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bucketsofmonsters · 1 year

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Vows - Part 4 (Final Part)

cw: nightmares, consentual blood drinking, oral sex, vaginal sex, polyamory, self-destructive tendencies

male vampire x afab reader

Word count: 6k

Vows Masterlist

You had another nightmare that night.

It wasn’t exactly what you were used to, although you supposed it was still about vampires.

Rook was on the floor. A jagged piece of wood had been thrust through his chest.

The splinters from it were embedded in your hand, drawing out your own blood, it seeping down your arm.

Images flashed through your mind as you saw it.

Vivian in his lap, blood soaking into her dress.

Oliver begging for more, pulling Rook closer as some of his precious blood escaped the vampire’s mouth.

Rook didn’t bleed. He’d been completely impaled and yet he lay, dry. The only blood on him was yours, dripping down your arm.

You felt a wetness on your face, tears making their way down your cheeks. As you moved to wipe them you found that they ran red.

You fell to your knees, shaking the man in front of you, pleading with him.

“Wake up, please wake up,” you cried and yet there he lay. He looked like he’d been dead for weeks. His eyes hadn’t looked dead before, not really, you realized with a jolt.

They may have been foggy and distant but they were full of life.

Now they were dead, empty and boring into you, unblinking.

Something jostled you, the room swaying under your feet.

You grabbed onto Rook, his lifeless form. Your hand drew back immediately, sickened by the thought that you’d reached for him for comfort after being the reason he lay there, lifeless.

A distant voice echoed through your head.

“Wake up. Come on, wake up, you’re alright.”

Your eyes shot open.

Rook was sitting over you, concern written across his face. His hands were cold and his eyes were as distant as ever but there he was, alive.

You wrapped your arms around him without a second thought, holding on as tight as you could, like you were afraid he might slip away.

He pulled you into his chest, his hand holding the back of your head as he whispered comforting words.

You could barely hear them. Guilt was eating you alive. He was sitting here comforting you and he had no idea what you were, what you’d come here to do.

He had no idea what you’d dreamed of.

This was all fake. No matter how much pretend you played, you were enemies.

You couldn’t keep doing this.

You needed to find something. He couldn’t be fully good, your family couldn’t be composed of people who would hurt… what? Creatures who were just trying their best.

If they’d told you to come here and kill him you would’ve done it. He’d be lying on the floor, just like in your dream.

He couldn’t be this good. You needed him to not be this good.

“I think you should drink from me.”

You blurted it out without really thinking. You weren’t certain why you said it. Maybe you wanted to sink back into that trust, that feeling of being not in control but still safe. Maybe you wanted him to attack you, to dispel this awful realization that had been slowly sinking in.

You watched him shift the second the words left your mouth, the slow comfort he’d been giving you fade away as his body went stiff.

“Why?”

The word was strained. He pulled away from you, looking like he’d been slapped.

“Do I need a reason?”

“I think you need to go.”

Oliver was waking on the other side of the bed and you noticed Vivian was snuggled into his side. As Rook got more agitated they started to stir.

“I don’t understand what I did.” You winced at how unsteady your voice sounded.

“I never should have let you in here. This has gone too far.” He ran his hands frantically through his hair, refusing to look you in the eye.

He was practically shouting and Vivian and Oliver snapped into action.

Vivian started to pull you out of the room, although the last thing you wanted to do right now was leave. Your thoughts were racing, desperately attempting to find what you’d done.

He’d been fine. You couldn’t imagine what could’ve made him react like this. Oliver and Vivian knew him better than you did and even they seemed thrown.

Vivian rested a reassuring hand on your arm. “I’m sorry I pulled you out of there, it just seemed like a bad situation.”

“It’s fine.” You knew she could tell that your mind was elsewhere.

She tried her best to reassure you. “I’m sure it’s nothing about you, something is up with him.”

Oliver practically threw the door to the room open, it crashing against the wall.

“What the fuck is wrong with him? He’s been weird and dodgy lately and now this? Unacceptable. He won’t even agree to talk to you. You didn’t even do anything, let alone something that would merit this tantrum! No, hold on, I’m gonna go argue with him again, I can’t fucking believe this shit.”

The images from your dream flashed through your mind and you shook your head. “Maybe he’s right.”

“Bullshit! Come on, we are going to set this straight.”

Oliver pulled you up and back towards Rook’s room and you didn’t have the heart to stop him.

When you’d first come here, you would’ve killed him in a heartbeat. If you’d had the chance, if you’d felt cornered, there was a real chance he would be dead right now.

He’d welcomed you in and what had you given him in return. The kindest thing you’d given him were lies.

You’d played pretend. For what? For a chance to feel safe? And after all you’d done, he’d given you that. Given you safety and comfort and his trust.

This had gone too far. You had to tell him. He deserved to know he had a monster living under his roof.

His head was buried in his hands when Oliver pulled you back into the room, a frantic energy entering his eyes the second he saw you.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he snapped.

He was right.

You spoke quietly, knowing what you needed to do. “Oliver, I think you should go.”

He made a noise in protest but you gave him what you hoped was a reassuring smile and with a final squeeze of your hand, he left the two of you alone.

You didn’t even get the chance to speak before he snapped at you again. “I think I was wrong, I think you should leave.”

“Rook, please, I-”

“Was I not clear? You should leave.”

“No, I have to tell you something,” you pleaded with him, needing to get this off your chest, although you weren’t sure if it was for his sake or for yours.

He rolled his eyes. “What, are you finally going to come clean, tell me that you’re a vampire hunter?”

He knew.

Everything here, it had been a lie. From you, from him, it was all fake. He’d probably been trying to get you under his spell, thought he could control you.

Could you blame him? You certainly weren’t guilt-free in this mess.

He started to pace the room, the calm, in control Rook you were used to nowhere to be seen.

“I had you pegged every step of the way and somehow you still fucked it all up! How did you…”

As he shouted, moving closer to you as he screamed you pulled out your knife, the adrenaline flooding through your body leaving you to fall back on years and years of training.

“You think I won’t do it?” you asked, knowing the second you did that you never could.

“You’re not running. You know I won’t hurt you, you’re not an idiot. Are you going to hurt me? God, you probably are. This was so fucking stupid.”

He really thought you’d do it.

A few days earlier and he would’ve been right.

He got even closer, finally standing with the edge of the knife pressed against his neck. He could probably feel how much you were shaking.

“Do it,” he said. “If you’re so convinced I’m evil, if you really hate me that much.”

“Stop it. Please, just stop it,” you cried as you tried to pull the knife away but he reached out and held it there.

He refused to draw back, keeping the knife pressed firmly to his throat.

You did the only thing you could do. You turned on your heels, dropped the knife, and ran.

You sprinted, out to the front door, out through his gardens, just away.

You didn’t know where you were going, you just needed to get out of there. To stop yourself from causing any more damage. To never have to see their faces again

You ran and you ran. You refused to let your legs stop moving. You needed to be far from here, farther than you could ever carry yourself.

You didn’t even feel the cold of the night digging into your skin, eating away at you.

At some point you may have gotten turned around, you weren’t sure. It was hard to know anything anymore, your mind sending you into a blind panic

Eventually, your legs could carry you no further, giving out underneath you.

You just stared up at the sky, roots digging into your back where you’d collapsed but unable to find the will to move yourself.

With a teary smile, you watched a bat swoop overhead. You’d never had the chance to see him like that.

You knew why now, why he’d never trusted you with that. Why he’d never trusted you at all.

Everything made a little more sense now, the way he’d treated you, the way you’d won him over almost as slowly as he’d won you.

You couldn’t help but wonder how much of that was real and how much of it was a show.

You heard some high-pitched chirping in the distance, the noise piercing right through your thoughts.

Maybe it wasn’t even there, maybe your brain was just desperately attempting to conjure something to stop your spiraling thoughts.

It didn’t really matter anyways.

You had a feeling you might die out here. Better that than returning home. You could never face those people again, the people you’d called your family.

Now you’d met the monsters they killed, you’d never be able to look them in the eye and see anything but what you now knew was there.

You wondered how many of the monsters they’d slayed had been afraid, how many had begged for mercy, how many had just longed for friendship and intimacy.

How many people had they executed for the crime of being hungry and afraid?

And even when they weren’t, with willing sacrifices living happily with them, even then they were deemed heretics and condemned to a house in the woods with a handful of companions they managed to save from the world you’d held in such high regard for so long.

The bat returned to you, settling upside down on a nearby branch.

You gave it a weak smile, blinking tears out of your eyes.

“Hello,” you said, your voice faint after the cold and exhaustion had been eating away at you for what was probably hours. “Sweet little thing, are you the one making those noises?”

It chirped at you, almost as if it was answering you.

“I’d fly away if I were you,” you cautioned the creature. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you to stay away from monsters in the woods?”

Its little head cocked to the side, as if it was desperately trying to understand your words.

The sound of sticks cracking drew both of your attention. Maybe it was a wolf or some other creature, here to finish you off. It had to happen sooner or later because at this point, you were determined not to get up.

A familiar voice banished that thought from your mind.

Vivian was at your side before you had time to make sense of what was happening. She was dragging you to your feet, fighting to pull you along.

“I don’t know if I can do this alone,” she called out. “They're in a bad way, they're going to be dead weight before long.

It took you a moment to realize who she was speaking to.

