#i have nothing to fear after glee | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

giuliettagaltieri · 2 months

Text

Footsteps in the Snow

Pairing: Dad!Coriolanus Snow x Mom!Reader

Chapter Synopsis: The Heir

Warning: parenthood

Word Count: 3133

7 of 7

When one has everything, the only foe left to face seems to be nothing else but time.

Coriolanus watched his son Aurelius Hyperion, or Harper grow. The little boy seemed to become more and more like him with every passing day. And Coriolanus is conflicted about how he feels about that fact as it seems his son grows farther and farther away from him.

You often reassure him that it is simply a part of growing up, that children will have to learn how to become independent. It was easy for you to say. You did not have the same crisis as him.

Harper would seek your company and still cuddles close to you despite him being seven years older since you have given birth to him.

It wounds Coriolanus deeply when he catches Harper laughing with you but his back straightens and the glee in his face fades to indifference when he is nearby. Coriolanus found it difficult to bond with a child so similar to him.

Without you, he fears Harper would have long left the manor.

“Harper, is there something you would like to tell your father?” You ask over breakfast, your voice light and cheery, a juxtaposition to the frigid atmosphere.

Coriolanus sets the newspaper down to give his son his undivided attention. It was something you taught him. To make Harper feel seen and heard. And he is thankful that you initiated an interaction between them. They felt nothing more than strangers living under the same roof.

The little boy glances at his father before he sets his fork down and wipes his lips with the napkin. Coriolanus waits patiently as the boy sips his water and clears his throat. He is stalling but Coriolanus will not let him get away from this.

“Yes?” He asks when Harper chooses to fix his cravat instead of talking.

You smile at your son when he looks at you for support. ‘Go on.’ You mouth at him.

Harper straightens his back and meets his father’s gaze with his unwavering ones.

“I was the top of my class, father.” He says proudly. “I also just learned a new piece on the violin.”

Coriolanus smiles genuinely, proud of his little boy.

“That is good.”

Harper looks at his father with his eyes mirroring the same happiness and for just a moment they stare at each other. Coriolanus watches how his joy seeps out again.

Coriolanus receives a kick to his shin and he looks at you with accusation but you are too busy buttering your bread.

“I would love to hear you play.” He tries to add but Harper only nods. “What piece was it?”

Harper sighs and Coriolanus purses his lips. “Paganini’s 24th Caprice.”

You sip your tea, quietly enjoying the wonderstruck expression in your husband’s face before he recovers quickly.

“And what does Grandma’am have to say about that?” Coriolanus asks gently, a soft smile on his lips, one that Harper returns.

“She doesn’t know.” Harper said mischievously. Grandma’am would have pulled his ear had she known.

“Let us keep it that way.” Coriolanus nods as he picks his newspaper again. “But will you play for me when you find time?”

Harper glances at you before nodding.

“Harper is coming to work with us today.” You tell Coriolanus who looks at you with mild interest, to ensure that Harper does not take it negatively but he was in truth asking you what you are planning. Again.

“It has been quite a long time since his last visit.” You say after pushing a fruit parfait in your son’s direction.

“Indeed, it has.” Coriolanus agrees as he picks up where he left off in the newspaper.

Your son knew that something might be wrong when you were smiling too much the moment all three of you entered his father’s office. Coriolanus was fixing the documents in his desks when you sat on the plush sofa, your heavy belly more prominent. You would have gone to your own office usually.

Harper sits on the other sofa across you, watching how his little sister sent kicks through your belly, making the fabric shift ever so slightly.

“Oh, dear me!” You suddenly gasp and both boys look at you with concern. “Vipsania Sickle’s afternoon tea, it’s tomorrow.”

Coriolanus raises a brow. “She hosts afternoon tea all the time, my love. There is no need to trouble yourself.”

“But I do not have a dress.” You argue as you attempt to stand with great difficulty. “And she claims this afternoon tea will best the recent one the Flickermans hosted, and mind you, that was pretty eccentric.”

Harper stands abruptly when you get off the couch.

“Oh, no, Honey.” You smile at your sweet boy, your hand brushing his golden head to keep it neater. “I will have to go alone. I would not want to burden you with scanning for dresses the entire day.”

He looks desperately at you, turns his back to his father and mouths pleas but you only smile cheekily and kiss his nose.

“I will see you later. Have a great day with your father.” You pat his cheek lightly. Coriolanus comes to kiss you, although a frown is in his brows.

“Be careful, I already sent for the chauffeur.” He tells you and you nod.

Coriolanus and Harper stand side by side to watch you leave and when the door shuts, they remain standing there staring at the door. Eventually they glance at each other but Harper quickly evades his eyes and circles back to the sofa where you previously sat, missing you already.

“I promise I will not be a bother.” He tells his father who has his arms crossed in his chest, looking at the boy who grabbed a high-end real estate magazine.

“Thinking of buying a property?” Coriolanus asks as he returns to his desk.

Harper lowers the magazine to peek at his father who is now working at his desk. “When I get old enough.” He taps his shoes together. “I’ll invite mother to come live there too.”

Coriolanus looks up from the document he is working with. “What about me?”

Not expecting such a question, Harper was a bit hesitant and he stared up at the ceiling before answering his father. “You can come too”

They minded their own business after that.

Coriolanus welcomed the silence as he got through his job without disturbances.

It was lunch time when the silence was broken.

A service trolley is being wheeled in and Harper perks up at the scent.

He gets up to greet the person who pushes the trolley and the old man dressed in a crisp suit smiles at the young boy warmly. The man takes his leave after telling them what was under the cloches.

Coriolanus sits with Harper in the lounge as they share the hearty lunch.

“Did you get a lot of work done?” Harper asks politely.

You told your husband that your son is only starting to learn how to make small talks and that he should be encouraged when he attempts to start one.

“I did.” Coriolanus nods. “Almost done for the day.”

Harper looks at his father in astonishment.

“But it is only lunch?”

Coriolanus nods. “I was surprised too. But then again, I stayed up late last night.”

“You did?” Harper raises a brow. “Mother slept alone last night?”

The fork stills in Coriolanus’ plate and he purses his lips. “Your mother understands.” He clears his throat. “And this does not happen often.”

Harper continues his lunch, not liking the subject anymore.

“How are your fencing lessons?” Coriolanus tries to open another topic.

“I excel at it.”

“That is good.”

“Yes.”

This was much harder than Coriolanus anticipated.

He needed a topic, something that would pique his son’s interest. Something to banish the suffocating formal atmosphere. They are father and son, for heaven’s sake. They are acting more like business partners, even the men Coriolanus meets do not act so awkward around him.

“When I was younger, there was this shop I often go to.” Coriolanus says as he wipes his mouth with the napkin. “They had the best gelato.”

Harper sets his glass of water down to listen to his father.

“The gelato that our chefs make does not even compare.” He continues, making his voice light and playful.

Coriolanus laughs at the skeptical look on his son.

“Our chefs make the best desserts,” Harper argues.

Harper watches as Coriolanus heads to the closet and pulls out a couple of white polo shirts. They were identical, only differing in size.

“I use these for golfing but I figured they would work fine.”

“Work fine for what?” Harper walks over to his father.

Coriolanus hands him the clothing with a determined smile as he places a hat atop his head. “We’re going out.”

Sneaking out of the mansion undetected was close to an impossibility if it were anybody else but Coriolanus was glad that the staff pretended to have seen nothing. Harper excitedly walked close to Coriolanus as they strolled around the Capitol. He only got to see things from the car window and everything looks so different when he treads the sidewalks.

Harper was astonished how people were simply walking past him, not even sparing him a glance.

“They don’t recognize us.” He whispered giddily to his father who glanced at him with a grin.

Coriolanus placed a hand on Harper’s back as they entered the small shop. It was not like the ones that Harper usually sees. It was incredibly small, but its business was doing fairly well. Harper saw another boy waiting for his cone, and he was almost bouncing on his heels.

Harper frowns, is this all it takes for that kid to be happy? Even that sailboat he got from the Plinths did not make him smile that widely.

“You’re next in line.” Coriolanus gently pushes him forward.

A wrinkly grandma is by the counter, she was wearing a pink dress, and her ears adorned by large golden hoops. “What flavor would you want, young man?”

Harper turns to his dad, not knowing what to get. He was just used to food being served to him, he never had to make an order before. Coriolanus points at the options just beside the cash register and Harper bends his head back to see from under his hat.

There’s chocolate and vanilla. Lemon and hazelnut.

“I will have the caramel, please.” Harper says politely and the old lady nods before turning to Coriolanus.

“And a pistachio.” Coriolanus says as he pretends to look at his wallet to avoid looking at the woman. He was incredibly popular, he would not want to risk people recognizing him.

When Harper receives the crisp golden cone that had two enormous scoops of caramel gelato, he cannot contain his excitement and takes a bite. Coriolanus snickers when Harper’s lips tighten as his blonde brows raise while his eyes are closed.

“You okay?”

Harper blinks rapidly as he clutches his head.

“I am fine…uhm okay. I’m okay.” He glances at the sweet old lady, wondering if his formal tone gave anything away but she appears to not have heard it. “Thank you. It is delicious.”

Coriolanus pays and he steps out of the shop with Harper focused on his cone, determined to keep up with the melting scoops. Coriolanus decided to take him to the park he donated and they took a slower pace as they walked through the pathways with enormous trees lining it.

“You’re right. This is better.” Harper tells his father. “I wonder if I can get them to sell their recipe.”

Coriolanus smiles discreetly, a victory.

Harper glances around the greenery, admiring the roses and the pigeons. One decided to follow him though. Harper looks at it from the corner of his eyes, trying not to make a sudden move that could agitate the bird.

It was persistent.

The boy quickens his steps and the pigeon hops and hops, using its wings to propel it forward. When it tries to peck his foot, Harper sprints to Coriolanus. “Dad!” He grabs hold of his father’s hand and clings close.

Coriolanus halts his step and as Harper warily stares at the pigeon who flew away in fright, Coriolanus had his eyes on his little boy, who just called him ‘Dad’.

To Harper’s surprise, Coriolanus scoops him up just like how he did when he was still a toddler. They both look at each other, a million words spoken in one eye contact.

With stomachs satiated, they walk the halls of the Presidential mansion hand in hand.

“Why do we not live here?” Harper asks curiously. “Most Presidents live here.”

Coriolanus rubs his chin. “I prefer to keep my family and work separate.”

Harper nods but he pulls Coriolanus when he sees a gigantic oil painting of someone he knew.

Coriolanus stands next to him to gaze up at the painting.

“Crassus Xanthos Snow. Your grandfather.” Coriolanus tells him.

“I know. We studied his biography at school.” Harper says as his soft small hand tightens its hold around his father’s much larger hand. “Everybody thought it was unfair as he was my grandfather but it’s not like I knew him personally.”

Coriolanus looks at the tall painting, meeting his father’s gaze as the cold unmoving eyes stare down at him.

“I didn’t know him very well either.” He tells Harper. “I was very young when he died.”

Harper shifts uncomfortably, not knowing what to say. He settles with a gentle pat to his father’s hand. Coriolanus smiles at his boy, appreciating the attempt to console him.

“You know, even after his passing, I still felt him lingering. His legacy was very great and it is difficult to live under his shadow.” His smile became sad.

“I might know how that feels, dad.” Harper slips his hand from his. “I mean…Father.”

Coriolanus looks away from the painting to look at Harper. “What do you mean?”

The kid sighs as he glances at him. “You’re so perfect. You make the best decisions. Everybody respects you. You are the great leader of Panem, you and mother.”

Where were you when he needed you?

“I wasn’t always like this.” Coriolanus tells him. “I used to make mistakes, great mistakes. People did not respect me, they respected my name.”

Harper shrugs. “Which makes it harder for me because even after all that, Snow landed on top. If I fail, even after everything I have, I will be a disgrace.”

“You will not be a disgrace.” Coriolanus grins. “You dominate every class they put you in. You learned Paganini’s piece and not everybody can say that.”

Scoffing, Harper scuffs his shoe against the carpet. “But I did not mentor nor did I become a scholar under Dr. Gaul.”

“I can help you.” Coriolanus assures him by placing a hand on his shoulder, one that Harper slaps away.

“I hate nepotism.”

This forces an amused laugh from Coriolanus. “You don’t need it. You are only seven and you already know words such as ‘nepotism’.” Harper frowns at his father. “What I am trying to say is, I can teach you. My father was not there for me so I have no references as to how fatherhood should be but I am willing to guide you.”

“Like a mentor?” Harper raises a brow.

“If you want, yes.” Coriolanus pulls his hat off to ruffle his hair, Harper scrunches his nose as his hair falls to his face. “And you can keep on calling me ‘Dad’.”

Harper grimaces. “Only in private.”

Coriolanus laughs. “Alright, I’ll take it.”

When you arrived later that day, Harper was fast asleep on the couch, the coat Coriolanus wore prior that day was draped over your boy to keep him warm.

“Ah, there she is.” Coriolanus grins as you walk in with shopping bags in your arms.

You carefully set them down as you waddle to the sofa. Coriolanus follows after you and proceeds to take your shoes off. You sigh in contentment as he massages your tired feet.

