.” Too fond of the memory of him worshipping every part of your body.

The very thing he wanted to do since the moment he met you, but Steve wanted more than that. Now more than ever.

“You don’t have to remind me, Dove. I remember.” He swallowed deeply, trying to erase the permanent memory of your body writhing beneath him, moaning out his name, begging him for more.

He still found himself thinking about it. Those two months with you had just amplified what he felt even more because now he knew what it was like for you to wake up in his arms, bare skin against his own.

The way you curled into his chest, your arms wrapped around his waist for optimal comfort.

Or when he’d wake up before you, which was most days, he’d find you murmuring his name in your sleep while soft fingertips caressed your skin lulling you into a more peaceful slumber.

“I never forget, Dove. That’s the problem.” With one finger, he pushed back the hair falling in your face tucking it behind your ear. “I tried to move past it, I went on a couple dates with this woman, Danielle.” You already felt your heart clench at the thought of him with someone else.

“She’s kind, smart, and beautiful and she seems to like me. Sharon keeps bugging me to take her out again since she set the two of us up.” Steve was trying to talk calmly, but he couldn’t ground himself. Especially when you only seemed to pull back further from him.

It was weird that Sharon set the pair up, considering she dated Steve not too long ago but it seemed she could put her feelings inside if it was for your despair.

In her daunting eyes, you were the reason her and the promising boxer broke up in the first place. As cliche as it was, she offered Steve an ultimatum after six months of dating — her or you.

Steve picked you.

It wasn’t like he loved her at that point. He did care for her, but you just meant too much to him. When kind, iridescent eyes met his own for the first time Steve never was able to stop thinking about them. Or you for that matter.

Carefully calculated as Steve could be, he managed to trap you between the closed door of his bedroom and his toned body.

“But I want to hear you say something before I do.” His gaze never faltered for a moment as he played with the hem of the short slip dress adoring your taut figure.

Half of your mind was begging you to retreat into your room and forget the last time you’d been pressed up against him like this. The other half wanted to see what he would do once he knew you were in the palm of his hand once again.

You had a feeling he already did.

His beard was grown out and his silky, golden hair that almost reached his shoulders make him look even more deliciously sinful.

“What’s that?” You tried not to gulp loudly, but if you even made the slightest movement, he would notice. “Tell me you’re in love with him.” His soft thumb caressing your side, not sure if he was trying to soothe himself or you.

“Just tell me five years down the line, you see him right there with you. Just say it, so I can move on.” He couldn’t even look at you, he couldn’t take the inevitable. “Tell me we’re just friends and Jordan’s your future.” You met his eyes, the prettiest blues you’ll ever see.

Commanding your attention without even trying — every damn time. You weren’t sure what you wanted, but you knew seeing him hurt was chipping a piece of you away. Watching his arched eyebrows furrowed in distress, fine lines being made in the middle for proof.

Soft fingertips met his skin, smoothing out his furrowed brows, closing his eyes trying to remember what you smelled like. Just like Sharon reached her breaking point, he had too. Steve couldn’t watch you any longer without being the one you wanted without a doubt.

“Stevie.” You softly whisper, before pulling him into your arms.

Even if he was double your size, he let you hold him as best as you could. Comfort him even if you were the reason he’s breaking.

The strong, persistent boxer had been transported back to the sick and thin kid he once was before all the guns and glory came. Steve was right back to where he got rejected by anyone and everyone. A time and many places where no one gave a damn about Steve Rogers, not anyone he wished for.

You watched him untangle himself from you, but you weren’t sure just how much time had passed. A few minutes? Thirty? An hour?

Only time could tell and she wasn’t really on your side at the moment.

“I’ve only found love once. Back in high school, there was this girl, Hazel. She was kind, sweet, eyes that shined like fresh honey. The first person to ever show any interest in me and I was in love with the fact that someone actually wanted me.” Steve felt his heart clench at the memory he wished to forget.

“I truly believed I loved her with every fiber in me and I thought she cared about me too, until I realized she was just using me to get to Bucky.” You watched the distress wash over him again and you wanted nothing more than to make him feel appreciated and loved. Not rejected and forgotten.

“It broke my heart for months because I truly believed I was in love with this girl who I hardly knew.” He sighed deeply, like he somehow already was aware of the soft whisper of goodbye.

“It always kind of stayed with me, not ever feeling like I was good enough for anyone until Tony found me. Graduated high school and I started training dawn till dusk until I couldn’t anymore just to start all over and do it the next day.” He was looking everywhere but you. Even if there was not a thing in this damn hallway, but two pressured hearts.

“Not too long after, I met you and I remember thinking this is the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met in my life.” Now, feeling like an absolute dick because you truly didn't deserve for this wonderful man to be in your life.

“You were so kind to me and you had no reason to be, but I learned it’s just who you are. This amazingly bright full beam, shining their light on everyone else — not paying attention to how much they give even if it’s everything they have.” Your skin felt hot beyond comparison, the passion in the words he spoke deeper than the memory of his skin against your own.

“I always tried to ignore it, how stupidly kind and thoughtful you are. How much you take care of me when you don’t have to. You cleaned my wounds for months without even asking me what I was doing.”

“I already knew you had a boyfriend, one you love very much, but I couldn’t stop myself from being around you. Now, I have to leave. I need to move on for me because I know how this ends for me — how it always has.” He sighed before walking away, leaving you hanging in every conceivable way. You didn’t notice the suitcase by the door before. Until he was walking out of the apartment with his possessions in hand — out of sight and out of mind.

“Wait!” He was already making it to his car, the old beat up pickup truck he couldn’t seem to get rid of when you reached him. “I just need time, Steve.” You’d been sprinting after him, until you caught up to him, making his attention fully focused on you.

“Jordan’s the only boyfriend I’ve ever had — I don’t know how to let him go.” You were crying because maybe, deep down you were hoping you could have your cake and eat it too.

“And you’re the only person I’ve ever been in love with, Dove. I can’t keep sticking around hoping you’ll wake up one day and feel the same.” He emptied his belongings in his truck before returning his attention towards you.

“Steve, don’t do this. Please. Don’t leave me.” You’d become so dependent on him, more than you realized. “You’re the only person who truly loves me and not for who they want me to be.” Trying to plead with him, but it felt like you were only pushing him even further away.

“Then tell me I’m the only one you want.” But all he was left with silence because you couldn’t and he already knew what you didn’t. He knew you hated change more than anything, that you’d rather stay in what was comfortable even if you were presented with a different option.

Someone you wanted more.

With tears in your eyes, you looked up at him like he was crushing you and there was nothing to stop the numbing feeling. He sympathized, maybe more than he liked to admit, it’s what he chose to live with over the past year. It started the moment he met you if he was truly being honest.

He knew there was nothing left for him, no matter how much his heart clenched at the sound of your cries. He couldn’t be the one who was always taking care of you, loving you, when you didn’t feel what he felt. It was splitting him open, and you just kept taking pieces of him away — parts of him you would hold forever.

He let you cling onto him one more time, begging for him not to leave you. He let you believe he wouldn’t as he calmed you back in a false sense of security. Until you were asleep in his soft sheets later that night, leaving you lonely in the home you’d been sharing.

With only half of his belongings with him, he pulled up to the project he had just completed. Even now, with not a single hope you would ever see it after he just abandoned you, there was still a light hope you’d be able to at least see it one day. If Steve was ever strong enough to face his heartbreak again.

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kingandfireheart · 3 years

Text

The Lady of the Autumn Court: what the fuck is happening in Autumn (part 2)

As I said in my Eris Vanserra post, it seems that the Lady of the Autumn Court is a bigger piece to the Eris and Lucien puzzles.

We don't know what the fuck has been happening in the Forest House but we do the following:

The Lady of the Autumn Court is/was extremely powerful

Lucien (and to some extent Eris) are mama's boys (even though Lucien has been exiled for centuries)

The Lady met Helion before she was married to Beron

At least one of the seven brothers - Lucien - is Helion's child, but Helion saved the Lady after she had already had some kids (so Eris probably isn't his, even though they both have amber eyes)

The Lady chose to stay with Beron

Beron is aware of the affair between Helion and the Lady

Beron is physically abusive towards the Lady and had tortured Eris

Helion does not know Lucien is his heir, but Eris seems to know Lucien isn't Beron's son

Things that aren't mentioned below the cut, but are interesting:

Eris is the ringleader of the brothers, the commander of Beron's forces, and is Beron's most trusted son (the other three don't even have names)

In ACOWAR, Eris says has never denied Beron anything - except to save Lucien - but is angling for the throne and betraying him in ACOFAS and ACOSF (this reminds me of Lorcan betraying Maeve for her own good in TOG)

Beron wanted to kill Lucien for wanting to leave Autumn and marry Jesminda (this doesn't seem like a good reason if he isn't in line for the throne - or isn't part of their bloodline, but I guess Beron doesn't need a reason to be cruel)

Helion alludes to having trouble at home in ACOSF

The remaining unnamed brothers are all angling for the throne (this reminds me of the Khaganate in TOG and the Cruel Prince)

I got a little carried away with the color coding, but here's every major scene involving and discussing the Lady of the Autumn Court (and some breadcrumbs because I'm convinced SJM is purposeful in her writing)

Rhysand uses the Lady of the Autumn Court taunt Lucien in ACOTAR:

Rhysand’s venom-coated smile grew. “You draw blood from me, Lucien, and you’ll learn how quickly Amarantha’s whore can make the entire Autumn Court bleed. Especially its darling Lady.” The color leached from Lucien’s face, but he held his ground. It was Tamlin who answered. “Put your sword down, Lucien.” Rhysand ran an eye over me. “I knew you liked to stoop low with your lovers, Lucien, but I never thought you’d actually dabble with mortal trash.” My face burned. Lucien was trembling—with rage or fear or sorrow, I couldn’t tell. “The Lady of the Autumn Court will be grieved indeed when she hears of her youngest son. If I were you, I’d keep your new pet well away from your father.”

The Lady of the Autumn Court also helps Feyre with one of her tasks:

A door clicked open somewhere down the hall, and I shot to my feet. An auburn head peered at me. I sagged with relief. Lucien— Not Lucien. The face that turned toward me was female—and unmasked. She looked perhaps a bit older than Amarantha, but her porcelain skin was exquisitely colored, graced with the faintest blush of rose along her cheeks. Had the red hair not been indication enough, when her russet eyes met mine, I knew who she was. I bowed my head to the Lady of the Autumn Court, and she inclined her chin slightly. I supposed that was honor enough. “For giving her your name in place of my son’s life,” she said, her voice as sweet as sun-warmed apples. She must have been in the crowd that day. She pointed at the bucket with a long, slender hand. “My debt is paid.” She disappeared through the door she’d opened, and I could have sworn I smelled roasting chestnuts and crackling fires in her wake.

Rhys (while wearing the mask of hte High Lord) uses her to taunt Lucien again in ACOMAF:

“Little Lucien,” Rhys purred. “Didn’t the Lady of the Autumn Court ever tell you that when a woman says no, she means it?”

“Prick,” Lucien snarled, storming past his sentinels, but not daring to touch his weapons. “You filthy, whoring prick.”

Lucien explaining how he was treated since Beron may suspect he's Helion's heir and as we know from Tamlin: future high lords have physical markers:

His jaw tightened. “As the youngest of seven sons, I wasn’t particularly needed or wanted. Perhaps it was a good thing. I was able to study for longer than my father allowed my brothers before shoving them out the door to rule over some territory within our lands, and I could train for as long as I liked, since no one believed I’d be dumb enough to kill my way up the long list of heirs. And when I grew bored with studying and fighting … I learned what I could of the land from its people. Learned about the people, too.”

“I’d say that sounds more High-Lord-like than the life of an idle, unwanted son.”

A long, steely look. “Did you think it was mere hatred that prompted my brothers to do their best to break and kill me?”

This may not relate to the Lady of the Autumn Court's relationship with Helion, but I'm gathering all the crumbs (why does Eris hesitate before calling his brothers brothers?)

“You hunted me down like an animal,” I cut in. “I think we’ll choose to believe the worst.”

Eris’s pale face flushed. “I was given an order. And sent to do it with two of my … brothers.”

Eris has no love for Beron (he literally asks Rhys to kill him), but he does seem to protect the Lady during the High Lord's Meeting:

“If you want proof that we are not scheming with Hybern,” Rhysand said blandly to them all, “consider the fact that it would be far less time-consuming to slice into your minds and make you do my bidding.”

Only Beron was stupid enough to scoff. Eris was just angling his body in his chair—blocking the path to his mother.

Helion and Lady of Autumn lock eyes:

The violence simmering off my friends was enough to boil the pool at our toes as the High Lord of Autumn filed through the archway, his sons in rank behind him, his wife—Lucien’s mother—at his side. Her russet eyes scanned the room, as if looking for that missing son.

They settled instead on Helion, who gave her a mocking incline of his dark head. She quickly averted her gaze.

The High Lords discuss the past war:

(also reminder: Eris has Amber Eyes like Helion)

Helion shrugged, the sun catching in the embroidered gold thread of his tunic. “Indeed, though it seems Tamlin is already ahead of me. The Spring Court must be evacuated.” His amber eyes darted between Tarquin and Beron. “Surely your northern neighbors will welcome them.”

Beron’s lip curled. “We do not have the resources for such a thing.”

“Right,” Viviane said, “because everyone’s too busy polishing every jewel in that trove of yours.”

Beron threw her a glare that had Kallias tensing. “Wives were invited as a courtesy, not as consultants.”

Viviane’s sapphire eyes flared as if struck by lightning. “If this war goes poorly, we’ll be bleeding out right alongside you, so I think we damn well get a say in things.”

“Hybern will do far worse things than kill you,” Beron counted coolly. “A young, pretty thing like you especially.”

Kallias’s snarl rippled the water in the reflection pool, echoed by Mor’s own growl.

Beron smiled a bit. “Only three of us were present for the last war.” A nod to Rhys and Helion, whose face darkened. “One does not easily forget what Hybern and the Loyalists did to captured females in their war-camps. What they reserved for High Fae females who either fought for the humans or had families who did.” He put a heavy hand on his wife’s too-thin arm. “Her two sisters bought her time to run when Hybern’s forces ambushed their lands. The two ladies did not walk out of that war-camp again.” Helion was watching Beron closely, his stare simmering with reproach.

The Lady of the Autumn Court kept her focus on the reflection pool. Any trace of color drained from her face. Dagdan and Brannagh flashed through my mind—along with the corpses of those humans. What they’d done to them before and after they’d died

After Nesta makes her speech:

She looked to Beron and his family as she finished. Only the Lady and Eris seemed to be considering—impressed, even, by the strange, simmering woman before them.

After Azriel attacks Eris:

Beron struck—only for his fire to bounce off a hard barrier of my own. I lifted my gaze to the High Lord of Autumn. “That’s twice now we’ve handed you your asses. I’d think you’d be sick of the humiliation.”

Helion laughed

---

Eris, wisely, averted his eyes. And said, “Apologies, Morrigan.”

His father actually gawked at the words. But something like approval shone on the Lady of Autumn’s face as her eldest son settled himself once more.

Thesan rubbed his temples. “This does not bode well.”

But Helion smirked at his retinue, crossing an ankle over a knee and flashing those powerful, sleek thighs. “Looks like you owe me ten gold marks.”

Feyre loses her shit:

Beron shielded barely fast enough to block me, but the wake singed Eris’s arm—right through the cloth. And the pale, lovely arm of Lucien’s mother.

---

The Lady of Autumn was clutching her arm, angry red splattered along the moon-white skin. No glimmer of pain on that face, though. I said to her as I reclaimed my seat, “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes lifted toward mine, round as saucers.

Beron spat, “Don’t talk to her, you human filth.”

Helion tells the story of the Affair:

Helion tapped a finger against the carved arm of his couch. “He played games in the War and it cost him—dearly. His people still remember those choices—those losses. His own damn wife remembers.”

Helion had looked at the Lady of Autumn repeatedly during the meeting. I asked, carefully and casually, “What do you mean?”

Helion’s jaw clenched. “The Lady of the Autumn Court was sent to stay with her sisters, her younger children packed off to other relatives. To spread out the bloodline.” He dragged a hand through his sable hair. “Hybern attacked their estate. Her sisters bought her time to run. Not because she was married to Beron, but because they loved each other. Fiercely. She tried to stay, but they convinced her to go. So she did—she ran and ran, but Hybern’s beasts were still faster. Stronger. They cornered her at a ravine, where she became trapped atop a ledge, the beasts snapping at her feet

Helion didn’t so much as shift in his chair. “She was still young—though she’d been married to that delightful male for nearly two decades. Married too young, the marriage arranged when she was twenty.”

---

But it was Mor who said coolly, “I heard a rumor once, Helion, that she waited before agreeing to that marriage. For a certain someone who had met her by chance at an equinox ball the year before.”

I tried not to blink, not to let any of my rising interest surface.

The fire banked to embers and Helion threw a half smile in Mor’s direction. “Interesting. I heard her family wanted internal ties to power, and that they didn’t give her a choice before they sold her to Beron.”

“How long did the affair last?” I asked. That withdrawn female … I couldn’t imagine it.

Helion snorted. “Is that a polite question for a High Lady to be asking?”

But the way he spoke, that smile … I only waited, using silence to push him instead.

Helion shrugged. “On and off for decades. Until Beron found out. They say the lady was all brightness and smiles before that. And after Beron was through with her … You saw what she is.”

“What did he do to her?”

“The same things he does now.” Helion waved a hand. “Belittle her, leave bruises where no one but him will see them.”

I clenched my teeth. “If you were her lover, why didn’t you stop it?” The wrong thing to say. Utterly wrong, by the dark fury that rippled across Helion’s face.

“Beron is a High Lord, and she is his wife, mother of his brood. She chose to stay. Chose. And with the protocols and rules, Lady, you will find that most situations like the one you were in do not end well for those who interfere.

I didn’t back down, didn’t apologize. “You barely even looked at her today.”

“We have more important matters at hand.”

“Beron never called you out for it?”

“To publicly do so would be to admit that his possession made a fool of him. So we continue our little dance, these centuries later.” I somehow doubted that beneath that roguish charm and irreverence, Helion felt it was a dance at all.

But if it had ended centuries ago, and she’d never seen him again, had let Beron treat her so abominably …

The Lucien Paternity Revelation:

While we spoke, I said down the bond, Helion is Lucien’s father. Rhys was silent. Then— Holy burning hell. His shock was a shooting star between us.