Your eyes shifted to find the little bat, moving down from his perch until, before you could ever register the change, another familiar face was at your side.

You realized with a foggy mind that he left the grounds to come find you. Your family had been tracking his home for decades and not once had he left but there he was. You’d heard him leading her to you, you could see him in front of you, the light of the moon reflecting off his face.

You passed out before they managed to coax you to your feet, the realization that they’d come for you the last thing you could manage before the world faded away.

You woke up in front of a roaring fireplace with a blanket wrapped around you and two pairs of eyes staring at you.

You focused in on Rook, remembering his part in your rescue. “I didn’t realize you left the grounds. My family is going to be really upset I’m not reporting back anymore, that is exactly the sort of thing they would want to know.”

“I don’t,” he said. “That was my first time leaving in 300 years.”

“Oh.” Your voice sounded small, even to you.

As you gathered your bearings, a door slammed somewhere in the house and you flinched at the sudden noise.

Rook looked back and a quiet sigh escaped him.

“Oliver isn’t handling the news well,” he explained. “He’s mad at both of us if that makes you feel any better.”

It didn’t

“Why?” you asked, your voice much stronger now in the safety of his home.

“Well, he’s mad at you for wanting to hurt me.”

You managed a smile, although you weren’t really in the mood for one. “I’d gathered that much.”

“He’s mad at me for lying, for not telling him who you were. If I’m being honest, I think he’s angriest that I let him care for you.”

Viv chimed in, saying, “He’s just slamming doors so you remember he’s upset. He’ll be alright, just give him some time to cool down.”

“And you’re not mad?” you asked her.

She shook her head and it felt like a minor miracle, that any of them could not hate you after finding out.

“I might have,” she said. “If you’d actually done anything. How long did it take you, before you switched sides? Did it even take a day before you started to doubt?”

You didn’t answer.

You saw in her eyes that you didn’t need to.

“I should let you two talk,” she said, glancing between you and Rook. “But for the record, I’m glad that we got the chance to start caring about you.”

She left the room and it was just the two of you.

Once again you were afraid. Not of him any longer, that had long since passed, but of how he might feel.

“How long have you known?” you asked, your voice weak once more but no longer because of the strain and the cold.

“Since the beginning. I wasn’t planning on letting all this happen but then… do you know how irritating you are? I thought, feed the hunters some bad information, figure out what they might be planning. And then, despite everything you were so bizarrely receptive to all this, and Oliver and Vivian took to you so fast and, I don’t know, this all spiraled out of control so quickly.”

You didn’t say anything. You weren’t sure what you even could say. The word sorry didn’t even come close to cutting it.

He spoke once more, his voice shaky. “Of all the things I thought you might do, putting a wedge between me and them was the last thing I expected.”

“I didn’t want to do that.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

“Rook, you freaked out on me. I didn’t expect them to side with me, I don’t think I even wanted them to side with me.”

“It was going too far, that was too far. Why aren’t you scared of me anymore? I’m not so self-centered as to really believe I turned a vampire hunter, so why are you still here? What are you doing that I’m not seeing? Are you trying to turn them against me, make them hate me too? Just please, leave them out of it. Take me if you must, but leave them out of it.”

You couldn’t help it. You laughed.

“What’s so funny,” he asked, his eyes frantically searching yours for the secret plan he seemed convinced you must have.

“I just… I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“What?”

“I thought all of this, everything I was feeling might be some secret, insane plan you’d made. I think we may have both deeply overestimated each other.”

He inspected your face, searching for something like he’d done so many times before. You wondered if he’d ever found it.

Finally he asked, “What’s vampire hunting like?”

“You really want to know?”

“Can’t imagine I’m going to get many other chances to learn so yeah, why not.”

“I guess I’m not really sure. This was my first real case. It was mostly scary stories when I was little and then a lot of training. I can actually fight pretty well, not that it ever came up here. All of my training was done at home, talking to anyone who wasn’t a hunter was too dangerous so I never really left much, just short little trips.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I wasn’t let outside much as a kid either. Not that that ever stopped me.”

“I don’t think that’s the same, you can’t go out in the sun.”

“Can’t is a strong word. More like really really shouldn’t.”

You laughed. “You sound like you were a real handful.”

“I’m sure you were too.”

“Not really. I was a model student, couldn’t wait to go out and kill my first vampire, make everybody proud.”

“And now?”

“And now even the thought of leaving makes my heart hurt.”

“Does it really?”

He asked it like it was a joke but you knew better than that.

“It does,” you confirmed. “I’ll go though, if you still want me to. I won’t stay where I’m not wanted.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry about before. I told you I’m not kicking you out and I intend to stand by that. You’re always welcome here. Although I would prefer if you kept the vampire hunting to a minimum.”

“I’ll try my best,” you promised with a half-hearted smile. “Hey Rook?”

“Yes?”

“I’m never going to see my family again, am I?”

“I don’t know, that’s up to you. If you need one, there’s always a family here for you. But it’s a big decision. You should think on it, be sure you want to stay, that you understand what that would mean. Until then, get some rest. You really scared me out there, I thought you might not make it home.”

He grabbed another blanket from the end of the couch, making sure you were more than warm enough. With them and the fire, you were certain you’d have to shed at least one of the blankets to keep from overheating but you let him cover you in it anyways, a desperate ploy to get him to stay just a little bit longer.

You woke up to the feeling of being watched.

Your eyes opened to the sight of pale blue ones staring right back at you, half obscured by curly locks of hair.

“You were going to hurt him,” Oliver huffed at you, barely giving you time to gather your bearings.

“Technically, I wasn’t. I was just gathering intel.”

“You were going to help them hurt him.” The semantics of the situation didn’t seem to soothe his anger.

“I was.”

“What changed?”

You shrugged. “Just got to know him, I guess. Harder to imagine him as a big faceless monster when you’ve seen his face and its smile lines and you know him. It’s also hard to imagine you all as brainwashed victims when… well, when you’ve seen the way you interact.”

He smiled at you incredulously. “Me? Brainwashed?”

You nodded. That idea had left you pretty fast. God help the man who tried to brainwash Oliver.

“I don’t want you to go,” he blurted out. He said it like it was the worst confession he was capable of. “I can’t believe Rook didn’t tell me. He could’ve prevented this but now I care about you and I want you to stay here with us.”

“I think I want to stay too.”

He didn’t seem able to hide his glee, trying his best to force a frown and failing. “Alright. I haven’t forgiven you yet but I’m glad you’ll be here. I would’ve missed you if you’d left.”

“I would’ve missed you too. Can you go tell Viv? I want to tell Rook myself.”

He nodded eagerly, darting towards the door. Before he bolted out he looked back and gave you a firm, “I’m trusting you. Please don’t make me regret it.”

You couldn’t even fathom it. Even apart from Rook and everything you’d learned about the monster you’d come here to fight, you could never hurt them like that.

Before going to see anyone you walked back up to your room. Your pigeon was waiting by the window, confused as to why you hadn’t come to give him a message yet.

If you were honest, he was probably the only thing you’d miss, the only thing this experience hadn’t sullied. Your sweet little bird.

You reached into your pockets to see if your notebook was still in there. It was, as was your dagger, having apparently been returned to you while you slept. You’d have to get rid of that wretched thing soon.

You quickly scribbled out note after note, the words never quite seeming right. How does one convince their family that the thing they’ve been doing all their lives is wrong?

You didn’t.

You tied the note to his leg and sent your loyal little bird off for the last time with the last message he’d ever deliver for you.

The message felt like it was as much for him as for them.

It just read Goodbye.

You wandered up to Rook’s bedroom. You knew where it was by now. The house might still feel confusing but this room you could find.

You knocked on the door, the sound echoing in your ears.

A distant “come in” sounded from behind the black and white painted wood of his door.

He was waiting there for you, his eyes trained on the door as you entered.

“You feeling alright?” he asked, his voice low and measured.

You nodded. “I think I just needed some rest. I’m sorry you had to come and rescue me.”

“No need to apologize. I’m just glad you’re okay. Why did you run?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t want to hurt you any more than I already had.”

“You didn’t hurt us. Look,” he said, holding out his arms for you to see. “Limbs all still attached. It got a little stressful there but we’re all alright. Better than we were before.”

You hoped that was true.

“You’re staying, aren’t you?” As he asked the question, you began to understand why the thing Rook was scared of the most was people being afraid of him. Because with every word, you could tell he was afraid of your answer and it felt like a punch to the gut.

“If you’ll have me.”

“Of course I will.”

You had both been standing very still, avoiding any sudden movements, trying your best not to break the calm.

That did it. At his words you were moving towards him, his arms wrapping around you the second you were within reach.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered into his chest, beyond happy that this time, he was listening. This time, he believed you.

When you finally pulled away you stood there, looking at each other, a silence falling over you that one of you needed to break.

You wanted to be the one to do it.

It felt like a risk. Last time you’d asked everything had been destroyed. But it felt like the only way to finalize it, to make yourself one of them and shed your past.

Finally you asked, “Can you drink from me?”

You waited for the mistrust but it never came. Instead, he just cocked his head to the side and asked, “Why?”

“Because I trust you.”

“You’re still a little scared.”

“I’ve got years of stories in my head, they’re hard to shake. But I do trust you.”

“You really want this?”

You nodded, reaching out hesitantly for him.

He came to you, his hand intertwining with yours.