“And how was it?” You ask as you place a bowl of dried fruits on top of your round belly. “Did you get to bond?”

“We did.” Coriolanus nods. “We snuck out.”

“You what?” You nearly pull your foot but he tightens his hold on your toe. “Corio, that’s dangerous.”

Coriolanus smirks at you. “The most dangerous thing that happened was a pigeon chasing after him.”

You stifle a laugh. Oh, you would have wanted to see that. Strolling around the Capitol like a normal family and free from prying eyes sounds really nice. A pout forms on your lips.

“I’m jealous now.”

Your husband caresses your calf and leans over to place a kiss on your belly.

“Perhaps when our little princess is born, we can go on more vacations.”

Nodding, you pop a dried strawberry to your mouth as you watch the smile stay on your husband’s face. His face is glowing, eyes no longer holding a storm inside it.

“Corio, are you happy?”

His fingers still their movement as he raises a brow at you.

“When you asked me to marry you, you said a life with me might be a shot to happiness.” You continue and he gently lifts your feet off to come sit closer to you.

“Y/N, I have made many decisions in my life and marrying you still remains to be the best one.” He places a kiss on your nose and your eyes flutter shut, tickling your plump cheeks with your eyelashes. “You gave me love and two wonderful children.”

You both glance at Harper as he places a warm hand on your belly.

“Everything I am today is because of you.”

“No, Corio. You cannot give me all the credit-”

He shakes his head. “Everything I am today is because of you.”

You feel a sting in your eyes and your eyesight gets blurry from the onslaught of tears.

“All I did was scheme.” You laugh through your tears which he kisses away.

“And look where those schemes brought us.” He sits tall and looks at his office. “You brought us on top.”

Happiness was something Coriolanus thought to have been fleeting and sacrificed when in search for glory. But it was not. It was the culmination of everything that a person can achieve.

Money, Power, Glory.

They are something he sought for when he was young and naïve, but all three boils down to happiness.

And he was glad you stood by him. You made him feel things he thought he had no right to.

Coriolanus is happy. And he is loved.

And he will stain the world red to protect this life you created with him.

Quest for Happiness

#coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow x you #coriolanus snow x y/n #coriolanus x reader #tbosas #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #young coriolanus snow #hunt for glory #quest for happiness

488 notes · View notes

shooting-love-arrows · 5 months

Note

A villian yandere? Not like those cartoon villian but the one that actually make the reader feel fearful, not because the villian is physicaly scary or something but the villian is so cunning, sly and manipulative like the knave from genshin or fyodor from bsd

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄! 𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐍

PAIRING: 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 x reader (gender not mentioned/specified/implied) TW. manipulation, isolation, holding reader against her will, stockholm syndrome, dark yandere, flag so red my eyes hurts, unhinge, yandere behavior. A/N: Inspired by manhwas I've read so far. I'm on a roll guys. I didn't expect it to be this long too but man, he's one crazy creation.

𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Who isolates you to the point of insanity. It is widely known humans are social creatures and we need social interactions. However, 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 used this fact to his advantage. Knowing that after a while people go mad when they don’t interact with other people, he decided to do just that. At first his manipulation is subtle: hidden suggestions about who is right to hand with and who's not. Little yet meaningful words weaved between innocent sentences. Then when he saw his tactics working, he began to get bolder. As the group of people becomes smaller (thanks to him) 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 starts to outwardly say they aren't people you should associate with. They are a bad influence and did you know they said this and that behind your back? Real friends don’t do that! He doesn’t do that! That's when comments about how you don't need anyone but him, who always stays by your side and was right about what he told you, each and every time. Your family isn't safe from his doings either. He never fails to drive you away from them. Suddenly they are people who lead you on and make a fool out of you. A black sheep of the family. You just had to see! Before you know it, you are completely alone with only him to talk and listen to.

"I'm just looking out for you like a best friend should be doing." 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 wanted to vomit when he said those two, blasted words.

Who snaps and ends up locking you up. Now that you're completed isolated and you happen to start living with him, he locks you up. In a bedroom with a bathroom attached who only has necessities and nothing you could harm yourself with. You can bang, scratch and kick at the door all you want but those doors won't budge. 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 is fully prepared. Those doors were expensive but it was worth it. Those locks could be opened by him and the material it was made of could not be so easily destroyed without certain tools you didn’t have. And you're yelling, begging and crying? It is like music to his ears. He'll often sit at the door and listen to you, basking in your voice, and when you're quiet (either pass out from exhaustion or too tired to continue), he'll pick up from where he ended the last time, manipulating you again. His sentences are repetitive and he wants to drill those into your head. He'll tell you how no one is looking for you, how he's all you need, how he'll take care of you and so on...

"Those people want to hurt you. I am doing this for your own good. If you want, I can bring you something? I was thinkng about tamagochi! They are so cut, aren't they?"

Who has to show you some tough love. 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 didn’t expect you to realize just how much he loves you. That’s why he tried to be an understanding partner and be forgiving towards your rash and childish tantrums. But he has his limits too. For example, he notices how you don't eat meals he oh so lovingly has prepared for you. If you don’t want to eat, then he won’t force you. He just doesn't bring you food for the next 2-3 days. Only water. And on the fourth day, he'll bring you a proper meal again. Of course, like he expected, you ate it all. See? It’s not hard to act your age. You don’t see it but 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 smiled in glee when he saw an empty plate. It's a good sign!

"I'm relieved you like the food I prepared for you. I cooked it for the first time but when I saw the recipe I knew you'd like it."

Who you grow to not only fear and love. He is your captor, the one who took away your freedom and cut all ties with society, who manipulates you and ends up breaking you. Who you feared, despised and cursed like he was the source of all evil. But the longer you stayed in the little room that became your whole world, the lines between hater and love began to blurr. Not that you realized it. At some point something switched in your brain and although you feared him, you began to ponder over his words. Maybe he's right? After this period of time, no one ended up looking for you. No one cared enough to do so. And you do only have him. He always makes time for you, brings you delicious meals, and sometimes even gifts you a little trinkets when you act good. Not to mention you live in a nice bedroom with a bathroom too. He never touched you without your consent or forced you to do anything. You could make a choice to bathe whenever you want, pick one of the books he brought you and read and so on. Your brain was suggesting that he is a caring best friend who takes care of you and protects you from all those monserts that want to hurt and bring you down. Soon enough his actions made your heart speed up.

"I knew you'll love me..." 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 teared up when he heard your confession. It was worth the waiting becaouse now he can bulit a perfect life he always imagined having with you. "I love too. So, so, so much sometimes it hurts."

All of the published posts on this account/blog belongs to @shooting-love-arrows. I do not consent to my works being: translated, stolen, published or reposted on this and other sites. Likes, reblogs, comments are highly appreaciated. Thank you.

743 notes · View notes

luv-gukkie · 4 months

Text

★ 𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐲 ★

pairing: yandere! yoongi x f. reader

genre: smut || non-idol au || yandere

summary: yoongi just can’t seem to get enough at the way you look at him; he really loves it, even if it’s a mix of fear and hatred.

word count: +4.5k

tags/warnings: ᑲᥙᥣᥣᥡіᥒg, non-con, ᥡ᥆ᥙᥒg ⍴rᥱgᥒᥲᥒᥴᥡ, sᥕᥱᥲrіᥒg, ᥲᑲ᥆r𝗍і᥆ᥒ mᥱᥒ𝗍і᥆ᥒᥱძ, reader is scared to disappoint parents, wealthy!yoongi, he’s brutally mean (which is not cool), sub! reader, dom! yoongi, blackmail, mentions of bribing/corruption in a school & police, he lowkey sadistic

notes: another little story is on the works for jungkook and yoongi, unfortunately, i don’t know when i’ll finish though :’)

༻❤︎︎ ★ ★ ❤︎︎༺

Min Yoongi was exploring his ideas, much into thought about what else he could to make you notice him even more. Every time he would torment you, he would be captured by how stunning you looked, and that was just on you wearing one of the uniforms that was required by the school.

Yoongi knew it was something that he shouldn't do to someone he loved. Despite that, he knew it was his only way to place your attention on him. He didn't really mind doing what he did, he had nothing against you. Yoongi just had a huge crush on you. And you would learn in the future of how a 'huge crush' was a complete understatement. Yet, he found it lovely when you would look around the room to see if he was there. He adored that.

You knew about him, as your bully. The guy who over the year spent his time making fun of you, and the worst thing was no one ever stopped him. His actions repeated daily. Maybe because Yoongi was the happiest person alive when you would only place the spotlight on him. Dared the others to say anything. He knew your main focus was on him as soon as you entered the school building until the moment you left. But you weren't! Not one bit of glee in your body when you knew you had five days ahead of you that would make you want to stay home because of a certain boy.

You hated him, you didn't even know what you did wrong to make him center you and torture you throughout your highschool year. But whatever you could have done, you surely regretted it.

He would constantly threaten you. Telling you threats after threats: "listen or else..." However, you began to notice that Yoongi would always repeat the same threat over and over. That if you told anyone about what he was doing, he would treat you more worse. Of course you had been petrified of asking for help from your peers or professors. You didn't want to get on his bad side even more.

But you started believing that he wouldn't even be able to stand close to you after telling an adult, that a restraining order would do the trick. So you were going to tell an adult, the adult that was responsible of the school, and you did. You had informed the principle on your situation with Yoongi and what did they do, nothing. You waited for them to assure you he wouldn't try anything. But they didn't care, and didn't even attempt to do something about the situation. You recalled calling them useless hags the next day, when you had been spotted again by Yoongi. And yet again, at his reach.

There was other options...

You were too afraid to tell your parents. You didn't know why you would be, your parents would assist you, help you overcome the obstacle of Yoongi bullying you. They would take into consideration that you could not be bullied anymore, you had finally build up the courage you needed in order for you to tell them, today. However, at the end of the day your teacher assigned you to clean the classroom after school. Just the day you really needed to go home, to prepare and relax yourself before breaking the news to your parents.

But it didn't go as plan. The teacher had to leave the classroom and told you to do some cleaning, if you wanted extra credit. And who wouldn't want extra credit, you could still have enough time to prepare yourself, plus your parents wouldn't be home until later.

What you didn't know was that Yoongi had been planning to see you after school and to surprise his lovely kitten.

Yoongi took it far, very far.

You had been cleaning up the classroom muttering some curses to your teacher when you heard the door 'bang' as it shut close. You slightly jumped at the sudden unexpected noise. Quickly turning around, you saw Yoongi, in a harsh tone you told him that the teacher was around, and if he did anything they would definitely find out. You began to pour out profanities at him, making sure to make him understand how much hate you had for him. Shouting across the room that the outcome of anything he did, would surely result in punishment.

Yoongi couldn't hold back, a smile became visible on his lips. He spoke calmly, "I have enough money from my parents to keep the school quiet. Nobody cares of your well being, the staff was easily bribed, they even accepted the first offer I had given."

You cursed at him: "fuck you." Adding that you would tell your parents and that they would take it to the police, he grinned. Your mind was racing with thoughts of how to get out of the situation, out of the classroom.

Yoongi slowly made his way to you, hoping that you would just accept the fact that you were stuck with him. But you sure were stubborn. He had been so close to having you, to only to have you run towards the other side.

You were trying your best not to get stuck between him and the walls. To approach the door.

It was a game of cat and mouse between the both of you. You were the little mouse struggling to free yourself from the claws of the wicked cat.

Finally, Yoongi gave up on being so gentle on you. He had to admit, it was cute: how you tried your very best to avoid him, at all cost. It left him with one choice, his only decision was to tackle you, so he did.

Yoongi did what he had to do.

And so did you. You definitely weren't going to let him take advantage of you. You punched him, managing to get out of his aggressive grip, only for him to yell at you with a harsh tone to come back.

Yoongi and you both knew the truth, you weren't considering to ever come back to him. You were choosing your freedom, still, even if it came with the slight prospect of getting caught by him.

Running out the door with all the desperation you had; the desire to get the hell out of the school, more importantly away from any place that Yoongi was. You raced to find anyone, your mind and heart racing: Where are all the clubs today? They were always here or the staff? Anyone?

There was still that expectation in you, that you were going to get away Yoongi. "There!" You happily annoyed, you had spotted the teacher that told you to clean the classroom, you told her everything about Yoongi in a nutshell, explaining that Yoongi was still trying to do something to you.

Something that you didn't want at all, anticipating for her to hold you and to never let go, until you were safe and sound. And at the end of the day, Yoongi would be expelled from the school, the only way to make him disappear from your life.

To never see or hear about him again.

"Found you!" a voice said from behind. You recognized it right away, of course you did, the only male that called you by that nickname. The same male that had just attacked you.

You quickly stared at the teacher, assuming she would pull you behind her and shield you from Yoongi. You indicated her to do something, gesturing your hands to her.

The tears of anxiety started rolling down your checks, you held back the choked sobs that were daring to come out any second.

She just gazed at you. You waited for her to say something. Anything. You just wanted her to aid you by fleeing you from your situation. Despite what you saw in her eyes: the condolence and remorse. What she said was unexpected, her intense gaze fell to the floor, she whispered to him, "Take her quickly because it's making me feel pity."