I let my gaze dart through the room, half paying attention to Helion’s musing on the wall and how to repair it, then dared study the High Lord for a heartbeat. Look at him. The nose is the same, the smile. The voice. Even Lucien’s skin is darker than his brothers’. A golden brown compared to their pale coloring.

It would explain why his father and brothers detest him so much—why they have tormented him his entire life.

My heart squeezed at that. And why Eris didn’t want him dead. He wasn’t a threat to Eris’s power—his throne. I swallowed. Helion has no idea, does he?

It would seem not.

The Lady of Autumn’s favorite son—not only from Lucien’s goodness. But because he was the child she’d dreamed of having … with the male she undoubtedly loved.

Beron must have discovered the affair when she was pregnant with Lucien.

He likely suspected, but there was no way to prove it—not if she was sharing his bed, too. Rhys’s disgust was a tang in my mouth. I have no doubt Beron debated killing her for the betrayal, and even afterward. When Lucien could be passable as his own of spring—just enough to make him doubt who had sired his last son.

I wrapped my head around it. Lucien not Beron’s son, but Helion’s. His power is flame, though. They’ve mused Beron’s title could go to him.

His mother’s family is strong—that was why Beron wanted a bride from their line. The gift could be hers.

You never suspected?

Not once. I’m mortified I didn’t even consider it.

What does this mean, though?

Nothing—ultimately nothing. Other than the fact that Lucien might be Helion’s sole heir

#LONG post #lady of autumn #lucien vanserra #autumn court #beron vanserra #eris vanserra #helion spell cleaver #acotar #lady of the autumn court #forest house #a court of wings and ruin #high lord's meeting #a court of silver flames #kp analysis #acotar series #mtp

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svnflowervol666 · 4 years

Text

Crisp Trepidation (Harry Styles x fem!Reader)

Word Count: 5.2k

Warnings: angst, mentions of smut, pregnancy

Author’s Note: Here she is! The promised “Y/N is pregnant again before she’s ready” fic. I ended up liking this a lot more than I thought I would, so I hope you all do as well! Take care and TPWK.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my favorite tiny human,” the pediatrician chimed as she kicked the door to the small examination room shut with her sneaker.

“You must say that to all of the parents that you see,” Y/N blushed, unable to hide the smile that tugged on the corners of her lips.

“I don’t, actually. I’m being honest when I tell you she is the cutest baby I have ever seen in my life. Those curls! Are you kidding me?”

She padded over to the miniature exam table to get a better look at the infant that was lying contently on her back and chewing on her pudgy albeit still tiny fingers.

“Let’s take a look at how you’re doing, sweet pea.”

The doctor, Lisa, lifted the stethoscope that was looped around her neck and placed it correctly into her ears. Listening to the baby’s heartbeat to check for any abnormalities, she couldn’t help but give a sympathetic frown when the tiny girl under her tensed up from the cool touch of the metal.

“Nurse’s notes say she’s put on quite a bit. She’s finally caught up to her age group in weight. I’m assuming breastfeeding is going better for you both now?”

She lovingly squeezed the extra chub around her thighs.

“Yeah. We don’t really use bottles anymore. Finally got her to latch on and now it seems like all she wants to do it eat,” Y/N chuckled.

“Good! That’s good. There’s nothing wrong with formula like we talked about, but it’s even better to breastfeed when you can. Is she hitting the milestones? Rolling over? Propping her head up? Babbling a bit?”

“Babbling, definitely. She keeps us up sometimes because we can hear her talking to herself through the monitor at night,” Y/N poked her tongue out at her daughter in an attempt to get her to smile.

“Having a bit of trouble propping herself up though. She can only do it for a little bit and then she’ll give up. She’s got Harry’s giant head, though, so I’m sure it’s a bit of a struggle.”

Lisa laughed loudly at the mention of her patient’s father, knowing good and well what Y/N meant. She scribbled notes onto the file attached to her clipboard, checking off the baby’s progress and coinciding what the nurse that came in before her documented about her length and weight.

“She’ll get to it eventually. All babies are different. She seems to be coming along quite nicely, though. Nothing abnormal or anything to fuss about. A perfectly healthy six-month-old in my book.”

Y/N sighed in relief, though she knew there was nothing to worry over to begin with.

“How’s mum doing? You taking care of yourself, too? You’re just as important as baby.”

“When I can. Harry’s really good with her. He’ll take over when he sees me struggling, but it seems like she only wants me these days. Think I might be coming down with something, though. I’ve been feeling awful for a few weeks. Like I got hit by a train. I keep reminding myself to go get checked out, but I always get distracted taking care of her,” Y/N gestured to her daughter that was now drooling onto the parchment liner and staring up at the ceiling as if there was something ornately interesting about the popcorn texture that had been stippled onto it.

“When you say, ‘hit by a train,’ what do you mean? I can examine you here if you’d like. As long as it’s nothing serious, I can send you something off to the pharmacy.”

Lisa re-fastened the snaps on the infant’s onesie, making sure not to pinch her chunky legs and placed her back into her mother’s lap.

“Ummm,” Y/N began, “Just extra drained, I guess? Kinda nauseous. I’ve been getting migraines a lot and even when I do get a good night’s rest, I still feel like I could go back to bed for the rest of the day. Maybe I’m just exhausted, I don’t really know. But it just feels a bit different than being worn out like I have been before.”

She could see the wheels in Lisa’s head turning, noting each of her symptoms and trying to align them in a path that would lead her to the root of the problem.

“Can I ask you something that might be a bit personal?”

Y/N nodded, rubbing her fingers absentmindedly along the bridge of her daughter’s socked foot.

“Have you and Harry been intimate since she was born?”

She was taken aback by the question, not understanding where Lisa was going with this or why it was relevant.

“Umm,” Y/N stuttered, feeling a static-y surge of embarrassment travel up her neck and onto the sides of her face, “Yeah. We have.”

A whole fucking lot ever since I’ve been cleared for it, she thought, but kept to herself.

“And can you tell me when your last menstrual cycle ended?”

Then it clicked. She genuinely couldn’t recall her most recent period and even the thought of what Lisa was alluding to made her stomach twist into thousands of tiny knots.

“I- I don’t know. I’ve been so busy with her I don’t even really think about what’s going on with me half of the time.”

Y/N tried to make excuses, anything to avoid the obvious, but judging from the quizzical look on her daughter’s pediatrician’s face, she knew exactly where this was going.

“There’s no way,” she whispered, “I can’t be.”

Lisa’s face dropped, now tender and apologetic when she realized that this was news Y/N was not ecstatic to hear.

“I know I’m a pediatrician, so that’s obviously the first thing my mind goes to, but can we at least get you to take a test? That way we’ll know for sure?”

Harry came home to a quiet house. It wasn’t unusual, but seeing as it was well after six o’clock in the evening and his wife wasn’t in the kitchen making the curry that she’d been oh-so so excited about earlier in the week and swaying along to the playlist they’d curated together as she stirred a pot filled with vegetables was. Their grocery store had been out of coconut milk for several weeks and she’d nearly tackled him to the ground out of excitement when he’d come home from the grocery store with it the night before, so he found it awfully strange that she’d yet to start cooking it. Had he not seen her car in the driveway, he probably wouldn’t have even suspected her to be home.

He checked the living room first, and it was desolate apart from the playmat on the floor that was littered with a few of his daughter’s favorite rattles and teethers. Her coat and purse were abandoned haphazardly on the couch, almost as if she tossed it aside in a hurry to get somewhere.

“Baby?”

Nothing.

His head peaked into the nursery, stealthily and quietly in preparation to walk in on his daughter taking her scheduled nap before her actual bedtime. He’d gotten good at hushing his footfalls to almost complete silence as to not wake her, having made that mistake more than a handful of times.

And he was right. There she was, sprawled out in her crib with her arms outstretched over her head like a tiny starfish. Her chubby cheeks were smushed against her bicep, drawing her lips open the tiniest bit so that Harry could see the tops of her fleshy, pink gums and the barely-there nub of her first tooth peeking through. More than anything, he wanted to wake her up - lift her from the plush mattress and cuddle her close, shower her with kisses and tickle her with his scruff that was teetering on the line of becoming a full blown beard to hear those baby squeals he adored so much, but he needed to find Y/N first.

She had to be in their bedroom, he thought to himself. Maybe she was taking advantage of their baby girl napping to also get some rest. She had been rather exhausted lately. Maybe she’d had a rough day and was relaxing in the clawfoot, porcelain bathtub that had been the selling point of the home they now lived in. Or maybe she was keeping to herself peacefully somewhere else in the house and she was being so quiet that he just couldn’t hear her.

Turns out he was right again. Like he had done with the nursery, he held the wooden door tightly in his grip to keep the hinges from creeking and pressed it open gently. The room was completely dark, but he could make out the lump underneath the duvet on their king-sized bed as his wife.

Good. She was sleeping.

He padded across the hardwood floor, still being as quiet as he could until he crossed the threshold of the bathroom. There, he rid himself of the uncomfortable clothes he’d been wearing all day. Curse these professional business meetings about his tour schedule that forced him to dress nicely.

All throughout the meetings, he wanted nothing more than to be home with his wife and baby, cuddling the afternoon away and watching shitty reality television while his daughter cooed and grunted and gurgled in her baby voice that he loved so much and could listen to all day. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been having to partake in these boring work meetings a lot more lately, which caused him to miss even the smallest aspects about his everyday life with his family like changing diapers or checking the baby monitor eight hundred times throughout the day to make sure his daughter was still breathing. Or maybe it was the understanding that by this time next year, he’d be halfway across the globe and physically unable to hold her in his arms. Perhaps he’d just been getting sentimental, but it was an unpleasant feeling nonetheless.

His thoughts were interrupted when he deposited his rings into the dish he kept on the counter and he heard a quite yet still prominent sniffle among the clattering of metal against the glass dish.

“Honey? ‘S that you?” Harry peaked his head out from beyond the bathroom door.

He saw her body shift under the covers, but she gave no response. So he called out again.

“Ye’ sick? Can hear ye’ snifflin’.”

Nothing.

Pivoting back around to the inside of the bathroom, he quickly shut off the light and carried himself over to her side of the bed where he could see her properly. Her face was tucked into her chin and all that was visible to him was the top of her head.

“Hey,” Harry cooed, petting what he could reach of her hair and speaking even gentler than he had been, “What’s wrong?”

And that’s when he heard it - an almost inaudible choking sound of Y/N trying to catch her breath that immediately let him know she wasn’t sick. She had been crying.

“Whoa, baby,” he was already pulling the covers back with force, honestly not caring whether or not she minded the intrusion.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

She was emotionless when he saw her face, her puffy, bloodshot eyes and swollen lips the only indicator that she was upset. She didn’t even react to Harry tugging her head out from where it had been buried in the covers, simply rolling onto her back to stare idly at the ceiling.

“Y/N,” he called for her again, this time much more stern, “You’ve got to talk t’ me.”

She took several deep breaths through her nose, allowing her lungs to fill to their maximum capacity before exhaling with a sigh. Harry could have sworn she was sucking all of the oxygen out of the room along with his patience each time she did so.

After what felt like ages, she parted her lips to speak.

“I went to the doctor today.”

“Yeah? For the six-month check up, right?” Harry asked, not seeing why that was important but his mind quickly went to the worst scenario possible despite having just seen his daughter sleeping peacefully in her crib.

“‘S she alright?” his voice now demanding urgency in the delivery of her response.

“She’s fine,” she quickly dismissed him, internally kicking herself for making Harry worry.

“I was telling Lisa about how sick I’ve been lately and she -,” Y/N gulped and rubbed her knuckles against her tired eyes, bracing herself for whatever events unfolded after she said what she was about to say.

“She, umm. She made me take a pregnancy test.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to be speechless. He stared at her with furrowed brows and his mouth slightly agape. His palms suddenly felt clammy against the white sheets that they rested on and his stomach felt like it had turned in on itself from how badly it was churning. Of all of the things he had expected to be wrong with her, this was certainly the last on the list.

“And?” he asked after a solid sixty seconds of staring at her and saying absolutely nothing, though he already knew the answer.

“Ten weeks.”

Silent tears now spilled over her eyes and down past her temples. She couldn’t even be bothered to wipe them, instead letting them dampen a small patch of hair on either side of her head. Pregnancies weren’t supposed to be sad, but somehow, she had barely been able to stop crying since she left the pediatrician’s office.

“How,” Harry whispered, moreso to himself than to her.

“I think you know how babies are made, H,” Y/N quipped.

“‘S not what I meant,” Harry fired back just as quickly, “It’s just...She’s still so little.”

He thought of his daughter asleep in the next room. She was the most perfect thing he’s ever seen and on the day that she was born, he knew he wanted nothing more than to fill his and Y/N’s house with as many curly-headed babies as he could fit beds in each room. He just hadn’t expected that his only child’s first birthday present was going to be the gift of being a big sister.

It was all too sudden.

“I just don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner. I mean,” Y/N raised her arms above her head before huffing and letting them fall to her sides, “I guess I was just so caught up with the baby that I hadn’t even had a second to think about what’s going on with me. It’s like I don’t even matter anymore and I-”

“Hey, hey now. None of tha’,” Harry shushed her and curled up next to her frame as she began to sob.

He tucked her head into his neck, hugging her shoulders tightly as if he was trying to hold the pieces of her together before she shattered. His mind was running a mile per minute. It killed him to see her like this, killed him to be in this situation. The last time they had found out this news, there were happy tears - tears of joy and celebration and relief after having tried for what felt like years. Never had he imagined that the next time they were presented with the very same news, that there would be tears of sadness.

Her voice was muffled against his now wrinkled blouse, but he could still make out what she was saying beneath her blubbers.

“I can’t do this.”

“Wha’ do yeh mean, pretty? Of course yeh can. I’ll move some things around and we’ll make it work. We’ll be alright,” he ran his hand up and down her back in attempt to soothe her.

“That’s the problem, Harry.”

He lifted his chin from here it was resting on the top of her head to look down at her.

“What?”

“You have to move everything around. You’ve already been gone for almost two years. This sets you back at least another. You can’t keep pushing shit back.”

“Erm,” Harry paused to break away from her and sit up straight against the headboard, “Yes I can? I couldn’t care less about tour...Did yeh think I was gonna leave yeh here on your own with a fuckin’ newborn?”

“No. I didn’t think you were just going to leave,” she almost sounded annoyed, which didn’t sit quite right with Harry.

“But do you see what’s happening? Everything is fucked.”

His voice wasn’t so calm anymore.

“No, Y/N. I honestly don’t. I mean I know this is all happening much earlier than we expected, but what else is there t’ do? Tour can wait.”

“People are counting on you, Harry. Millions of them. We’re not the only ones that matter in this situation.”

“Will you please tell me what yeh gettin’ at, because I’m starting t’ get upset.”

Harry’s lips were pressed in a thin, straight line and his nostrils flared with every breath. Why was she being like this?

“I don’t know what I’m fucking getting at. I’m just overwhelmed."

“And yeh think I’m not? ‘M tryin’ my best to keep it together for your sake if yeh haven’t noticed,” it almost condescending how the words rolled off his tongue.

“Oh, excuse me,” Y/N laughed sarcastically.

“Didn’t realize you were the one carrying our fucking child. Didn’t realize you’re the one that has to grow all big and gross and swollen and be in pain every fucking day to the point where walking to the bathroom feels like a fucking marathon. Didn’t realize you’re the one that has to push a football-sized human out of your vagina and just lay there while a doctor you’ve never seen before stitches you up because it literally tore your insides. Didn’t realize you-”

“For fuck’s sake, I get it!” Harry was yelling now.

“It’s not the same and I’m sorry for suggesting tha’ it was. ‘M not sure what it is that yeh want me t’ say though. I’m sorry? ‘S that it? Sorry for gettin’ yeh pregnant? Sorry for havin’ a job that were well fuckin’ aware of when yeh met me? Sorry that I do everything I possibly can to keep you and the baby and everyone else on the fuckin’ planet happy?”

“You’re being an asshole, Harry,” she was just as angry as he was, scowl evident on her face even in their dimly lit bedroom.

“And you’re not makin’ any fuckin’ sense! Are yeh tellin’ me yeh don’t want t’ keep it? ‘Cos I never fuckin’ said that yeh have to.”

The thought had crossed her mind on the drive home from the doctor’s office, but the feeling left as quickly as it approached. She’d taken one look at her daughter in her car seat through the rear view mirror happily sucking on her teether and knew without a doubt that she couldn’t.

She felt a tidal wave of fresh, salty tears peaking and about to crash over her.

“I don’t want - fuck,” she put her head in her hands.

“I just-,” and then she broke.

Sobs wracked her body, making her shoulders shake up and down. She wasn’t even sure how she had any more left to get out, but it just kept coming. Over and over and over again until it felt like she was being suffocated and that no one was going to save her. She felt Harry’s hands move to rest on her shoulder blades and heard gentle, cooing-like sounds coming out of his mouth, but she couldn’t make out what he had said over the sounds of her own wailing.

“Baby, it’s okay. Just breathe f’ me. It’s alri-”

His attempt at subduing her was cut short by shrill cries coming from the digital monitor that sat on their nightstand. Harry peeked over his shoulder at the screen, seeing that their daughter had woken from her nap and was now demanding the attention of her parents. He couldn’t help but wince as he watched her socked feet flail around in the crib; it was without a doubt that the screaming match they’d just encountered had stirred her from her sleep, and that hurt him just as much as it did to see his wife crying right in front of him.

Y/N heard it too, somehow. Perhaps it was because she’d been trained to react to every minute sound that she made and could recognize her cries from a mile away in the paralyzing fear that something was wrong with her or maybe it was because she looking for any and every excuse to get Harry’s hands off of her so she could get away from him and escape the argument they’d just had without making the situation any worse than it already was. Regardless, she turned her own neck to peer at the monitor and sighed heavily.

“I’ll go, Y/N. Just stay here.”

“No. I got it. It’s after seven. She’s probably hungry.”

She shrugged Harry’s hands away from her shoulders like his touch physically pained her and climbed over his body and off the bed without another word, not even giving Harry the chance to take her hand and help her over the edge of the mattress. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere but down the hall and into the nursery, but he couldn’t help but feel like she was walking away from everything.

Y/N stared her daughter while she nursed. She started from the top of her head that was riddled with chocolate brown curls and worked her way down to the tips of her toes that would occasionally flex themselves out of habit. Her hair? Undoubtedly Harry’s. Her nose? A perfect, narrow line down her face that led to a button-shaped tip akin to Harry’s. Her lips? The same almost inhuman shade of bubblegum pink as Harry’s. Surprisingly, the only physical trait she’d inherited from her mother were the color of her eyes, which was funny considering that was the one thing she’d wanted Harry to pass down to their daughter; Y/N had always hated hers.

