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seijorhi · 3 years

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No Strings Attached

A commission for the lovely @hearteyes-candyskies, hope you like it bby! 💕

Bokuto Koutarou x female reader

TW Age gap, power imbalance, manipulation, toxic behaviour, nsfw(ish)

Three months ago, you would have laughed at the very idea of having a sugar daddy.

Then again, three months ago you were still living with your boyfriend and had a steady paycheck coming in every week. You can blame losing the latter on bad luck and an asshole boss, but the former-

You knew your relationship with your ex was far from perfect, but coming home from losing said job to find him buried balls deep in your next door neighbour was a bit of a slap in the face.

Needless to say, in the space of a few days you were out a job, a boyfriend and an apartment. Which, somewhat inevitably, led to you being six wines deep, slumped over your best friend’s bed, sobbing over the wreckage of the life you’d built, suddenly ripped out from beneath you.

You can’t really remember whose idea it was, only giggling drunkenly between yourselves as Misuzu set up your ‘sugar baby’ profile. “Shh, no this is gonna be great,” she’d said, hitting at the hands that tried to grab back your phone. “Meet some hot rich old dude, ride a little dick, let him shower you in cash; all your problems? Poof, sorted!”

And even with the heady, rose tinted haze of your wine fuelled inebriation, you knew that it was just a joke, a bit of stupid fun born more out of an attempt to cheer you up than a viable plan to get the tattered remains of your life back on track. Calling some old creepy dude ‘daddy’ and pretending to love him (not to mention the whole letting him fuck you thing) just for a little money wasn’t exactly your idea of a good time.

Plus, you were fairly sure that you weren’t what most people had in mind when they thought ‘sugar baby’. It wasn’t ever meant to be anything serious, just dumb, drunken fun with your friend.

So when you woke the next day a little after mid morning with a head full of regrets and a pounding headache, the last thing you expected was to find a message from BigDaddyKou82 waiting for you, better sense told you to ignore it.

Honestly, you didn’t really want a sugar daddy, your love life was enough of a mess without throwing in a power imbalance like that.

You should have ignored the message, deleted it or shot him a quick reply politely explaining that you weren’t interested so you could put it out of your mind, and you would have-

If Misuzu hadn’t caught sight of the message first, snatching the phone out of your hand with a gleeful shriek.

—

If you’ve learned anything in these past months, it’s that Bokuto Koutarou doesn’t do anything by half measures. So when he tells you he’s booked dinner for the two of you at an upscale restaurant in the city, you should have expected the package that’s hand delivered right to the door of your shitty little apartment. The dress is beautiful, expensive - though you could tell that just from the elegant matte black box wrapped in golden ribbon it arrives in. It’s exactly his style; short, revealing and just dancing along the edge of impropriety, not that that’ll bother him in the slightest.

But it is gorgeous, and loathe as you are to admit it, it flatters you well.

It’s not the first time that he’s bought you clothes, your tiny closet’s almost overflowing with pieces he’s gifted you. He likes seeing you in the things he’s bought, sometimes a little too much, you think. But you’ve learned it’s better just to go along with it - he gets this wide eyed, beaming grin whenever he sees you dressed in the pretty things he’s bought you, and the sight of it never fails to make your cheeks heat, warmth curling in your stomach.

The dress was not unexpected. The soft, lacy lingerie that comes in the accompanying box, on the other hand - that was new.

And of course, you barely have time to unwrap your gift when your phone flashes to life, an incoming call from the man himself.

“D’ya like it?”

The giddy excitement in his voice is unmistakable, and if you close your eyes you can picture the look on his face - golden eyes all hooded and hungry, that glittering, eager grin he wears when the two of you are out in public but his mind’s occupied with all the filthy, wonderful things he wants to do to you the moment you’re alone.

Not that he’s ever that patient.

“Um, it’s…” Fingers tentatively reach into the tissue paper, pulling the sheer, lacy bra out, warmth blossoming in your cheeks. The matching panties - a tiny scrap of lace held together with bows and thin black straps - really aren’t much better. Like the dress, the lingerie is clearly well made, probably cost more than your weekly rent, and the delicate set is arguably gorgeous (you can’t even argue his taste), but–

“You’re gonna wear it for me tonight, right, baby?”

It’s not really a question; of course you will, because you always do. You would have thought by now that you’d be used to the gifts he showers you in.

“Yeah, but Kou, you really didn’t have to spend all this money on me. Dinner’s enough,” you tell him, setting the lingerie back down.

Dinner, and everything else for that matter.

A chuckle echoes down the line. “But I like spoiling my girl. Like buying you pretty things,” his voice dips, “like tearing ‘em off you afterwards, too.”

And despite all the apprehension curled up inside of you, a shiver of excitement runs down your spine.

—

“So…” Misuzu pushes, leaning across the countertop with her chin resting on her palm and looking entirely too pleased at your discomfort.

“He… asked me to meet him.”

Her eyes widen, sparkling in delight as she gasps, “For dinner?”

“For a drink - one drink,” you clarify. You elect not to tell her that he’d initially tried to sway you into dinner, and it was you who’d talked him down to a drink. Truthfully, you’d probably feel more comfortable getting coffee, but meeting at a bar was fine.

One drink, and if things got awkward or he turned out to be a creep you’d be out of there in a heartbeat.

“Oh my god!! My baby Y/N, all grown up and manipulating old, lonely men for money. I’m so proud,” she wipes a fake tear from her eye and bursts into a fit of giggles.

A crinkle appears between your brow as you frown at her, “He’s not even that old,” you grumble, “and it’s not like that. You know it’s not.”

“No?” she asks, her lips curling into a teasing smirk. “You know, for somebody who was so against me messaging your soon to be sugar daddy, you sure move quickly.”

She laughs at the glare you shoot her way. “You were the one who started this.”

“Mhm, and you were the one who didn’t stop it. Funny that, don’t you think?”

She looks like the cat that ate the canary; smug, glittering amusement written all across her face. And you hate, more than anything, that she’s right.

Because you’d meant to put a stop to it the moment you managed to wrestle your phone back from her. Afterwards, you’d blame the lingering hurt of having your heart broken, the insecurities and bitter humiliation that plagued you, the feeling that you weren’t good enough to stop your boyfriend from straying for making you so pathetically vulnerable and desperate for approval - but when you opened the chat instead of the sleazy come on’s you expected, his first message makes something inside of you flutter, warm and pleasant.

Holy crap, you’re beautiful.

Not exactly a sonnet from Shakespeare, but you can’t remember the last time any guy, much less your ex, called you beautiful.

It didn’t exactly hurt that instead of the aging, creepy looking letch you were half expecting, the profile picture showed a rather fit, attractive man in a crisp, black suit with silvery grey streaked hair and an easy grin. Of course, it was a fifty-fifty chance that the pic wasn’t even him, or if it was then it was outdated or heavily edited, but it was enough to make you pause.

Enough to make you… curious, if nothing else.

But ridiculously attractive or not, you weren’t going to lead him on. If he wanted some pretty, simpering thing to fuck and throw money at, to call him daddy and be his sweet, obedient little girl - that wasn’t you. You’d explained that you weren’t really sure if this was your thing, that you probably weren’t what he had in mind, but surprisingly he hadn’t been put off by that.

Well what’s the harm in finding out for yourself? Maybe you’ll like it more than you think ;)

—

There were rules, when you started - lines you both agreed wouldn’t be crossed.

First and foremost, while it wasn’t exactly a conventional relationship - at least, not the kind you were used to - it was still a relationship of sorts, and there was an expectation of honesty in lieu of absolute exclusivity. You’d tell him if you were seeing anybody else, and Bokuto would tell you the same. Considering sex was on the table, it made sense.

You swore right from the beginning that you wouldn’t allow yourself to become financially dependent on him - you knew all too well that relationships were fickle things to begin with. That kind of dependency was half the reason you were in this position in the first place, and you wouldn’t - couldn’t - let that happen again. That didn’t mean that the arrangement wasn’t transactional. After a few initial meetings that went better than you expected, the two of you came to an agreement; a nice little sum of money he’d deposit weekly in your account in exchange for you being there when he wanted you. Dinner dates, skype calls when he’s travelling, spur of the moment weekends away in expensive hotels - whatever he wanted... within reason.

The thing is, despite his flaws - the little funks he gets into, his immaturity despite the age gap between you, the way he clings to you, mopes if you don’t pay him the attention he wants - you genuinely like Bo, he’s oddly endearing. Loveable, even. He reminds you a little of a puppy; eager for affection, bright and boisterous with boundless energy (and enviable stamina). He’s sweet and adoring and funny and he has this uncanny ability to make everything else fade away when you’re with him, to make you feel like you’re the only woman in the room, beautiful and perfect and entirely his-

But that didn’t make him your boyfriend.

You weren’t lovers, and whether it was in two weeks or two years, you both knew this arrangement had an expiration date. And because of that, there were no strings attached. At any point, either one of you could end it without an explanation - no questions asked, no feelings hurt.

—

Truthfully, you don’t know an awful lot about Bokuto’s line of work, only that his position within the company is senior enough that he can move around his schedule pretty much as he wants, leaving him free to see you whenever he likes.

Which wasn’t a problem when that was once or twice a week.

“Sorry, Koutarou, you know I can’t. Maybe tomorrow?”

The petulant whine that echoes down the phone fills you with an odd sort of guilt. “Why not? You said no on Friday, too,” he pouts. “I miss you, baby. Wanna see you again.”

You shove down the faint, flickering unease that nudges at your gut. You’re not his girlfriend, and you find yourself wondering whether or not he sometimes deliberately lets himself forget that.

Nibbling at your bottom lip, you frown, “I told you I have work today. It’s too late for me to try and find someone to cover my shift, and if I call in again-”

You can kiss your job goodbye. You’re already on thin ice with your boss, and it’s not like new waitresses are hard to find these days.

“Well… what time do you finish?” he asks, his voice thick with dejection, as if he already knows what your answer’s going to be.

You bite back a sigh, “Late. I’m on close again.”

The short silence on the other end of the phone is deafening. “… I’ll come pick you up afterwards.”

This time you can’t stop the soft sigh that escapes, “Kou, I’m gonna be exhausted, I won’t be any fun to be around.”

“Still wanna see you. You’re always working,” he grumbles. “Feels like you don’t have time for me anymore, baby.”

Slowly your eyes flutter shut, and you take a deep breath. It always comes back to this. “I need this job, baby. We’ve talked about this… I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I have the whole day off, I’m entirely yours.”

“All mine, hm?”

You smile, “All yours, promise.”

He hums in acknowledgement, not entirely happy, but temporarily placated. “Fiiiine. But I’m holding you to it.”

As if you expected any less. “I have to go get ready for work. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“I’ll see you later,” he promises, and you hang up a moment later.

When he said that, you assumed that both of you were on the same page as to what ‘later’ meant.

Three hours into your shift, you hadn’t expected to return from the kitchen to find a grinning Bokuto lounging in one of your booths.

“He asked for you specifically when he came in,” one of your coworkers tells you, shooting you a playful wink. “Didn’t know you were into silver foxes, Y/N. But I can’t say I blame you, he’s hot!”

“Yeah, thanks,” you mutter distractedly, glancing over your shoulder to check your manager wasn’t watching before making your way over.

The smile on your face is tight as golden eyes flicker towards you. “Bokuto,” you begin quietly, “what- what are you doing here?”

An odd look passes across his face at the use of his family name, but the smug grin remains. “You said you had to work tonight,” he says with a cavalier shrug, as if that explained everything.

“Yes, because I’m working! Kou, I need this job, I can’t-” you break off with a huff, darting another glance over your shoulder. Thankfully, your manager’s busy berating your co-worker for a screwed up order and hasn’t noticed your absence yet.

Taking advantage of your distracted state, Bokuto reaches across the table to take your hand in his, his thumb stroking back and forth along the back of your palm. “Hey, hey, relax. You’re here to work, I get it, baby. I’m just here for some food, cross my heart,” he swears, drawing an imaginary X over his chest with his finger.

Gently tugging your hand back, you ignore the hurt little pout he gives you. “So you decided to drive twenty minutes across town just to eat here?” you ask, trying to keep the exasperation from colouring your tone.

He shifts a little in his seat, cheeks flushing a dusty pink under your narrowed stare. “… Well, maybe I wanted to see my pretty girl, too,” he admits, “But I swear I’ll be on my best behaviour!”

Somehow, his words don’t fill you with confidence, but what are you supposed to do? Kick him out? Snap at him for coming despite the fact you told him not to? Taking a deep, steadying breath through your nose, you force yourself to relax. Bokuto’s not hurting anybody by being there, and so long as he keeps his hands to himself, so long as he behaves, it won’t be an issue.

He’s a paying customer, and you’ll treat him just like you would anyone else who walked through the restaurant’s doors.

Yet despite trying to reassure yourself of that, you can’t escape the niggling sense of unease sitting in the pit of your stomach. Even if he’s the perfect gentleman tonight, the perfect stranger, you’ve worked hard to keep your boring day to day life and the one you’ve created with him in nice, neat, separate boxes. Bokuto hasn’t met your friends or your family and outside of Misuzu they don’t have a clue about your arrangement with your attractive if somewhat clingy benefactor.

You don’t want them to know.

Him being here threatens that - it makes you nervous.

But you’ve been with Bokuto long enough to know that you can’t tell him that without hurting his feelings, and you definitely don’t have the energy to deal with that tonight. It’s a conversation for another day.

Instead, you allow a small smile to tug at the corners of your lips, “You know the food’s pretty average here, you might be disappointed.”

Bokuto grins again, mischief sparkling in those golden eyes, and your traitorous heart skips a beat. “Yeah, don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he leans in closer, “I’m far more interested in what’s for dessert.”

Warmth floods your cheeks as he snickers.

—

For the most part he keeps his hands to himself, but you can’t quite bring yourself to relax when you can feel those golden, hungry eyes burning a hole into your back as you move around the restaurant serving other customers.

You pretend you don’t see the scowling glower he sends to the harmless office-worker who spends a good forty five minutes flirting with you every time you go over to check on his table.

Bokuto orders enough food to feed a small army and stays until close, leaving a more than generous tip on his way out.

It goes without saying that he waits for you to finish up. The moment you slip out the door, calling out one last goodnight to your coworker, he’s on you, pushing you up against the brick alleyway wall, hiking your legs up over his hips as his mouth attacks yours, greedy and eager, swallowing up any and all protests you might’ve had.

He doesn’t take you home like you ask, but back to his penthouse suite, and neither of you get much sleep that night.

—

You’re halfway through washing your hair a few days later when your shower head splutters once… twice… and stops completely.

A blockage in the plumbing, your landlord informs you rather apathetically. It’s affecting the whole floor and it’ll take at least a day or two to get somebody out to fix it properly, leaving you without running water for the entirety of that time.

In hindsight, there were at least three other people you could have (and probably should have) called first, but he’s already answering the phone before the thought even occurs to you.

And then it’s too late to backpedal. You find yourself grateful that he can’t physically see the way you flush and fidget, pacing around your living room as you awkwardly try to explain the reason you’re calling at ten in the morning.

“Would, I mean, i-is it okay if I come over to use your shower? Just for this one time, mine kind of got interrupted this morning.”

God, from the way you stutter, stumbling over your own tongue, you’d think you were asking him to marry you. You’ve spent the night at his countless times before, but asking for a favour, even a small one like this - maybe you’re toeing an unwritten line in the sand? Bokuto isn’t with you because he loves you, he’s with you because it’s mutually beneficial for both of you, because of an agreement.

He wants fun, easy, not you saddling him with minor inconveniences. Calling to ask him to come save you, albeit from something as mundane as a lack of access to a functioning shower, feels like something you’d ask your boyfriend to do.

Not your sugar daddy.

But just as you’re about to backtrack and apologise for interrupting his morning, he speaks. “What d’you mean? Just come stay with me till it’s fixed.”

He says it with such certainty, as if it’s the most obvious solution and for a moment you’re stunned into silence. “A-are you sure? I don’t want-'' Don't want what? To be an inconvenience? A problem? “I don’t want to be in the way,” you finish lamely.

Bokuto just laughs, “Don’t be stupid, baby, of course you won’t be in the way. Just swing by the office and I can give you the keys. Or I can just get you another set made? I don’t know, we can figure it out later. I’ll see you soon, ‘kay?”

And you have to admit, as apprehensive as you were stepping into his penthouse alone for the first time, showering in Bokuto’s fancy ensuite bathroom (which you’re fairly sure is bigger than your actual bedroom) is a hell of a lot nicer than doing it at home. The lotions he has are all expensive brands with french names you’ve never even heard of before, but they smell amazing and they leave your skin feeling all soft and silky. Even the shampoo he’s bought for you to use is far nicer than the one you have at home, though you’re secretly pleased that its scent’s similar - your favourite, actually.

Did he buy them knowing that or was it just a coincidence, you wonder. You never thought to ask.

Without work, or Bo for that matter, to occupy your time, you decide to take advantage of his gigantic TV, opening up Netflix and settling into his ridiculously comfortable couch…

… And wake, a few hours later to the feeling of fingers carding through your hair and a pair of lips pressing against your cheek.

Bokuto’s home, you realise with a start, and there’s drool on your chin. Face burning with embarrassment, you hastily wipe it away with the back of your palm and try to sit up, only for Bokuto’s hand to wrap around your wrist, halting you in your tracks.

“No, don’t get up, baby,” he says, easing down onto the couch beside you and shifting your head onto his lap so he can continue threading his fingers through your hair. “I like coming home to this.”

Still half asleep, curling up and nuzzling further into those warm, thick thighs of his, you miss the intensity of the adoration burning in golden depths as he coaxes you back to sleep.

—

The two of you are in bed, your cheek resting on his chest, his arm slung over your waist and knuckles brushing idly along your side, when Bokuto breaks the comfortable silence.

“Move in with me.”

You tense in his arms, heart skipping a beat. For a split second, you’re almost positive that you misheard him. “I-I’m sorry?” You push yourself up onto your elbow, turning your head so that you can look at him properly.

But Bokuto doesn’t miss a beat. “Move in with me,” he repeats, golden eyes bearing down on you.

The expression on your face is frozen halfway between disbelief and hysteria, and you’re staring at him, waiting for that stupid grin to break across his face, for him to laugh and tell you how ridiculous you look, because of course he’s joking.

He’s joking, right?

“Koutarou,” you begin slowly, “Wha- I don’t… Why would you want me to move in with you? We barely- I mean, we’re not…”

He shrugs his shoulders, “Why wouldn’t I? It makes sense. My place is bigger and nicer, and I like having you here with me. Feels right.”

It feels right??

“I-I can’t just move out of my apartment, Kou.”

His eyebrows knit together, and he huffs, “Why not? It’s a shitty apartment.”

“That’s not the point!” Knocking away the hand that reaches for you, you push yourself all the way up until you’re sitting properly. “I don’t want to move.”

Owlish eyes narrow, a flash of irritation sparking. “Why not? It makes perfect sense for you to move in here with me. You wouldn’t have to work at that stupid job anymore for one,” he huffs.

“Bokuto, I’m not going to quit my job,” you mutter. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Why, though?!” he explodes. “You don’t need the money, I’ve told you I can take care of you, whatever you want, baby, name it and it’s fucking yours. You don’t need to work and you don’t need that shitty little apartment!”

Like a crystal glass slipping from numb fingers, the fantasy you’ve convinced yourself you’ve been living shatters into a thousand jagged shards in the space of a single breath.

Oh, how naive you’ve been. How fucking stupid.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you inhale deeply, “Kou, that’s not-”

Strong fingers grip your jaw, and your eyes shoot open as he tugs your face back towards him. Your breath catches in your throat, heart hammering painfully against your ribs. His eyes are wide, pupils blown out, but it’s the intensity in his gaze as he stares at you, the blank expression-

“I love you.”

—

39 missed calls. 72 unread messages.

Flowers, bouquets of roses, peonies and chrysanthemums piled up by your door between boxes of chocolates and other gifts you won’t bring yourself to open.

Wide eyed, Misuzu gingerly steps over them, holding two steaming mugs in hand. “Holy fuck,” she murmurs, and for the first time since this stupid, awful mistake began, there’s not a trace of mirth to be found. “Y/N, I…”

But she doesn’t have the words, and you can’t blame her.

“He told me he loves me,” you sigh. “He asked me to move in with him and told me he loved me, and I grabbed my clothes and all but ran.” You still can’t get the image of Bokuto’s face out of your head, the raw, aching hurt swimming in his eyes as you all but stumbled over excuses in your haste to get out of there. But he didn’t lift a finger to stop you, didn’t say another word.

He just watched numbly, hunched over against the headboard as you fled.

There’s a short beat of silence between the two of you as she sets down the drinks and collapses into the chair beside you. “And… do you love him back?”

Exhaling loudly, you drop your face into your palms. “I-”

You like how he makes you feel beautiful, the filthy, wonderful praise he lavishes you in when the two of you sleep together, the way he touches you, fingers and mouth so eager to please as his cock fills you, inch by delicious inch.

You like being adored, treasured, and you liked Bo, but… you don’t love him.

That was never on the cards, that wasn’t what your relationship was.

Every line he ever crossed, every boundary he toed, you keep replaying them again and again over and over in your head like a never ending loop. You hadn’t even wanted this whole stupid sugar baby relationship to begin with, and every step of the way he was the one to coax you forward.

