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sushirrrry · 7 days

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EXECUTIVE a harry styles one-shot smut blurb; 19.3k words cw: oral sex (f receiving), fingering, dom/sub, breath play, dirty talk.

"If they want the fucking numbers, they've got to stop being pussies and give us the fucking reins. I'm not sitting around and waiting for their stock to crash and for their stupid, fucking minions to come back on me to tell me what I already knew and told them from the start—I'm not painted out to be the biggest fucking moron, that's for certain. It's either a deal or it isn't, plain and simple. If they don't want to have that fucking conversation, it's done. Fuck them and their stupid fucking counteroffer. It's a fucking slap in the face, and I'm not even entertaining the idea."

Harry pulled the phone away from his ear, clicking on End Call before he threw his phone over and onto the wooden desk that sat perpendicular to the vicious New York skyline. His heart raced as he shook his head.

An adrenaline junkie like him fed off of the conversations like these.

His sleeves were pushed up his forearms, his eyes navigated towards the contractual wreckage of paperwork that had seemed to be forgone on his desk as he pushed some of it to the side. His elbows leaned on the desk; his hands tied together as he rested his lips again them in a precocious thought.

Running the company came with a sharp tongue and a knack for knowing when it was time to push back. Harry was a mogul in all of the sense of the word—his company had grown to a gargantuan size, which allowed his position within the business to skyrocket to a level that was so without fail that he couldn't believe it sometimes.

His mouth got the better of him; in some ways, it created the effervescence of attack. It was all that he could do to keep himself from picking the phone back up and telling them to shove it all back up their ass—he refrained for the time being, until he was pushed again.

But no one usually poked the bear unless they truly believed they had a chance in slaughtering them. Mr. Styles was far too confident in his work and his business to ever let that happen.

The bear's claws reacted too quickly for the barrel of the rifle to even face him.

"Uh, excuse me, Mr. Styles?"

His eyes raised to the door that he hadn't seen opening before his lips parted just a bit to answer the woman questioning him. She wore a black skirt with tall, black boots that suited the length of her legs. Her top arranged in a bit of a messy manor, but it was almost as if she had styled it that way to add a bit of flare.

Her blazer hung a bit low—practically to the mid-length of the skirt that rode up her thighs, but he wouldn't have been caught dead staring. In public, anyway.

His eyes made their assessment of her quickly before returning to her naturally, raspberry lips that took up much of her lower face. The natural length of her smile was perfectly proportioned, not that he had spent much time thinking of it, of course.

Felicity—his assistant. The one with eyes the color of the ocean that he would vacation on in the Maldives; the most piercing, stunning blue. The quiet one, a bit shy in her reservations, almost like she was the smallest fish in the ocean made entirely of sharks. Her reservations to others seemed to aid in bulldozing over her confidence, but to Harry, it was an enticing spectacle of fantasy.

A fantasy he'd promise to never share with even his closest comrades, if an NDA wasn't in place, that is.

The dark brown locks settled against her back in heaps of loose, voluminous curls as she held tightly to the phone behind her fingers.

"Am I interrupting?" She asked, her question a bit hesitant as she didn't seem to move any further forward into the large space of his office.

"No—no, you're not," He told her, "Come in, Felicity, I need to use your brain for a moment."

"My brain?" She asked him, cocking her head a bit.

That was the thing about Felicity that almost made him foam at the mouth– her way of innocence and contemplation that allowed him to see his viewpoints from her standpoint.

Harry's company was outsourcing most of the global news which meant that he oversaw several departments within. His leadership was only as good as the recommendations and guidance that Felicity was able to provide him; her devil's advocacy, her interpretation of empathy, and being able to see how interactions happened without Harry present versus the other sense.

Felicity was a practical need in his company for various reasons, not one to just make his blood boil and frantically move around his veins every time he caught a whiff of the coconut lime scent that his mind had become familiar with.

She was a calmness to him in many ways, so her presence now settled his heartbeat from the previous conversation.

"That deal we're making this afternoon, I just got off the phone with Sadler and they're folding– they're becoming weak. And it's pissing my off. They're coming to me to help solve their issues, because they know I can do it. They're , but they know we'll do it. Which pisses me off because it makes us look weak if we just say yes."

Felicity blinked a few times as she watched Harry's reaction, her legs crossed at the feeling before she held her hands in front of her and nodded.

Harry sucked his lips into his mouth before he shook his head, a few of loose curls settled on his forehead as he pushed them back and Felicity wished that he hadn't.

"I think you're going to push them to do it without the counter," Felicity nodded. "From what I'm hearing, they're folding, and they can see that what we can provide is significant. Especially in terms of the election. We can do it– you can do it."

His eyes flew to her word change, noticing that her eyes had moved away from him. The subtle blush of pink ate away at her cheeks before Harry nodded in his own satisfaction.

"Enough about me," He shook his head, "What did you need, Felicity?"

Her eyes raised as it seemed she came back to conclusion about what she had been there for to begin with.

"Oh, I just talked with Nava at PLI and they wanted to express their gratitude towards you, because they said that you helped them with understanding the fundamentals of their offer and I thought it sounded like a for-sure deal– I just wanted you to know that Nava is a yes," She nodded and raised her brows again in remembrance, "Oh! And I'm also running to pick up some coffee and snacks before the board meeting. Flat white?"

Harry smirked at the praise from her, watching it leave her lips effortlessly. He nodded a few times at her question before he rose from his chair and grabbed the tie around his neck to loosen just a bit.

Harry grabbed the paperwork off of his desk before he moved towards the door and guided Felicity to follow. "Yes, please. A flat white with cinnamon, maybe a pump of caramel? What do you think?"

The words were like a question as Felicity walked next to him through the natural, brightly lit office. Her fingers tapped away at the device before she noticed the slight edge of the spicy cologne that wafted from his demeanor as he turned his head toward her.

"I'm not a huge fan of caramel," She stated a bit hesitantly as they stopped in front of one of the offices where Harry was about to go into a meeting.

He looked at Felicity as they stopped, his eyes moving up and down as he went from her lips to her eyes as if involved in a game of ping-pong.

"What do you like, then?" His words were soft, fluid.

Felicity swallowed as she shook her head a few times and nibbled on her lip. She hummed for a moment, "Um, I prefer vanilla."

The corner of Harry's lip moved upwards. "Make it a hot flat white with an extra shot of espresso, cinnamon, and a pump of vanilla, please."

Felicity wrote it down in her notes, but her fingers almost shook with adrenaline as she felt his gaze linger on her without her noticing before she nodded. "Great. I'll– uh, I'll leave now so I can be back in time to make sure you have what you need."

Her feet started to move away before she heard the booming sensation of her name. The way that her eyes fluttered back at him made Harry almost take a step backward.

"Uh," He felt speechless at the sudden look of her, "Please get whatever you need, too." He felt the professionalism start to creep its way back in. "Can't have you falling asleep on the job, you have notes to write."

Felicity bit the inside of her cheek before she nodded. "Yes, sir."

With that, Felicity turned her back and started to head down towards the elevators. Harry turned to make his way into the boardroom where he saw the table sitting and waiting for his arrival.

The hush that fell over the crowd made him shutter every time– the power he held echoed through his conscious at every moment it could.

He only smirked as he sat at the head of the table, pulling himself to sit up and lean on the table before he looked up to see the many eyes staring back at him.

"Shall we get to work then?"

__________________

"This coffee is fucking cold."

One of the board members pushed it away after taking a small sip, as Felicity had just sat it down in front of him.

It was an older gentleman– Hank– who had worked with the Styles family for many years and been able to help SCO with their major launches with other shareholders. His entitlement was present in the room, which pressed on her ego just a bit. Her head turned towards him as she shook hers.

A woman at the end of the time made a face as she looked at the side of the cup, "Ordered a fucking latte—they even messed it up and it's cold. The coffee shop is just down the block."

Felicity tucked some hair behind her ears as she shook her head in a bit of disbelief as she tried to find the receipt that the coffeehouse had given her. There wasn't any way that they gave her the wrong order, but she didn't know if there may have been a mix-up in who she gave the coffees to.

"T-That's impossible—I just order—" But she was cut off by the man who licked over his lips and held his hand up to stop her words from even echoing in the room at all.

"Just go get some hot coffee, would you?"

Felicity's eyes blazed around the room as she noticed that the others had practically ignored her efforts of the two full cardboard contents of coffee cups that she had practically run the streets of New York to pick up. Not only were they not even acknowledging her, but they were condescending in her efforts. Yes, she was an assistant—she wasn't their assistant. It wasn't her fault that she was one person, but she knew that she had to try harder to make the best impression that she could.

"Everyone just shut the fuck up and drink your coffees, would you? Our deadline is in six fucking hours. If you can't handle a little lukewarm coffee, get the fuck out of my office. I pay too much of your goddamn salaries for you to cry like a fucking baby."

Harry's eyes moved to the nervous-looking girl who stood by the door, along the edge of the buffet that held the rest of the coffee, donuts, and bagels that had practically been falling out of her arms when she arrived.

He couldn't tell—it may have been the lighting, but her eyes looked glassy as she tried to stand with her shoulders back. Harry caught her attention before she threw herself back together and walked over towards him, leaning down to where he sat at the table.

"I can run to go get something else, I don't think it would take too long, you know. Or I could order it to be delivered?" Felicity asked, a bit cautious, he could tell. But her piercing blue eyes were practically a shade of gray as he looked at them through her thick, tortoiseshell glasses that complimented the brightness of her eyes.

His eyes fell to the way that the chapstick she always applied gave her lips the most subtle peony color—so pink, but so natural. He thought that may be a better place for his eyes to land instead of directly into her eyes, but then he panicked for a moment and turned them back to her eyes.

"That's not necessary." Harry shook his head, answering for the individuals in the room. Even if they pushed their coffee aside, Harry would have never blamed it on Felicity for any failure—it wasn't her fault. He took a sip of his own; to his dismay, it was a bit cold, but he wasn't going to complain about it.

The stature of Felicity at the door made him take in a deep breath before he caught her attention, asking her to come towards him with just a look before she was practically on top of him. Her willingness to do as he said gave him a feeling of endorphins that were unlike any he had before.

Harry looked up at her from his seat, licking over his lips softly.

"Please make a reservation for two at The Malbec tonight at nine—whether or not these jackasses are going to be done working, I sure am, and I'm going to celebrate it. Add that I would like the executive seating and the Pauillac on the table, not chilled."

She nodded a few times at his requests, adding it into her notes on her phone before she looked back at him cautiously.

"Should I be arranging a car to pick someone up for you?" She asked. Her teeth scraping against her bottom lip as she waited for his response.

Harry shook his head back at her before filing through a few papers, "Not necessary today. Just make sure that you're not off the clock yet," He nods, "In case something doesn't go as planned."

Felicity nodded at the feeling of his eyes on hers before he turned to face the table before him.

"Someone get John on the phone," Harry ordered, his eyes going towards, "Hank. I want their numbers for the day and the plan for the fiscal year. I want to hear it from their lips, the spreadsheets don't mean shit if they're just going to lie to my face. Mary, contact PLI to get their rates."

Felicity had started to make her way towards the door, back towards her desk that sat in the main office towards Harry's own private one, before Harry called her back, "Felicity, sit in this meeting, will you? Grab your computer."

Her eyes narrowed at him in a bit of confusion before he stood up and grabbed a chair from the side of the room and pulled it to the spot next to where he was, at the head of the table.

Felicity did as he wished, leaving to grab her laptop and notebook essentials that she used to keep track of his days, his weeks. When she arrived back, she could feel a few eyes on her as they talked through the deal with John. The silence in the room as he spoke over the speaker was deafening before she sat down at the spot next to Harry.

His focus on the conversation made her attention turn towards him.

Working at SCO was one of Felicity's highest honors—she felt that her confidence was gained just by being in the room with some of these people. But, at the same time, she wondered at what point this would all get to her. She wasn't like this—she didn't have the same cutthroat mindset of tearing another down to get herself to another place.

In some respects, that's what was the balance between what Harry was and what he knew that he needed. He needed someone like Felicity to sit next to him—a calming sensation that he didn't ever notice until he would garner a sniff of the coconut shampoo that drifted from her silky chestnut hair.

It was sickening at times—the way he felt about her. When he was sitting next to her now, he watched as she let her fingers grace over the laptop keys, focused in on whatever task she was working on. His eyes moved away when he watched as her teeth loosened on her lower lip, letting the plumpness of it a drawback to a straightened line of her mouth.

He shifted in his seat as he felt himself get a sensation of pressure below the belt.

When he spoke, it was with a confidence that she couldn't seem to place. It was as if he could break and make with just words alone, a skill that he had to have been born with.

As they discussed the offers more in-depth, Felicity found herself distracted from her own work as she let her eyes gently maneuver back to where Harry sat at the end of the table. Her fingers practically stopped typing as she listened to the conversation and watched as his brain work in overtime.

It wasn't just impressive; it was extraordinary.

The narrowing of his brows, the calculated glance at the table as if he could cut through it with just his sight, the determined clench of his jaw.

"Don't fucking low-ball this," Harry practically snarled as he tapped the point of his pen to his notepad. "I know what's best for this company and we don't want people who underestimate the work and quality of our services. Globally, we're ahead of the entire market– we beat out every major network in significance. If you truly want to hand us a shitty number like that, you'll fucking fall. Your company will fail, and we will continue to sit right at the top as you lick the dirt off our shoes. It's not a competition; we've already won. So, do you want to win with us? That's the question here."

There's a slow chuckle on the phone, a bit of silence, too. Felicity looks up from her laptop to watch as a few members whisper to one another before hearing John on the other end.

"Listen, it's– we understand this. SCO is globally leading, but this is an election year– how are we supposed to gain traction when the news sources from SCO are against the current climate? We just don't see the same vision right now and we need to make sure our values are aligning– SCO may not be leading once the election happens."

Harry's eyes don't dim– Felicity watches as he turns different, his focus staying on the notepad under his fingers as he takes a beat before he stares at the phone in the middle of the table.

Her leg crosses under the table, gently caressing his unbeknownst to her. His eyes falter for once, as she retracts her position when she watches him crack for the first time. She noticed that he faltered but only a small huff of his breath before she bit her lip.

"We're a multi-billion-dollar company that focuses on the current political climate at hand since we completely understand the market, unlike someone who needs to be bought out to ensure that they don't sink. If you're just sitting in the open water, we will look the other way when a shark comes by," Harry shrugs, "I don't quite understand your vision of understanding moral compasses when you're sitting on significant lawsuits and company fouls that don't seem to benefit you right now or the lying, cheating words that come from your mouth."

Felicity's eyes flew up from her place at the table, watching as she saw everyone else's down. It was an unmistakable feeling of vigor that suddenly oozed from the place of Harry's seat. His demeanor was powerful, it was penetrable.

The quietness over the phone doesn't seem to faze anyone else, but Harry's eyebrow arches at the seconds that go by before he pops his tongue into the side of his mouth with a cheeky grin that was questioning on mad.

"Looks like they just got eaten by that fucking shark, huh." He says quietly before leaning over to press onto the conference room phone. He ended the call before he watched the room continue in silence.

Another woman, Laura, sitting at one of the sides spoke up as she held her phone in her hands.

"It looks like they're countering again." It was a bit quiet, almost like she didn't want the entire room to hear as she read on her phone before looking up at Harry, who held the emotion of a bear.

"Tell them they can choke on their own spit." He bites before Felicity cleared her throat.

His eyes immediately softened at the way that she interrupted, mostly because he was a bit confused by it.

"Mr. Styles," She pipped, "I—I, um, if I may." She chews on her lip a bit before she takes in a breath. "It sounds like they're needing a bit more leverage. Maybe a bit more face-to-face interaction that will cut and garner the deal. You're going to need more than John's input; he needs more intel from other aspects to understand what their losses look like."

Harry's eyes simply rest on Felicity as he leans back in the office chair, his legs crossed—a pursed pout on his lips as he nods at her words. A trickle of egotistical pride lies beneath his chest as he stares at her for a moment.

"Set the scene for me." He tells her, before watching Felicity take a deep breath. He watches her chest fall and rise and something about it sets him into high gear.

"Your family started this from scratch—this company is bigger than just the cash flow, and it's completely understood that it's worth billions, but they need to understand that there's a larger purpose for the work that they've put into it. They're not on the same business level that SCO is—it's apparent by the way that they throw around their value system. Meet with John outside of the office setting, get him where he can be able to see that you're serious without the psychological barrier of the phone—"

"That's fucking bullshit." Felicity hears from down the table, another man making a comment about her complete train of thought that. "You really think business is about emotion?"

Harry narrowed his brows, Felicity a bit surprised but not completely. Her head turning back towards her computer.

"You need to be thinking internally for what's best for us, not babying them to give us what we want. You know they're going to fall right into our hands, we don't need to get soft on them." Mary, a woman that Felicity generously thought would at least have an understanding of her interests, seemed to shame her more.

Harry pursed out his lips as he stares at the notepad in front of him. He pushed his hands against the table to rise from his seat before he's raised, watching silently as he eyes Felicity quickly before he starts to make his way out of the room. Before he does so, he turns his back and holds onto the door before he looks at Felicity directly.

"Felicity, please meet me in my office."

She swallows down the lump in her throat; cursing herself for even making a peep. She knew she should have kept her mouth shut. Instead, she closed the laptop before she grabs the few belongings and makes her way out of the door.

Harry is steps ahead of her, not looking back, as they make their way to the office that sits in the north side of the larger office space.

When he walks in, he makes his way to his desk before leaning on it. Felicity walks in behind him, hesitating before

Harry notices that she hasn't fully made her way in yet.

"Come in," He tells her, "Take a seat."

Her words practically spilling out of her as soon as they reached the threshold of the door; there was nothing that she could say now that would make him keep her there, but she wanted to at least try.

"I-I know I overstepped my boundaries– I promise, I really do, I promise I will never do that again," She's holding the laptop against her chest, practically begging, "This is extremely unprofessional, but you need to know that I need this–"

"Do you know why you're still here, Felicity?" He asks, "Why you're still at SCO?"

His interrupted words make hers fall short as she stands at the door still. His arms are holding himself practically against the desk as he leans back against it.

Tears threaten her eyes as she tries to think of what she needs to pack from her desk quickly. This feels entirely too personal– he's firing her on the spot.

She shakes her head as she doesn't want to come up with an answer. Harry squints his eyes a bit as he notices the emotion that starts to creep on her face. All the sudden, he feels bad for what he's doing to her.

It feels a bit forward, maybe a bit out of his place. But he needs her to know exactly how he feels about her, and why the last assistants never stuck around.

He needs her to know that's she's different.

"It's because you're fucking smart," He tells her, "What you have, they lack. You have this– well, for lack of a better word, you're emotional. You can see beyond the bullshit and really down to the person." He points towards the area of the conference room that they just left.

"I'm not here to baby your ass or carry you through this job– you don't need this fucking job. You have so much more about you than being an assistant, okay? So, don't take what some fuckers in that office say about you and your ideas as gospel. They aren't getting it done, either– as you can see."

Felicity's demeanor loosens at his words; her knuckles along the laptop at her chest starts to loosen as she breathes in just a bit.

"I'm sorry–"

"Stop apologizing." He orders, "When you do that, all you're doing is making them right about you. They aren't."

There's a silence between them for a moment before Felicity nods a few times and bites at her lip. "You're right."

"Most of the time." He tells her, a smirk has replaced the seriousness of their conversation. "That's why I have this big office and a 300ft. yacht and they don't."

She follows with her own small, sided smirk, watching as he goes to move from his position.

"That sounded very cocky, I'm sorry." He laughed a little bit, lowering his head as he felt a bubble of laughter. Felicity followed behind, laughing a bit as she bit on her lower lip.

The tension had been cut; this overwhelming feeling of comfort had started to come across her, specifically when Harry looked back up at her and she could see the shining level of his green eyes and the deepening dimples crossing his face.

It wasn't an emotion she saw very often; it looked impossibly lovely on him.

"Stop saying sorry, remember?" She reminded him, a sheepish smile laying on her lips.

Harry moved his fists into his pockets as he started to walk a bit towards her.

It was then that Felicity recognized that his pure power and force was enough to knock her down to her knees. The way that he stood up, his suit tailored perfectly around his small hips and shoulders, she couldn't understand the feeling that had come over her suddenly.

Harry approached her, they were standing eye to eye as he searched between them both. He had been searching for something, surely, by the way his eyes moved between her own.

Felicity tipped her chin up a little bit; it was slight enough that they both noticed, but a sudden embarrassment crossed her thought at the way she had possibly invited a completely inappropriate behavior.

"Let's get back in there, yeah?" She clears her throat as she turned her head and body, moving back out towards the conference room.

Harry's fists tightened next to him at the way she moved away, and he couldn't help but shutter at what could have possibly happened moments ago.

He lowered his head before he shook it a few times, "Yes, of course," He confirmed, nodding at her, "I'll follow you back, I'm just going to," He felt himself getting hot which made him feel vulnerable to her stares. "I'll be in there in a moment."

Felicity turned, her hair falling over her shoulders before she nodded. "Yeah, no problem."

Before she was able to move out of the room, Harry caught her attention once again before he narrowed his eyes to her. "Can I—that reservation I asked you to schedule. Please move it to Friday night. Something's come up, actually."

Felicity made a motion to speak, but she didn't end up with any words. Instead, just nodding a few times, her eyes smiling back at him as she agreed to his request. "Sure, no problem."

Her smile had vanished from his view as she turned to walk back to the conference room.

When she noticed that she was out of sight, his eyes had widened just at the breath that he had been holding in. It didn't matter how big or important a meeting could be, Harry never got nervous. He was never worried about anything—he knew what he was getting himself into, and nothing scared him. There wasn't a reason to be.

Standing in front of Felicity was a feeling he had never imagined would give him a doubt; he never felt like he would be pushed away or turned away, and the feeling of dismissal was encapsulating, to say the least.

He pushed his hand into his hair as he went to sit in the chair that was pushed in behind his desk, swallowing the lump in his throat as he shook his head.

Never in a million years did he think that he would feel such a way—never like this.

"Let's get back to work, then."

_______________

It had been a few days since the encounter in his office. Harry had noticed that even the next morning, Felicity seemed to be in much better spirits. Her head was held high; her shoulders were sitting back, like she was prepared to keep her chin up for the day.

He could catch glimpses from his office, watching as she typed away or smiled down at her phone. A piece of him felt only the slightest bit of—he didn't know the feeling very well—jealous. He wanted to know more, wanted to understand what she could have been smiling at.

He knew that his job had been done a few days ago as he watched her spirits rise just at his words. Something about that feeling was missing now—he didn't understand what it was, but his ego may have been getting in the way just a bit.