She was content, suckling away at Y/N’s breast - her cries of hunger long forgotten. The infant hadn’t even flinched when a few more of Y/N’s silent, cold tears spilled over and left small wet spots where her onesie rested over her belly. She had no idea that her parents were upset with each other and she had no idea that in a little more than six months time, she’d be a big sister and there would be two babies fighting for their attention. Y/N was also clueless, but only as to how she was going to take care of a newborn and a one-year-old simultaneously. She’d always thought she’d have more time than this - more time to spend with just her daughter and Harry before they decided to have another, but just like her eyes, things always had a funny way of never working out in her favor.

Three soft knocks on the wall withdrew her from her thoughts and she was greeted by her husband idling in the doorway like he needed permission before entering a room in his own house. He had changed out of his dress clothes and was now clad in his favorite pair of joggers that were permanently stained with spit-up. Y/N had tried everything under the sun to get the spots out, but he’d been persistant on not throwing them out.

“Can I come in?”

His voice was barely above a whisper and much calmer than when he’d been yelling at her about twenty minutes ago. He still hesitated crossing the threshold even after Y/N had given him a skeptical nod, but allowed his bare feet to pad over the plush carpet as he joined her on the loveseat in the far corner of the nursery.

He watched their daughter just as Y/N had, taking in her tranquil state as her fingers brushed reflexively against the underside of Y/N’s breast. He’d never been able to pry his eyes away every time he watched her nurse. There were no ulterior motives behind it, nothing sexual or erotic whatsoever. It amazed him each and every time, how Y/N was able to provide their child with everything that they needed to grow with only her body. At first, Y/N hated that Harry loved sitting in on her feedings, feeling exposed and unattractive despite Harry’s continuous affirmations that it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever had the privilege of witnessing, but over time she’d grown fond of it.

“‘M sorry for yelling at yeh,” Harry started.

“It was uncalled for.”

Y/N sniffled, rubbing her swollen eyes with the back of her free hand that wasn’t supporting her daughter’s back as she held her.

“It’s okay. It was a lot to take in. I’m sorry for yelling at you too.”

She couldn’t quite look him in the eye just yet, but she was slowy but surely getting there.

“’S not okay, actually. You’re right. I’m not the one havin’ the baby. It’s you that’s got t’ do all the hard stuff. Should’ve listened to you more.”

He shifted towards her on the cushions, afraid to touch her just yet but still yearning to be closer to her.

The best Y/N could muster was a quiet, “Thank you,” before she busied herself by attempting to run her fingers through her baby’s hair and untangle the mess she’d created while she was sleeping.

“Can I hold you? Please?”

Now was when she turned to face him and she was met with eyes that were just as red-rimmed as hers. She had heard the bathroom sink running for an abnormally long amount of time and a hard, frustrated pounding against the wall shortly after she’d gone off in the nursery to feed the baby, which meant he must have been trying to muffle the sounds of his own crying when she left their bedroom.

Y/N didn’t say anything, only shifting her weight onto one side so Harry could easily lift her onto his lap in one swift movement without disturbing their daughter. He tucked her shoulder into his neck and softly kissed her skin and his hands moved to mimic hers so they were both holding the baby that was nodding off again in their arms. She found herself relaxing into his loose grip, her head tilting to the side to rest against his.

“I love you so much. Yeh know that? I know it’s difficult always having t’ think about everyone else, but you’re what’s important t’ me. I’d drop everything for you if I had to. End it all today.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she refuted, but there was no malice in her tone.

“I wouldn’t let you.”

“Well, just know that I would if yeh wanted me to. I’ve thought about it a thousand times. I want t’ be here f’ you. For her. Don’t want t’ miss anything. I finally got my shot at bein’ normal when I met you and I hate myself for even thinkin’ about going back on the road and leavin’ yeh.”

“Don’t,” Y/N paused to press a chaste kiss to Harry’s cheek.

“You’re a good person, Harry. A good dad. A good husband. Please don’t ever think that you’re not.”

She felt moisture pool in the dips of her collarbones where Harry’s chin lied, but she didn’t acknowledge it.

“I’ll be okay. Sorry if I freaked you out earlier. Think I just need some time to get used to it all. Just wasn’t expecting Lisa to drop the ball that I was pregnant when all I was expecting was for her to tell me that our kid is in the 99th percentile for weight and then send me on my way.”

This got a chuckle out of him, almost causing him to choke on his tears. He quickly rubbed the sleeves of his jumper against his eyes to dry up any remaining wet spots on his face.

“She is pretty chunky, isn’t she?” Harry jested while thumbing over his daughter’s rounded tummy.

After a moment of admiring their little chunk of a baby, with her milk-drunk eyes and puckered lips, Harry spoke again.

“Two babies,” he huffed.

“Two babies,” she repeated.

His hands moved to caress Y/N’s stomach. She clearly wasn’t showing yet considering that neither of them had even known she was pregnant up until today, but he still held her like her belly was the size of a watermelon and he was waiting anxiously to feel a hand or a foot press up against his palm.

“Might be kinda nice. They can share everything and we’ll only have t’ have one birthday party ‘cos they’ll be born around the same time. They’ll go t’ the same school and probably have the same friends. Kinda like twins.”

“Based on the fact that you’ve already picked out the outfit this one is wearing on her first birthday that’s still six months away, I highly doubt you’ll stay keen on them sharing a party.”

Harry pursed his lips and blushed, recalling the garment he’d spotted during one his fittings with Gucci that he vowed to have for his daughter.

“Guess you’re right about tha’.”

Their banter was interrupted by a grueling rumbling sound coming from Y/N’s stomach that Harry could feel throughout his entire body.

“Jesus, Y/N. You hungry too? When’s the last time you ate?”

“Uhh...this morning I think?” Y/N sighed.

“Couldn’t stomach anything when I got home.”

Harry’s heart dropped when he thought of how distraught she’d been all day while he was gone and with everything in him, he’d wished he would have postponed his meetings to go to check up with her and they could have found out together, but it’s possible that the topic might not have even come up if he had been in the room with her and the pediatrician.

“Found coconut milk at the store the other day, remember? Want me t’ make that curry for yeh?”

“Ohh, yes please,” she immediately purked up at the thought of warm spices and rice.

“Starting to wonder if curry was a craving now that I think about it. Didn’t we have it, what? Three nights in a row a while back?”

Harry giggled as he reluctantly removed Y/N from his lap and stood up from the sofa.

“Thought tha’ was a bit weird that yeh wanted it so badly, but I didn’t dwell on it too much.”

“She’s going back down. If you give me a minute, I’ll come downstairs and help you,” Y/N said, pulling up the straps of her tank top after realizing her daughter had long since forgotten about her breast and was conked out in her arms.

“‘Ve got it, mama” Harry quickly refuted.

“Take a bath or somethin’ and I’ll bring it up t’ yeh when it’s done.”

“Okay.”

Y/N couldn’t fight the grin growing on her face at the nickname Harry used that she still hadn’t gotten used to.

When she placed their daughter soundly in her crib, Y/N’s fingers stayed put from where they sat on the railing as she caught herself staring at the sleeping infant once more. Though she’d felt like her world was caving in on her just a handful of hours ago, the pieces were all coming back together now.

Of course, she wanted more children with Harry. And now she was getting what she wanted. Just like he’d told her back in the bedroom, it wasn’t ideal, but they’d make it work. They always did.

With two babies.

#harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles x pregnant!reader #dad!harry #dad!harry x reader #dad!harry x pregnant!reader #harry styles writing

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keikakudori · 2 years

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meta q: i don't know if anyone asked this before. apologies if anyone did. but i was wondering what you think about why exactly aizen sort of accepted to be locked away in muken? now mind you, i am not as educated about him as you and might be missing out on details here but it always appeared to me that despite the seals around him on that chair, he very much had the power to free himself on his own had he ever wished to do so?

if not, please educate me senpai ;w;

random asks | always accepting

alright, pain train time it is.

honestly, there’s numerous reasons as for why aizen is willing to remain in muken but the most pointed reason of all has to do with Deicide. i have talked extensively of how much Deicide has impacted aizen in terms of how he wanted to lose by the time ichigo showed up.

now, if you know me, you know i like to talk about aizen and his power because, unlike many villains, aizen never wanted his power. we get two whole pages alluding to what his motivations could have been in regards to the hogyoku and with himself and i, for one, am pretty sure that ichigo is a shit liar so i take what he said about aizen and his own loneliness as gospel myself. the line ichigo says has always stood out to me, that being: once i had enough power to be able to fight aizen as an equal, i felt nothing in his sword but 'loneliness'. if he had incredible power from the time he was born, then maybe he was searching for someone who could see things the way he did. and when he finally gave upon finding that, maybe he began to wish he could just be a 'normal' shinigami.

now, the reason why i thrive on this line so much is because aizen is not like many villains out there; if he was your stereotypical shonen villain, the man would have a body count in the hundreds, i’m sure. yes, i know what he did to make his hogyoku but that wasn’t directly himself doing such things; aizen entrusted underlings to do that. and aizen has only two on-screen deaths attributed directly to him in the entire series; he didn’t even strike the final blow on yhwach. his hands are not clean, but neither is he a man to casually dispose of others without thinking it through either. those onscreen deaths? kaname and gin. kaname, as we know from CFYOW, asked aizen to kill him. that is, truthfully, a whole fucking bag of worms i need to unpack at some point because boy. it’s -- it’s a hell of a thing to ask someone you know is capable of killing you. but equally, aizen promised kaname that he would -- and he did. aizen respected kaname enough to fulfill that wish and desire of his. that’s a hell of a thing to think about.

gin? ... aizen never wanted gin dead. yes, he says he took him along that day, saying he knew that gin would try to kill him, but there’s nothing in him that says that he wanted gin dead. and two years later, in the blood war, we see that aizen does not want to leave Muken. shunsui had to force him to leave in order to get aizen to help, but there were other factors in play; aizen would have been content to leave seireitei to burn, i feel - but he did have some kind of tie or draw still to the place he once served. that - or yhwach really offended him. i think it’s a combination of all of them.

but Deicide is something that i could probably break down into several interconnected meta; there’s so much to unpack from it and i take great delight in trying to puzzle things out with it. someone on twitter said once that kubo is a shallow, static writer. he doesn’t worldbuild extensively and his lore is slapdash, but by and large things more or less remain constant.

except.

except that he deliberately displayed to us that aizen has become withdrawn. aizen does not exhibit behaviors that he used to in regards to the events prior to the blood war. he shows flashes of them, moments of that old pride and arrogance, but aizen does not behave the way he did prior to Deicide. and part of that is shown in that he exhibits to shunsui that he can undo those seals. he can leave Muken any time he damn well pleases. but he doesn’t. in a way, aizen is deliberately going along with the punishment involved with keeping him locked away in Muken because he wants to be there. the biggest factor in why his behavior has changed is gone. gin is no longer there and without gin there to provide his sly comments and more ... well, aizen just chooses to stay. why, though? i mean, even in CFYOW ( as loosely canon as that is; i have taken select things from it and that’s all ) when they’re cleaning up from the blood war, aizen doesn’t protest in being put back into Muken which is very strange to me.

he’s sullen and withdrawn in the behavior he shows. he doesn’t bother trying to interact with others. aizen doesn’t even try to keep up that arrogant self he used to be. one of the biggest points of proof is one of my favorite displays:

aizen doesn’t even try to refute what yhwach says here about his own anguish. aizen is a practical man; like kisuke, he plans dozens, if not hundreds of steps ahead of what others do and it is very rare for him not to be able to read someone and thusly come up with a dozen ways to counteract them. only one person has been able to successfully lie to aizen’s face and yhwach is not that person. that person was killed by aizen when he never planned on it.

aizen is in Muken because he wants to be in Muken. aizen lost to ichigo because he wanted to lose. he wants to be there in Muken because he killed gin and i feel like that’s something which didn’t hit him until even after his trial. you have to remember, too, that aizen is a man who very much is skilled at concealing himself and his emotions but in the blood war, it’s like he doesn’t even try. we see him expressing dissociative behavior. he has little interest in what’s going on. he doesn’t pursue things such as telling shunsui to free him from more of those seals. for that matter, aizen is willingly letting himself remain sealed when we have proof that he can undo them. yes, he has the power to undo those seals. yes, he can get out of that chair and leave whenever he wishes. and for that matter, given the new Hell arc that’s incoming, it seems aizen has finally decided to leave Muken. aizen could have freed himself from the chair and his bonds before the point here with yhwach. he showed it with shunsui when shunsui came down to try wrangling him into going along with the plan.

there’s a lot to be said about aizen and Muken and why he’s staying down there and it boils down to, essentially, his being in there because he wants to be. he’s there because he has nothing else to him now. he killed kaname because kaname asked it of him. he ( or rather, the hogyoku wearing his face and his hands ) killed gin. did some part of him want gin dead? maybe in the heat of the moment. maybe in the aching pain of betrayal and perhaps heartbreak. maybe not. i don’t think aizen ever planned to kill gin. like i absolutely do not think that was something he had expected or anticipated. like, aizen’s smart enough to know there will be things he doesn’t plan for happening. but i don’t think he ever anticipated that.

staying in Muken is, in a way, his attempt at penance, perhaps. that -- or he just has lost so much. he wanted to throw his power away and he failed. his time in Muken has not weakened aizen. he is, in fact, stronger than he was on the day of Deicide. we see repeated proof of this, but he doesn’t take any joy in it. if anything, aizen seems more frustrated from his inability to help than anything else. and i imagine that if he had truly tried to make a point, he could have overridden whatever mayuri was using on him with ease. but he never did.

it’s a whole complicated mess and this is not anywhere near coherent enough to try conveying it all.

#hisdaddy #meta tag;#tl;dr? aizen's in muken because he's depresso espresso and he wants to McDie #too bad for him #he's immortal now and he hates it and he hates the hogyoku too

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fairlyspnfanfic · 3 years

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The Ties that Bind Us

Summary: When your past comes back to haunt you, who will prevail? Hunting had been your life since your were 4 years old. The monsters that started you on that path were resurfacing, and you knew what you had to do. But nothing is ever truly secret, and nothing is ever that cut and dry with the Winchester’s in tow.

A/N: This is a new one that is coming from a few requests. I’m not going to post the actual requests because...well because it would spoil the story line and I’m pretty into this one.

Words: 2826

Tags: Angst, Fluff, nightmares, all the fun stuff.

I wrang my hands together nervously. They were all sweat; clammy and cold while simultaneously uncomfortably hot. My breathing was deceptively calm, though every other part of me shook as my anxiety climbed. I closed my eyes, pushing my hands down on the mattress on either side of me and took a deep steadying breath. Talking myself into pushing my body into a standing position, I opened my eyes and left my room, consciously putting one foot in front of the other.

“Guys?” My voice rang out in the echoey halls, shaking and hoarse. I cleared my throat and ran my hands through my hair as I continued making my way into the main room. There they were. Dean, his feet kicked up on the table, a large, brown dusty book sprawled on his lap and a beer firmly clasped in his hand as he focused on the words on the page. Sam, pacing back and forth silently behind him.

It had been weeks since we had found a job. The last actual gig we had been on was pretty small-fry. A pair of ghouls wreaking havoc in a college town that we had taken care of in less than a weekend. The local fraternity parties didn’t even notice, and the drunken sorority girls went on with their lives none the wiser.

But this? This job was going to be huge. If not in scale, then in emotion alone. Not for the boys. They wouldn’t have any clue; I’d make sure of that. The pack had been on the prowl for decades, maybe longer. Long enough to have destroyed my life, killed my family, and upend everything I knew to be true when I was only four years old. And now they were back. I rubbed the sweat from my palms that would have given me away on the back of my jeans, before grabbing the chair opposite from Dean. The wheels moved faster than I expected as it began to roll behind me. I lowered myself quickly into the seat, as if the mishap was entirely intentional, but the smirk at the corner of Dean’s smile let me know my attempt had failed.

I hated the chairs in the map room. The side armrests dug into my hips and I was never quite comfortable in them. But who was I to question generations of decorum? I crossed my legs as eloquently as I could, adjusting so that I was practically sitting on one hip in order to keep the bars from digging into them.

The laptop Sam had out on the table was still booted up. I reached out, grabbing it and quickly pulled up the article that I had found this morning. “Woman’s Body Found Mangled in Historic District.” I spun the screen around, allowing Dean to see. He skimmed through it quickly before sneering. “Doesn’t really scream monster there, Y/N.” I rolled my eyes, returning control of the computer to myself and pulled up three more articles, all within the last two months. “Teen Killed in Apparent Pit Bull Attack,” followed by “Couple Maimed in Forrest Preserve” and “Missing Child Found Had Been Attacked by Unidentified Animal.” I pushed the screen over to Dean again.

“Well, maybe that does merit a look-see.” His tune changed. Whenever there was a lapse between jobs, Dean would get antsy. His temperament changed, he was jumpy, and nothing could make him happier than a new destination and a big bad to gank.

“What’s that?” Sam said as he practically skipped up to the table like an excited puppy.

“Get this,” I began before Dean cut me off.

“Y/N,” he chastised. “That’s Sam’s line.” He winked at me as a smile spread widely across his face. That smile. The one that could bring world peace as far as I was concerned. At the very least, it made my knees weak, breath hitch, and I lost all train of thought.

I quickly pulled myself back together and pushed my daydreaming mind back to the task at hand. Dean pushed the laptop over to Sam, allowing him to read through them quickly. “So, what are we thinking, Werewolves? Hellhounds?”

“Werewolves,” I said definitively. My face was deadpan, and it didn’t seem to go unnoticed. “Look at the descriptions. There’s something they aren’t saying. The bodies were all attacked at night, and each one was during the full moon. Plus, the missing kid? He was 8. That’s not enough time for any demon deal to go down and a Hellhound to get involved. No, it’s a werewolf. No doubt in my mind.” I was all seriousness and they knew it. Sam simply nodded, his eyebrows creased suspiciously, but he didn’t question me.

“Well then,” Dean said, clapping his hands together as he all but jumped to his feet. “Let’s get on the road. It’s a little over seven hours to Missouri. You’ve got fifteen minutes to get ready.” He was like a kid at Christmas as he bounced down the hallway to his room.

“Only guy in the world to get the warm and fuzzies from a bunch of dead bodies,” I laughed, shaking my head, closing the laptop, and uncrossing my legs. I stood up slowly and stretched my arms above my head.

Sam didn’t take his probing eyes off me as he crossed his arms. “Y/N?”