And you let him, swallowing down your doubts and your insecurities each and every time. You let him think that this was something else entirely…

How had you not seen this coming?

“No,” you admit.

The hand that takes yours is soft, and when you glance over with eyes beginning to burn with unshed tears, Misuzu squeezes it gently. “Then end it. Walk away.”

And with your head on her shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around you, you type out a short message to Bokuto. No strings attached and no questions asked, you’d promised each other that much when you’d started this mess. You wonder if it still holds true.

I’m sorry. Clearly we were on different pages and want different things. I didn’t mean to lead you on or for things to go as far as they did, but I can’t do this with you anymore.

You send it and block his contact, and when the tears come and painful sobs rip their way free, Misuzu holds you tight and murmurs soft reassurances. It’ll pass, all breakups hurt.

—

A week after your ‘breakup’ you get a notification on your phone that money’s been transferred into your bank account.

For a moment, you think that maybe it’s an accident, a recurring transaction he’d simply forgotten to cancel (you doubt he’d even notice) until you click into the transaction itself.

It isn’t the sum itself that startles you - twice the usual amount - but the short note attached in the description.

I need to see you. Please.

You transfer the money right back into his account.

—

Without your weekly supplement from Bo, it doesn’t take long for you to come to the realisation that your current salary just barely covers rent and your bills, and if you want to eat anything other than two minute noodles in the foreseeable future, you’re going to need either more hours, or a second job.

Thankfully, the timing works out well. When you go to your boss with your most winning smile to try and convince her of your plight, she simply shrugs and agrees, having had to let one of the junior staff go only a few days before. The one catch being that instead of working a mix of morning and afternoon shifts with the occasional closing thrown in, you’re now exclusively on close, five nights a week, Tuesday through Saturday.

Mostly, it doesn’t bother you. The shifts are long and you always leave feeling aching, drained and barely human, but usually it’s quiet enough, and so long as you can get the last few lingering customers out early enough, the actual close runs pretty smoothly between you and the other staff.

It’s not what you really want to be doing, but you’ve learned to make the best of it. This is adult life, and for the first time since high school, you’re supporting yourself entirely. It might not be the greatest job in the world, and there are absolutely days when you just want to throw in the towel completely, but there is a slight pride to that fact. You don’t need anybody in your life to coddle or support you, you’re figuring this shit out as you go along.

You just wish, sometimes, that you could do that without having to work until the early hours of the morning.

On paper, the kitchen closes at midnight and the last customers are supposed to be out within half an hour of that. Then, between yourself and another server, you can usually get the restaurant tidied up and closed a little after one.

You knew right from the moment you clocked on that tonight wasn’t going to be one of those nights. The girl who’s supposed to be on close with you called in sick and your boss hasn’t bothered to replace her.

It’s not the first time you’ve had to close by yourself, but it’s still a pain, especially when the last few customers take forever to finish up and leave.

One of the kitchen staff offers to stay back, his bag slung over his shoulder, hand already on the door handle but you just shake your head with a tired smile.

“Nah, I can handle it. Thanks, though,”

To his credit, he doesn’t immediately take the offered out. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

Without any help, it takes almost twice as long for you to finish up, and it’s a little after two when you finally flick off the lights and lock the doors.

Your feet are killing you, and all you can think about is sinking into your bed at home, burrowing into your blankets and sleeping for a week straight-

“Hey, baby.”

Leaning against the hood of his car, arms folded across his broad chest and eyeing you with an unreadable expression, is Bokuto.

The tiny hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

There's nothing inherently threatening about him being here, but it’s the middle of the night, you haven’t seen him in almost two weeks and you don’t need to glance around to know that the car park’s empty. There’s nobody in sight.

Just you and him, and the few feet of distance separating you.

“K-kou, what are you… what are you doing here?”

He smiles at that, the way his name slips from your lips, but only for a fleeting second. It fades, and a cold, uncomfortable feeling settles in the pit of your stomach.

“I missed you, y’know?” He pushes off the hood and takes a step towards you, “You didn’t call me.”

He’s always been bigger than you, towering over you looking like some Adonis with those rippling, powerful muscles of his. You used to like that strength, squealing in wicked delight when he’d hoist you up with a grin, hands gripping your thighs, squeezing your ass, your back shoved up against the wall so he could drive his cock deeper into ‘his pretty fuckin’ pussy’.

But that was then.

You’ve never been scared of his strength. Even that morning in the apartment, he didn’t lash out, didn’t scream or yell, he just… shut down. He wouldn’t hurt you, you know that.

That doesn’t stop you from skittering backwards like a frightened little bunny, your back hitting the wall.

The very moment you do, you watch as his eyes widen in surprise, hurt flashing for a split second-

-before they darken, his face twisting into a scowl, and you can’t escape the feeling you’ve made an awful mistake.

Dread creeps its way up your spine, tightening like a vice around your chest, making it hard to breathe. Your brain is screaming at you to run, adrenaline surging through your veins, but even as your heart races and your breathing spikes, you can’t seem to move your legs.

It wouldn’t make a difference even if you could - with your back up against the literal wall, Bokuto and his car blocking your only escape route, you’re trapped; a fact that hasn’t escaped either of you.

Paralysed in fear, you can’t so much as twitch as he takes another slow, calculated step forward.

Desperately, you open your mouth - to try and placate him? To apologise? Scream for help? - but all that escapes is his name in a choked, breathless whisper.

“Bokuto…”

As he stares at you, he almost looks regretful.

Almost, if not for the grim determination resolving like steel in those golden eyes of his. “I love you, and I know you love me, too,” he says, closing the gap between you. “I’m doing this for us, baby.”

#yandere haikyuu #yandere bokuto x reader #yandere bokuto kotaro x reader #yandere bokuto koutarou #yandere bokuto kotaro #yandere bokuto koutarou x reader #tw manipulation #tw toxic behavior #tw kidnapping

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fatefulfaerie · 4 years

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Blades of the Yiga (Pt. 1/3)

Zelda kicked up sand with every tumultuous step, gasping for breath and feeling as if her lungs would tire.

She panted every breath. Even a short, forced swallow made no difference, her dry throat not soothed in the slightest before her breaths became heavy again.

She took no care to her lightly fisted hands, her impropriety as she ran as fast as she could, shadows of palm trees flitting past her.

Zelda continued to run as she took a look behind her she knew she couldn’t afford, the sight of red making her turn her head back and run even faster.

The outside of her right foot suddenly rolled in the sand, curling in such a wonky way that the oddity was only outweighed by the subsequent and sudden pain. Zelda closed and opened her eyes as it happened, reacting with a deflation of her shoulders, but she readily ignored it. She was determined to survive this, to get back to Gerudo town, to any one of those warriors who would offer her aid.

She kept running with a slight limp, but it was no use, two Yiga warriors sliding in front of her and readying their vicious sickles.

Zelda inhaled at the sight, her breath shaky as she staggered back. She turned quickly around at the mere hope that they were alone, but she only found another red-clad mask-covered Yiga.

She fell backwards onto her hands, softening how hard she hit the sand as her knees bent in front of her. Zelda looked desperately between the two sides, in her green eyes a plea for mercy she couldn’t bring herself to voice.

They approached her and she felt her hope wither away, a single tear dropping upon her cheek as one of the Yiga loomed before her, readying his sickle to strike.

Everything her father said about her being a failure, everything she felt about being alone, it was all true. This world that would grow to hate her for her lack of sealing power, that was endlessly disappointed by her, had left her alone for dead.

She bowed her head and clamped her eyes shut as the Yiga moved his arm to strike forward, preparing herself for pain, for a death and assasination she couldn’t escape.

She heard the cool, slithering, metal graze of a weapon, yet no harm came to her.

Zelda looked up to see why, the movement of her head slow and cautious until she saw not tight, red fabric, but brown leather boots. Her eyes widened and, in her shock, a soft and sharp gasp parted her lips.

It was him, that boy, that knight, that one who was given everything, who pulled the sword that seals the darkness with ease while she still cried before statues upon statues of the goddess Hylia. It was that swordsman who was assigned as her knight attendant and yet seemed undeserving of everything he was given. It was that knight who kept his silence, who she assumed hated her for her incompetence and couldn’t even bring himself to utter a word of anything more than hate.

It was the knight with whom she acted the most improperly, her anger childish and the resentment she felt towards herself lashed out towards him.

It was Link.

He was protecting her, the self she knew deserved protection the least, and by his hand even more so. Yet Link stood there nonetheless, with the light of the sunset shimmering on his sword, scowling at his enemies, all because Zelda was in danger. With one movement of his sword and a flaming threat in his blue eyes, the two remaining Yiga assailants backed away in fear.

Zelda couldn’t stop staring at his determined expression, his courageous battle stance, his beastly blue eyes, his whole being, his whole life devoted to her safety. She felt a jolt in her heart as she watched the gentle breeze run through his dirty-blonde hair and studied his stance that absolutely radiated courage. Nothing would move him, would budge him from how he protected her.

The assailants had fled to the horizon, Link watching them until they no longer could be seen, hidden in cowardice by rampant desert winds. Link turned to Zelda as he lowered his sword.

He looked at her and it looked as if he were choosing his words carefully, the slight furrow in his brow ensuring Zelda that she must prepare for words of hatred, berating her for her defenselessness, for her carelessness, for her powerlessness.

But with a single blink, Zelda saw his eyes change. She had known them as neutral, having adopted the practice of endlessly searching them for any emotion and becoming frustrated when she found none, none to relate to, none to confide in. He was just so perfect that next to her, the failure, she had no choice but to hate him for the comparison the kingdom made. But in one single blink, Link’s eyes changed from a neutrality that burned--that to her, read like hatred--to something just a bit softer.

Zelda was completely flummoxed as she tried to read it, Link sheathing his sword and taking a slight pause before he knelt before her, meeting her eye-line.

“Are you okay?” Link asked, Zelda recognizing the emotion as concern. Link was concerned for her. These bright blue eyes weren’t filled with hate or contempt or anything of the sort. And yet, that is exactly what she had thrown towards him. Her guilt bubbled and rose.

Zelda nodded, figuring she needed to respond in some way, the first of many things to make up for her childishness.

“I’m so glad I was here in time,” Link said. He didn’t blame her at all.

Zelda took a deep breath. She could hardly believe she was actually talking to him, having a conversation with him.

“So am I,” Zelda said in reply, Link standing back up. He offered his hand.

Zelda’s hand was hesitant as she reached to take it. Their fingertips brushed and that jolt in her heart returned. Their palms met and his fingers, his secure clasp felt like the safest thing in the world.

Link obviously took not notice of her newfound revelations as he pulled her up to standing.

He was about to detach his hand when she crumbled at the weight upon her two feet, Link hurriedly catching her other arm to keep her up.

“Your Highness?” Link asked, searching the pain in her face before his gaze went down to her foot, floating around her other ankle.

“I think I hurt my foot,” she said. “When I was running.”

Her face winced again as she tried to put weight on it. Link felt the way she clamped his hand.

“Don’t try,” he insisted. “We’ll get back to Gerudo Town, don’t worry.”

Zelda nodded as Link looked at how far it was. The distance wasn’t too great, but it was nothing he would ever force her to walk in her condition.

“Your Highness,” he said, returning his gaze. “Is it alright if I carry you?”

Zelda gave quick nods in affirmation.

Link brought one arm around her upper back and another behind her knees. Before she knew it, Zelda felt Link sweep her off her feet and into his strong hold. She slid her arms loosely around his neck.

“I’ll leave you with the guards at the front entrance,” Link said as he walked holding her. “They’ll take care of you. It’s obvious you feel I’m not the right knight attendant for you. I’ll go ahead and inform the king. The Gerudo will protect you from the Yiga until the king finds someone better suited to your standards.”

“No,” Zelda said. Link looked at her with a very slight surprise. Zelda wondered if she was getting better at reading those calm waters of his or if he was getting better at expressing them. “I want you.”

Zelda watched his neutrality return as his glance shifted beyond her to Gerudo Town. She wondered if he heard her before he spoke again.

“There’s a way for me to get into Gerudo Town,” Link said. “Urbosa told me about it and it does work. If you would like me to stay with you--”

“I do,” Zelda interrupted.

Link said no more, but Zelda could feel him changing from walking a straight line to veering away, likely to avoid the main entrance.

She stayed in his arms in silence, eventually tipping her head against his chest and waiting until the rhythm of his steps subsided. Zelda’s head popped up as he placed her against the outside wall of Gerudo Town.

Zelda could tell they were at the very backside, Link bringing a single finger to his mouth. They may not be seen but they could very well be heard, the throne room very close. Urbosa may know of the secret way in, but her own attendants and warriors did not.

Zelda watched with her back against the stone wall as Link dug in the sand, unearthing delicate Gerudo vai attire, hued with blues and greens. Link brushed off lingering sand as Zelda figured it out, Zelda’s hand going to her mouth.

Link stood up with the folded clothes in his hand, seeing Zelda’s silent reaction, the way her green eyes danced with an encroaching laughter.

He slightly tipped his head to one side.

Link put down the clothes, pointing at her before placing his hands over his eyes, his hands returning to his sides once he felt his point was made.

Zelda bit her lip to stop herself from laughing as she covered her eyes with her hands and closed her eyes. She heard the rustling of fabric and surprised herself by wanting to sneak a peek.

Before long, she felt his foot tap hers, the non-injured one, of course, Zelda opening her eyes to see Link standing over her.

Only he was so separated from the stoic knight she saw just a few moments ago. He was dressed in light, Gerudo fabrics and in fact made quite the convincing vai to the naked eye. Zelda in particular found herself staring at the muscles exposed by the revealing garb, his arms, his abs…

She rid herself of that train of thought by remembering he was dressed in clothes meant for a woman. Zelda stifled a laugh as best she could.

Link shook his head as he picked her back up. Zelda inwardly questioned her composure as she felt her cheeks warm at how close she was against his skin, her arms draped around his bare and, admittedly strong, shoulders.

“It’s the only way in,” she heard Link whisper as they approached a smaller entrance, a Gerudo guard nodding as they entered the town.

“I get it,” she said back, now actively resisting leaning against his chest.

“Take me to Urbosa,” Zelda said. “She will know where we can stay, and fetch a doctor. Not to mention she is likely worried sick.”

Link paced the steps up to the throne room, Urbosa standing up immediately.

“What happened?” She insisted as she walked forward.

“Link saved me from a Yiga attack,” Zelda explained. “But I hurt my ankle beforehand trying to run.”

“Take her to my chambers upstairs,” Urbosa said, addressing Link. “I’ll fetch a doctor immediately.”

Link nodded.

#botw #breath of the wild #zelda #link #zelink #the legend of zelda #tloz #memory 7 #yiga clan #urbosa

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upsetting-candles · 3 years

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“Victor, straighten your tie.” Mrs. Van Dort’s voice jerked Victor from his thoughts as she reached forward and grabbed him by the shirt collar before he had a chance to react, tightening the offending piece of material so tightly around his neck that he nearly choked before his mother was happy with his appearance. She brushed imaginary lint off his shoulder and turned to go harangue his poor father about his own attire. As soon as she closed the door behind her he loosened the tie and inhaled deeply before sinking into a chair. He hadn’t felt this tired in a long time; anxiety and worry pressing down on him all night, demanding his focus and keeping him awake when he wanted nothing more than to sleep it off.

He would be getting married tomorrow. He knew nothing more about the woman who was to be his bride except for a name. Victoria. Victoria Everglot. He wished that was all he needed to be happy with his parent’s decision but it wasn’t. Did she like music? Did she like to read? Did she like to take walks and stop to take in the flora and fauna? They were simple questions, he knew, and he knew that if he asked his mother and father they would laugh and tell him it didn’t matter… but it did. He knew deep down that his parents meant well even if their reasoning seemed a bit selfish at first glance. He knew that this marriage would benefit them all but what if he didn’t… couldn’t love her? The thought nagged at him well into the wee hours of the morning; his sheets twisting around his ankles like something malevolently alive.

Of course he’d thought of numerous bullet points he could make in favor of his own argument. One, he was thirty years old; an adult. Surely it fell to him to choose his own partner. Two, love was important to him. It always had been. He deserved to at least meet her before they said their vows. Three– Well, it didn’t matter. He had always been much braver in his head. Those thoughts, as wild as they had been, would never leave his mouth. His mother, though she meant well, would never allow him to speak to her in defiance and his dad, though less controlling, would always agree with his wife. There was no escape. Victor sighed heavily and stood, leaning over his desk to open the window. A rush of sea air came in through the window, reviving him a bit as he pulled back. His hand rested on a small jar in which a small blue butterfly rested. He had caught it yesterday on one of his walks but it didn’t seem fair to keep it. He knew what it was liked to be trapped. At least one of them could get away. He unscrewed the lid and held the jar out the window, gently shaking it until the little bug fell loose and flew away. It was beautiful and he was alone. He watched it long after it vanished, wishing he could go with it as he fiddled with the cuffs of his suit. He wanted, more than anything, to belief that his parents would never steer him wrong… but something didn’t feel right and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was irrevocably wrong. Still, it wouldn’t do to be full of doom and gloom on the day before his… his wedding. He adjusted his cuffs and tie one last time before heading downstairs, a soft smile on his dark features. He would be fine…. Wouldn’t he?

___ He really should have been paying attention to his surroundings but he was easily sucked into his own thoughts and his own imagination. He was thinking about the blue butterfly when they pulled to a stop in front of the Everglot estate. It was dark; austere, and looking at it made his stomach do uncomfortable somersaults but he got out and ran a hand through his wild hair regardless of how he felt because that was what he was expected to do. His parents joined him and his mom reached up, pinching at his cheeks before he had a moment to process what exactly was happening. “Ow!” He gently took her hands and pried them off his face, only letting go when she relaxed in his grasp.

“Oh, Victor, you’re so pale! I’m just trying to get some color back in your face!” He wanted to ask her how it was possible that he could be pale but he bit back the sarcasm. Now wasn’t the time. He gently pinched at his own face until she smiled and nodded her approval at him before heading up the steps to the heavy front door of the mansion. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes as soon as her back was turned. This was ridiculous and he wished he was brave enough to say so. He just followed them inside. Unfortunately, the inside was just as gloomy as the inside, the large entry way echoing with the sounds of their footsteps as they were let inside.

They were met by the equally austere Mr. and Mrs. Everglot. Although seeing them brought Victor up short behind his parents; his parents didn’t seem to have the sense to be intimidated by them in the slightest. They just began to talk their legs off and follow them into the room beyond. Victor didn’t follow. Instead, he stood there and looked around, willing his heart to slow down. This day, while… admittedly not ideal, was special and he wanted; hoped, that he could feel good enough to enjoy it.

Once he calmed down he moved to follow them but was instantly distracted by the grand piano sitting by the stairs.

Victor had always been fond of music but his parents had frowned upon it because it didn’t help them with their fish business and he couldn’t make a living off it either. Still, he’d learned and it was a passion that he held dear to his heart; squirreling it away to comfort him when he was having a bad day. He knew he shouldn’t mess with it but he couldn’t help it, sliding onto the bench and placing his long fingers against the smooth keys.

It felt like home. He began to play and suddenly it didn’t matter. His parents, the wedding, the whole situation melted away as he played…. That is until he felt a hand rest against his. He panicked, flailing hard enough to knock a vase of flowers over on top of the piano before he had even had a chance to register who it was. Once he saw who it was, time seemed to stop.

His heart was in his throat but this time it was for a good reason. Victoria Everglot was the most beautiful person Victor had ever seen. She was tall and slender, pale with the faintest hint of pink along the apples of her cheeks like a porcelain doll. Her lips were roses he tried to keep alive in the little garden by his bedroom window. He could talk about how beautiful she was for days without ever stopping. He couldn’t deny that he would be thinking of her gentle smile for days to come and found, surprisingly, that he felt….. happy.

Of course that feeling was fleeting. They barely had time to exchange pleasantries before their parents descending on them in a flurry of anger. They were not supposed to be alone together; a chaperon a must if they wanted to spend time together. The impropriety! What would someone say if they happened to see them like that? The audacity! Victor didn’t have a chance to say anything and neither did Victoria before they were spirited away to the living area to recite the vows they’d be saying for real the following day.

It all went downhill from there.

He couldn’t remember his vows. He was shaking so hard he dropped the candle and lit the priest’s robes on fire. Mrs. Everglot was upset. His mother even more so. He wanted to apologize to Victoria but all he could do was look at her face and realize that there was nothing he could do to be worthy of her. He ran for the door and kept running until he crossed the bridge that led into town and ended up in the woods. He stopped when he couldn’t breathe, shivering in the snow as he gasped for air. He had lit a priest on fire. His incompetence astounded even himself sometime. He pulled the ring from his pocket and looked at it, inhaling deeply before he began attempting to recite his vows again. “With this hand I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never be empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle, I will light your way into darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.”

With a flair, he slid the wring onto a gnarled tree branch sticking out of the snow. He couldn’t help but smile in spite of himself. Maybe this was a good sign. Maybe he would be worthy of Victoria after all one day….