Harry sat his pen down that he had been using to write out some tasks before he grabbed the pad of paper and started to make his way out of his office. The small desk that sat outside of his was taken by Felicity; a few photos and memorabilia sat to give her space a bit of light and personalization.

It didn't mimic Harry's own office very well, as his was kept more straightforward and narrower. There wasn't any photos or personalized mementos—just plain, really. But the photo of Felicity and another man caught his eye, something he had never really seen before. Something he never felt that he would have had to pay attention to, that is.

"That your boyfriend?" He felt himself saying, but an ultimate feeling of embarrassment rose as he watched Felicity look up at him quickly. It was clear that she hadn't really noticed him sneak up on her, and her hands flew to the phone on the desk before closing the screen promptly.

"Uh," She shook her head, "I—I mean, we've been talking a few months," She referenced to the phone before she looked back at Harry and noticed that there may have been a bit of miscommunication.

"Oh—uh, no, sorry," He shook his head, pointing to the photo that sat on her desk. "I was—that photo, I'd never seen that before."

Felicity turned her eyes towards the photo that sat on her desk in the black frame before letting out a breath of relief. "Oh! No, that's my brother." She laughed a little bit before she watched Harry reach out to grab the picture frame off her desk.

He studied it for a few seconds, letting his smile move up a bit before he sat it back down. "Yeah, you guys look alike. I just—it was new, so I didn't know."

Felicity bit on her lip before tucking her hair behind her ears, "No—yeah, I would make that assumption, too. It's fine, but yeah." She didn't know that he would notice that she set up the photo or not. She knew now that he paid attention; he had an attention to detail, it seemed.

The small moment gave Harry a bit of concern as he felt that there was some unresolved feeling between the two of them. He cleared his throat, holding the paper out before her as she piqued at the small task guide that Harry had been feverishly writing down.

"I have a few things that I need to get done today, if you don't mind." He had handed her the paper before her eyes ran over it a few times. "It's just a few little things, but I need to have a few suits dry-cleaned for our business summit on Monday in England—I'm flying out tomorrow morning on the jet, but we'll need to make sure that everything is taken care of for that. I believe you, myself, Laura, Hank, Daniel, and probably William will be there, so we'll need to make—"

"Excuse me, but," Felicity chuckled before shaking her head a few times. "Did you say me?"

Harry blinks a few times in confusion before he bites the inside of his cheek. Surely, she knew that she would be leaving in the morning– she had to have known that as his assistant, she would be most responsible for being on the trip.

"Uh, well," Harry blinked, "Yes, I mean. of course. You're the most vital person for the trip, really."

Felicity bit into her lip before she turned towards her notes, her eyes flickering over them as she realized she wouldn't need to send him a detailed email of their agenda– she'd be there to tell him in person. So, all this work—it didn't matter now.

"Right– yeah, of course. I'm stupid for not putting that together." She shook her head as she took in a sigh, crossing out a few notes on her pad. She turned her attention back to him before she cleared her throat. "What time should I be at the airport tomorrow, then?"

Harry bit his lip, shrugging as he felt the smile crossing his lips, "I don't know—you tell me. You're my assistant."

Felicity blinked at him a few times before laughing out a little bit, letting her head rest in her hands as she felt a bit ridiculous for feeling so caught off guard. "Right—right. I—yeah."

In the back of his head, there was a delicate feeling of intrigue that bit at the back of him. He squinted his eyes a bit as he settled against the edge of her desk. As he crossed his arms over his chest, he narrowed his attention down to Felicity until she looked up at him and felt the wandering look. All Felicity knew is that she didn't want to look at the way that his forearms protruded against the fabric of his pressed white button-down.

"Is everything alright?" He asked her, the smile on his lips tug briefly before he was letting it fully on display. "You seem a bit... caught up."

She blinked a few times, shaking her head as she looked at her computer screen. "I'm fine—yeah. I'm just—I was a bit caught up, I guess," She chewed on her lip as she realized that getting personal was just that. It was personal. She didn't want to bore him or let know too far in. Their relationship was strictly business; it seemed that she endeared him though.

Her eyes traveled back to him when he didn't seem to leave her alone and she noticed that she'd had another message.

"I'm just... the guy I've been seeing, well, on and off—he just asked me to dinner and he's picking me up from here tonight around five. We haven't seen each other in a while, he's a bit..." She bites her lip again as she tried to find the right word, "I don't hear from him often. But when we're together, everything is fine. So, I guess I just got a bit overwhelmed with it."

Harry pinches the inside of his bicep when she speaks, his smile fading just a bit. He didn't want her to notice that, though. He didn't know why, but it left a sour taste in his mouth to think that she had been excited for someone who was making her wait. Instead, he shifted a bit on the desk as he cleared his own throat before speaking.

"That's—that's great," He tells her, watching as she smiles at his appreciation and acceptance, "Where is he taking you?"

"We're just going to this place off from fifth avenue, some place he said is nice. We're really just meeting for a beer or something." Felicity's eyes light up at the realization before she turns to face him a bit head on now, her chair swiveling around before she crosses her legs and faces him. "What about you, though? That reservation I made for you tonight—who are you meeting with?"

Harry's lip parted as he remembered the reservation.

He remembered the reservation he had moved to tonight, simply so that he could flesh out a few details with Felicity over a dinner with just the two of them. Of course, he hadn't mentioned it to her. It was stupid of him to think that she wouldn't be busy on a Friday evening, of course. He had wanted to talk to her about the upcoming week; maybe get a little more out of her if everything was off the record at a dinner that wasn't going on the company credit card, but his own personal dollar.

Harry shakes his head a bit before he scratches at the back of his head, "Uh, right. I—I might need to cancel that. I don't think that's going to happen anymore."

Felicity watches his expression before she seems to mimic with a bit of somber. "Oh. Sorry. Tough subject?"

When he pushed himself from her desk, he placed his hands in his pockets before he hung his head a little bit. It hadn't occurred to him that the disappointment had been a bit stronger than anticipated-- and it wasn't just because he always got what he wanted.

"Hm, something like that," He tried to explain before he changed the subject to get it off his mind, "But yeah. So, dry-cleaning and all that can be finished before the morning, yeah? If you have any questions about any of that, I'll be in my office. Meeting at one and then I'm going to leave here around five."

Giving him a warm smile, Felicity nodded her head at him, watching as he turned to his office.

Her attention fell back to her phone; falling back to the smile and giddiness that had been so rudely interrupted by a different kind of feeling—one that she wasn't so sure she was supposed to enjoy, in that way, anyways.

_______________

The black Suburban pulled up against the curb; Harry's phone against his ear as he moved towards the vehicle in a fluid motion.

A driver had opened the door before he crawled in the back seat. The call on the other end had been a business call that he was supposed to listen in on; he wasn't going to speak, just listen to the meeting of what was said. He decided it had been enough and clicked it to end before he looked up and out of the window.

His head turned towards the door before he watched Felicity standing at the curb. She looked uncomfortable as she stood and had her eyes searching for whatever it was that she was looking for.

It was a little bit past six then; the rest of the day was filled with a meeting or two before he really started to get more work, letting his head get wrapped up in taking calls and finishing off emails before he would be away from the office for a bit.

This was how they left each other on most days; his car pulled up, and he usually drove away before he could notice if she caught another ride or if she headed towards the subway. Her eyes were searching— almost like she had been waiting for something or someone but didn't want to seem disappointed. Harry could feel it in his chest—he could feel the way that she stood with her arms crossed over her chest in a bit of distress.

It had occurred to him then that Felicity had mentioned that she was supposed to be picked up around five—a full hour ago.

The rain had started just a bit, enough that she quickly looked to the sky for a moment as if to curse it.

He watched as her phone fumbled in her hands. A discerned look on her face made him halt the driver before they could start pulling away. Harry watched her, the knowing look on his face as he rolled down the window to call out towards her.

"Felicity," He stated, opening the door before he stepped out. "Come on, get in."

Her eyes looked to him, practically mortified. Her head started to shake a bit before he moved out of the car just enough that she noticed his offer was serious and that he wasn't moving. The door was open now as he stood outside of it and held it open for her.

"Let's go– it's raining." He said, squinting a bit as the rain started coming down a bit more.

It seriously took Harry a moment before he realized that it may take a bit more for Felicity to listen to him; her contemplation didn't last long as the rain started to hit the cement loudly—her papers and bag held over her head as she made her way towards the open door of the large vehicle.

Felicity's heels clicked against the sidewalk as she hurried into the back of the van, crawling across to the other side and trying to keep her skirt down as she realized he would be coming right behind her.

There was a brief pause of silence when the door shut behind Harry.

Once they were situated in the backseat, Harry looked at her for a moment as she seemed a bit out of sorts. Her eyes were on her phone as she cleared her throat.

Her eyes were narrowed down as she searched through some texts, a bit all over the place it seemed. Harry knew Felicity better than this, and her nerves were starting to overwhelm her hand, almost like she was completely unsure of what was happening right now.

"Do you just—do you mind dropping me off at fifth ave—" She had started, but he was already shaking his head.

"He's not showing up, so no. Peter, drop us at The Malbec."

Her head turned towards him at the bluntness of his tone and the way that he resisted her need. The way that he answered her was unlike he had ever spoken to her; that caught her off guard the most.

Felicity flipped through her texts once again before she scoffed out, "Harry, I have a date tonight. I'll just get a car from there—"

"No, you won't." He told her, before situating himself in the back. The way that her hair had a bit of windswept to it, the length of her lashes, the complete blush of her cheeks—it was all enough for him to generally bust at the seams.

Seeing her like that was a wake-up call as he looked away and tried his best to be a gentleman.

"I'm off the clock, so my duties are relinquished for the night." She told him sharply, giving herself a bit more voice before Harry really glared at her this time. He had never heard her speak to him in such a way, but something about it gave him a mouthful to bite from.

"Don't fucking talk to me like that, I'm your boss." He told her; his eyes seemingly turning a darker color the more she stared at him. It was enough for her to scoff and turn her head out of the window as they had started to drive up towards the restaurant that she refused to go to.

Harry spoke again, this time a bit softer. "It's just dinner. No work."

It takes a moment before Felicity leans into the window and lets her head rest against the glass. The feeling of the coolness takes over before she shuts her eyes for a moment. It doesn't feel like she wants to cry, but maybe there's a bit of emotion that she can't seem to let go of.

The disappointment aspect was never good to her; that was how this always worked. Something always disappointed her. There hadn't been a moment when she felt comfortable or safe—no, really, she just wandered around in this life with so much hope. So much hope and very little pride, now.

She lived for the hope of it all.

When they made their way to the restaurant, it had started to rain a little less. It was merely a sprinkle before Peter pulled off to the curb closest and the two of them were able to get out.

Felicity was instructed that she could leave her work items in the car, bringing only her purse as Harry followed behind her. When they walked into the restaurant, her eyes widened at how fancy it was—the dim lit lights were much brighter than the sky had been at this time of day, especially when the clouds rolled in.

The host was able to take them directly to their seats—the ones that Felicity had made the reservation for. It was an intimate seat; two chair and a small table that were seated close to the window, but enough away from everyone else.

The Paulliac was on the table as instructed; the host pulled the chair out for Felicity before she was able to take a seat. The only reason she would have ever been to a restaurant like this is for a work event. The host sat menus in front of them before giving them some space.

Harry pushed his sleeves up on his forearm; the littering of tattoos on him was endearing to Felicity's eye before she looked away at the attention she was drawing to them.

"Wine?" He asked her softly, taking the bottle from the table and holding it out in a means to offer her some. She had agreed, nodding a few times before looking at the menu and the items on it. Surely, she couldn't pronounce half of them before she looked up to see that Harry had been looking at her already and her cheeks grew rosier.

Felicity felt that there was a tenseness now, like she didn't have too much to say. She didn't want to say too much and bore him, she didn't want to not say a word and feel the awkwardness that seemed to linger as they sat longer.

"I mean, since we're here," Felicity grabbed the phone from her purse as she scrolled through it, pushing her hair out of her face to tame it a bit from the frizz that the rain caused, "So, just to recap some new additions to the calendar, you have a dental appointment next Monday, a meeting with PLI at 10—"

"You said you grew up in DC, didn't you?" Harry cuts her off, his question making her turn to look at him with a solid glance before she starts to nod a few times. It was a bit unwarranted, but she decided that she would settle into it.

Felicity doesn't know why his soft voice seems so foreign from the bitter sound of his usual bite.

"Y-Yes, yeah, I grew up in Northern Virginia, actually." She gives him a solid answer before she licks her lips. Her hand moves to grab the wine glass, taking a solid sip before she places it back into its spot on the white knit tablecloth.

Harry nods at her simple answer, not necessarily looking for anything else. His head was filled with the worked he had been processing through the week, and something about this felt... warranted. He wanted this to be normal; to feel like she could see him from a different perspective, maybe, without less fear in her eyes.

Something about her makes his blood boil with a derailment—it's almost like he can't seem to read her, which makes him angry and animalistic, almost. He doesn't know why but he feels a bit shy in her presence.

Her eyes read over the menu before she clicks her tongue, "Anything on here that you would recommend?"

"You have any food aversions?" He asks, pretending to look over the menu as if he didn't already know what he was going to order.

She shook her head, not really thinking of anything. She knew that there were foods she didn't particularly enjoy, but she knew that if something was going to be expensive, she would put that aside to at least try.

When the waiter came by, Harry took initiate to order for the table– the two of them. He ordered an entrée, three appetizers, and a spring salad. Felicity listened as he did so, knowing that he knew what he wanted and when he wanted it.

She couldn't relate to that; not these days, at least. She didn't know what she wanted, so she pretended not to think about it most days. Instead, she recognized that not putting the pressure on it made it feel like it was enough; she had to understand that she was okay to be a bit unsure at times.

The restaurant has a crowded chatter amongst the guests, but Harry can't help but pay attention to the silence of the table instead.

"So," He pulls at the tie around his neck just a bit as he leans towards her at the table. "I'm thinking of possible meeting with PLI, in person. Like you mentioned this week, at that meeting. Something about looking someone in the eye might be the best approach and making sure everything is clean."

His eyes lifted to meet hers, watching as she took another sip of the wine. Her eyes were placed now on her hands that laid in her lap.

"Thought this wasn't a work dinner." She mumbled out, but suddenly caught herself, "But yeah– yeah, I think that would be good."

Harry pressed his tongue into his cheek, tilting his head a little bit as he heard her questioned statement. His frustration at not being able to read her was posing a threat to his mood before he shrugged a little bit, "It doesn't have to be, but you are kind of quiet, and I feel like I made you uncomfortable in the car. Or something."

"I'm not uncomfortable," She lied, "I'm– I don't know. I'm just a bit thrown by the events of the evening, and I think men are kind of preposterous right now. Please don't take that personally, and really, no offense or anything."

Harry shrugged, his lips turning downwards as he contemplated the truth in her statement, "None taken. I may agree with you, but," He licked his lips, "Can we agree that women are sometimes a bit..."

As he hesitated for a moment, Felicity spoke instead. "I would suggest that you not finish that sentence, probably. It sounds like the beginning of an HR concern."

Harry lifts a brow in curiosity from her argument that seemingly pushed her a bit out of the boundaries, "You can speak, but I can't? Don't believe that's a fair view of how you think women should live in society, is it? You want fair treatment, so I'm going to be honest with you."

"I didn't limit you from speaking, I just suggested that you should not. You can definitely say whatever it is that you'd like to say to me, Mr. Styles." Felicity shook her head a bit, tucking her hair behind her ear. The way that she said his name always made him a bit woozy.

There was a moment when Harry wasn't completely sure that he didn't see the glimmer in her eye—that he didn't see a sparkle that may have been a fleeting moment, just a quick nod to him before it was gone forever, making him look mad for even thinking it in the first place.

"I will say it, then, if you're willing to listen," Harry told her, "I think that men and women aren't usually equal—nor should they be," He paused for a moment before he watched as her facial expression started to contour with a confusion so loud that he was certain the chefs in the back could hear. "I think that we live in a balancing act. For instance, the guy that you were looking to see—sure, he's probably an asshole, but you continued to want to see him. The pendulum works both ways. Maybe you shouldn't have wanted to meet up with him."

Felicity scoffed out a breath before she took a sip of the wine again—she could feel that there was a growing fuzziness that she wasn't able to keep up with. "Oh, you're giving me relationship advice now?"

The way that she bit when she had a bit of alcohol in her made Harry's eyes turn a darker shade of green that was unable to be noticed by the dimness of the restaurant that sat in. It was much more direct than she ever had been with him before; he wondered if this was how she was normally.

"I like to think I have your best interest in mind." He tells her with full honesty, feeling a bit bare with the truth laying flat on the table.

There is a moment that Felicity feels her heartstring tug, wondering if he meant it to hit her as specifically as it did. But she clears her throat when she watches the way that Harry refills the glass of red wi the out her asking for it, noticing that he fingers tremble when he grabs the bottle.

"I— I really do appreciate it, like, what you– I mean, you probably don't remember, but just this week with the whole coffee incident–"

Felicity is cut-off, by him, but she can see that the anger peculates off of him as he recalls the incident, "I hate that they think people are below them like that. It bothers the shit out of me," She can tell that the thought bothers him; his eyes narrow down as he takes a sip of his own wine, "Yes, it's your fucking job, but it's also not worth their time to be shitty to you for something you can't control. And you couldn't be nicer, grateful, kind—"

Harry's cut off by the food coming to the table. He shakes his head at the possible embarrassment he may encounter from the softness of rambling he had started to portray about some of her highest qualities.

The dinner that came out was exceptional— nothing less of what Felicity could have imagined. It was top-tier; the wine that was paired with it made her giggle a few times when Harry would go on rants about the way that he thought some of the companies ran. He would start the conversation with, 'off the record' and she would smile about how he could keep their conversations low.

It wasn't until she had told a soft-spoken jab about how she believed that he needed to stop hiring old, white men that she noticed that his dimples were parallel on either side of his face. They lit up his features, turning his eyes the color of a southern sky.

When they had finished, Harry took the check with ease and signed his name in capital letters, as if he wanted everyone to know that he had spent the amount of money at dinner that she spent in a month of rent.

Harry placed his hand on the small of her back as they maneuvered out to the car. The street was starting to become a bit crowded, especially at the door for the wait. Harry had texted his driver to make sure they could be picked up, which again, he made sure to open the door for her as they flew into the backseat.

Felicity told the driver where she needed to go; back to her apartment that sat on the upper West side of the city. It was close to Central Park; a few blocks away, she'd say.

There's a moment when Harry feels that he doesn't want the night to end. He surely doesn't want to watch her leave— that's for sure. The car ride is spent with him catching her glances as they watch the lights in the city pass by; the honking of the cars and the putter of rain starts to encapsulate the backseat.

"Is this good for drop off?" The driver asks, looking in the rearview mirror at Felicity before she nods, agreeing with a soft yes, and starts to collect her things. The items she had brought from work were still in their place.

Harry watched as she goes to speak, knowing that it was going to be a goodbye. He would surely see her in the morning, but he couldn't bare the idea of flying across the ocean, staring at her across the seat from himself, without any words left unspoken.

"Uh," He shifted a bit in the back of the car, Felicity could see that he was looking up towards the building that she called her own. "Do you actually mind if—uh, I really have to piss."

Her eyes widened a bit before she let her own lips widen into a smirk. "Oh— yeah, please."

It hadn't occurred to her until they were walking up the steps and into the building that she may have had some underwear on the floor and could potentially have a sink filled with dirty dishes— she couldn't quite remember.

But what she did know was that Harry was following in her steps as they climbed a few flights until they reached the third floor.

"Quite a workout, huh?" Harry puffed as they reached the front door to her specific apartment.

"Hm," She hummed, "Imagine having to move all of my furniture up here. I had to ask random men on the street to help me."

Felicity digs into her purse before she's able to find the keys to the front door.

"I don't want to be super nosy," He looked around the small vestibule that they were standing in while Felicity tried to find her keys—even though the purse she held was naturally quite small. "But is there any reason you live in a place that resembles a prison?"

Felicity chuckled out a laugh before she found the small keyring and tried to put it into the lock. Her hands were a bit unsteady—the wine was holding the buzz over her as she steadied her hands to unlock the small door.

"This is what livable looks like in New York," The door swung open; Felicity moved into the tiny apartment before placing her bag on the kitchen counter. "Maybe I need to have a discussion with my boss about a raise."

It wasn't the smallest apartment, but it was exactly what she needed. There was no storage space, but there was a separate room for each need—living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. She had a small working office in the corner by the balcony that she had been lucky enough to score from this specific unit.

Harry looked around the place, his eyes feasting on every detail. "That can probably be arranged if I can be certain that you won't get mugged getting into your front door."

He noticed how lived in it felt—the opposite of the cool, modern, high-end penthouse he would resort to later that evening. Everything was painted a different color of beige, keeping the lightness of the empty place very noticeable.

There were photos on the walls, painting and portraits, there were words that resembled some of her favorite music and books. It was colorful and there were plants that were seemingly a bit out of control.

"The bathroom is right there, by the way." Felicity pointed, before Harry turned towards the small room to his left.

"Thanks." He stated before he moved into it and shut the door behind him.

It was the same reaction he had to the living room and kitchen; his eyes narrowed in on the details of the shower curtain and the small bottles of serum that sat along her sink. The way that her toothbrush was bright pink, matching the towels that hung on the wall.

There were delicate parts of her that he was certain she wouldn't have told him about because she didn't think that it mattered. But in the long run, he liked the bits of color and the pieces of art that hung next to her sink.

It was a detail he hadn't really thought about of her before.

When he had come back, he stared at her position in front of the sink. Her sleeves were rolled up as she washed a few dishes that had been sitting there. Her heels has been removed, but the jacket and the short skirt still hung from her delicate frame as he watched the way that she focused on a task.

She noticed that he was looking at her now before she gave a small smile and felt that he wasn't in a hurry to leave.

"I would offer you something to drink—I mean, I would offer you anything, but I'm not really," She looked around the kitchen. "I have coffee and vodka. And not like," She scrunched her brows together as she looked in her fridge. "Not good vodka. You would look down on me if I served you this, kind of vodka."

Harry let his smile tilt up a bit as he meandered into the small space of the kitchen. If she was offering him anything—

"You really think I'm that much of a snob?" He smirked.

Felicity huffed a little bit as she turned her head towards him, "The wine we drank tonight was $600 a bottle."

He doesn't say anything for a moment before he tilts his head a bit and shrugs off the comment. He wonders if she thinks of him differently—not for being her boss, but for having a high taste. Possibly the earlier of the two, too.

"I grew up that way, I guess. It's hard to decipher what's normal." He tries to explain to her, which makes her look at him with a mockery of a face. Her eyes roll with a smile, and he gives her a look of disdain.