“Yes, Samuel?” I mocked him in response.

“What aren’t you telling us?”

I did my best version of shock and outrage, looking around as if I wasn’t quite sure what he was alluding to. “What?”

“You’ve never been so adamant about a job before. Hell, you’re usually the one trying to talk us out of taking jobs. What gives?” I rolled my eyes as dramatically as I could.

“Nothing. It just seems like a pretty clear gig to me. And if bodies are dropping every month, and more bodies each time?” I shook my head. “Then the next ones are on us.” I locked eyes with the younger Winchester, attempting to convey my point with a look.

His expression still seemed doubtful, but he nodded his head and walked towards his room, patting my shoulder as he passed by me. “Whatever you say, kid.”

Half an hour later, we were all piled into the Impala. Dean driving, Sam riding shotgun, and I lounged across the backseat, scouring the news for any updates. The next full moon wouldn’t be for another week, but I wasn’t willing to allow anything to be missed. Not when I could stop it.

A couple of hours later, my eyes began to droop, and my cell phone slipped from my hand, crashing to the floor between my feet. But my exhaustion won out over my need to secure the phone.

I looked down at my hands. They were sticky and coated with a thick layer of blood. I had no idea if it was mine or someone else’s, but the terror that rose in my chest didn’t care. All around me, the only sounds I could hear were the violent gnashing of teeth, the moist squelching of flesh being torn from bone, and the small, muted whimpers from someone that I had yet to lay my eyes on. I looked around but everything around me was coated in darkness. Only my hands were visible in a dim red light that seemed to come from nowhere. I took a step forward, feeling my foot slip as the wet floor beneath me was coated in that same tacky liquid that was all over my hands. Looking in front of me, I came eye to eye with a single pair of vibrant yellow orbs that seemed to stop me in my tracks. Paralyzed with fear, I froze, unwilling and wholly unable to continue forward. A low grumble began emanating from those same eyes as they moved closer to me. The grumble turned quickly to a growl; vicious and hungry with a deep, bone chilling timbre. Suddenly, the eyes were directly in front of me, inches from my face. So close that I could feel the hot, rank breath on my cheek before a loud, piercing snarl rang in my ear.

My eyes snapped open and the sweat running down my neck sent a chill down my spine. My sharp inhale was the only sound made and I did my best to calm down before making any further noise. My nightmares had always been the same and had always been my own. Nobody had ever found out about them, especially the boys, and I fully intended to keep it that way.

Stretching my arms to my sides as best as I could, I made a dramatic show of waking. “Where are we?” I asked.

Glancing to the front seat I could see Sam slumped against the window, his head tilted back, mouth open, and very much asleep. Dean was still in the driver’s seat, bobbing his head and mouthing along with Steven Tyler as he belted out the lyrics to “Dream On.” His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, giving me that same world-peace smile that only he seemed to know how.

“About 100 miles outside St. Charles. I’ve gotta stop for gas though. You hungry?” I nodded back to him as I rubbed my eyes, clearing out the sandy bit of sleep that had formed in the corners.

“Do you need to change out? I can drive the last of the way.” I offered, knowing he’d never go for it. He never had before.

“I’m good. Got a solid three hours of shut eye last night.” He winked at me in the mirror. Pushing down the butterflies in my stomach and doing my best to suppress the blush that I was sure was creeping to my cheeks, I looked out the window. The sun had just come down, creating an orange sky with just a hint of pink. I took a deep breath and turned back to facing the driver.

Dean pulled off onto an exit ramp and turned into a QT Gas Station. “What are you in the mood for?” he asked me. I shrugged.

“Surprise me.” The glint in his eye and the devilish smile that he gave me in return elicited an exaggerated eye roll from me. “Just go get some road food.” I waved him away. “I’ll pump.” I opened my door as quietly as I could and stepped around to the gas pump. I twisted the gas cap, put my card in the machine, or rather Stacey Abrams’ card, and began filling the tank.

I watched Dean walk up and into the convenience store, his bowed legs taking long strides as he did so. He grabbed the door and held it open, making a big show as he gestured for the woman coming out the door to pass before him. The leggy blonde walked by, tucking her perfectly silky hair behind her perfect ears as her perfectly perky tits bounced their way out of the shop. I watched as Dean’s eyes followed her out, obviously and lustily eyeing her up and down, appreciating the view.

The sharp stab to my chest wasn’t new. The jealousy mixed with disappointment happened pretty frequently after all. But each time felt like ripping off a band aid before the wound had begun to heal.

The gas pump stopped, the telling “clunk” of the machinery drawing my attention back to my task. I tapped the spout on the edge of the tank before fully withdrawing it and hanging it back up on the pump. I ripped the receipt off quickly, shoving it into my back pocket as I walked back around the car and settled into my seat again.

“You know, you could always just tell him.” Sam’s voice rang out, surprising me, from the front seat.

“Shit, Sam.” I said. “I thought you were asleep!”

“I’m serious, Y/N. Tell him.” He had turned around now, staring me dead in the face as if we were locked in a staring contest that I hadn’t agreed to participate in.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said a bit too defensively.

“Right.” He rolled his eyes at me. “You do realize I know every tell you have, right?”

I shook my head at him, chuckling. “Samuel, I think you must still be dreaming.”

“Like that.” He pointed at me. “You’re biting your cheek. You only do that when you’re lying. Next, you’ll be pulling on your ear lobe, just like that.” He accused me as I did just as he said.

“No, I’m not.” He glared at me in response. “Shut up.” I bit at him, jokingly, sticking my tongue out at him as I crossed my arms.

Dean opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Dude,” he said excitedly, holding up a white paper bag. “Taquitos!”

A little over 100 miles later, we were pulling into the local motel. Sam had gone to check us in while Dean and I grabbed the bags from the trunk.

“Peartree Inn?” I said, dejectedly. Dean looked at me, a curious expression on his face. “Just once, it would be so nice to stay at a 5-star hotel. Hell, I’d settle for 4 stars if it meant a comfy bed that didn’t have my back aching in the morning and a hot tub to soak in at night.” I closed my eyes and sighed, dreaming.

“I’ll be sure to get you a hot tub at the next place we stay in. Long as I can join you,” he said, cocking his head towards me with a smile. I rolled my eyes and playfully shoved his shoulder.

“Hey,” Sam said, running up to us both. “So, they only have rooms with two beds max. No roll-away’s or cots. But I got us two rooms. Best I could do.” He handed a card key to each of us. A small sticky note was attached to each. “Dean, we’re in 213. Y/N, you’re in 436.” I nodded my head, handed Sam his bag and headed inside.

The front desk clerk waved at me as I went in and pointed towards the elevators. Thanking her, I walked over and pushed the call button. The doors opened instantly, and I stepped in without waiting for Sam and Dean to catch up. Once I dropped off my bags and went to the bathroom, I planned on heading to their room anyway to go over our plan.

But just after I’d used the restroom and rinsed my face, there was a solid knock at the door. “Gimme a second,” I shouted as I grabbed a hand towel and dried my face off. The peephole on the door was small with a silver dongle covering it up until you swung it to the side. I checked to see who it was before unlatching the deadbolt and opening the door.

“Bad news, Y/N.” Dean said as he walked in, making himself comfortable on my King size bed. He was lounging back, his head resting on a combination of my pillows and his own hand as his legs sprawled out in front of him. “No hot tubs in the whole joint.” I laughed at him, throwing my hand towel into the bathroom.

“So, where’s Sam? I figured we needed to get our plan of attack sorted.”

“Oh,” Dean said, straightening up a bit. “He’s down in our room. We didn’t get the fancy penthouse view you did.” My eyes wandered over to the balcony and the sliding doors that lead out to it. I pointed to it and tilted my head, silently asking if he’d like to join me outside. He all but leapt out of bed and over to the door, yanking it open. The track was rusted and in desperate need of some WD-40, but he was able to grant us egress.

We walked onto the balcony and looked down. The penthouse view as Dean called it wasn’t the greatest. A moderately busy highway for as late at night on a weeknight as it was, and some unkempt trees just barely allowed us to see the airport beyond it. But the fresh air and the sounds of the cars rushing by was a tonic to the anxiety that had been eating at me all day.

I leaned on the railing, my hands clasped together, as I inhaled the fresh air and felt my hair blowing ever so slightly in the wind. I could feel Dean walk up and join me. “Feels pretty nice out here,” he said softly.

I smiled. “Yeah, it does.” I opened my eyes and looked down again, remembering the reason we were here. As peaceful as it felt right now, there were monsters just down the road. The very monsters from my nightmares. And no matter how terrified it left me, I wouldn’t be leaving before I drove a silver bullet through each of their hearts.

To Be Continued......Part Two

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zenonaa · 3 years

Text

'The conglomerate taught him a dozen languages and how to play as many instruments. They trained him to operate multiple types of aircrafts, earn billions of dollars and not bat an eyelid as a rival company begged for mercy... However, when it came to developing feelings, that was treated in the same way as stabbing a fork into a plug socket, or offering to wash the dishes instead of letting the servants attend to them. It was common sense not to do those things.'

Fandom: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya Characters: Fukawa Touko, Togami Byakuya, Naegi Makoto Additional Tags: Togafuka Week Summary: Togami tries to prepare himself for his reunion with Fukawa.

Comments: Day 3 for TogaFuka Week! Fantasy/Kiss.

💗 Please like, share and comment if you enjoyed it! 💗

***

As the helicopter soars above the city, Byakuya visualises skyscrapers reaching toward the sky as if wanting to claim the blue expanse for itself, like that’s its God-given right. The buildings wouldn’t look out of place in a boss battle in a light gun video game. Makoto once compared them to the final level in an old zombie shooter that he played a few times at his local arcade.

Byakuya imagines the futuristic city, teeming with electricity and life, but the image lingers only for a couple of seconds before rusting, wilting, collapsing. In reality, Towa City is an industrial wasteland. Its railroad halo dips and splinters throughout, as if made from thorns, and the ghost of a bullet train explodes into dust that rains down on the city. Buildings have been amputated, leaving only stumps if nothing at all. Squinting, he discerns a car park that is now a graveyard, with graves instead of cars.

They land the helicopter in the concrete clearing behind a rundown hotel, the loud wailing of the rotorcraft’s blades slowing into pops before falling silent. No red carpet awaits them. A staircase unfolds from the helicopter’s doorway to the scarred ground. The sky is a red lipstick stain that fades into purple like a bruise.

And a short distance away from Byakuya stands Touko Fukawa.

Touko bounds toward him. “Byakuya-sama!”

Yes, he thinks, she would still call him that. Her wild mane of aubergine hair writhes with every step. Meanwhile, he glides over. His feet make no sound.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she says, stopping in front of him. She breathes in, filling her lungs with air. He brings a finger to her lips.

“Let me speak first.” Byakuya can feel her lips vibrate as words bubble in her mouth. After he lifts his finger off, her mouth hangs ajar but she stays quiet. Now it’s his turn to inhale deeply. “We have been on quite a journey. Before we met, I held the weight of the conglomerate and all the pressures involved, while you...”

The light against her lenses flashes warningly as her brow dips into a furrow.

“... had, and still have, your own,” he finishes. His teeth scrape against his lips. “When I entrusted you with Towa City, do you remember what I said?”

“No matter the distance, I will not feel a thing,” she recites.

“That’s right. You must understand that my creation was a business investment.” He swishes a hand through the air, maintaining eye contact. “Romance goes against my existence. At that time, though I had started opening up to the idea of relying on others, and letting others rely on me... I was not interested in... in romance.”

Her silence provides a clear sky that his voice fills with grey clouds. He coughs into his knuckles.

“Part of me rejected the idea of romance... And yet, to my surprise, during our time apart, where we could only speak in video calls, my heart grew fonder for you.”

Touko’s puzzled squint blooms into a wide-eyed stare. Its intensity burns his cheeks. Still, she doesn’t say a word. What if after she had drawn close enough, without the gleam on the computer screen on his face, she realised he is as cold as a monitor? Is that what is happening now? Aoi sometimes remarked that Touko was too good for him, and when Aoi became annoyed enough with something he did or said, she would add that Touko deserved better.

He used to never doubt himself, but for the first time in his life, he wonders if he is good enough.

It feels like he has taken his first step somewhere damp and mouldy, where the floorboards could give way at any moment. Without moving, his stomach drops as if he’s already falling. Byakuya’s tongue squirms in his mouth, as if trying to reverse the words that it already unleashed, but he can’t take them back.

Instead of trying to articulate his feelings, he decides to demonstrate them to her. He grabs her waist. Her head jolts back in surprise and a moment later, their lips bump together. For several long seconds, they stand stiffly, Byakuya’s hands on her body, Touko’s hands cupping air, until he needs to peel himself away to breathe.

She gazes at him, brow wrinkled, not smiling. Then she opens her mouth and asks, “Are you okay, Togami-kun?”

The voice does not belong to her. Byakuya blinks, fracturing the concrete, the sky, her body, revealing his true surroundings. Opposite him sits Makoto, the two of them seated in a helicopter.

“You zoned out there for a good few minutes,” says Makoto.

Byakuya responds with a grimace.

To bat away the encroaching silence, Makoto chirps, “I can’t believe in an hour, we’ll finally be reunited with Komaru and Fukawa-san.”

In response, Byakuya gives a solitary hum. Makoto’s smile wanes.

“Are you motion sick?” he asks Byakuya.

“No,” Byakuya says more harshly than intended, the syllable cracking the still air like a whip and making Makoto tense. He flattens his tone and adds, “I’m in thought. That’s all.”

“About the reunion?”

Byakuya nods.

“It’ll be fine,” Makoto assures him with conviction that puts Byakuya on the defensive.

“What am I supposed to say to her?”

‘Her’ being Touko, of course. The conglomerate taught him a dozen languages and how to play as many instruments. They trained him to operate multiple types of aircrafts, earn billions of dollars and not bat an eyelid as a rival company begged for mercy. With the matter of future heirs, they instructed him on what to look out for on female applicants’ forms while choosing potential mothers. However, when it came to developing feelings, that was treated in the same way as stabbing a fork into a plug socket, or offering to wash the dishes instead of letting the servants attend to them. It was common sense not to do those things.

And yet here Byakuya was, spending the journey to Towa City mentally rehearsing how he was going to confess to a woman who had gained the power to make his heart swell too big for his chest. The conglomerate could not have prepared him for such a woman. Such an intelligent woman. Such an empathetic woman. Such a loyal woman.

Most of all, a woman who drew strength from what the conglomerate called weakness. Love.

“I mean... you can say hello?” suggests Makoto.

Byakuya’s steely gaze clenches Makoto. “Then what?”

“Like... ‘How are you?’”

“I can’t treat this like a regular meeting, as if we had only last seen each other at the end of work the previous day,” says Byakuya.

“Why not?”

“This one is different.”

As Makoto’s eyes flicker, he drinks in the tension in Byakuya’s shoulders, the tightness in his fists, and says, “Ah. I see.”

Though Makoto must have known for some time now. He and the others had started alluding to Byakuya’s feelings for Touko before Byakuya was even in denial about them, back when Byakuya didn’t know what he was experiencing, or what was making his stomach flutter.

Evening has dyed the sky orange, darkness creeping in at the edges. Byakuya stares at it through the window. His unsmiling reflection leaves a faint imprint on the glass. Silence swirls around them, hanging over their heads like the rotating blades of the helicopter.

“Are you going to tell her?” asks Makoto, and he doesn’t need to elaborate.

“I should,” Byakuya replies.

“You can try a pick-up line.” Without having to look at him, Byakuya can hear the grin seeping into Makoto’s tone. “For example... Do you like raisins? How would you feel about a date?”

Byakuya’s reflection glares as Makoto carries on.

“If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put ‘U’ and ‘I’ together. Or - ”

“That’s enough,” Byakuya says with a shudder, raising a hand. “I aim for my demeanour to be calm and composed. I do not intend to act like a fool, throwing out hackneyed lines.”

“Sorry, sorry. But if you don’t mind me saying, you’re overthinking it, Togami-kun.”

This earns Makoto a look from Byakuya. The curve of Makoto’s lips is slimmer now, but still holding on.

“In these sorts of situations, it’s best not to use your brain...” Makoto taps himself on the head. “... but to follow your heart.” His hand shifts to his heart and pats there next.

Byakuya tightens his lips and returns his gaze to the window.

“Easy for you to say,” he mutters.

The helicopter lands by the hotel that Touko and Komaru have been living in. If not for the lit windows and neon sign, the dark column would have blended in with the night. Steel bars cage the building, mostly unbent. Byakuya’s attention fixes longest on the sign that flashes ‘TOWA HOTEL’, ‘TOWA HOTEL’, pulsing like his heartbeat, reminding him over and over where he is.

He balls his sweaty hands into fists. He can do this. ‘Follow your heart,’ Makoto had said, and his heart has been caged for so long. It’s time that he freed it.

As in his imagined scenarios, Touko runs over, her arms spread as if about to take. Byakuya tenses, for a moment thinking that he has to catch her before she flies away again.

Fortunately, she stops in front of him, her feet rooted to the ground. “Byakuya-sama!”

Byakuya swears he feels the spray of her spit, but it might just be his sweat. Makoto digs him gently in the ribs, quirks his lips, then walks toward Komaru. At no point does Touko’s eyes stray from Byakuya, who lifts his chin and adjusts his tie. Low laughter simmers in Touko’s mouth.

“I can finally smell you...” She hugs herself. “It has been so long.”

In the past, he would have told her to shut up after saying something like that, but that doesn’t seem appropriate now. Such a comment used to come across as vulgar, and maybe it still does, slightly, but he has grown accustomed to the vines that her existence has curled around him. His tongue feels thick in his mouth as he tries to think of a response.

“Well, I can smell you,” he says.

This prompts Touko to shrink back and worry her lip with her teeth. “D-Do I...? I showered earlier today. Argh, did Komaru swap my shampoo for dog p-?”

Touko cuts herself off with a groan and shakes her head. Byakuya reaches a hand toward her.

“I mean you smell good.” He immediately cringes. Good. He said, ‘good.’ Her brow creases, whether it be from confusion or from hearing such a lame adjective, and he adds quickly, “You smell like...”

Byakuya breathes in but finds himself unable to smell her, so he leans toward her so he can. She gasps. He straightens sharply.

Time ticks as Byakuya mentally flips through the scripts he had rehearsed on the helicopter.

“Romance goes against my existence,” he says.

No, wait. He hadn’t meant to say it like that.

“Went against,” he clarifies. “Remember when I said ‘No matter the distance, I will not feel a thing’?”