That was it, that was enough to break you into pieces.

Your heart ached, your emotions mixed together. You felt completely confused and fearful, the realization had hit you with an unpleasant brunt.

It was always about the money. The wealth.

The teachers followed what the student said, in this case, Yoongi was the student with money all around him, the heir to his family's businesses. Everyone listened to the commands of the rich kid—- the spoiled brat.

They were willing to turn a blind eye for Yoongi's 'ugly' demands.

You were lost in everything, mind racing with assumptions. Your eyes no longer had that gleam of hope in them, that optimism. It was long gone, no one is ever going to help you, neither are they going punish Yoongi for his actions.

Ever.

It was you against Yoongi's power, and that easily managed to get people on his side. You were certain that bribes were flooding the school, the lies that were kept in the dirt for specific reasons. Teachers ignoring stunts, like the ones Yoongi pulled on you, for their very own convenience.

You had completely forgotten of what he had told you earlier, how he had manage to keep the whole staff silent because of how he contributed to the school daily, with of course, the power and wealth he had from his family. You wished that you could've remembered, you would have made no excuse to stop running for the support from a teacher that was on his side, helping him. You should've just ran until you were out of the school, and out of his sight.

That would have definitely guaranteed your safety. Now it was just dissolved. Yoongi grabbed your sides, motioning that he was going to pick you up.

One more. Once more. One chance.

You fought against him, using all the strength that you had left. Begging the teacher to assist you, but you heard her heels click farther and farther away. Till there was nothing to hear, just his footsteps as he carried you away, back into the same direction.

Yoongi brought you to the same classroom that you had just been in. Where it all started. It was ironic that the classroom you were in had been the only class you didn't have Yoongi in. The class that made you feel secure and so sure of yourself.

Now, all you felt was horrified of what was going to become of you.

The room diffused with cries and yearns for someone to get Yoongi off you. You attempted pushing him off, but you were weak, you had used all your stability earlier. You just had to accept it. Yoongi spent that time responding back by muttering that you should 'shut the fuck up' or 'stop moving around'. It was getting on his nerves, he was an impatient man. Especially when it came to you, and dealing with your tantrum, when all he wanted was to fill you with cum.

And with his offspring.

That single thought had fractured any patience he had left. Yoongi couldn't hold it in; his hand straightened in the air as it fell down on your check with a great force. A red-hand mark was in-printed on your face. He slapped you, the action left you trembling. You were breaking down, bawling out completely, you closed your eyes lids shut.

Yoongi felt guilty, he didn't want to take these measures, like hurting you into giving him what he wanted. Exactly to how he just had. But he wanted and needed you at that moment. It was time that you learn his true intentions towards you.

Yoongi grabbed his belt and wrapped it around your hands. He sat on your legs, stopping any movement that you were doing that meant you could have a chance of escaping.

Yoongi saw his reflection on your eyes that were gleaming because of the tears that were pouring out. He had you in his arms. After every "little" debate you two had throughout the year, there you were, under him and ready for him to fuck with. Without no regrets of what he was doing. He giggled, "I've finally got you!"

In an instant your shirt was being unbuttoned by Yoongi, you wished you could swipe his disgusting smirk off his face. Was he really going to do it?

"Stay quiet, it'll be over soon."

Your shirt was grabbed roughly and thrown at a desk, it was exactly your desk. You could see your backpack, it was neatly placed on the corner of the desk, the complete opposite of how you were.

Your hair was messy, your tear-streaked face was slightly red as the batches of tears poured out, the room was overflowing with yelps that emerged from you and constant snickers from Yoongi.

Your legs were on either side of Yoongi, his body separated them so that you couldn't close them shut at all. Then you felt the slight tug at your bra, he unclasped it, and your breasts were let loose for his eyes to devour.

And soon his mouth did too.

His thumbs played with one nipple by pulling it and flicking it, while his tongue licked the other. Yoongi had managed to make you let out a slight whine, it was something you weren't used to at all therefore feeling it for the first time had made it difficult to hold back sounds.

You paid attention to the undergarment that laid on the floor as Yoongi's shirt landed right on top of your bra. His hand snuck into your skirt, "I love your little skirt", his fingers raced against the hem of skirt and soon enough his fingers were rubbing your inner thighs.

His hands were cold and it made you shiver, especially when he was taking your panties off, sliding the material off you on to your ankles and then it was finally off. Yoongi gawked at they thing he desired for a long time, there it was, right in front of him, your pussy.

Yoongi's nose came into contact with your slit, giving it a long lick as he felt the sticky essence from your pussy get on his tongue. One of his hand squished your left breast, his other hand's digits caressed your cunt. In one motion your cunt sucked his fingers in, "Look at you sucking in my fingers", you squeaked at the sudden entrance. Repeated moans left your lips as Yoongi continued ramming his digits into you, he was enjoying every second of the view.

Your head was thrown back, eyes rolled back, your mouth wide opened to release your delightful moans of his fingers plunging themselves into you, your hands gripping onto the belt he trapped your hands in, and the sounds that came where his fingers met your pussy.

And before you could cum, his digits stopped moving and removed themselves. You were groaning at the fact that you felt a tense pain that wouldn't be let loose. You had been too into focus on the release that you failed to notice Yoongi pulling off his uniform, his fingers still wet because of your cunt, leaving marks on his clothes but he didn't mind. All he cared and was anticipating to do was plunge himself deep into your cunt.

To see you moaning, whining, and panting under him, and because of him and his cock. Yoongi would love to see what his mind was visualizing, and he was going to have it. Yoongi sure was spoiled, to have you laid on the floor, your pussy practically begging him to fuck you even though you didn't dare to utter a word.

Yoongi's cock was free as his last pair of clothing was out of the way. His hands spread your legs wider to see your little pussy sulking for his cock to enter you. His hands lifted themselves off yours inner thighs and onto your bosoms. Yoongi pressed them together and held them as he lowered his head to spectate where the two of you would connect.

Yoongi's flushed tip pressing against your folds, he moved his warm head up and down, spreading your wetness on your cunt, he hoped that it would assist in pushing himself in. "I'm bigger than average s-so", he mentioned, wedging his head into your cunt. A low moan slipped out of his mouth, his eyes rested on your expression, which was a painful one. Yoongi felt more blood rush to his cock, he pushed himself forcefully into your crimson walls, "Gosh you're such a turn on!" He groaned out.

A scream ran out of your parted lips and a following cry as well. You were in discomfort, afflicted by the feeling of something inside you, parting your walls apart. All Yoongi could do was be patient and hold back until you got used to his cock filling you up.

Yoongi stayed still, glancing at your stomach which you made you curiosity spark to see what he was so focused on. It was a bulge that showed that his cock was inside of you, it could be seen easily spotted. Yoongi hand reached out, patted the spot, and then pressed down on it. You felt an ache, and shows it by the wailing and the shedding of tears, you had started to get used to it but it still distressed your walls.

A few groans or 'fucks' escaped as he started jamming his cock harder, you still weeped. However, Yoongi had hit a perfect area that resulted in you letting out a loud whimper in return. He pounded into you with his all his force, your back arched in response. The sounds and smell had pervaded the room, your moans and whines or Yoongi's grunts and low whimpers could be heard.

The pace had gotten sloppier as Yoongi was close, you on the other hand, had already cummed on his cock. All you were waiting for now was for him to finish. His cock twitching before your walls were tainted with his cum, and you milked his dick again.

Yoongi thrusted a few more times, he made sure that you weren't on anything and that his sperm was spread throughout your insides enough for it to flourish into something.

He pulled out and pumped his cock a few times before slipping his fingers in your cunt, making sure his cum wouldn't be wasted and would be well kept in your pussy. He chose to ignore the small puddle of blood on the floor, grabbing a tissue in his backpack and cleaning it up, making sure you couldn't catch the crimson red that stained the white tissue. Hiding it in his pocket.

Yoongi was your first. You didn't want to, now here he was fixing you up while you processed everything that rushed throughout your mind. Your cheeks had dried tears on them. The scenes playing over and over in your head. Yoongi had taken your virginity, the boy you hated with your guts.

It wasn't exactly him taking it that frightened you, but the fact that you didn't want it.

"I'll drop you off at your parents, okay." He gripped your hand tightly, trying to gain your attention. You were too silent for his liking, it made him upset. Were you mad at him?

He planned on dropping you off, you had no ride and probably, didn't have the ability to walk home either. And it wasn't something Yoongi would let you do anyways. Yoongi didn't say anything and didn't do anything to you in the car ride. Nonetheless, he gazed from time to time, and if you would have turned to face him, you would have seen the concern in his eyes.

Yoongi was worried for you, he knew it must have been painful for you. He just kept manipulating his mind to believe that he had to do it or he would never be with you. You would never choose to be with him, and he couldn't let that happen.

You didn't tell them, your parents, they weren't even home the moment you arrived. Your mom worked late and your father did too, they tried making so much money, in order for you to live your life and study. Something they couldn't do. So you studied and did your best in everything. From completing every assignment, getting the best grades, and having over 90s in every class. And if you failed, even in the smallest way, you felt like a burden and you were scared of failing them.

So you stayed quiet. However, you forgot to buy something very important, and that mistake would cost you: your future.

You had told the school, they did nothing. So now you felt like no one was going to believe you. Especially since Yoongi had well explained to you that he had plenty of money to keep the whole staff silent, meaning that he had all the money to bribe the police as well.

So the only thing you had left was to keep silent and live on, maybe he won't bother you anymore. He won't follow you, or touch you either. Maybe all along, that's what he wanted. Something to stick his dick in.

Wrong.

Yoongi stayed by your side even more and instead of bullying you, he would only degrade you when didn't listen to him, he wanted you to skip classes to be with him and to keep you away from your classmates. Yoongi switched his seats, he sat next to you in all the classes, whispering to you about gross things, describing things that he wanted to do to you.

A complete nightmare.

On the other hand, you had been sick for days already, throwing up contents from last nights' dinner almost every morning. The only reason that came to mind was the stomach virus that was going around school, thinking that you probably had a weaker defense from sicknesses, so you caught it longer. It was awful.

You noticed that Yoongi had been acting weird around you lately, bringing you stuff, and to proof, bears or little love notes overcrowded your locker, leaving you with predictions that something bad was going to happen.

Soon enough it did.

You were pregnant. With his child.

It didn't make sense to you why you were throwing a whole tantrum, meanwhile he was all cheerful and relaxed, happy to know about this upcoming child. You found out after he specifically told you to take the test in the middle of the night. Yoongi had sneaked into your house, by your room window, after you mentioned you're sickness during the day. Knowing that your parents were a room away, he kept silent, and the first thing you noticed was the pharmacy bag. "You didn't use birth control...did you?" Was the first thing he whispered when both of your eyes met.

A severe panic inflicted inside you, worry that piled onto you: this couldn't be happening. You couldn't be pregnant with Yoongi's child. There was still a slight possibility that it was false.

You believed you weren't, you weren't suppose to get your period until a couple more days. Therefore, you were confident about the negative sign you would face and took the test, now here you are facing the consequences. The two red visible lines showing off the truth, after eight test and multiple pair of dark red lines, it was the same reason you were throwing up in the mornings.

The worst thing was when he told you that the both of you could raise the baby together. However, what angered you the most about his behavior was how calm he was. Especially when he mentioned that you should stop your education, that he could maintain both of you with his money, to become his wife and take care of his children.

What kind of life was that? No, you couldn't, and you wouldn't. You looked for something in your life, a profession that you would love. And that your parents would too. A career that made your parents proud, finishing highschool, heading to college, and later in life, obtaining a great job!

And this child wasn't going to help. Neither was Yoongi.

There was only one solution that came to your mind. You quickly proclaimed 'an abortion', it was the only way that you could actually live the life you wanted. Even as conflicted and horrible you felt for speaking briefly about it, you couldn't help it, you didn't want to have a child at your age.

You were still so young, had so many things left to experience, to do! A life you wanted to take slow and take your time with, every single moment of it, savoring it.

Yoongi observed you at the comment you spurred out. "Tsk- you've got to be kidding me", he studied you, to see if you would apologize, and you didn't. "You're a bitch." Yoongi couldn't believe that you didn't want to carry his child, he would give his everything to have you, but you couldn't do one thing in return for him. It destructed him. "Don't lie."

His words were the usual, and yet it was enough to know that he knew you, probably even better than you knew yourself. Of course you weren't able to do the abortion, but think about it, your future would go down the drain for the life inside of you. There would be not a lot of opportunities, Yoongi had made it clear and set on you being the house wife, no more.

However, the guilt accumulated, now you couldn't even think about the decision. Killing an innocent child, was it something you could do?

"No."

Yoongi held your hands as he blurted out the same word that was in your mind, and if you couldn't do an abortion. The rest of troubles would tumble down on you, like explaining to your parents on how you were gonna give birth to a child in the span of nine months.

——shit——

The small display of affection dispersed, Yoongi's grip compressed on your wrist, forcing your teary red eyes to look at him, meanwhile his own eyes have a glint of amusement in them.