She goes to respond to him, but instead he moves his body practically over top of her back to grab the vodka that sits on the second shelf of the fridge. It's a bottle that cost Felicity about $12.75 just the other week, and it has a good amount still left in it. Harry holds the neck of it in his hands before he looks at it and sets it down on the counter.

"Lemons? Juice? Anything?" He asks; taking the liberty himself to look through one of the cabinets to try and find himself a glass. Felicity stays still for a moment before she's able to grasp the magnitude of the situation.

Her boss—Harry Styles, CEO, is standing in her kitchen and trying to make himself a cocktail with her $12.75 vodka that she had bought at the bodega just a few days prior. He's perusing through the cabinets—the few that she had—before he turns to her.

"Uh, I have a bar cart." She tells him solidly, before she moves her way into the living room where the car sat. Her head is feeling fuzzy, and she wonders if adding the vodka to it will make her completely lose all faith in herself. She has a feeling it will make her say something absolutely ridiculous, to him of all people.

Felicity grabs the shaker, two glasses, a lemon from one of the small bowls that she uses for décor but also for moments like this and makes her way to the kitchen where Harry has already taken the ice trays out. When he looks back up at her, he nods back to where she came from, her eyes following his gaze.

"Go sit on the couch, let me make you a drink." He tells her, "You had a long week."

"I'm going to be completely honest with you," She folds her hands together before he looks at her with a bit of a concerned look, "I don't know if I like the roles reversed like this."

He gives her a smug smile before he turns back to what he had been doing previously; now filling up the shaker with ice before he poured a few seconds worth of vodka into it.

"You think I'm a stuck-up prick," He tells her, "Let me show you that I'm not, will you?"

The statement that he left on his lips settled in the air between them; Felicity blew it away as she breathed outwards and just nodded in place. She suddenly became a bit meek before she made her way back to the sofa where she settled into the cloudy cushions, sitting with her legs underneath of her as she tried not to flash anything from her skirt. She heard Harry mixing the cocktails in the glass shaker, shortly before coming out with two glasses in his hands.

He hands over a glass that looks solemnly... clear. Maybe a bit too clear, but she felt satisfied to know that he was trying his best to make a spot in her world. She didn't have to climb to his level, he was trying to stay at hers.

"To..." He trailed off as he held his glass up to her. The small loveseat that they sat on felt incredibly intimate all the sudden.

"To... London?" Felicity stated, "To having to be up tomorrow at five, but continuing to drink even though we can get to London."

Harry laughed at her words before he clinked his glass against hers, "To London."

The way that his accent wrapped itself around certain words held her attention briefly before she was able to take a sip of the cocktail he prepared. Strong wasn't the word; overkill may have been more like it.

"Holy fuck," She coughed softly before she felt a sting in her eyes, "That's—please never go into bartending."

A subtle look of offense took over his face as he went to take a sip of his own before he widened his eyes at the flavor of it. "Oh, shit. Yeah, wow. That—that'll do some damage."

Felicity started to laugh at his own reaction before she sat the drink down on the coffee table and watched Harry do the same.

"So, to brief then," She stated, "I believe that it's still true that you're just a stuck-up snob who can't do anything on his own, including making a cocktail."

Harry stood up for a moment but took offense to her comment. He started to remove his jacket, which only intrigued her—it meant he was staying a while longer. "Hey, to my defense, your fridge is very, very sad. There was not much I could have done to make this better. If you're going to drink vodka, at least buy a decent brand."

Felicity tucked the hair behind her ear, "I'm here to make vodka Sprite's, okay? Not martinis," She leaned against the back of the sofa, "And there you go again with being the rich snob."

It was annoying to her that he had decided to roll up his sleeve, just enough on his forearm that she was able to see the tattoos that weren't seen very often. Seldom, really. In the office, she would notice that he would be focusing on something in his office, his sleeve rolled up a bit, but that was the extent of it.

It seemed there were many more up his arm than she had initially thought, but she knew that she would never see them all.

When he went to sit down, he went to move the throw pillow behind his arm, but as he did so, he noticed something black against the white couch cushion.

Immediately, his fingers flew to the item before he lifted the lace that held his attention quite mesmerizingly. Felicity gasped at the realization before she grabbed them from his hands, absolutely mortified didn't even cut it.

"I'm so embarrassed," She finally spoke, almost trying to blame the redness of her cheeks on the strong beverage he gave her. She knew that it was the inflammation of her dignity, not the vodka.

There wasn't a word spoken before she watched that his expression changed surprisingly. He took a long sip of the vodka drink before setting it back down.

But the smile that follows from the cocktail is all she needs to see before she can smile back.

"You continue to surprise me," His words were placed with a package of slurring vocab before he swallows back anything else he'd say out of pocket, "I'm going to be very honest that I didn't imagine you as— I mean, I never imagined you in lace."

"You say that like you imagined me in something else." The words that came from Felicity weren't her own—she didn't know why she said them, but his quick rebuttal shut her up completely.

"Silk, probably," He uses his finger to touch the rim of the rocks glass that he's holding, where the condensation made a drip over the dress pants that situation themselves over his thighs, so lucky. "Or—I mean, you could surprise me even more," He went quick after a moment.

Silence. Protruding silence that is viciously capturing them in this haze of only breath that either of them can hear. It's uninterrupted until Harry leans his head back and the creaking on the sofa fills Felicity's head, rather than the idea of what's to come.

She had felt it before; the warranted tension that Harry seemed to have over her. Maybe it was her fault for leaning into it, but sometimes, she just couldn't help it. The way that he found himself taken by her was just unspoken most of the time. She was surprised that he wouldn't have pulled anything at dinner, but she could fill in the blanks as she invited him up to her apartment.

It was inevitable, she thought.

She shouldn't have done that, but should not's were not what she was thinking about as she drowned herself in the alcoholic state of the sour vodka that wafted of lemon juice and baited words.

Instead, Felicity blinked a few times, watching as he stared at the ceiling. The blankness of the pure white ceiling seemed to keep him grounded before she watched his jaw tighten.

"You're full of surprises, a lot of mystery, you know?" Harry breathed out. The tie around his neck was getting tight, but he couldn't loosen it now—if he was being honest, it was adding to the pleasure of the moment. He wouldn't speak that out, but while the tightness caused a bit of discomfort, he thought of it in other instances. "I'm not sure I can keep up with it."

There was an unresolved tension in the words he spoke, maybe even a bit of slur in them before Felicity followed suit; her head resting practically next to his as she stared at the blank white ceiling that had very little to memorize or stare at.

"What fun is a mystery if it's solved?"

He wasn't sure if she saw—he wasn't sure if she saw the way that his eyes fluttered at the thought of uncovering every instance of mystery that she kept hidden away, in this small apartment. The air was starting to become lost on them, feeling like the oxygen was being pulled as he breathed. The shakiness of his breath was caught by her when she turned her head—she wished that she hadn't.

All she could process was the way that his eyes stared upwards, lips parted in an unsure manner before she watched his eyebrows knit in a deep thought that she couldn't seem to interpret. But this pique of interest held her as she kept her eyes on him—he could feel every deep breath that she tried to mask.

"I don't know if you knew this about me," He quietly stated, "But I really can't handle the unknown."

It was then that his head turned towards her; the distance between them was much shorter than he could have thought. He didn't notice until his eyes directly moved towards the way that her lips curved in the small bow, the one that he had known so well from the number of times that he couldn't keep his eyes from her. But this was different; this held much more tension that he couldn't believe.

This time he could smell the liquor that lingered on her lips that mixed so well with the cherry of the chapstick that he knew she applied generously. He would watch the way that it slid over the lips as he sat at his desk and wondered what was on her mind.

"You're very good at getting what you want," Felicity breathed, watching as he shut his eyes for a moment. It was as if with every word she spoke, he was closer and closer to the edge of something great.

Her eyes traveled to the way that his legs sat just open—they were just waiting for someone to notice. Felicity swallowed at the idea of sitting between them, on her knees. Sitting there with her eyes laying on him; he took notice of her tense shoulders and her harbored through before he sat up just a bit. He scooted himself back on the sofa—Felicity blinked at the way that he invited her with just the flicker of his eyes.

No words needed to be spoken when the look could speak for itself, but the way that he speaks breaks the barrier of silence.

"How good am I at getting what I want?"

The heavy eyes that she held were only staring at his lips and the way that he spoke—the flicker of his tongue over the satin maroon of his lips. She couldn't contain herself, because she knew that his aura was a force to be reckoned with. She had seen it up close and personal; she knew that everything that he did was because he was in it one hundred percent.

He didn't half-ass anything—not a report, not a phone call, not a meeting, not a thought.

Everything Harry did was with the full intensive purpose of being the only thing on someone's mind, body, and soul.

Felicity trembled in the spot next to him, but her legs urged to move themselves. Her brain wasn't moving as fast as her decisions; and in an instant, her knees lowered to the spot in front of him. Her hands settling on the thick of his thigh as she allowed her eyes to hold his. For a moment, hesitation crossed his face, but she could have mistaken it for vulnerability.

The way that he breathed outwards was enough to make her gain the strength of a thousand horses—the talk that he talked wasn't as strong now, she felt a sensibility of pure radiance from her actions.

"I'd say you're the best at it, really." She let her hands settle on his thighs, but she took them away so she could drop the blazer down her arms. The tight white t-shirt settled against her frame as he watched the way that she pushed her brunette locks from her shoulders.

But his being felt incredibly taken by the way that she slowly moved—she wanted to savor every moment of this, he could tell that she was being critical, slow, and putting together each piece of herself in front of him.

That's what he thought at least, until he recognized that there was a tremble in her hand when she went to grab at the belt buckle, he barred. His hand flew to hers when she touched it; almost annoyed at himself by the look of terror that he was faced with as he knew that she had felt pushed away at that.

Instead, he pulled at her to stand up in front of him, between his legs. She did so with ease but a bit of confusion laid on her face as she stood with her hands by her side, Harry's eyes dancing along the figure—the divots in her thighs, the way the skirt just held to her so beautifully.

He let out a whimpering sound before he let his hand fall to the tightness of the front of his pants. Instantly, the pleasure trigger was pulled, and he knew what he had gotten himself into now had to be completed. It had to—he never did anything half-assed.

"Go put your heels on," He instructed her, watching as she stared at him willingly.

"A please would be nice." She tutted back, letting her lip fall into the curve of a smile.

Instantly, she knew that this wasn't a game anymore—this wasn't a fun, hushed little game of pleasure with nobody watching. She knew that the way that his eyes changed at the blink of an eye, the way that his jaw tightened at the statement: and the clear smirk on her lips faded.

"I'm not asking you," He sat up a bit, "I'm telling you."

Felicity had been used to being spoken as such; her memory fading into a moment, but her barriers kept up as she understood that her body was reacting only to the way that the words flowed from his mouth. She knew there was safety in his tone, she could see it by the way that he had stared at her with these stolen glances all night.

Instead, she followed his direction, moving back towards the door until she placed the black heels onto her feet again. They hurt just a bit from wearing them all day, she had to admit. But they made her stand taller, firmer against the fake wood flooring of her apartment. She wondered why the downstairs neighbors would think, as it became later at night.

"Come here," He told her, holding her wrist when she got close enough. He pulled her back to the place in front of him. She stood taller now, his nose practically at her bellybutton as she watched the way that he pulled her close.

Now, his hands lay on the outside of her hips, the sides of her thighs. She shuddered at the feeling, knowing that this was the first time she had been touched by him in such a manner. The musky scent of teakwood and spice drifted from the curls that settled against his forehead, she was sure of it. She could feel the heat of his breath just above where she needed him most as she stood close to him, right between his legs as he sat on the sofa.

"Do you know how many times I've thought of you like this?" He practically choked on his words, quiet, "So fucking beautiful."

She breathed out a shaky breath, holding onto every ounce of madness that she had collected over the past few moments.

"How many?" She asked him. Harry stood up, letting her take a step back as she felt the prominence of him now-- how he was a bit taller, even with her heels on. Every part of her ached—so unfamiliar to her, this feeling of need and want. It was a sensation of desperation that she hadn't known before; her inner monologue was flooded with dangerous prose as she felt his fingers cradled onto her jaw.

"More times than I'd ever be able to count." He told her, his voice deep and sharp as he pushed his hips forward. She walked backward a few steps, he followed in her lead like a waltz before he pushed her pelvis into the wall, holding it there with his own.

"You're going to be my good girl tonight, aren't you, Felicity?" His words were practically a whimper as he let his lips slide along her own; the tremble of her quivering lips made him shake in his own anticipation. "You love to listen, hm? That's why you're always taking my orders and assisting me? Getting paid to do what I say?"

It was always obvious by the pink of her cheeks and the timid ways of her soul that Harry could see right through her. From the moment she arrived on the job to the way that she completed everything task with ease; every job, every plan he needed executed, she followed in righteous order.

It made him proud, to say the least. She ran the company better than he did most days, but she didn't get half the recognition.

Until now, surely.

Her eyes nearly roll back into her head at the foul play of his words; the way that his eyes follow down the path of her lips, his thumb mapping the path down her chin before he grabbed it between his thumb and index finger.

The villainous smirk on his lips can't be seen by how close they are now.

"Does saying 'Yes, Mr. Styles' make you wet, Miss Carter?"

The question rolled off his tongue as he watched her minuscule behaviors; the way that she practically shivered against the wall made his eyes move to the way that her knees bent in just a bit.

His mouth turned up to the side as he realized that his was right yet again.

Felicity groaned in the back of her throat as she let it tip against the wall. He was practically on top of her by the way that he stood, his knee was pushing her knees apart before she was able to protest any of it. Not that she would've; she knew that it was about to turn into an evening that she couldn't have truly imagined if you had asked her just hours before.

"You're getting shy on me, again?" He remarked, but this time, it was paired with some loose kisses along her neck as he used his hand to cradle her jaw enough that she was pressing into it with ease. "What happened to that smart mouth, hm?"

Felicity ached as she breathed—her body pressured against the wall was her own doing, practically to keep herself from overwhelming herself. If she leaned into him too much, she wouldn't be able to breathe at all.

"Yes, Mr. Styles." She bit her lip at the words coming off her tongue.

She could feel that the instant gratification that came from him was filtered through the stare that he barred towards her; the way that his nose brushed against the lobe of her ear as he practically fell into her graces with three simple words.

Harry groaned at the feeling of her pressed against him then; her brain sparked a few times, trying to remember how it felt before this. How reality felt. This wasn't reality in the slightest; this was a dream.

"Tell me," He urges her, "What was his name?"

She lets her eyes wash over his face as she notices that his strength and need have put him into a trance of pleasure and further need.

"Who?" She questions.

"The guy," He lets his lip gently caress right between her chin and lip. "The guy you were supposed to see tonight."

Felicity remembered how the evening was supposed to go—her interest completely lost in that game, when this one seemed a bit more daring and fun. It felt that she was seen here; like she had been stared at for quite some time, ogled, maybe.

"Uh, S-Sam." She choked out as she felt the way that his hand pinched at the small of her waist, almost like he was trying to make sure she didn't leave.

He hummed softly before he tipped her head back, the simple press of his nose moving her head against the wall. "Fucking loser."

Her mouth instantly felt his—a righteous moment of complete satisfaction bundled beneath her. It was the first time that his lips had laid into hers, moving gently against one another as they fit perfectly in sync. It wasn't too rough—just enough to know that she was in the hands of someone who knew what she was asking just by the way that his body moved. He could read her body and react to the fact that her chest may have been pressed against the wall a bit too much, so he pulled back to give her room to breathe.

The way that they flew through her bedroom door was just as shocking to her as it was to him; it made a much larger noise than she anticipated as they practically flew over the threshold and into the creamy white sheets of her—thankfully—made bed.

He landed on top of her in the heat of the moment. Their lips stayed attached through it all, almost like they were making up for all the lost time over the years. His tongue gently caressed over her top lip, which elicited quite a whine of surprise from her.

Her hands flew to his necktie, trying to loosen it before Harry grabbed her wrist—hard enough that she barked out a whimper.

"No," He told her sharply, watching as she hesitated underneath him. Now her hair was feathered out against the bedspread, her light eyes were catching every glimpse of her. After a moment, he looked at her softly, knowing that she didn't understand the game that he was about to play.

"We are going to play by my rules tonight," He told her, watching as she pushed herself up towards the headboard. He followed her lead, letting her hands rest on the back of his head as she tried to kiss every inch down her neck. "And I have a few notes you need to take, got it?"

Felicity tried her best to stabilize her breath as she was given a moment away from their lips touching to catch it. She licked over her lips, feeling her heart pounding along her chest before she nodded against the bed and the linen comforter that laid underneath them.

Harry sat up, his hair a bit of a mess, the clothes on his body were practically ripped from the front where they had been neatly tucked. The growing need for her was obvious as he felt the tip of his cock struggling beneath the waistband of his belt. The friction made it quite hard to concentrate on what his plans had been, but he knew that he had to be firm with his requests.

"First," He instructed, "The safe word is poetry."

Felicity's eyes stared at him with quiet focus as she nodded a few times to try and understand that. She hadn't ever been with someone who needed to use a safe word in any sexual act, so she struggled to wrap her brain around what that could have possibly meant. But her actions continued to nod as she wrapped her arms around his biceps to try to bring him back to earth. The idea that he had to bring it up intrigued her.

"Second," He pulled at the necktie around his own before he loosened it enough to grab and throw off of his own neck. His hands moved to place it around her own, helping to move the hair from her neck so that it could rest comfortably around her own. "I like to use props. Are you okay with that?"

Felicity felt her heart beating steadily in her chest for a few seconds before she nodded her head. He watched the innocence completely take over her face as he smirked at the all-knowing tale of it.

"Third," He bit on his lip as he moved down to let their foreheads rest along each other, "I need to hear you—no nodding or shaking your head. Consent makes me feel good. And when I feel good," He kissed her once again, a quick one this time, before his voice quieted so that it was just between them. "You'll feel even better. Okay?"

Felicity breathed in a deep breath before she tried to use the voice that had been drifting away from her. She didn't feel in her body like an echo of a voice had started to take over instead of her words. But she let out a rasp of a word, "Okay."

Harry nodded a few times, knowing that with her eyes, he would be able to continue, but only if he was able to talk her through every part of it. He didn't know her experience level or what she was comfortable with, but he knew how to make pleasure the only thing that would be on her mind for weeks. Hopefully, it wouldn't be the last time he got the opportunity.

"This is—uh," She looked at the ceiling, feeling like an idiot for starting to speak before she shook her head, and watched Harry give her a look of confusion. "No, sorry. Nevermind."

"What is it?" He questioned, hoping that something he had said hadn't scared her away. She took in a breath as she thought about how the wording could anger him—maybe it would stop whatever was happening, which she didn't want to happen now that they were in the midst of it all.

"I—uh, I mean, like, are you okay with this?" She asked quietly before pushing up on her elbows. "I—do I have like, sign something?"

Harry raised in brows in a bit of a humorous way that only made her cheeks grow red with shame at her silly question—in all honesty, it wasn't silly, but Harry was giving her a hard time about it, anyway. He bit on his lip as he felt the smile that was threatening to overcome his entire face.

"Am I supposed to be worried that you're going to tell the Daily Mail that I have a huge cock?"

"Harry!" She covered her eyes, floating back onto the comforter, "Nevermind—maybe I'll tell them it's small, though, if you don't stop being mean. I'm just trying to protect you."

"Aw," He tutted, putting his thumb over her bottom lip, but his eyes had grown a bit darker—the way that they had been a bit earlier. It was almost an illicit reaction; the way that he spoke to her, was so filthy with each word spoken that made her melt into the bed. "Dare you to say that to my face when you're choking on it," He pressed his hips into hers then, knowing that she would react to it. Hers moved upwards into him, just as he had intended, "I'm not worried about an NDA in the slightest bit."

In a teasing manner, she scrunched her nose and playfully spat back, "What if I tried to steal all of your money?"

He pressed his hands next to her head on the bed, letting her eyes look directly into his as he spoke, hoping his voice didn't falter: "You can have it all. Take it."

Something about it should have made Felicity giggle—almost like they were joking around. But there was a way that his sincerity felt more like a proposition than a source to cut the tension of their achingly needing bodies against one another.

Her body seemed to enjoy the way that he stated the smooth words, as she let her hands fall into the brunette curls that settled on the back of his neck. It didn't take long for her to pull him closer, letting her lips graze over him in such a frustrating manner. She was completely built up, her could feel the way that her thighs trembled against him.

Pushing her legs open, Harry pushed the hem of her skirt up her hips so that he could find a home between them. In doing so, flashing the baby pink of her lace panties only let his blood flow faster and faster.

"I bet you've soaked those, hm?" He tuts, pressing his nose into her cheek ask he lets his hand knowingly move to the place he speaks of, knowing that he's right. Again. "Sam doesn't know what he's missing, does he?"

The teasing was becoming a bit too much for her—waiting for his fingers to move faster, she moved her hips a bit to try and get herself the pleasure she was trying to search so desperately for from him.

Harry notices the way that she tries to squirm, and he smirks at the reaction he's giving her; knowing that within every inch of her is building up a tension that will release. It will be like a dam that overflows—a satisfaction that will be so worthy of the cost of admission. He can't help but notice, can't help but watch her need.

He can't help but know that he's going to fuck her into an oblivion so dark, the stars will be lost in space. She doesn't know that yet.

Instead of being mean, he decides it might be better for him to give her what she needs—what she's been so kindly asking him for with her pretty hips and her pretty lips.

"On your knees," He tells her, watching as she moves underneath him. She wiggles around until she's on her stomach; the necktie gets him harder as he watches it dangle from her neck like the apple in Eden. Every part of him wants to take the bite—not yet, oh, not yet.

When she does this, her back arches upwards, and Harry's knees settle on the bed as he hovers above her and watches the way that she submits to him. Every word he says she listens—he can barely handle it anymore.

In an instant, his hands reached the bottom of her skirt, pushing it up to fully show the outline of her ass in the cheeky pink lace. It's always been known to him that she would wear something so pitifully scandalous under those black skirts, but he couldn't have imagined it would be like this.

Her pretty face has been folded into the creamy duvet, waiting for the touch of him to send her into an implosion.

All he wanted was to taste her—to make all of the thoughts he had prior feel like they were significant and they were able to be adhered to. He wanted to make her feel like she was the most special person on the planet; like she could feel every inch of him, and she would be thriving in that thought for the end of time.

This may be a one-time occurrence, and he wanted to marvel in it. He wanted her to enjoy what she didn't know could be.

Harry's hands pulled at the pink lace, wondering how lucky he was to be able to enjoy this sight—and what a sight. The wetness of her folds only made him salivate; made his hungry eye a darker shade of green before he dove his tongue directly into her, licking up the mess he had already made of her.