Touko nods slowly, frowning. His head fills with steam, rendering it practically useless, which leaves him one other organ to depend on. His heart.

“Do you like raisins?” he says. “I’d put ‘U’ and ‘I’ together.”

Her troubled expression gives way to concern. “Byakuya-sama...?”

Byakuya lets out a frustrated groan and slaps himself on the forehead. “What I want to say is...”

She springs onto tiptoe and pecks his lips.

In that moment of contact, time stops. No more than a second could have passed, but by the time she returns her heels to the ground, he feels like he has been flung up into the sky before crashing back down again, his head spinning.

While he stands frozen, she wraps her arms around him.

“I understand,” she says muffled into his chest.

He hesitates, then hugs her back, and presses his lips against the top of her head. She smells like strawberries.

#togafuka #togafukaweek #touko fukawa #byakuya togami #danganronpa #dr3 #fanfiction #one shot #makoto naegi

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angelicmichael · 3 years

Note

hi! could i request some dad!jim finding out you’re pregnant (but it’s very unplanned and you both are like very young adults who are definitely not ready for something like this) but he’s very excited nonetheless? thanks! <333

A/N: hello!! Thank u for requesting this 🥺💖 hope u like it!! I tried to make it pretty fluffy but ofc theres a little angst hehe. This is basically already a given but just in case - Jim is 18+ in this.

Warnings: angst revolving around being pregnant and just.. general mentions of everything that has to do w being pregnant LOL, bit of Jim being insecure for 2 like seconds, lots of fluff

As much as you would like to claim that it was a typical Friday night; to your absolute dismay you found it was proving to be quite the opposite. Instead of enjoying the night and going out with your boyfriend like you had previously planned to do - you were curled up on your bed.. in tears.

You told yourself earlier today that by now you would've pulled your shit together; atleast enough to go see Jim at the bowling alley like you had planned but.. of course, that didn't happen. Things never seemed to go according to plan as of lately.

You currently stayed buried under far too many blankets on your bed.. not bothering to watch TV or go on your phone (going on your phone would only force you to see all of the missed messages and calls you had gotten from Jim) so - you settled on listening to the stormy weather outside your window instead. Rain battering against your glass window helped distract you from your current unwanted, rational thoughts but.. it was soothing and distracting atleast. It helped you take your mind off of the problem you were currently dealing with.. which, had to do with your current state of being.

The past couple of days you had felt odd.. to say the least. At first you merely thought you were coming down with the flu; you had all of the symptoms. Like nausea, aches and pains.. but there was also some inconsistencies that started to make you question whether it was really the flu, because you didnt have a high temperature.. And thats when you conveniently missed your period.

You knew you didn't have the fucking flu.

A pregnancy test sat on your nightstand; the box it came in was discarded on the floor amongst other.. various trash. You had taken the test hours ago; and you were right about your suspicions of your illness not being the flu. The two pink lines on the pregnancy test confirmed your previous thoughts.. and that's what prompted your episode of you staying in your bed all day.

Your first instinct was to call Jim but.. you knew you couldn't do that. There was no fucking way you were ready to let him in on what was happening. You knew that you two were both completely unprepared to be parents; for multiple reasons. You were both extremely young, neither of you had super steady jobs and.. it just wasnt the right time. That's what you kept telling yourself anyway. The more you denied what was probably going to become your reality made you feel more in control and safe than how you currently felt.

However; you still were yearning to call Jim and to tell him to come over but you also didn't want to let him in on the fact that anything was wrong. He had more than enough on his plate as it was with his chaotic family (and even calling them chaotic was a nice way of putting it).. you knew that Jim didn't deserve to deal with how you were acting right now but; you were selfish. Even though you knew Jim would be better off not knowing, you still wanted nothing more than for him to hold you and tell you everything was going to be okay.. even if it was a lie.

Your train of thought was suddenly interrupted once you heard the front door of your house unlock and click open. You immediately jolted up in your bed and pushed your blankets off of you. Attempting to smooth out your clothes as fast as possible; immediately knowing that it had to be Jim Mason. After all, only one person had a key to your house besides you..

You heard his footsteps start to grow gradually louder as he approached your room.

"(Y/n)?" Jim's voice was loud and high pitched as he called out to you.

It startled you a bit to hear how concerned he sounded, but you quickly bounced out of bed and flew to the door - opening it quickly just to find Jim a foot away.

"Jim," you breathed out with relief.

You rushed over to him and greeted him with a harsh hug. Completely disregarding how startled he looked, and instead relishing in how truly happy you felt he was finally here.. but you knew that the complications of him being in your room with you now also meant he would know of your situation in no time at all. You knew there was absolutely no way you could hide it now.. fuck.

You felt one of his hands rub up and down your back - loosely following the curvature of your spine in a soothing way. You let yourself exhale a few shaky breaths; letting the anxiety leave you with every exhale as you tried to fully relax - knowing damn well that Jim was probably going to ask you for a explanation soon. You hesitated before breaking free from his arms to speak.

"How did you know to come?" You asked; your words spoken quietly and delicately.

You and Jim locked eyes as he stared at you - his blue eyes were swarmed with confusion. He looked at you as if he didn't know the answer to the question you had just asked; almost like you had spoken in a different language entirely.

"W-what do you mean? Of course I came.. we had a date tonight and I got worried when you no showed. Is everything okay?" he stumbled on his words; alluding to the fact that he felt uncertain in himself.

You felt your stomach drop as you heard his words. Oh fuck, your date. You and Jim's date was something you had totally forgotten about after seeing your test results.. you instantly felt horrible. The feelings of guilt, anxiety and fear that started to creep into your system was too overwhelming and too much to handle all at once. You took a few steps back from him; partially retreating back into your room.. hoping he wasnt here to solely yell at you or make you feel even guiltier than you already felt.

"Holy shit. I totally forgot, Jim. I'm so sorry," you admitted; your voice cracking.

You were aware of how your words sounded like a pathetic excuse but.. you were hoping that Jim knew you better than to think that lowly of you. You wanted to say more to help your case but you knew you couldn't.. how could you even explain this situation to him without fully explaining?

Jim slowly approached you, only just to brush past your shoulder and go into your room. He stood close to the center, turning around and seemingly examining the objects and state of your room whilst you continued to stay underneath the doorframe. Watching him in horror as every sense of yours heightened with fear of what he was really doing or thinking.. praying he wouldn't see the pregnancy test you left stupidly on your nightstand.

Your chest was aching now with the unbearable amount of anxiety your heart was infected with. Sweat was starting to grow on your skin; everything nearly moving in slow motion as you watched Jim move to look at your nightstand and then-

"Your room is a mess," he says with a chuckle.

He turns to make eye contact with you for a split second before going over to your bed. Pushing your blankets off to the side before sitting on the edge, and patting a spot off to his left - urging you to join him.

A soft laugh finds it's way to your lips as you exhale with glee and relief.. but you still try your best to act casual and nonchalant for the time being. You walk over and sit next to him, a bit closer than you had originally intended too but Jim automatically wraps an arm around your shoulders. Coercing your body to melt right next into his.

"I miss our date, and act like the worst fucking girlfriend in the world and all you have to say is that my room is a mess?" you said with a laugh.

Jim is quiet at first, but the newfound silence isn't awkward. However, before you can avert your gaze somewhere else - he puts a finger under your chin so that you're forced to make eye contact with him.

"Dont ever say that about yourself when you know that's not true. I would never think something like that about you."

The pain that lived in your heart so vividly only moments before, struck once more. It was clear as day that he was hurt, but it wasnt by your actions. It was your words that did the damage instead.

"I'm sorry, I just.. I'm not feeling the most like myself right now," you tried your best to not clench your jaw as you spoke.

You figured that from this point forward you were going to have to chose your words very carefully.. but you also knew that Jim deserved the truth.

You started to get restless with anxiety, even with Jim's arm still around you (which had now dropped south to your waist). You gaze fell down to your hands.. the urge to just stand up and escape this inevitable conversation that you knew was going to happen was stronger than ever; but you knew that if you were going to be honest with Jim - you had to start now. It was now or never. Jim seemed to notice that you had more to say because he stayed silent, watching you as you sat with your mouth ajar - trying to find the right words.

"I'm not sorry for just missing the date earlier.. There's something else," you sorely admit.

You felt sick with anxiety as you felt Jim's arm pull away from you.

"Something else?" He spoke timidly.

He stood up; taking a few steps backwards away from you as his brows furrowed and his jaw clenched. You knew you would have to speak fast before anger completely took over him.

"Yes but.. it's not what you think," you stood up and walked over to him.

You took his hands into yours.. pretending to try to not notice how he slightly recoiled from your touch - his hands limp as you held them.

"I've been feeling really different lately.. I've been sick.. and i know it's not the flu or the cold, Jim."

As soon as your words left your mouth - it was almost as if Jim knew exactly what you meant. It was nearly impossible to try to not laugh at his reaction - seeing how his entire demeanor changed so fast. You felt his grip start to tighten on your hands. His blue eyes suddenly held so much emotion and pure joy in them.. His happiness was so infectious that you couldn't help but to smile too.

"Wait.. Your-"

"Yeah. I'm pregnant," you spoke with a giggle.

Jim fully smiled this time and let out a loud, full laugh.

"You're pregnant?? Why didn't you tell me?"

He let go of your hands and enveloped you into a tight hug. You wrapped your arms around him without any hesitation; so happy that he was taking this news greatly but.. you still couldn't help but to feel sort of unsettled still about how unprepared you two truly were.

You broke away from the hug; and took a step back. Nervously holding your hands together as you spoke.

"I mean.. we're so young, Jim. I wasnt sure this was something you even wanted, or that you would be ready for."

"Is this something that you want? And I mean in regards to us. This is a big deal and this would mean that-" Jim's voice started to shake as he spoke.

You almost could feel his insecurity seeping through his words. You knew exactly what he was getting at - this meant that you two would essentially be settling down. Previously in your life; the idea of settling down so early fucking terrified you but.. with Jim, you would be willing to do anything. As long as he was by your side, you weren't scared and you knew you had no reason to be. Everything happened for a reason and after all.. maybe this was the perfect time for this to happen. You and Jim had been through so much thus far - you knew you both deserved to have some stability and to have something that was genuinely good for once. Although the exact details of how you would make it work were still murky; living out the rest of your life in domestic bliss really didn't seem like the worst option at the moment.. If anything, it was starting to look like the best.

You put one finger up to his lips to shush him - looking at his light blue eyes before muttering, "shut up and kiss me, Jim Mason. Of course I want you."

Your finger fell off from his lips; and your hands gently moved to his face. Before your lips had even met- you felt his hands at your back. Pulling you in closer.. closer.. and closer until the distance between you two had completely dissipated. Your lips moved together at first in a tortuously, agonizingly slow manner. It was soft and tender; yet needy. As much as you wanted things to escalate and pick up - you thrived in the delicious slow burn that Jim was putting you through.

All fear and anxiety you had previously felt completely melted away and was replaced with utter euphoria. Every fiber of your being felt as if it was on fire; you felt like you were glowing. Your senses being completely occupied with Jim only made your feelings of contentment grow. The smell of Jim (a mixed combination of the ocean, bonfire and cigarette smoke), the taste of Jim (which tasted faintly of energy drinks along with a bit of saltiness that was reminiscent of the ocean) made you feel like you were in heaven. The one and only coherent thought that ran through your mind was: Jim, Jim, Jim.

Your hands moved from his soft, burning cheeks to his hair, while you let your other hand drop down to his back near his shoulders. Your fingers ran through his hair; pulling a bit on a few random strands when you felt his teeth sink into your bottom lip gently.. You heard a groan expel from his throat in response to this; which only made you smile into the kiss - and then giggle which of course; unfortunately ended you and Jim's kissing escapade. You two didn't fully pull apart from eachother though. Jim took a step or two back but he chose to hold onto your hands.. refusing to let you completely escape his embrace.

"I would be lying if I were to say I wasnt nervous, you know," he said.

You hesitated for a second before swiftly leaning in and kissing the side of his mouth - choosing to stay a little closer in proximity this time when you parted. If it wasnt for him bringing it up - you would've completely forgot the conversation you two were having prior to the kiss. Your hand resided on the side of his face as you looked into his eyes.

"Its okay. I'm nervous too but.. were in this together. Me and you," you stated with a reassuring smile which Jim only mirrored.

"That's all I need," Jim replied softly.

You knew in that exact moment that you had absolutely no reason to dwell or worry about the future when you had someone like Jim to rely on. Even with the future being as uncertain as it currently was; having Jim's love was really all you needed.

Jim insisted to stay over for the night; even though you tried your best to assure him you'd be fine - he didn't believe you.. and your kind of glad he didn't. You quickly realized that trying to make solid plans for the future would be for another day; for when every time you tried to speak - Jim shut you up with a kiss but you weren't complaining.. how could you, when this is what you wanted so badly? The comfort of knowing you would have Jim forever by your side was enough to let you fully relax and melt into the moment with him.. and let the future become something that you could have dreams about later.

Taglist: @michaellangdonstanaccount @langdonsexual @jimmason @blakescoven @dark-mei-rose @9layerdevilfoodcake @prophecy-is-inevitable @matildaofoz @beautyiswithinchaos @frenchlangdon @instincts-baby @melodylangdon @littledemondani @langdons-pinkyring

Let me know if u would like to be added to the taglist :)

#jim x reader #jim mason x reader #jim mason #jim mason fanfic #cody fern fanfiction #my fic #its been so long since ive written for jim so hopefully this is good 😭#i dont rlly like the beginning but its fine LOL #asks #anon

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donut-entendre · 2 years

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donut for ask meme?

Why I like them: He is such a piece of shit while also simultaneously being so fucking funny. Hypocrite motherfucker is like MY body MY choice and then is like no you can't use drugs FUCK you drugs are BAD I don't CARE that it only really affects you,

Why I don’t: Okay so I'm not actually a huge fan of sex jokes, and also this isn't his fault it's RT's but gay isn't a dirty word. Let him be gay stop dodging it

Favorite episode (scene if movie): Season 7 / Well Hello. I don't need to explain myself here

Favorite season/movie: BGC era, full stop. Let him be sarcastic I am literally begging he was so funny. If I had to pick just one, season 3.

Favorite line: Any of the screams. Any. If that doesn't count, then "Now now now, sounds like someone's got a case of the "poor me"s. If you were gonna die you would have done it by now! Maybe you just need to realize, you're gonna have to live with intense pain."

Favorite outfit: Officer hot pants is hilarious in concept. RT doesn't even have to show us skin he could just have it on over the undersuit and it would be funny. Halo 3 armor is the best tho, sapphire accents ftw.

OTP: He's a reverse for me, he's stupid shippable. I only really have NOTP's for him and even then if it's well done I might go with it anyway!

Brotp: Okay hear me out on this. Docnut. They are ex's and friends. Also Pastry Train, they are gay and friends but they aren't dating but they ARE gay friends. You understand

Head Canon: Yes he's a flamboyant gay. Yes, he's repressed. They exist. Also I think the time stuff fucked him up in terms of how he experiences linear time :) also he's chunky you can't change my mind. We have evolved past the times of skinny twink blondie Donut he is Lord Chunks 2 of red team Grif's in 1st he's in 2nd

Unpopular opinion: Donut isn't some softboy sweetheart, he's a little shit and he knows and enjoys it. I stand by previous statements that he'd run over a grandma and laugh about it later.

A wish: PLEASE just say he's gay roasted tooth. Please. Some manner of queer. It doesn't even have to be in-your-face just mention he's gotten a boyfriend or something while he's been exploring the universe or allude to him and Doc having a fling while they lived together. Also give him some skills if/when he comes back so he can stop being so much of a stereotype

An oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen: I would really like it if he would stop being written in a homophobic way I really would. Please do not render him to just a gay stereotype AGAIN ever. Please

5 words to best describe them: Loudmouth, Rough-n-Tumble, Chatty, Fruity, Dumb of Ass (affectionate)

My nickname for them: Frankie, Delano, Beefcake, Pvt. Muffin

#asks #nonsense thoughts

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justice4harwin · 3 years

Text

Light’s Corruption- Chapter V

Pairing: The DarklingxAlina

Summary:With few friends at the Little Palace, Alina must work to win the favour of her fellow grisha and their commander, who makes her feel light headed every time she sees him.

After training in Os Alta for two years, the king grows tired of waiting and demands the Sun Summoner joins a western post near the Fjerdan border along with the rest of The Second Army to test her abilities.

Something happens. Suddenly, Alina wants blood to run down the rivers and those who stand in her and The Darkling’s way will be blinded by her light and swallowed by his shadows.

It won’t be pretty

Rating: 18+

Click here for chapter 4

As usual, tags are in the comments. If you dont wanna be tagged, dont be afraid to let me know. If you wanna be tagged, let me know too. I dont bite...anymore lmao

Chapter 5: Heartrenders

Days went by, and they turned into weeks. The leaves fell off the trees, a crunchy sea of red, orange, yellow and brown, and Alina wanted to pile them all on and throw herself inside.

She'd do it the first chance she got, but for that she had to beat the gardeners before they took the piles and burnt them to depressing ashes.

She talked to Michail some more during they rounds around the lake and had her rematch with Natasha.

She lost. Again. She laughed it off. Again. Natasha said she hadn't been so easy to defeat that second time, to which Alina smiled almost genuinely. Progress.

Baghra refused to see her still, and Alina was too proud to go back to her, so she tried to practice on her own. She'd hide away on the far sides of the gardens where the other grisha rarely went to and try to gain more control. It was a slow process; the temptation to let her power run free and vast was always there and trying to tame that always left her exhausted. She had no trouble falling asleep, yet each day the bags underneath her eyes seemed to deepen, as did her appetite. Alina was pretty sure that summoning should be for the better, but more than once, she had thoroughly considered laying down on the cold grass and take a nap there instead of walking all the way back to the Little Palace.

The General wasn't back yet, and much to Alina's confusion, frustration and shame, she worried. Maybe that too had something to do with the bags underneath her eyes. She tended to dream of him in all kinds of scenarios, each less pleasant than the last. It made her wake up sweaty and choking for air.

More than once, she almost wrote to him, only if just to make sure he was alright. But he had to be. Otherwise, word would've spread quickly…right?

She always talked herself out of it though. His presence was missed, her mind was making up all kind of tricks to make her reach out to him like a pathetic girl begging for attention.

The thought reminded her of Baghra's opinion of her, which only strengthened her resolve to not write to him.

She had had enough of begging, enough of getting scrapes of affection from a man who hadn't even bother to write once; she wouldn't do it again, no matter how much her heart tried to pull her to him.