That night was left with you cuddled in Yoongi's embrace, as he whispered 'things' that would make you have brand new batches of tear coat the dried ones on your cheeks, you just wanted to sleep.

In the end, his hand reached to your stomach, patting it carefully, a small peck landed on your forehead. "I love you", he continued telling you how much he loved you and the baby, "and always will." He deliberately tried to manipulate you.

But you knew better, his words were venom to someone's ears. Now you knew better than to fall for his devious schemes.

#bts yandere #yandere bts #bts smut #yandere #tw yandere #bts #bangtan #bts fanfic #yandere x reader #bts yoongi #min suga #min yoongi #yoongi #bangtan smut #bangtangsonyeondan #yandere yoongi #tw forced pregnancy

486 notes · View notes

kitkatscabinet · 1 year

Text

As you wish

Aemond Targaryen x reader

Summary: You and Aemond have been by each other's side since childhood. He'd drop everything for you, bending to your whims with an 'as you wish.'

The five times Aemond says 'as you wish' + the one time you do.

Word count: 2.2k

A/N: I couldn't not do it. There’s no mature content don’t know why this got slapped with a label :(

One.

"Aemond!" your gleeful shout of his name pulled the boy from the book he had previously been enraptured in. Looking up towards the source of the call he couldn't stop a small smile from forming. You were running towards him, skirts hitched up in your hands and a grin lighting your visage.

Aemond felt his stomach flutter at the sight of the smile you had reserved for him, at the sheer glee you were exuding just for him.

"Aemond, you must come quickly," you said, panting slightly from your run and hauling him to his feet with surprising strength. The prince could do nothing but stumble after you, a slave to your whims.

"Where are we going in such a rush?" he asked while continuing to let you pull him along.

"We're hiding from septa Cerelle. I'm supposed to be attending lessons but I'd much rather spend time with you." Aemond's breath caught slightly at how easy the admission had come.

"You'll help me hide won't you" you questioned, smiling sheepishly in his direction, and Aemond's mouth was moving before his mind could properly register.

"As you wish." The blinding smile and quick hug he received in return left him feeling oddly floaty for days after.

Two.

Upon returning from lady Laena's funeral Aemond had refused to see you. The queen had gently taken you aside to explain the dreadful events that had taken place on Driftmark. Naturally, you had been appalled, but not for Aemond's supposed ruined looks, but for the wild injustice that had befallen your best friend.

You had instantly marched yourself back to his chambers, banging against the door and yelling to be let in. You had stayed planted in place for what felt like days before the door finally cracked open. Causing you to let out an undignified shriek as you tipped backwards, having sat to lean against the wood earlier.

Looking up you were disconcerted to see that Aemond had already turned and fled, hiding his face from your view. Pushing yourself to your feet you quickly closed and barred the doors behind you.

Your heart shattered even further as you finally looked at your friend. Aemond had always been a quiet presence but was nonetheless proud, posture tall and refined. Yet now, hunched over in a chair by the fire you saw none of what made Aemond himself. He seemed so small, vulnerable even as he resolutely stared away from you.

"Oh Aemond" you gasped, feet swiftly moving to kneel in front of him as you grasped at his hands. Forcing yourself not to react to the bandage that was still wrapped around his head. Still, you gained no reaction and fuelled with spiteful anger on his behalf you spoke again.

"I'll beat him up" you promised nothing but sincerity in your tone. Though you hadn't mentioned a name, it was clear who you meant. That finally elicited a slight upwards quirk of his lips. Nothing like the reaction it should have.

Queen Alicent had told you of the large beast her son had claimed, fear clear in her being and in that moment you saw no other option.

"Will you take me to meet Vhagar?" For the first time since you'd entered his chambers, Aemond looked up to meet your gaze. And seeing no apprehension in your smile he shakily exhaled.

"As you wish."

Three.

Aemond hated grand events. Feasts and balls were overcrowded and far too loud, and people expected him to dance. There were few things he despised more. He was acutely aware of the fearful and disgusted stares that would pass over lady's faces as they saw his.

As a second son, he had no great need to socialise or search for a betrothal. Both actions he had zero interest in. As such these sorts of events presented no enjoyment for him

You on the other hand, for reasons he simply couldn't fathom, adored such events. Relished in the opportunity to drink and dance whilst parading the newest gown his mother had graciously gifted you. You were an ethereal vision in the dark emerald satin, and though he couldn't remove his gaze from your form, neither could many other lords. Lords that practically tripped over each other in order to win some of your time. Forcing him to watch as other men placed their hands on you, another reason for him to hate these events.

His outrage was steadily growing as he threw a frosty look at the lord that had monopolised your attention for the last three dances. He was some minor lord from the vale, hardly worthy of your attention. Yet you had seemed to genuinely enjoy his presence, going so far as to laugh at something the man had whispered by leaning far closer than appropriate in your ear.

Aemond is spared from wetting his hands with blood and the lord his life by the song ending, and you parting from him. So focused on making sure the lord was indeed walking away from you he had barely noticed your approach. Only when the familiar scent of your preferred oils caused his head to spin did he see your dazzling smile. The real thing. Not the painfully and politely plastered thing you offered your many insufferable suitors. The one you had also offered lord deserved to die.

He could not however be angry at you, and the frost in his gaze immediately warmed into something reserved only for three people in existence as he greeted you.

"Dance with me?" you asked, briefly surprising him. You knew how much Aemond hated to dance, to be at the centre of attention and as such never asked him. Yet even so he finds himself taking your arms and leading you towards the dance floor barely a second later.

"As you wish."

You danced with no one but him for the rest of the evening. Leaving Aemond forced to admit to himself that dancing wasn't all that bad.

Four.

He'd heard it from one of the guards casually conversing in the hall. Aemond couldn't recall a time he had been as frantic as now, running through the keep and snarling at anyone that moved out of his way too slowly.

You had been attacked during one of your usual trips visiting the smallfolk. Aemond could not say he was fond of said trips, even if your kindness and generosity only endeared you further to him. You had always assured him you were completely safe, under the watchful eye of both the kings guard (courtesy of himself and his mother) and the city watch. Yet someone had still managed to get far too close, and once Aemond found out who had allowed such a thing heads would roll. But for now, you needed him.

One look at his menacing glare was all he needed to get the guards to your chambers to step aside before he was throwing the doors open. Chest heaving from the fast pace of his run his feet only stopped long enough to identify your location within the room.

Both his mother and sister were by your side, whispering soothing words to your obviously shaken form. Helaena was simply holding your hands, as one of her ladies in waiting the two of you had grown close, whilst his mother rubbed your back.

The relief he had felt for a few seconds quickly morphed back into fury as he took in your still-shaking form. At his arrival, Helaena stood, and after levelling him with a knowing stare announced her leave. Although more hesitant than her daughter, his mother followed suit, but not before glaring at him to 'fix this.'

Hands scrunched in the fabric of your skirts you didn't address his arrival, not even when he gently sank onto the mattress next to you. Slowly, to gain your permission, he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into his chest when you didn't deny him.

Aemond wanted to scream, to yell until he was red in face, to hunt down and slaughter the men that had come so close to taking you from him. He did none of those things, however, forcing himself to remain calm and gentle for your sake.

As if his arrival was the final catalyst, you instantly burst into tears. Shaky hands fisted into doublet as you shuddered against his chest. Aemond could do nothing but pull you closer, moving one hand up to stroke your hair as he tucked you into him as best he could. His sheer helplessness in the face of your terror distressed him so greatly that he became aware of his own shaking.

Even when you had cried yourself into exhaustion he couldn't bring himself to let go.

"Please... stay" you whispered hoarsely, looking up at him desperately.

"As you wish" he whispered back just as gently, before kissing your hairline in an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability.

Five.

It hadn't been the first time you had gone to Aemond for consolation, tears in your eyes that only he could remedy. It was beginning to feel as if it could be the last, however.

The queen had come to you, gloom dampening her visage as she informed you of the betrothal your father had recently arranged. You had been horrified, at the match and had begged for her interference. Unfortunately, she had already tried, but your father was a stubborn man and had already made up his mind.

You had devolved into a fit of rage, throwing a vase at the nearest wall as you screamed. Which of course, had sent the queen into a quick exit as she called for her son.

Your anger had faded into resignation, and by the time Aemond arrived, you were two cups deep and slumped in a chair staring listlessly into the hearth.

In a mirror of your actions so many years prior, he silently crossed the space, coming to kneel in front of you as he fully witnessed your melancholy.

"Aemond. I don't wish to marry him" you needlessly confessed, pausing briefly before adding "or any of the other lords my parents would foist me upon."

Your confession hung heavily in the air and you watched as Aemond's face hardened with resolve.

"As you wish." He elaborated no further, giving your hands a reassuring squeeze before he stalked out of your chambers with purpose. Leaving you to blink at his retreating form in stunned and confused silence.

When he returned the next morning, a smug smile adorning his face and the promise you wouldn't have to marry any you wouldn't choose you could do nothing but launch yourself into his arms. Heart hammering in his chest at the feel of his satisfied chuckle and enveloping warmth.

One.

Despite the fact that you hadn't wished to marry some lord twice your age, you couldn't help but feel despondent at your unmarried status. Many of the lords and ladies your age were already wed, babes in their belly and children underfoot.

You thought you hid it well, but you had yet to realise that there was almost nothing Aemond didn't notice about you. He noticed the longing in your gaze when you stared after the few happy matches that paraded the keep. His stomach twisting at the thought of you happy and in love with another.

"Aemond!" the scolding tone of your voice pulls him from his thoughts. Blinking, he looked down to where you lay in the grass, pout on your face as you caught him looking elsewhere, and presumably not focusing on you.

"Are you even listening to me?" you whined in a way that from anyone else he would have found annoying, but from you it was incredibly cute.

Your nose was scrunched up and he couldn't help the amused huff that escaped him when you smacked his thigh.

"Aemond." you drew out his name, "Did you hear a word I said?"

"Something about how dashingly handsome I am?" he joked, leaving you to gape up at him in astonishment.

"Not even close" you objected with a scowl before a mischievous look replaced it and you rolled closer to him, "though if you wish for me to sing your praises all you had to was ask."

Aemond could do nothing but stare, mouth suddenly as dry as Dorne. While your tone had been teasing, there had been something in your gaze that indicated you spoke nothing but the truth. His tongue was led, eye darting between your enchanting eyes and perfect lips.

Evidently, he had been staring at your visage for too long, your face crinkling in concern "Aemond? Are you alri-"

"Marry me" he blurted breathlessly, not an ounce of jest in his being. He watched with mortified anticipation as your face lost its smile and your eyes widened in shock.

Yet as what seemed like an age passed and you offered no answer he felt embarrassment like no other burn in his chest. Just before he can make a hasty retreat in order to lick at his newly acquired wounds, your hands snaked out lightning fast and claimed his.

"As you wish" you replied confidently, taking delight at the look of wonder on his face. It was your turn to be breathless as he closed what little distance remained between you. Pulling you into the first of many time-stopping kisses.

TAGLIST: @etherily @psychwardsiren @mihrimahsultan03 @bbyaemond @krispold @hyperfixated-freak @eudximoniakr @deadstarkblacksoul @weepingwitchofthewest @kaitieskidmore1 @eli1fict @rainerax @dsl1999 @uno7 @shine101 @xinyourdreamsx @targeryenmoony @thelittleswanao3 @thenovelcarnival @yourlittlehoe @chattylurker

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #hotd #hotd x reader #aemond targaryen fic #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fic #house of the dragon x reader

1K notes · View notes

heartfullofleeches · 10 months

Text

Yan Royalty + Executioner Reader Intro

Warning: mention of injury, death

The Executioner.

A faceless blight on the nation's population. With their presence came death, and the instillment of fear in all who witnessed the of their axe. Veiled in darkness, only shadows of the very same knew the Executioner true face - welcoming them home with open arms after each slaughter. Null could pinpoint their whereabouts following the culling of those who opposed their charge, but it was rumored they dwelled in the same catacombs were prisoners were kept, and branched throughout the entire land and its walls. Servants, even hardened soldiers were quick to abandon their posts upon hearing the faintest scratches from within the stone halls.

Regardless of their locality, the Executioner always appeared when wardened to reap calamity as the phantom so many claimed.

Chaos breaks within the castle walls. A spy sent from a neighboring kindom hours away from execution had escaped, set out to finish their final mission given by their lord. Years ago, they'd been tasked with the assassination of the young heir shortly after their birth. The child was saved thanks to the watchful eye of it's protectors, but the sky's attempts would not be punishment lightly.

For the next two decades they sat in their cell, wasting away and only fed enough scraps to keep them from the brink of death - living proof of the weakness of the enemy ready for the slaughter. A proud warrior then as a sheet and stripped of any marker of the fighter they once were. Perhaps they lost that title the day they chose to take an innocent's life. Months went 0by - welding their fellow captives rotting bones into tools to pick their locks. They saved the sharpest two for the eye of the next person who entered their cell - and the future ruler of the rival kingdom.