“Alright, but we’re going to work up to it. I’m not throwing you in the deep end, okay?”

You nodded, already trusting that he’d make sure you felt safe.

He walked you back to his bed, laying you down gently on the soft sheets you’d been too afraid to indulge in when you first came here. The thought felt silly now.

He moved over you, capturing your mouth in a kiss.

You pushed up against him, wanting to be as close to him as you could.

He seemed to sense your urge and pushed you back down into the sheets, his body trapping you against their warmth.

And then the kissing ended as he sat you up with an urgency that made you think twice about whining about the newfound lack of contact.

He reached up to start undoing your dress, getting both of your clothes off as fast as he could.

“Need to feel you,” he said and you helped him along, removing your final garments as he struggled to pull off his pants.

You smiled, helping him where his pants had gotten caught around his ankled in the rush.

He just stared down at you, wide-eyed.

“Come here,” he said pulling you back up to the bed and pressing you against him. His skin was colder than you were used to and you were sure you must have felt burning hot against him.

His hands ran up and down your sides as he held you against him, feeling every bit of you he could.

Finally, you sunk back against the mattress and were trapped under him once again.

His hand slid down your front and two fingers pushed inside you.

You felt his sharp intake of breath as they pushed inside and saw that incessant smugness return, the worship on his face falling behind it.

“You’re so wet, is this all for me?” he asked.

You nodded, hoping that was the answer that would get you more.

You felt yourself clench around him and he moaned at the sensation.

“Please,” he asked, “I need to be inside you. I’ll go so slow, make sure you’re alright, just need to feel you.”

You didn’t need any convincing.

He was so thick, pausing with every little push inside to let you accommodate the stretch before pushing impossibly further into you.

Finally, he bottomed out, pressing kisses all over your face to distract you from the burn.

“You’re doing so good,” he murmured into your skin, refusing to pull away even to speak.

Finally the burn settled, although the stretch never really went away.

You rocked up against him experimentally and his cock rubbed perfectly against your walls.

You tried once more but he pushed your hips down, leaving you unable to move.

You looked up at him with big, questioning eyes.

He smiled down at you like you were the sweetest thing he’d ever seen. “Ask nicely,” he insisted and you were too far gone to do anything but comply.

“Please, I need you,” you cried.

“You have me. What do you need.”

He was going to make you say it. “I need you to fuck me.”

Those seemed to be the magic words. As soon as they left your mouth he started to move.

His head was buried in your neck as he thrusted into you and there was no more fear, it had all dissipated, even the little slivers hiding in the corners of the old stories you’d been told.

Every nightmare and monster under your bed had been replaced with his face and you didn’t have it in you to be afraid of him any longer.

He moved gently, like he didn’t want to break you.

You weren’t so sure you didn’t want to be broken.

“More, harder,” you pleaded.

He hesitated and so you kept begging. “Please, I want to feel it in the morning

That did the trick, his hips snapping into you with a punishing force.

“Yeah? I can do that. You’ll be so sore tomorrow but it’ll be alright because I’m going to take such good care of you. Anything you want you’ll have. I take care of my humans, I’m gonna take such good care of you.”

The phrase did something to you. You were his human now. It didn’t feel possessive it just felt right because you knew you had given a piece of yourself to him.

The faster pace was sending you both hurtling toward your climaxes.

His hand snaked down to rub your clit as he pounded into you, your hips rising to meet his.

Finally something inside you snapped and you clung to him as waves of pleasure overtook you completely.

His pace didn’t slow as your orgasm calmed. You were sensitive and a little sore but still the last thing you wanted was for him to stop.

With one final punishing snap of his hips, you felt him come inside of you, a strangled moan sounding from him as he left sloppy kisses across your neck and slowly rolled his hips into you until the waves of his orgasm subsided.

For a while he just lay there, half on top of you, doing his best to keep from crushing you as he panted.

“How’re you feeling?” He finally asked, rising up a little to look at you. “You nice and relaxed for me?”

If you’d been any less exhausted you would’ve rolled your eyes at him and found some retort. As it stood, you just nodded, your arms still wrapped around him, keeping him close.

“Alright,” he said, looking down at you with a soft gaze. “Human instinct means that the second I break skin, for one moment you will struggle. You’ll lash out at me so I’m going to have to pin you down, okay? Anytime after that first moment you’re free to back out but just for at the start I have to hold you still.”

You nodded. “You’ll hold me down but I say red and you’ll stop.”

“Exactly.”

He pinned your legs firmly below him, wrapping one hand around your wrists to hold them in place. The other hand drifted to your chin, gently tilting your head to the side.

His fingertips brushed over your neck, ghosting over your pulse. You could feel it pounding and you’re sure he could too. If he could smell your fear all those days ago you couldn’t even imagine what he must be smelling now.

His breathing was unsteady as he stared at you with naked hunger.

He licked over the spot on your neck first, like he was marking you before slowly resting his fangs over top of your skin.

You pulled your head even further to the side, begging him to break skin.

He finally did and for a moment, you lashed out, the pain inciting some buried instinct in you.

And then the fight faded and all you were left with was a sense of peace.

You were powerless beneath him. He could bleed you dry right now, pinned under him. You knew he wouldn’t.

There was something calming about being completely at someone’s mercy. He lapped your blood up, his body warming as he fed from you, and you felt more relaxed than you ever had before, as you gave this piece of yourself to him.

The pain had faded so far away. The only way you could recognize it was by seeing it as another thing you’d feel in the morning, another thing you knew Rook would diligently take care of.

And he’d do it with the energy and life you were giving him now, the bit of you that you were allowing him to take.

He tried to pull away from your neck but your fingers knotted into his hair, trying to keep him close. He rejected your attempt, pulling away to send his lips crashing into yours. The metallic taste of blood seeped into your mouth as you returned his kiss, desperate and pleading.

You felt just as hungry as he was.

The kiss finally ended as he went to bandage to wound you’d half forgotten about, settling back against your neck as soon as he cleaned the remaining blood dripping down you.

The sheets, on the other hand, did not look like they could be saved.

He snorted into your neck and you pulled back to get a good look at him.

“What’s so funny?” you asked.

“I won,” he said with a smile.

“What?”

“Our game. I think I won.”

“Are you trying to piss me off?” you asked with a laugh.

“Maybe.”

You just laid there for a few minutes, lounging against him before he moved to get up.

You whined at him but he made no move to stop. He walked across the room and returned with a glass of water and a plate of cookies.

“I told you I’d take care of you,” he said as he handed them off.

“My hero.”

He settled back in next to you as you started in on one of the cookies.

“So you really want to stay?”

You nodded, barely even processing the question. “I already said yes,” you mumbled.

He shook his head. “No, I need you to listen. Do you want to stay, to join everyone here, to become mine?”

Your brows furrowed. “I’d be yours?”

He nodded. “They’re all mine, just as much as I belong to all of them. To all of you. Don’t you remember, all those promises you made before you came? I made them too, you know. To care for you all, to always have your best interests at heart, to give a piece of yourself away. All the vows, you have to mean it this time.”

“I already mean them. You want to be mine?” you asked, wiping a stray drop of your blood off of his chin.

“I do.”

#terato #terato writing #teratophillia #vampire x vampire hunter #vampire x reader #vampire x human #monster bf #monster boyfriend #monster x human #monster x reader #this is the final part #but I am planning viv and oliver one-shots and an epilogue #so we will return to these guys one day #I love them too much not to

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wavebiders · 5 months

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got her a pet :)

#yes I'm still losing my mind about the epilogue #I know this is probably something you can do regardless of who you romance #but it feels especially right with Shadowheart 'loving animals is one of the only parts of my personality I can remember' Hallowleaf #and I really like the idea of the owlbear being one of her first official pets as she starts her new life❤️#bg3 #shadowheart

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buckactuallys · 6 months

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you still make sense to me

“But why wouldn’t I be?” Eddie asks. It’s not something he has to think about for long – he’s never desired Marisol that way, even though he knows he should. “She’s beautiful, I really like her, why don’t I want to sleep with her?”

“Well, I’m afraid sexual attraction isn’t logical. No one is attracted to everyone, Eddie. But,” he gives a little nod, and Eddie braces for whatever is about to hit him, “since it sounds like you weren’t particularly sexually attracted to your previous girlfriend either, it might be worth looking into some other possibilities.”

“Like what?” Eddie asks nervously.

“Well, it could be that they’re both women, and you’re not actually sexually attracted to women.”

Eddie swallows. “But– I have a kid. I can’t be– I can’t be gay.”

“One doesn’t negate the other,” Frank says patiently. “I’m not saying you are gay. I just think it could be enlightening to examine whether or not you have felt sexual attraction towards men. And if you haven’t – there’s also the possibility of asexuality.”

eddie is ready for a new relationship – but why does it never feel right? buck has a lot to work through, and doing that comes with a few realizations.

chapter 1 of 3, 14k

[read on ao3]

#buddie #911fic #buddie fic #911 fic #buddie fanfiction #pia writes #ahhh i'm nervous about this one #please read the tags! i know it's not everyone's cup of tea #lost patience and decided to post part 1 before finishing the epilogue

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mamamittens · 1 year

Text

Oh, Sweet Child of Mine (Pt. 13)

Platonic Yandere Whitebeard Crew (Ft. Others) & Reader Insert

Main|First|Previous

Warnings: Yandere behavior and a wide variety of burn related injuries, as well as drowning. If yandere content makes you uncomfortable, please do block the tag 'oh sweet child of mine' as well as any variation of 'one piece yandere' that you feel is necessary.