The soft whimpers turned into moans as she practically lurched forward—the initiation hardly bearable as she scrunched her eyes at the feeling of pleasure. The warmth and invite of his tongue pressed against her, lapping her up and into a pitiful puddle. When she felt the nudge of his finger, she gasped at the feeling of him; the duo of his tongue and finger sang together in harmony like a choir of angels.

"Oh, fuck," She quietly moaned out, holding herself on her elbows as she grabbed at her pillow for a bit of leverage. She felt him hum into her, his nose gently brushing against her as he pushed her ass up to get further towards her clit which hungered for his touch, as did his tongue.

The taste of her replenished him, making his heartbeat faster as he felt the stringent feeling of tightness along the dress pants that held him in. Without letting his tongue go without, he used his hand to swiftly throw the belt from the loops of his pants, unbuttoning them quickly and without another thought.

"Fuck, you taste like I thought you would. So fucking sweet." He stated, pushing her ass out of the way when he pulled back. He threw her down onto the bed so that she would be looking up at him. The girl was fully dressed still, just with her skirt pushed up—underwear a bit haphazardly thrown to the side. The rose-colored cheeks threw him as he used his hands to pull the skirt down her thighs.

"Get naked." He ordered, watching as Felicity's hands moved to throw the t-shirt from her body as he requested, leaving her in her panties and bra. Harry threw the white button-down of his from his chest; Felicity got a bit distracted by the way that the tattoos generously scattered over his body. She swallowed back her intimidation as she held herself up on her elbows.

In a swift motion, her panties and bra were thrown onto the ground, leaving her in just the necktie like Harry had ordered for her. She hadn't even quite noticed that he had been rid of his own clothes, her eyes wandering down but not wanting to stare as she noticed that the smirk on his face was ever present.

"Think it's still small?" He asked, with a chuckle as he pulled at her knees, moving her down towards him.

"Maybe smaller than I'm used to." She played back, biting her lip at the intrigue of how he'd react. His arms grabbed at her waist before he threw himself down onto the bed.

"Ride me, then. If you think you can take it as good as you say." His words spit out before Felicity could think too much. It had been a while she had been in this situation, with a guy in her place, at least. Her hand reached over to the nightstand to grab a condom, Harry nodding in appreciation for the gesture.

Her hunger and desire for this became a bit more active as she was now in the driver's seat, moving and manipulating her body to sit across his lap. If she would lie, she would say that it was smaller than average. But unfortunately, she was taught to always tell the truth.

It was much bigger—especially as he rubbed his hand down himself, a gasp of air baiting out of his lips before he looked up at her in a state that could only resemble pleasure.

Harry rolled the condom down his length, watching as she settled into his lap. Her legs settle on either side of him before he looks up at her. The blazing fuzziness of his mind from the liquor has started to cease and is replaced with a hunger of desire for the brunette instead.

"Pretty, pretty." He tells her, watching as she looks antsy enough to move, but he pulls her down to kiss her, anyways. It's a moment that he knows he's taking away from her, but he needs some form of interaction from her. A small detail of need that overcomes him.

His hands steady her hips above him, holding his cock up to her entrance before he watches her hips move down to encapsulate him all—her movements are slow as she throws her head back in an unsurmountable pleasure that she quite practically leans forward against him to catch herself from falling.

"Fuck," He grunts, shutting his eyes just at the way that the blood moves directly to his cock at the feeling of her wetness. She's completely drenched and open and ready which makes her so sensitive and barely capable of words at this point.

Her hands steady herself, holding onto his chest as he allows her to take the lead on what she needs. But he can tell from the look on her face that she's having quite a hard time collecting herself—almost like she's quite unsure of what to do with the power that he's given her to be on top. It's not him pitying her, but him wanting her to enjoy the experience.

So, maybe, in another life, this can happen again.

"Baby," He choked out, shaking his head at the way that he knew it was the wrong choice of words, "Felicity—let me," He grabbed the small of her waist as he sat up quickly. His arms pivoted them so that he could throw them back around on the bed. It wasn't to take anything away from her, but to give to her more than she was giving to herself.

"Let me do this, yeah?" He joked with her, letting his lips kiss along hers, biting and nipping and finding small ways of showing her that the softness of him was still there even in the darkened eyes and furious gasps.

His body readjusted, his hips pushing into her in a more fluid motion. This got her to gasp, a breathy one that he liked hearing—those were the ones that were out of pure pleasure and satisfaction; ones that he felt drunk on.

In a way, this felt a lot different than before. The overhead light of her bedroom was soft; there was a significant dimness to it. He wasn't sure if it was because the room was small, but it felt like there was a intimacy that he had been missing before. His eyes tilted upwards to the paintings and lines of movie quotes that lined along her bedroom wall. There were framed simply and held color and brightness to the space, which distracted him for only a moment before he was able to lay against her.

The necktie around her took his focus back.

"I'm going to play with you a bit, is that alright?" He asked her softly, biting at his lip before he found himself pressing into her hips. His hands grabbed at the necktie before letting them start to tighten it around her neck. " 'Member you words, hm?"

Felicity whimpered out at the coax; nodding her head, "Please—please."

Harry sat up at the request, happy that she was using her words in this sense. He readied himself; thinking of what he needed to think about to try to get himself to a different place. He didn't want to cum too quickly; his cock was barely holding on as it was. The friction of her sweet wetness was enough to make him fold again and again and again.

His fist moved to grip at the knot of the tie, pushing it upwards until it hit at her chin. She raised her head, almost to give way to the pressure that it held against her. She was only briefly capable of speaking a few words, but she was taken with pleasure at the way that her breathing was manipulated.

"Breath play," Harry practically reads her mind as his hip's diver deeper into her. The feeling of her legs at his ribs, practically around his body as he feels the back of her ankle into his back. "Your words, baby."

Felicity took a deep breath; Harry moved his hand so that she could take it in more. He wanted her to feel the wooziness, the daydream-like feeling of the high that it could bring her. He wanted this moment to be special, for her to remember that she was in the most requitting love affair. That she was taken care of, adored, seen.

At the end of the day, Harry wanted to make sure that her jaw was cradled, her lips were kissed, her eyes were stared into, and her breath was taken away.

His hips snapped further, her moan sounded like a small mew before he sat up a bit straighter, loosening his hand on the tie before he grabbed at both of her hips. His hand moved to maneuver over her clit, thumb drawing a star over top of it to which she squirmed in sensitivity. He smirked at the way that she held softly against him before he let a dribble of spit land directly on her, smearing the wetness to coat her.

"Jesus fucking Christ." He stated, the blown-out pupils of them both had them reeling—he noticed he had really neglected parts of her that he had wanted to remember, but he also knew that there was a significant need that they were both needing to fill. He knew that this was just inevitable fucking from weeks—months, really—of built-up tension that they both needed to get out of their system.

"I—I want more," She nodded, her voice quiet and barely above a mumble before their eyes made contact.

He felt that she was a bit, for lack of a better word, fucked. Her eyes were a bit droopy, she may have been trying to cover up how much she really drank, but her effervescent neediness was going to haunt him forever.

"I can give you more," He nodded, "I can give you so much fucking more." His hips snapped forward, again and again and again—her headboard hitting the wall every time he did so. Their breath heavy and their eyes connected as he did so.

"Such a pretty little fuck," He lifted her leg up from around his waist before he gave her knee a gentle kiss. "I'm so hard, fuck."

The fully natured nudity of their bodies was new for him—it was usually very quick, especially when they would come to his. But this was significantly more intimate; he wanted to spend this time with her. He liked that they decided to do it this way.

She could feel the tightening of the rubber band that was about to snap. It had been building with every swipe of his thumb, the way that his tongue had gently nudged at her clit; the way he had plunged forward with every deep thrust. She was impressed with the way that he moved her body to be able to hit at her spot every single time. He had studied her, watched what she did—how she reacted.

"I'm—fuck," He pulled himself forward, letting his head drop as he fell into her touch. This was new; her hands on his shoulders, the way that they moved into his hair and down his neck. "Poetry, okay?" He reminded her softly before he kissed her lips.

What happened after that could have been a blur—to Felicity, she wasn't entirely sure if she could remember it all. His hand gripped around the tie of her neck, pulling softly so she felt a dizzy sensation.

"Fuck—fuck, Harry, I'm cumming—fuck." Her teeth bit so sharply on her lip that she was afraid it might rupture the skin; the taste of blood would come soon afterwards, but her reality was set in the pleasure kingdom that Harry's hips created for her.

It was dizzying how he snapped his hips upwards, hitting her every single time. The pressure of his thumb over her clit sent her into an overdrive; letting her walls completely break, the dam overflowed, flooding. The orgasm over taking her sent him into a state of pure shock and adrenaline, snapping his hips a few more times before he felt the absolute relief.

Her eyes shut; Harry lurched forward as he fell into the grip of her hands. It was a feeling of falling that he genuinely believed were cloud-like.

For a moment, he wondered if they would ever slow their breathing down. He wondered if the sound of her heart beating against his was real-life or just a fantasy. It may have been an orgasmic-induced dream.

The puzzle piece form of the two of them let him settle nicely into her; his nose poked at the skin of her neck, which he may or may not have left a mark or two on.

In the solemness of the air, his breathing finally evened out.

___________

"Are we cleared for take-off, Mr. Styles?"

The noise jolts him a bit, he wouldn't lie.

Harry clears his throat as he opens his eyes which have been hidden by the sunglasses that have settled on his face. He readjusts in the seat before he looks around the small jet plane that had been chartered for their adventure.

It was early, approaching on seven in the morning. His sleep had been nonexistent until that small nap that he had gotten himself before being woken up by the pilot.

"Uh," He swallows, trying to make it seem that he was more awake than he was.

"I believe that we're all here." Laura states to the pilot before she gives him a tight smile. She returns to looking at her cellphone, lowering her hands into her lap as she continues to scroll through what's possibly an email.

Harry looks around the small jet, watching, searching... wondering.

He blinks a few times to try to imagine if there's a reality where what had occurred last night was working against him—he had hoped that she hadn't been scared off, that she hadn't run away at the idea of what this weekend could possibly hold.

Not that it was going to happen all the time, certainly not. But he wondered if there could be a next time—he wondered if she would have liked that. It turns out, with the no show to the work trip that she had been informed on that—

"I'm sorry."

The sweet tone of the voice carries through the plane before he turns his body in the single chair to look at where it had been coming from. Coming up the steps, being greeted by the stewardess, a smiling face that had her sunglasses pushed into her hair—a pair of black yoga pants and a t-shirt with a cardigan sweater overtop.

He watches as she takes her bag, feeling uncomfortable by the stewardess taking it from her before she gives her a tight smile and settles into walking towards the back. The plane isn't large, but it feels incredible big when he is waiting for her to approach him.

Their eyes meet and she gives him a tight smile before greeting the others on the plane. The seat directly in front of Harry isn't taken. Go figure. Her hands are full—holding her purse, a bag that most likely has something to eat for a breakfast, a coffee, and—

"Your dry-cleaning," Felicity handed the back to him before she took her seat that sat directly across from him in the small private jet that had seemingly felt much smaller as she took in how close he was to her now, "Mr. Styles."

The flicker of her eyes to his—the way that her hair had been blown dry, bouncing with curls, the freshness of her toned-down makeup to allow the texture of her skin to show with the subtlety of the glow.

Even in the early morning hours, even though he had just left her a few hours prior, even though they had both had less than a few good hours of sleep—she still looked like she was greeting him at heaven's pearly gates.

When the bag was unzipped to check that everything had been added, his eyes fell along the purple necktie that he had unnervingly left at the edge of her bed the night prior; he must had run out of the door of her apartment without it. His eyes glanced at the way that the small item drifted over the white button-down.

It was familiar, of course, because it had been the one that he was wearing yesterday when he had entered her apartment but left without it in his hands or around his neck. He cleared his throat at the sight, knowing that it was a nod to him and only him. When he sat them down across his lap, his eyes landed on her again—the casualty of her smirk was harrowing now.

"Mr. Styles, are we waiting on anyone else?" The pilot had come back towards the rows now, to ensure that everything would have been cleared for the take-off. Harry looked back at him, and shook his head without another doubt, but a solidly aching feeling in his chest as he barred the words back at him.

"No, I—I'm not waiting for anyone else, at least." He looked up at the girl in front of him, "I'm good."

The pilot got the plane ready for departure; Felicity stared at the window as she tried to take in the experience, knowing that the exhaustion that was starting to overcome her would be able to be given a final rest when she leaned against the window.

But, for the time being, she liked being able to rest in the light of Harry's stare as he couldn't take his eyes from her.

The plane, the job, the clothes, the dinner—none of it mattered when the view in front of him was something that money would never be able to buy.

____________________

hiiiii!!

happy tortured poets department day, here's a one-shot <3

just a little fun one hehe, almost 20k words is so much for me, so thank you for reading this!

love u as always

- emily

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hijackalx · 1 month

Note

Headcanon thingy, but who would the boys (Gale, Astarion, Wyll, and Gortash) react to seeing their lover trying on lingerie?

felt like testing my drabble skills so i added a lil something extra to them 😎💗 enjoy pookie!!

GN!reader

SLIGHT NSFW BELOW

GALE

likes when you surprise him with it. wear some under your clothes as a little treat for when he’s undressing you 😌✨

you look so good that it makes him trip over his words. he’s too busy ogling your body to pay attention to what he’s saying. will have him laughing like a nervous virgin 😹

LOVESSSSS garters. can’t keep his hands off of them. particularly loves the way your thighs strain beneath them when you’re on your knees

instantly wants to enchant the bottoms to make them vibrate and watch you get off like that (don’t ask if that’s actually possible my brain functions on horny not logic)

your outfit is inconspicuous, plain— perfect for covering up the lingerie hiding beneath. you wait patiently in his lap as he unwraps your silken robe, biting back a smirk.

he pauses to take in the sight of the lace hugging your skin, how it flows so delicately around your shape. he tuts, shooting you a familiar, frivolous grin. “feeling naughty tonight, are we?” just moments later, his hands move to rest on your bottoms, a seemingly harmless action that results in a soft buzz and a gasp. “i can work with that.”

ASTARION

insists on going with you to pick some out. follows you into every dressing room to “make sure it fits right” lol. so picky but mostly because he loves watching you try them on

his favorites are flowy/frilly types, like babydoll tops or satin robes. also LOVES stockings of any kind

makes you feel like an actual doll ✨🌸 repeatedly tells you how perfect you are and can’t keep his hands off you. will also try to get you flustered by whispering really dirty stuff about how you look into your ear

likes when you have fun with it and show off for him— be cheeky. do a little spin. bend over in front of him. be prepared for him to pinch or smack your ass though

he sits comfortably on the dressing room bench as you approach him. “how about this one?” you pull your bottom lip in playfully, placing your hands on his shoulders as he takes your body into his grasp.

“mm,” erupts from his throat, watching as his lithe fingers slip over and under the fabric sparsely covering your skin. “now, this one i like.” he places a slow and deliberate kiss to your exposed abdomen, his ruby gaze flitting up to meet yours; there’s an impish glint to them that tells you he doesn’t plan on waiting to have you any longer.

GORTASH

likes to make sketches of you wearing it. has so many drawings of you in compromising positions with it on. definitely keeps them for when he’s alone

loves corsets and bustiers because of how they emphasize your chest, especially in blacks and reds. crotchless panties also drive him INSANE

the sluttier you act while wearing it the better. don’t try to be modest (there’s honestly no reason to be anyway, he’s a freak fr 😹😹)

a sucker for fishnets. likes to take them off and use them to tie your wrists together. will also shove them in your mouth/gag you with them on occasion

his dark irises glance up from his work every so often to study your decorated figure; they follow the arch of your back, the heart shape of your ass, and linger on the exposed area between your thighs more often than not.

“lower,” he directs, and you immediately respond by deepening the angle of your back. he hums contently, scribbles some more, then adds, “spread your legs further.”

you comply once again, happy to flaunt your body under his gaze. the corner of your lip pulls upward, anticipating your reward for being such an obedient little muse.

WYLL

bust this out on your honeymoon and he gets SOOO flustered. i’m talking stuttering/looking away/rubbing his neck

his favorites on you are lacy teddies— especially in blues, purples, and whites. more traditionally sexy styles really get him going

lowkey so obsessed with how you look in it. the kind of thing that’s on his mind 24/7. almost always asking you to put it on for him at the end of the day with a little pout 😹💗

LOVES when you strip for him nice and slow, especially how you tease him by carefully revealing each skimpy garment beneath your clothes. a lapdance is also mandatory

you spot the anxiousness simmering beneath his lax surface— he longs to touch you, but you’d rather toy with him a little more.

prowling closer to where he sits, you slowly unbutton your blouse. with each maneuver of your fingers, you reveal the lingerie lying beneath, watching how his hungry, needy gaze fixates on it.

he inhales sharply as you straddle his lap and take his hand in yours. he lets you guide it over your ornamented body, his eyes heavy with desire as he mutters a low and raspy, “you’ll ruin me.”

#bg3 #astarion #enver gortash #gale dekarios #wyll ravengard #astarion x reader #enver gortash x reader #gale dekarios x reader #wyll ravengard x reader #my headcanons #bg3 headcanons #drabbles

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dilatorywriting · 1 year

Text

Valentine's Day Special: Let Them Fight

GN!Reader x Malleus Draconia vs. Azul Ashengrotto vs. Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 5.3k

Summary: Who knew that in a world of magic, and mayhem, and outright villainy, that it'd be something as stupid as Valentine's Day that would push these idiots over the edge. Or, Malleus, Azul, and Vil go to war over some chocolates

A/N: This MC/Plot takes place in the Heroes vs Villains universe -- specifically Post-Staff's route, rather than any of our other lovely idiot husbands.

There was always some sort of strange overlap of customs from your world to this one. Halloween seemed to have survived more or less intact (even if it was a bit more, uh, extreme than the subtle evening of giving out treats and dressing as ghosts that you remembered). Winter Holidays were still very much a Thing, even if all other connotations had been stripped from them. Moreover, it was like someone had taken your familiar Earthen calendar and just sort of… mirrored it. Distorted it a bit. Just a lil’ bit more chaos than would have been socially acceptable back home.

So when you made a sly little joke about stocking up on discount chocolates after the Valentine’s Day rush and no one laughed—not even a little chortle, or an irritable eyeroll—you initially thought it was maybe to do with the irrationality of Sam’s Shop ever having a sale to begin with. You had not assumed that, you know, there was no Valentine’s Day at all.

“It’s an important holiday, then? Where you’re from?” Azul mused, busy scribbling endless, chicken scratch, notes in the margins of some form that was probably very important.

“I mean, not really,” you frowned, tossing your Mostro-Branded apron onto its hook. “Maybe. Yes? I don’t really know, actually.”

He hummed and moved to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Well, whatever it is, I’m always looking for new events to host at the Lounge. What exactly is it?”

“It’s a sort of special day for couples. Romance. Lovey-dovey nonsense,” you shrugged, and watched Azul’s finger slip off the slick metal frame of his glasses and nearly take his eye out. You waved off his obvious disgust with a dramatic sigh (I mean, why else would he be so stiff and red?). “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s ridiculous.”

“I—I never said that!” he spluttered, and then paused to cough into his fist and clear his throat. “It just—I just wasn’t expecting something like that to…”

“Exist?”

He grinned, wry. His cheeks were still a bit too pink. “Precisely.”

“You would have loved my world,” you said. “Very capitalistic. Lots of cash-grab holidays like that.”

Azul laughed.

“I’m sure I would be fond of any place you came from.” He paused, and his expression puckered up a bit miserably—like he really hadn’t intended to express such a sentiment aloud. But he managed to smooth the sharp line of his frown back into that usual, smarmy, smirk of his easily enough. “But either way! Tell me more!” he grinned, reaching forward to grab a stack of blank paper and a fresh pen. “I’d love to hear all about it.”

The next day you were supposed to help the Drama Club start building some stage scenery for their newest play. It was proper grunt work, which was perhaps the only sort of work you were actually qualified for. And Vil always made sure that there were plenty of disgustingly healthy but still quite tasty snacks available for the help to munch on. The food spread alone would have been worth the trip, but on top of that, Vil had made you promise. Practically a blood oath, binding you and your meager free time to the shitty supply closet in the corner of the Auditorium. And as sour as he could be sometimes, you really could never say no to him when he always looked so heart meltingly fond whenever you did agree to while away the hours at his side. That lovely face and even lovelier smile of his were fucking lethal. A war crime, surely, to use it against someone as plain and susceptible to bribery as you were.

But today you were now an idiot on a mission—an idiot determined to spread the joy of a trashy holiday that really probably shouldn’t exist in the first place, let alone in a world where people worshipped storybook villains as veritable deities. And you’d already bought all the molds, and the trays, and you really didn’t have a lot of spare pocket money to begin with, so letting this investment go to waste would not only be a shame, but a terrible business investment.

“What do you mean you’re not coming,” Vil sneered, glaring down his perfectly straight nose at you.

“I really am sorry,” you said, mostly genuine. “But I have something I need to do this afternoon.”

“You’ve made other plans?” he frowned, something a little too unsettled to fit with his usual regality twisting across his expression.

“I have to get ready for Valentine’s Day,” you explained, and his brow tugged down further. Though that earlier twinge of panic seemed to have vanished at least. You pointedly shook your grocery bag full of goodies. “I’m going to make chocolates for everyone.”

“Chocolates?” Vil echoed, confused.

You nodded. “It’s a tradition back home. You give stuff like candy and flowers to the people you care about. Normally it’s a holiday for couples, or whatever. But. Well…”

The ‘I Am Fully Aware That I’m Single as a Pringle, Please Just Let Me Have This One Thing’ was left unsaid, but it hung in the air around your head like a very persistent storm cloud nonetheless. Vil, magnanimously, seemed perfectly happy to ignore the Woe Is Me implications spewing from your mouth. Instead, he leaned forward until he was dipping precariously close into your personal space. His amethyst eyes had lit with blatant interest at your ramblings, and he hummed low in his throat.

“Is that so?” he mused, gaze lidded and warm. “That sounds… intriguing.”

You nodded past the heady scent of his cologne fogging your head. What was it with attractive people, huh? It was so unfair. You don’t get to look and smell good. Pick a lane. Save some dignity for the rest of us.

“So, I promise I’ll help another day. I just have a feeling making chocolates is going to wind up being a lot harder than I think it will.”

Because that’s how it always went in your stupid slice-of-life shows. The poor, harried, protagonist thinking they’re doing a good deed—painstakingly constructing their own, special, homemade goodies for all their important people. Making them with love. And then having it all blow up in their face like a goddamn, cocoa flavored, nuke. Nope. Not you, motherfucker. Your chocolates were going to be divine. You were going to take every, tropey, precaution in the book. And that of course included allotting yourself ample time to make mistakes your masterpiece.