He suddenly realized how still the forest was. The trees were still and no animals rustled around in the underbrush. He found himself straining to find signs of anything alive around him. He had backed up and nearly had a heart attack when something strong closed around his wrist. He looked around wildly before gasping and trying to pull away from the tree branch he’d slipped the ring on. He’d calmed down slightly when the terror was amped up to a whole new level. It wasn’t a branch at all. It was the arm and hand of a skeleton covered in dirty, tattered lace. He shrieked and yanked backwards, falling into a snowdrift with a pained, strangled sound. The hand and arm that it was attached to came with him. He tried his best to shake it off but soon realized that what ever this was, it was the least of his worried because something was starting to claw its way out from under the dirt in front of him.

Cold and filled with terror, Victor watched as the once pretty face of a girl hauled herself out of the ground; her skin a sickly blue. She was clothed in the remains of a wedding gown, the veil blowing behind her in the wind. She smiled and it did nothing to ease the horror he felt in his thundering heart as she extended her hand towards him, the ring glimmering in the light from the moon that drifted through the canopy of leaves above their heads. She spoke and he found her voice as cold and sharp as the evening air, penetrating the silence with two words. “I do!”

There were a lot of things that Victor could do in that moment. He could run, go back to his parents and apologize profusely. He could show up tomorrow and act like none of this had ever happened; pretend that it was all a dream and that everything would be okay when he woke up…. He didn’t do any of that though. Instead, with all the fear built up inside his wretched self, his eyes rolled back into their sockets and he passed out in the dirty snow.

#story #about

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goldeneyedgirl · 4 years

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JaliceWeek2020 Day 7

JaliceWeek2020 Day 7: Yeehaw/Western/Sheriff

Love & Duty

Notes: Okay, I’m pretty sure this isn’t nearly ‘cowboy’ enough, and I’ve already started an alternative piece, but I found an old tumblr post about how cowboys were just daytime witches, and I frickin’ loved it (I’ll link it in the morning) and my excitement got out of hand again. There’s definitely going to be more to this story, but separately.

I also just wanted to prove to myself I could smash out two prompts in one day, honestly. I opted for quantity over quality, and I currently only have some regrets - 4.5 down, 3.5 to go.

The old farmhouse sits outside Laredo, Texas. The wood has blackened from decades underneath the sun and seems to sink in on itself; the ground cracked and dry. The barn roof has caved in, obviously years before if the elaborate nest tucked at the edge is any indication. At the end of the drive, the sign once bore the name of the owners, but that name has long since faded into the wood.

It is an unwelcoming place, for any passerby or stranger - a house that actively discourages anyone from crossing the boundary, even if they never notice it.

But for those that sought it out, and for those few that lived there, it was very different.

—

It was a sacred duty, once upon a time - the Guardians of the Border, sent to protect and prevent the Southern Wars from spilling over from Mexico into America proper. For decades, girls from all the old families across the country were sent to Texas to run the Guard Houses, to protect and shield those. Back then, there were so many daughters that only the very best were accepted at the Border Guard Houses, most of them settled in the city houses, mixing the potions and preparing the weapons. Some girls were even sent home - there were only so many beds, after all.

And Texas remained well-guarded.

But time marches on. Vampire wars, human wars, they all have a death toll, and entire family lines died out. It became less of an honour, more of an obligation, and one that fell to the oldest daughter, or the oddest daughter, or the ugliest daughter. It became more important to keep the bloodlines strong than to protect the South from the never-ending Wars.

Mary-Alice Brandon was never surprised to be banished to Texas on her sixteenth birthday; she’d known her entire life she’d don the blacks and take up the mantle as six generations of Brandon witches had done before her. She was not good breeding stock, with her ‘visions’ and her temper and her complete disinclination to conform to her parents’ social obligations. Cynthia was a much better heiress, and so off to Texas Alice was sent, to three ancient ‘aunts’ who would train her in all she would need to know, having lived their entire lives defending the Laredo house.

The house wasn’t so bad, if you looked past the glamour. The house was in good repair, and the aunts maintained a lush garden out the back, of herbs and flowers. They had two strong horses - Hallow and Haven - and half a dozen well-pleased cats. Her own bedroom looked over the road, hidden only by the branches of an ancient willow tree. Of course, the aunts were strict teachers that expected impossible standards, and third-rate cooks. But no place was perfect, and at least here no one cared about manners or propriety.

But she missed the sunshine. That was one thing the aunts never budged on. “Day is for sleep.” And hell was raged over her head if she wasn’t tucked up tight in bed every morning before dawn, the curtains drawn tight and refusing to budge. Once every moon cycle, her aunts would have a dawn meeting with someone but she wasn’t allowed to join those until she was twenty one, when she formally became a Witch Guardian. Until then, she was just a handmaid and dogsbody.

Which is why she was up to her ankles in mud, trying to pry an overzealous hemlock plant from the ground because it was smothering the chamomile again, with nothing to light her work except the lanterns on the porch. And this was just the first of the positively irritating chores she had been assigned that night.

It was her own fault, really. She should have kept her nose out of the books, and maybe there’d be more lessons for her to finish.

Shoving her hair out of her eyes, Alice glared viciously at the hemlock plant, and wondered if the aunts would consider it ‘inappropriate behaviour’ to curse the damn thing to burn.

“Mary-Alice!”

One of the aunts came dashing out of the backdoor - all three were fairly interchangeable, which felt like an uncharitable thought, but it was the honest truth - looking more agitated than Alice had ever seen her.

“Yes, Auntie?”

“Get out of the mud, and go and fetch one of the horse,” the older woman said, buckling an over-stuffed messenger bag. “Be quick, girl. Change your boots, don’t worry about your dress.”

Struggling out of the garden and into the house to find her riding boots, Alice knotted her hair back before hurrying to the barn, where all three aunts were gathered, Hallow already saddled - she would have thought Haven a better choice, since Hallow was so big and she was not the strongest rider.

“You’re going to Del Rio, girl,” one of the aunts said, shoving over a mounting block with surprising strength. “One of our allies has suffered an injury and cannot be moved. Hallow should have you there by dawn.”

“Del Rio?” Alice couldn’t remember the last time she’d been into Laredo, let alone more than a hundred miles up the border.

“Yes. Now, they’re expecting you,” the second aunt said, taking her hand and half shoving her up and into Hallow’s saddle. “Everything you need is in the bag; there’s food and water for you, but you’ll need them to provide more for your return journey. Hallow knows the way; if you hit the yellow farmhouse, you’ve gone too far. There should be a scout waiting for you anyway, don’t worry. It’s a long trip, but it’s a good practice for you, and you’re a good, clean healer.”

“The boy’s in a bad way, so you best be off,” the final aunt said, looking grim. “Let us know how long you’ll be staying and when you set off home.”

“Okay,” Alice managed, a bit dazed from the amount of information she’d just been given.

“Blessed and safe journey, my dear,” the first aunt said, looking worried before Hallow decided they had lingered long enough, and moved out of the barn.

Alice suddenly regretted cursing the hemlock.

—

The ride was long and hard. She honestly regretted not getting changed into something more sensible - she’d learnt to ride as a girl English style, side-saddle, but the aunts had laughed at that particular pretension, and Western saddles and long skirts were not a winning combination.

The bag wasn’t heavy enough for any of them to have thought to pack her a clean dress, either, and she was truly wretched at cleaning spells. Perhaps the Del Rio coven could loan her a dress.

Hallow stopped some time after midnight, and she took that opportunity to eat - a floury apple, some dry bread, and cold chicken that was so well cooked it might as well have been ash. But it was food, and the urgency that she been sent off - alone - implied she didn’t have more than a few minutes to rest.

The rest of the trip felt long, and as pink and gold streaks began to hover at the horizon, Alice wondered if she’d taken too long - if the poor boy (boy? she’d never heard of a coven accepting a boy, but maybe the Guard Houses had decided to modernise) had already succumbed. But it wasn’t like she was provided with a map or proper direction…

It was dawn when Hallow began to slow, and she saw a man leaning against a signpost with an indecipherable sign, the road behind him leading to a fire-decimated house on a hill in the distance.

“Miss Brandon?” the man said, looking at her with suspicion before his eyes softened. “Ah, Hallow.” The horse clearly recognised him, nickering affectionately at the man.

“Yes, I am Miss Brandon. You are the scout from Del Rio?” she asked primly, as if she didn’t have mud on her face and dress and sleeves, and no hat.

“Yup. Come on, he’s in the house. I’m Peter,” the man said. “Budge up.”

Within seconds, Peter had swung himself onto Hallow behind her, and Alice gasped at the impropriety, but didn’t get a moment to say a word as Peter clicked and Hallow took off like a bullet.

As Hallow passed another sign that couldn’t be read, the fire-ruins shimmered before reforming into an expansive and well-lived farmhouse, with a large barn. Out the back, she could see pristine fields full of horses and cattle. It was like chalk and cheese from home, and for a moment, she was jealous.

As they stopped in front of the house, Peter slid off, and tied off Hallow’s bridle to the porch railing, reaching up to help her down.

“Quick now, one of the boys will come take care of Hallow, we need you to tend to Jasper now,” Peter said, half dragging her up the front stairs and into the house.

It felt like a bustle of activity, and was so bright and airy. The smell of fresh bread filtered through the house, and Alice couldn’t help but snatch a look as she was dragged deeper into the house.

“Char! The witching’s here!” Peter bellowed, and suddenly Alice was presented with a drawn-looking woman with strawberry-blonde hair.

“Oh, thank gods,” she said. “I’m Charlotte. Come with me. His fever keeps getting higher, and I’ve tried everything I know. We called out to everyone, but your aunt was the only one who got back to us.”

She was lead into a backroom, where a mattress was laid out on the floor, and the curtains were drawn. And in the middle of the room, moaning in pain and sweaty, was a tall man covered in scars.

Alice tried not to gasp. The scars were quite clearly vampire bites, healed ones. Covens had some natural immunity to vampire venom, but it only slowed down the process and allowed it to be reversed. There were dozens of stories of girls who couldn’t be saved, and had been burnt before the change could be completed. It was, unfortunately, one of the risks of their duty.

“He got ambushed,” Charlotte said, kneeling beside the man. “The harpy practically gutted him, but he got away okay.” She pulled back the sheet, to reveal an enormous wound that had been clumsily stitched, from the middle of his chest, slashing downward over his stomach to his hip. “It needs cauterising I think, but I’m no healer.”

Alice came back to herself then. Whatever was going on here - male Guardians, this untrained woman, all the bite marks - could be questioned after this poor man - Jasper, had Peter called him? - was treated.

Dropping to her knees, Alice quickly inspected Charlotte’s stitching of the wound. “It will need cauterising, it’s too deep,” she determined quickly. “And treatment for infection, but stitching it was a smart thing to do.” Charlotte looked relieved. “Did he get bitten?”

“His arms,” Peter said, and Charlotte quickly pulled off bandages, already blackening from the venom. Three bites on one arm, four on the other. Bad, bad business.

“Okay. Do you have a smock, and a place I can wash up?” she said, standing quickly. Walking into a sick room in her filthy clothes and boots had been a stupid thing to do, but nothing for it now.

“Of course - show her the bathroom, Peter,” Charlotte darted out.

Within moments, Alice had a smock over her underthings and a pair of borrowed slippers - Charlotte promising to wash her dress immediately - and she’d scrubbed every visible inch of her skin as fast as she could, her hair pinned under a kerchief.

It was a very, very long day. The bites had to be purified, cleaned, and bandaged to draw out as much venom as possible; the bandages had to be changed four times every day, to prevent the venom lingering against the skin. Jasper had to be fed the tonic that the aunts had sent every two hours to flush any venom that had already ended his system. Then she had to treat the fever, to lesson his evident discomfort, and treat the infection that had clearly set into the wound Charlotte had stitched, whilst reassuring Charlotte that it was nothing actively wrong that she’d done, just the unlucky result of riding home with an open wound.

But by the time night fell, Jasper was somewhat more comfortable - the moaning had stopped, and with a generous dose of pain and sleep tonic, he seemed to actually be sleeping.

Alice wished she could.

Instead, she changed his bandages again before finding herself in the kitchen, with Charlotte piling plates with food.

“We heard from the others,” she said, taking her own seat. “Days away, Carlisle is furious. Emmett’s already on his way back with Rosalie, but they won’t make it here for at least a week.” Charlotte looked exhausted. “At least they’ll bring supplies.”

“What’s done is done,” Peter said smartly, watching Alice as she began to eat, exhaustion in every one of her motions. “Jasper will be okay now, yes?”

Alice looked up. “Well,” she began, and sighed. “There were so many bites,” she managed, trying to be kind. “And he’s been bitten before - even one previous bite decreases the effectiveness of treatment. I swear I am doing everything I can possibly do.”

“You’re young, yes?” Peter shot back. ��Not even a full Guardian yet?”

“Peter!” Charlotte scolded.

“No, I’m not of age yet. My title does not affect my ability - I have been trained. I have completed my lessons. There is nothing I can think of that I am not already doing,” Alice retorted.

“And we are grateful,” Charlotte broke in.

“Yup, I’m positive Jasper would be thrilled that his life is in the hands of a schoolgirl,” Peter muttered before getting up from the table and storming away.

Alice was too tired to be angry, and just sighed and went back to her food - Charlotte was far and away a better cook than the aunts; perhaps a week of edible food, and she’d be filling out her dresses properly.

“I’m sorry, Peter and Jasper… they’re like brothers. They’ve been together for years,” Charlotte said, looking at her plate. “…Please, please don’t let Peter’s rudeness dissuade you from helping Jasper…”

Alice looked up in shock. “No. No, of course not. I understand his frustration, I do. And there’s nothing he could say to me that would make me treat Jasper any less, I promise.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte smiled, and began to clear the table. “The guest room is at the top of the stairs, I’ve laid out a nightgown for you, and some towels. Peter’s taken care of your horse, and I’m sure…”

“That’s very kind of you,” Alice said gently, “but I’ll sit up with Jasper tonight; he’ll need watching.”

“Could I help at all? Watch him in shifts?” Charlotte asked, but Alice could see the exhaustion and worry in every line of the woman’s face. If they weren’t careful, Charlotte would fall ill too and she’d have two patients.

“No, it has to be me, to make sure the bites are clean and the tonic takes. We’ll have a better idea of how he is tomorrow, though,” Alice offered. “I would like to bathe, though, if you could watch him?”

“Oh, of course - there’s a washroom in the guest room,” Charlotte said, gesturing to the stairs. “Thank you, Alice. I mean it. Thank you for coming, I feel like everything is going to be okay now that you’re here.”

—

It was a long night, with exhaustion setting in for Alice - she hadn’t slept in over a day, had ridden half-way up the border… she felt like an old woman. But it was her duty. And she would do it to the best of her ability.

Charlotte had leant her several dresses, and it was quite strange to wear a colour that wasn’t black or grey, but a welcome novelty, even if the dresses were a size too big.

Settling beside the sickbed, Alice administered the tonic every two hours, and found herself changing the bandages obsessively, as soon as she saw or smelt the venom. She flushed out the bite wounds - one would need stitching. She’d have to cauterise the chest wound first thing in the morning; his fever still lingered, but the tonics and potions seemed to have had a powerful effect on the infection, with the red veins having already retreated.

Though, she might have to teach Charlotte how to administer stitches whilst she was here. The woman was clearly unfamiliar with stitching flesh. Maybe some rudimentary treatments so that they didn’t have to wait twelve hours for help.

The aunts had packed her two new books to read - purely educational, histories of the coven, that were not even a little bit relevant in her current situation, or interesting. But they did keep her awake.

Morning came, and Jasper’s fever had broken. She nearly cheered at that, and when Peter and Charlotte burst in at dawn, she gave them the good news. She thought that Peter was going to cry - Charlotte certainly did. But then she required the couple hold him down as she cauterised the chest wound.

Charlotte ended up vomiting at the smell, and Peter looked at little woozy, but at least he was held together with more than embroidery thread now. She quickly applied a fresh layer of ointment that smelt like mint and tea leaves to the raw wound and bound up his chest up in fresh bandages. At least Charlotte had the practicality of preparing an immense quantity of fresh, sterile bandages that looked like they been cut from good quality bed linens or petticoats.

The day moved slowly; Charlotte brought her meals in on a tray, and sat with Jasper whilst she changed her dress again, and sent a message to the aunts. Peter was very respectful around her, and brought her anything she asked for - purified water, feverfew, lavender, aloe vera. Jasper seemed to sleep more comfortably each day, as she fed him cold tea laced with every possible tonic and potion she had in her bag and could create from scratch. His bite marks were cleared every day, settling into fresh scar tissue. She was genuinely sorry that they had scarred, but there was nothing for it.

But only time would tell if the venom had made it to his heart.

—

Seven days. She had been at the Del Rio house for seven days and seven nights. Jasper had passed out of danger, and was now just healing, though he hadn’t regained consciousness. But Alice continued to nurse him, as was her duty and purpose here. She fed him careful sips of tea and then herbal broth, to build up his strength and hopefully reinforce his immunity; she rubbed ointments into his new wounds to keep the skin supple and preveshe lnt thick scar tissue and ease any discomfort. She helped Charlotte wash and dress him as soon as she deemed it safe.

That she had not been expecting. She hoped her poker face was good, because she’d really never seen a man’s body before. Not like that - she was only nineteen, had lived with the aunts since she was sixteen and had never been courted. Even her lessons had been done on whatever animals they could hunt or trade for from the market, not really humans. And this man, he was… handsome. He was tall and just the right amount of muscular and tan and, she shouldn’t be having these thoughts.

She couldn’t even imagine her embarrassment if this Jasper had seen her in such a way.

Oh, she was definitely sleep deprived. She had yet to sleep a single second in the guest room, snatching cat naps in the corner of Jasper’s sick room when she couldn’t hold her eyes open a single moment longer.

Which was what she was doing now. She twisted her neck uncomfortably; she’d been sleeping at a funny angle, she’d be feeling that all day. Stretching out, she looked over at her patient, only to see Jasper staring back at her curiously.

“Oh my gods!” Alice gasped, scrambling over. “You’re awake? How are you feeling? How long have you been awake?”

She quickly helped him sit up, reading for the water cup on the beside table. He took two deep swallows before coughing.

“Oh, it’s got lemon and mint in it, for healing,” she explained. “It’s helped, I promise. Hopefully we can get you back to normal drinking water and food tomorrow.”

“Who are you?” croaked Jasper, looking up at her with glazed eyes.

“Oh. Um, I’m Alice Brandon. From the Laredo Guard House,” she said, embarrassed. She was acting like a bumbling sixteen year old trainee, not a proper Guardian. “I was summoned when you were wounded.”

“Alice Brandon from Laredo,” Jasper repeated, a quirk of his lips. “Thank you.” His energy seemed to drain out of him all at once - totally normal for the severity of his wounds and his recovery.

“It was nothing,” she said. “Sleep now. It’s a great healer. Charlotte and Peter will be awake in a few hours.”

He nodded half-heartedly before he closed his eyes again, and Alice sat backwards. He was okay. Two blue eyes without a hint of red, talking and lucid, and drinking easily. She did it.

He lived.

—

Both Peter and Charlotte had wept when they realised that Jasper was conscious again, and Peter had nearly tackled the man when he saw Jasper sitting up, drinking water and talking to Alice, trying to piece together what had happened to him, and to learn how she had treated him - the Del Rio Guard House had fallen to the Whitlock-Hales several generations ago, and many of the old skills - like healing - had been lost.

In fact, it was only him, Peter, and Charlotte who were at the house full-time now - they hired local boys to help out on the ranch that funded the Del Rio clan. Jasper’s own sister and brother-in-law visited regularly, as did various other friends and allies, “but none of us are witchlings,” he coughed. “We were raised in the sun, not in the night.”

She smiled at reference to the old rhyme. “Even your sister?” she asked; girls were kept to the night, boys to the day. Old attitudes that had held true - girls were protected and cloistered (and much less likely to be caught poisoning or cursing) in the darkness. Their herbs and plants bloomed and grew so much harder under the moon than the sun. But boys, they were the fighters, the warriors, and battle against vampires and other dark creatures was best done when there was no darkness to escape into.

“Even my sister,” Jasper had smiled. “Rose would have made a horrible healer - punched me in the arm and told me to ‘man up’ the first time I fell off a horse; my arm was broken. She’s not nearly as committed as I am, but she helps. Her husband’s good at it too, he just married into the madness.” He spoke about his family with such affection, Alice felt a little jealous, but before she could ask any other questions, Charlotte and Peter were there, Jasper just as pleased to see them as they were to see him.

Alice slipped out to give them privacy - a bath and a clean dress sounded heavenly right now, and she ought to send another message to the aunts. She’d help Jasper wash and change afterwards, and hopefully be able to move him from the sick room to his usual quarters with fresh sheets. He’d sleep more comfortably in his own bed.

By lunchtime, Jasper was safely ensconced in his own bed, in a room that overlooked the a paddock of horses. He’d eaten some broth and drunk as many cups of herbal tea as Alice could press on him, as she fussed around. Peter had headed off to get ranch work done, and Charlotte had taken up a vigil at Jasper’s bedside with some sewing.

“Alice, please, you don’t have to do anything of that,” Charlotte laughed as Alice began folding clothing. “You should rest - you must be exhausted.” Turning to Jasper, she continued, “I don’t think she’s rested this entire time - she sat with you every night, didn’t even wake us to help change your bandages. She insisted Peter and I sleep.”

“Oh, I’m up at night anyway,” Alice laughed. “And I’m here to help.”

Jasper was watching her carefully now.

“She hasn’t stopped at all. I cannot imagine how efficient the Laredo House is,” Charlotte shook her head. “Though, I’m sure having proper recruits makes a difference.”