This is the end of things. All that's left is the epilogue. Your choices have consequences, I've only seen them through.

Word Count: 2,325

Marco chatted with an older gentleman about the local weather, meandering his way to any strange arrivals at the island. While he didn’t see Teach, it was possible he was hiding out at an inn until Marco left.

He found himself constantly pissed and surprised at how damn clever Teach was.

Several times they managed to just barely miss him out at sea. If Marco didn’t know any better, he’d assume that someone was telling Teach exactly when it was time to leave. But that window of time had been shrinking for the past month. Where once they missed him by a week it was now a matter of hours. And Marco could feel how close they were.

“Yeah, this weather really brings out weird people, doesn’t it… Say, have you seen any shady characters around lately?” Marco asked, refraining from fiddling with his buttoned-up shirt. Not exactly subtle to question the locals with a massive Jolly Roger staring at them.

Marco didn’t even get an answer being the sound of a distant explosion reached his ear. He sighed, fully expecting to see fire on the horizon from whatever shit Ace had gotten himself into now.

First Smoker and now this?

His eyes rolled over the sea and widened with shock.

A column of fire and smoke violently erupted into the sky in the direction of the other island he’d sent Ace to investigate—wrongly assuming that he’d find less trouble with a smaller island.

Marco was airborne in an instant, speeding over the land and sea as he rushed to find out what was going on.

The minutes ticked by as his lungs filled with sea salt from diving to gain speed before gaining altitude to do it all over again. Getting faster and faster with each repetition. Boats blinking by as he crossed the expanse.

Damn near half the island was on fire in some way or another. Demolished buildings and rocks littering the sea in debris fields as people fled quickly.

Marco banked sharply, ice in his heart as he spotted the marine vessel moored nearby.

He found Ace on the other side of the island facing fucking ADMIRAL AKAINU of all fucking marines. Your familiar shape pinned to the admiral’s chest. Teach dead—where the fuck did his head go?!—just behind you both.

Marco was fit to sweep down and toss Ace into the ocean his own damn self when the young man threw a fiery punch at the admiral. Only to find that it was himself that was burned.

The literal worst case scenario matchup for Ace and you were right in the middle of it.

Marco wanted to rescue you both—he really did—but clearly Akainu wasn’t planning on killing you. The crazy bastard even shielding you from excessive blows.

At the very least, he could plan to steal you back later. But Ace was certainly not getting such consideration. Akainu planned to kill him. If it was just Ace he had to worry about, he’d go down right now and take Akainu head on with no problem—okay, a bit of a problem, he’s not an Admiral for nothing. But at any moment The Mad Dog could turn on you and Marco had no idea if your devil fruit combined with his would help. Hell, if Akainu had just slung you over his shoulder, Marco could probably pick you up with a small distraction.

But there was no way Akainu wouldn’t notice him aiming right for his chest.

And Marco—much as he ached to admit it—only had one solid plan of action.

Retreat.

Marco tilted his wings and prepared to dive at Ace. Hold onto the stubborn bastard and take them both far away.

The marines would fuck up eventually and you’d be right back where you belong. Even if ‘fucking up’ was just not having a full escort to Marineford as Marco stashed Ace somewhere he couldn’t blast his way into a fight he can’t win.

A massive ball of lava arched into the sky, the heat searing as it passed him by barely an inch. His body beneath the phoenix fire burning bright to heal the damage before it cauterized completely. Leaving a deep ache in his wing that promised to take him down if he lost his head again.

Marco reared back, soaring higher to avoid a repeat. To get a moment to think since clearly Akainu wasn’t entertaining a retreat either.

Fuck!

He had to get Ace. Fast.

--*--

You remember the first time you really understood what your devil fruit was. There weren’t any other users near you when you first ate it, so it took some time before the effects became clear.

A man came to the island. Ostensibly a traveling stage magician. He was good at crafting a compelling stage presence, but the entire time you watched him, you got this strange feeling. Like a faded memory recalled through scent. A series of seemingly unrelated images and sensations undeniably connected to one person. A vague emotion. All of it strung together like pearls. An odd sense of creeping exhaustion seeping into your skin.

Cut grass and mint. Woven daisy chains tangled in your hair during summer. Spring rain and dewdrops on misty mornings. Softer than buttercup petals and flashy like daffodils after winter.

You watched as he offered his beautiful volunteer ‘assistant’ a playing card. Flicking his wrist to then ‘magically’ present a white rose that blossomed in his hand.

The drain went from a dripping tap to a river.

The rose grew, vines wrapping around his arm with thorns and blooms sprouting until he and his unfortunate volunteer was consumed by a rose bush.

They were fine, but more than a little cut up from the thorns.

Teach’s devil fruit was like a forest gone silent and dark. Shadows in thick water dragging your feet as you walked. Breath fogging the air as the atmosphere pressed down on you. Threatening to swallow you whole if you tripped. It felt like a graveyard emptied of it’s dead and leaving you alone with ghosts. The threat of a knife still sheathed in a sleeve.

Ace’s fruit felt like a campfire at night. Consuming your view with flying embers, reaching high into the sky. Warm laughter and cinnamon smoke curling around a hearth fire wreath. Blazing with conviction so bright it dimmed the stars. Surrounding you in excess.

Marco’s fruit was like a firework. A cry shooting through the air in triumph as the atmosphere burned with it’s brilliance. The flash of the sunset and sunrise just as it slips past the edge of the horizon. Flooding your senses with thick incense as birdsong echoed. Bitter medicine and tangy sweets on your tongue.

Whitebeard’s fruit was something a little different. A tremble in your bones. Strength and uncertainty held in the same hand. The ground beneath your feet shifting on a level you could only just barely sense. Heavy bass that thrums in your heart. The short hairs on the back of your neck tingling. Senses reaching for a source with no name. An echo of something much larger than yourself.

Held in place, frozen with your heart stuttering in fear, you bathed in the feeling of Admiral Akainu’s devil fruit. Exhaustion burning away to ash as horror bled from your lungs.

Hot and cracked, uncompromisingly deadly around you. Fire pouring like thick liquid from the earth. Consuming everything in it’s path as it simply oozed forward. Belches of toxic gas as magma was ejected in thick clumps from broken rubble. Life smoldering in it’s presence before being smothered under it’s weight. Move or be moved. It smells like death and cinders as burning ash coats your lungs and skin.

You reflexively tried to curl your hand into a fist and your muscles spasmed, nerves screaming at the abuse so soon after your shoulder had been set.

Panicked, you looked at Ace, aware that your new ability would be useless if you couldn’t even hold it for a second. He would have to get close to deal damage and in that timeframe, he’d be close enough for Admiral Akainu to kill him with ease. But Ace didn’t seem to know that, his lips twisted into a snarl as he locked eyes with Admiral Akainu. Fire sparking in his hands as he clenched his fists, scorching the earth around his feet in a burst of heat.

He screamed, damn near feral as he charged forward with his arm reared back.

Ace’s fist was stopped by Admiral Akainu’s hand, a blast of heat ringing out like a shockwave. Admiral barely let his raised hand drip with magma before Ace shot back with a startled hiss, eyes wide in shock.

“Your devil fruit is beneath mine in power level, Fire Fist. And that’s before my partner got involved.” Admiral Akainu declared with a slight, smug grin.

But Ace wasn’t about to back down. Spinning on his heel as he launched a fireball at Admiral Akainu. Aside from turning to shield you from the direct path, it flew harmlessly past him.

Attack after attack was simply batted away or ignored completely. Like the Admiral was taunting Ace.

Playing with his food until he got bored.

A flicker of blue and gold in the sky drew your attention and Admiral Akainu’s.

You nearly sighed in relief at the magnificent sight of Marco preparing to dive.

Good!

T-This was good!

He could take Ace and get out of here!

Admiral Akainu threw back his fist and hurled a mass of molten lava into the sky, nearly clipping Marco. The pirate instantly scrambling to gain altitude to protect against another attack.

While you wholeheartedly believed that Marco could face Admiral Akainu, it would be a massive risk with Ace and yourself so close to the crossfire. And Ace would never leave him behind. And if you overtly tried to assist, there was every chance the marine would simply break your neck for being a traitor.

Maybe with luck, you could have ‘dialed down’ Admiral Akainu’s devil fruit to allow Marco and Ace to flee—assuming Ace even let it happen to begin with. But your damaged hands couldn’t handle the tensed position right now without flinching and breaking the bloody scabs. You weren’t sure you could repeat the feat for an appreciable amount of time either. They’d need more than a second to get the hell out, after all.

You had no doubt Akainu would explode if he realized you were helping your friends escape.

Your thoughts screeched to a halt.

Explode.

You looked around you at the devastation. Every jeer and blow Akainu delt shook the ground and brought hot magma to the surface as he wound himself up. Losing his shit as Ace refused to falter and Marco kept trying to rescue him without getting hit—he’d heal from that, right? Could he? You weren’t sure and the thought that Marco could actually get hurt scared you—

You squeezed your eyes tight. Let the world fall away as you imagined that dial again. The dizzying heat around you fading to a buzzing pressure.

The needle bouncing in and out of the red with every attack.

If you could turn it to zero, totally cutting off the power of his devil fruit, then what would happen if you pushed it the other way?