“Of course,” Vil grinned. “How could I possibly begrudge you for wanting to spend your time on something so heartfelt?”

“Thank you,” you blurted, relived. Because at least he got it. Azul had been so ridiculously insistent that you should prepare all your Valentine’s Day wishes as a team. Which was not the point. He’d spent hours last night trying to wheedle his way into your plans—with endless platitudes about ‘business partners always being there for each other,’ and ‘how would he know if he was celebrating to your standards if he wasn’t given a model to work off of first?’ Utter bullshit. He’d probably just wanted free labor.

“Tomorrow, then?” Vil beamed and you nodded.

“Tomorrow,” you confirmed.

“Well, then,” he hummed. “I better get to work as well. I suppose the scenery can wait.”

You nodded in farewell and began the trek back to Ramshackle and its marginally functional kitchens. You hadn’t realized Vil was taking on any new projects, but if it was enough to have him putting off the Club’s activities as well then it must have been pretty important. Maybe he’d get you tickets to it whenever he finished—whatever it was. If there were tickets? How did any of the things he did actually work? Hell if you knew.

Making chocolates was, in fact, a laughably easy endeavor. And you found yourself cursing every goddamn Shoujo Bullshit Manga under the sun for leading you to think otherwise. The hardest part of the entire thing was fighting off Grim and his wandering paws.

You made up some basic truffles which were, again, stupidly simple. Just some messily chopped chocolate, cream, and a little splash of vanilla to make it Special. Once those were shaped into messy blobs, you dipped them into some more melted chocolate and bam. That was it. That was literally it. You felt like a genius—sitting there mushing up balls of cocoa like high-end playdough.

By 6PM, you had all your little darlings tucked into the refrigerator to harden, all the gauzy, red, boxes lined up on your counter and ready to be filled, and Grim had been placated with an offering of all your dirty mixing bowls. The tiny, demonic, beast was passed out at the dingy kitchen table—one of said bowls wedged onto his head like an astronaut’s helmet. Hopefully it was just a food coma and not, like, an actual coma-coma. Real cats couldn’t eat chocolate, but Grim never really seemed real at all. So hopefully he’d be fine.

You wiped down your cooking space once, twice. Paced up and down the narrow hallway until you were wearing away the already threadbare rugs, and spent way too long just standing in front of the fridge—staring in on your chocolates like a psychotic kidnapper scoping out their next victims.

Eventually you realized that you maybe needed to do something with your evening that wasn’t just creeping on your confections, and set out into the frosty, night, air for a stroll.

Which is, of course, where you ran into your familiar, horned, friend—staring up into the starry sky in a wistful manner that darkened his pale complexion into something nearly ominous. He always looked a bit like that, like something unearthly and detached from the rest of the world.

“Tsunotarou!” you chirped happily, and that adrift-at-sea expression of his melted right off his face.

“Child of Man,” he greeted, inclining his head politely. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening.” His brow furrowed, almost confused. “Is it not too cold for you?”

Your breath was, in fact, fogging in front of your face. And you couldn’t really feel your toes anymore. But the electric anticipation of tomorrow was keeping you warm enough. Even if only in spirit.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you waved him off. And then, because you couldn’t help yourself, you leaned forward on your tippytoes and blurted out, “Happy Almost Valentine’s Day!”

“Valentine’s Day?” Malleus repeated back at you, looking like you’d just handed him an unsolvable differential equation.

“It’s a holiday from back home,” you explained for the umpteenth time that day. “And normally I’m not too fussed about it, but this year I’m really excited to give everyone their chocolates!” You grinned. “And you too, of course. I have to make sure I give them to all my important people.”

The furrow between his brows vanished, but the blatant, gaping, confusion remained. He looked like you’d nearly startled him into an early grave.

“I am one of your most important people?” he asked, slow as a tortoise making its way up an incline.

You nodded cheerfully, still bellied by your earlier culinary successes and excellent mood. “Of course you are! We’re friends, aren’t we? And besides. Valentine’s Day is for showing people how much you care about them.”

“What an interesting concept,” he mused, bringing a finger up to tap at his chin. “To think your world had such a heartfelt tradition—it’s quite a lovely surprise.”

You laughed. “If you think the chocolates are special, you should see what some couples do for each other. Rooms full of flowers, fancy date nights—I’m just managing the bare minimum.”

“Couples?” he echoed, and you felt the first teeny, hot, thread of chagrin work its way past your enthusiasm.

“Well, normally Valentine’s Day focuses on, like, romantic things,” you said, averting your gaze just in time to miss the tension lance through his shoulders. “But it can be for all sorts of affection!” you hastily added.

“Is that so…” the Prince hummed. He lifted his pensive gaze once more and stared you down with that weighted intensity that you’d only just recently learned how not to buckle beneath. “And you wish to celebrate this day. With me?”

“…you don’t mind, do you?” you asked, hesitant.

“Of course not, Child of Man,” he beamed, his lips curling up into a smile that put all his too-sharp teeth on display. “But you’ll have to excuse me now, I’m afraid. It seems I have some preparations to undertake this evening.”

“Oh,” you blinked. “Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Yes,” Malleus said. “You will.”

It was officially Valentine’s Day, and you were ready to begin your mission of forcing your sweets onto every, single, one of your reluctant friends. Let them be pissy and tsundere. You weren’t afraid to weep and proclaim your undying, shounen-talk-no-jutsu, levels of friendship. Okay. Maybe you were a little. But these grouchy bastards had very easily become your grouchy bastards, and so help you God, they would suffer under your affection and they would like it.

There were plenty of small boxes—all nice, neat, corners with little bows perched on top. But you had also prepared a singular, larger, tray. It was cleaner cut than the rest, with bold, contrasting, colors and a simple elegance. You stared it down with a strange sort of disquiet brewing in your gut. Maybe you were being presumptuous. Goodness knows you’d more than dealt with the searing, emotionally destructive, consequences of that before. But all the same…

You squared your shoulders and spent a moment convincing yourself that your spine was quite sturdy—a proper, titanium, support system—and then popped the Big Box into the bag with the others.

Your first stop was Heartslabyul, and you burst through the ornate, crimson, doors like a manic home invader.

“I come bearing gifts,” you proclaimed, merrily doling out the boxes to your favorite idiot duo. You set three more aside, with little labels for Riddle, Trey, and Cater respectively. Normally you wouldn’t trust a dorm full of teenage boys not to devour any scrap of unattended food in sight, but Riddle had long since struck the fear of God into these poor lads. So you figured it’d be safe.

Deuce’s face lit up and he accepted the chocolate with near starry-eyed enthusiasm.

“Are these your holiday presents? Like the Santa Claus?” he asked, looking very much like a bouncy golden retriever preparing itself for congratulatory head pats.

You leaned forward with an indulgent huff to give him his pats. “No. But close enough.”

You pawned off three boxes on Ruggie when he tried to duck past you in the hallway—one for him, one for Leona, and one extra as payment for making him do your dirty work of playing delivery boy to Mister Grump in the first place. You slipped Jack his on the way into Trein’s morning lecture, and managed to press a box into Jamil’s hands before he slunk off to the library. Kalim cheered so loudly when you handed him one that your ears started to ring.

And then trouble arrived in the form of two, slippery, eels draping themselves across your shoulders. Normally the destructive duo seemed to act on their own prerogative, but on this fortuitous morning their Lord and Master was surprisingly not too far behind.

“Shrimpy!~” Floyd trilled, dragging you into a one-armed hug that was really more of a slightly-less-aggressive headlock than anything else. “Azul says you came up with this stupid holiday! And he made us work all day yesterdayto put together stuff for the Lounge! It’s not fair!”

Your legs shook under the weight of the new tumor that had made its home on your back.

“Now, Floyd,” Jade chirped. All finely manicured cruelty. “If you’re to blame anyone for going overboard with this entire situation, you ought to lay the fault on our fearless leader.” His bi-colored eyes flashed, amused. “Isn’t that right, Azul?”

Said ‘fearless leader’ looked like he was sucking on a lemon. He glared bitterly at his subordinate, seeming to share an entire, silent, argument with him, before turning back on you with a heavy sigh and the barest hint of angry flush in his cheeks.

“Prefect,” he grinned past his obvious discomfort, all sparkling, white, teeth. “I have to thank you for sharing so much information about this ‘Valentine’s Day’ of yours. It’s such a unique event, and it seems like our preparations at the Lounge are already being received incredibly well.”

“That’s good,” you nodded, trying and failing to shrug the Leech off your shoulders. “I’m glad I could help.”

Azul hummed under his breath, his eyes darting away for a moment. His glasses reflected the muted light of the hall in an odd way—making it difficult to read his expression. He cleared his throat and when he looked back up at you, the tips of his ears had gone pink.

“You’re more than welcome to come by, of course,” he beamed, suave as could be.

“I mean,” you blinked. “I would hope so. I work there.”

Floyd let out a bark of laughter and Jade snickered into his glove. The pleasant pink tinting Azul’s skin was heating to a near sunburned red. He looked down and coughed into his fist.

“Yes…” he mumbled. “I—I’m aware. But what I meant is… What I meant—” He frowned. It was a tight, pouty, little thing that scrunched up his entire face. That mottled red had spread to the bridge of his nose.

“I do believe what Azul is trying to say,” Jade stepped in, clearly taking some sort of pity on his tongue-tied friend. Or perhaps pity was the wrong word for it, seeing how smug he looked, “is that he would like to invite you to the event personally. As an honored guest, not an employee.”

“Oh,” you blinked, startled. Then hesitated, cautious on instinct. There was always some sort of catch to the Octomer’s kindness. “I don’t know if I could afford whatever fancy thing you’ve thrown together.”

“You wouldn’t be paying for it,” Azul assured you, some of that sickly flush having finally started to recede from his cheeks. You hoped he was feeling alright. “You’ve contributed more than enough for the day. It would be on the house.”

Jade loudly cleared his throat and Azul huffed, eyes sliding away yet again.

“I would be paying,” he finally mumbled. And then, even quieter, “As I believe is the custom.”

Just as you were about to thank him for his startling bought of generosity (and also ask after his health, because between the weird, pink, tinge to his skin and the aforementioned generosity, clearly somethingwas out of sorts with him), you noticed a sneaky hand working its way into your bag of goodies, and you immediately were on the defensive.

“Hey!” you snapped, spinning out of Floyd’s stranglehold. “You only get one!”

“Then I want the really big one!” he demanded, making grabby motions at it.

“No!” you squeaked, and clutched it protectively to your chest. The trio looked at you with varying degrees of surprise and you cleared your throat awkwardly. “This one—This one is special.”

“Oh?” Jade cooed, eyes flickering back towards Azul, who seemed determined to look absolutely anywhere else. “Is it now?”

“Awww,” Floyd whined. “That’s no fair! Who’s it for, anyways?!”

You gripped the box tighter and now it was your turn to stiffly avert your eyes down to the ugly carpet. “It’s not—I’m not—” you cleared your throat and forced the jitter from your voice. “I’m not ready to give it to him yet.”

The silence that followed was absolutely the worst thing you’d experienced in a long, long, time. Overblots and all. You could practically hear your blood pounding in your ears. You were just about to turn and beat a hasty retreat when a familiar, snappish, voice called your name from the other side of the corridor.

“There you are, potato,” Vil huffed, coming to stand at your side and bodily inserting himself between you and your tormentors. He met Azul’s petulant sneer with a frankly terrifying one of his own. “What are you doing here? I thought we agreed you’d be eating lunch with me today.”

You remembered no such thing, but if it got you out of this verbal minefield of a conversation, you were more than willing to take the claim at face value.

“Apologies,” Azul cut in with all his usual, mafioso, flair. “But the Prefect will be taking their afternoon meal at the Mostro Lounge today.”

“Is that so?” Vil hummed, sounding positively venomous.

“Unless you think you can make an offer good enough to sway them otherwise,” Azul chirped, equally as unpleasant.

Vil laughed—cold and sharp as crystal. It was the most elegant display of blatant irritation you’d ever seen.

“Of course you’d only consider this entire situation on a transactional basis,” he drawled, entirely unimpressed. Azul flinched and his expression screwed up into something near petulant. “I would expect no less. Are you planning to lock them into a contact too, hmm? Sign away everything in formal, sterile, terms?” Vil crossed his arms, and you were reminded sharply once more how very, very lucky you were to not be on his bad side (even if you hadn’t realized before all this that Azul apparently was on said bad side. You had no idea they disliked each other so terribly). “I really hadn’t expected you to have a single, romantic, bone in your body, and yet somehow I’m still disappointed to be proved so entirely correct.”

Azul looked ready to explode, and even though Jade and Floyd and melted back into the shadows at the start of this entire encounter, the pair of them were starting to look a bit murderous too—like sharks lazily circling the dark, ocean, depths.

“Don’t you think you deserve better?” Vil asserted, turning back to face you with a soft cant of the head. You blinked back in shock.

“Uh,” you gaped, absolutely fucking lost.

And then, like a beacon of unrivaled, black-drenched, hope, you spotted Malleus making his way down the hallway. He was flanked by his trio of housemates-cum-pseudo-bodyguards. Normally you tried to leave him alone when his rabid, green-haired, guard dog was yipping at his heels, and on top of that, the idea of using your classmates’ ingrained fear of the Fae Prince to your own advantage upset your rather staunch sensibilities. But this was an emergency.

“Tsunotarou!” you called, and it absolutely sounded like the cry for help it was.

He perked up immediately and you watched him nearly crash to a standstill. And then his sharp, neon, gaze locked on the dueling Housewardens circling you like a pair of snapping wolves, and his merry expression shuttered into something positively glacial. Which was—Fuck. I mean. Come on. What the fuck was going on today—

“Child of Man,” he droned, crossing the short distance with all the grace of the near-mythical, arcane, master that he was. His posture was more collected and regal than you’d ever seen it, and he loomed all the taller for it.

Azul and Vil had gone tense at your side, one certainly more so than other. The Octomer looked incredibly unsettled at Malleus’s sudden arrival, but Vil just looked angrier. It was the sort of unpleasantness that bloomed whenever someone challenged him or his competencies over and over—inevitably pushing the normally composed beauty into an indignant rage.

“Happy Day of Valentine’s,” Malleus continued, slotting himself firmly into the veritable territory dispute going down. “Are you quite alright?”

No, you wanted to wail. No! I’m so confused! I have no idea what’s going on! I just wanted to give my friends chocolates!

But you never managed to get those words or any others past your lips, because Sebek Zigvolt shot to his master’s side with all the speed of the lightning for which he was so named, and immediately began to scream.

“HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT THE YOUNG MASTER’S AFTERNOON ROUTINE!” he shrieked at the top of his very impressive lungs.

You weren’t sure if he was howling at you (very likely) or just anyone who wasn’t Malleus, but Jade took the opportunity to slink forward from the shadows with a sharp tut-tut.

“Perhaps none of you deserve the Prefect’s special attentions,” he piped in, sounding very much like someone intentionally throwing a cannister of gasoline onto an already roaring fire. “Or any chocolates at all—let alone the ones set aside for someone special.”

At this, silence once more rang through the corridor and you wanted to throttle that stupid eel.

“There is a special box?” Malleus asked first, brow shooting up as his expression tugged with… something.

“I—I mean, I made all of yours special!” you defended, holding the wrapped treasure tightly to your chest. “But… I guess. Yes. There’s one that’s a little bigger than the others.”

At this, all three Housewardens exchanged pointed looks.

Jade smiled serenely once more, and then continued his absolute massacre upon your person.

“Yes, indeed,” he nodded. “And our dearest Prefect only just mentioned that—hmm. How did you word it? Ah. That’s right. ‘I’m not ready to give it to him yet.’”

The trio tensed. All looking absolutely ready to pounce. At—at what, you had no idea.

“Perhaps,” the wretch mused, “it would be best for you all to temper your rage until the victor is decided, hmm?” He paused to tap at his chin for a moment, and then his lips split into a mean, jagged, grin. “Afterwards? Well, I suppose that whole cheery sentiment about ‘love and war’ still holds true.”

You gulped, feeling startlingly like Jade had just tried to serve you up on a silver platter.

But when neither Azul, Vil, or Malleus made any further moves to murder each other… well. As sacrificial as it all felt, at least it must have worked.

The rest of the day passed in a tense sort of fugue. You certainly hadn’t expected your attempts at bringing some holiday cheer to Night Raven to go so… Uh…

But either way, you managed to survive through the rest of the afternoon, and before you knew it, all that remained of all your tireless efforts and good will was the Special Box. The big one. The one that you’d put together with extra care and hopes for better things. You glared down at it for a moment, feeling sweat starting to bead over your palms. But you couldn’t chicken out now. Not after you’d come so far! Everyone was acting so strange, and it was all so weird. And as much as that unfamiliarity had your teeth on edge and your hackles raised, you didn’t want to regret not giving out the last of your well-made sweets.

Well, here goes nothing, you frowned. You took a deep breath, willed yourself to be brave, and smiled your biggest smile.

“Here,” you beamed, more than a little shy and still a bit horrified by whatever pissing match had been going down earlier in the day, and finally offered the grandest of your chocolate boxes to the man standing opposite you.

Divus Crewel accepted your offering daintily, plucking at the crisp, sharp, wrapping with his crimson gloves. He arched one of his thin brows at you and you fought the nervous heat rising in your cheeks.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” you blurted. “I know it’s not a thing here, but I thought it’d be nice.”

The second eyebrow joined the first—practically jumping all the way up into his fringe.

“I appreciate the gesture. Though from what I understand of all the garish advertising I’ve seen for Mostro Lounge’s new event, I assumed this was a holiday for romantic overtures,” he intoned, wry.

You spluttered and waved your hands furiously. “I mean! Normally! Yes! But also…” You trailed off, fighting the urge to fidget. “If you don’t have a—a, well, someone, then Valentine’s is just a nice excuse to give something to people you care about.” You averted your gaze and lost the battle to twist your fingers into your jacket sleeves. “My family used to give me chocolates every year. So. I thought I could… Well…” you trailed off on a grumble, embarrassed.

Crewel sighed and popped the lid off the box. He plucked two truffles from their casing—keeping one for himself and handing you the other.

“Well, then. A very happy Valentine’s to you, Prefect,” he droned and popped the chocolate into his mouth with a thoughtful hum.

You lit up like a Christmas tree and happily gobbled up your own treat. So distracted were you by the one-two-punch combo of the delicious sugar and even sweeter taste of your Professor’s approval that you almost entirely missed the pointed glare he shot over your shoulder.

“I appreciate your regard,” he said, loud. Sharp. And like he wasn’t talking to you at all. “And while I’m certain that if you do pick a ‘someone’ for yourself to celebrate with in the following years, they’ll have to work very hard to be worthy of such a gift, hmm?” His lip curled unpleasantly, in direct contrast to the indulgent warmth that had been tugging at his expression only a moment before. “I could hardly allow you to waste such a thoughtful gesture on someone unworthy.”

The Octavinelle Housewarden had the decency to look at least a little panicked—his face going pale and gaunt from where he was shrinking into his high collar. There was a frantic look about him, like he was trying to weigh the cost-benefit ratio of going up against his professor in his head, and realizing that he was stupidly, willfully, walking right into a lose-lose situation. And that, sadly—miserably—he was going to keep doing just that. The other two, however, looked entirely undeterred. Schoenheit curled his lip right back at him, more than ready to duke it out here and now, and Crewel fought the urge to remind the blonde that he was the adult in this situation, thank you very much. The adult who could very well revoke the Warden’s access to his Alchemy Labs as it suited him. The very alchemy labs that he knew Vil had been using to concoct all kinds of new, personalized, gifts for you. Draconia simply looked on with that unnervingly ancient, green, leer of his. Like he was staring down a particularly fascinating game. The Fae Prince was the most unsettling of the trio, if only because that while Crewel was more than confident enough in his abilities to subdue his other wayward students, fighting off an Immortal, All Powerful, Dragon was going to require at least a little bit of prep work.

Divus Crewel sighed, and it rattled all the way out from the marrow of his bones.

“Come, then,” he rumbled, directing you to follow him back into his office. “It’s not chocolates, but I probably have some of those ridiculous cookies of yours lying around somewhere.” Which he did. Boxes upon boxes of them. Tucked away special for whenever you came to visit. Not that he’d ever willingly admit that, even under the pain of death.

Your eyes went wide and warm as you positively beamed.

It was rotten work, certainly. He shot one, last, warning glare down the hall at the trio of infatuated interlopers as he firmly shut his office door behind you and your absolute oblivious idiocy. He’d do it. Of course he would. But, Christ alive. He was going to need a stronger drink.

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hedgehog-moss · 11 months

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Writers who use imitative harmony + the movement of their language to evoke meaning are so great to re-read once you’ve learnt this language, if you’ve read them in translation before, it feels like the best reward. I’m reading Annie Proulx in the original for the first time, and so much of her writing style was just not salvageable by French translators (< my condolences), because she intertwines sound with meaning so often, at least in Close Range, and French just doesn’t sound the same! so by translating the meaning you’ll sacrifice a lot of the style... It reminds me of a haunted house book in French that also made me think “haha RIP translators” because it made great use of sound—a lot of “u / eu / ou” to create a sort of sinister howling effect in some sentences, and one sentence about a closed door used “i” and “rr” sounds to give an ominous “creaking open” sensation without actually opening the door in the text...

This kind of thing always makes me reflect despairingly on how many authors I’ll never get to appreciate fully as I can’t read them in the original, but I’m glad to re-discover Annie Proulx at any rate! I mean compare the sound of a phrase like “a hundred dirt road shortcuts” to the French “des centaines de raccourcis, des routes de terre”... First of all the English phrase sounds clippety-cloppy, it sounds like hooves on a dirt road in a way that’s very hard to preserve in a language without syllable stress, but also the French language demands that you turn it into ‘a hundred of shortcurts of roads of dirt’, so it’s best to dilute it into two phrases, and you just lose the clippedness. It sounds less tight, more leisurely.

Same for the phrase “the tawny plain still grooved with pilgrim wagon ruts” vs. “la plaine fauve encore marquée des ornières laissées par les chariots des pèlerins.” That’s a 54% expansion ratio and once again you turn the tight clippedness of ‘grooved with pilgrim wagon ruts’ into ‘grooved with the ruts left by the wagons of the pilgrims.’ You just can’t avoid it, French words have to hold hands in a long procession rather than being stacked like pancakes on top of one another. And sometimes it makes for lovely stylistic effects too (*), but it doesn’t fit the style of a text like this one, which uses rhythm and sound in a very un-French way—rhythmicality in French tends to rely on long flowy phrasings rather than the potholed ruggedness this story demands. (I saw a NY Times article describe it as Annie Proulx “mining the ore of language out of a gritty Wyoming rockscape”)

The rhythm of this whole bit is so neat, you can snap your fingers along with it: “hard orange dawn, the world smoking, snaking dust devils on bare dirt, heat boiling out of the sun until the paint on the truck hood curled, ragged webs of dry rain that never hit the ground, through small-town traffic and stock on the road, band of horses in morning fog...”