Strengthless as they may have been, the hier was no match for their attacker's former legacy and the element of surprise. Tangled in their sheets, the heir fought and clawed to no avail much room the spy's glee. The attack was more personal than it had been in the past and they wanted the royal to suffer a fraction of the torture they endured.

Guards pounded on the doors. The royal's vision fade in and out as hands came up to their neck. Reality spiraling, their mind slipped as did their sense of the world. The walls cried, shadows melting from their purchase and crept soundlessly behind their tormentor. An eye, unblinking, watched down at them - tears of crimson following from its twin. Pulling the slender bone lodged in their socket, the shadow returned the makeshift blade to the throat of its sender.

The spy rasped, clawing at their neck and the darkness as they're dragged off the bed. The shadow steps over their body and into the moonlight - revealing a human form. Bloodied apron, thin scars and bites from victims with more fight than others, a vacant stare. The Executioner's face was as expressionless as the mask they wore except for the large hole in their ey. The royal was petrified - terror gripping their very soul. If not the spy, then surely -

"Cover your eyes."

The Executioner kneels, silent - say for the faintest breath of their lips. The royal swallows as the Executioner sweeps their thumb over their cheek - clearing it of blood.

"Y-your eye..."

"I do not need my mask within in the catacombs. I let them get away. Everything, after is my error."

"No!...no.. You... - saved me."

"Forgive me, it was not my intention. I am the axe your family welds. Nothing more. Someday soon it will be your order I follow."

The royal's heart flutters. The reaper of legend theirs to command. A fairer fantasy than they've ever dreamed. The rugged figure was as alluring as they were menacing - an angel of death soon to be in their grasp. The Executioner stood on their feet and dragged the lifeless body of the spy back to the bookshelf they exited - pressing a finger to their lips as the door breaks down and they disappear behind the wooden shelf.

"Your highness! Are you alright?!

"....Send every available medic to the catacombs - now."

#yandere oc #yandere x reader #yandere imagines #yandere scenarios #yandere headcanons #yandere insert #yandere blurb #yandere x you #yandere #yandere prince #yandere princess

665 notes · View notes

bloodywickedvamp · 1 year

Text

Two's Company - What The Hell Is Six?

Poly!Lost Boys x GN Reader x Michael

Series Masterlist

Summary: Reader is dating Michael Emerson and they're fed up with his uncharacteristic behavior towards his family and them since moving to Santa Carla. They decided to finally confront Michael on the boardwalk with an audience of 4 in attendance.

Word Count: 1.5K

Warnings: angst, heated argument (?) more so the reader just yelling, maybe a little gaslighting if you look hard, cursing

Hi! This is my first fic so any notes or critiques on how I can improve my writing or any notes at all are greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoy! This may or may not turn into a multi-part fic. I have a bigger idea for it but we'll see if i have it in me to do it lol. Also, let me know if I missed any warnings and i'll be sure to add them.

Dividers: @saradika & @firefly-graphics

Michael Fucking Emerson...

The man I love more than anything has become someone I don't even want to know.

After moving to Santa Carla from Phoenix he changed so drastically I still can't seem to wrap my head around it. We've been together for a few years now and I became so close to his mom and brother that it felt natural to accept when he offered for me to come with them and stay for the summer once the time came for the move.

After his first few nights on the boardwalk is when I noticed the shift. He went off on his own as I was hanging with Sam or Lucy and wouldn't come home till the very early hours of the morning. He was rude and snippy to the questioning from his mom. Harsh and mean to Sam, more so than the typical sibling bickering and teasing that they engaged in. He'd keep his distance from me, like he could barely stand to be around me at all and completely blow me off any time I tried to talk or spend time together. It's only gotten worse and I'm at my wits end with it.

After having a tearful heart to heart with Lucy about his 180 in behavior I decided to take matters into my own hands whether he likes it or not.

I start my journey to the place that I've begun to despise, associating it with the 'new Michael'.

Finally, I spot my elusive brunette exactly where I thought he'd be, on the boardwalk but to my surprise he's also surrounded by a group of intimidating looking bikers. Two rowdy blondes, one with an impressively long curly haired mullet and an eye catching custom patchwork jacket adorned his somewhat smaller, muscular stature. The other untamed boy, with wild hair to match and a dark fishnet top that leaves almost nothing to the imagination, is nearly bouncing around the others with glee at whatever they're discussing. Next I notice a tall, dark, and handsome brunette to their right who takes the cake at revealing outfits with the lack of shirt and wide open leather jacket. With the slightest of smiles he's leaning against presumably his own motorcycle observing the rest of his group and the crowd at large. Lastly, to the right of the brunette and the left of Michael, there's a bleach blonde mullet you couldn't miss for miles a top the most intimidating looking one, wearing a too-stuffy seeming trench coat for this Santa Carla summer heat.

In a normal circumstance I would have slight hesitation to approach the group alone so boldly, as I find myself doing now, but I couldn't care less who's around. At this moment the only person to be feared on the boardwalk is me. I'm on mission for some answers and god help the poor soul who fucks with me right now.

As I take my final few strides towards my boyfriend they all notice me. The four unknown boys go quiet as they take me in curiously, a determined walk, pissed off expression, heavy breathing, and clenched fists.

"Michael fucking Emerson!" I erupted, jabbing my finger in his chest, coming face to face with the wide eyed boy.

"Hey baby-" He tried cautiously.

"Oh good you actually do remember you have a partner"

"Look I know you're upset and rightfully so but-"

I hold my hand up to silence whatever bullshit was about to spill from his mouth. "No no no, I'm still talking and you're listening." He nods his head slowly, afraid to set me off even more, if that's possible. I hear rather than see snickers to my right from the others.

"I don't know what's been going on with you and why you've been treating everyone in your life like shit but I'm sick and tired of it and I want answers. Now." The words spill heatedly from my lips as my anger intensifies from the inevitable release pent up over the past few weeks. Michaels mouth opens whether in shock or to interject, I don't know but I cut him off before I can find out.

"It's one thing the way you've been treating me - and trust me we'll get to that" I accentuate with a pointed finger in the air and back down after. "but it's a whole other thing with Lucy and Sam. You barely talk to or see Sam anymore and he's devastated, you're his best friend and he misses you. Your mother does absolutely everything she can for you and Sam. She upended her entire life in Phoenix to give you both a fresh start - since the move you've done nothing but push her away every time she tries to talk. That woman is the sweetest person on this planet and I'll be damned if you think I'm going to let you walk all over her anymore." Huffing at the end of my tirade.

If Michael's eyes got any wider they would've popped out of his head. Maybe the middle of the boardwalk wasn't the best place to do this but I couldn't contain it anymore. The nice approach hasn't worked and he needed a good telling off.

"You're right, everything you're saying is right but maybe we could do this more privately" Michael offered while trying to gently grab my upper arm to pull me somewhere else. With a worried look in his eyes he glanced at the boys then back at me pleadingly.

"Oh I'm sorry, am I embarrassing you in front of your new friends? Who I've never met or heard anything about by the way." I argued back while also taking the time to look them over, up close now.

They all seem to be enjoying themselves watching Michael's berating. Smirks and giggles passing amongst the group as they share knowing glances between them and at me, like they're having a secret conversation only the leather clad bikers can understand.

Piercing blue eyes land on me as bleach-boy flirted "You're a fiery little thing aren't you? I can't believe it's taking this long for us to meet, Michael, how come you didn't introduce us sooner?" He jabbed, finally tearing his eyes away from mine towards the conflicted brunette in front of me.

"You know why David." Michael states matter of factly. His grip on my arm tightening ever so slightly, voice husky with something primal I've never heard from him before.

"Can't imagine why you'd want to hide a babe like this away, it just doesn't seem fair." The tallest blonde beamed at me starry eyed and grinning cheerfully. He moved closer to reach out and stroke my hair quicker than I could register, taking in a small almost imperceptible inhale from me if I wasn't paying close attention. Releasing a contented sigh before I was pulled back towards Michael.

"Don't touch them, don't even think about it." he sneered.

"Come on Mike, we aren't going to hurt 'em. Right Paul?"

"Right on Marko." Paul jested as Marko playfully elbowed him.

What the fuck is happening and who the hell are these guys? Jumping into the one-sided argument between me and my boyfriend to start flirting? Are they his friends? Last time I checked friends don't hit on their friends' significant others, especially right in front of them so shamelessly.

"You never mentioned you were dating someone." The other brunette tacked on to the conversation speaking for the first time. Giving me a once over with those alluring brown eyes, hungrily.

I stared daggers back at the boy holding me in a tight grip, ripping my arm away to mock "Wow, why am I not surprised." I desperately try to steal my emotions to keep the hurt and betrayal from coming to the forefront.

"You don't understand and I don't even know how to explain but you have to believe me it's for your own good." Michael again pleads for my compassion. It's too late for that.

"Of course I don't understand you don't tell me anything anymore! You blow me off, ignore me, and I assume these four are the reason for your revamp in personality." I fumed, gesturing to the group. Chuckles are heard again, at the end of my outburst.

"Are you cheating?" I suddenly asked

"What no-" Michael sputtered in surprise.

"Did you meet someone else?"

"No of course no-"

"Did you do something that could hurt Sam, Lucy, or I?"

"NO babe-"

"Then I don't see what could be so bad that you feel the need to push us all away and act like this. The only reason I'm still standing here putting up with this is because I deserve an explanation and I promised Lucy I'd get answers out of you. So start talking." I sassed.

With a defeated sigh he raised his hands in surrender "Okay Okay, walk with me to the beach and i'll explain everything to you, alone." Emphasizing his final word with a sneer towards David. David only found that amusing as he quirked an eyebrow and took out the cigarette resting behind his ear placing it between his lips and lighting it. He inhaled and blew out a cloud of smoke stating "You sure about that Michael? You're already on edge, we wouldn't want you to lose control and hurt our doll now would we?"

Our? I barely had time to register or retort back at the presumptuous claim before Michael grabbed my hand and stormed off to the beach, steam basically pouring out of his ears.

To be continued...

I feel alright about this so far. Again it's my first ever fic post so you know...it is what it is. :)

🖤 Taglist 🖤

@britany1997

#bloodywickedvamp #the lost boys #the lost boys x reader #michael emerson #michael emerson x reader #poly lost boys x reader #poly!lost boys x reader #tlb 1987 #lost boys x gn reader #david tlb #paul tlb #dwayne tlb #marko tlb #michael tlb #michael emerson x gn reader #x gn reader #the lost boys x gn reader

885 notes · View notes

netherfeildren · 11 months

Text

Someone's Wife in the Boat of Someone's Husband .5

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Joel Miller x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Possessive behavior; Jealousy; Size difference; Size kink; One sad horny old man; Angst!!!! that will continue just FYI no abusing poor little vic for enjoying the suffering of others :) it’s not my fault :)

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: peep the cameo!!!!!! :)

Word Count: 6.1K

Read on AO3

Vanish. Pass into nothingness: the Keats line that frightened her. Fade as the blue nights fade, go as the brightness goes. Go back into the blue. I myself placed her ashes in the wall. I myself saw the cathedral doors locked at six. I know what it is I am now experiencing. I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is. The fear is not for what is lost. What is lost is already in the wall. What is lost is already behind the locked doors. The fear is for what is still to be lost. You may see nothing still to be lost. Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her.

Joan Didion, Blue Nights

Weeks pass after that night in his truck. He calls, many times, but you never answer. And it makes you feel like the worst sort of liar, but you can’t. You can’t hear the sound of his voice, it’ll ruin you, destroy your resolve, force you to your knees at his feet, which is, if you’re being honest, the only place you really want to be. It is, perhaps, the greatest struggle of your entire life, to hold on by the skin of your teeth to this idea you have of what it is he and his marriage should remain as, and what you and he should be and should not be.

It’s Gerri’s birthday, and Tommy and her sister had decided to throw her a party at her house. Big surgeon money makes for a big fancy house, and Gerri was over the moon, filled with happiness and laughter and that wonderful brand of Gerri specific infectious glee that forces even your miserable, morose self to pull your butt out of bed and get ready to go celebrate her. She knows you’re sad, missing him, even if she doesn’t know it’s him specifically. Although, you suspect she might have an idea of it.

She’d begged you to come during class at the start of the week, planting her stubborn butt on a stool to stare you down while the rest of your students finished up their work and then put away their materials. Please’s and threats of tears and bodily harm and promises of copious amounts of alcohol, and if you’re feeling up to it, I could even hook you up with someone – an accompanying waggle of her eyebrows. What about a surgeon? My sister knows the perfect, sexy doctor for you. You’d profusely, profusely refused that. You could not even consider another man right now, the idea was almost repulsive to you. As she begged and pleaded and whined, another one of your students had come up, eavesdropping on the pathetic display of supplication, “Come on, teach. Don’t be a sour puss, put her outta her misery, and go to the fucking party with her,” she’d laughed. One of your best students – she had the most gorgeous tattoo on the inside of her forearm of two overlapping ferns with an intricately detailed moth at the head. She’d told you once she’d sketched it herself. You’d rolled your eyes at them, sour puss, my ass. But you knew you had to get out of this hole you’d dug yourself into, and so, their teasing had gotten to you in the end – forced you to agree to the party out of sheer preservation for your reputation. Gerri’d taken to calling you the boring barnacle… yeah, and she’d never stop if you didn’t agree – would probably force all your other students into making fun of you for the rest of the semester, as well. Annoying little shit, it was very aggravating that you loved her so much.