Alice shook her head, as she reached out to plump a pillow behind Jasper’s head. “Oh, it’s just me and the aunts,” she said airily. “All the old families are dying out, and, well, it’s not exactly a glamorous position. I knew I’d be sent to Laredo since I was very small, so I suppose my mother and father prepared me for it.”

“It sounds lonely,” Jasper said quietly.

And it was. She always tried to think of the positives, that she had her own bedroom, and she got to learn so quickly and do hands on practice much more quickly, and there were practically no chores but she had still been alone there for three and a half years. No companions, just duty. It hadn’t felt quite as bad until she’d come here, to this bright, happy place with sweet Charlotte and practical Peter and handsome Jasper…

“It’s home,” she finally said, honestly. “But I will take you up on that offer for a rest. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to wake me.”

“I’ll be fine, I promise,” Jasper said.

“See that you do - you’re my first official patient, and it would look terrible if you died when I was napping,” Alice teased, before slipping out of the room. She could sleep, finally.

—

The next week and a half fell into a routine. Jasper regained his strength surprisingly quickly, and went from being bedridden to eating meals in the kitchen with them all, to back on his horse - an enormous brown beast named Duke - within the week, though he did seem to tire quickly.

He took to showing her their operation - the wall of blessed weapons in the barn and in the house, the modified saddles to carry the weapons, the horses carefully trained to protect their rider and be desensitised to the presence of vampires.

It turned out that Charlotte was a newcomer, a local girl raised as a kitchen-witch whose brother had worked on the ranch. Charlotte had fallen quite hard for Peter, to hear Jasper tell it, and hadn’t flinched when she realised she’d married into a quasi-family of cowboy vampire hunters. She had started a small greenhouse with many common herbs that was a good start, but Alice knew that they needed something a little more robust for their ‘business’. She immediately promised Jasper to write them a list of additions they needed - and send them seeds and samples - and their purpose as soon as she was back in Laredo.

It was all very pleasant, but Alice realised quickly that Jasper was, for all intents and purposes, healed. She had no place here any longer; his sister would arrive soon, and he had no use of a nurse or witching now. She needed to leave.

She announced those plans at dinner that night, as Charlotte presented another one of her delightful spreads.

“I’m going to miss this,” she said ruefully, as they all dug in. “The aunts cannot cook at all.”

“Miss this?” Charlotte asked innocently, passing out hot rolls.

“Jasper is healed,” Alice smiled, trying to keep her voice upbeat. “Your recovery will continue, and you should be conservative about what you take on for a months or two, but you have no need for me any longer. I should return home first thing tomorrow.”

Everyone froze.

“So soon?” Jasper managed, almost looking… hurt?

“The aunts need me. They’re elderly,” Alice explained, “and it’s where I belong.”

Silence.

“Well, we’re mighty grateful you came all the way out here for us,” Peter said. “We’d all be happy to see you around here again.”

“Ah, but that would mean one of you was hurt, and that would be acceptable,” Alice teased. “You’ve been very kind to me. If I could trouble you for some food for the trip home, Charlotte…”

“Oh, of course,” Charlotte nodded. Jasper was focused on his potatoes and not looking at anyone. “You must stay in touch, yes? It’s been so nice having another woman here.”

“Of course,” Alice gushed, trying to ignore the reaction she knew the aunts would have if she started using the messaging system for socialising. “I’m going to be lost without you!”

“You’re not the only one,” Peter murmured, and Alice chose not to pull at that thread, and instead turned the conversation to Jasper’s sister’s arrival and tried not to dread the next morning.

—

It was a moment of weakness when she waited til Jasper was downstairs helping Peter wash up, when she slipped the medallion into his cowboy boots. He’d never feel the tiny silver charm, blessed with protection and a long life, but it would keep him safe.

She tried to convince herself it was because he probably wouldn’t survive another bite, but it didn’t work.

—

She left just before dawn, once again clad in her blacks - freshly washed and mended by Charlotte - and Jasper was waiting there, holding Hallow’s bridle as she walked out, Charlotte’s food tucked into her bag.

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” she said, realising Hallow was saddled and ready to leave.

“I wanted to.” He looked her up and down. “You look beautiful.”

Alice smiled - her black lace dress, from ankle to wrist to throat - was practically her uniform; she had four more just like it hanging in her wardrobe at home. Any particular beauty in the garment had faded the one hundredth time she wore it.

Jasper stepped closer to her; standing on the second step of the porch, they were nearly eye-to-eye.

“I never truly thank you for what you did for me - Peter and Charlotte filled me in,” he continued.

“It was truly nothing, it was what I was born for,” she said, wondering if it was Jasper’s proximity that was making her so warm, or if summer was coming early.

Jasper just stared at her and all of a sudden his lips were on hers.

She had never been kissed before, not even once, and it was… unexpected. Within a moment, Jasper deepened it, and she was properly clinging to his strong shoulders and oh, how could he do such a thing to her when she was about to leave?

Pulling back slowly, Jasper ducked his head. “I just wanted to do that once,” he murmured. “I couldn’t let you walk away without…”

“I can’t,” Alice whispered, somehow unable to pull away. “I… I’m not allowed. I would have to recant my vows, and the aunts have no one else to take on the Laredo house… I just can’t.”

Jasper looked at her. “That seems cruel,” he said in a low voice. “Looking after some old ladies until they die, then being left alone without being allowed anything more.”

“It’s how things are done,” Alice took a shaking breath. “I’m sorry. Please thank Charlotte and Peter for their hospitality.”

And with that, Alice took Hallow’s bridle from Jasper and mounted her horse, leaving for the Laredo house, trying to drag her mind away from what was behind her, from the first (and likely the only) kiss she had ever been given. From the way he looked at her, like she hung the moon.

She was, in all probability, never going to see him again. And that was how it was supposed to be.

#jaliceweek20 #does this even count?#it's set in texas and there are horses #alice cullen #jasper hale #my fic: love and duty #jalice #alice/jasper

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granblue-fantasies · 4 years

Text

Between Frost and Flame

Aglovale x Reader x Percival

NSFW. To fulfill the multiple requests for these two from my Sharing is Caring event.

You had been taking a break from your duties in Wales Castle in your favorite fashion - draped across a chaise lounge with a book in hand - when Percival approached you with a proposition.

“I depart for Feendrache a few days,” he said stiffly, his chin held high, “and I would ask you to accompany me.”

You balked, your book slipping from your fingers and tumbling to the floor. His sudden invitation had caught you completely off-guard.

“Accompany you?” you could only echo, cheeks flushing. “My lord, I—“

Aglovale’s deep chuckle sounded from a doorway at the opposite end of the room, announcing his presence and startling you and Percival both.

“So you plan to steal my dearest vassal away from me?” he chided. “Percival... You know I won’t let such a brazen attempt go unchallenged.”

The sounds of shifting armor and heavy footsteps drawing steadily nearer raised the hair on the back of your neck. You saw ire spark in Percival’s eyes as he watched his brother approach, and noticed his hands ball momentarily into fists before he squared his shoulders and faced the king with dignity.

You swallowed thickly around the lump in your throat, heart fluttering in nervous anticipation. Your previous encounters with the king and his younger brother hadn’t left you any less enamored with either of them.

And upon learning this, a rematch was declared.

NSFW, lewd naughtiness below!

- - - - - -

The two proud men bore down on you with a voracity that bordered on barbaric. Had it not been for your deep affinity for both of them and your knowledge of their finer characters, you might have mistaken their true natures for that of common brigands. But you’d been playing along with this game of theirs for a while now. You knew it well, and you were a willing - and equally insatiable - participant.

Though one couldn’t deny the impropriety, you were shocked and delighted when the royal brothers endeavored to ravish you right there where you lay. There were some skills and habits you’d picked up during your time here that lent themselves well to the situation at hand.

Percival’s hot-blooded nature fueled a fiery appetite, and to bend you over and take you suddenly and impulsively was his guilty pleasure. Some time ago you’d began cutting out the gussets of your undergarments, so he need only push up your petticoats to gain access to you whenever he wished.

The king, meanwhile, was exceedingly fond of calling you to his side in private appointment. You usually spent a significant portion of those intimate meetings on your knees. Not because he didn’t respect you, no; he simply savored the many long sessions you’d spend beneath his desk, at his bedside, or even before his throne, devoutly worshiping his cock and balls with the passionate caresses of your lips and tongue.

Each of the two, therefore, had his own favorite post to assume, and each hell-bent on staking their claim on you once and for all.

Aglovale cradled your cheek in his hand, gazing down at you with a warm and benevolent air even as he fucked your mouth in slow, decadent thrusts. Your head was tilted against the cobalt velvet of the armrest, and angled so as to grant him the most convenient access.

“Such a good girl,” he praised, “You please me so.”

You hummed in delight at his words, bobbing your head along his shaft and trying to coax him deeper. He stroked your cheek with his thumb and slid his girthy cock down the back of your throat, watching with approval as you strained to take his full, magnificent length. There was something so overpowering, so hypnotic about him — his deeply reverberating voice, his gentle touch upon your face, his very being commanded your adoration. It made you enjoy the way your throat seized to fight its natural reflex, muscles straining as his throbbing clock slid ever deeper. With fervent devotion, you strove to embody the perfect instrument of his pleasure.

Can he not see how completely she submits to me, and with such passion? Aglovale mused, glancing at his brother. She shapes herself to fit me, she bends to my will. She is mine.

Percival held one of your legs up in the air as he fucked you sideways, his hips snapping back and forth with precision. The velvety warmth of your cunt seemed to draw him in deeper, that heavenly sensation that drove him to seek you out at every opportunity. Only one thing marred this moment... The presence of Aglovale. Percival gritted his teeth at the sight of you blissfully sucking his elder brother’s cock.

Always so selfish, brother, he thought wryly. It makes you short-sighted. How many times have you used her so, unaware that my seed was likely dripping down her thighs all the while?

His pride swelled as he felt you rocking your hips into his thrusts, knowing he was the one your body was aching for. He drove himself harder inside you, bottoming out and grinding his cock in deep. The quick, confident tempo of his thrusts incited a steadily building pressure deep in your belly. As he reached down to gently tease your swollen clit you bucked your hips and groaned, your walls clenching down hard around his shaft.

Enjoy her service while it lasts, Aglovale, he seethed. Soon she won’t be able to use that mouth of hers for anything other than screaming my name.

You were in the throes of ecstasy, your moans of desperate delight echoing up into the coffered ceilings. Aglovale’s deep, slow thrusting against your face did somewhat muffle your cries, but Percival amped up his fierce pounding, eager to hear you gasp his name around his elder brother’s cock.

Aglovale’s gaze slid to meet Percival’s in a silent taunt. He relaxed his body and let the plush slickness of your mouth and throat carry him towards climax at last. With a sly gleam in his eyes he ran his fingers through your hair and pulled your head against his hips, slamming his cock down your throat and pumping his cum deep inside you. Your body shuddered as you choked it down, your eyes squeezed shut and tears beading at your lashline. But when you’d swallowed every drop and your eyes opened once again, you looked up at Aglovale with dazed and delirious adoration.

His stomach twisting with fury at the sight, Percival hammered into you even harder than before, as if to punish you for your disloyalty. You gasped and pulled back from Aglovale, long strings of saliva and cum trailing from his dick to your parted lips.

“You’ll cum for me,” Percival snarled, and you writhed under his relentless assault, your hand sinking down between your spread legs. As you frantically massaged your clit you felt Percival grinding the head of his dick inside you where he knew you liked it most; panting and whimpering you drew nearer and nearer to your climax. He chuckled triumphantly between his own ragged breaths, watching you come unraveled beneath him.

Aglovale took this opportunity to lean down and murmur something in your ear; filthy words meant only for you, utter blasphemy on the lips of a king.

Percival saw this — he watched his brother’s mouth move, felt your pussy pulse in wild desire in response, and his heart burned with indignation until your next move soothed him. You reached your free hand out to Percival in yearning and he grasped it, lacing your fingers together as you pulled him closer to you and crested the peak of your release. You orgasmed nearly in unison, your cunt milking his throbbing cock and drawing his hot seed deep into your womb. He was too overcome with bliss to notice Aglovale stroking your hair as you rode out the shockwaves of pleasure that wracked your body.

Face flushed and chest heaving, you lay sprawled across the chaise in a breathless stupor as the men pulled back and righted themselves.

“I’ll send for you tonight,” Aglovale whispered in your ear, audibly smirking. “You will come to me.”

Before you could answer he straightened up and turned to take his leave.

“Percival,” he tossed over his shoulder, his calm demeanor suddenly stern, forbidding. “You won’t have her again.”

He stepped over the threshold and was gone.

Percival scoffed and pulled you into his embrace as his brother left the room.

“Come with me,” he said, kissing the top of your head and stroking your leg tenderly. “We can leave tonight. I can make the arrangements at once.”

Your heart raced.

The taste of Aglovale was still on your tongue, Percival’s seed hot and wet between your thighs.

You hadn’t even caught your breath yet.

How in God’s name were you supposed to decide?

#gbf percival #gbf aglovale #granblue fantasy #gbf fanfiction #gbf imagines #request event #requests #sharing is caring #gbf reader insert

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lowritesthings · 4 years

Text

Resonance

Part 7 of ?? (Part One) << Previous // Next >>

You make it back to Five. You have no idea how. Your brain has blacked out the immediate aftermath of the plate fall. It’s some self-defense mechanism no doubt, because suddenly you realize you’re in your apartment in your own slums, gazing down at your dirty hands. They’re caked with grime and dried blood and you can’t stop staring at them, your brain wiped of every thought except of how filthy your fingernails are.

It’s a stupid, inane observation, but you feel as though if you try to think of anything else, you’ll crack in half and never be able to put yourself together again. So you keep staring at your hands.

At some point, minutes or hours later, you begin to shower.

You surface again, dry but naked, not sure when you got out of the shower.

Fresh clothes? They’re on your body but you don’t remember dressing.

No food. You’ll vomit it back up. You manage some water.

Kids. Leaf House. They’ll be terrified. You should go help, you should do something. You can’t sit here and think, you can’t remember, you need to move. If you stop—

There’s a huge hole in you, waiting to swallow you up, and if you stop and let yourself think about what happened, you’ll slide even closer to the edge of that hole. You don’t think there’s a bottom to it and you don’t want to find out.

So you go to the Leaf House.

There are kids everywhere. Some are terrified and some are so horribly blank, like they’ve been hollowed out of everything joyous or childlike. Your heart aches for them until it feels like your whole chest is gripped in a vice, and your throat is in a similar state. Immediately you begin helping to label and organize the children into different age groups, gently asking each one what their name is. As you do this work alongside another Leaf House employee, your eyes search through the faces. But as things settle into something resembling order, you have to admit to yourself that Marlene isn’t here.

A fresh wave of anguish threatens to drag you under at the thought that Marlene might not have escaped, but you wrestle it back. These kids—the new orphans and the old, even the ones that are only separated from their families and lost—they all need you.

You begin to work again, trying to calculate how much extra food and how many extra beds will be needed. The house mother is already discussing sending a few adults over to other slums for help, though none of them will have much to offer.

The hours are quick and chaotic. You can feel your body begging for sleep and try to push past it, but eventually Folia forces you to get a few hours rest before you collapse.

Don’t dream, you order yourself once you’re laying in your bed. But of course you do: you dream of all of them. Of Barret, Tifa, Jessie, Wedge, Marlene, even Cloud...and, perhaps most of all, you dream of Biggs.

Once morning comes, it’s back to the Leaf House for a challenging morning of feeding an army of hungry kids. The sun is high in the sky by the time that task is done and cleanup is over, and that’s when you catch a glimpse of a few familiar figures.

“Tifa!” A wave of relief crashes over you at the sight of your friend. Cloud and Barret are with her too. She jogs over to you and wraps you in a huge hug.

“I’m so sorry,” you tell her, squeezing her tight. She sniffles a little as she steps back but she doesn’t let the tears fall.

“We’re going to get some payback,” she promises. “For everyone and everything we lost. I don’t know how yet, but...we’ll think of something.”

You nod and glance over at Barret. “Tifa...did Marlene…?”

“Yes!” She reaches out and squeezes your hands. “She made it out, she’s okay. And we found Wedge too. He’s hurt but alive.”

“He got me out. Forced me to go,” you tell her.

“You were there?”

You nod. “I tried to patch up some of the fighters. I’m not sure how much help I was in the end.”

“Of course you were a help!” She pulls you into a second hug. “I—I can’t stay. We have something to do. But I’ll come back as soon as I can, okay? And we can help the people of Sector Seven together.”

You nod. “I know you can kick plenty of ass, but I’m glad you’ll have Cloud and Barret with you. I can check in on Marlene if you need me to.”

“She’s with Aerith’s mother. Wedge is there too.”

“Tifa!” Barret yells.

“Gotta go. See you soon!” Tifa turns and hurries to catch up to Barret and Cloud. You wave at them all and head back into the Leaf House building.

You’re not sure how many hours pass between that conversation and nightfall, but the sun has just disappeared below the horizon when there’s a commotion at the front door of the orphanage. You’re dead on your feet, but you can hear the urgency in the House Mother’s voice as she orders a bed to be cleared, so you make your way to the front of the building to see what’s going on.

There are three men in the doorway. Two standing upright: Neighborhood Watch members from Sector Seven you only recognize by sight. And slumped in between them, unconscious and filthy, is—

“Biggs!” you gasp, shock weakening your knees. You stay on your feet but it’s a close thing.

“Upstairs,” you tell the men carrying him when you get enough air in your lungs to speak again. “He can take the bed in the staff room. I’ll—see about getting him cleaned up.”

They adjust their grips on him and carry him up the stairs while you start filling a basin with water and gathering washcloths. Then you take in a deep, steadying breath and head upstairs to the staff room.

He’s pale under the dirt and blood. While Folia uses a fire materia to warm the water, you examine him. Two broken ribs, a nasty gash in the head, and three bullet holes: a through and through in his right shoulder and a deep graze along his right side, along with one bullet still lodged inside of his upper left leg.

Together, you and Folia manage to get him out of his shirt, undershirt and shorts. Then you send her for bandages while you wash away the worst of the grime from his body. Your hands shake a little as you clean him, and you have to stop and change the water a couple of times. Then, when he’s clean, you get your medical kit and carefully, slowly extract the bullet that’s still in Bigg’s leg.

He groans in pain but remains unconscious, and your chest is tight with anguish by the time you manage to get the bullet out.

“Wake up, Biggs,” you whisper to him as you begin wrapping his wounds. “Please wake up.”

He doesn’t, of course.

Once you’ve tended to all of his hurts, you take a moment to brush his hair away from his forehead. It’s softer than you imagined, a beautiful dark brown that’s close to black. You let your fingers trace along the side of his face as you pull your hand back, knowing you’d never have the courage to touch him like this if he was awake.

“They haven’t found Jessie.”

The House Mother’s voice makes you jump, and you turn to see her in the doorway. She’s holding Jessie’s headband and one of her gloves. She holds them out to you and you cross the room to take them from her.

“That’s all they’ve recovered of hers so far. I know it looks bad, but that could be a good sign. They would have found her with those if she’d died there. She must have tried to find her way out. She could be alive,” she says to you.

“How could she have survived it? How did Biggs survive it?” you ask. You’re afraid to hope that Jessie is alive, though finding these things and no body is a good sign.

“From what those two men told me, when the pillar collapsed, the metal framework above him crumpled into an arch and made a sort of...pocket in the rubble. Some search and rescue workers found him and pulled him out before the whole thing collapsed. They’ve found a few survivors like that, but most…” the House Mother shakes her head. “I’m glad he’s alive, though. I can only hope Jessie is too.”

“Wedge made it,” you say. “He’s with Elmyra.”

“He is? I’m so glad!”

“Me too.” You wrap your arms over your chest in a sort of self-hug. “But...hundreds of others...thousands, probably...”

She nods and touches your cheek. “I know. But try to get some rest. Are you headed home?”

You glance over your shoulder at Biggs on the bed behind you, then shake your head. “I’ll stay, in case he wakes and needs something for the pain.”

She hesitates, then decides not to say anything about the impropriety of you two being alone in a room together overnight. Instead she wishes you a pleasant rest and heads off to her own bed. You find some extra bedding and make yourself comfortable on the tiny couch.

“Goodnight, Biggs,” you whisper as you settle in for the night. “See you in the morning.”

——

Folia shakes you awake.

You groan and blink, trying to shield your eyes from the daylight streaming in through the window.

“The president is dead,” she tells you.

“What?” You manage to sit up, but you’re so groggy that you’re not sure you heard her right.

“The president of Shinra. He’s dead. His son is holding a press conference this afternoon to discuss Shinra’s new direction.”

You remember the grim look in Tifa’s eyes when she’d told you that she had something to do yesterday. Had the three of them been on their way to assassinate President Shinra? How could they possibly have made it all the way to his inner sanctum?

“I’ll meet you downstairs in a minute, let me just freshen up a bit,” you tell her. She leaves the room and you follow her out, heading down the hall to the small bathroom to wash off and brush your teeth. Then you change into the emergency stash of clothes you keep in your employee locker and head downstairs to get the rest of the story and help with breakfast.

Your feet barely make contact with the ground floor when something causes the kids outside to start exclaiming in wonder. You glance out of the window to see tiny sparkles of light falling like snow from the sky in spite of the plate above you.