The French version is not finger-snapping material but you can tell the translator did her very best to preserve the author’s intention by creating interesting rhythms in French as well. For “hard orange dawn” she could have kept close to the original with, say, “la dureté orange de l’aube” but instead she chose to turn ‘hard’ into a four-syllable adjective (éblouissante / blinding) to end up with a noticeable rhythm—“les aubes orange, éblouissantes,” one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four (and she made ‘dawn’ plural for the same reason.) She wasn’t able to preserve the g/r alliteration of “GRooved with pilGRim waGon Ruts” (although her translated phrase also has a lot of R’s) but she did preserve the ‘sss’ alliteration of “Smoking Snaking duSt” (“pouSSière Serpentant Sur le Sol”). Even with languages as close as French and English, for every stylistic effect you can save you have to sacrifice a few, or replace them with opposite effects which align better with your language’s notions of literary style (like with the orange dawn bit, doubling the length of a tight phrase so it can sound rhythmical).

You can tell all throughout the book that a lot of thought and care went into respecting Annie Proulx’s writing choices and you still end up with sentences that sound and move so differently. You get to see the limit of translation when authors fully lean on their language’s syntax and melody to help convey meaning, like poets do!

(*) Re: English stacking words and French linking them—this reminds me of an essay I read by an English translator of Proust who despaired of this difference in the opposite direction—saying some long, descriptive phrases in Proust with articles & prepositions linking words, and commas linking phrases with regularity, read like telling the beads of a rosary. And the sensation (or a lot of it) had to be sacrificed because English just does not use as many linking words as French, information is conveyed in a more economical way, so a lot of these sentences with a hypnotic rhythm like “the A, of the B, of the C, whereby the D, of the E, on an F” were often not achievable with English syntax or created redundancy (e.g. having to use ‘that’ or ‘which’ 5 times when French used different tool words). But he said he did try to form sentences that had this continuity, and meditative quality.

I don’t have a conclusion to this post other than to say something precious will be lost if human translation is replaced by AI translation, because literary translation involves creativity and ambiguity and aesthetic considerations and a dimension of instinctual feeling for your own language and the original style, and I don’t think any amount of data and processing power and artificial neural networks will yield the flavour of literary quality that emerges from human sensibility and care, from someone reading a sentence and thinking “this feels like hooves clippety-clopping down a dirt road” or “this feels like rolling the beads of a rosary” and starting from there...

#language tag #not sure if imitative harmony has the same meaning as harmonie imitative now that i think about it #in french i was taught that it’s a broader more ‘diluted’ stylistic device than onomatopoeia #as in writing 'bzzz' about an insect flying is onomatopoeia #writing a sentence about an insect with several 'b' and 'zz' sounds here and there is imitative harmony

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moongothic · 1 year

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MY BLANKET OF DARKNESS HAS BEEN COMPLETED

✨👁️✨ I AM SO COZY NOW ✨👁️✨

So I started working on this blanket around June of 2022. Got like, maybe half-way through the blanket and then the yarn I needed for the blanket went out of stock at my local yarn shop. Now I didn't know the yarn would be completely unavailable for like 6 months (until the stop closed permanently), so I just kept on waiting, hoping for it to come back in stock-- but it never did, so in January I finally looked online if I could find the yarn elsewhere and I did, I got the yarn I needed, and finished the blanket. So it kinda took me 6 months to make this blanket but also not

What made this blanket a truly exciting and fun project for me is that this has been the first blanket I actually made for myself and designed for myself. Like I've enjoyed every single blanket project I've had so far, but having a blanket that's Just For Me is just. It's nice

I originally planned the granny squares out digitally because I wanted to have a fun pattern of different granny squares, something that wouldn't be too busy looking and was carefully planned, and here's what I came up with

I had two versions of the square pattern, one with moon phases right in the middle of it and another without them. I do like how the moon version looked and part of me kinda regrets not making that one, but I'm not sure the moons would have really gone well with the eyes... So I did go with the first version

(Sidenote, it's not on the pattern above but I added extra rows of just black squares at the top and bottom of the blanket, so there's two rows of black instead of just one)

(Sidenote 2, although I knew I wanted the blanket to be mostly black from the begining, I wasn't entirely sure what accent color I wanted to use, it really was depending on what colors the shop had available. Like I used yellow as kind of a default color since it worked nice with the stars and eyes, but I could've gone with some other color too. In the end, because I didn't like the color options for the yarn at the shop I ended up going with a yellow anyways) (Also I tested out a reverse color version with the pastel purple and white base and no eyes, just for funsies, it looks kinda neat)

But yeah, that's how the planning of the blanket went.

The blanket is made of 231 squares in total, 11x21 rows. 186 of the squares are plain black, the rest are patterned. The star squares were the worst to make because of how many strands of yarn I had to weave in, 0/10, would not reccommend.

I used the Cedro 100% wool yarn (reccomended hook size 5, 50g=100m), and it took me about 38 balls of yarn to finish the blanket (including crocheting all the squares together and doing a single round of double crochet around the blanket to finish it off)

This is literally all the yarn I have left from this blanket; one untouched ball of black and three partially used balls.

I gotta admit.

I'm kind of shocked by the size of the blanket. Like I very carefully measured it to make it the exact size to fit my bed, and it fits perfectly. But I'm still kinda shocked how big it is. (Which is why I didn't make the border of the blanket any bigger, even though I could've with the yarn I have)

Also

It's HEAVY

Like, of course it's heavy, it's 100% wool and thick, but MAN I didn't expect it lmao

But that kind of makes it perfect for cold winters especially, it's super warm and the weight makes it cozy- like who needs a weighted blanket when you can have one of these lmao

Now I just need to figure out how to protect the blanket from being covered in my white cat's hair...

#Yarncraft Diary #Yarncraft #Crochet #Crochetblr #Yarnblr #Emotionally I classify this as a 2022 project even though I didn't finish it until this year #No I did not block the squares before putting the blanket together #I was planning on just ironing the squares to flatten them out but I noticed last minute that...#...the yarn doesn't reccommend it be ironed so. I didn't want to risk ruining it #And I don't really have a blocking board or anything so I just had to let it go #I could probably just hang the blanket on the clothesline in the shower and the weight of it...#...on top of whatever moisture there might be in the air would probably straighten the blanket out a bit #So it wouldn't ''buckle'' the way it does now #But ehhh it's fine #I don't mind it really

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adventuringblind · 7 months

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Stash

Oscar Piastri x Autistic Reader

Genre: hurt/comfort

Summary: Oscar confronts his lovers' weird habits for food storing.

Warnings: talks of eating disorders and past abuse

Notes: based on personal experience. My therapist says she's glad that I have an outlet. Apparently, writing myself into scenarios like this is healing. Who would've ever thunk it??

Masterlist

Oscar was prepared for a great many things when his girlfriend moved in with him. Things they had already talked about extensively. Like how she has her own routine that she follows, even if it doesn't feel like it. Or how she has sleeps on top of the duvet instead of under it.

Things that seem very minor to him. Apparently, other people have said it's weird, and she felt the need to warn him about her habits before moving in. She likes to communicate like that. Another thing he loves about her.

What he was not expecting was to find food stashed away in the most random places.

He didn't confront her about it at first. Maybe this is just a way she feels safe or a reminder to herself to eat something when she sees it. But then he started getting concerned when he wasn't seeing her eat at home.

She followed him around to races and could eat at restaurants, given she was with safe people who didn't tease her for being so plain. She ate snacks when she felt the need.

While she was out one day, he asked Lando over. The Brit was mildly confused as to why he was helping search the depths of the flat for food.

"You litterally have stocked cupboards."

"It's not for me! My girlfriend is stashing food around the house, and I'm trying to see if there is a pattern and maybe figure out why."

"Have you considered asking?"

"Not after she joked about her relationship with food."

Lando, who knows very well how hard eating can be sometimes, comes to the realization that there may be more to this then just sensory issues. Insecurity and scrutiny are hard things to deal with. He wouldn't be shocked if that's the reason she has foods she loves in places Oscar wouldn't find them.

Eventually they do find a pattern. It's not about where they are hidden, it's about what is hidden. It feels as if a child thought they were going to get in trouble for not asking to eat first. It's saddening to Oscar that his lover doesn't feel she can just eat normally around him.

"Do you know if she grew up doing this?"