But then her eyes would drift back to the black, shadow rose that laid on her nightstand, the little bit of gold on its inside long dead, and her heart would race and some form of reassurance would fall gently over her, like a blanket shielding her body.

She'd reach out and take it in her hands. It had no thorns. Her fingers would run through its petals, as soft as those of a real rose, but with something deeper in there. There was something more alive inside that rose than in any flower in all of Ravka; it was deep, powerful, and dark. It scared and alluded to her in the same measure, and she'd stare at it fascinated for an unfathomable long time.

She wondered if The Darkling could feel her caressing his shadows; and how he'd feel about it.

Besides Michail and Natasha, Alina didn’t seem to be progressing very much. They exchanged niceties and some jokes, even paired up during training, but there was not much more to it.

She told herself to be patient. These things took time.

One early afternoon, Genya showed up on her room unannounced. Alina hurried to hide her rose inside her nightstand; she wasn't sure why, but she wanted it to be her little secret.

"The Queen just left Os Alta." the redhead smiled. "As did the king. They'll be gone for two days on a hunting trip."

"A hunting trip?"

"Yes, where they kill animals for the fun of it. Like one of those brutish size competitions men seem to like so much."

Alina snorted.

"So?"

"So…"there was a gleam to her friend's eyes, and the summoner leaned back and frowned slightly, almost scared. "I could sneak you into the Grand Palace and into Her Royal Bitch's wardrobe."

"We'll get in trouble, Gen."

"Oh, please; have some faith in me." she placed her elbows on the desk and her chin atop of her hands, almost looking angelic. "Do you really think I'd get you in trouble?"

"Yes."

"Well, then you're wrong." she straightened up and tugged on Alina's arm. "C'mon; there's so many gowns and habits: she rarely wears them twice. We're not stealing; no one will know."

"How many gowns?" she asked, genuinely curious. She had seen the queen on two official occasions, the first time when she arrived from the camps near Kribirsk, and the second when she was invited to her ridiculous tea parade. Still, she had seen her in passing a few times as she strolled the grounds. A part of Alina felt ashamed of the jealousy she felt upon seeing her beautiful clothes and jewels.

There she was, living in a palace, wearing a kefta and being pampered, yet she dared to want more.

"Hundreds!" the Tailor whispered excitedly. "And they'll look much better on us anyway."

She gave in a little to temptation. They would just try them on and leave them again. No one would know, and maybe she'd be satisfied then.

"Alright, alright. But we better not get caught."

"Don't worry, we won't."

They left the bedroom and ran down the stairs, Genya holding onto the blue sleeve of her friend as she rambled about all the different fabrics and patterns and accessories while Alina tried to keep up with her, listening to every word while watching her step. The last thing she needed was to trip down the stairs.

That'd be a sad way to go for her.

"You'll love it. I promise!" Genya turned to give her a smile, but Alina's eyes drifted to the looming figure appearing in her line of vision.

The Darkling walked into the Little Palace accompanied by Ivan, Fedyor and a third heartrender.

It was a woman, a little bit older than Alina probably, but only for a few years. She was tall, with long, brown hair cascading down her back. Her kefta, which hugged her rounded figure nicely, gave her away as a fellow heartrender.

The Darkling noticed them approaching. Alina tried to search something in his eyes, anything that gave away any sort of emotion that could cause in him to see her again, but she saw nothing but his usual coolness.

The Summoner and the Tailor came to a stop and bowed.

"Moi Soverennyi." they bowed respectfully.

"Miss Starkov, Miss Safin; it has been some time." he looked from one to the other. "May I inquire as to your present activities?"

"Nothing we're not supposed to do." Alina spat out, earning herself a dainty elbow to the ribs.

General Kirigan rose an eyebrow.

"I see. See to it that it stays that way."

"Of course, sir." spoke Genya, serious all of a sudden.

The man turned and contemplated the strange woman for a moment, then gestured at Alina with a gloved hand.

"This is Alina Starkov, our Sun Summoner." he looked at her, those pools of grey catching her breath. "Miss Starkov, may I introduce you to Nina Zenik. She is one of my best agents and has just recently returned from an assignment in Shu Han."

The woman's green eyes settled on Alina, taking her in. Something glittered in there.

"So, she is real after all."

"Would I lie to you?" was The Darkling's reply.

"You forgot to mention how pretty she is." Nina ignored him, taking a long, stealth step towards her and catching a tendril of Alina's dark hair in her fingers.

"Um, it's a pleasure to meet you." The Sun Summoner managed to say, nervous under the woman scrutiny.

"Oh, a pleasure indeed, sun bean." Nina smiled, amusement shining in her eyes as Alina's face heated up. "I can't wait to make your acquaintance."

Before Alina could even think of an answer -for the woman's pretty eyes were too distracting- The Darkling cleared his throat.

"Not for some time, I am afraid." he said. Alina finally turned her gaze to him. There was something dark and intense in the way he was staring at Nina's back, his jaw tense. "Miss Starkov has quite the busy schedule."

Alina felt Genya tensing beside her. Nina's eyes slid momentarily, as if she could see The Darkling behind her, and nodded, winking at her before receding.

"Certainly. I can only imagine." she turned a charming smile on him. "Should we discuss my mission in private?"

"Of course." he answered almost, almost too quickly. He made a gesture for her to go in first.

"See you around, sun bean."

Alina choked on her own saliva as she struggled to say her farewell.

Ivan left with them without even glancing in their direction; Fedyor was kind enough to give them each a courteous smile.

Genya was giggling like an idiot.

"Shut up."

Now she was laughing.

During their training one day, Alina decided to pair up with her. Many grisha gave her a myriad of odd looks, and for a moment, Alina feared she might be about to face another Zoya.

Nina seemed to not to notice them and beckoned her forward.

People seemed to like Nina, Alina observed. The woman had charm and wit; the Sun Summoner really had to try to not get jealous of those traits. She reminded herself that Nina had been at the Little Palace for years, not one season and a half.

They circled each other, taking their measures.

Alina didn't want to be the one to strike first. That always had seemed to go wrong thus far, so she waited.

The heartrender went to the left, so Alina turned, only to be tricked as she received a blow on her right. She winced and stood back, more alert. She didn't want to make a ridicule again.

"You're small and skinny." the heartrender whispered. Alina arched an eyebrow. "I'm bigger and stronger, so your best option is to tire me out."

"I'm not exactly the fastest person."

Nina threw a punch and, luckily, Alina blocked it successfully.

She shook her head.

"Speed and resistance don't need to go hand in hand."

Alina didn't dare to look around to see if anyone else could hear them. She hoped not. Botkin would most certainly disapprove of his students giving each other advice on how to defeat them.

So, with Nina's words in mind, Alina did her best to block and recede. She tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to punch and kick, and received a wince and an "ouch" as Nina rubbed her calf.

The Summoner could feel everyone still watching, Marie and Nadia cheering her on; Sergei and Michail more reserved since she was fighting a fellow red sporter.

Then, Alina caught a glimpse. It was a second, and before she even knew it, she was taking a chance.

Nina was placing her foot down, twisting it as if to test it, and the next she was laying on her back, Alina having all but hurled herself at the woman, grabbing her middle section with all her strength and pushing.

They landed on the ground, and in the disbelief, the Summoner almost forgot to fully immobilize her opponent the way Botkin had taught her.

"You know," Nina gasped, the breath having abandoned her lungs. "There's better ways to get on top of me, sun bean, but if you like it rough-"

Alina blushed in embarrassment, both for having potentially hurt her and for the path those words were leading to.

"Are you alright?" she interrupted hurriedly. "Did I hurt you?"

Nina tried to laugh and cried instead.

"Shit, sun bean. You do have some strength in that tiny body after all."

"Alright!" Botkin clapped his hands twice, coming over toward them. "The little girl wins again, …finally."

Alina was almost offended. At least Marie and Nadia were cheering, as were some others Etherealki. She noticed Sergei and Michail exchanging some coins and scowled.

"Healer." she called, and one hurried to Nina's side.

"It's just a broken rib." the woman said, setting herself to work.

Nina raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I'm impressed, sun bean. I didn't actually think you'd win."

Alina found a new hiding spot where to practice her summoning. It was a most secluded corner, surrounded by old trees, an unkept stone bench and a dirty sculpture of a woman.

She really wanted to be offended.

With eyes wide, she forgot all about her practice, raced and jumped in, laughing childishly to herself.

She looked up and took in the warmth of the sun with pleasure, her face basking in it as her hands ran through leaves and sticks. It was actually a little uncomfortable, but fun.

She almost wished she could sink in and stay there forever, with the sun warming her body and the crunchy leaves all around her.

There was a big pile of leaves.

"Did you fall?"

A shadow took the light from her face, and she found The Darkling standing over her, looking down with something akin to curiosity.

"No. I just jumped."

"Into a pile of dirt?"

"It's not dirt. Besides, it's fun!" she extended a hand. "Wanna try?"

He huffed. Her cheeks heated up. She should've known better.

He took her hand and pulled her up, the mere contact making everything about him feel more intense as usual.

She held onto him.

"How did you find me?"

"You are my Sun Summoner; did you really think I would let you wander about the palace grounds unguarded?"

"Do you have me followed?" she had never noticed.

"For your safety."

"I thought this was the safest place in all of Ravka."

"I am not taking any chances with you, Alina." he replied, eyes guarded, face soft.

"Well, I've never noticed them."

"It means they are doing a good job. I would not want you to live scared, looking over your shoulder all the time."

"I might as well start now that I know."

He opened his mouth and then closed it, thumb rubbing the back of her hand. Alina wondered if he noticed what he was doing.

"You are right." he stepped closer, pulling a leaf off her hair. "But you need not fear, especially while I am on the palace grounds."

"Because not even the dumbest drüskelle would dare to cross paths with you?"

"Nor would the boldest noble."

Alina frowned. The nobles of Os Alta?

She nodded slowly.

"I have scared you." he stated, studying her face. "I apologize."

"No, no." she let go of his hand. "You just made me wearier."

"That is just how life at court is." he offered, not unkindly. "This is not just an army sometimes, especially for you and I."

Alina looked at him, questioning.

"There is no one else like us, Alina." he said, approaching her once more. The calmness, the facts were gone, replaced by a fire she wanted to step into. The vehemence in his voice made her shiver and want to take refuge in his cloak. "There never will be."

She thought about it. What exactly did he mean by that?

He reached out again and plucked another leaf from her hair, then took her face in his hands. She tilted her head up, desperate for a look into those eyes.

Her heart drummed on her ribcage, wanting to break free.

"I-" words failed her as he studied her face, like she was something unique he wanted to memorize.

His thumb ran over her lips, and she exhaled heavily at the feel.

"I forgot what I came here to tell you." he whispered in confidence, his eyes on her parted lips.

"I don't care."

One of his hands left her face and wrapped around her waist, pressing her against his hard chest. Alina almost gasped, hands coming up to rest on his shoulders. He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, hiding the conflict she had briefly witnessed there.

Alina made a choice.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

He reciprocated immediately, holding her tighter and pushing his tongue inside her mouth, demanding a dominance she was more than willing to give him.

She had been kissed, but never like this. It was a first kiss that felt like the last; its intensity so beautifully crushing and chaotic. It was like he was a missing part of her, long searched for and finally found. It was like she was the most precious, addictive treasure, something to be cherished and corrupted at the same time.

Alina was willing to let him do as he wanted with her.

Her hands pulled at his hair, earning a growl. Their eyes met briefly, the desire in them fighting to see whose was grander, before kissing again.

It was like he wanted to pull her closer still, the barrier of clothes too much. Something told Alina that the lack of them wouldn't satisfy either of them anyways.

He kissed her jaw, travelling his way up to her earlobe.

"You make me weak." he whispered harshly, only to proceed to ravish the parts of her neck that were exposed.

"You make me strong." she answered, craning her neck to give him better access.

Growling, he gave her ass a hard squeeze and pushed her back against a tree. She could feel the tug and crunches of the leaves as he buried his hands in her hair but didn't care.

She wanted more.

And more.

She drew his lips back to hers. He reached for the belt which held her kefta closed.

"Sir!"

The next thing Alina knew was that she was standing against a tree, her back aching and her body cold, yet her face hot.

She looked at The Darkling, who seemed almost unperturbed as he smoothly fixed his hair and clothes, standing at a respectable distance from her.

Ivan appeared, seeming to be in a hurry.

Alina narrowed her eyes at him. As if she didn't dislike him enough already, the little shit.

"Moi Soverennyi, you are needed in the king's counsel immediately."

"Tell that grump I shall be there shortly."

Ivan bowed and left, not even acknowledging Alina's presence.

The Darkling cleared his throat. She turned her dark gaze on him, cheeks burning against the cold air, lips probably bruised.

What had just happened?

She wasn't sure, but she wanted to do it again. The Darkling, on the other hand, remained stoic as he stared into her eyes, as if nothing had occurred between them.

"I understand that you have been training on your own;" he said, as if he were talking to any other grisha, ever polite and smooth, voice reassuring yet commanding." I shall speak to Baghra so you may return to your lessons."

"But I don't wann-"

With him gone, the early winter sun felt cold.

"Miss Starkov." he bowed to her respectfully and marched away, disappearing from view within seconds.

Click here for chapter 6

#shadow and bone fanfic #shadow and bone #Alina starkov #the darkling #aleksander morozova #darkling x alina #alina x aleksander #alina x darkling #genya safin #nina zenik #fedyor kaminsky #fanfic

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hongism · 4 years

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mists of celeste ➻ twenty-five

➻ pairing: ??? x fem reader ➻ genre: space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst, eventual smut ➻ Word Count: 5.5k ➻ Rating: M ➻ Warnings: language, violence, guns and weaponry, blood, future warnings tba ➻ summary: Sneaking aboard the ship of a renowned space pirate may not have been the best idea, but you’ll have to make do with what fate has handed to you

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act three ➻ part seven

“Sorry to interrupt, but… Hongjoong asked to see you on the bridge, Y/N.” A breath of hesitation, just long enough to cause a spike of anxiety in your gut. “Alone.”

“Of course,” San says, tone not shifting in the slightest. He nods at Seonghwa before stepping away from you. His hand lingers on your arm a breath too long, and when you meet his gaze, the eyes looking back at you are filled with… something. You can’t read it or understand it, but you don’t have much of an opportunity to do so anyway. Instead, you let San move back and head in the opposite direction, turning to face Seonghwa once San’s back is to you.

“What’s going on?” You ask before Seonghwa can say anything. He shakes his head ever so slightly.

“Just follow me first.” You do as told even though the steps are difficult to take. Dealing with Hongjoong feels like dealing with some rabid beast. You can’t understand his line of thinking or the way he operates, haven’t spent enough time with him to figure him out. He could be planning to kill you for all you know. Seonghwa’s presence at your side helps a minimal amount, but it does nothing to ease the anxiety bubbling in your gut. One thing nags at the edge of your thoughts, and you hate to think about it because you want to trust Seonghwa.

“Why does he want to see me?” You ask, voice small and quiet. “Is it — does he know about… you know?” It hurts to say even though you’re merely alluding to the bigger picture. You want to trust Seonghwa. His steps falter and come to a halt. You pause beside him, eyes searching his face for any sign of an answer that his voice won’t give. Instead, his hands find your shoulders and push you back until your back hits the wall. It isn’t rough or forceful; his touch is light, and he moves you like you’re a piece of glass on the verge of breaking.

“I promised that I would never tell Hongjoong,” Seonghwa says as he brings his chin down to look you in the eye. The gaze behind those eyes is too intense for a moment. You dip your chin and look away before it burns you. Soft fingers trail up your bare arm, leaving a path of electric shocks against your skin, and Seonghwa only stops when his fingers brush your chin. He lifts your head a little, and you’re forced to meet his gaze again. “Why do you think I did?”

You can’t come up with an answer fast enough. All you manage to do is sputter and stammer your way through incoherent thoughts and random words that attempt to explain why you don’t trust him, but Seonghwa silences you by cupping your face.

“I made you a promise, Y/N. I intend to keep it. It’s on you to believe it. Until you do, I will keep saying it, but I can’t force you to trust me more than you already have.” You nod against his touch.

“O-Okay.”

Seonghwa’s lips twist into a soft smile. His touch lingers. It isn’t uncomfortable, but you can’t understand what’s going through his mind as he continues to look over your face in silence. A small sigh slips past his mouth. Then his breath invades yours, and warmth cascades over you. It’s sudden and brief, but you find yourself chasing his lips the moment he pulls away. You couldn’t explain why even if you tried. Your hands fly up to clasp around the back of Seonghwa’s neck and tug him back down to you again. He releases a faint noise of surprise, but he meets you halfway, hands bracing on the wall behind you. He stops it too soon this time. Probably for the best, seeing as Hongjoong is apparently waiting for you. Seonghwa lets a half-hearted laugh out.

“I’m sorry for being greedy,” he murmurs, bringing a hand off the wall to thumb over your cheek again. “I just didn’t want — nevermind. You shouldn’t keep Hongjoong waiting. I’ll be in the training room if you need me. Hongjoong just has a few questions for you, nothing too serious, so don’t worry too much, okay?”

“What about? Is something wrong? Why aren’t you coming as well? Shouldn’t you be there as the lieutenant?” The questions tumble from your lips in a rush, almost slurring together as you spit them out, and Seonghwa grins at the barrage of questions.

“All he wants to talk about is some military-related things, as far as I’m aware. Nothing about Sirens, unless you choose to bring it up. He truly did ask to see you alone, and even as Lieutenant, there are some conversations I won’t intrude upon unless my captain asks me to do so.”

“Oh,” you exhale. “I’ll just get going then.” Seonghwa pulls back from the wall, letting you out from the cage his arms had around you.

“You can come by my room after if you’d like, either to talk about it or… destress.” The playfulness returns to his eyes. You release a loud scoff.

“Just say that you want to get in my pants and go.”

Seonghwa rolls his eyes a bit, but you can tell he’s not too bothered because of the smile that stretches across his face.

“I’ll save that for later. Right now, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am,” you insist with a sharp nod. Seonghwa doesn’t voice his doubts. You see them in his eyes nonetheless and turn away before the inclination to tell him anything and everything hits. If he watches you walk away, you don’t know because you’re trying your best not to look over your shoulder as you continue down the corridor, this time alone. The weight of reality sinks in when Seonghwa’s presence at your side dissipates.

Hongjoong wants to talk to you.

Alone.

About military-related things.

How much effort will you have to put in to keep from having a damn breakdown in front of him? You can’t very well grab hold of his arm to ground you, but without anyone else present, what are you supposed to do?

Your fists clench tight by your side.