The image of a volcano came to mind. Violently exploding as plumes of gas and smoke ejected into the atmosphere.

Akainu was already capable of such things.

Just like that magician could already create bushes from a single flower.

Ace needed to get distance. Marco needed a distraction. It wasn’t going to be fun. It certainly wasn’t going to be very safe. But it would double perfectly as both an escape for your friends and an alibi for assisting them.

A sudden, explosive volcanic eruption seemed like exactly what you needed.

You wrapped your less injured arm around Akainu, placing your bloody hand on his back as he made a soft noise of surprise. You looked up at Marco, your eyes connecting as he seemed to suddenly start to dive down instinctively.

You mouthed one word.

Run.

“Dial up: Overclock!” You pushed against the connection between your fruits, the air sucked out from your lungs.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Akainu was frozen, staring down at you with an expression bordering on awe. Heat rising between you as suddenly, the ground buckled.

Falling and then heaving up.

Ace screamed your name in horror.

Marco crying out with a sound more avian than man.

You didn’t realize the volcano would be underneath you.

Magma rushed up like a geyser, slamming Akainu and yourself into the air as though Whitebeard himself punched up beneath your feet. It happened so fast you don’t even recall the moment after.

Just thick, black smoke rushing around you until you cleared the top of the billowing cloud, almost floating for a moment. Skin scalded and cracked, bleeding from any number of burns you didn’t even have time to feel.

Akainu no longer in sight.

Then the ground rushed towards you, yanking your innards first as you screamed. Barely having time to hope you didn’t hit land before you realized you’d been ejected at an angle, skin seared and the air cutting past you as the sea rose to meet you instead.

The you hit the water as though it was made of bricks, knocking out the air from your entire body as you gasped, sinking beneath the waves motionlessly. Salt burned your wounds and eyes and lungs. Limbs frozen for any number of reasons—take your pick really—as you sank beneath the waves.

With no idea if your plan worked, you could only watch as darkness consumed you. Your heart burning as you choked on seawater.

This wasn’t how you wanted to be free.

#one piece yandere #yandere whitebeard crew #yandere akainu #yandere ace #yandere marco #oh sweet child of mine #reader insert #is it me?#Am I the drama?#reader experiences the power of friendship #but was it enough?#welp!#See ya'll tomorrow for at least the first part of the epilogue!

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nitewrighter · 2 years

Text

Cindy Part 12

As always, for previous chapters, please refer to the masterpost.

Posting this because the epilogue got too honkin’ big!! Have some ‘Meet the Parents!’

---

Cinderella’s arrival at the castle is very quiet. Like, mostly, everyone is aware how volatile a situation like, “Hey whoever fits this shoe is going to marry the prince” is. So it’s like… 4 gardeners, 3 maids, and the butler see an absolutely filthy girl sleepily slump out of the royal carriage with the prince supporting her in her descent, and they carry about their business. If there’s an announcement, they’ll hear about it later. This is just a perfectly normal instance of some weirdly dirty rando showing up the castle in the company of the captain of the royal guard, the royal valet, and an almost-equally dirty footman who is certainly not the prince in disguise, no sir! Still, a royal messenger is discreetly sent to the king and queen, and they both hurry to the foyer just in time to catch the prince and the supposed shoe-fitter quietly trying to make their way through. In their company is, of course, Gabe the Valet and Guard Captain Brad.

“Chaz?” The queen calls out.

Both the prince and Cindy look up.

“Oh—Mom, Dad, this is Cindy. Cindy, these are my parents.”

“Hi,” Cinderella gives a small wave, “I mean—” she’s been a little thrown off by the whole ‘these are my parents’ thing and remembers this is the literal fucking king and queen and she quickly curtsies, “Your majesties.” She stands up straight again and brushes her hands down her skirts, sending a dusting of ash onto the palace floor. “I—um—“ she stuffs her hand into a fold in her skirts—oh it’s a pocket—and pulls out the slipper, “I have the shoe. The other shoe.”

“Ah,” the queen blinks and she gives a glance over towards the king, who like, he’s not upset, but you can definitely kind of hear the laptop fans whirring on him seeing this girl. Like… Is that a rat? On her head?

“Darling,” the queen places a hand the king’s shoulder, “Do say something.”

“Right—” the word stumbles out of the king, “So… the shoe fits then?”

“The shoe fits,” the Prince says.

“Here—I can—” Cindy slings an arm around the prince’s shoulders as she stubs her heel out of the shoe and puts the slipper on again, once again extending her leg, though this time it’s less of a toe-pointed ‘ta-daaaa’ gesture and more of a foot-flexed can-can kick.

“I… see,” the King says slowly.

“You can try it on other feet if you need to,” Cindy pipes up.

“Seeing as the other shoe…” Gabe starts and isn’t really sure how to finish that sentence.

“You know what?” The queen clasps her hands together in front of herself, “I know this whole slipper search has been an ordeal, so we’ll have some apartments made up for—for our most distinguished guest, and you can tell us all about it once you’re a bit more…settled.”

“Just so, Dearest,” the King agrees, desperately thankful for an opportunity to compose himself a bit more but now eying the old-as-balls dog sitting on its haunches just behind Cindy.

“You will have my report on the events that transpired surrounding the shoe, sire,” Gabe dutifully places his hand over his heart.

“And my debriefing as well, your majesties,” Brad bows from the hips.

“Good—good…” the king says blankly.

—-

So that night, both the king and the queen are in bed, and the king is wearing a fancy, kingly little nightcap and the queen is reading in bed next to him.

“I’m glad he found her,” the king says firmly, as if trying just as hard to convince himself as he is the queen.

“Mm-hmm,” the Queen turns a page.

“And she seems very nice and it’s clear he’s quite taken with her and—and you know him! He’s odd! He’s picky!”

“Mm-hmm,” the queen nods.

“But the state of them both—”

“Darling, they hardly looked any worse than we did when we first met,” the queen glances up from her book to lovingly brush her thumb over his sideburns.

“Well that was different! When we met, they were asking me which finger I would prefer they cut off to send to my parents, and that was—” he catches himself, “My god, you don’t think he found her in such a state?”

The queen thinks for a few moments. “No… no, I don’t think so. But there is a lot we don’t know about the situation.”

“I know, I know—there’s the reports and the debriefs—and I’ll be doing my own research as well.”

“Oh I know you will. That’s where Chaz gets it, you know,” the queen kisses the king on the temple.

“Mm,” the king responds.

“That’s an ‘I’m turning off the light’ kiss,” says the queen, turning off the lamp next to the bed.

“Mm,” the king murmurs again.

There’s the soft settling of pillows and sheets as the queen snuggles in for the night.

“…the rats are a bit of a hard-sell,” the king says after a few long beats.

“The rats are a little weird,” the queen concedes.

——

“I don’t think they like me.”

It’s late in the afternoon and early in the evening the next day. Cinderella is fidgeting with her fingers as she and the prince are walking through the garden. She’s wearing one of her nicer Frankenstein gowns, still too nervous to take any of the beautiful dresses in the wardrobe within her apartments. The prince just watched her plant the hazelnut she took from her family estate in a bare, quiet patch of the royal gardens.

“They’ll like you! They will! Just… things need a bit more time to get settled, that’s all,” the prince is holding Chauncey’s leash. This dog is old as balls so they’re both stuck walking very, very slowly, “Everything came together so fast…” he trails off briefly. “And.. I have a lot of questions, but I don’t know how to ask them, and I don’t know if asking them will undo everything—”

“What do you mean ‘Undo everything?’”

“Well… there’s the shoe. I know the shoe isn’t a normal shoe because I wanted to have glassmakers create a hundred replicas of it to expedite the shoe-fitting process but they couldn’t come up with any consistent measurements or fittings and—”

Cinderella pressed a single finger to his lips then, quieting him.

“It’s not a normal shoe,” she confirms, “But… I’m not really in a position to tell you more about it. All I can tell you is that the shoes, the dress, the carriage, everything, were lended to me by a very dear friend, and I had to give them back at midnight. And I’m not in a position to discuss this friend’s identity or resources—only that… they were acting out of a kindness that… is very rare in the world, and even if they’re a little snippy, they mean the best. Do you understand that?”

Her finger still pressed to his lips, the prince nods.

“But also, like you, I’m scared of kicking a hornet’s nest I can’t really see, so… I’m just going to take the good. And you’re the good. And I just hope I’m the good, too.” She withdraws her finger from his lips.

“You are,” he says quietly. He glances off for a second. "I—look, I should say this—about the ‘intended bride’ thing…” they pause under the willow near the reflecting pool that the prince threw himself into a few days earlier. There’s a little bench there and Chauncey takes the opportunity of this slight pause to lower his bad dog hips to the ground and lay down. “I—” the prince glances down and looks at her, “You don’t have to.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to do the thing. The marriage thing,” the prince offers a hand to Cindy so that she can sit down on the stone bench beneath the willow, “I mean, you can if you want, but I know it’s a lot. I know they’re a lot. And I know I’m a lot. And—“

“You’re not a lot.”

“I’m not?”

“You know, you seemed a lot more cocky at the ball.”

“I was a jerk at the ball. Everyone was… pulling out all the stops for me, doing all this stuff, and it wasn’t even about me, it was about their families! Their livelihoods! But all I could think about was how uncomfortable I was and…”

“Well you’re not livestock!” Cindy throws her hands up.