"No clue."

~~~~~

When she got home that night, she found Oscar setting the table for dinner. Which is already odd considering they don't eat at the table. She hates eating at the table. It feels like she's being judged while she eats and makes her unable to think clearly.

But she would suffer through it. Why? because Oscar has made her comfort food, and it would be a crime not to eat with him after he did such a thing.

"What's all this for?" She asks while setting her things down.

"Well, I know you hate the dinner table, but we need to talk about something, and I thought comfort food and dim lighting might help the anxiety."

She takes her seat and thanks him for the gesture. The pit in her stomach aching with the thought of what he may want to talk about.

"So, your food stashing habits...."

Oh. Oh no. She'd been found out. She is going to get lectured just like she did at home. The one thing she was trying to desperately to avoid.

She drops her head in shame. "I'm so sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong, alright?" I just need to know why and if I can help. You're not eating full meals when we're home and the food your hiding makes me think your self-conscious. I just want you to feel safe here, with me."

She sighs. The female knew she would have to confront this eventually. It's not that she doesn't feel safe eating here, it's that these are learned habits that she has yet to unlearn.

"My parents would often get upset when I didn't eat what they made. It's not that I was being ungrateful, I just couldn't keep it in my mouth without gagging. Textures and things."

Oscar hums as he listens. He knows textures are hard for her. Food, clothing, even certain blankets are hard for her to feel.

"My parents were also always talking about my eating habits. So, to avoid being scrutinized, I would hide food in my room to eat when nobody was around."

Oscar is a soft person. Easygoing, quiet, and according to Lando, boring. In this moment he is none of those things. He feels for his lover that she doesn't feel safe eating at home because of her parents.

Thus enters a time of Oscar warming her up to eating in the house. Not just small things, real meals and snacks and simply whenever she's hungry.

It's definitely a slow process. Oscar still finds food in strange places occasionally, but he leaves it and reminds her that it's okay to put her food in the cabinet.

He never makes a mention of what she's eating. Even if he's just curious. He never talks about it.

Eventually, she starts putting her food in the cupboard. conversations about food become a little easier and doesn't send her into a flurry of insecurity.

Every little step counts, and Oscar is proud of her for every single one she takes.

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ladadiida · 3 months

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a little sneak peak of my (angsty) aventurine fic ♡

a large bouquet of freshly picked flowers tied with a single piece of red ribbon sat on your right hip, cradled gently with both of your arms so as to not crush them.

you knew, after all, that the petals of a flower were delicate, fragile enough to fall apart with just a fleeting touch of a fingertip. you moved the bouquet closer to your chest to protect them, even though you were dreadfully aware that in a few days, they would rot and die inside an expensive ceramic vase with hardly enough water to feed themselves.

any onlooker would speculate that a yearning gentleman gave you the flowers in hopes for you to accept his love with the way you held them, like they were yours to keep and yours to treasure; and as your reflection in the mirror stared back at you with tender eyes, you began to feel that it seemed to agree with the thought. the vibrant colors of the bouquet contrasted the plain, washed out gray color of your uniform, but you allowed yourself to pretend that the flowers were for you and someone actually chose them for you with you in their mind.

slightly hesitant at first, you leaned in and moved your face closer to the flowers like a sophisticated maiden who just received a bouquet from a suitor, inhaling their sweet and earthy scent that reminded you of home. it was the same scent you would wake up to every early morning as you prepare to open your flower shop, placing them in their respective vases and pots while you water their sprouting leaves and budding petals, watching them bloom under your love and care.

you closed your eyes, imagining yourself inside your flower shop again. you would drink a cup of warm tea sprinkled with dried jasmine and lavender and arrange flowers together to create bouquets that would swoon the entire cosmos; and then a familiar pair of arms would wrap themselves around your waist, the mystery person placing his chin on top of your shoulder. you will try not to giggle when you feel the golden strands of his hair tickle your neck, and his purple eyes will sparkle with amusement as he began to open his mouth to whisper something in your ear—

"do you think she'll like it?"

your fantasy world crumbled down like crushed petals under your feet the moment you heard his voice. you forced the frivolous flutter of your heart to stop, putting on a neutral expression when you turned around to face him. he was already looking at the bouquet resting on your arms with a satisfied grin, taking off his tinted glasses to get a better look, reminding you yet again that the flowers he buys will never belong to you.

and it was obvious too. you tried to push down your disappointment as you scanned over the little gift you prepared. the bouquet consisted of red camellias (desire) that have the same shade as the streaks of a certain someone's pure white hair, and periwinkles (fondness) to match the color of her eyes. the flowers were screaming somebody else's name, but you dare not say it out loud.

without waiting for your answer, he took the bouquet from you, his gloved hands brushing against your bare ones, and you didn't fail to notice how the little action made your heart jump pathetically. observing the flowers, he hummed in contentment, "ah, of course she will. you are the most talented florist in the galaxy. i mean, look at this."

you blinked slowly, not letting the compliment get to you. you worked with him long enough to know that they were only a part of his facade. "i'm not sure about that. i was planning to get red roses but they were out of stock. i hope red camellias will make up for it."

he suddenly poked at your forehead with a finger, and this time, you failed to hide your surprise at his actions. the tips of your ears reddened, the shade becoming deeper the longer he allowed himself to touch you. he then met your wide eyed gaze with his empty and soulless ones, much different to the version of himself in your daydreams.

"don't fret. i can see you're overthinking. if my...tricks wouldn't work on topaz, i'm sure the flowers will. they always do. women tend to soften after a sweet and heartwarming gesture." he said, chuckling lowly and voice tinted with the schemes he's about to unleash.

the blonde pulled away from you and began to walk away, his touch lingering on the skin of your forehead. you didn't know what prompted you to do so, but you suddenly blurted out his name as his footsteps were beginning to sound far and far away from you like it always does,

"sir aventurine."

aventurine stopped in his tracks, his back continuing to face you. you itched to go after him, to take his hand and cage him in your arms and tell him no, that woman will never see you as i do, and she would never appreciate the flowers, don't go, don't go, don't leave me—

you forced a soft smile even if he couldn't see you at all, and said breathlessly, miserably, and hopelessly, "good luck on negotiating with miss topaz."

#hsr aventurine #aventurine x reader #ਏਓ ladadiida

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kitchenwitchtingss · 9 months

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FEEL BETTER CHICKEN SOUP

Today I woke up and felt a little ill. So I decided to make myself some good old feel-better chicken soup.

Being mixed, I've always grown up with two different versions of chicken noodle soup, so eventually when I grew up I just combined the two! Hispanic chicken soup usually uses tomatoes sazón, adobo, chicken thigh, lemon, and rice, but American chicken soup usually uses noodles, chicken breast, plain broth, salt, pepper, and celery.

So here's one way to twist the two together.

This recipe is pretty easy to make when you don't have a lot of energy because there is about an hour and a half of cooking where you can just sit down and relax while doing it.

3-4 Chicken Thighs or Legs (I prefer bone-in because it has more flavor and is more tender.)

3 tbsp Garlic honey (works well if fermented, it's fun and easy to make your own!) - Healing, Protection, Purification

One Goya Sazon Packet

1 Bay Leaf - Protection, Healing, Purification

1/2 Cup Baby Carrots (You could just chop up a regular carrot too lol)

1 yellow Onion

2 tsp grated Ginger - Cleansing, Energy, Healing

Half a bag of egg noodles (You could also use rice) - Longevity

4 cups chicken broth

2 green onions

Chicken Seasoning:

4 cloves garlic - Protection, Healing

1/8 cup chopped parsley - Protection, Strength

1/2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp adobo seasoning

1 tbsp thyme - Healing, Abundance, Health, Prosperity

2 tsp basil flakes - Abundance, Prosperity

1 tsp red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper - Banish Negative Energy

Juice of half a lemon - For Healing

Hot Scallion Oil:

2 tbsp oil

1 tbsp green onion

DIRECTIONS:

Blend the chicken seasonings listed above in a blender or in a mortar and pestle. Whichever you prefer. Rub on chicken and fry in a pot with oil until each side is browned. About 4 minutes on each side.

Add in yellow onion, ginger, and garlic honey, and cook until soft. Add in carrots and chicken stock. Add in Bay leaf and goya season packet. Cook for about an hour.

Add in green onions, and taste if the soup needs more seasoning. If it does, season to taste. Simmer for another 20 minutes.

When the chicken is tender enough to where it is falling off the bone, remove the chicken from the bone and discard the bones and bay leaf.

Add in egg noodles and cook for 7-9 minutes with the lid on, until the noodles are cooked.

Heat up 2 tbsp of oil until very hot. Add in green onion and cook for a little under a minute.

Laddel soup into a bowl and top with a spoonful of scallions and scallion oil.

Enjoy!

Editors Note: I'll never understand how people take such aesthetic photos of food loll.

#soups #recipes #witchy #kitchen witch #magick #kitchen witch recipes #witchblr #kitchen magick #witch #food #witches #cooking #savory #foodblogger #foodpics #modern witch #comfort food #recipe #cottagecore

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em-writes-stuff-sometimes · 11 months

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ñuhus prūmӯs (my heart) │Chapter 12: Dynasty

terms of endearment ‘verse: see my Masterlist for the correct series order!

Chapter 1 │Chapter 2 │Chapter 3 │Chapter 4 │Chapter 5 │Chapter 6 │Chapter 7 │Chapter 8 │Chapter 9 │Chapter 10 │Chapter 11 │Chapter 12 (COMPLETE!)

Synopsis: Childbirth is the duty and dismay of all highborn women. Together, you and Daemon experience the trials, tribulations and triumphs of expectant parenthood. You stand your ground.

(Set post-episode 7, though Daemon never married Laena or Rhaenyra.)

Thank you to my slap daddy @ewanmitchellcrumbs for editing this monster! Thank you also to @evisnotok, @connorsui and @ajthefujoshi for holding my hand throughout the drafting, teehee!

Triggers: incest, age gap, purity culture, dysfunctional family dynamics, brief reference to gore, brief reference to graphic child murder.

It’s been weeks, he seethes as he follows you back to the Keep, and those two fucks couldn’t even bother sending a raven to mark the deed as done? For his decrepit brother to bring the news before the cutthroats themselves…

Daemon reminds himself that it’s likely neither man had ever learned his letters. Nor had he extracted a vow through which he could come to expect confirmation of the slaying. He curses the oversight. How in the hells had he expected to discover if his target was successfully slaughtered without an adequate means of communication? Fucking lackwit.

You maintain as stony a silence as he while stalking your way up the path, past the Garden, through the heavy stone doors etched into the base of the fortress and along the halls of your island home. It is as though the varied aches and pains of childbirth have fled your body entirely, such is the stiffness of your disposition and the chilly wrath that chokes the air around you. The babes, foisted on that plain milk sow—Fredda? Freya? who knows, or cares for that matter—squawk with outrage as they are rattled about in her arms, assuredly disgusted by such indelicate management.

Good. He’d hate for his heirs to willingly submit to ill treatment by lesser hands.

Cargyll is escorting you all to the Chamber of the Painted Table, or so he surmises. There’s little else to be found in this direction. The stairs that wind up and up and up from the Great Hall lead to apartments and the relics of Aegon’s Conquest from long ago. You wave away his every attempt to assist you in climbing the steps, fresh from childbed as you are. He notes with some concern each wince and gasping breath, each press of hand to your side or to your belly like you are trying to hold the fractured parts of yourself together for just a little longer. By the time your party reaches the top of the tower, even he is winded. Too damn young to feel so old, his thoughts protest.

The doors creak open with a resounding echo as his foot meets the landing, the solid mass of Breakbones thumping through the parting of wood with heavy stomps. He pauses when he sees Daemon, a tempest raging across the terrain of his face. His fists ball up at his sides even as he remains stock-still.

Shit.

Daemon takes careful note of his surroundings—the lit torches mounted on the walls, the winding carvings of dragons etched into the rock around the window, the widening of the stairway as it approaches the open hall outside the Chamber—and assesses Strong, waiting for any indication that he will strike. He wouldn’t blame the man if he did. Larys might have been a treasonous viper and a cunt, but he was Harwin’s brother. No, he wouldn’t blame him. But neither will he allow him to attack without putting up a fight of his own.

A pale hand settles on Harwin’s arm. Rhaenyra moves out from behind him, communing wordlessly to her lover with solemn eyes and thin-pressed lips, a subtle shake of the head. The man huffs, working his jaw. Then, with an abrupt lurch, he storms past, deliberately avoiding Daemon as he marches down, down, down the stairs. Each footfall resounds with a dull thump, fainter and fainter.

She turns to Daemon. “With all this time having passed”—his eldest niece hisses as she steps forward to remonstrate him, though her attempt at privacy is utterly lost in the resonant composition of the space—“and you never once thought to tell me you’d ordered the man’s death?”

He glances at you. With a carefully blank expression, you’ve turned away to dandle at the babes in the wetnurse’s arms, tiny fists clenching onto outstretched fingers. You murmur in low tones to your companion, making it clear that you have no intention of participating in the conversation taking place. He knows not what you think of the revelation.

“You would have counselled caution,” he says, never once taking his eyes off you. She blusters in annoyance, but he hardly cares. A cold wash of triumph suffuses the very air he breathes, almost as though it is a tangible flavour collected on the tongue. They’ve done it. The traitor is dead. You are safe now, you and Rhaenar and Aelys. “I’ll not apologise for the deed. He deserved it.”

Rhaenyra sighs. “I know. But… Harwin—” She stops, shaking her head. “Never mind. The King is waiting. He is—most displeased.”

Daemon grunts. “When is he not?”

Her responding smile is wan. She nods her farewell in grave ceremony, sidestepping him and venturing to you. Reaching a hand forth to glide across the feather-fluff softness of each babe’s head, she presses a single, wordless peck of dry lips to your cheek before following her vexed paramour’s path down at a much more sedate pace, slippers barely to be heard on the stone steps.

Daemon’s pulse rumbles in his ears as he enters the Chamber with you and your attendants in tow. He knows most perceive him as someone who enjoys riling the King; but, in truth, he does not take pleasure in this. He never has, though he is by nature one who creates chaos wherever he walks, a blight upon the earth. It is his curse to crave approval from Viserys, even now that age and circumstance have elevated him so by comparison. He will forever be a little boy begging for scraps of his brother’s love, never to be satisfied.

Viserys sits at the head of the table, distinctly out of place. King’s Landing may be the epicentre of Targaryen power, but it is here at Dragonstone that the true vestiges of Old Valyria remain. Draconic, ominous, almost savage—it does not suit a man so affable, indecisive, common as Viserys.

“Brother,” Daemon says, stopping at the edge of the Painted Table opposite the King.

Viserys makes no attempt at greeting, nor any other movement. He simply continues staring at Daemon with a frigid countenance, purple eyes glinting like cracked ice in weak sunlight, dangerous and jagged. An excellent beginning.

Daemon doesn’t bother genuflecting. The concession would be pointless. Still, the King appears to take notice, jaw clenching faintly at the slight.

“I believe you summoned me,” he adds with an air of insolence, testing, needling. Silence in return. He lets his next statement hang. “If His Grace has forgotten the purpose…”

Viserys’s deformed face twists in anger. “I would have you silent, you—you plague! You do not speak unless I comm—”

“Father.”

The King’s gaze darts to you, surprised, starting visibly when he notices the wetnurse by your side and the wriggling forms of the twins in her hold. All at once, his disposition changes. He is no longer the austere arbiter of justice come to scold Daemon for his many failings, but instead a jovial, tender-hearted father. “Oh!” he says, exhilarated and overcome. “Oh!”

Though you smile as you approach him, there is a stiffness to your shoulders and an unhappy pout to your mouth that belies just how deeply the bond between you has fractured. You avert your eyes from the King’s, avoiding his upturned cheek to settle Aelys into the crook of his remaining arm and taking Rhaenar into your own grasp. Your voice is too light as you introduce your children—Daemon’s children—to their grandsire.

“Rhaenar and Aelys?” Viserys asks, distracted from his own words by the whimpering of the babe in his grip. “I cannot recall a ‘Rhaenar’ or an ‘Aelys’ in our histories.”

“They are new. Free from the burden of comparison to one’s namesake.” A moue of defensiveness colours your speech. The King does not notice.

“I’d believed you might call them ‘Viserys’ or ‘Aemma’, for those that bore you,” he says, entertained by Aelys’s scowling expression. He does not see the chill that sweeps across your visage, the traces of warmth that are stifled by wintry resentment, deadening the flush of your skin to pale ice and the brightness of your eyes to dulled jewels. “Ah, but ‘tis no matter. They are a fine pair, my girl. Well done!”

You nod jerkily. Daemon watches the scene with incredulity, stock-still at his post across the Table. Surely my brother is not that obtuse? he wonders. But of course he is. So proficient has he become at ignoring the discontent of those around him that it is probable that he no longer recognises the sight of it.

“I trust your labours were easy?” Viserys asks. It is the wrong thing to say.

You no longer hide your disdain. It mars the sweetness of your features like ink stains parchment, spreading swift and uncontrollable. “Aelys was breech. Maester Gerardys wished to cut me open to take her from my womb.”

Daemon’s gut roils at the reminder even as his brother’s face blanches.

“By the gods!” he gasps, peering up at you. “But—”

“But Daemon refused to allow him to do so,” you say, lower lip wobbling. “My life mattered to him more than the prospect of an heir, you see.”

Dangerous territory. The jibe almost hits its mark. The King’s brow furrows, creasing in concern as he notes your hostility.

“Why have you come to Dragonstone, Viserys?” Daemon asks, stopping the conversation in its tracks.

No good can come of such vitriol. Your umbrage may be justified, but you are too ruled by the irrationality of new motherhood to head down this avenue of discussion. You are too young to risk losing your father to your own bitterness. The time may come that the truth of Aemma’s death can be dragged into the harsh light of day—but it is not this day. He’ll not let you make this mistake. Not yet.

“I’d have thought Ser Arryk had made that abundantly clear already.” His brother appears to shake the uncertainty off as he refocuses upon his sole purpose for traversing the Bay alone, sighing. “Lord Larys was found in his chambers. Or, rather, his body was found in his chambers. His head is… elsewhere.”

“How unfortunate.” Daemon cannot help the drollness. It goads a twitch from the corner of Viserys’s eye. “We’ll all miss him so.”

“Daemon.” Ah, the aggravation has returned. His mouth curves cruelly at the sight of the King’s indignation. “I know it was you.”

“And how do you know this?” you ask, ushering the wetnurse forth to retrieve Aelys from your father. “My husband has scarcely left my side since our return. And whatever time he has had to spare was most certainly not long enough to commit the crime of which you have accused him.”

Daemon calls your name. There is still enough of the biddable little doll in you to follow his implicit command and come to heel at his side like a good wife, to turn willingly into him when his hand rests upon your waist. It’s hardly improper, but close enough to raise an eyebrow or two. His brother observes you, observes how you gladly obey his whims, how you have readily found another sun around which to orbit. How easily he has been replaced.

He stares impassively back while you mutter instructions to the nursemaid and the Mallery knight, while the pair convey his children out of the room, infant squalls fading with the clanging close of the door. Viserys is pained, sorrowed. That much is clear. He tries not to let the conceit play out so obviously on his own expression, but it is most difficult. Modesty does not become him, after all.

‘Do you see, Viserys?’ he wishes to say. ‘You are not wanted here, not anymore. I am her world. We are all each other needs.’

“Will you not confess to it, brother?” The man is resigned now; the wrath has fled, cowed by your frosty reception. “I remember your words to Lord Strong well: ‘One day soon, you’ll be alone. And one day soon, I’ll have my revenge.’ The day has come and gone, it seems.”

Daemon cannot resist drawing it out. “What strange customs you set stock by, Your Grace. Symbols taken from the attacker’s own bodies and confirmation from Harwin Strong himself will not incite action from you. And yet, mere words—spoken in anger, at that—have you traversing the waters to Dragonstone to seek confession? Strange, indeed.”

“Enough of the games!” Viserys snaps, sharp and discordant in the ringing hall. “Admit to the deed and let us be done with it.”

“Ha! ‘Be done with it.’ Yes, we are ‘done with it’—no thanks to you.” Daemon feels the urge to laugh rising, rising. This is fucking ludicrous. “What do you want so desperately to hear, Viserys? That I was the cause of his demise? Take your satisfaction, then. I did. I did it.” He persists through his brother’s gusty inhale of dismay. “I hired cutthroats before I even left your fucking city. I made sure that Larys Strong would be dead before he could come for my children again.”

The King wavers, astonished. It seems that for all his bluster, he had not actually expected Daemon to assert his culpability so brazenly. “You had the man killed? Even after I expressly forbade you from such violence?”

Daemon snorts. He is not ashamed of his actions. “You refused to act, so I took it upon myself to eliminate the threat to my wife.”

“Such—such impertinence!” Viserys sounds utterly winded, scored open at the navel. “Such disloyalty. Why must you betray me time and time again?”

Disloyalty. How insulting. How disappointing. How very like the man to disparage him so.

This time, he does laugh. It is more of a chuckle, but with none of the joy. Rather, it is harsh and biting, mocking. “Disloyalty? We aren’t in King’s Landing now, Viserys. You do not rule here. I’m well within my rights to tell you to fuck off.”

If anyone holds dominion over this rock, Daemon thinks viciously, it is not the battered creature before me. Any other may make their claim. Rhaenyra; you; even he himself.

You do not belong here, brother.

The man stands, slapping the jagged surface of the table with his sole hand. “I am the King!” He sits at the craggy North, where the surface rises and dips with the spiked contours of icy mountains. His action draws blood from skin, welling rapidly and oozing across the peaks. He does not notice, instead turning to you. “And you, girl,” he says. “What have you to say to this treachery?”

You twitch at the abrupt directive, having been but a bystander to the fray. “What have I to say?” Your voice is frosty.

“Yes! I demand you speak, child!”

You move away from him, clutching your hands together before you. The very image of maidenly grace, Daemon’s mind supplies. The sight of you standing so demurely calls forth a faint resonation of desire. It pulses in his gut like a broiling flame.

“What would you like me to say, Your Grace?” you ask flatly, the dawning thunder in your expression so at odds with your stance. “I could say many things. I could say that Daemon did what you would not. That for all my dislike of his methods, I can trust that he will keep me safe. That I have never, not once, been anything other than a loyal and obedient daughter to you—only to find that in my hour of greatest need, you would bend to the vultures that rule in your stead, cast the name of the man responsible for my plight aside like rot beneath your feet, without care. That you have failed me in every conceivable way; as a King, as the head of my House, as a father, as grandfather to the babes you never bothered to enquire after in the wake of the attack.”

Each word lands like a physical blow, and so it is fitting that blood drips readily from Viserys’s flesh. He jerks as if injured by your mounting pitch, as if your diatribe alone lays waste to his form.

You remain immobile, frozen in your ferocity, your seething misery. Still, you speak, trembling. “So, yes. I could say a great many things. Where would you like me to begin?”

Not even he can conjure up a worthwhile response to such a challenge. My poor, precious girl. Though you stand tall with chin jutted forth and brow arched in supercilious question, he can only see the quailing child in you, plaintive and forlorn, eager for the slightest validation from a sire who could never give you what you need. In this moment, he wants to tuck you away, coddle you close, hold you down and surround you so that all you can see or hear or feel is him, him, him—

The hush reigns long—until it doesn’t.

Viserys’s breathing can be heard even from here, nearly the opposite end of the room. His words are weak. “I did the best I could.”

“And yet, it was not enough. You were not enough.” Your address is just as quiet, distressingly saddened. “You did not even ask after me when you arrived, did you? Or you would have known beforehand that I had already given birth. So much for loyalty. Mother would be disappointed.”

It is here that Viserys protests. “Daughter—”

“No.” Daemon can see the threat of tears in your eyes. “You had every opportunity to use your voice before this moment, Father. I will not hear whatever excuse you have to make now.” At this, you turn back, angling yourself away from the King to direct your next words only to him. “I need to make sure the babes are settled.”

“Sȳrī iksā?” Are you well?

He cannot help but reach for you, to cup your jaw in his hand and collect the moisture from the corner of your eye with the pads of his fingers. He sweeps your sorrow away with the brush of skin on skin, shining iridescence that paints your cheekbone in glow.

You nuzzle against him like a cat, like a starved pet, like a little princess aching for care. “Issa,” you say—yes—laying your hand upon his own, cradling him to you as though you are afraid he will vanish if he lets go. “Kesīr humbon daor. Zijomy daor.” I cannot be here. Not with him.

Who else but he can understand that sentiment so profoundly? He nods once, stealing a final touch of thumb to the plush divot of your lower lip. “Jās.” Go.

You revolve like a puppet on strings, staccato motions of rote absentmindedness. Curtseying with perfunctory deference, your parting words to your father are chilling in their detachment. “I pray that you have a safe journey back to the capital, Your Grace.”

Viserys makes an appeal of your name, beseeching, but you are lost to him now. You lean up and—with more zeal than the occasion calls for—press your lips to Daemon’s, parting your mouth to welcome his instinctive drive to claim. He sinks into the flavour of you without thinking, gripping your waist to keep you on tiptoes and pull you tight to him, your soft little sounds coiling dark in his groin.

You withdraw with a smug half-smile, dimmed by your melancholy but beautiful, nonetheless. His impulses drive him to snatch you back to him as you step away. He won’t. Enough has been taken from you today.

You make your escape with poise, turning your back on his brother with a strength he had not known you possessed and seemingly gliding from the chamber, weightless.

When did she become so formidable? he wonders. It is no easy thing to deny a king. Perhaps motherhood—the fire of bearing babes borne of his own blazing nature, their father’s heirs in truth—has ennobled you with a tenacity you have long kept dormant.

“You have turned her from me.”

He’d forgotten Viserys is still here. The man is grey, hollowed out. Defeated. He has sunk himself back into the chair at the head of the Painted Table, hunched over and looking every inch the ailing life-form he has been reduced to. Malady has crept back in, casting a shadow of gloom across Daemon’s ire until it too feels as a void rather than a maelstrom.

With a tone just as resigned as his brother’s, he replies. “You did that yourself.”

Silence.

“I know.” The King stares at some fixed point on the Table, or perhaps he is unseeing. He has retreated into himself, into thoughts unknown to Daemon. “I did not wish for this,” he says, more air than word. “What happened to her… I wanted to strike the head from his shoulders myself. But I am—”

“—the King.”

The King, the King. Make way for the fucking King.

It is always the excuse, the reason, the proof that Viserys will forever remain powerless to the capriciousness of others. If he is the King, he cannot be the husband, or the father, or the grandsire. If he is King, he cannot be Daemon’s brother.

“Yes.” Viserys chuckles. It is a wretched noise, a mournful hacking from crippled lungs. “King of the Seven Kingdoms… and yet I am as limited by law as any other. More, mayhaps.” Finally, he looks up from whatever had taken his focus. When he does, his eyes seem eclipsed, without light or emotion. It is like peering into the face of the Stranger. “Maegor did what he wanted. He ruled according to his every whim. Where did that get him? Who today remembers him as anything other than a despot and a monster?”

Daemon scoffs. “And yet you allow your lackeys to call me by his name—to abuse my temperament and malign my character.”

“Not even I can control what others think, Daemon.” How kindly the man sinks the blade through my flesh. Viserys hums. “Be that as it may, I do not think you to be Maegor reborn. Unruly, yes. Reckless and brutish, at times. But not cruel.” Here, his voice gentles. “She would not love you if you were cruel.”

There are times that he wonders if he’d ever given you the chance to feel otherwise—if he’d taken and taken and taken until you’d reshaped yourself entirely, bowed and bent and broken under the weight of his ceaseless desire. What is worse? To be tormented by the thought that the one woman he’d ever loved had been forced to return the sentiment for the sake of survival? Or to find that very same thought maddening, stirring, thrilling beyond measure?

No, he chides himself. She loves me. She sees me for all that I am, and she loves me anyway.

Viserys resumes after a brief pause. “The details of Larys Strong’s death have been concealed from the commons. But the Council suspects you. They have charged me to summon you to court and arrest you for conspiracy to murder a member of the governing body. And I cannot say now that there is no recourse for it.”

“You’d arrest your own broth—”

“Of course not! Have I fallen so far in your esteem?”

‘You have,’ Daemon wants to say. He does not.

“Brother,” the King says. “You have committed the crime you are accused of, by your own admission. This is true, yes. But I will not throw you to the vipers. The price would be… too high.”

“Death?” At the vociferous shake of the head, Daemon revises. “No… Exile.”

Ah, his old friend. He recalls the occasions in which you had teased him for it in the past. How many times, indeed? It would be galling, yes, if he were alone. But he is not alone.

What of my wife? What of Rhaenar and Aelys and Daeron?

“Most likely.” Viserys’s upturned hand rests on the table, the blood clotting to dark in the centre of his palm. A minor wound by any other measure; but for the King, it is like to be the source of new infection. “Perhaps not a punishment you are unfamiliar with—but for my daughter and grandchildren’s sakes, I should seek some lesser consequence for your actions. There must be a reckoning, Daemon. For the sake of the Realm.”

“If you cared more for her than for your fucking Realm,” is his answering hiss, “perhaps we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Enough! I will not—enough.”

What little vexation that had been stirred by Daemon’s taunt vanishes like smoke in a dark sky. His heart sinks. There is no triumph in conquering a man so beholden to his own feebleness.

Viserys makes his proclamation with the weariness of one that may well have lived a thousand years. “You will be charged with perfidy if you return to the city. Thus… you shall not return.”

“So it is exile, then?” How uninspired. Daemon might have respected the man more if the sentence had been more dire. He is fully aware of how contrary that makes him.