Maybe this is some sort of test. Perhaps he sees you as fragile and volatile, and he wants to test you to see how bad it actually is. That could be what he’s planning. He’ll probe you for information on your past to see how long it takes for you to break.

When you step onto the bridge, Hongjoong is across the room, standing before the observation window with his arms crossed over his chest. There’s nothing out there except the darkness of the hanger around the ship, so you aren’t quite sure why he’s standing there of all places. You don’t feel the need to ask him why though, more focused on the person at his side. It’s Mingi’s tall form beside him. Broad shoulders and taut muscles rippling through his shirt that leave a bad taste in your mouth. You wonder how long it would take for him to choke you to death if you so much as breathe the wrong way.

You muster up the courage to clear your throat, only feeling secure in the action because of how far away Mingi is. Hongjoong shifts and glances back at you. Blue strands of hair fold over his forehead, parted down the middle to expose a bit of the skin underneath.

“Mingi, you’re dismissed,” he orders. The tone he uses is flat and void of emotion, much to your dismay, because you were hoping to at least pick up on his current mood to know what to expect.

“Are you certain, Captain?”

Hongjoong smiles a bit, gaze soft as he looks up at Mingi.

“Yes, yes, Mingi. You’re free to go. Get some rest. You’ve been up for a long time, yeah?”

Mingi doesn’t return the smile, but Hongjoong doesn’t seem to expect anything. The Berserker merely nods and bows at the waist a bit before turning to where you stand. He doesn’t look at you, and you’re grateful for it. There’s still an obscene amount of panic running through your body when he walks past you to leave the bridge. If Mingi picks up on it, he doesn’t show it, face and body stoic as he passes you. You keep your eyes set on Hongjoong. The captain watches Mingi, gaze almost melancholic in away, but once the man is out of sight, he shifts to look at you. He gives a quick beckoning motion, and your feet move on their own, bringing you closer until you stand right beside him at the observation window.

For a moment, there is complete and utter silence between you. Then –

“Do you know why I keep the crew so limited in size?” You offer a hesitant shake of your head in response. “I want you to reason it out for me.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any reason,” you say, eyes flitting over Hongjoong’s face as though it’ll explain his strange question. “Even though the ship is on the smaller side, it could be run so much better if you had a proper crew. Engineers, cooks, comms managers, weapon stations, people manning the mainframe and shield reactor.”

Hongjoong huffs out a laugh, air rushing through his nose.

“The Horizon was never built to be a warship or even one that could attack other ships. The original purpose was merely to be a transport ship. Before I took it, it was used to cart slaves between planets and larger cargo ships. She looks like hundreds, if not thousands of other ships out there. There are so few distinguishing features on the ship that the military would have a hard time picking her out in a crowd. That’s the way I like it. Low upkeep too. The only differences are not visible ones. She's the fastest in the universe for a reason, after all. When in danger, the crew has their assignments and stations. San and Jongho to the shield reactor, Wooyoung and Yeosang to the mainframe. Yunho stays in the medbay. Seonghwa and Mingi remain with me on the bridge. Seonghwa manages the comms stations, and Mingi mans the emergency turret. And as for me – I remain at the helm. You see, Y/N, the ship was made to be manned by a smaller crew. I could afford to have a larger crew, yes, but there are too many opportunities for mistakes there. I should have known that having seventy crew members would cause more harm than good. I was arrogant then and wanted it all.”

“What changed?” You inquire in a quiet voice. “Your arrogance and desires, I mean. What changed those?” Hongjoong responds with a small shake of his head at first.

“I was humbled and brought down a few notches.” You don’t say anything right away. Your lack of response brings another huff of laughter out of Hongjoong. “What? You’re not gonna pry for more answers? I’ve heard that you have been asking about the incident.”

“I… forgot about it for the moment,” you say, looking away from Hongjoong to stare out into the darkness outside instead. “If you want me to ask about it, then I can.”

“I’ll save you the trouble of pestering any other crew members for an explanation and do it myself. I’ve been waiting for you to come to me directly about it, but you never did. So I guess now is as good a time as any to explain what happened.” Hongjoong pauses, a small hum resounding as he lifts a hand to his chin. “Mingi killed one of the crew back when we were more in our prime. Not quite the largest the crew had been, but still large nonetheless. A woman named Cass, someone close to Yunho. Very close.”

“You shouldn’t ask about it,” he hisses out through gritted teeth. You’ve never seen this expression on his face, this gleam in his eyes. He doesn’t seem angry in the slightest, and that’s what sends your thoughts into a scramble. Merely sad. “That’s between you and Hongjoong if you want to talk about it, and it’s on him to tell you about it.”

You should have known then that it was a sensitive topic for Yunho, but you were too caught off-guard in the moment.

“She was just a Normie, no one special or out of the ordinary. Never showed any signs of disliking me as the captain or the crew. She never–” Hongjoong doesn’t finish the thought. His teeth sink into his lower lip. For a moment, you think you can see pain crossing his features, but it disappears less than a second later. “She wasn’t someone who would do what she did without outside influence. It all started because she had said that someone like me wasn’t fit to lead. I had no place being the captain. Someone else would be better, someone who was an Elitist. She was trying to encourage Mingi and Jongho to join her – their side since they were the strongest of the crew. Said that Mingi should kill me and let an Elitist take over. Cass – s-she did this out in the open in front of Mingi, Jongho, many other crew members who sided with her. And Mingi… He killed her for what she said. Jongho closed his eyes and let it happen. Put morals to the side for me.”

Hongjoong clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It’s almost as though he can’t believe Jongho would do such a thing for him or that Mingi would either, for that matter.

“Isn’t it in Mingi’s nature to kill like that?” You ask, prodding for an answer you aren’t sure you want to have.

“No. He doesn’t want to kill. It isn’t about some maddening or sick desire to hurt people. It’s about what he’s been conditioned to do, and it is the only thing he knows.”

“How long has he been with the crew?”

“Six years. I found him at the same time and place that I found Yunho.”

“What do you mean?” You tilt your head to look at Hongjoong’s expression, and he mimics the motion as he stares back at you.

“I mean exactly that. I found Mingi with Yunho, though the two didn’t know each other at the time. Mingi’s father was Yunho’s patient. Before joining the crew, Yunho ran a small clinic here on Kebos. We happened to be passing through the system and had no medic at the time. Needed immediate medical treatment for Jongho, so Seonghwa took him to Yunho’s clinic. Yunho must have recognized Seonghwa or heard something he said because he asked after me. I came down and met him in the clinic, then he joined the crew.”

“Just like that?”

Hongjoong presses his lips together, forming a thin line then stretching them into a smile.

“It’s not necessarily my story to tell. Yunho needed – needs – me. And I needed a healer. Perhaps it was fate that brought us together.”

“How does Mingi fit into the picture then? If his father was there as a patient, then how–”

“Something happened in the backroom where Mingi’s father was,” Hongjoong says, cutting you off before you can finish the question. “Something I didn’t see and still to this day don’t know. It’s never been my place to ask. It’s between the two of them, whatever it is. All I know is that it left a deep wound on both of them, and it’s always been the root cause for the stiltedness in their relationship and attitudes towards each other. When the two of them came out of that room, they were both ready to join my crew, and I accepted it for what it was. Brought them on as they were, because I didn’t need anything else. The crew was big enough back then to allow for bringing them on without any trouble.”

“Ah, I see,” you exhale, bringing your chin forward again. “What happened after Mingi – that incident?”

“There was a mutiny,” Hongjoong states as if it’s the most normal thing in the universe. “They thought that I couldn’t lead and wasn’t suited for it. Mingi killing Cass only solidified those feelings. My highest in command after Seonghwa led the mutiny. Before he left the ship with half the crew, he swore that he would get the treasure first along with the Sirens.”

“Did he know about Seonghwa?” You aren’t sure what the hell possesses you and makes you ask that question. It’s a lapse in judgment and a mistake for certain, and you bring a hand up to cover your mouth the second it falls from your lips. Hongjoong lifts a brow, eyeing you as you rush to recover and come up with some sort of excuse. You half expect anger from Hongjoong or at least surprise in the very least, but all that falls from his lips is a deep sigh.

“I should have known that Seonghwa would tell you. He’s so strangely attached to you that it was only a matter of time.”

If you had been waiting for an opportunity to tell Hongjoong what you are, this is it. You are fully aware of that. You could tell him, and perhaps you should tell him. It would be easiest in the long run to tell him now. But what is the long run? Is the long run remaining with Hongjoong until he finds the treasure? Not what you expected your fate to be in the slightest, but an option nonetheless. Is it an option you want to take though? Spending the rest of your life as a weapon to the most dangerous pirate in the universe.

“What am I to you?” You ask all of a sudden, keeping up with your trend of being spontaneous with your questions. Hongjoong’s brows dip together.

“What do you mean?” He counters, seemingly confused by the sudden inquiry.

“Everyone on the crew is something to you, no? So what am I to you?”

Hongjoong draws his lips together, pursing them violently, before offering a shrug.

“You are whatever you want to be. It’s your choice, and I will merely respect it.”

“No,” you say through a small shake of your head. “If it wasn’t up to me, what would I be to you?” The question makes Hongjoong pause for a moment. He has an answer; the hesitation isn’t in the lack of one but rather the internal debate of whether to say it.

“You would be… a weapon to me,” he admits, maintaining the same steady and even tone.

“And what is Seonghwa to you?” Again your words throw Hongjoong off.

“Seonghwa is different.”

“Given what Seonghwa is, what is he to you?”

“I don’t just give up something so personal that easily,” Hongjoong answers quickly, sharp eyes narrowing on you.

“Is he a key to the treasure, or is he something more?”

Hongjoong exhales through his nose.

“Seonghwa always has been and always will be something more,” he whispers, tone dropping for the first time. It isn’t enough of an answer for you though. You need more than that, you need a straight answer, and you need to know what Seonghwa is to him before you even think about telling him what you are.

“If Seonghwa is a Siren, and you are hunting Sirens, and Sirens are the key to what you want most, then what is Seonghwa to you?” You think you’ve crossed the line right then. Hongjoong’s expression goes cold.

“You still don’t understand a single thing about me. The treasure itself is not what I want most. It will give me what I want most. But that’s not the point of all this, is it? This started off as me telling you a story.” Hongjoong doesn’t have to say it outright for you to know that he wants you to drop the subject. You nod quickly.

“You left off at the mutiny.”

Hongjoong hums in response and faces the observation window once more.

“Yes, my highest in command after Seonghwa led the mutiny. He did know about Seonghwa and promised to come back for him one day. Every single day is a race to the finish. I fear that at the end of it I’ll lose. The ship, the fight, the treasure, the crew – Seonghwa. People have never scared me. I grew up in a cruel world surrounded by cruel people, and the only option I had was to become cruel myself. But this man? I’m deathly afraid of him and what he’s capable of. And I’m running out of time. My clock is ticking onwards.”

“Towards what?”

“I’m not sure I know the answer to that. I just know that it won’t be long until it catches up to me.”

His words make you pause. The more you think about it, the more similar you realize you and Hongjoong are. Time has been chasing you your whole life. The past rushing to catch up with you, and it seems that Hongjoong is in a similar position. Time may be the same, but purpose? You don’t know what Hongjoong’s purpose is; however, you can confidently say that his is not the same as yours. You’ve been a weapon for as long as you can remember. The military carved you out of a broken mold and made you the weapon you know yourself to be.

You don’t want to be a weapon any longer. You don’t want to only be valued for what you can do. You want to be valued for who you are.

Seonghwa is special to Hongjoong, and maybe… maybe by telling him what you are, you can have that too. At the end of the day, you don’t know what it means – to be special to someone.

The reflection in the observation window seems to flicker for a second. It isn’t your face that looks back. A rounded smile with bright twinkling eyes. Someone precious to you, someone treasured.

“Hey, I need to ask you something.”

“Fire away, Jisung.”

“Can I hold your hand?”

“W-What?”

That cheeky grin makes an appearance again. Jisung holds his hand out to you and says nothing else. Slowly, you stretch your arm out to him, letting your fingers fold around his. It’s a foreign feeling, one you’ve never had before, but it’s comfortable. Warm.

You wonder if Seonghwa is precious to Hongjoong, if the whole crew is precious to him. It’s a foreign warmth that blossoms in your chest as you think about it, and Jisung’s face continues to smile at you in the window.

“Oh yeah? What are you gonna give me?” You roll your eyes ever so slightly. Only enough for Jisung to see it and scoff at your gesture, and he sits up to hit your arm with the back of his hand. You laugh, hair sprawled out across the ground. Jisung hesitates there. His expression melts, and his gaze is so gentle and full of emotion that you feel a deep pang in your chest. “S-Stop looking at me like that. It’s weird.”

Jisung doesn’t respond right away; instead, he leans down over you and blocks your view of the sky. All you see in that moment is him. You exhale, breath fogging in the air between you, and Jisung dips in to press his lips against yours. Soft lips. The taste of honey and vanilla. Stars hanging high in the sky. Jisung’s calloused hand reaching out and finding yours. Cherry wood and sugar on your nose. A fire crackling behind you.

Jisung was – is – precious to you. From the first hello to the last goodbye. Jisung’s face changes all of a sudden, and now it’s San before you.

“Oh, by the way, I’m sure you are wondering who I am. I’m Spectre. When you decide to talk, it would be for the best.” His voice rings in your ears. Perhaps it’s because of the increasing fever, but the volume of his voice is bringing a sharp pain to your head and adding to the already present ache in your body. “I am a spy and assassin for a reason. Finding people isn’t difficult at all for me. Especially considering that there is blood on six crates. Body heat coming from one. Tell me how that adds up for you.”

He had intimidated you so much then. Looking back, you aren’t sure why he did.

“You could repay me then,” he suggests, sending a teasing wink your way. You blink back in confusion. “A kiss, maybe?” You immediately roll your eyes at his remark, swinging an arm at his. He whines when you hit him, falling back as though you hit him with an insane amount of force. You steady him with the same arm and dip in before he can recover. You brush your lips over his cheek. He freezes under your touch within an instant. Red soars up his neck and cheeks.

“There. Maybe next time, you can get one on the lips.”

It felt easy then, even if you were still hellbent on running away and getting out of the mess you’d been thrust into. Yet San saved your life. Not once, but twice, maybe even three times if you were to count the second encounter with Cara. He opened himself up, cut his chest open, and gave you his heart. It almost makes you feel it—that sensation of being precious to someone.

“I’m scared to let you in,” you admit, bring your gaze back up to San’s eyes. He’s looking back at you with a gentleness in his eyes that catches you off-guard.

“You don’t have to let me in yet. Just try to trust me.”

“Okay… okay. I can do that.”

“Then that’s more than enough.”

San leans his head back against the pillow, but you take hold of his chin and pull him back to your face once more. It’s prompt and chaste, slightly awkward too, but you slot your lips against his in a rush. San inhales sharply at the sudden pressure. He melts into the soft kiss, pushing back with equal gentleness. He pulls away too soon for your liking, but the smile that resides on his lips as he falls asleep makes your decision to stay more than worth it.

San’s image doesn’t stay long, quickly dissolving into Seonghwa’s dark hair and delicate features.

Warm hands, warm lips against yours.

Warmth. It’s what you are desperate for, what you want more than anything else. You want what Seonghwa offers so severely that you don’t even stop to think about what sort of consequences might unfold because of this. Seonghwa’s hands find your waist and squeeze tight. He lifts you up to push you further onto the mattress, making room to climb on with you. Your lips never disconnect. The warmth spreads like wildfire through your body, every single touch leaves you hot, and when Seonghwa kneels over you on the mattress, that heat spreads further down.

Soft touches.

Your right hand seems to move on its own as it stretches in Seonghwa’s direction, fingers reaching for his. He slips his fingers through yours within a second. You hear soft skids as he moves closer to you, and before you know it, Seonghwa is flush against your side, the fire of his presence no longer overwhelming your senses.

“We’re going to keep you safe,” he whispers after a few minutes of sitting in a comfortable silence. “No matter what.”

Crossed legs on a bed and old books, then the fleeting memory of a hand draped over your waist as you slept.

You don’t push him away; you don’t slide out from under his arm, you don’t do anything except relax some of the tension in your shoulders. The sensation is comfortable; it takes away that nagging coldness and pushes the anxieties and worries surrounding San to the side. Funny how the slightest motion managed to have that impact on you. Seonghwa presses his head to the back of your neck. Hot breath fans over your skin, and you shiver at the sudden sensation.

For once, you don’t feel empty. You feel comforted, wanted, needed maybe. You’ve always felt needed, but only as a tool or a weapon. Not just as a person. And yet, as Seonghwa clings to you, you don’t feel like either of those things. You bring a hesitant hand up and drape it over Seonghwa’s, fingers finding his and lacing through the spaces between them so you can cling to him. You don’t know what time it is or if you should go back to bed, but you do anyway, clinging to Seonghwa without a care in the world.

And when the vision of Seonghwa melts away, it isn’t one person that stands in his place. Rather it’s four. Yunho with his rough hands dressing your wounds. His gentle voice chastising you for not doing your exercises. Furrowed brows and an intent stare as you opened up about yourself. Half-hearted jokes about sex and intimacy. Jongho and his strangely good abilities at playing cards. Him going easy on you in sparring practice because you’re “fragile” in his eyes. The silent yet strong comfort he provides by just being at your side. Wooyoung with the heavy metal collar around his neck. A rocky and rough start. Loud complaints about Jongho’s cooking while clinging to your arm. Yeosang and his piercing eyes. His watchful stare out the corner of his eye. Him stepping in front of you to defend you for the first time.

It’s a twisting and churning sensation in your gut, a desire to be more and have more in your life than just the notion of being a weapon and a criminal.

“I…” You have to trail off as your voice catches in your throat. “I have to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.” Even though he’s given you permission, it feels near impossible to get the words out.

“I don’t want to be a weapon anymore. I’m tired of… being that.”

“What do you want to be then? It’s still up to you, but I can’t just let you walk away while you know what Seonghwa is.” You shake your head immediately.

“I don’t want to walk away. I-I really don’t. I’m – it isn’t that. I’m not an Elitist.”

Hongjoong all but snorts.

“I’ve known that for a long time already. Is this the part where you tell me what you actually are? Unless you want me to play a guessing game, which I would fail miserably at. There are only three options, since your eyes aren’t red.”

“A S-Siren,” you blurt out, eyes meeting Hongjoong’s. His smile melts, and his face goes completely blank in an instant. “I can prove it. I can – can do something or ask Seonghwa, or I can show you my tattoos or anything you want.”