The house is stunning – big surgeon money indeed. All shining glass, sleek wood and modern edges. A huge infinity pool in the backyard, flanked by an impressively sized guest house that Gerri said she and Tommy stayed in sometimes when they got too drunk to drive home.

There was, after all, a doctor from Andrea’s work waiting for you at their undesired and annoyingly meddlesome behest. He was nice, handsome, boring. Not tall enough, not broad enough, hair blonde and straight and kind of straw-like – no dark, silver streaked curls and deep, warm eyes. He kind of reminds you of a shiny scarecrow, if you’re being honest and not very kind. Not Joel enough. But he was nice, and seemingly interested and he’d gotten you a drink and stayed by your side all night, attentive and polite.

You feel miserable and made out of plastic. Your smile, fake, forced, terrible. Something has to be done about this. Perhaps, electrotherapy, a lobotomy, an exorcism. Anything to get him out of your head.

The shiny, blonde scarecrow – doctor – is telling you about his shiny, blonde family and their fancy skiing trips now, and oh, do you ski? No? I bet you’d love it – maybe I can take you one day? Never mind that you’d been born without a single athletic bone in your entire body, when, suddenly, you hear your name being barked, rough and angry, from behind you, and then a large, searing hot palm circling your bicep on one side while his other palm slides along the span of the small of your back to grip you at the bend of your waist. Fuck.

“Joel–”

“Hi, sweetheart.” He does not look at you as he says it, but his grip on your waist tightens for one second. He’s staring down the shiny scarecrow, murder in his eyes. Oh, that look is very scary.

“What are you doing here?” He turns the scary look on you at that, and nope, nope, it’s even scarier pointed in your direction.

“Tommy told me you were here.”

“Wh– what? Why would he tell you?” He gives you a pointed look, and you glance at the scarecrow, nervous. “You told Tommy?” you whisper back at Joel.

Poor doctor man looks at a loss, gaze swinging back and forth between the two of you. “I’m so sorry, can you give us a minute?” you say, embarrassed. He takes one look at Joel’s terrifying face and scampers away.

Moron, he thinks, sour gaze following the fucker as he tucks tail and runs. He turns back to you, answering your question, “Didn’t have to, baby. He figured it out on his own. Don’t think we’ve been what one could call discreet if you’re really paying attention.”

You shut your eyes tight, bring up a shaky hand up to rub at the delicate wing of your brow. He desperately wants to smooth out the tiny frown marring the space between your eyes.

“N– no– but,” you stutter.

He takes the drink you’re holding out of your hand, takes a sip of it – something sweet and way too strong for your light-weight little butt. “Mm, he get that for you?”

You scrunch your nose up at him, and he knows he’s meant to take it as a sign of your annoyance, but all he can think is that you’re too adorable for your own good. “Wh– I– you overbearing, ridiculous – give that back!” you frown up at him as he holds it out of your reach. He sets the glass on a table behind you.

“Hmm–” His big hands span the width of your waist, can’t help himself, you’re so small compared to him. It makes his cock so hard. “Let me talk to you, please. Let’s go somewhere quiet.” He doesn’t care that he’s not supposed to be here, that he shouldn’t be bothering you, he’s reached the end of his rope.

“No – go away. It’s– it’s Gerri’s birthday.” You try to wiggle out of his grasp, but he pulls you further into his chest. “I’m supposed to be having fun. She said she’d be mad if I didn’t have fun.” There are already overwhelmed tears in your eyes, and if he wasn’t so fucking desperate to see you, to talk to you after all these weeks of you ignoring him, he’d run away. Far, far away, where he can never make you cry again.

“Just for a little bit, please,” he whispers into the shell of your ear, causing the little wisps of hair there to flutter.

You shiver. “Where– where’s Sarah?” You bring your small hand up to clutch at his beard, cup his jaw, and scratch your nails gently down the side of his cheek, and fuck, he’s ready to burst, just with that, even as your other hand feebly tries to push at his chest. He slides a hand low on your back to press your pelvis into his.

“Baby-sitter.” Hearing you ask after his daughter has that soft spot behind his ribs where you live now, burn and pinch painfully.

“And–”

He cuts you off, doesn’t want to hear you talking about her. “Gone for the weekend – work conference.” Not that he believed that.

You open your eyes again, the tears lining your lashes make them almost glow in your skull. He can’t help himself, he bends to press a soft kiss over your eye, feels the whispering, wet flutter of your long lashes against his mouth. You let out a broken mewl for him – full of all your matched wanting. “F– fine. We’ll– we’ll just talk.”

Just talk, just talk, just talk.

He can feel the pulse of his blood beat through the line of his erection against his thigh. He wraps his hand around yours and starts leading you through the house, spots Tommy at the back of the kitchen, leaning against the counter talking to someone. His brother takes in the two of you together, gives him a subtle nod, inclines his head towards the backyard – the guest house where Joel was headed. Tommy had known, since that day so long ago when Joel had tried to discreetly tag along to the college – hoping to get a glimpse of you, he’d known there was something. Nothing discreet about your half assed excuses, reeked’a desperation, he’d said. His brother wanted him to be happy, to have a good, fulfilling relationship. He’d been telling Joel to get a lawyer for months, had been the first to tell him to not get married. He’d help him now, give the two of you time to sort this out. He knows just how insane Joel had been these past few weeks, like a caged animal, pacing and hissing at not being able to get at you.

He steps out the back door and pulls you towards the guest house. He’d been here once, months ago, helping Gerri’s sister out with a repair she’d needed. The two of you would have privacy there to talk, for you to finally stop avoiding him. He needs to speak to you, touch you, smell you. He was going out of his goddamn mind thinking about you, dreaming about you. His cock, constantly at half mast and leaking, at all hours of the day, just at your memory. Desperate, that’s what he is, he’s desperate for you.

“Who was that guy?”

“Who?” Your voice is anxious, breath hitching. He knows you’re twisting yourself up in knots, and he turns to pull you into his arms now, in the privacy of the dark room, lit only by the light of the moon spilling through the large bay windows.

“The one you were talking to.” He draws his palm slowly up and down the line of your spine, feelings the little bumps and jitters of your trembling form. Skittish little rabbit. He rubs his mouth over the line of your hair, baby soft wisps tickling his nose and mouth. You smell so good, he wants to rub himself all over you like some sort of animal – mark his territory.

“Wh– I– You cannot be serious right now.” You push at him, turn to move away, but he catches you around the bend of your elbow, tugging you back forcefully into his chest. He presses his front along the line of your back, grips your hip to bring your ass into the hard line of his cock.

“Does this feel serious to you?” He’s hard as stone, throbbing beneath his jeans.

“Oh God, Joel–”

“Don’t want you talkin’ to other men, thinking about any other men. I know it sounds insane – can’t help it, I’m sorry.”

“I– I don’t think about anyone else but you,” you whimper.

He wraps his arms around your waist, brings one large hand up to cradle the weight of your breast and squeeze. He can feel the stiff little furl of your nipple through your dress. He feels a little unhinged right now, overwhelmed by the feel and scent of you. “I miss you,” he whispers. “Have you missed me?” He presses a soft kiss to the shell of your ear that has a violent shiver jerking down your vertebrae, you grind your ass harder into him, give him the sweetest little moan. “All I do is think about you.”

“I did, I did– I miss you so much. I wanted to talk to you, I did,” you whimper, “But– but we shouldn’t, Joel,” you say at the same time as your hand comes up and around to twist into the curls at the back of his head. He turns your head with his hand wrapped around your jaw, his entire palm cups around your neck to your cheek, thumb pressing harshly into the corner of your mouth to angle you exactly how he wants you, and then he’s tasting behind your teeth, the wet lick of his tongue into yours sends a bolt of lust straight through him, almost bringing him to his knees. He moans, deep and rumbling into your panting mouth, and your answering keen has the dribble of his precum sliding down his thigh. He needs to be closer, he needs to be inside. Fuck, he’s in danger of coming just from this, just from the sweet taste of you, your little moans, all for him.

“Did you like that boy? Think he was nice, hmm?”

“Wha– No– no, Joel. I don’t even know him.” Brow scrunching into the most adorable little frown he’s ever seen. You blink your lashes at him, eyes glassy and slightly dazed.

He snakes his other hand down the front of your dress and under the lace of your panties, cupping the entirety of your mound in his palm. Fuck, you’re soaked and he’s touching you, finally, finally, he’s touching you here.

“Is all this wet for him or for me?” he says softly, dipping a single finger into your seam, a ghost of a touch over the bud of your clit. Fuck, you’re soft. Soft and swollen and soaking wet. He never wants to see you near another man again, it’s unreasonable, insane, he knows this. But the dilemma of having seen you, tasted you, felt you, but only by half measures, not really having you, well… it sets the stage for insanity. This he cannot help.

“For you, for you– please, Joel. Just–”

“She’s drooling for me, baby.”

“Don’t be mean,” you cry.

“Will you let me make you feel good, sweet girl? Please, I just want to make you feel good.” He presses wet kisses over your cheek, down your neck to lick into the hollow of your collarbone. Your hips hitch in little grinds trying to gain more purchase against his palm, and he circles your clit slowly. You’re fucking dripping, and he moves down to press over your entrance, gives you the slightest hint of everything else he’d like to give you.

“Oh, please–” He slides two of his fingers into the last knuckle then, to the hilt. You’re so wet, there’s no resistance at all. Your cunt swallows his fingers whole, and the both of you let out ragged moans in tandem. You’re fucking tight, and he needs to feel you around his cock, he has to. He’ll die if he doesn’t. He’ll die.

“We– we were supposed t– to talk,” you stutter, little cunt grinding down as hard as you can on his thrusting fingers. The wet squelch is deafening and obscene in the quiet of the guest house, and he can almost feel the steam of your lust and embarrassment at the sound rolling off of your skin like heat waves.

“Yeah, yeah, baby. We’ll talk in a second.” He licks a long wet swipe along the edge of your jaw, bites down harshly, and he can feel the tight clench of your cunt at the small hurt. He pulls his fingers from you, and you let out a protesting mewl, but then he’s spinning you in his arms and kissing you. Something savage and uncontrolled rising up inside of him. He half carries, half drags you down the hall to the bedroom he knows is at the back of the house, pulls the neckline of your dress down to get at your tits, sucking and nipping as much of the soft flesh he can get at. All the previous moments of restraint, of not touching, of just watching, have turned him into this uncontrolled beast. He can feel your little feel dangling off the ground, over his boots. He almost stumbles as you lose one of your sandals, stepping over your shoe, and gripping the back of your thigh to hoist you up higher, grinding you against his length.

He sets you down on the bed, pushing you back to lay across it as he tugs the soft cups of your bra down to get at your bare tits, sucking one peaked nipple into his mouth and pulling hard on the tip. So fucking beautiful. He swirls his tongue around your softness, kisses the underside of it, nips at the full, round side, switches to give the other one the same attention. You’re whining and crying out for him, almost sobbing. So sensitive, so sensitive – little fingers twisted in his hair to pull him closer, but he’s moving down, pulling away from your searching mouth and lifting the hem of your dress. He bends to bury his face in the soft apex of your thighs and breathes deep – satisfaction, hunger, rumbling through his chest. You smell so fucking good. He sticks his tongue out to lick at your slit over the lace of your soft, pink panties, sweet, little bow adorning the front of them.

“Hush, lemme kiss your pussy for a little bit,” he soothes, “Don’t cry,” and you’re spreading your legs immediately at that. Good girl.

He hooks his fingers under the soaking wet center plaque of your panties to pull it aside and drags the flat of his tongue right through your seam. Fuck, fuck. He shuts your legs to rip the fabric down your legs and then rips them open again to get at your cunt. Your back arches, curved tight like a bow string, and you spread your legs wider for him, tug on his hair to urge him closer. He settles between the space you’ve made for him – thinks that he just might like to live here for the rest of his life. He sucks your clit into his mouth and starts to press a single finger inside, giving you something to bear down on.

“God, Joel–” your gasps are wet, on the verge of overwhelmed tears, or already there, perhaps, “Feels so– so good.”

“Taste so fucking good–” He starts to fuck you with his finger, adding another, giving you more to stretch around. You’re so wet, leaking down to pool in his palm, and he focuses on your sensitive little nub, licking and sucking and kissing it, all while he watches the heave and tremble of your breasts, back arched so that you can rock into his ministrations.

“Oh, I’m– I’m gonna come.” Yes, already, “I’m gonna–” He can feel the ripple and throb of your inner muscles working around his thrusting fingers, he hooks them against the deep, spongy spot at the front of your walls and sucks on your clit. Everything goes tight and liquid inside of you. The rapid flutter of your muscles trying to suck his fingers deeper, as you gush into his mouth, has all the blood rushing from his head to his dick so quickly he feels slightly faint. He licks you through it, gentling the thrust of his fingers but not stopping. Your restless legs shift around him, too much, and then he’s shifting back up to you, a bite to your nipple, a kiss pressed to the underside of your jaw, and he’s pulling you down the bed so your ass is right at the edge and tugging at his zipper, pulling his boxers down to free his aching cock and heavy balls. Fist clenched tight around himself, he jacks it once, twice and then presses the angry, red head to your clit, slides the underside of it through your cleft to feel the heat and wetness. Shit, your skin is scorching hot, soaked, and he can see the slight clench of your hole, begging to be filled.