“What the—?”

“Look, Miss!” cries one of the new girls. “Aren't they pretty?”

“Yeah,” you agree slowly, “they're really pretty. What are they?”

“I don’t know but they’re everywhere!” She laughs and runs outside to try and catch them like some of the other kids are doing. Then, filled with some sort of inexplicable hope, you turn around and dash right back up the stairs you’d just come down.

You reach the door of the staff room and stop in the hallway, taking a second to control your emotions. Then you step over the threshold, trying not to hold your breath as your eyes turn to the bed.

Biggs is awake.

He must have just woken up: he’s still blinking up at the ceiling above him in confusion, his body shifting on top of the unfamiliar mattress. The relief of that sight is so strong and sweet that you sag for a moment against the wall, thanking whatever higher power that exists for his survival. Then you walk quietly toward the bed, forcing yourself to move slowly.

“Welcome back,” you say, and his eyes snap over to you. “Try not to move too quickly, you’re probably sore all over and your ribs have seen much better days.”

“I knew I was gonna have to get hurt to spend time with you,” he jokes, trying to grin at you—but it ends in a wince as his attempt to sit up ends in pain. You cross over to the bed and help him into a more upright position, trying not to stare at his chest when the sheet slips down. You’d been so busy tending to him last night that you hadn’t really noticed how lean and strong his body is, but you notice now.

Stop that, you tell yourself firmly. Now isn’t the time—not when you still have to tell him about his entire sector getting wiped out.

“Biggs, I have to tell you something,” you say gently.

His face goes carefully blank as he watches you. You give him a second to brace himself. Then you cover his hand with your own and say, “The plate fell. Sector Seven is gone. We still don’t know where Jessie is.”

Biggs stares at you. His jaw is locked tight, teeth clenched hard together behind a mouth that’s pulled into a tense, thin line.

“Wedge made it out. Marlene too. Tifa and Barret are off with Cloud, I think they may have assassinated President Shinra last night. Avalanche managed to save a lot of the people of Sector Seven.”

“But we didn’t stop them.” Bigg’s voice is harsh from the pain of that knowledge.

“No.”

“And Jessie is probably dead.”

Your vision blurs a little and you fight down the threatening tears. “It’s…the most likely scenario, yes.”

His eyes close and his head drops back on the pillow. “I'm sorry, but I think I need—”

“It’s okay, I understand.” You squeeze his hand and then get up. “I’ll bring you up some food in a little bit.”

You glance over your shoulder at him one last time before you leave the room, then you close the door quietly behind you so he can grieve in peace.

Next >>

#biggs x reader #ff7 biggs #ffvii biggs #ff7r #fic: resonance #lo writes things

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anniebibananie · 5 years

Note

jonsa + soul marks but in canon

takes place post 8x03. enjoyyyyyyy.

Sansa had never seen him shirtless, she realized.

Maybe when they were children on a particularly hot day, but that was the sort of thing she would have avoided back then when faced with the concept of impropriety. The boys being obnoxious and Arya running around in circles, and Sansa would have felt unbelievably out of place. No, she had never seen him shirtless.

Now she saw it all.

He was laid out on her bed because it would be harder for people to find him here, they wouldn’t think to search her chambers, and he was close to passing out. His breaths were still coming in quickly, uneven, despite the fact that it had to have been an hour or two since he had done any fighting. It was difficult to know time, and Sansa was as exhausted as he looked.

She wrung out the cloth in the basin, red and dark, and swept it over his stomach again. It was hard not to reach out with a finger and trail over the deep scars from where he had been betrayed once, but it wasn’t her place. It wasn’t the time, and she didn’t want to remind him of one tragedy after only just facing another.

“Would you turn over?” she asked, attempting to divert her eyes from his stomach as he opened his own. “I can just check to see if there are any cuts on your back to be mended, and then I promise it will all be done.”

“You must be exhausted,” he said, his face scrunching up, “and here I am making you tend to me.”

“I offered,” she whispered. “As soon as it’s done we can both get some sleep and attempt to forget all the work that will come with waking up.”

He groaned. “Don’t remind me. Don’t remind yourself.”

She hummed, and he finally flipped over. When she saw his back, she gasped.

A long time ago, Sansa had believed in true love. It was hard to not fall into the romance of it all, and she was more romantic than most. Her and Jeyne would talk about soul marks and who might share their own. It was one of their favorite games to make up stories about the people around them, how it must have felt to see the other’s mark and knew they were the one.

Though, later Sansa would spend long stretches of time thinking about her parents whose marks didn’t match. She would wonder if Talisa and Robb shared one. She thought about all the ways marks made little sense, and the fact that there were a lot easier and more practical things to hope for than true love—safety, for one. Perhaps simple happiness.

“Sans?” he asked, head tilted to the side.

Her face must have looked something quite worrisome because he was springing up, but she couldn’t have him turn fully toward her. There were tears already coming to her eyes, and she moved from the chair beside her bed to the mattress itself so she could sit behind him.

On his shoulder, there was a crow with fluttering wings. She brought a hand up, fingers splayed, and she wanted to cover the whole thing. She wanted to trail her pointer finger over the mark until she could recognize the lines in her sleep. If she touched it, maybe it would disappear, though. Maybe it would vanish.

She touched his skin anyways, and he shivered underneath her finger.

“Sans?” he repeated, his voice huskier and more awake. “What—”

She stood up from the bed, and she lifted her skirts. She lifted them past scars and fresh bruises, and she showed him the crow that had always sat on her upper thigh. At one point, Ramsay had taken a thin knife and tried to cut through the neck of it thinking it a good joke. The angry, red mark remained, but the crow wasn’t dead. It flew still, fluttering wings similar to Jon’s.

He reached out a hand but he didn’t touch, instead looking up through his lashes to get permission first. She nodded, feeling herself clench without truly meaning to, and felt her breath halt as he hovered his fingers over the mark.

“I don’t—” His eyes were transfixed on her thigh, and her eyes were transfixed on him.

“Have you had this the whole time?” she asked.

He shook his head, and finally he looked up to meet her eyes. There was something deep and unreadable there, something that made Sansa feel on display but also like she never wanted to step away from that light.

“I used to have just a circle,” he said. “When Melisandre brought me back, I thought it was supposed to mean my mate would be the Night’s Watch. I thought it was a cruel joke from the universe that I was meant to love what had killed me.”

“My whole life, I’ve...” she trailed off, her throat tightening. Sansa wasn’t sure how to vocalize the feelings that were warring within her, the unbelievability of it. That at the end of the world, after surviving the end of the world, her soul mate was still alive and had been hiding right in front of her.

Except he hadn’t been hidden, because Sansa had spent moons working over the feelings that blossomed in her chest. For so long, she had fought those feelings knowing they were wrong, but then she found out he was her cousin, and now she found out he was her soul mate. The universe may not have been as cruel as she thought, but it certainly had a sense of humor.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she finally finished. “I stopped thinking you existed.”

He sighed and ran a hand down his face, the weary lines somehow looking deeper. “We can forget about them if you want. You don’t have to force yourself—”

She rolled her eyes. “Jon,” she said. He really did look like a man in love, but she didn’t want to give herself away to that quite yet. Not until she was sure. “Do you love the Dragon Queen? You came to me, you came to my rooms, I thought...”

I was the person who made you feel safe, she thought but couldn’t finish. Sansa had always held onto the belief that while Jon may be divided and confused, he could at least find peace with her. Maybe she was just easy, though, or comfortable in a way he didn’t have to worry about.

“How could I not?” he asked, and the gravel in his voice made Sansa think he was near tears, too. “I wanted to run, and you turned me around and—”

“Put you on another war path. Continued your fight.”

He shook his head, and though there was exhaustion weighing on his limbs he pushed himself slowly up to his feet. Sansa stepped closer to stop him, but it was too late. His hand came to her face, pushing red locks away from pale skin, and he set his eyes to her own.

“Made me feel alive. Gave me purpose.” Jon rested his hand on the curve of her neck, the end of his fingers dipping into the hair at the back, thumb rubbing over her pulse point. “You’re the only person I trust with me.”

She understood what he was trying to say. He gave her all of him, the truth of him, while he doled out versions of himself to others. At some point he had actually taken her advice and attempted to be smarter than those who’d fallen before him, but sometimes she worried she had only helped to fracture him. In his attempt at survival, he had compartmentalized himself to save the energy, to save the North.

Here, though, in front of her he could always freely share all of it. She was fairly sure she knew this because it was the same in return. Sansa trusted few with all of herself, and while it was tiring to wear a mask all day it kept them all safe and it kept the North running smoothly. Maybe there would be a day where she could let it go more easily, but until then the pieces of herself were what most got.

Now she definitely was crying a few delicate tears dripping down her face. Before her own hand made it to wipe them away, he was there cupping her cheeks and making the tears vanish with the pads of his thumbs.

“I love you,” she said. “I didn’t need a soul mark to tell me that.”

He smiled, and it pained Sansa that it might have been weeks since she had seen that genuine smile. She was happy she could give it to him.

“I trust you, I respect you, I couldn’t do any of this without you,” he said in return. “I never loved her, Sans. It would have been impossible with me already in love with you.”

She pushed forward and gave him a kiss, and she hated to fall on all those old tropes of the romantic younger version of herself, but it really did feel as if she was melting into him. Though, maybe they were simply exhausted and it felt as if they could relax for just a moment. They could succumb to this simple desire.

“Can we sleep?” she asked.

He nodded and turned to pull the sheet back as she began to take off her dress. There were the sounds of fabric and leather falling to the floor, and then she slipped into the bed behind him. He offered her his chest, and she curled as much of herself around him as she could manage.

In the morning, there would be a million things they would need to take care of. Here, now, she listened to Jon’s heartbeat underneath her cheek and let it lull her to sleep, happy to be in the arms of the one she loved.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #sansa x jon #actuallyjonsa #jonsa fanfiction #annie writes #my fanfiction #prompts #jonsa prompts #this was hella fun my dudes #Anonymous

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jade-masquerade · 5 years

Text

A Sweet Nuisance

Written for @jonsadreamofspring Day 2: Wolves

Jon brings a gift back for Sansa from beyond the Wall after many moons away.

Sansa hurried down the steps of the keep, pulling her cloak tight. It seemed silly to even bother with it, really, when she’d be rushing back up to take it off in mere minutes.

Jon had been gone for more than a few turns of the moon now to visit the deep north and beyond the Wall. It had been well past time he traveled to the far reaches of his kingdom—or theirs, rather, as he’d said before he left, the night they’d spent more awake rather than asleep even though he had much to do and far to ride the next day. Sansa was certain he would have many a tale to tell about his visits to the northern lords and the mountain clans, and while she was interested to hear how his proposition to the wildlings who’d refused to pass through the gates of Castle Black the first time had gone over, there would be plenty of suppers and council meetings over the next few days to discuss such. Tonight would be theirs alone.

Ghost padded silently at her side, his long strides allowing him to easily keep up with her quick pace. She had fought Jon when he announced he would be leaving his direwolf in Winterfell, insisting he ought to take the wolf for his own protection, and that Ghost would be much happier out in the open, loping along on the road instead of cooped up in Winterfell.

“At least this way I can sleep at night, knowing you’re safe,” Jon told her.

“And what will I do?” she had asked, but Jon had barely left the sightlines of Winterfell before she was grateful for his insistence. Ghost was the closest thing to Jon himself, someone who understood without words, who sensed character as well or better than she could, who knew when she needed a kind eye or to bury her hands in his fur.

Still, she knew Ghost would rather be off hunting in the wolfswood than sitting beside her as she spent her days sewing, singing, and sitting by the fire with a book in hand. He would have all the time he wanted to do as he desired now though, once Sansa locked her door with only Jon behind it, and they had no need for escorts or protectors or attendants, no need for anything more than each other.

She found she’d become as wanton as a wildling in his absence, craving his kiss, thirsting for his touch, aching for his embrace. It was shameful how often she had imagined Jon’s return over the past fortnight, ever since she’d received the raven he had at last turned back towards Winterfell. It was far more shameful how often she had imagined the night ahead with a hand between her legs.

Sansa made it to the yard just in time to watch Jon slide down from his horse and hand the reins to one of his men. She rushed towards him, but before she could throw her arms around him and press herself up against him, he reached out and held her at arm’s length.

“I have something for you,” Jon said, a smile playing on his lips.

He started to remove his cloak. It wasn’t like Jon to make lewd jests or take a pass at her, especially out in the open, with most of Winterfell watching, no matter how she knew he felt on the inside, but oh, how she hoped he desired her half as much as she did him.

Sansa felt her own demure mask slipping the longer he occupied his hands with something else other than her, no matter what it was. Would it be so unseemly for them to share a kiss, a few touches that bordered on moving beyond chaste? After all, they were man and wife, and surely all of Winterfell would suspect them of those things and more anyhow after they spent a few days abed in their chambers together.

If we make it there, a wicked voice whispered. She would have taken Jon against the haystacks in the stables it had been so long, if he wished. Or in the godswood, if he wished to pay his respects first. Or there were many an alcove along the way to their rooms…

Sansa chastised herself. Had her mind truly turned that slatternly while he had been away?

Jon drew away the edge of his cloak to reveal a bundle of white-grey fur tinted red rolled up beneath it. She squinted, not seeing why this was more imperative than a proper greeting for his wife… or improper, rather. Had he brought her the hide of a winter fox? A blanket knitted from beyond the Wall?

Then she saw the outline of a nose and noticed the quickening of breath, and it turned its eyes on her. They were brown instead of golden, but they were also as sweet and curious as the first pair of those eyes Sansa had ever set her own sights on.

No, not a fox, nor any kind of bed clothes. A wolf. A direwolf.

“We found him on our way back,” Jon explained, cupping the pup gently between his hands as its eyes darted around to take in the surroundings. “He was orphaned, or abandoned. Left all alone.”

Like us, she thought, or at least how they had been until she found Jon again at Castle Black, and then found more still with him when they took back Winterfell.

“Oh, Jon,” she gasped, not certain she knew the words to convey her gratitude. She knew she didn’t need them though, that Jon would understand even if no one else did. “You certainly have a knack for finding them, don’t you?”

She remembered the day Jon had brought Lady back, along with Robb and Bran and the rest of the pups. She had fallen in love in that instant, with Lady’s little mewls and whimpers, her delicate features, her kind nature. And even though the pup now staring back at her was a bit bigger, fluffier, and shyer, she felt the exact same way once more.

“Aye, I suppose I do,” Jon said, and he seemed to know where her thoughts had taken her. “I know you miss Lady. She was taken too soon from you.”

“Thank you,” she said, not meeting his eyes because she knew hers would fill with tears. Instead she busied herself with the pup, brushing her hands over his soft fur.

“He’s small now,” he said, “But I imagine he’ll grow fast with some care and proper nourishment.”

Sansa took the bundle of fur in her arms and he licked her face. It was something Lady had never done, nor had she wanted her to, but when the laps didn’t stop, Sansa laughed.

“All right, all right,” Jon said gruffly.

“Your turn,” said Sansa, reaching up to kiss his cheek the way she did whenever they were not locked behind closed doors. She wrinkled her nose. “You need a bath.”

“Such kind words,” he said, grinning beneath his mock discontent. She knew he wanted nothing more than to get out of sight of his men, and he dismissed them with a wave as they headed to their chambers.

“What else did you find?” Sansa asked once Jon settled into the bath. She knelt beside the tub, handing Jon soap and sponge as he scrubbed.

He finished at last, leaning his head back against the edge and closing his eyes. “Death. Destruction. Dwellings deserted. More of the same.”

“Did you see them? The Others.” The water of the bath was nearly hot enough to scald her skin, but suddenly the room seemed cold as she thought of the creatures that had once only been part of Old Nan’s stories, until the men of the Night’s Watch saw the undead for themselves.

“No,” he said. “And I don’t know if that worries me more.”

Sansa couldn’t help but feel relief. As the days passed without word when his ranging party had headed beyond the sight of the Wall, past the haunted forest, and towards the lands of always winter, she had fretted if she would ever seen him again, if Jon would return one day with haunting blue eyes.

When he opened his eyes now, they were still Stark grey, but dark, his pupils wide as they drank her in. “You could join me, you know.”

Her cheeks flushed for reasons other than the steam rising from the bath. Soapy bubbles clouded the water, but she could still very much see every line of Jon’s bare chest, his scars, the bit of hair that angled down his abdomen as he sat up further to rest his arms on either side of the tub and make space for her…

She glanced over to ensure the door was barred, and Ghost slept in front of it too, lest anyone intrude on their privacy. Even if they did, she reminded herself there was no impropriety in their actions as husband and wife. Well, perhaps most of the things they shared anyway, her mind recalling some of the more indecent ways Jon had pleasured her both in their marriage bed and out of it.

Sansa made to stand when she heard a yelp and a tug on the back of her dress. She looked down to see the pup, where he’d fallen with the hem of her dress in his mouth, the stitching torn away. “Oh!”

“He does that,” Jon grumbled, slumping back into the water.

“Lucky I can fix it, then,” she said, sweeping the pup up into her arms again.

He snuggled contentedly against her bosom, and Sansa couldn’t decide which she found more amusing: the adorableness of the pup or the look of pure envy on Jon’s face.

Sansa had prearranged for supper to be brought up to their chambers, dissuading the kitchens from preparing a feast to welcome home the King in the North by insisting Jon would be tired and prefer to rest rather than revel and entertain guests after his long journey. The truth, though, was that she had planned on not leaving bed for something so trivial as food.

Jon told her more of the good while they ate, the new lands Tormund had led his people back to beyond the Wall, the progress made on the keeps being built on the Gift, and how one of the clans leaders had praised Sansa’s leadership as Queen in the North and Lady of Winterfell, going even further to call her a true winter rose and a prized beauty, though the way Jon scowled when he said it, that might as well have fit in with the bad, too.

The pup remained firmly curled to Sansa’s side as they ate, and she fed him scraps off her plate until he seemed to grow full and collapsed, sprawled beside her as he drifted off to sleep.

“I spent two weeks traveling with him and never saw anything but a trembling ball of fur,” Jon complained while Sansa could do nothing but smile as the pup’s entire little body puffed and deflated with each of his tiny snores.

She’d had the serving girls build a roaring fire, too, and that was where she sat beside Jon with a cup of spiced wine after their meal. “Jon hasn’t had a proper hearth in months,” she explained, asking them to stack up extra wood beside it as though that were for him as well and not to keep her from freezing during the night when her clothes would lay on the ground or wherever Jon dropped them in haste instead of against her skin.

Their cups soon sat empty, their attention instead turned to one another. The bed was not far, but on the furs in front of the fire would serve well enough, Sansa mused, as Jon initiated a languid kiss. After long, cold nights by herself, thinking of Jon’s touch and the warmth of his body against hers, anything was most welcome.

She took his bottom lip between hers, intending to deepen their kiss, and he responded eagerly, letting his tongue slide against hers as he pulled her into his lap. Her hands moved to slip through his beard, then to undo the laces of his tunic, and then to appreciate the muscles of his chest and arms as she did away with his shirt entirely.

“Ouch,” Jon hissed and pulled away.

She frowned; Jon was rather sensitive in some areas, she’d learned, but not there. She glanced down to see him glaring at the impressions of two small sets of teeth on his hand between thumb and forefinger.

Ever mindful of Jon’s mood, Ghost raised his head from his paws, cast a baleful look at the perpetrator from across the room, and growled low.

“Are you hurt?” Sansa might as well have asked the pup himself, for he whimpered in response before Jon had a chance to speak.

“No, not truly,” Jon groused, easily rubbing away the bite marks and leaving the only casualty as the moment ruined. “He’ll need to learn his manners, if he’s to live in a castle with a queen.”

Sansa only giggled at both of their expressions as the pup took the opportunity to crawl back into her lap, nothing but gentle and affectionate as Sansa pet him.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said. “Once he has settled in. Once he knows he belongs here. Once he knows that he’s a Stark.”

“You certainly have a knack for that,” he said, settling back on the furs to watch the pup preen beneath her touch.

Sansa remembered the day she first assured Jon of it, when they stood up on the ramparts after they had taken back Winterfell, and the time she had affirmed it, when she had cloaked him in their house colors as he took her to wife. They were two of her fondest memories, and she suspected one day in the future, this very moment may be one, too.

“What will you name him?” Jon asked. “‘Nuisance’ suits, I think.”

“No, not for my sweet one,” she said, wondering how he would grow up. Would he still wish to cuddle with her like this, one day when he was larger than the rug on which they sat? Would he be as swift as Ghost, and brave and strong? Time would tell.

“All right, ‘Sweet Nuisance,’ then,” Jon said, but he followed it up with a smile.

“He’ll grow on you,” Sansa said, lifting the pup so she could press a kiss to the top of his head. “As I did.”

There would be time for that though, and time to think of a fitting name for her pup, something to honor Lady, perhaps, or one of the seasons, or a hero from one of the stories she loved.

And there would be time for other things later too, she thought, as Jon yawned.

As Sansa glanced around their chambers and happiness welled up in her chest, she couldn’t help but feel as though time itself had been turned back to that very first day she’d held a direwolf in her arms, when she’d been in her home, with her family, and it seemed as though all the dreams she’d wished for were on the verge of coming true, and she realized she had all those things once more.