“I mean, yeah but—“ the prince’s jaw tenses, “Just… it was nice that there was someone who… didn’t see me as… that? For just a little while? But that’s not how things are, and it’s not fair to pull you into things just because I like you—I mean, I really like you—but it seems like you care about lots of things so—”

“I’m not the same person you thought I was at the ball either!” Cindy blurts out, “I do care, I do, I’m just… I’m scared, all the time. I’m horribly, awfully scared that everything’s going to collapse on me at every second, and I cry a frankly unreasonable amount, and—and—the only reason why I acted the way I did was… I figured everyone would forget about me… Like they’ve always done.” She blinks a few times and it kind of hits her that she actually hadn’t thought that much about the impact she would have on people after the ball—that her initial concern was about being recognized.

“How could anyone ever forget you?” The question comes out of the prince, incredulous, as he bends to look at her. Literally every staff member or guest at the ball remembered her for some good deed or kind word or the impossible speed with which she could scarf down celeriac tarte tatin. He’s almost looking for an indicator that that was a joke, but he studies Cindy’s face for a few seconds and he realizes that no, it’s not a joke. His eyes flick downward. “Cindy?” He says, not making eye contact.

“Yes?”

“Everything I’ve gone through these past few days to find you has been… the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I know that’s stupid—I know it’s nothing because you and everyone else is working so hard all the time while I’ve been off… fucking reading! Or horseback riding! Why am I better with horses than people? They’re the most fucking paranoid animals on the planet!”

“It’s not nothing—” Cindy starts.

“But I’d do it all over and over and over again a thousand times over or however many times it takes if it meant making sure you have a home with people who love you and value you.” The prince has been bent over the bench, but now his back is starting to hurt, so he drops down to one knee to maintain eye contact with her.

“Is.. is that here?” Cinderella’s voice is brittle.

“If you want it to be,” the prince glances off, “This… was also supposed to be a conversation where I give you an out. In case.. I don’t know… you have way cooler things going on. There’s so much I still don’t know about you, so much I want to ask but I’m… honestly scared to ask.”

“I know,” Cindy interlaces her fingers in her lap, “But… I don’t know how much I can tell you about it right now without sounding completely mad or without making things very complicated for the friend who helped me. But as soon as I can—if I can—I will. I promise. And—and I don’t have anything cooler going on. I do want to stay here. Very much so.”

“I mean, of course you could still stay at the palace—like… just… as an advisor. I can deal with it. I can be cool about it. I swear. But like, I mean as far as official titled jobs go, I think… you’re.. really… well… qualified for um. For the whole ‘princess consort’ thing?”

“So you’re giving me an out but this is also… a proposal…” Cindy says slowly.

“Well, yeah if you want to get really intense about it—” the prince huffs a little then realizes he’s on one knee, “I mean… Yes. Yes it is.”

Cindy snorts hard.

The prince presses his lips together. “I mean there are people out there— I can see that now—I… I can be with people, and I can be okay—”

“Prince—” Cindy starts.

“And I know that sounds stupid and completely removed and selfish of me, but… you’re the person who really made me see that. I mean, also people made me see that because that’s the whole point—”

“Prince…” Cindy starts, a bit more softly and affectionately this time.

“And I really do like all your ideas! I really think we can hammer some stuff out that can make things so much better for—”

“Prince!” Cindy suddenly cups his face in her hands.

“Yes?” His cheeks are a little smushed with the gesture.

“I get it,” Cindy smiles.

“Oh. Good. That’s good,” says the prince. A pause passes. “Is this a ‘Yes?’”

“Yeah, it’s a yes.”

The prince’s hand comes up and clasps around one of hers, still on his cheek, holding it tight to him. He squints his eyes shut for a few moments, just feeling the warmth of it. He seems to catch himself and his eyes flick open,

“In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear, I’m not nearly as cool as I was at the ball,” the Prince is staring into her eyes.

“Neither am I,” she says before kissing him.

——

The king has been poring over numerous documents pertaining to the estate where the prince’s soot-covered partner emerged from as the queen looks out the window with a chilled glass of white wine in her hand. She’s watching the whole ‘whoops-it’s-a-proposal’ unfold in the garden below, and like—this is really nice wine that you do want to take your time with (Is it new? When did they get wine this nice??)—but she does take a slightly larger gulp at seeing her precious baby boy who is just as deranged as his father get down on one knee to a girl who was covered in soot and rats just yesterday. Like, yes, she knows she and the king had their own very unique situation, but it’s like, there’s you, and then there’s your kid, you know? You want things to be better for your kid and you don’t really know what this whole deal is yet so she’s counting on the King’s nerd ass to figure this mess out.

She glances back at the King who is still flipping through different documents at his desk alongside Gabe.

“Well?” The word comes out of the queen a bit thick. It’s not clear if the king heard her. “Darling?” She turns away from the window.

“Mm?” The king blinks several times as if breaking out of a trance.

“What were you able to find?” The queen clarifies.

“Oh…” and the king seems to get distant for a few seconds, “Do you remember a Lord Ashcroft?”

The queen thinks for a second. “Oh!” She says after a beat, “It’s been a very long time but—yes. Charming fellow. Hammered out some amazing textiles deal with the east a long while back, didn’t he?”

“Yes! And we sent him that bottle of port when his daughter was born!” The king perks up with the memory.

“Oh yes—such an adorable, chubby little girl—and of course Chaz was fussing and miserable throughout the whole christening—” the queen’s face drops, “Oh god—don’t tell me that’s—”

“It’s… her,” and that distant look settles back on the king’s face.

“But surely she would have been announced at the ball!” The queen briskly approaches the king’s desk, “Her father—”

“Died,” the word comes out of the king as a flinch, “When she was 12. Only a few months after he remarried.”

Something dark flickers over the queen’s face and the King blurts out, “Appendicitis! Appendicitis! The doctors ruled it as appendicitis! And grief, probably? Heart and gut.. couldn’t take it…”

“Grief,” the queen repeats, unconvinced.

“Dearest—”

“I know—I know…” the queen lets out a shaking exhale and then does this calming, pincer-like gesture with her fingers with another steadying breath, “Just… instincts and cultural differences…”

“I know,” the king touches her arm.

“So this… remarriage…” the queen starts hesitantly.

“Well… on paper it seems respectable enough—but then there’s fact that they didn’t even pay for an obituary—for Lord Ashcroft! I would say that’s a bit suspect. And I had Gabe look into some expense records registered for that estate with the local merchants and bankers… all these heirlooms sold immediately after his death compared to the actual costs of the funeral… I suppose we all grieve in our own way, and its difficult keeping the things of a lost loved one around after they’ve gone but one would think they’d at least keep the some of the objects on here for his daughter’s sake—”

“But as a young girl, she wouldn’t have a say in it,” the queen’s voice is brittle.

“Not with the stepmother being the acting executor of the estate…” the king rubs his brow, “Granted, there’s still a lot we don’t know."

“Chaz said the poor girl was locked in a basement. I don’t think we need to extend a lot of the benefit of the doubt here, darling,” the queen’s voice is terrifyingly icy.

“There were murmurings at the ball about that family as well…” the king muses.

“I need to talk to her,” the queen says firmly, “This situation requires a woman’s touch.”

The king kind of gives her a look then.

“What?”

“Are you saying ‘This requires a woman’s touch’ as in you’re going to kill someone or—”

“No! No, of course not! Probably not!”

“Probably—?”

“I can be sensitive! I’m sensitive!”

“Of course, dearest.”

——

Cinderella’s been at the palace for a few days now. Honestly between the tour of the grounds and the ins and outs of her own proper quartering and getting to know the staff, it’s all been a bit of a blur.

“You can come in, dear,” the Queen is squeezing some lemon into her own tea before leaning back in her seat.

Cindy edges into the room. She’s been scrubbed head to toe and has been laced into maybe the first new, not-made-by-herself, not-made-of-magic dress she’s ever worn since she was 12.

“…would you like to sit down?”

Cinderella shuffles over to the couch and sits down a bit stiffly.

“Here,” the queen pours another cup of tea, “Sugar? Cream? Lemon? Honey?”

Cinderella’s eyes flick across the tea set like it’s a bomb she needs to defuse.

“No wrong answers,” the queen settles back into her seat.

Cinderella gingerly spoons a little bit of honey into her tea and the smallest splash of cream. The queen watches her hands, the scuffs on the knuckles, the brittle nails clipped to the quick, before Cinderella raises the teacup to her mouth and sips.

“It’s delicious, thank you.”

“Mm,” the queen nods, and there’s a few beats of silence.

“It’s… it’s an honor to be here,” Cinderella says, forcing herself to make eye-contact, “I—I promise I’ll learn everything I can to be a good princess consort. I’ll read more, and—um—I know I’ve been throwing the servants off, but I really am used to making my own bed! It’s not because I don’t think they can do it, it’s just… I’ll figure things out. I promise. I—“

“It’s all right. Breathe, dear,” The queen is refilling her own teacup, squeezing more lemon. “Do you know the story of how the King and I married?”