“Joel, please I– I want–”

“Fuck – will you let me– will you let me put it in? Just a little bit?” He’s thrusting against the slick red of you, palm pressed against the shaft to create friction on either side. On every pull back his head catches the smallest bit at your entrance, and fuck, fuck, it would be so easy, so good, “Just– just for a second, baby, please? Just the tip?”

“I – I don’t– I–” The head catches more fully, the wide tip of it giving you just the first slight stretch of it. “Oh, please–” Please, please, please.

He feeds you the first inch – eyes glued to the way your little hole stretches obscenely around his fat girth, “Shit,” he snarls. He fucks you just like that, with just the tip and you try and arch even more, impossible, you’re already pulled tight as an arc, trying to take him deeper, and then your knee is hitching against his hip and pressing him in closer. He slides all the way inside, to the very end of you, in one smooth, devastating go. He feels his tip bump against the mouth of your womb, and your shared moan is pained and ragged. Your fluttering lids springing all the way open, eyes wide, almost shocked. The look shared between the two of you – incredulous, as if neither of you knew – had ever occurred to you – that something in this world could ever feel this good.

He buries his face in your neck, shuts his eyes tight. Fuck, he’s gonna come, he’s gonna come. Your gasping moans, the lush press of your breasts to his chest, the fluttering of your cunt around him – nothing in all his life has ever felt like this. There’s a pain, deep in his chest, in a place he didn’t even know existed. This is like nothing else that has ever existed in this world. He’ll never be able to let you go after this, never, never.

He wraps his hand around your throat, tries to settle you. “Don’t– don’t move, don’t make a sound–”

“I can’t– I can’t– You’re so deep.” Your legs kick restlessly around him.

“Baby, shut up, please,” he begs, he cannot come yet, he cannot. This is the first time in over three years he’s been inside of a woman, the first time he’s been inside of you. He cannot ruin it with a happy trigger finger. You’re clawing at his back, gasping and crying for him to move, to fuck you, please, please, please, fuck me. He slides a hand under your butt and lifts you slightly off the bed to bring you closer to him, grinds his cock deep, deep, right at your cervix so that you’re crying for real now.

“Too much, too much,” you clutch tightly at his bicep, going back and forth between trying to push him away and pull him closer. He can feel the wet press of your tears sliding along his cheek, over his mouth, and he licks his lips to taste them, has his eyes rolling to the back of his head at their saltiness. He hitches you more firmly in his grasp and starts to fuck you. His thrusts, deep and devastating, punching all air, voice, thought out of you, heavy balls slapping wetly against your ass.

“You can take it, you can take it. You can take anything I give you. You’re my pretty, perfect girl,” he grits, pulls himself up so he can stare at the place where you’re taking him, puffy, red cunt stretched obscenely around his slick base.

“You feel so good– I can’t, I can’t– What are we going to do? What are we going to do? It feels so good.” You’re crying, incoherent, fucked out look in your eyes as you claw at his shirt, little nails scraping over his belly and chest. He grips you under one knee to pull your leg up, hooking your ankle over his shoulder to deepen the angle. You come again, instantly, just at the change, the deepening of the angle, the head of his cock battering savagely against that deep, soft spot inside you.

“Fuck, yeah. Let me feel that cunt get wet, little girl.” Your mewls are high pitched, supplicant, and you gush around him. He feels it soak his pelvis, drip down his balls.

No one’s ever been this deep, nothing’s ever felt like this, you say, over and over again.

He plants one knee on the bed and hunches over you, ankle still dangling limply over his shoulder and pounds into you. The feel of your cunt rippling around him, sucking him deeper is too much. He wishes he could last longer, feel you come around him again. What if you never let him do this again? What if you never want him again after this? What if it’s just a one time thing? He’ll never get over this, he’ll never be able to move on from this. He can’t hold back, he starts to fill you, hot thick spurts coating your insides, and you moan again at the searing heat of him, right at the mouth of your womb, grinds deep, deeper, as deep as he can, the contractions of your inner muscles pulling him in. He wishes he could crawl beneath your skin, live inside of you, make a home for himself behind the safe cage of your ribs, and he thinks that you’re right, nothing has ever felt like this, nothing will ever feel like this again.

He’s ruined now. You’ve ruined him

He collapses on top of you, wants to crush you with his heavy weight, meld your chests together so that you’ll have to be with him forever after this. He presses wet, breathless kisses to the vulnerable underside of your jaw, behind your ear where your scent is the most concentrated, breathes you in deeply. You wrap your arms and legs around him, and he can feel the clench of your inner muscles around his softening cock. He hasn’t done this in a long time, he wonders what his refractory period is now, if he’ll be able to go again soon, if you’ll let him.

“I wanted that so badly,” you whisper, nuzzle your nose into his hair.

“Me too, sweetheart.”

“I’m scared.”

“You have nothing to be scared of. I would never hurt you,” he promises because it’s the truth. He’d never do anything to purposely hurt you.

“I’m scared of what I feel for you,” you say quietly, “I– I don’t–”

He slides his hand under you to press you closer. “I know, sweet girl. Me too.” He angles your head to give himself access to your mouth, starts his kiss out soft and gentle, slotting your full upper lip between both of his to pepper soft little pecks and sucks to it, then tilts his head to get a deeper angle and lick into you.

You’re completely relaxed beneath him. Soft and warm and wet, entirely pliant. So sweet. It’s one of the things he loves most about you, how sweet you are. Sweet and kind and earnest – tenderhearted. You’re right, in a way, this is something to be afraid of. The things he feels for you – the depth of it, it’s not something he was expecting, not prepared for, but he’s certain there isn’t a way of stopping it now. This is what it is, will go where it was always going to go, from the first moment he saw you, touched you, tasted you.

“What are we going to do?”

“I want to tell her.” It’s the only truth, the only road he wants to go down. He wants to be with you, he wants this out in the open. “You aren’t a secret to be kept or hidden. You deserve to be cherished out in the open.”

Your tears spill harder at that, “Joel–”

“Baby,” he lifts up slightly to look at you, “This is it.”

You turn to look away and he feels dread coil in his gut. If you pull away from him now he’ll lose his mind. He isn’t prepared for this, he isn’t the type of man who’s ever had to deal with this type of feeling. “I – I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I– I don’t want–”

“You don’t want what?” he brushes a loose strand of hair away from your face, runs the tip of his finger along the arch of your brow, down the slope of your nose. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you,” he says, because it’s the truth. In this moment, he thinks he’d do anything at all you’d ask of him. Open his very veins for you. You have him speared by the heart, eating out of the palm of your small hand.

“I don’t want to be the reason your marriage ends,” your brow crumples, “I told you. I– I can’t be. I couldn’t live with that.”

“My marriage never really began to start with. I told you that.” He moves to pull out, both of you groaning softly at the sensitive slide of his cock slipping out of you, the slick gush that follows. He sits back on his heels, grips both of your knees to keep you spread and enjoy the sight of the viscous drip of his spend out of your messy hole. He wants to bend to eat his own come out of you. You’ve turned him into some sort of beast, subjugated to the scent and sound and feel of your body. But instead he turns to sit at the edge of the bed, tucks himself back into his jeans. He leans forward, elbows resting against his spread knees, and drags his palm over his face, rubs the scruff of his beard. He feels you turn to curve around him, your hand snaking up the back of his shirt to press your palm against his hot skin, your knees curling into his lap around his waist. “It was never – it was never– I don’t even know. Never a real marriage, I suppose. Or never something either of us wanted for the right reasons. I – I felt like it was the right thing to do, at the time, for Sarah. I told you this. But– but it was never how it should’ve been. I worry now, sometimes, if we haven’t just done more damage to her, built a foundation that’s so rotten, so broken, that she’ll be able to feel it for the rest of her life.”

“Joel,” you whisper, dragging your fingers softly up and down his back.

“She was born into a broken home – how can I ever– how can I ever make that up to her?” He turns back to look at you then, “A home where her parents never loved each other – barely even tolerated each other. What is that gonna do to her? What will that teach her about love and relationships?” He grips you around the bend of your knee, anchors himself with the feel of your soft skin beneath his rough palm.

“I think that, from– from experience, that it will be enough for her to know that she has you, that you love her, that you’ll always be there for her. You’re a good father, Joel. A– a wonderful father. She’s so, so lucky to have you.” And the look in your eyes as you say this to him is so earnest, so sincere and kind that he knows, in that very instant, that he’s falling in love with you, that he is already in love with you. He folds over to press his face into your belly, hug you tight to himself. “Your love for her will teach her what love is supposed to be. Honest, forgiving, patient. She doesn’t need any other example than that. That’s enough for a little girl, trust me.” You drag your nails gently along his scalp.

He presses a kiss to your belly, another to your still bared breast. He rests his cheek on your chest to look up at you. “Thank you. Thank you for that.” What he really wants to say is, thank you for existing, thank you for finding me, thank you for being magic, thank you for letting me touch you. Please, let me keep even one small piece of you, I’ll take such good care of it for the rest of my life, I promise.

“But you– you can’t tell your wife about this, can’t– can’t leave her for me. That isn’t– that isn’t ever what I wanted, or– or set out to do. I told you why, I explained this to you.” He watches a bright flush flood your cheeks, brow folding into a frown as you stutter out the words. “I don’t want you to do that.”

“What’s left of this marriage is going to end either way. It’s only a matter of time.”

“But not for me. Not because of me, or for you to run straight to me. I can’t– I couldn’t live knowing I’d done that.”

“You haven’t done anything. This was done a long time ago, the foundation was damaged from the start.”

“N– no, still. I can’t.” You shift away from him, sit up to right your clothes. There is a part of you that hums the sounds of uncertainty, he can hear it in your voice, but it is so quiet in the face of everything else. The echo of your screeching guilt and fear so loud, it overwhelms everything else.

“So, then what? This was just a one time thing? You want nothing more from this? From me?” He spits, hurt. He knows he should be gentle, not get angry, but the thought of you taking yourself away from him now makes panic climb like fire up his chest and throat.

“I don’t know,” you say quietly, face still turned away from him. “I– I can’t tell you that right now. But I do know that I don’t want you to tell your wife, or to leave her for me.”

“So you think I should stay with her? Even though we’re both miserable. Even though all I want is to be with you. That’s what you want me to do?”

You let out a hoarse, anguished little sound at that, but then: “That’s not for me to say.” Your voice sounds broken, jagged, lacerating. “That isn’t my business,” you say so quietly, almost like you’re afraid to utter the words out loud, know what a lie they are. But he hears it. Loud and clear, like a slap to the face.

“Not your business?”

“I should get back.” You stand to right your dress, he watches your shaking knees knock together, and he reaches out to catch you if you need him, but you steady yourself on your own. When you finally turn back to look at him, there are tears streaming down your face. In some sick, twisted way, the sight of them is a comfort. They tell him that this isn’t what you really want, that your words hurt you too. In a way, they help him understand you better, as well. You’re trying to do what you think is the right thing, as wrong as it is for all of you involved. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, wringing your hands together. He only nods. You go to clean yourself up in the restroom, shutting the door quietly behind you.

When you step back out into the bedroom, he’s already gone, but there’s a glass of water left waiting for you on the bedside table.

Chapter .6

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

#someone's fic #joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller angst #joel miller x female oc #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller/reader #joel miller/you #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us fic

481 notes · View notes

athanasius-symposium-of-writings · 7 months

Note

Saw you are taking requests and had a thought: Astarion’s been wandering the realm for the past hundred years after your death, searching for your reincarnation. He has looked everywhere, from the hells to the underdark and still nothing. Just when he’s about to give up, he finds you.

❛ missed my touch that much, did you? ❜ from the prompt list fits really well 🙊

Ngl I headcanon Ascended!Astarion would do this because he cant let go

Rated M (to be safe)

Your death was bound to happen, the mortal lifespan of any race seems so finite compared to the immortality of a vampire. Ascendant. A Lord among the many named in vampiric history.

He hated himself for letting you slip away, for believing you would return to him begging for his love and gift. Instead, he attended a funeral service honoring your life. The Hero of Baldur’s Gate, they even gave you a statue…

How many years has he longed for you? Waited and searched for you. Astarion has since lost faith in the Gods but he has faith you will appear once more, with your smile and doe eyes, his bird to lock away when he finds you.

And find you he does.

The world is different and more advanced, his shadowy hold on Baldur’s Gate long completed, Astarion is pleased to introduce you to a life without struggle. A life where he can grant you everything.

"I swear I've seen you before." This is how the meeting goes, he is pleased to see his influence over you has not faded. You loved him, you showed him love, but then you took it away.

Not this time.