“Is it so terrible? You despise the capital,” the King says. “Remain on Dragonstone, Daemon. Raise your children. Be with your wife. Tour the Kingdoms. Travel across the Narrow Sea, by all means. But you will not—you cannot—step foot in King’s Landing again. That is the price you must pay.”

It is not so bad, he thinks. Better than he had expected, though worse than he had hoped. Some small, naïve, foolish part of him had half-believed Viserys might spare him entirely.

‘But I am your brother, when Father died you made a promise, you swore—’

‘And what of your whore Queen, do you know what she’s done, do you know about the moon tea—’

‘Why don’t you love me as I love you, why was I never enough as I am—’

The possibilities crumble like ash, words floating by on a breeze just out of reach. Things he might have said, might have done, no more than unattainable futures now. There is no point. He is a haunted shade of the man he is, seated at the table in the room on the isle, forever wishing, wanting, waiting for the sun to shine a light upon him. And yet. And yet.

Daemon tries to convey a façade of agreeability. What comes forth is terse, a threat of temper lurking below the depths. “Fine.” Folding his arms, he cannot help but make one last query. “But you understand that you won’t see her again, either?”

His meaning is abundantly clear if Viserys’s reaction is anything to go by. Though the King does not move, he appears smaller, less substantial, the breadth of him collapsing like a dying star. When he concedes, it is with a burdensome breath out, a rattling knell of defeat. “I do,” he says, forfeiting all rights to you in so short a statement.

What a sire! What a man! Viserys may be a wretch, but he loves Aemma’s girls. His love is not enough, it seems.

Such folly it was, Aemma—dear, dear cousin—to depart so soon from this world…

Daemon is tired. “If that is all, Your Grace.” He dips his head, intending to make for the door, to seek out the place in which he truly belongs: in his chambers, by your side, with his children.

“Wait!” his brother says.

He turns back.

“One thing more. I… please. Here.” A scroll is drawn out from beneath the layers of cloak, bound in blood-red ribbon gilt along the edges in brilliant gold. Viserys holds it up, inviting him to take it for himself. “It is a pittance, but I… I hope it might ease the sting, if only a little.”

The temptation is great—too great. Almost without realising, he is where he wishes to be least of all: next to the King, cracking the hard wax of the royal seal open, unfurling the contents within with nary a word of thanks to offer the giver.

Daemon’s brow raises. The living sons and daughters of Our esteemed daughter… will have... the style, title or attribute of Prince or Princess.

Prince Rhaenar. Princess Aelys. Titles worthy of his heirs, after all. It galls him that he has no gratification left to indulge in, no reserves of feeling from which to draw his pleasure at finally, finally gaining at least something he has coveted.

“My thanks,” is all he can offer. It sounds feeble in his own ears, apathetic.

Clutching the parchment tight in his fist, he hopes that his response will not spur Viserys into reneging on the decree etched within. To his relief, the man only nods, ashen smile contorting the open sores on his face.

Daemon swallows; lays his hand tentatively on his brother’s shoulder. “Farewell.” It rings with finality, finality he is not ready for, he is not ready, not ready—

A light touch against his elbow. Viserys pats his arm, rueful, mired by all that is left unsaid. “Farewell… brother.”

Daemon pictures you in his mind’s eye—your strength, your steadfastness, the iron sturdiness of your willpower—and lets the thought surround him, overwhelm him, obscure the churn of his gut and the throb in his chest. He takes a step, and another, and another, resisting the urge to look back at what remains.

The door closes.

You will not deign to see him off.

“Let my disappointment be his last recollection of me,” you say snidely, swaying a whimpering Aelys from side to side. “Mine own mind remembers naught but a coward.”

Still angered, then. Daemon does not dare press you. With a nod and a gentle stroke of each babe’s head—daughter in your arms, son in the wetnurse’s—he goes forth to meet Rhaenyra at the shore.

The skies are dark and grey as he observes Viserys hobble his way through the sand, helped along only by the Cargyll man. Though it galls him to see his brother brought so low, he makes little move to assist. If he wishes to create some great observance of his departure, then let him do so by his own power.

He stands back and endures the parting words between the King and his heir—the only person on this isle he’d ever truly given a damn about—and the weak attempt at light-heartedness from Laenor, idling thoughts keeping him company.

‘Tis a suitable day for dragonriding, he muses. Not too bright, not too cold… Perfect for introducing fragile forms unused to the severity of the changing winds to flight. He is glad to have finally settled on the venture with you earlier.

“… and I’d best not keep Alicent waiting. She was much aggrieved by my venturing here alone,” the man says with a joviality that seems only slightly forced, ignoring the manner in which Rhaenyra’s countenance slides flat at the mention of her once-dear friend. “Alas! She herself would not brave the journey, and the Hand… Well, someone must keep things in order.”

He grits his teeth at the mention of Otto and his bitch of a daughter, paying no notice to whatever words spill next from Viserys’s overeager mouth. More of the same prattle, no doubt. From what he’d discerned, the man had tried his hardest to uplift the spirits of the Keep’s inhabitants for the remainder of his stay, desperate to alleviate the blow the news of the Rogue Prince’s latest banishment had struck.

What follows is of little pomp or curiosity. The King shares but one look with the brother he has forbade from his city, offering no words of leave nor of apology. Daemon had not truly expected any. All that could be said has been in days previous.

The Kingsguard escort their sovereign onto the ship docked at harbour, a further distance than he himself cares to traverse. The faint shouts from the crew above and below deck herald the unmooring of the vessel, the shifting tides taking it swiftly out to sea. He watches, and waits, and wishes that Viserys and he had concluded proceedings under better circumstances—that, for once, the parting had served to bring them closer together than further apart.

Until we meet again, brother. This is not the last time. Daemon knows better than most that exile is not tantamount to an ending.

A flash of silver appears at the window overhanging the beach, bright against the sombre hues of stone and capturing his notice even from a distance.

It is you. He is sure of it.

Never would you forgive yourself if you had allowed your papa to depart without at least seeing the event with your own eyes. A dutiful daughter, even to the very limits of your tolerance.

He thinks to make his way to where he assumes you must be surveying the Silver Firedrake’s slow shrinking on the horizon—but when he arrives at your chambers to don his sturdier riding boots (for if he should think to take the twins on their first trip in the sky, how can he be anything less than prepared for the task?), you are once more to be found within.

A melancholy princess is what he discovers, sitting on the great chair with knees tucked into your chest and staring unseeingly at the empty hearth. Jeyne and Bethany cluck over his children like broody hens across the room, overseen by that exceedingly loud-mouthed nursemaid, clearly waiting for his arrival so that he may take his heirs on the agreed-upon expedition. He disregards them as he always does. They are unimportant, all three of them, useful only in their capacity as your aides.

“Sweetling,” he murmurs, prying one of your palms free from the vice-like grip you’ve established in amongst your skirts.

Though you release easily enough, you do not look up at him. Indeed, there is no outward recognition of his presence from you at all, and so he is obliged to take your chin in his grasp and tug upwards until your gaze meets his own.

The words lodge in his throat. It seems rather redundant to ask if you are well at the sight of your deadened stare, rage and grief and discontent burnt out entirely so that all that is left is the husk of once-feeling. A not-uncommon mood after matching wits against Viserys. The man most certainly has a talent for ensuring the impossibility of victory regardless of the outcome of quarrelling with him. Dark circles have formed under your eyes, a memoir of disturbed nights imprinted in skin, the shade deep enough to tell him that you have slumbered poorly since rowing with your father some days previous.

How many more blows will she be forced to take for the sake of this fucking family?

He tuts, tilting your head to the light to examine the bruise-deep smudges marring your sweet little face.

No, you are not well—but it doesn’t mean you won’t be eventually.

“You’ll get some sleep while we’re gone,” Daemon says, already digging his hand between thigh and calf to curl an arm under your knees.

You squeak softly, fingers digging into the hairs at the nape of his neck as he lifts you bodily and carries you toward the bed. “I am not tired,” you say, stubborn insistence so like the choleric peevishness of a girl so much smaller than you are presently. “I don’t want to sleep—”

“And I don’t recall asking.” He shifts you in his hold so that he can free the sheets from where they have been tucked tight against the mattress and deposit you soundly below the covers.

You frown, glancing past him at the ladies ogling the scene. “But I want to go with you and the babes!”

A firmer touch. He is reminded of nights so long ago—back when Aemma’s love had softened Viserys’s opinion of his carefree younger brother—taking visitation with his King and goodsister (of course, these were the evenings where he had not been trussed up between some brothel whore’s thighs), only to be interrupted by a bashful, sulking girl-child of barely three summers, plump baby-fat fists rubbing gummy doe eyes as you’d toddled in with a babbled refusal of bedtime. “No, no, no,” you’d mumble, swaying on unsteady legs toward your uncle, so sure already that it would be he to support your juvenile rebellion.

He’d had regrettably little patience for the display back then. He’d scoop you up, whirl you about so that you were red-faced and squealing, and promptly march you back to the nursery to trap you beneath your coverlets until the exhaustion of wrestling against his much stronger arms had you fast asleep.

I’ll do it again right here and now if I must, he decides. “Do you happen to find respite easily on dragonback?”

“What?”

Daemon huffs, tapping you on the chin to regain your wandering attention. “I’ll be taking our son and daughter on Caraxes. You need your rest,” he says, a touch of condescension bleeding into his cadence. You flush, whether in ire, embarrassment or the faint stirrings of longing, he knows not—but it is gladdening to see the colour livening your wan expression. “So, you have two options: you sleep here in our bed, or outside in the saddle. Either way, you’ll do as you’ve been told. Unless you’d like for them”—he nods toward your wide-eyed spectators—“to see what happens when insolent girls disobey kepa. Which sounds better to you, hm?”

The hidden threat quails you. You sag into the pillows, no longer warring with him, with yourself, relief lingering in the capitulatory flare of nostrils. “I… I will stay.”

“Good.” Delighting in the sullen lowering of your lashes, he strokes your hair down, more proprietary than soft, and tucks the coverings around you tight, hushing noises escaping at your minute protests. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. Lay down properly, there’s a love. Tired little girls don’t get to make choices, do they? That’s why I’m here. Sh, sh.”

Truly irritable now, you turn away from his wandering hands and his patronising devotions, burying your face into the plush softness of the cushions beneath your head. By the time he has located those damned boots and tugged them on, you are already lost to your long-needed slumber, mouth lax and breathing slow and even.

Predictable, isn’t she? And a terribly easy thing to bend to his will. He takes one final look at you, that trace of uneasiness unclenching in his gut, and readies himself for the outing ahead.

Daemon selects no one save the Mallery man and a pair of the Keep’s guards to accompany him down the path to the craggy sunning spot so favoured by his dragon. He finds the walk somewhat arduous, hyperaware of every bounce his form makes along the uneven trail, every jostle that risks upsetting the babes strapped to his chest. Not the most accommodating of arrangements, it is true, but he had been loath to attach them to his back where he could not reach in the midst of strife. He’ll have to make do with minimal manoeuvrability in the air.

Caraxes chirrups when he approaches, a gust of hot air jettisoning out from between his teeth. It is rank enough to give his companions pause. They cough, stepping further back, ensuring they are well out of range of the Blood Wyrm and his famous capriciousness.

Fat fucking chance of frightening anyone nowadays, Daemon grouses to himself.

The scent of his son and daughter attracts the creature like a moth to flame. His whistling growls cease abruptly, head tilting akin to that of a curious hound as he bends forward to examine his rider closely. Then, what can only be described as a softening occurs, rippling over Caraxes’s massive frame like sunlight dappling across scales. The wyrm blows the gentlest of breaths across Rhaenar and Aelys’s heads, a sweet little greeting before he settles down, seeming to disregard Daemon entirely.

What has happened to my fucking dragon? The scourge who routed the Dornish, the fiercest of beasts—a doddering old fool in the presence of two tiny humans.

He’ll admit it to no one, but he is immeasurably pleased. There are exceedingly few who could claim the protection of so mighty a monstrosity as a battle-hardened dragon, let alone at less than a moon’s turn of life.

“Avy kipagon kosti, Karaksys?” Will you allow us to ride you, Caraxes? he asks, thumping the dragon’s flank good-naturedly. A needless gesture, to be sure—but still, it is best to make it clear that he intends to bring aboard new quarry today.

A soft hoot sounds. The ground shudders as the draconic being’s belly thuds to the grassy surface, wing flattening to a smooth incline so that he may tread upward without the necessitation of climbing.

With a wry grin—how sentimental you’ve become, old boy!—Daemon treks up sinew and cartilage, cupping the babes’ heads to his neck to alleviate the erratic shifting of live flesh below his feet.

Aelys wiggles in her bonds as Daemon adjusts himself in the saddle, neck craning to the side like she is desperate to take in the sight of the world atop this new summit. Meanwhile, Rhaenar has fallen promptly to sleep, utterly at home next to the pulse and warmth of his sire’s heartbeat. Both are endearing in their own way; his daughter for her ceaseless inquisitiveness, his son for his perpetual surety.

“Sōvēs!” Fly!

Rhaenar cries at the rough shaking as Caraxes skitters toward the precipice, ramping up his pace to build momentum, and so Daemon tucks the boy further into the wrappings to secure him more tightly and shield him from the elements. When the dragon takes a dive from the cliff face, Aelys squeals, legs kicking at the booming rustle of wings flapping once, twice, three times, each swift beat careening them up and up into the air.

There are but three things that ignite the flame of exultation in his soul: the newest being his children, whether they be but sleeping or screaming or shitting, because they’re alive and they’re here after so long waiting, wanting; the most maddening being you, his baby wife turned woman, pudgy-cheeked tot turned maiden whore in a mere moment, his obsession, devotion, frenzy; and the longest-serving being this, soaring atop a giant winged beast, the thin air and roaring breeze stealing the breath from his lungs and forcing his heart to pound almost through his chest. Even when he’d had nothing but his reputation across the Narrow Sea—“Rogue Prince,” they’d whispered, “brother to a King who’d rather banish him than address the failings that had brought him so low in the first place”—he’d had Caraxes, he’d had flight, and he’d had freedom.

As Caraxes careens further and further out from the hillside, Daemon glances down to his son and daughter. For once, Rhaenar is looking about curiously, taking interest in his surroundings in a way he has so rarely done thus far. For once, Aelys is silent, eyes wide but carrying none of the vitriol her waking hours usually comprise.

“This is what it means to be Targaryen,” he whispers to them, pressing his nose to the warm buttermilk suppleness of each tiny infant’s snowshine hair. He is sure that this is what love smells like. “Va Zaldrīzo Lentrot jemī jiōran, ñuhus dārannis.”

Welcome to the House of the Dragon, my heirs.

The whipping winds take his words unto themselves, conveying them henceforth to be lost in the great wild world. Still, he feels their power in his bones. His heels dig into Caraxes’s flanks to speed him onward, racing the sun to the very edge of the horizon, hues of brilliant gold nearly blinding him and the saline tang of the sea stinging sharp in his mouth.

Grinning like a boy, Daemon leans forward, revelling in his flight across the open sky.

A new normality weaves itself into the tapestry of life upon Dragonstone.

Soon enough—too soon—that blasted healer deems you healed enough from your labours to move around the Keep unfettered. “She have babe,” Ūlla snaps as she shoves him out of the way, silencing him with an admonishing noise. “You act like she almost die. A natural thing, birth. Calm yourself!”

Daemon had tried to pay her for her services and send her off on her way. She’d merely levied him with an unimpressed look in response to his attempt at a conciliatory farewell.

“I hear you both sometime,” she’d said pointedly, cackling at your red-faced splutters. “New babe come very soon, I think. Better stay here, or I leave for Qohor and you make boat turn around when I get there!”

“I thought you were living in Braavos before?” he couldn’t help but ask.

She’d sighed. “I tell you once, I tell you again: sometime Braavos, sometime Qohor, sometime other place. And now, sometime Dragonstone. I live where I like, stupid boy.”

If the woman wants to make yet another port of Dragonstone, let it not be for me to stop her. Besides, she’s probably correct. There are plenty of rooms in this wing of the castle to fill, after all. He’s not going to fund her bizarre lifestyle, though. She can find her own bloody income.

And so, with you fully liberated from childbed and no longer in need of him, it is with great reluctance and no small amount of relief—for a man can only spend so long staring at tiny beings that do little else but sleep—that he returns to the task of maintaining the fortress.

His routine of old awaits him near unchanged. His men-at-arms welcome him back with congratulatory slaps to the back and cheerful salutations, a whirlwind that ceases only when his particular training methods serve to wipe the smiles from their faces and sap the strength from their limbs. By the time they are finished that first day, not a single man is able to move about without hobbling, clutching at a spasm in their side or stemming a weakly oozing cut with grimy fingers.

Good. They’d gotten too complacent in his absence.

In running drills, reviewing the training of Jace, Luke and Daeron (and Baela, too, it had been decided), rearranging the shift of the guards, recompiling figures upon the ledgers—and he’d have to speak to Robert Quince about his fucking appalling sums, by the gods—it becomes a true effort to find a moment to spare for you or the babes. Gone are the hours of uninterrupted leisure where he could lounge about with a book or with his varied lines of correspondence, using such activities as concealment for his preferred pursuit of watching you learn and adapt to the ever-changing role of motherhood.

Whenever he can, he goes back to you. On those occasions, he makes little attempt to reveal his presence. Rather, he stands at the door to the solar or hall or garden and surveys you and Rhaenar and Aelys. You take tea with Ser Lysan, infants propped up on your laps as you converse over your philosophies and linguistics, treating each squawk or whimper like it is a serious contribution to discussion with solemn nods and mischievous eyes. You arrange and rearrange the furnishings of the cradle, pensive eyes lingering overlong on the stone-still eggs laying within before turning to coo in the tongue of his homeland, sweet words of adoration for the beings you’d made. You wave freshly plucked blossoms at the babes laid out on a woollen rug spread over grass, laughing with Daeron and Rhaena as Aelys sneezes after jamming a flower into her face.

Such a pretty little mama you make. There is a rightness to it, taking and claiming you for himself, a Valyrian maiden for a Valyrian man as it had always been and will always be. He’d felt it when first he devised to make you his, and he feels it ever more keenly now. A sweet baby cunt—a Targaryen cunt—ripened with his seed, pure blood sprung from pure blood as it had since the dawn of dragonbinding, since those with magic in their veins had climbed to the very peak of power so long ago.

He dispels the musings with a toss of the chin. Yes, you’d taken beautifully to your new station, cossetting his babes with a heartrending sort of tenderness that can only be born from having gone so long without that same unwavering dedication. He’d chosen the vessel to bear his heirs well.

But so enamoured of these new lives are you that he has become the one bereft. He’d almost think you barely notice his existence if not for your absent-minded requests to ‘hold Rhaenar, would you, kepus?’ or to ‘take Aelys for just a moment while I use the privy’ when he arrives to your chambers after a long day.

Daemon had never quite grasped how fortunate he’d been to have procured and made himself such a wanton little whore of a wife. He does now. The shifting humours of your blood—the arduous process of healing from the inside out, of producing sustenance for small hungry mouths, of attuning yourself to the innate needs of these whole persons formed from parts of you and him—had rendered desire utterly meaningless to you.

He’d love nothing more than to show you how deeply he appreciates the undertaking of your body and spirit over the previous moons. He mightn’t be able to fuck you just yet, but there are certainly plenty of other acts to partake in. And yet his overtures—sly stroking here and there, a lazy upcurve of lips awash with intent, his solid warmth pressing in in in against your smaller frame—remain frustratingly, vexingly unobserved. He makes do with a spit-slick hand to his cock and the dim of the moonlight casting a dreamy glow over you, ethereal, lovingly caressing your newfound curves and near begging him to follow the path of it with his own unworthy touch.

Alas, as Viserys might say. It is not to be. Thus, he trammels his want as far down as he is able and focuses on the things he can do, such as finalising this evening’s undertaking.

It is like any other evening in recent memory, save for one addition. Daemon sits across from Laenor this time, restraining the urge to beat the man about the head to finally, finally shut him up, the man prattling on and on about nothing of import instead of actually assisting with inventorying the reserves of dragonglass on the isle. The entire enterprise is pointless, he’s sure, but some stupid cunt had told Rhaenyra that obsidian may be a marketable commodity further East.

Not like there’s anything else of value on this rock. Dragonstone is rich in sentiment and strategy rather than in resources. He’d have gotten the castellan to do it, but after the bother he’d made of the ledgers… well.

When he is at last free to escape Laenor’s clutches, he immediately ventures to the relative safety of his apartments. Like any other evening, he finds you alone with the babes, the hearth lit to blazing despite the mildness of the weather outside. The ties at the front of your shift are loose, the smooth swell of your tits peeking out from just below the hemline as you bend down to settle Rhaenar or Aelys—he cannot tell from this vantage point—beside their sibling in the cradle.

Daemon pauses. There is an odd scent upon the air. It reminds him of the Stepstones. His stomach churns.

And then he sees it. The eggs on the table beside the cradle, blackened with ash, the wood beneath smoking at the points of contact.

“What are you doing?” He tries to keep the ire from his voice, but he cannot conceal the bewilderment. What the fuck is she doing? he thinks.

You smile, moving toward him in greeting like there is not, in fact, a pair of scorching dragon eggs destroying the furniture. “Daemon.” He wants to wring your neck. How can she be so simple-minded, how can she endanger herself, the babes—”I solved it.”

“What?”

You lay a hand to his chest, bracing yourself to stand tall and brush petal-soft lips to his jaw, docile little princess, darling baby pet. He grits his teeth against the temptation to teach you a lesson you’ll not soon forget. Grab her and rip those fucking silks into tatters, pin her to the ground and beat her arse until it’s blue, ‘no, kepus, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again’–

Your hand is bleeding. He snatches you by the wrist with too-rough fingers, tracing the thin gash in your palm with the pad of his thumb until you hiss at the sting of it.

“What is this?” he asks sternly. “What’s going on?”

Has she gone mad? It’s not an illogical assumption. Madness runs in the bloodline. ‘Tis the curse of pure breeding, he knows. There’s been a fair share of harebrained, eccentric, even downright cruel members of his lineage. He cannot say for certain that he would not also be named to such notoriety in the annals of history. But this: slicing your own skin open, for it can be nothing else to have done the deed; preparing to place dragon eggs scorched from the fire straight into the cradle beside your newborns, for the scene he’d walked in on can suggest little alternative…

There is a saying about Targaryens. He cannot recall it. Madness, greatness. Something about coins.

“Oh,” you murmur, half-absent, peering upon your rent flesh as though surprised by the blood that wells there. “I forgot about that.”

You hum as you pull away, wandering back over to your little arrangement. Stopping before the eggs, you lean forward and eye the surface of the yellow one with zealous interest.

“You forgot about your fucki—”

“Fire and blood,” you say, the absurdity of such a statement stopping his vehemence in its tracks. “Such strange words, no? What is the reason for them?”

Daemon frowns, heart pounding. He’s never seen this side of you before… this distant creature that seems two steps out of time, floating on a plane just out of his reach. Gael had seemed that way as her waist thickened and then thinned once more, growing pale and frenetic and prone to fits of howling. It had been no surprise to him to eventually learn that his dear, sweet wisp of an aunt had walked into the sea, torn apart by anguish.

The fear—that same fear—renders him mute.

You continue on. “I found it peculiar that the eggs had not yet hatched. My sister’s boys’ did on the days of their births. Why then did ours not?” You look up at him, brow furrowed, struggling with some great puzzle.

Fuck. Perhaps he ought to have taken more notice of your concern when the eggs had remained stone-still, unchanged by the emergence of their riders-to-be. He’d not been too bothered. Long has the notorious volatility of dragonspawn been known. Most Targaryens of note had had to claim a mount from among the riderless dragons. Still. He’d not been paying attention, clearly. Fuck.

“Rhaenyra told me a story earlier,” you are saying to him, earnest now. “How she’d been presented with Luke’s egg while her hands were still wet with birthing blood. He’d only just come from her, and the cord was not yet cut. Laenor put the egg back into the brazier, you see… the smell of burning blood made her retch as she delivered the afterbirth. That night, the dragon hatched. She meant nothing of it, but… I thought about it.”

You take the purple egg in your grasp, still smoking beneath, and what comes lurching from the bowels of his chest is a strangled noise of terror. It dies as quickly as he’d given it life.

You do not scream. You do not cry. There is no aroma of singed flesh nor sizzling sound of skin crisping like overcooked meat. Instead, you hold it out like an offering, mouth twisting up in recognition of his fright.

“There is magic in our blood,” you say, and suddenly your inexplicable fanaticism bears great weight. “We are the ones—the only ones—able to bring the fire to life. Fire and blood. Fire of home… and blood. My blood. It is no adage, don’t you see? It is a secret. It is the secret.”

He is torn. Part of him wants to dash the egg from your hands, to bellow for the guards to bring the healer or the maester, to force potions and tinctures down your gullet until the gleam, that perplexing, unnerving gleam, fizzles out and you are returned to him. But the other part—the other part wants to bend the fucking knee.

He chooses neither.

“Come, riñītsos”—little girl, oh gods, please just stay my little girl—“let’s go to bed.”

Daemon cleans and binds your hand himself, shoving you backward in spite of your stubborn insistence that the eggs “really must go in the cradle, kepus, please, wait a moment,” and so he does that, too, shrugging off his coat to use as a barrier between the consuming heat and his bare skin, only to find that the eggs really aren’t hot at all, though the wood still smokes and the table is singed and ruined. He ignores the significance of it. It’s too mad, even for him.

The babes—his Rhaenar, his Aelys, his littlest beloveds—are fast asleep, stirring not once at the exchange between mother and father, and they care little when he places the eggs beside them. Purple for him, yellow for her. He knows not why, but it’s a simple thing to heed your intuition. A brief caress to each small head is all that he can spare this night, all the disturbance that he can stand to risk what with their milkdrunk mouths slackened peacefully and their gossamer lashes unmoving upon their cheeks.

When Daemon sinks into unconsciousness, he is plagued by fragmented visions, your words spun around upon themselves until all he knows is the tang of copper stealing through the air and the choke of ash fumes and charred dust. ‘Fire and blood,’ your voice haunts him, the egg in your grip but this time the blood stains you dark, running rivulets down your arms and spurting from between your teeth as you grin, maniacal, an unholy light in your lilac stare. ‘Fire and blood,’ and he sees his own unwieldy fists as from above, watches his hands lay themselves upon Rhaenar and twist, wrench, birdbones cracking like paper overdried in the sun, watches himself hook around Aelys’s chin and tear the head from her shoulders like pulling apart bread, ichor coating his tongue. ‘Fire and blood,’ and the eggs hatch but they are no dragons, no, they are shrivelled and misshapen, maggots wriggling from deep wounds in the belly and claws snapping into a thousand pieces like hard wax, and when they scream it is not the sound of a dragon but your own voice, wailing, “I think I will die, oh, gods—”

He starts awake.

At first, he thinks it is his own mind to have drawn him from an uneasy rest. Casting his eye upon you—splayed out on your stomach in the moonlight, face turned to him, slow, even puffs escaping parted lips—he is satisfied that his dreams have not become reality. Rolling closer to you, suddenly cold, he draws the covers up higher around you both and presses his nose into your hair.

And then, he hears it.

A cry in the night. But it is not you, not Rhaenar, not Aelys. It is different, foreign. Wrong.

Someone is here.

Daemon lurches from the bed with a grunt, Dark Sister already in hand and drawn from the scabbard. The snick of the blade and the clatter of the wood-and-leather sheath as he casts it upon the floor is enough to rouse you, though he is heedless of the befuddled exclamations you emit, eyes straining through shadow to acquire a sense of whom has entered his chambers so brazenly.

One of the babes squawks. It is this that breaks his standstill. Stumbling toward the cradle, his pace quickens at that same hooting, unnatural cry, louder with each step he takes.

No. No, no, no. Not his heirs. Not his son and daughter, please…

“Daemon?”

“Wait!” he barks in your direction, barely registering the rustle of you fumbling with the tinderbox beside the bed. In the darkness, he is forced to feel rather than see, fingertips outstretched to ascertain the wellbeing of the babes. “Fuck!” he hisses. His hand throbs.

A dim light draws nearer. You follow his path onward, slower, the golden glow bathing the nearby furnishings. Daemon chances a look down into the cradle, searching for the cause of the sharp sting in the meat between his thumb and finger.

“Oh,” you say, stunned. “Oh!”

The paler one cocks its head at the sound, tiny snout craning up from where it had rested upon Aelys’s swaddled thigh. Unfurling wings so thin he can nearly see through them, no bigger than the span of his palm, the creature totters forward on unsteady legs, hooting again when it falls flat. This rouses the darker one—the shade of deep, glittering amethyst, tinged gold by candlelight—from beside Rhaenar, and it straightens itself much like a kitten might, stretching its spine out and hissing low, tinny. Though Daemon’s children are awake, they remain unbothered by these curious interlopers, these fragments of stone shell littered about their place of slumber, wide eyes watching as the baby dragons make themselves familiar with the world in which they have arrived.

By the gods.

“See, kepus?” you whisper, exultant. “Do you see?”

“I do,” he says, stunned and overcome, overwhelmed and overawed. “I see them.”

“Fire and blood. I was right. I was right.”

He sees. He hears. And he knows, in his gut and in his heart, that you speak true.

“Prince Daemon had at last a son and daughter both of his own blood, delivered unto him by his lady wife. Indeed, the early years of the marriage are widely regarded as some of House Targaryen’s most fruitful, as the young Princess proceeded to bring several of her husband’s children forth in quick succession. All would receive dragon eggs in the cradle, and all would hatch, bringing the might of the royal dynasty to astounding new heights.”

- 'Fire & Blood, Being a History of the Targaryen Kings of Westeros' by Archmaester Gyldayn

Read it on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44058132/chapters/119324212

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