And Cinderella blanches for a second like ‘Oh shit I didn’t know there was going to be a quiz.’ She really doesn’t know how the king and the queen came together. She’s read what she could, and she’s decently smart because her stepsisters would sometimes make her do the homework that their tutor gave them and she would be forced to learn what they hadn’t been bothered to paid attention to in one fourth of the time, but these were mostly subjects tailored to the running of a house and the cultural refinement of a lady, like etiquette, poetry, a little bit of law, and some arithmetic with a focus on finance and expenses. History and science? Not so much. But the queen is just swirling her tea in its cup, not quite looking at her.

“The royal historians downplayed a lot of the… ugliness that came before it,” the queen says, and Cindy eases up in her seat a bit thinking ‘oh thank god it was a rhetorical question.’

“You see…” the Queen gently sets her teacup and saucer down on the table and primly folds her hands in her lap, “The country I grew up in—that is, technically, it wasn’t quite a country as I was growing up—but it was… oh, how to put this politely? A flaming death pit full of murderous power-hungry petty tyrants all with delusions of grandeur and no care as to how many soldier and peasant lives they needed to ruin or end to gain one more acre of land.”

Cinderella blinks at that, and doesn’t really know how to respond to it so she just sips her tea while maintaining eye contact.

“I grew up the daughter of one of these petty tyrants, then as a political hostage, to secure my father’s alliance with a neighboring lord,” the queen’s gaze has trailed to the window, now, “And then my father and brothers were killed, in one of many stupid, pointless battles, for this bridge or that mountain pass or some other such nonsense…From there I saw two clear paths laid out for me: Either my foster-lord would have me killed so he could snatch up my father’s lands, or, more likely and far less pleasant, he’d marry me to one of his brutish sons who were at least twice my age to, again, secure my father’s lands. I was lucky enough to have a handful of retainers from my father’s house to help smuggle me back to my own family estate where I could regroup and see of my own forces and resources but…” she sighed, “From there…It all kind of blurs, to be honest. A part of me became just as merciless as everyone I fought against, but at the same time I hated them so much, so I hated me so much—I couldn’t bear the thought of just… becoming one more of them. And looking among the people that were my responsibility to protect…” she trailed off, “I wanted a better life for me. For them. For all of us. But I didn’t know what that looked like. I was terribly stubborn about the idea of marriage, you understand. I imagined myself having some… passionate torrid affair with some battle-scarred Samson, and then naming whatever bastard came of that my heir to continue the fight when I inevitably died in one more stupid battle for this bridge or that mountain pass.”

Cinderella is kind of thrown off by the bastard thing, like ‘You can do that? That’s allowed?’ But then Cindy has the reasonable assumption that probably no one told the queen she couldn’t do that, and if she had done it, no one would really try to tell her after the fact.

"But then I met the king,” the queen goes on, “He was just a prince himself, then. The poor fool was traveling through our lands as part of some… diplomatic mission when he was captured by one of my remaining enemies. I didn’t even know he was in that keep, I was just… there to take down one more scourge. And I took them out right before I found him.” Her eyes get a little distant then. “I must have looked monstrous the first time he saw me…” she’s quiet for a few beats, then she seems to catch herself and she smiles a little, "Once I found out who he was, I more or less bullied him into our match. I was of high enough birth, after all. I thought he was so agreeable because he was afraid. But… I soon came to learn that there are many different kinds of bravery. Which… brings me to my point, dear,” the queen leans forward from her own seat, “Between what I saw of the king, and what I saw of my own people… I know what it means to have to be brave far longer than anyone should have to be. Something happens in the eyes…” the queen extends a hand and Cinderella unconsciously shrinks back in her own seat. Cindy’s mouth opens to apologize on reflex, but the queen is drawing her own hand back, fingers curling in. “What… I want to tell you is that… we want this place to be a home for you. I know what it feels like when your home… isn’t your home. When what remains of your family—” she catches herself again. “I’m sorry. I’m overstepping. This all must be so much on its own—“

“It’s— it’s fine—“ Cinderella is still tense in her seat, “It’s—it wasn’t nearly as bad as you think it is—I—I was never in a war—”

“It doesn’t have to be a war,” the queen says gently.

“Well, yes, but my stepsisters calling me stupid and ugly and saying I smelled bad all the time isn’t a war—”

“They called you stupid and ugly and told you that you smelled bad all the time?”

“But I did smell bad because I was cleaning out the chicken coops or the stable, or shoveling from the compost heap, or hauling laundry around, or because I had smoke pouring over me from the hearth and I got ugly muscles in my legs from going up and down the stairs all day—”

“They were making you do all that and they weren’t helping?”

“But that isn’t a war!”

“But you’re afraid of them,” the queen says softly and Cinderella flinches at the word ‘afraid.’ “Even now, even here, you’re afraid they can still make you hurt like all the times they hurt you before.”

“I—I—” CInderella stammers.

“Am I scaring you now?” The queen asks, not accusing, but genuinely concerned.

Cinderella’s knuckles are white around the handle of her little teacup. She’s gone deer-in-the-headlights again.

“It’s so hard to turn off…” the queen says softly, and Cindy isn’t sure if she’s talking to her or to herself. “And when you can turn it off you just feel so silly for thinking that way, but then something happens and it comes back all the worse…”

Cinderella’s half-come out of what would be called ‘tharn’ in Watership Down enough to sip her tea a little bit. The teacup rattles a bit in its saucer as she sets it down.

The queen gestures at the little tiered cookie trays. “Um… macaron?”

Cindy takes one and munches it down in barely a bite and a half, eager for the gap in conversation chewing affords her.

The queen huffs and slumps back in her seat. “Chaz was right about you. One really does feel like they can tell you anything and you don’t know if you’ve made a fool of yourself until after you’ve said it.”

“Is that… good?” Cinderella is picking up her teacup again.

“I think it’s good,” the queen says, taking a cookie herself and taking a bite out of it, “People are cynical, you know. It means a lot to inspire that kind of confidence. You managed to make quite the impression on a number of the palace staff the first night you came here.”

“Because I crashed the party…”

“Because you were kind. And helping seemed to be your first instinct about, well, anything. So this is what I’m saying—with regard to.. your previous living conditions, regardless of the abuse put upon you, there is only a limited degree to which the crown can respond. But I can assure you we will find every means we can to—”

“I don’t want to punish them,” Cindy blurts out, tense in her seat.

The queen’s gaze flicks up to her.

“What they did to me…” Cindy starts, but then stops and glances off, “I don’t think hurting them further than how they already are will help. I don’t know what will help them. But all I know is that I don’t want them anywhere near me. And I don’t think they need to hurt to know that.”

“…exile, then?” The queen munches a macaron and Cindy blanches.

“No,” Cinderella says quietly, “That doesn’t feel right either.”

“Well… we have a whole library and dozens of legal experts at your disposal, dear,” the queen smiles, “I trust you to be a far more merciful person than I’ve ever been.”

Cindy stills in her seat, full deer-in-the-headlights mode.

“…that’s good,” the queen says, reaching forward and putting a hand on Cinderella’s knee.

“Oh!” Cinderella eases up, “Th-thank you.”

And so, over the next few days and with much discussion with many royal lawyers, the first restraining order was invented. Granted, if you look up legal history as we know it, the modern restraining order popped up in like, the 1970’s, which is… really fucked up and you’d think it would pop up sooner. But also people are terrible so it makes sense that it would take that long. But we’ll just assume this was kind of like the whole ‘sometimes people act like Don Quijote was the first novel and not Lady Murasaki’s Tale of the Genji just because Don Quijote saw wider distribution,” and also an instance where something was so unusual for its time we wouldn’t really see its implementation until a long-ass time later situation. And also I made up the country they’re all in so fuck it. They invented restraining orders. Which is what Cindy deserves.

Oh god. like, I would hate being in the presence of the stepfam in any situation, but what I wouldn’t give to be in the room when the royal messenger shows up at the stepmother’s doorstep. Like the stepmother would totally think she’s receiving a ‘guest of honor’ invitation for the royal wedding despite the Prince’s absolutely harrowing look at her, and she’s like ‘Finally that little rat of a girl is proving herself useful.’ And there’s the royal messenger on the doorstep like, “Good afternoon ma’am, I have the distinct honor of issuing to you this royal decree that you and your daughters are not to come within 800 paces of the Princess Consort-to-be. As well as this fruit basket.” (The palace had never issued a restraining order before and as such wasn’t really sure the proper means of delivering it, and the fruit basket was Cindy’s idea so that they might ‘part on good terms.’ Cindy’s never issued a restraining order before either, and she also has a very inflated opinion of the power of gifts and fine food, so go easy on her.)

“…I suppose… the seating for the wedding will accommodate?” The stepmother says a bit blankly.

“Oh—Madam, unfortunately, I have no invitation for this household. But! You will observe that this fruit basket does indeed have a pineapple! So let that be a symbol of the crown extending all the hospitality it can extend in line with this decree.”

“Ah. Yes. A… a pineapple,” the stepmother says, blinking several times.

“Oh, yes, and also this sack of gold to cover any additional medical expenses with regard to the…” the palace messenger clears his throat, “Toe incident.” The messenger unceremoniously plops a roughly coconut-sized sack of gold onto the fruit basket. “Ladies,” he says, tipping his hat before leaving.

The stepmother snatches the gold sack up right quick but then she and the stepsisters are stuck staring at this pineapple for three days in utter befuddlement. Both the pineapple and the gold are enough to take their minds off of the increasingly large groups of starlings gathering in the hazel tree on the side of the house… for a while at least.