#Jonsa #Jonsa Fanfiction #My fic #Jonsadreamofspring #Day 2: Wolves

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radientwings · 6 years

Text

Of New Beginnings (Elriel Fluff)

Inspired by two prompts from the wonderful @julesherondalex and @queen-archeron: they both wanted to see a version of Azriel returning injured from a mission to a very worried Elain. Went a bit more fluffy with this one than planned, but hope you both like it!

Elain was used to being left behind while the other members of the Inner Circle went off on missions or into battle. Elain was no warrior; this was well known among them all. Oh, she’d had some training; she was a part of the High Lord and Lady’s family, after all. Some fight training was essential when so much of the world wanted your immediate family dead; or worse, captured.

Azriel had ensured she knew enough self-defense to get by, that she knew how to handle a blade as well as she was able when she really had no talent for it. That didn’t mean they wanted her anywhere near sanctioned missions, however. Especially as her powers were already coveted by their enemies.

So Elain waiting in Velaris was nothing unusual. She served her Court and its leaders better there, ensuring that all her visions were taken down and recorded for interpretation later. Ensuring that her life and her power remained safe.

Still, she worried. She worried a lot. How could she not? Her friends and family put themselves at risk – mortal risk – all the time. Elain hated that she herself was too weak to contribute in that way; it was a constant point of contention for her. On the one hand, she knew her presence would likely only be a distraction to them, would be more liable to get them killed. On the other… well, her fae instincts screamed at her to protect what was hers.

Today’s mission in particular gnawed at her stomach. Azriel and Cassian had left that morning, intent on subduing some rogue Illyrian war-bands, while the rest of the Inner Circle were off on a diplomatic mission in the human realms. Elain had been left to watch Velaris; to keep the city running smoothly in their absence. An honor, to be sure, but an empty one.

Even the mountains and mountains of paperwork her sister and brother-in-law had left her weren’t enough to distract her from her worry. She wasn’t too concerned about the meetings in the human realms; it wouldn’t be the first time they’d had peace talks there and, while they were never exactly smooth, they very rarely ended in violence.

The Illyrians, however, that was especially worrying. She knew most would have absolutely no compunction about hurting either Azriel or Cassian; two bastard-born Illyrians most considered unworthy of their wings.

Cauldron, Elain hated that they had to go off on their own.

It was made a thousand times worse when a vision suddenly blind-sided her, hammered its way into her head. Elain fell to the floor with the sheer force of it, with the way it overwhelmed her every thought, screaming at her.

She catalogued each image as they flashed across her eyes.

Cassian. Azriel. The Illyrian camps. A group of captured females. An ambush lying in wait. Azriel setting off a trap when he tried to free the females.

An arrow shot from the trees, meeting its target with horrific accuracy.

Blood. Blood everywhere as a winged body was shot down from the sky, the arrow stuck in a broad chest, too close to the heart. Far too close to the heart.

Azriel again. His broken body splayed on the forest floor.

Blood. Blood everywhere.

Elain came to with a terrified gasp. Azriel was in danger.

By the mother, no, Elain thought desperately.

She forced herself to her feet despite the residual dizziness from her visions. She needed to find a way to stop it. Azriel… he couldn’t be hurt like that. He couldn’t die like that.

Not on her watch. She wouldn’t let him. She wouldn’t.

But how to stop it? He was all the way in the Steppes and Elain had never developed the power to winnow. She cursed under her breath, uncharacteristic of her but Elain hardly cared at that moment, not with the utter futility of it all staring her down.

She couldn’t give into the panic that was threatening to take her over though, not now when she needed to be able to think, to find a solution.

And then it clicked, so obvious she’d nearly overlooked it. But then, she supposed that was Nuala and Cerridwen’s purpose: to be forgetful, to be overlooked. They were sure to have some way to get in contact with Azriel, however; they were some of his most trusted spies, after all.

Elain found herself running down to the kitchen, hoping to find one of her friends there. As luck would have it, she practically crashed into Nuala, who was just exiting the kitchen upon her arrival.

“Azriel’s in danger,” Elain immediately blurted, barely sparing the time to right herself. “I’ve seen it.”

Nuala, for her part, didn’t make the mistake of not believing Elain, instead asking for every little detail. As soon as Elain was done talking, the so-called lesser faerie disappeared into shadow like she was borne from it.

The next ten minutes were probably the longest of Elain’s entire life, mortal and immortal. Her entire stomach churned with worry, anxiety eating away at her. The vision played over and over again in her mind, plaguing her thoughts.

Cauldron, what if Nuala couldn’t get to Azriel in time? What if she did but the vision’s events happened anyways?

What if… what if Azriel’s injuries would be fatal?

Sweet mother, Elain could barely bear the mere thought of that, let alone the reality. Please, she prayed to whatever deity might listen, please let him live. Let him live.

Finally, finally, Nuala returned, saying only that Azriel and Cassian had been warned, and that all they could do now was wait for them. She tried to distract Elain in the meantime, coaxing her into the very same kitchen that had brought her so much comfort in the first months of her immortal life. But Elain could not be swayed away from her thoughts of Azriel.

(A part of her felt guilty for that. Guilty because Azriel wasn’t the only one on this mission; Cassian was too. Cassian, who had welcomed her into his family with open arms and a huge smile. Cassian, who had become a brother to her. But still, it was the quieter of the two Illyrians that stayed on Elain’s mind.)

(Azriel… Stars, Azriel. Elain sometimes felt that words weren’t enough to describe him. He might live this immortal life in shadow, but the world would truly be a darker place without him in it.)

Hours later, Elain heard the telltale sound of two huge Illyrian males landing on the rooftop. She abandoned the work she’d been trying to distract herself with, running up the stairs and outside with all the speed she could muster.

The sight of Azriel standing there – alive – sent her heart racing with sheer relief. She found herself sprinting towards him, uncaring of the impropriety of it all.

“Azriel!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms around his neck, burying her head into his crook of his shoulder. He smelled of sweat and blood and war but it was still Azriel. Her Azriel, her best friend in this life. “You’re alive,” she whispered. “Thank the Cauldron.”

He hugged her back readily, arms banding around her waist with such strength that she should have felt crushed by him. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. Because this was Azriel.

“Yes, I am,” he replied, lips pressed against the top of her head as he spoke. “Thanks to you. Smart of you to find Nuala to bring me the message.”

Elain pulled back from him then, shocked to find that she’d shed a few tears in her relief. She wiped them away, pulled herself together. “Yes, well,” she said, unsure of what else she could possibly say to that, unused to taking compliments.

She allowed herself a brief moment to drink him in, however, standing there in front of her and not laying slain like he had in her vision. He was standing. Thank the mother and the Cauldron and all those holy things.

And then, suddenly, without warning, anger rushed through her. It was the anger of extreme worry, red-hot and all-consuming. Irrational. But she couldn’t help it.

“I wouldn’t have had to do any of that if you been more careful!” Elain found herself saying, voice rising. “How could you be so reckless?”

Azriel’s brows furrowed. “Reckless? There were innocents in danger, Elain.”

“I know that. It doesn’t mean you should plan to sacrifice yourself just like that!” She poked him in the chest with a single finger, hard.

He rubbed at the spot, looking at her with confusion. “If not me, then who?” he asked, as if that was an acceptable response.

(It wasn’t. Never would be, in Elain’s eyes. Nothing was worth Azriel’s sacrifice. Nothing. Not even her own soul.)

“I don’t know! I don’t. But you could have planned it better, you could have made sure you didn’t lose your life when it could have been avoided.”

He tapped her temple lightly, fingers warm against her skin. “That’s what I have you for,” Azriel finally said with a small smile, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

Elain slumped a little, anger giving way to the fear that had caused it in the first place. “But what if I hadn’t seen? What if– What if I hadn’t been able to get you the message?” What if you had died anyways?

Azriel dropped his hand to take hers. “Elain. I’m fine. I swear it. It’s just a scratch.”

Her eyes widened. “A scratch? What? Where?”

He gestured to his right leg, where there was a deep cut in the meat of his thigh, blood disguised by the darkness of his Illyrian leathers; it looked like an arrow wound. Elain’s anger immediately turned inwards; how hadn’t she noticed that? Her fingers fluttered over the injury, like she wanted to heal it with a simple touch. She stopped herself just in time from actually making contact though; Cauldron, what if she hurt him more?

Elain looked back at Azriel, finding his eyes already on her, dark with something she didn’t recognize. (When did he get so close?)

“You’re hurt,” she whispered, voice tremulous. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize… I can’t believe just ran at you.” Stupid, stupid Elain.

But Azriel shook his head, suppressing a smile, eyes full of incredible fondness. “It’ll heal. And I liked the greeting.”

A flush rose on Elain’s cheeks. She looked down at their linked hands, played idly with Azriel’s fingers. “I wish… I wish you wouldn’t get hurt all the time. I know it’s for a good cause, I know it’s for a purpose, but I– I can’t–” she trailed off, words choking her.

Azriel went completely still in front of her, like he was holding his breath. “You can’t what?”

She flicked her eyes back up to his hazel ones; the very same that always seemed to be able to see through to her soul.

“I can’t stand to see you hurt,” she admitted. It was more than just that, she knew. But she wasn’t quite ready to say the rest out loud. Not yet.

“Elain,” he said, like her name held all the answers in the world.

“Azriel, I–” she shook her head suddenly; mother, but where were the words? In lieu of something to say, Elain found herself lifting his scarred hand, pressing a kiss to his palm. She peered up at him shyly, found that he looked shocked, this tips of ears slightly red. “Please. Just be more careful? I– There are people here who care about you.”

He seemed to consider something, watching her with an inscrutable expression. “Like you?”

Elain couldn’t deny it. Didn’t want to. “Yes, like me.”

A smile, small but utterly beautiful. “In that case… can I try something?”

The deep gruffness of Azriel’s voice sent a shiver through Elain’s spine, his closeness making her heart flutter almost uncomfortably. Yet Azriel tugged her closer, his free hand coming up to frame her face, to tilt it upwards. She nodded then, words caught in her throat.

And then he kissed her, surprising her utterly. It was no soft, chaste thing either, like she might have expected from him. No, this was full of burning passion, as red-hot as her anger had been earlier. It was the kind of kiss that forced gasps out of her, that left her breathless. A clash of tongues and teeth and pure want.

When he tried to pull back – probably to bring sense back to them – Elain pushed herself to her tiptoes, chased his lips with hers. She tightened the fingers she had in his hair (how did that happen?), not allowing him any further from her. That was clearly enough encouragement for Azriel, who wrapped her tighter in his embrace, surrounding her completely.

Elain loved it. Couldn’t get enough. Her body sung for more, her mind hazy with it. And her heart. Well, her heart was full to the brim of a feeling she didn’t want to name just yet.

And then, like a splash of ice-cold water, Cassian’s voice interrupted them. “Alright, lovers, as much as I’m happy for you both – especially for Az here, who really needs to loosen up – he does still need to see the healers,” he said loudly, clearly laughing at them.

Elain flew back from Azriel, cheeks burning with embarrassment. Stars, she’d completely forgotten that Cassian was right too, hovering at the edge of her vision.

Even worse, she’d forgotten that Azriel was still wounded.

She eyed his injury now, safely a few steps away from. “I’m so sorry,” she babbled, “I didn’t hurt you more, did I?”

Azriel still wore that small smile of his, full of delighted fondness. He was probably a bit delirious from all the blood loss, she thought. Cauldron, but Elain could be so stupid.

But Azriel stopped that path of thought before it could get too far, shouldering past Cassian to get closer to her again.

Elain looked up at him, wide-eyed, suddenly overwhelmed by him, how big he was next to her. He reached out to tuck some loose hair behind her ear, cupping her cheek gently. The softness of his actions sent her heart aflutter, made her feel even more flushed than when he had been kissing her.

“I’ll be more careful,” he promised. He leaned in once more, pressed his lips against her forehead briefly, an indescribably sweet gesture. His voice was low, a whisper only for her ears. “Especially if I have you waiting for me.”

With that, he grinned at her – a full, wide grin – and pulled away, heading back to where Cassian was watching them both with a knowing smirk.

“Not a word,” Azriel commanded of his brother.

Cassian’s smirk only widened. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face says it all,” Azriel grumbled, protesting as Cassian pulled one of his arms over his shoulders.

“I’ll bring him back in good health,” Cassian called back to Elain, that wolf’s grin still in place. “Can’t have him sweeping you off your feet with an injured leg, now can we?”

Elain spluttered, wanting to say something about not being swept anywhere, but Cassian never gave her the chance, only winking before he forced Azriel to walk away, leading him to the healer’s.

It took Elain a long, long moment to gather herself and go back inside. And even when she did, she was sure her face looked like it was on fire. But, for once, she found she couldn’t care much about her embarrassment, not with how her cheeks hurt from all the smiling. Besides, her thoughts were more caught up on what might have happened if Cassian hadn’t been there… if Azriel hadn’t been injured at all.

Well. Maybe next time. Maybe they’d have a hundred more opportunities. Maybe a thousand more.

Elain certainly hoped so.

Tagging @rosehallshadowsinger, @ben-roll-io, @poisonous00, @alicethelonerabbit @charmed908 and @flxwer-petals

Message me if you want to be added to the tag list! If you want to read more of my elriel stuff you can do that here or on my AO3.

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apparitionism · 6 years

Text

Helicobacter 4

Here’s what happens in this part: Myka and Helena talk to each other, and then they talk to each other again. At base, that’s it. They also look at nature, sort of, and ponder the past and causality. A couple of plot points tiptoe in... anyway the whole thing will most likely continue to strain credulity and be a talky mess! (I am staying in my lane.) A Bering and a Wells walk into a conference room: that’s how the joke starts, right? And then fate takes over. See part 1, part 2, and part 3 for details.

Helicobacter 4

Helena awoke in what was perhaps the most uncomfortable, yet inevitable, sleeping posture she had ever taken: still sitting in the chair beside Myka’s bed, but with her upper body slumped forward onto that bed. She felt a hand in her hair, petting, smoothing. “Are you awake?” Myka asked.

“Mmph,” Helena said.

“I promise I’m not trying to hurry you. But I think the hospital wants the bed.”

“I want the bed,” Helena mumbled. Movement seemed prohibitively effortful.

Myka’s hand continued its light stroke. “So do I,” she said.

Nice. So nice. A dissolve-into level of nice: exactly where she was, exactly what was happening.

Where she was, what was happening—Helena woke up, sat up. And then the process of Myka’s release from the hospital began. Helena summoned Steve, who, in his lovely way, facilitated everything: even driving Myka to her apartment, where he and Helena both did their best to ensure that she had everything she needed in the near term.

“I’m fine,” Myka assured them. “Really. You’ve done so much for me. Both of you, and I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Just be well,” Steve told her. Such simple, sweet words, and Myka said an equally unadorned “I’ll try” in response.

“Please do,” Helena added, a weak contribution, but it was all she could find.

As Helena and Steve were departing, Myka pulled on her arm. “You made it not a nightmare,” she said, and that too, was simple and sweet. Then she said, “If I’m ever hospitalized again, I want to be engaged to you for it.” She leaned to Helena and kissed her cheek, and receiving such a kiss was the same as delivering it: a surprise of softness and intimacy.

Helena, physically and emotionally flummoxed, said, “So do I.”

Steve asked, later, “Is there anything you need to tell me?”

“Of course not,” Helena said.

The following day, Helena received flowers at the office. A lovely, tasteful arrangement. “Thank you again,” the card said, “for everything.” It was signed, “Yours, Myka.”

She showed the card to Steve, who asked again, “Is there anything you need to tell me?”

This time, Helena answered, “Not that I’m aware of.”

“Interesting choice of words,” Steve said. “Awareness generally has to be cultivated.”

“You know I’m very bad at any such practice,” Helena said.

“You choose not to learn,” he countered.

“That’s your job,” she said. “Very nearly literally. If I were sufficiently mindful, why would I need you?”

“To schedule your appointments. By the way, you have a meeting with Myka next week.”

“I have a... what?”

“Yeah, she called me, to make sure you got the flowers, and to set up an appointment. Tuesday afternoon. And given how you just gasped, you might want to work on some mindful breathing skills between now and then.”

“Mind your own breathing,” she advised him, superfluously.

****

As Tuesday loomed, Helena fretted to Steve, “But how should I behave?”

He didn’t bother to shift his gaze from his computer screen. “Don’t knee her.”

“You’re a great help.”

****

By the time Tuesday at last arrived, however, “don’t knee her” had become Helena’s mantra, reminding her of everything that she should not do or say: don’t bring up anything specific about the hospital unless she does, don’t mention her illness unless she does, don’t presume any sort of intimacy between the two of you, don’t ask about the status of the bid... ultimately it came down to a general dictum against saying any words at all to her. Or, of course, touching her. Or being near enough to touch. “Don’t knee her” meant “be very still and quiet.”

On that fateful day, at the fateful time, Steve showed Myka into Helena’s office. He withdrew immediately, leaving Helena mildly surprised that he didn’t wink as he did so. Myka didn’t say anything, so Helena tried, “Hello.”

“Hi,” Myka said. She smiled.

And for a moment, Helena let herself enjoy that smile, accept it, return it... until such time as her not taking her turn to speak began to seem awkward. She hurried to say something, coming up with, “I thought we’d meet here instead of the conference room this time.”

So much for not kneeing her. Now Myka frowned, a subtle little face-twist that was the obverse of the smiles she’d performed in the hospital. “Scene of the crime,” she said.

“No, no. I just didn’t want you to be upset. It might have bad associations.”

“I’ll admit, they aren’t the best. Although it all started fine.” Now she smiled. “The hellos were really nice.”

“We’ll cling to those. How are you feeling now?”

“Much better. Not going to destroy your desk, I promise.” She fell silent again, and Helena was reassured, or something, by the idea that Myka, too, seemed to be searching for words at the right level of familiarity. “I was thinking,” Myka re-began, with clear determination, “I mean, what I thought, when I was thinking, was that I should tell you in person that I’m not overseeing the project anymore. You’ll be working mostly with Abigail from now on.”

“You were removed for becoming ill?” Helena asked, her dudgeon rising.

“No...” The little slack in Myka’s voice: she’d heard Helena’s indignation, which Helena knew was not her place to have or express or—“I was removed because I told my boss that you stayed with me at the hospital. I thought I was just recounting, factually, what happened that day, but she heard it as, this is going to look bad if anybody finds out about it. It’s going to look like you were trying to get in good with me.”

“The ethics of that,” Helena said, even as she thought, The truth of that.

“The new rules say nobody bidding on city projects can have a personal relationship with anybody who works for the city. Anybody who works for the city who can make decisions, that is. Or even influence decisions.”

“The appearance of impropriety... I suppose I have to applaud the EMT who was caring for you in the ambulance for refusing me information because I had no such personal relationship with you. She did as she should. And so did Rick,” Helena said. “It’s all down to those personal relationships in the end, isn’t it? It wasn’t until he mentioned having been engaged to you that I made my, shall we say, ill-considered decision. To say what I said. To claim what I claimed.”

“I’m sorry for that. My failed relationship, making your life difficult.”

“I’m fairly certain your life has been made more difficult by that than mine has... although failed relationships don’t tend to make anyone’s life easier.” Reveal something, she felt again, as in the hospital. She surprised herself by saying, “I was engaged once myself.” She didn’t tend to disclose that. Didn’t tend to think about it, but lately...

“What happened?” Myka asked, then shook her head. “Sorry. Forget I asked.”

“Aren’t you the one who said ‘too personal’ is off the table? She left me. I don’t blame her; I was—am—far too focused on my work. I had thought being married, or rather, promising to one day be married, would fix things. Or at least push problems into the future, so I could concentrate on what seemed more important in the present. It worked for a while.”

“But then she left you.”

“But then she did. As I say, I don’t blame her.”

Myka took her time in responding to that, which in turn gave Helena time to consider that surprisingly brief conversation for which she did not blame Giselle. “This isn’t working,” Giselle had said, to which Helena had agreed, “No. Not at the present moment.” And she would have explained that that was why she had made promises about the future, but Giselle had continued on, not angry but factual, “This isn’t working because you won’t work at this. You’ll work at your work, all the time, because you can see that it’s worth work, but you won’t work at this.”

And Helena had agreed again: “That is entirely true.” And its truth meant that the promised future would never—should never—come.

She counted the hours, for it was hours and not days, until every physical trace of Giselle was gone from her life. And after those hours, all at once, the present, no longer mortgaged to that promised future, was clean, keen.

When at last Myka spoke, she asked, “Do you miss her?”

Helena wavered. Should she tell the truth? “Before last week, I would have said no.” That was true. “Then I spent a day in hospital.” All right, that was true too.

“When most people say something like that, they mean they were the sick one.”

“Well. Egotistically, I like to think I’m not most people.”

“That’s...” Myka paused, as if searching her mental thesaurus. She shook her head. “That’s true.” That made Helena laugh, which in turn made Myka smile as she said, “I’m sorry, though. For all of it, but even more, if it made you miss her.”

Continue being honest. “It isn’t her as herself so much, I think, as there being something else, or someone else, to pay attention to.”

“But you didn’t. Pay that attention, I mean. To her?”

“I didn’t. But I... I remember that I liked knowing someone was there, even as I didn’t do what I should have, with regard to her.” She stopped. “I hadn’t said it out loud before, not that way. It’s awful.”