Silence greets you. Hongjoong won’t look at you. And in that moment, you think you’ve ruined everything. Then he laughs, his smile returning, but this time it’s far wider than before.

“How’s that for fate?” He laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. “I knew there was a reason our paths crossed. Why Seonghwa was so adamant about having you join the crew and why he’s so attached to you. I never expected it to be because of this though.”

“D-Don’t you want proof?”

“Of what? I’ll be calling Seonghwa to the bridge soon regardless. Besides, what reason would you have to lie to me now?”

“That’s… it?”

“Why do you sound disappointed?” Hongjoong inquires, brows rising again.

“Because you – I thought you would care more. I’m n-not sure. I was expecting you to be angry.”

Hongjoong shifts to face you head on. He places his hands on your shoulders, but his touch is gentle and light. Like Seonghwa’s. Like holding a piece of glass. When you look him in the eye, the gleam there makes you choke on air. You’ve never made a habit of making eye contact with him, but the emotion you see behind those dark eyes is not one you’ve ever seen from him before.

It’s hope.

And in that moment, warmth blooms in your chest and spreads across your whole body. He isn’t holding you as though you are something fragile or breakable. It’s something more than that, the very thing you’ve been after all this time. He’s holding you like you are something precious.

✧✧✧ a/n: hi guys 🥺 how we doing how we feeling what goes on this is a big chapter in terms of emotions and talking and what's going on finally some backstory yes! woohoo! lot's of info this chapter, but i hope you guys enjoyed it regardless feel free to gimme those theories and your fav parts! i love getting to chat about theories with you guys, yall are so smart and creative 🤧 anywho i can't wait to get into act four it's gonna be CRAZY if you thought it was a ride before just you WAIT we're going full effing throttle ((also idek if i’ve said it before the act names on the masterlist are hints 👁👁))

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rosheendubh · 3 years

Text

WIP...art-manipulation as visual inspiration for The Elegy of Dead Kingdoms...(crossover of StarWars/revamped Thrawn trilogy, FireFly/Serenity, and the Keltiad...also, spoof SpaceOpera-RockOpera featuring anyone from David Bowie, to LED Zepplin, NewOrder, U2, Ah-Ha...etc)...

~Background

~ At the impetus of River Tam, and the Operative, the Serenity’s renegade crew defies transit laws prohibiting unauthorized access to the wormhole connecting Terran space with the quadrant of the Republic Alliance and the Galactic Empire. Having only a fragmented record mentioning a lone survivor from a planetary massacre, the crew track rumors of a psionically gifted orphan said to have come from the Terran Fringe system of New Celtica, possessing the ability of manipulating the molecular structure of organic matter. An exile once in the service of Palpatine, whose skill of biokinesis Thrawn covets to stabilize the unpredictable violence of his cloned hybrids. A woman with adversaries on both sides of the wormhole, winning a Jedi to her cause, and determined to discover the key to a secret kept hidden for a thousand years. A buried legend of Old Terra, Earth That Was, that may be the last defense between the ancient darkness wakened by Thrawn‘s pursuit of absolute dominion, and the destruction of all life throughout the galaxy...(queue *cinematic drama music*)...

Somewhere between the battle of the Dark Force fleet, and Wayland, MonMontha offers a last ditch effort at negotiation with Thrawn. Imperial forces victorious in recent campaigns, have pushed back the RepublicAlliance to their InnerPlanetary systems. Rogue genetic scientists from the Terran quadrant, refusing to abandon their research after the PAX Hydrochlorate failure on Miranda, found a ready market amid trans-conduit Imperial war-profiteers, for their newest discovery. An archaic protogenome derived from dark-matter structures, endowing hybridized Reaver clones with real-time tissue regenerative capacity. These clones now render Thrawn’s army nearly indestructible. The scene above is merely my toying with a concept of the ethereal, and formidable River Tam crossing paths with the illustrious brilliance embodied in the GrandAdmiral Thrawn...

~scene~

On Coruscant, during Monmontha’s attempt at negotiating a peace, Rhyanon ferch Garowen (alluded to above) blatantly rejects Thrawn‘s coercive effort at bringing her to his side during a dinner banquet. B/c of this act of arrogance, Thrawn vows no mercy in the progression of his campaign, conquering and converting sector upon sector into a dark matter/anti-matter morass which becomes dubbed The Dimensional Rift, despite the valiant efforts of the Republic Alliance squadrons, directed by LukeSkywalker, and allies, to fend off the onslaught of Thrawn’s Dreadnaught fleet.

Before all that though, with the evening following the dinner still at hand, Thrawn abides by the Old Republic etiquette of host and guest, honoring civil diplomacy amongst enemies. A requisite social diversion-music or a dance-ensuing in the Palace reception hall holds no interest to him in Rhyanon’s absence. Preferring solitude, he meanders out to a balcony overlooking Coruscant’s expanse of lights, twinkling ladders of motion, reaching up to the lower atmosphere. And here, she follows after him minutes later, floating between shadows, a specter of innocence and dangerous beauty.

She pauses beneath a statue of some nameless goddess, a figure of Victory or Life, a pretension of lesser cultures. Weaker nations seeking hope in empty icons. The girl, young woman really, by the standards of human chronology, offers an entirely different contemplation.

From the sofa where he’s seated, viewing her from across the fountain, Thrawn appreciates the lithe symmetry of her form, a subtle disguise of strength and grace. Dangerous beauty. “You’re very like her, River Tam. A work of art, a living masterpiece,” he comments.

For as young as she is, not more than 20 years surely, she carries herself with a remarkable serenity. Stepping lightly around the other sofa, she leans her hip against the cushioned neck rest. Barely flickering an eyelid, she focuses luminous dark eyes on him, shining through the mottled patterns of light scattered between them.

Her voice resembles her figure, light and flowing. “A failed experiment, you mean, Mitth’raw’nuruodo.” Flawlessly, she speaks his name, though he knows they weren’t introduced at any point previous to this moment. ”I was supposed to be like them—the researchers were trying to make me like them. One of your chimeric hybrids.”

“Ah, the one who got away,“ he muses. Something at that stirs a flicker in her dark gaze. “Yes, little Albatross, I read the classified reports of your Core Parliament. About your brother, the escape. An elegant devising. And a lesson as to the deficiencies of private-contract security.“

Tension firms a line between her brows, hardens her expression as she glances away from him for a moment. “It wouldn’t have mattered.“

His derision comes out as a short, barking laugh. “Why? Because your escape resulted more from the incompetence of poorly trained guards than the alleged skill of your brigand crew mates?

Her attention swings back to him, conviction firm in her words. “No. Because my brother watches out for me. He protects me. And he loves me.”

Thrawn says nothing, stoic against her emotion, such a human flaw. Rubbing his thumb and middle finger together, of the hand draped eloquently off the arm-wrest, he continues sizing up this most intriguing amalgam of softness and mettle.

”Love is a weakness,” satisfaction grim in his tone, picking at a piece of this puzzle embodied by River Tam. Toying with it, testing how she’ll react. “It causes distraction from the warrior’s path. Makes them vulnerable to fear. And you, little Albatross, were foremost, molded as a weapon. A living masterpiece of perfection.”

Her lids slant, head tipped to the side slightly. “I dream about them still. The other test subjects. The Reavers. The dreams used to frighten me. They were worse when the scientists would be administering some new cocktail. They’re not as bad as they used to be, since Miranda. But their voices—I...hear them-“a frown ghosting over her features”-though I’ve learned to hush them.”

”I think you hear a lot more than that, River Tam.”

Challenge broods in a strange magnetism between them. ”So do you,” she says mildly, sending a wary shiver over his skin. How she knows about inoculating himself with the protogenome he can’t begin—

-of course he can. She’s a mind-reader, a telepath. What can’t she pick out of the whirl of thought composing humanoid psyches if she’s so determined?

His awareness smolders like embers in a breeze, open to the Shadow’s primordial sequences merged into his own cells. Enhancing perception, layers of reality peeled back when he channels this infernal heat coursing through his blood. Vision, smell, sound, his mind branching like light off a faceted diamond, reflecting images in a 1000 different plains. And Thrawn, glorying in the draught of fractured darkness.

River’s eyes glint in guarded scrutiny, attuned, perhaps to the whisper of power subsumed by Thrawn’s cultivated urbanity. Wandering over to where he’s seated, she lowers herself next to him on the couch. Her mind brushes against his like leaves floating upon a watery surface, remaining on the periphery without venturing into the depths.

“Chiis physiology-Stamina, strength, resilience against extremes of physical exposure. Superior reflexes and intellect inherent to your species, allowing adaptive advantages over the millennia. A robust psychology keeping you from succumbing to the deterioration of sensory assimilation, the way your clones eventually will. A perfect medium for channeling the Shadow.”

Thrawn wonders where she’s going with her exposition. She bears the full weight of his scorching gaze with nary a flinch. The fey-like curiosity alive across her youthful grace causes a rare unease, unused to be so unabashedly studied. He holds himself still, tensing at the light pressure of her hand taking his out of his lap, wrapping delicate fingers over a wrist corded by muscle.

”Everyone has a weakness,” she says. “Even you.”

Anger snarls beneath the surface of his poise, a broiling red froth that must have blazed up in his gaze. ”Whatever you think you see child, you take liberties of interpretation,” speaking in cold, controlled wrath before which she pales, breathing deep to collect herself. The pressure of her touch on his wrist, though, remains steady.

Her hand, slender fingers resting atop his own, no suggestion of anything other than gentleness. His own hand, larger, stronger, a grip that could crack her bones with minimal exertion. Strangle the air from her lungs, twist her fragile neck like silken twine. Tangling the rich brown waves of her hair in his grasp, forcing her head back till her spine might snap, plundering her mouth as he would plunder her body. Raze her mind till she was left a weeping pile of bruised limbs and torn clothes, cowering on the chill marble floor, her thighs bleeding like the rags of her mind.

Unperturbed, she shares every image coalesced in his thoughts. Each portrait of violence fading into the recess of darkness where the Shadow brews and twists like smoke above the infernal hells. As well, he’s viewed the record of her encounter with the Reavers after Miranda. Like Rhyanon, she would fight him with a skill capable of delaying the ultimate conquest. This wisp of a child, scarcely into womanhood, moving like sand and water, a song of death captured in every leap and twist. Every dive and slash as she wound a choreography of slaughter against an entire pack of beastial invaders. The outcome inevitably in his favor, if for no other reason than the greater strength of his sheer physicality would overwhelm, exhaust her eventually, compared to human anatomic inadequacy.

“A matter of minutes, to take you. An act of utility, really--to break you. Make you beg for a mercy that would never come.“

Her eyebrow crooks up, scolding or skepticism. “But you wouldn’t do that, any of those things.”

Her patient humoring isn’t what he anticipated. ”What makes you think so?” he asks out of mere speculation, momentarily forgetting the antagonizing subtlety guiding their conversation.

”Because you‘ve seen what I am. The weapon, not the woman. And,“ she says, sighing with an almost child-like assurance, looking out to the far horizon, “because seduction isn’t your weakness. She is.”

Damn the girl, for gut-punching through his composure with such guileless effort. His gaze follows hers, tracking the aerial traffic dotting Coruscant’s night skies in a flickering menagerie. He concentrates on keeping his breathing even, stilling his mind, as he considers his reply. The silhouettes of soaring towers outlined by shimmering lights blot out the sky, the glow which would normally be visible on a less metropolitan planet, of satellites in orbit, and stars far beyond.

”One word,” he says finally. “She could have changed the tide of this war for the Republic with one word.“

She turns, a searching intensity in her deep gaze. Seeing too much within him. “So could you, change the tide of this war for Republic,” she says softly, giving a gentle squeeze of his wrist.

Impatient and irritated with the poignancy in her tone, Thrawn shakes her hand off. “She has no idea, the fate to which she’s condemned the galaxy,” he tells her with a hard look, rising off the sofa. He looms over her, eyes burning across her face, so that for the first time, she shudders away from the brewing wrath. He marvels again, the steel disguised beneath the seeming delicacy of her body. Her sandeled feet tucked beneath her on the sofa, the fabric of her dress, simple design of polyfiber cotton, drapes fine curves of breast, hip, and thigh.

Despite her attention fastened upon the night horizon, nothing of intimidation colors her posture, but sadness tinges the turned-down line of her lips. He bows his head to her before heading back to the reception hall lying through a corridor adjoined to the balcony. A salute, a parting to conceal his remorse of the lost fate she chooses with her friends and allies.

“And you, little Albatross,“ he rasps in dire promise, the epithet snaring her surprised glance up at him. “You have no idea what’s coming. None of you do.”

A wasted masterpiece of living art, dangerous beauty.

—

Watching him stride away into the dim hall, the Grand Admiral’s disappointment aches like an overstrained joint. Bothersome, but eventually fading unless exacerbated. In his absence, the darkness hovers about her, the balcony esconsed, now, in transient quiet. Illusory peace.

Alive, so alive, the hum of myriad thoughts, voices, hopes, griefs—the gambit composing sentient life throughout the city. The planet. Her mind-reading truly can’t extend with any precision beyond the palace, but a general hum always persists in the background of her consciousness. The sound of living beings. A vibration silenced forever upon Miranda.

That silence had almost broken her sanity more than any experimentation. As scientists sought to harness innate hyper-sensory perception with neurochemical alterations, subjecting her to an intensive programming, molding her mind-body duplex into prime mental and physical conditioning. In the process, she was often torn, battered, abused, and tortured, her mind confused, shifting between lucidity and dissociation and nightmare. But never breaking.

The sound of death, of nothing. Emptiness like a vacuum, no thought, or feeling. Miranda had almost broken her. Miranda, it turned out, opened the road to a recovery of herself. What she is, what she’s meant to be? No one seems to know. At least not since Simon rescued her from the illicit lab which had been her prison. Hyper-awareness, sensory adepts, psychic traits expressed amongst humans were hardly uncommon through the Terran quadrant, both Core and Fringe systems. Posited by some scientists as a natural development of sentient consciousness, induced by interstellar travel over the centuries.

Among these foreign systems across the wormhole, peoples attributed such gifts to some metaphysical energy field. The Force. Light and Dark. The association, to River’s thinking, paradoxical for a property endemic to all beings, carrying no inherent morality until determined by the intent of the wielder. Perhaps she just didn’t quite grasp its intricacies as yet, conceding that nuances of intuition, emotion, passive reception, meditation still often eluded her. The Force embedded such concepts, rather than the more actualized focus of psychic traits held by the majority of systems native to the Terran quadrant.

What she is. What she��s meant to be—*a weapon, a work of art*. *No*, she answers her own query, the feeling of defiance liberating. *A failed experiment. The one who got away.*

”And you forget,“ she whispers to the attentive night. “I can still hear them in my head. All the time. Just like you do, Mitt’raw’nuruodo.”

Miranda is not what Thrawn has in mind, that sort of emptiness. He wants something more. Under Imperium’s auspices, subjugating and assimilating one star system after another, spreading this corruption of time and reality, bleeding the Dark Entity’s ravenous, primordial substance like an oil-slick settling into the sinkholes of what had been viable Star-systems. Seeding these tortured hybrids cloned of Reavers, and whatever other mutated derangements of horror will fuse and divide in an incubator. With his enhanced soldiers, their minds a racket of incessant savagery, submission to Thrawn throughout the galaxy seems inevitable. Especially now that Intel, and Republic specialists working with Rhyanon, recently confirmed the adaptive capacity of certain hybrids to infect other living creatures with their intracellular genetic material.

They’ll never be completely hushed, even in the deepest caverns of her own mind. Reavers. The chimeric hybrids. They howl, writhe, snarl, and scream in agony beyond their comprehension. But the havoc of their consciouses, keeping the hybrids contained as a utilizable resource requires increasing concentrations of sedatives, hyponotics, and psychogenic pharmaceuticals.

She can feel their echo within Thrawn, too. Not of the violence, but his craving the Shadow’s power. It’s why he covets Rhyanon-her abilities of biologic manipulation, transforming the very backbone molecules of life. Healing, rejuvenating, reconstructing, restoring from disease, infection, deterioration and decay. Thirsting for the surcease she could provide, balancing the Dark Entity’s immersion of his own constitution. A living masterpiece, the kind of gifted elegance Thrawn desired, Rhyanon, like River, was another one who’d gotten away. Another failed experiment. Another dangerous beauty.

Rhyanon loathes him. Holding her captive on his flagship under the influence of cortical inhibitors, and hallucinogens. Trying to force her into stabilizing the synaptic connections of higher brain function in his hybrids. Dampening their insanity as the cloned offspring reached maturity. Coercing her in other ways as well, while she resisted the influence of intoxicants deluging her system. That was why she rejected his play at truce earlier during the dinner, an offer to join him voluntarily. That. And the fact she and the Jedi were patently lovers. A circumstance exacerbating the already furious enmity between the Grand Admiral and Luke.

Rhyanon would use those same graces of biokinesis to tear him apart one atom at a time, despite the danger of inducing her own body’s destruction. The price of biopsionic talents, a check limiting the potential for abuse of that power over life and death. Unfortunate, in that Rhyanon’s ability, synergized with the particular strengths shared between their small group of Force-wielders and sensory adepts, offers the only potential counter against Thrawn’s growing influence.

Finding some way of battling this Dark Matter entity. This Abaddon, commanding elemental forces dating from the universe’s origins. A being capable of destroying multiple star-systems if they resist its Seeding. They’d all seen what happened on Namsonis 4 in the aftermath of losing the majority of Dreadnaughts. A desperate evacuation. A world wrenched apart like a ball of mud crushed in a fist. A solar system facing a monstrous dehiscence of time and space, heart of chaos, blowing a hole through the core of a sun, and incinerating the other 6 planets spared Namsonis’s fate. Hours later, a festering wound across the void of black, rocky debris and ionized gas discharges the last traces of a star system no longer existing between tomorrows.

Contrary to the stillness in which she sits, River’s thoughts spin countless strands in the spreading web of her mind, her fingers running absently along the ridge of her collarbone. Picturing simultaneous star-maps, envisioning parallel scenarios of navigation vectors, battle engagements, the stratified calculations worked in trans-dimensional matrices. Always hearing the Reavers seething in the recess of her soul.

Finally, arriving at some conclusion, she reveals to the passing night, ”I do know exactly what’s to come.” And maybe, maybe there’s a chance. One distant, improbable-verging on impossible-chance they have of subverting this menace before it reaches the Terran quadrant.

#Star Wars #firefly serenity #grand admiral thrawn #River Tam #Rhyanon ferch Garowen #Luke Skywalker #Lattice of Infinity

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