#love at first sight exists #but only in the sense that I consider that part of skyrim where you watch farkas turn into a werewolf 'love at first sight'#POV: You've been taken captive and you watch the hunter from Bloodborne carve a bloody path through your captors #like how can your brain NOT go 'wife' in that context???#what I'm saying is... Queen--it is fine he was absolutely INTO IT #cinderella #'also we've just tanked your entire social future but here's a pineapple byeeeeee'#Common sense: Hey you know you probably could make the epilogue one big chapter if you left out the queen's backstory #me: NO FUCK YOU I'M KEEPING IT

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jomiddlemarch · 3 months

Text

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

It was not that he was waiting for her as much as that he was most often in the faculty sitting room at this hour and so was she and the staff knew to leave out a full tea service and also a magically chilled bottle of very dry amontillado, the color of her eyes. And then to tell anyone else that the room was occupied and that they were not to be disturbed.

It wasn’t that he was waiting for her, but he did look up when she came into the room, letting the ancient, rare and precious book he held slip out of his hand, an instinctive, wandless spell keeping it from clattering onto the floor.

“You cut your hair,” Draco said.

Any pretense to eloquence, savoir-faire, or intellectual rigor associated with achieving his Potions Mastery and Mwandamizi kemia had been decimated by the four words, uttered in a tone of complete shock, which given his Pureblood upbringing meant flat, with a hint of scorn. He had spent the past twelve years working to convince Hermione he wasn’t that man anymore, the one who would have meant the scorn, the fault-finding appraisal, cold and superior and not terribly clever underneath it all.

(The one he’d felt doomed to become before the chandelier fell in his family’s ballroom. Before she’d testified to keep him out of Azkaban. Before she’d returned his formal letter of apology with a brief addendum You were a child, Draco an absolution he didn’t deserve.)

Blaise always said he was his own worst enemy. Theo always nodded and offered a glass of single malt Scotch. Neville always shrugged and tried to reassure Draco, meandering through some nonsense about how they’d all had to grow up too soon, let down by the adults, forced to experience trauma that they’d been lucky to survive and a plate of buttered toast would soon set him to rights.

Luna changed the subject and talked about some possibly fictional chimerical creature to take his mind off his shortcomings. It never worked but he appreciated her effort and consistency.

“I suppose that’s better than ‘Bloody hell.’ And “Holy fucking Christ.’ Harry reverts to Muggle obscenity when he’s really surprised,” Hermione replied. “You only told me what I already know, as I didn’t accidentally fall into a Mongolian silver scissor-bush.”

“Is that a thing?” Draco asked.

He had to keep talking but there was a lot to take in, the startlingly gorgeous line of her bare neck, the angle of her jaw, how her eyes looked enormous, luminous. How her chestnut hair was swept across her brow and came to a delicate little point on the nape of her neck, all these hidden aspects suddenly marvels revealed. Suddenly, astonishingly breath-taking and erotic and also heart-breaking, because he’d wanted so to run his fingers through her loose hair, to stand behind her and draw a brush through her curls. Watching her eyes get drowsy in the dressing-table’s looking-glass, resting a hand on her bare shoulder and feeling the tickling silk of her hair. He’d wanted to cast the spell that ended the charm securing her chignon, to pull out the jeweled pins she used to keep her braids in the coronet around her head.

“No. It sounds like something Luna would mention though,” Hermione shrugged. It was as if he’d never seen the gesture before.

“It’s a lot to take in,” he said.

“It’s actually not. It’s both literally and figuratively not,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Snape being a double-agent in love with Harry’s mum was a lot to take in. Any Sunday lunch at Molly Weasley’s table is a lot to take in. War and Peace in the original Russian without a translation charm is a lot to take in. I took off a few inches—”

“A few inches?”

“Fine, I got the first professional, Muggle, haircut of my adult life because I was fed up with my hair and charms and Sleekeezy and glamours, so many glamours, and you would think I have announced I am Grindelwald’s secret lovechild,” she said in a tone of complete exasperation, pursing her lips in a matching moué he felt an impossible urge to kiss very thoroughly and until she was gasping his name.

He was fairly certain that action would not be requited, not now, and potentially not ever.

But definitely not now.

She was now almost glaring at him, waiting for a response.

If this was ever to become something beyond hopeless pining, if he were ever to be allowed to call her sweetheart and coax her back to bed, he couldn’t get the next part wrong.

“Are you happy with it?” he said. It was a gamble, saying anything would have been a gamble, but there was a chance he’d gotten it right.

He’d surprised her, that he could tell instantly, though her face changed very subtly. It meant no one else who’d seen her had asked and considered she might be. No one else had thought about why she’d done it, only what they thought of it. Evidently, both Weasley and Potter had indicated a negative response, Weasley likely driven by his own unrealized Pureblood upbringing, where all witches wanted the long hair associated with power and Potter never wanted her to be anything other than she’d been in their youth, when her unruly hair was her most obvious signifier.

“Yes, I think I am,” she said.

“That’s good. That’s what matters,” he said. He was supposed to reference the book he’d been reading or follow-up on their most recent conversation about geopolitics or whether Chopin was a Squib or at the very least offer her something to drink, the tea first and then, when she demurred, the sherry. But all of those would require him to look away from her and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Not quite yet.

“I ought to have done it a long time ago,” she said. She spoke without her usual forthright confidence, but also without any of the regret the statement might have implied. She sounded hesitant, as if she wanted something from him she felt she shouldn’t. Or shouldn’t ask for.

It was tempting to make some sort of declaration, offer reassurance or an argument. But he’d gotten this far by asking her a question.

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. It would have been a way to move on. Grow up. Make my life easier, decide it for myself,” she said. She was watching him very closely as she spoke. She liked that he’d asked, though she wasn’t smiling. “It wouldn’t have been grief or some kind of, I don’t know, unhinged trauma response.”

It would very much have been a response to the colossal trauma she’d experienced if she’d hacked it all off after being tortured, and it wouldn’t have been unhinged when one considered the myriad extremely risky alternatives she might have chosen, but Draco wasn’t about to ruin everything. Even as his own worst enemy, he could keep from doing that.

“It could have been just something you do when you’re in your twenties, trying something out. Like, going to the Maldives or studying Norn. Learning earth magic from tribal elders in Namib.”

“Only you would saying learning earth magic in Namib is something you do in your twenties,” Draco said wryly. “Most people just go to the pub and fret a lot.”

“You didn’t,” she said.

“I think it’s well established I’m not most people,” he said.

“No. You’re not. You’re the only person who didn’t tell me cutting my hair was a terrible mistake,” she said. “As if it could even remotely compare to the other terrible mistakes I’ve made.”

“It’s not a terrible mistake,” he said. “And you’re the person I know best whose made the fewest terrible mistakes in her life and we can sit here drinking sherry talking about it because of it.”

“My parents wouldn’t agree,” she said.

“Neither would mine. I wonder how people grow up when they don’t have to discover their parents were deeply, entirely wrong about something absolutely crucial to survival,” Draco said.

“We could ask Blaise Zabini,” Hermione said after very clearly Thinking About It, a little crease appearing between her eyebrows.

“Too risky,” Draco replied. “It’s only the husbands people talk about but people have a way of disappearing when they ask questions about his mother.”

“No one would comment on her haircut,” Hermione said wistfully. “What a bloody icon.”

Draco laughed, startled.

“You’re enchanting,” he blurted out. Stupid, gauche, impulsive—he could go on (and on) about how ill-considered it had been.

“Well, I am a witch,” she said. She did not seem put off. In fact, she smiled at him, a little shyly. “Goes with the territory—”

“You enchant me. Bewitch me,” he said, throwing caution to the winds. “You don’t want anyone to comment on how you look, so I shouldn’t but you’re exquisite—”

He broke off, fearing he’d broken it all. She was still in the room and he still had all his bits and bobs, when he knew she was a dab hand at wandless curses. It was rather late to decide discretion was the better part of valor, but better late than never.

“I didn’t do it for you,” she said.

“No,” he replied.

“I didn’t do it only for you,” she clarified. “But I was curious to see how you’d react.”

“Did you have a hypothesis? You usually do,” he said.

“Yes. You’ve exceeded it slightly,” she said. There was a gleam in those sherry-brown eyes and when she tilted her head to the side, he understood the vampire’s insatiable lust.

“I can do better than slightly,” he said, half-dazed with the realization that she was requiting far more than he’d ever imagined. And that she’d imagined his response to seeing her bare neck, had wanted his admiration. He got up from his chair and crossed the room to her, standing close enough to take her in his arms. “I can do a wide margin. Prodigious. Overwhelmingly—”

“I like prodigious,” she said and he leaned in and kissed her parted lips softly, then deeply, one hand at her waist, the other cupping her cheek. The urge to possess her was tremendous, held in check only by an immense and constant tenderness, the moon that could pull the devouring tide back from the shore.

“Can I see overwhelmingly?” she whispered. “For comparison—”

“Of course,” he answered and moved to kiss her neck. He tasted the pulse of her carotid, sucking gently where he wanted to nip her. He moved back up to the hollow behind her ear, grazing her lobe with his tongue, then murmured,

“You cut your hair. I love it.”

#dramione #hermione x draco #draco POV #post-hogwarts #epilogue what epilogue #hermione gets a haircut #romance #pining #always some extra worldbuilding #references to lots of characters #had so much fun I wrote a second part #that one's hermione POV

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