“Then I guess you should double not blame her for leaving. But aren’t we all awful like that?” Myka made a face, a grimace-and-eyeroll concoction. “Maybe we’re not. It’s probably wrong to generalize from just you and me.”

“You?” Helena asked. Myka didn’t at all seem the type to be as neglectful as Helena had. As thoughtless. As... offhand.

“With my parents, if no one else. I know they’re there, even if I don’t make the effort I should. Even if I push problems into the future.”

“Given your mother’s apparently desperate wish to see you married off to Rick, I can certainly understand your attitude.”

“She just wants me to be happy,” Myka said.

I can understand that too, Helena thought.

Myka chose that moment to notice that upon the upper right edge of Helena’s desk sat a piece of the neighborhood model, the one piece Steve had managed to salvage in his cleanup. One small building and its landscaping: a curving, balsa-clad little structure with a courtyard featuring two wire trees. It was intended to represent a community center.

Don’t knee her. Helena had meant to hide it away.

Myka picked the building up, turned it in her hands. The swoop of its roof-line rhymed with the curl of each of her fingers. “Time,” she said. “How much of it do we get? I mean you do start to understand why people do things. And maybe there’s forgiveness, or maybe it’s just recognition that it isn’t then anymore. Have you seen her since it ended?”

“No. Like you with Rick, she wanted a clean break. So did I. In fact I quit the job I had, and I started this firm—my attitude was something on the order of ‘Oh, you thought that was work? I’ll show you work.’”

“Interesting response,” Myka said, still focused on inspecting the tiny community center.

“Ill-considered.”

Myka readjusted the wire branches of the trees, such that they now seemed to be fighting against—or accepting and bending to—a current of air. “You say that a lot.”

“I do that a lot,” Helena said. That, too, was true.

Now Myka looked up. “You didn’t cheat on her, did you?”

A reasonable question, given that Helena had revealed herself to be so callous; Myka could not be blamed for imagining Helena capable of that, too. “Only with my work,” Helena told her.

“Better than with another woman.”

“I’m not sure that’s true. The result was the same.”

The little frown again, just a twitch, but visible. “Not for her. Trust me on this one.”

“He cheated on you?” Now Helena was regretting not seeking out surgical implements when she had the chance.

“You don’t have to defend my honor...” Myka said, and there again was the slack, the indulgence. “You’re not engaged to me anymore.”

“Who in their right mind,” Helena fumed, knowing it was inappropriate to fume, yet fuming all the same. How dare he.

“In his defense—not that I really want to defend him, but your face sort of makes me feel like I should—I did spend an awful lot of time at work. Still do. Like you... I mean, so did he, so I guess in that sense we were already cheating on each other. With it. In your sense. He just found somebody he wanted to sleep with, there. Meanwhile I just wanted to sleep.” Myka sighed. “It would have turned out the same way, regardless.”

“Philosophical of you,” Helena said.

“Time. Would yours have turned out differently?”

“No. Not then.”

“Would it turn out differently now?”

“I haven’t changed.” Perhaps her truest statement thus far.

“Maybe you aren’t supposed to.” Myka set the model piece back on Helena’s desk, in the spot it had previously occupied. Then she rotated it so that the “trees” faced Helena. She looked up at Helena as she did so. “I read somewhere that it’s healthy to look at nature. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know... the situation. And to say thank you in person. Also I really need to buy you new clothes and pay for the rest of this poor model. And whatever it cost to have your conference room cleaned. That had to be terrible.”

“I have no idea. I was at the hospital with my fiancée.”

“Seriously, send me a bill.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I wish you would. I do owe you.”

“I’d say it was my pleasure, but that would be slightly untrue,” Helena said. “But only slightly.”

She received a new small smile in response. Helena knew it was new, that it was a variation she had not previously seen, and knowing someone’s smiles would, under other circumstances, mean something. Under these circumstances, however? False intimacy. That was all it was, had been, would be. A strangely affecting day of false intimacy.

“I liked being engaged to you,” Helena ventured to the empty air, after Myka had gone.

****

Over the next weeks, Abigail, clearly an instigator of the first rank, would remark to Helena something on the order of, “You want to ask me about her.”

“The appearance of a conflict of interest,” Helena would respond.

Or Abigail would prod, “I could say hi to her for you, if you want.”

“And we could all lose our jobs as a result,” Helena would “remind” her.

Helena did not put a stop to these exchanges, mainly because they seemed to delight Abigail so thoroughly. Self-preservation: she needed to win the contract as much as she ever had, and there were now two strikes against her. Thus if Abigail enjoyed these good-natured tormentings of Helena, Helena would suffer them.

What she would also do—because Helena didn’t doubt that Abigail was digging at Myka in some similar way, perhaps even by reporting back to her exactly what Helena said—was ignore her own stupidly avid imaginings of the expressions that might cross Myka’s face whenever Abigail delivered any such dig, or any such report.

****

“You won,” Abigail informed Helena, directly after the closed-door city council meeting during which the decision was made. “You’ll get the official letter soon, but I figured you’d want to know ASAP. So get going, project manager. Oh, also, you were exactly right, in that final presentation, to talk about the fountain being optional. They nixed it first thing—but they were raving about your ‘flexibility.’”

Had it not been for the never-children, Helena most likely would not have remembered Myka’s words about the fountain for which the city would not pay... words that led her to adopt her position of supposed “flexibility.” Funny, then, or something: that Myka had influenced the decision after all. In reverse, and not knowing she had done so, but still.

Helena told Steve the good news, told the rest of the staff. Awarded bonuses. Steve’s was smaller than those of the others, but Helena said, in response to his quickly hidden disappointment, “I thought you’d appreciate a permanent rise in salary a bit more.”

“A raise,” he said, and he looked far too grateful about receiving something he had long deserved, so she made him laugh by correcting him: “Rise.” He asked if it would be paid in pounds rather than dollars, she said no, and he claimed the right to call it a raise.

Elation all around, well-earned excitement, a bit of trepidation at the size of the project. All as expected.

All as expected, but for the sharp thorn of regret that Helena could not dislodge from her own reaction to that good news.

It was not that she had been hoping for an alternative outcome. It was not even that she knew with certainty what she would have done, had that alternative outcome come to pass, other than rush to cobble together enough small projects to compensate and continue to make payroll. Whatever else she would have done would now never be known, and would never be done. And that, she was willing to admit to herself—but only as she sat in her office alone, staring at the model-piece—was the root of her regret.

****

On a morning two weeks after the awarding of the contract, Helena answered her telephone with an absent, “Helena Wells.”

“Hi,” she heard, and her immediate recognition of that voice ensured that Helena was no longer absent. “I just wanted to report,” Myka went on, “as someone with whom you have no personal relationship whatsoever would do, that I’m cancer-free.”

Helena was caught so wrong-footed that she managed only a general sound of enthusiasm, an exclamatory “Ah.”

It seemed to do, however, for Myka said, “Also... one other thing.”

Now Helena offered an interrogatory “Ah?”

“I need your help. Completely separate and apart from anything having to do with the bid and the city. You know how I said we’re not engaged anymore?”

Helena wrenched herself back onto an actual linguistic track. “Yes,” she said, with firm purpose.

“What if that weren’t true, just for one little evening?”

“What if it weren’t true that we are not engaged.”

“Right.”

“Which would mean that we are engaged,” Helena said, just to make sure they were talking about the same thing.

“Right.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“It’s my mother. She’s going to be in town, and now that she knows Rick’s here, she wants to get together with him. And I don’t want to have to explain to him why you aren’t there too.”

“But doesn’t that mean you’ll have to tell your mother this... untruth?”

“That’s why it’s perfect. It gets her off my back times two: about Rick and about finding someone, period.”

“I suspect she’ll eventually become suspicious when we continue to postpone the wedding,” Helena said.

“I will cross that bridge when it stops buying me short-term peace.”

“If all you want is peace, why haven’t you simply told her an untruth already?”

“You don’t know my mother. She won’t believe things unless she sees them, and she won’t see them unless she believes them—but clearly, you and I are a believable couple, given that Rick bought it.”

He hadn’t, of course, so Helena had no real reason to imagine that Myka’s mother would be taken in. Helena tried, “Rick aside, I’m sure Abigail or anyone else you know would be delighted to pretend to have asked for your hand.” She suspected, in fact, that Abigail would throw herself into such a performance. For the entertainment value alone.

“Okay, I get it. You don’t want to do this, which is completely understandable. You’ve already done so much for me, and this is too much. I get it.”

Helena regarded the wire trees whose branches Myka had so carefully disarranged. She hadn’t touched them, hadn’t altered their windblown aspect since that disarrangement. She also had not reoriented the model-piece. Helena, too, had read that it was healthy to look at nature. “I didn’t say it was too much. But... are you always this duplicitous?”

A pause. Helena imagined the blink of lids over those green eyes. Then Myka said, “In my life, I have never been this duplicitous.”

“Then I’m not certain I should support your behaving in a way that is apparently wildly out of character.”

“I didn’t want to have to bring this up,” Myka said, her tone severe, “but: you started it. You’re the one who told Rick we were engaged.”

“No, you started it. You’re the one who had an unfortunate incident in my conference room and ended up in hospital.”

“Technically, then, I think H. pylori started it.”

“You’re blaming the bacterium,” Helena said, incredulous—and yet not at all incredulous.

“Well, I mean. Causes.”

And Helena thought: She may be the strangest person I have ever met. She is certainly one of the loveliest, both physically and—who can say?—very possibly in every other way as well. And regardless of whether those things have any bearing on the situation, you, Helena Wells, are the one who told Rick not to tell her that he knew. And he has apparently held to that, so you owe him some reciprocal courtesy, in terms of not causing Myka any additional embarrassment or trouble. And if telling this story to her mother would lighten any of the weight she bears...

“All right,” Helena said. “When and where?”

“When” was in three days’ time; “where,” Myka’s apartment. “My mom’s a picky eater,” she explained. “It’s easier to cook than to get restaurants to accommodate her.”

“And no one is likely to see us together.”

“There’s that,” Myka agreed.

TBC

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onhowtobecrazy · 6 years

Text

Compromised | Bill x Laura (BsG)

@thisisamadhouse Marie, my wonderful sister, happy birthday once again ♥ a day late because being sick totally thwarted my plans. Here’s you Space Parents goodness, I didn’t even do angst, be proud!

A/N. First part of a two-chapters “what if” post-Hand of God in season 1, where the Commander and the President celebrate their unexpected and welcome victory against the Cylons... and it’s all about sexual frustration. Rating will go up in second chapter ;)

“You seem distracted.”

Laura stopped sliding her finger over the rim of her wine glass and looked at Adama, subtly leaning on the table towards her as he watched her with a gentle smile that showed curiosity rather than concern. She smiled back, straightening up in her seat and taking a burning sip of ambrosia, her tongue shuddering under its bite. Even if she closed her eyes, there was no way her memory would be able to replace the taste of the strong, green liquor with the heady delicacy of wine.

And memory was all they had left.

“Something on your mind?”

“You could say that again.”

Just like ambrosia would never make for an honest substitution of more refined beverages, the hurried, stolen moments of pleasure she'd found at her own hand in her rare times of solitude would never replace the triumphant bliss of shared sexual intimacy.

She was craving it.

She'd always lead a healthy sexual life (she couldn’t say the same for the relationships that intersected with it), and she never denied herself when she had an itch to scratch. Her frustration at the forced celibacy her job entailed was scraping her raw. It wasn't like she could just frak anybody. Had she been President on the colonies, she could have managed casual relationships, but neither the circumstances nor the place were propitious to any kind of illicit intimacy. And that was just what she needed. A good, uncomplicated frak with someone she could trust, no drama, no consequences.

It was even harder today, after Kara's embrace. It woke something in her, a stirring that had her realize she hadn't felt a friendly body pressed against her own since the attacks. If you added the constant duress she was under, the decorum she had to maintain, it was no wonder she was so wound up.

“Wanna share with the class?”

She chuckled politely, noticed how his eyes had gone from curious to teasing, and wondered how much impropriety she could get away with tonight.

It wasn't that she hadn't thought about it.

Besides the obvious fact that their paralleled positions in the fleet made them suited for each other like no one else in their need for secrecy and mutual understanding of their respective duties, she had to admit Adama had a distinctive charm. She wouldn't have called him handsome—not at first sight, certainly—but there was something appealing in his charismatic presence, his quiet strength, his weathered features. Piercing blue eyes, a soft smile, a voice meant to soothe and seduce; yes, she might have thought about it, once or twice.

She wondered if he had, too.

“I know there's very little time for the two of us to dwell on the life we've left behind, but I found myself thinking a lot about simple things I missed, lately.”

“Such as?”

“Well, to be honest with you, commander, I was thinking of sex.”

To his credit, Adama didn't choke on the drink he'd just brought to his lips, but she noticed that he took a long time to swallow.

“Don't you miss it?” she asked, pushing a little farther.

After all, he'd been the one to invite her over to his quarters for an intimate dinner, again. Last time, she'd been surprised at her inclusion to the family with Lee and the Tighs, but had kept quiet about it. She was beginning to suspect that Adama was the kind to adopt on sight. But beyond the little knowledge she’d gained of the man these past weeks, she found him hard to read on certain matters. Was she meant to take his invitation as forwardness? What to make of the flirtatious banter that had replaced the bickering between them? Should she take his compliments as more than him being a gentleman?

“How about you come to my quarters this evening to celebrate? We can have dinner, just the two of us.”

The offer had thrown her off as much as Kara’s hug had, and she’d reacted in the same way. She accepted without a second thought, patting the hand he’d gently laid on her arm to draw her attention away from the elated crowd cheering about their hard-earned victory over the Cylons.

“That’s a nice idea. Let’s have a do-over with fewer arguments.”

“I promise no drunken nuisance this time.”

“Oh, Commander, you weren't that drunk.”

He’d frowned, as she’d expected, then gave her a wry smile. “Funny.” She couldn’t help a little condescension.“You always seem surprised.”

He'd taken her hand when she joined him in his quarters later, after a quick trip aboard Colonial One to freshen up and change clothes, and for one, crazy second she had thought he would kiss it. His eyes had lingered on her blouse, the same burgundy one she'd worn last dinner, which she thought he would comment on, but all he said was “You look nice, Madame President.”

She'd smiled easily as he'd drawn the chair for her, and sat with a grateful nod. “Thank you, Commander. I'm afraid it's as close as festive as I can get with my limited options. We did say we would celebrate. Didn't we?”

But the hardest piece of William Adama’s puzzle was probably to have to guess how he would now answer her deeply personal, and some would say, inappropriate, question.

“What makes you think I’m not having sex? Things can get quite cosy on this ship.”

She giggled, relieved to have him playing along, and raised her eyebrows at him.

“Besides the obvious fact that the both of us are way too busy for fun time off? If you were getting in on the regular, Commander, you'd be easier to deal with.”

She took another sip of ambrosia, a bigger one this time that singed her throat in a way that was starting to be pleasant. Adama lowered his chopsticks on the table and crossed his arms, seemingly forgetting all about the little food he had left in front of him to focus on challenging her. “Are you advising me to get laid to facilitate your political agenda, Madame President?”

She hummed and pursed her lips in a malicious smirk. “To be perfectly honest with you, I'm more interested in my own sexual satisfaction. Doesn't mean it couldn't meet yours.” She pushed back her chair, crossing legs and arms, dropping the teasing for a more earnest expression.

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“You mean us—"

“Frakking, yes, that's what I mean.”

She watched intently as he rose from his chair and made his way slowly around the table to her side, leaning his hip against the edge and looking down at her with troubled eyes.

“How much of that is a game, Laura?”

She didn't know when they had switched to first name basis, but she figured they might as well given the personal turn their conversation had taken. Maybe it was the alcohol making her so bold; maybe it was a conversation waiting to happen. Whatever the reason, she went for it.

“Actually, nothing. I'm quite serious. We both have unique roles in each other’s lives; we’re both acquainted with the demands of the job and the need for discretion. I like you when we're not butting heads, and I find you sexually appealing.”

He stopped her with a hoarse laugh that seemed to be part unease, part frustration. “Well, isn't that the kind of talk everyone dreams of hearing?”

He left her side to go and sit on the couch, and she turned sideways on her chair to keep facing him. He spread his legs and leant his arms on his thighs, bending over and looking at the floor. She could see a despondent shadow closing in on him.

“I'm guessing your unenthusiastic reaction to my proposal has more to it than you finding me unattractive.”

He laughed again, a wounded sound. “I didn't know it was a proposal, yet.”

“It is. If you want it.”

“If I want it…”

He looked at her, and she realized the mistake she'd made by pushing him. There was something naked and shocking in the sudden yearning she saw in his eyes, and she shivered on her seat, squeezing her legs tighter together.

“Do I want it.”

She turned away from him and hastily reached for her drink, downing it in one go, gasping as the burn seemed to spread to her lungs and veins.

“I was a little afraid of that,” she admitted once she could use her voice.

“Can you look at me?”

She didn't want to; but she did, twisting on her chair again and meeting Adama’s eyes without flinching.

“It wouldn't be the first time I engage in a casual affair. I tend to favor it over a steady relationship—I’m a solitary type. I was involved with someone in a, ah, sensitive situation before, and I’ve always been able to compartmentalize, do my job, live my life as I intended. But he was... not quite willing to even try. He kept some expectations.”

If he was surprised by he revelation or guessed who it was about, he did not let it show. “Expectations are not always a bad thing.”

He seemed calmer, as if the cloud of dark energy that had seemed to suddenly surround him had lifted, leaving room for an attentiveness that was as thoughtful as it was a little unnerving.

“Until it becomes about being owed something.”

He stayed silent for a while, mulling over her words. “You think I have expectations?”

She made a face as she formed her answer, wanting to say it right. “Not quite. With you, it’s—you’re emotionally compromised. With your crew, your pilots. It makes things complicated.”

“It also makes it human.”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

They held each other’s eyes. A moment passed, and with it the chance to change the course of this night. Then, Adama slowly removed his glasses, and carefully laid them down on the coffee table in front of him, settling back into the couch with his hands crossed low on his stomach, his face tired, and weary.

“So, where do we go from here?”

She hesitated for a second before rising up and crossing over to him, sitting carefully to his right, not too close, but close enough to whisper.

“William…” she began, but he interrupted her gently.

“Bill. William was someone else.”

“Bill,” she amended, and waited a beat, savoring the new name on her tongue. Bill. Laura. The simplicity of their names combined in her head was almost shocking, somehow. Easy names for complicated people.

“I trust you. Maybe I should have started there.”

She gently took one of his hands in hers, urging him to stop looking down at them and meet her eyes.

“How much?” he asked softly, and she couldn't help but smile at his greed.

“I trust you to make me feel good.”

His hand flexed reflexively between hers, and she slowly brought it to her mouth, brushing her lips over his knuckles, drawing a shiver from him.

He let her play with his hand until she rasped her teeth against his palm, drawing a groan out of him and spurring him into action, both hands coming up to circle her face, bringing her to him, his lips teasing the side of her mouth.

“Why now?” Bill murmured against her cheek, and she froze, lips tingling with anticipation, her tongue burning with truths she couldn't tell.

Because I'm dying, Laura wanted to scream. Because I'm high on drugs half the time and seeing snakes and gods now what else next time. Because I think there's something bigger than all of us that’s coming and it's about to change everything I thought I knew of myself and the world and I'm terrified and clueless and alone.

And it's a kind of loneliness I've never asked for.

“Maybe because I've had a very bad day that ended wonderfully. Maybe because tonight it feels like we've won. And maybe just because I want this. Shouldn't that be enough?”

Bill seemed to believe it was. He pulled back, just enough, and let her enter his eyes, intent on giving her a last warning, a gentle thumb tracing the line of her jaw.

“I won't pretend I don't get attached.”

“And I won't pretend I can give you more than what I have.”

Laura was relieved to see him smile—relieved he didn’t push, but didn’t back down either. She had a fleeting, amusing thought about their strange, so often strained but oddly gratifying relationship where conflicts bloom but they kept each other honest and fighting, able to agree to disagree and move on—sex wasn't about to change things much, it seemed.

When he finally—finally—closed the distance between their lips, Laura sighed into the kiss and banished all intrusive thoughts from her mind.

TBC

#space parents #bsg fanfiction #laura x bill #roslin x adama #adama x roslin #bsg #once again I hope I'm not making a mess of characterization #do not fear the smut is coming #lolymoon writes

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habibialkaysani · 7 years

Text

Strange Bedfellows (Rosaline/Benvolio; G)

Ships: Rosaline/Benvolio

Summary: Set during 1x05. True to his word, Benvolio sleeps on the floor. Rosaline starts to feel guilty.

A/N: So I am new to this fandom, but not to writing, so I hope this fic is one of many! :) Enjoy.

Shoutout to Meg/@jeffersonjaxson for reading this over and helping me with a title.

Read at AO3

Read at FFN

Rosaline can’t sleep.

Granted, she hasn’t been able to for a while now - since Juliet’s death, or even before then, when Juliet took the potion, if Rosaline is to be completely honest with herself - but tonight it seems worse than usual. She tosses and turns fitfully, childishly keeping her eyes shut as if pretending to sleep will help her actually sleep.

Finally, she opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling, thinking, thinking. She goes over and over Friar Lawrence’s words in her head, willing her mind to focus on the mission and not stray to -

Benvolio.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the ceiling, not wanting her gaze to betray her by looking at him. She should feel guilty, really, for the way she stared at him as he towelled himself dry earlier that night, but she doesn’t. She was just… appreciating the view. And a good view it was. Benvolio is certainly handsome - she can admit that, now that they have established that they are no longer enemies. There is something… soft about him, and it feels hard to explain even to herself what it is that draws her to him.

And yet it goes against every sensibility she has to be falling for him, the very man she had sworn she did not want to marry. She was supposed to end up in a convent, for God’s sake.

Despite herself, she can’t help but glance over to Benvolio, and to her surprise she finds he’s staring at her intently. When their eyes meet he looks away hurriedly, and Rosaline’s brow furrows in confusion for a moment.

“Can’t sleep, Capulet?” Benvolio says eventually.

“Too much on my mind,” Rosaline replies, just as he chances another glance at her. She watches as he shivers, having no blanket to cover him, and a pang of sympathy goes out to him at that. “You?”

“Too cold,” Benvolio says. “I won’t pretend the floor is actually comfortable. But no matter. We only have one blanket between us, after all.”

Rosaline groans inwardly, wishing she didn’t have so much of a conscience. After a few more seconds, she sits up and relents. “Come here,” she says, already regretting the words but nevertheless beckoning to him.

Benvolio raises his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re cold and uncomfortable and you can’t sleep because you’re on the floor. At least if you’re in the bed, one of us might be able to get an hour’s sleep before nightfall.”

“But… would that not be - improper?” he asks, and that insufferable smirk is on his lips and in his voice and it's impossible not to let him get under her skin.

“It would be,” Rosaline says, making to get up, “which is why I’m going to sleep on the floor.”

“But then you would be cold and uncomfortable.”

“Are you suggesting we share?” she asks, trying and failing to seem aghast by what he’s suggesting.

“We have little other choice,” Benvolio reasons. “If it helps… I know not to grab a woman without her permission.”

“You mean you’re not a savage,” Rosaline says sarcastically. “Oh, joy.”

“If you feel uncomfortable, then let me stay on the floor, Capulet.”

Rosaline sighs, giving in. “Fine. Come on, then.”

Benvolio gets up, and Rosaline moves to the edge of the bed as he gingerly pulls the blanket over him and gets into the bed. He keeps his distance from her, and at first Rosaline doesn’t notice but then she realises he’s barely covered by the blanket. She sighs again, moves back to where she was before on the bed, and after a moment Benvolio copies her, moving so he’s no longer on the edge of the bed at risk of tumbling off it. Her back is to him, and they’re not quite touching, but their limbs are close to each other, close enough for Rosaline to feel Benvolio’s breath on the back of her neck.

“What’s on your mind?” Benvolio asks quietly. Rosaline turns around at that, and she lets out a little gasp when she realises how close his nose suddenly is to hers. She moves back a little, cursing the person who made this bed and thought it was big enough for two people.

“My sister,” Rosaline says half-truthfully. ”I’m just worried about her.”

“You know, when I saw you with your sister, you reminded me of something.”

“What’s that?”

“That I should still have faith in humanity,” Benvolio answers.

“I don’t understand.”

“Even before Verona was out for my blood… I never thought much of people. I felt they only cared for themselves. I only cared for Mercutio and Romeo, and then… then I had no one. I have no one.”

“You have me,” Rosaline says before she can stop herself.

“I do,” Benvolio says, and he seems genuinely touched, “and for that I have no doubt that I am grateful. But when I saw you with your sister - I realised it was still possible to be selfless, to love someone with all your heart and expect nothing in return. To love someone, be responsible for someone, so unconditionally that you would drop everything to save them -”

“As you would have done for Mercutio or Romeo,” Rosaline says, “in a heartbeat.”

“When they were in my life,” Benvolio says heavily. “Which they are no longer.”

“I am your friend,” Rosaline says firmly. “And before you make a crack at me being -”

“A Capulet?” Benvolio asks with a smile.

“- the last friend you have, I was going to say -”

“Now, now, Rosaline, you cannot possibly think that I will emerge from this unscathed.”

“Perhaps not. But I am sure of one thing, Benvolio.”

He looks up with something that looks like hope in his eyes. “And what's that?”

“Your innocence, of course,” she answers. “And that… gets you further than you think. In the eyes of the Prince, anyway.”

At the mention of Escalus Benvolio’s expression hardens somewhat. “How can you be so sure of this?”

“Because…” Rosaline hesitates, then says, “I know the Prince. We know each other from childhood. And I know that he is a good man. I trust him to do the right thing.”

Benvolio doesn't seem surprised at her revelation. He just nods slowly, as if coming to an understanding, and then he turns on his side so his back is to her. Rosaline exhales softly, and it's as Benvolio jerks his head forward sharply that she realises her breath is kissing the back of his head. Still, she doesn't move from her position; now he seems to have warmed up, the heat Benvolio exudes is oddly comforting.

(She learned that last night when they huddled for warmth together.)

“Well, I trust you,” Benvolio says, and his sudden words catch her off-guard. “And if you say the Prince is a good man and he will be fair to me, I believe you. I just hope for my sake that you are right. But it doesn't change things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… being a wanted man - the Prince’s kindness notwithstanding - puts things into perspective. It makes you understand the more important things in life.”

“And what are those things?” she asks. She's curious, now, because he still won't look at her. He surprises her, then, by turning around so he's facing her again, and to her further surprise he reaches down and searches for her hand, not stopping until their fingers are laced together. Rosaline finds herself squeezing his hand, so his hand and hers are tightly twined like vines. Benvolio opens his mouth, lips slightly parted, and he looks like he's about to say something, but then his hand slackens in hers and he turns away once more.

“Actually… it doesn't matter,” Benvolio mutters.

“Benvolio…”

“You were right,” he says, and he gets up and out of the bed, taking several steps away from it and her. “This is… improper.”

“So is running off with a man in the middle of the night,” Rosaline counters.

“And I know I am to blame for that too,” Benvolio says ever so bitterly.

“No, I chose to come with you. Just like I chose to be your friend rather than your enemy. And I chose to let you into this bed because I trust you. With my life.”

“You trust me with your life?” The incredulity in his voice is not lost upon Rosaline.

“Of course,” says Rosaline. “That's… usually how things go when someone saves your life several times in a row.”

Benvolio smiles a rare smile, and now he sits on the bed next to Rosaline, who is still under the blanket.

“And here I was thinking you had forgotten the first time I saved your life.”

“I'm not very good at being grateful,” she admits. “Something my uncle and aunt like to remind me of.”

“You don't need to be,” Benvolio says firmly. “Not ever. But for what it's worth… I am grateful to you.”

Rosaline tries not to feel pleased but there's no mistaking the pinkness suddenly on the tips of her ears.

“For what?”

“After Mercutio, and after Romeo… I was lost. And then you hurtled into my life -”

“Kicking and screaming, if you'll recall.”

“- and it was like my life had purpose once again when we first started investigating Friar Lawrence. Together.”

“For what it’s worth?” Rosaline says after a moment.

“Mm?”

“I’m glad I was betrothed to someone I could be friends with.”

“As am I.”

Rosaline pulls back the blanket and pats the space next to her. “Now, since we have improprieties out of the way,” she says, “how about you get back to bed?”

“I never thought the day would come that a Capulet would be asking me to be her bedfellow.”

“Keep talking like that, Montague, and you’ll be back on the floor.”

Benvolio laughs, and it’s a glorious sound in the face of the adversity that is sure to come for them both. He gets into the bed, and for a moment their limbs squash together as he gets comfortable and moves to what has become his side of the bed.

“Wake me up in an hour,” he says, and with that he falls asleep, almost instantly.

Rosaline closes her eyes, too, knowing she won’t be able to sleep, but nevertheless comforted by the warm presence beside her.

“I’m coming to get you, Livia,” she murmurs. Then she pauses, and she amends, “We’re coming to get you.”

Tagging: @accras @yahanabih @thesushimonster @stungunmilly2 @dailypassionateobsession @rainfiresnowearth @fallinfor-youreyes @artemisodinson @indolentwanderer @livierinforeva @zerotolove @glowysweetfab @ikekehfan @bisexualjamesollsen @superwomanlanalang @redvelvetcupcakes21 @plum55 @-cort- @sweetdiva21 @ourcoffeeaddictme @queenstephaniaa @sugarysweetzee @queenofchildren @chocochocolatelover @therealpamlisa @miiandatrey @always-the-big-spoon @laurelbonnieallison @strangefellowsinhertime @misfitwriter @miiandatrey @shelovesthebeard @seasickmermaid @ginger-elf-queen @lyanaalvarado @potatoonthebookshelf @sincerelyemmekay @lilzipop @beerlula @darisu-chan @illtakefiction @lyanaalvarado @gentlesleaze @la-petite-fadette @britay83

#rosvolio #rosaline x benvolio #rosvolio fic #ssc fic #ssc fanfiction #rosaline capulet #benvolio montague #mine #my fic #still star crossed #fanfic

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allthereclists · 7 years

Text

Victuuri (last page 5)

time may change me by emilyenrose 2,156

Yuuri and Victor met by chance as children.

made you pocket your pride by havisham 3,461

Yuuri discovers something about Victor and makes a fateful decision.

I'm Right Next Door by i_like_my_eggs_benedict 4,209

"The first time he heard it, Yuri Plisetsky thought he was imagining it."

Poor Yurio's neighbor won't stop having the loudest sex imaginable with someone who has the same name as him.

Deck the Halls with Love and Folly by sushicorps (Inclinant) 4,074

“Well…” Viktor starts but doesn't continue because where does one even go with “I am really a world champion figure skater but I got distracted because I think you’re really cute and now you’re offering to teach me how to ice skate and I’m actually about to say yes?”

Basically, the first time Viktor Nikiforov sees Katsuki Yuuri, he skates into a Christmas tree.

Yuuri!!! With the Stars! by Watermelonsmellinfellon 4,354

A Viktuuri AU where everything is the same except Yuuri never got into ice skating professionally, but he’s still just as good at it. [Yuuri's actually famous.] He’s invited to be on Ice Skating With the Stars, and he and Viktor are paired up as partners and they fall in love.

in death, at the end of the world byperennials 8,030

"Beautiful, you say?"

“Your hair. It's the color of the moon.”

From this life, to the next, to the next, he'll chase you for as long as it takes.

on top of the world by springsoldier (ladydaredevil) 8,244

In which Victor doesn’t believe in secret identities, Yuuri’s not quite sure how any of this happened and together, they fight crime! (Also the supervillain community as a whole is pretty harmless.)

singularity by springsoldier (ladydaredevil) 10,615

Victor Nikiforov, Jedi Knight, does not struggle with attachments. It’s only that Duke Katsuki of Hasetsu is unfairly attractive.

what stars do by springsoldier (ladydaredevil) 14,604

When Yuuri goes looking for a fallen star, he expects to find an interesting rock. Victor is many things, but definitely not that. (Stardust AU)

until we build our city by SportsAnimeRuinedMyLife (KnightOfRage) 20,351

Viktor didn't ask for a family. He got one anyway.

i've stumbled onto sounds i wasn't able to make aloneby zerotransfat 20,838

Yakov pushes Victor for another season, and Victor doesn’t really have a good reason to refuse. He’s been having trouble finding his free program music when he meets Yuuri, a composer who can’t seem to finish this one song.

Healthy Impropriety by mtothedestiel 29,496

Victor is the wealthy master of the Nikiforov estate. At a society party he's swept off his feet by the mysterious, suave, and very drunk Katsuki Yuuri. Victor aims to declare his love and secure Mr. Katsuki's hand in marriage, but first he has to find him!

Melodies Unheard, but Felt All the Same byWatermelonsmellinfellon 76,272

Yuuri wanted to make history as the first deaf man to win the Grand Prix Final. Of course he's a little skeptical of Victor Nikiforov's presence, especially considering the reactions from others who have learned about his lack of hearing.

But Victor proves to be different, and Yuuri appreciates that. Now all that's left is to tell the figure skating world about it.

lie to make me like you by cityboys 80,075 (read all from her)

It’s become a game, of sorts, to anyone privy to the fact that the pattern exists in the first place: ask Victor out at the beginning of the month, date for however many days, and wait for the end to come and for Victor to say, always: I couldn’t fall in love with you. Let’s break up. Or, Victor is a retired actor looking for love, and Yuuri happens to be the (un)fortunate soul to unwittingly ask him out at the beginning of the month. Except relationships don't come with a script, and it's much harder understanding love than roles.

like your french girls by ebenroot (nic98ole) 102,904

"Victor," Yuri begins, lowering the eighteenth sketch of the figure skater Victor drew this week, "you have a fucking problem."

in which Victor is an artist, Yuuri is his figure skating muse, and Yuri is so done hearing about their stupid love story through Instagram

canon

a thing to be shared by radialarch 764

Two things happen in Barcelona.

we are young by sonatine 818

Sometimes it's easy to forget how young these world champions are, relatively speaking.

Or: Yurio loves his dads.

i think i may have loved you first byperennials 1,313

Here are the facts:

Yuuri is drunk. Viktor is not.

Yuuri is riding an alcohol-induced high so far up above the clouds he cannot even begin to comprehend the weight of his actions back in the human realm.

Viktor is falling in love.

the taste of his mouth, fleeting by radialarch 1,413

Yuuri Katsuki is a fucking tease.

Misunderstandings by heartsdesire456 1,413

In which Chris has slept with most people (besides Yuuri) and it prompts a discussion in which Victor discovers Yuuri isn't actually asexual, but rather he just didn't notice Victor had been trying to seduce him.

one thing leads to another by sonatine 1,529

Sometimes Viktor says he's going out but stays in. Sometimes Viktor says he's staying in to do laundry when he is 100% planning to try out that new bar the next block over.

He doesn't know why he does this.

got you wrapped up like a present by radialarch 1,656

Victor really hates that tie.

am i dancing sexy yet (i can't wait to make your body my own) by notcaycepollard 1,746

The thing is. People always assume it’s Yuuri who’s the submissive one.

They’re completely wrong, all of them.

After Banquet Special byWatermelonsmellinfellon 1,272

What would happen if Victor had escorted Yuuri back to his hotel room after the banquet?

and over our heads the gray light unwinding byradialarch 2,152

It turns out, Yuuri and Victor have been having two different conversations.

duetto by lupinely 2,102

Yuuri wants to hold onto this moment forever; never wants to fall asleep or the sun to rise on the next day, so that the two of them can remain here like this for as long as they wish, as long as they can.

tell me something by newsbypostcard 3,313

Yuuri pours all of his trust into the fact that Viktor Nikiforov is a razor's edge behind him, always looking out for him; always wanting him to be the best he can be.

Love to Be Loved by havisham 3,492

Victor loves Yuuri, almost overwhelmingly.

snow on fire by ftmsteverogers 3,866

“You must be exhausted,” Victor said, eyes warm, and didn’t touch Yuuri, although it looked like he might have wanted to. “I thought you were going to fall asleep in the car.”

Yuuri shrugged a shoulder. “Too keyed up.”

Victor stepped closer and Yuuri didn’t move away, just looked up at him with wide eyes. “Shall I take this for you?” Victor asked kindly, and took the bag off Yuuri’s shoulder before he stepped away again. “Let’s check in so we can get you to bed.”

Dilettante by havisham 4,130

Victor Nikiforov is the consummate professional on the ice, but an utter dilettante in love.

Visit From The Past by heartsdesire456 4,455

An unexpected visit from someone from Victor's past reveals a part of Victor's life that Yuuri never knew about.

You and me can light a spark by sirona 4,722

In 2019, Yuuri finally wins gold and also finds out that the one time he'd thought Viktor had definitely been joking, Viktor - hadn't.

your love is my turning page by cityboys 4,755

Victor and the hours he spends waiting, reflecting and figuring things out.

A Love Most Unique by heartsdesire456 5,732

There were a lot of things about Yuuri’s relationship with Victor that was unique. It was especially unique to be someone who had never found any appeal in the thought of sex and found such ready acceptance from a partner who very much enjoyed sex.

(A look into the unique relationship between asexual Dom Yuuri and sub Victor)

5 Annoying Things About Being Married To Victor by heartsdesire456 5,924

+1 thing that never gets old, no matter how much annoying stuff Yuuri has to put up with.

all your doors flung wide by radialarch 6,429

Upending a life to move to a small town in Japan turns out to be the easy part.

(A somewhat history of an exhibition skate for two.)

Unworthy by heartsdesire456 6,521

5 Times Victor Overheard People Saying Yuuri Wasn't Good Enough For Him and 1 Time Someone Told Him Yuuri Was Too Good For Him

a day for all the rest by Etharei 6,266

Phichit clears his throat. "You, ah, might want to wear your scarf again." He taps meaningfully at his own collarbone.

Victor touches the indicated spot on his neck. The skin is markedly sensitive. He presses down, unable to help himself, and the sweet little ache summons a sense-memory: strong fingers carding through his hair, then digging into his shoulder, powerful thighs like a vice around his hips, his name gasped into his ear before a hot mouth seals over the skin of his neck.

The day after the Cup of China.

Right Off His Feet by EmilianaDarling 7,457

One of Yuuri’s hands is sliding around his waist, guiding him effortlessly until they’re dancing together. Really dancing together, and Viktor forgets to think, to breathe. Yuuri’s so close that Viktor can feel the heat of his breath against the back of his neck, the warmth of his skin through his clothes.

Then he closes his eyes, leans into the touch, and gives in completely as he lets Yuuri lead.

stay awake with me awhile by kevystel 8,374

The problem, should Viktor care to take the time to think about it, is that he’s no longer competing to win. He’s defending his title. It is a very different experience. It burns a hole in his palm, sometimes, on the mornings he lets himself sleep in.

The Comeback by heartsdesire456 10,235

Victor's debut for his return to competitive skating, the European Championships, arrives, and Yuuri tags along to support his husband as he fights his nerves to overcome his fears and share his love of skating with the world.

Now When Arrows Don't Penetrate, Cupid Grabs the Pistol byken_ichijouji (dommific) 10,673

Phichit Chulanont doesn't know how he ended up the skating world's wingman, but he ain't mad at it.

Husband vs. Husband: Figure Skating World Championship by heartsdesire456 13,817

Worlds is the first time that Victor and Yuuri will compete against each other since Victor's return to skating and, most importantly, since they became the first married couple to ever compete against each other at a figure skating competition. The big question on everybody's mind is, "Who will win gold, Victor Nikiforov or Katsuki Yuuri?"

The Fundamentals of Caring by braveten 20,847

“Let me guess, you’re going to go take care of Yuuri while he sleeps? Just in case he sneezes or something?” Yurio rolls his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. “Viktor, you’re whipped.”

Viktor rubs the back of his neck as he leans against the wall. “What does that mean?”

“It means that if Yuuri asked you to do a little dance for him in nothing but a coconut bra and a hula skirt, you’d do it.”

Viktor pauses, confused. “And that's a bad thing?”

My Name On Your Lips by feelslikefire 108,070

Yuuri Katsuki has been betrothed to the High King's son, Victor, since he was just a child; furthermore, as an omega, he's forbidden from practicing magic in combat. For years, he's been able to put off the former because the Prince was traveling abroad, and gotten around the latter by practicing with his mentor in secret.

Now Victor Nikiforov has finally returned home, and Yuuri is being summoned to the capital for their wedding. He needs a plan to put off marriage long enough to find a way to break the betrothal, while keeping his practicing from being discovered.

If only the Prince didn't have other ideas.

wip

the magic of your sighs by kevystel

Call Everything on the Ice... by shysweetthing wip

Victor learns Japanese while in Hasetsu. He doesn't tell Yuuri, and things get dicey when he overhears Yuuri and Mari talking about him in Japanese. Repeatedly.

(The subtitle of this fic should be: Victor Nikiforov really needs a hug. Luckily, he gets one. Eventually.)

~~~

“No,” Victor says, skating up to Yuuri on the ice, “you have to push all the way from here, or you’ll never get the height you need for that axel.” He sets his hand on Yuuri’s ass, tracing the muscle group he’s referring to. “Not here.” He taps Yuuri’s thigh. He doesn’t know the words for the muscles in English, only knows how to show him.

Yes, technically he’s grabbing Yuuri’s ass, but how else is he to communicate?

Always My Soulmate by Watermelonsmellinfellon

Compilation of Yuuri/Victor Soulmate AU oneshots.

solo and pair by calciseptine

Yuuri keeps his mark hidden.

This Body Overflowing by EmilianaDarling

Yuuri has never wanted to be Victor Nikiforov.

He wants to be owned by him instead; wants the whole world to see Victor in every move that he makes, like invisible handprints all over his skin.

you walk around with my heart on your sleeve bypsikeval

It's safe to say that Victor expected a very different reception, upon his arrival to Hasetsu.

On My Love by RikoJasmine

For the second time, the Sochi Grand Prix Finals arrive, and with it a reborn Yuuri Katsuki. “Viktor,” Yuuri thinks over the pounding of his heart, the crowd going silent as the music begins. “I’ll show the world what you meant to me.”

Yuuri often thinks of his life as Before and After Viktor Nikiforov, the marking point being the day Viktor swept into his life and turned his world upside-down. After many years together, an accident leads to Yuuri suddenly waking up in the Before—back in Detroit, before the GPF, before he ever knew Viktor as anything other than his childhood idol.

As if it had all been just a dream.

#rec: victuuri

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