"Astarion?" By the time you know his name, or recall it, his claws have trapped you in the palm of his hands. His beloved partner once more, he grins with glee and possessiveness.

He savors this night with you, savors the way you now clearly remember him. Eyes of fear yet he can see the love you have for him; goodness, you mustn't hide from him. He wants you as badly as you want him, soon you will admit it. Beg for him too.

"You missed my touch that much, did you?"

You want to say no but your body betrays you as it yearns for his hands, how he touches you like you are made of glass. Fragile, to be treasured. You bite down on your lips as he bites your neck— Not to feed but to mark, he has grown much more territorial since you abandoned him for mortality.

His lips every inch of your body, his voice whispers the dark pleasures he will share with you, you shutter as he fits perfectly with yours as it did back then.

"My dark consort," You cry out as he begins stealing your life away, stealing you away into a world of blood and shadows. "My little love, never shall we be parted again."

#baldur's gate 3 #anon ask #reader insert #astarion #astarion x you #astarion x reader #astarion x mc #astarion x tav

398 notes · View notes

oonajaeadira · 5 months

Text

I'll Leave a Light On For You

Fandom: Bloodsucking Bastards / Max Phillips

Pairing: Max Phillips x f!reader

Reader: Adult female. No other physical descriptors; no use of y/n. (There is a little description, but it’s still you. Believe me, it will make sense. We’re dealing with the supernatural here.)

Rating: T.

Warnings: Angst. Character death. Allusions to the atrocities of war and its lasting effects. Max is a vampire. Traumatic soul memory. Me assuming I know anything about French culture of the 1930s.

Summary: Max has reservations when it comes to love, and for very good reasons.

A/N: This is my entry for the @pedrostories Secret Santa event. While I played one selfish card in my hand and wrote something of a companion to Light Only Shows You Where the Shadows Are, this can still be read as a standalone.

To my giftee, the amazing and wonderful @artemiseamoon : First of all, I admire you so much and I was really nervous to write for you. But I looked among your generous prompt choices (omgs thank you for so many good choices) and was surprised to find Max as an option. I wasn’t going to choose him at first but then my eye caught “past lives” and something in me zinged. Soul mates, angsty romance, second chance at love… and I’ve been itching to write an angsty Max. I know you are a fan of soft and whump, so all those elements had a party in my heart and here we are. I really hope you’re having a nice holiday and a good time off. Happy Secret Santa, Arte. <3

What we’ve been told is that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.

That’s almost correct.

The truth is…it’s not just your current life.

It’s all of them.

Max hardly remembers the fear, the pain, the cold of his draining. Even though he knew what was coming, bought into the cult, the human instinct of fight or flight is hard to dismiss no matter how well they’ve been prepped and it was to be expected. But it was a flash in the pan and once he came around to the undead side of things, those pesky human responses were all quickly forgotten.

For a time. Until he saw your light and–

Anyway. Human instincts. Pffft. Adorable. Trading the constant possibility of fear for that of glee, of rapture, of delight? Human instincts are trash. Not to mention their senses, poor suckers. The things they can’t see can’t hear can’t smell can’t taste? Tragic.

If only the feelings weren’t heightened too. It makes some things–some people–hard to ignore–

Feelings were something he could also have done without in his human life–the latest one anyway–and did whatever he could do to avoid.

It wasn’t until he died that he understood why.

As the life drained out of him and the delirium set in, there was a rushing sound, a pull through his soul like the drag of blood from his body, and he was laying, feeble, wailing, bloody and naked among the limbs of his mother.

But not the mother he so recently remembered, the one that showed her approval only when he provided her with some accomplishment worthy of crowing about to her society friends. No, this one was gentle, kind, held him and sang to him, lived her life for him until she died of fever when he was only five years old.

Max saw it all, from within himself and without, remembered the pull of his heart and watched the tears fall down his little face as they nailed his mother’s body in a pine box and put it in a hole at the top of a hill under a tree.

He always imagined he heard her singing to him in the grasses after that.

The world welcomed a new century, and not long afterward, he was a young man, looking to take over his father’s wine fields. But the chance was stolen when an archduke was shot. Max–Pierre, as he was called then–and all of the close friends and cousins he had were thrust into a great war.

He was the only one to walk out of the fray. And when he came home, he found his father’s fields had been burned and that nothing remained.

That was a dark time. Ten years of looking back rather than looking forward. Ten years–it went by so fast–while he watched the world around him try to repair itself and find its footing again, not realizing that the roots of evil still grew beneath the soil.

He kept his head down and his hands working wherever he could.

But then he met a woman.

And she was Pierre’s life. Max’s life. Before he was Max.

It happened in the winter, just before Noël. And her name was Yaëlle.

Max remembered that before she even told him as he watched the story of this strange old life.

Yaëlle. It means “beautiful one.”

“It also means ‘goat,’” she’d said. “That seems more fitting.” She never thought of herself pretty, and perhaps she wasn’t fashionable and maybe she was stronger than she was dainty, with a weak chin and curly dark hair she couldn’t control. But the light in her eyes when she laughed–and what a laugh, like a little bird–the sway of her hips and the confidence in her carriage, her air of easy care and comfort caught his heart like a surly bear in the prettiest trap.

She’d simply been passing through the marché de Noēl, looking but not stopping, taking the kerchief off her head so the snow could land in her curls, when a child approached her selling buns in the shape of a cross and she gave the child a franc before sitting down at the statue of some cardinal or other in the center of the square.

She could have sat on any of the other benches, but she chose to plonk down next to Max. Next to Pierre.

“You want this?” she asked, offering the bun. “Not really my thing.”

How could she have known he was hungry? That he was lonely? That he was facing the market rather than the river because he was trying not to succumb to his inclinations, a pull to walk out onto the thin ice and let himself be taken by the stream?

He was instantly entranced by her. He felt himself smiling. Something shifted within. A destiny.

“You sure?” he asked.

She peered at him, scrutinized his whole self like she could see a glow around him and was looking for its source.

She found it in his eyes.

“Absolutely. I already ate three hand pies today. The last thing I need is more bread.”

He laughed for the first time in a long while. They talked. He ate.

On Christmas Eve when everyone was at the evening’s mass, she was there again, sitting alone, and this time it was he who had hot food and came to join her on the bench while the night was silent and cold and the stars were twinkling.

It was then that he learned why she was not in church–her folk did not observe Noēl. And she learned why he was not in church–he had lost his faith, that everyone he had ever loved was taken and there were not enough candles in the sanctuary to light for all of them.

“What if I lit one?” she’d asked.

“Who would you light it for?”

“For you. So you don’t have to sit in the dark.” When he was only silent, she said, “You fought in the Great War, didn’t you.” And when he looked away–when he shut her out–she continued. “My husband fought in that war. And he never could find his heart again. He said he loved me, but I don’t think he ever really did, not all the way. But I loved him all the way and when he put an end to his own life I thought I would have to do it too. Instead, I sat in the dark for a long time. It’s something I can see in a person. I can see you’re sitting in the dark.”

They stayed quiet for a time on the bench under the statue of the cardinal and when the church bells started to toll–signaling the magic of the empty square would soon be disrupted by the mass emptying into its streets–she stood and pulled her coat around her.

“My home is down that street, a little one with a red roof. It’s warm and I’ve plenty of hand pies--I made too many. I’ll leave a candle in the window until I’m asleep. You’re always welcome there, Max.”

And then she smiled and turned down the avenue where she’d pointed.

He blinked. Just before she reached the edge of the square he called out, “My name isn’t Max. It’s Pierre.”

She turned and gave a sly wink. “Good to know. I think once you get a belly full of my pies, you’ll let me call you whatever I want.”

He only sat long enough to watch the churchgoers file out of the holy service, many of them with people they loved, humming, happy, cheeks glowing in that way when one steps into a fresh cold world after being an hour or two soaking in the warmth. And once the square was empty again, he stood, gave only a fleeting look to the river, and then walked resolutely down Yaëlle’s street.

A little house with a red roof and a candle in the window.

He stayed for supper and came back many nights after.

And then one night he never left.

Max recalled the rest of that life with a lurking despair. While he couldn’t quite remember how it went, something in him carried it through to the life he’d just left…and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was yet.

A few years of joy, of the greatest love he’d felt since his childhood. Like the mother he’d lost, another woman who was gentle, kind, held him and sang to him, lived her life for him until she couldn’t anymore.

They never celebrated Noël as the others did, but in their own way. For a handful of years they would go sit on the bench in the square and hand out pies to their neighbors and anyone who came to join them where they sat. They would listen to the singing in the church and watch the stars scintillate overhead. They would leave their shoes by the fireplace and wake up to find gifts they’d bought for each other with the little francs that they had. And they would never talk about what they would do in the future, because they knew it would be this and that’s all they aspired to and it would be a happy life.

And Max watched Pierre forget about the rot that still ran its roots through the soil.

And one day soldiers came to town when he was out in the fields and they took Yaëlle and some of the other dark-haired, joyful, bird-laughing folk about town and murdered them. By the time he returned for the evening, the soldiers had gone and left him nothing but a ravaged house and a body to bury.

There’s nothing he could have done, the mourning neighbors told him, the tide was rising. If he had fought them, they would have shot him too.

Pierre said that it would have been better that way.

Pierre stopped working in the fields when he started to hear his mother’s voice singing among the grasses again…now joined by Yaëlle’s sweet alto.

He had one more Noël in that life. He drank as much as he could take without falling over and stumbled out to sit on the bench in the square, weeping once the churchgoers had gone. He didn’t say a word, but Max remembered what Pierre was thinking then.

Love hurts too much. It is always taken. It’s not worth the trouble.

And then Pierre fell asleep on that bench and never woke up again.

There wasn’t much time between that first life and this one, maybe a few decades in the dark. Just long enough for a voice to reach him in the void–a voice he knew well and loved with his whole heart for only a short time–to say,

“That was a good first try, Max. Let’s give it another go, okay? Another place, another time, when it’s not so hard. I’ll leave a light on for you.”

____

Max’s life had been shorter this time. But he’d learned a thing or two and kept love at arm’s length. Sex was good and companionship was fine, but he wouldn’t invest in anything that could drain him in an instant and leave him destitute.

Now power, that could fill the void.

So when fortune smiled and he was given the choice, he swallowed hard and put his neck to the teeth, traded in his humanity for power that nobody could take away from him…and a heart that had no need for warmth.

He was wrong about that last point though.

And he didn’t even know it until he saw something that humans couldn’t see.

Heard something they couldn’t hear, a long ago and far away voice singing.

Smelled you on the wind.

Followed it to you–a woman, just another human woman–walking out of a bar along some street in the city.

And he saw a light glowing from within you.

You wore another face, another body, but all he saw was you.

Yaëlle.

Beautiful one.

He followed you that night, and several nights after. He was the reason that car swerved before it hit you, the reason you weren’t approached by that seedy guy at the club. He was the reason you kept looking behind you now and then and when you finally saw him–having dinner at the same restaurant, totally by coincidence, you on a friendly outing, him trying to charm a client into a contract–it broke his heart that you did not know him instantly.

He found he was surprised that he still had a heart to break. He’d been so fucking careful.

Max almost gave into the anger, the disappointment. Replayed the pathetic way Pierre let himself be brought down and tried to remind himself not to let himself be broken again.

But then he heard your voice in a way only those who walk in death can.

Let’s give it another go. I’ll leave a light on for you.

____

Heightened feeling is the one drawback of all this power. It’s one thing to latch onto a target, to fixate on some middle manager or accountant or IT specialist until there’s a good time to finally strike. That is an itch that can be satisfied with a well-timed, fear-seasoned, adrenaline-soaked kill.

But love sinks its fangs in and doesn’t let go. It sucks at something that can’t be drained, has no end, can never get enough. It can drive an immortal--a never-ending being of heightened existence--to madness.

There will come a day in the future when you’ll trust him for no good reason, when you’ll understand the monster he is and whisper under your breath against your better judgment, when you’ll invite him in. For dinner.

And he’ll come around again and again.

And then one day, he’ll stay.

And you’ll yawn ask him on the edge of sleep, “Why me? Of all these humans that you could easily enthrall and have without question, why choose this?”

Max will look at you in the darkness and see nothing but your light.

You won’t understand when he puts on a show of an irritated sigh and tells you, “You gave me another chance, sweetmeats,” but you’ll doze in his cold arms, absolutely confident as he is that nothing will ever hurt you again. Including himself.

And that night he’ll stay until you wake.

He won’t have you sit in the darkness alone.

_____

MASTERLIST

CHARACTER MASTERLIST

#pedrostoriesgift23 #pedrostories #bloodsucking bastards #max phillips #max phillips x reader #max phillips x f!reader

156 notes · View notes

lostinforestbound · 4 days

Text

Inspired by @slumpsnail 's piece of their Dark Rolan concept! Check out their other piece here!

The Rise or The Downfall of a Wizard's Apprentice?

CW: Blood, Death, Description of Breakdown

The first emotion was shock. Rolan couldn't move from his place on his knees as he watched his master clinging to whatever life he had left. His hands are stained red, settled on his lap while Lorroakan crawls to him, his own blood seeping onto the floor in rapid speed. Rolan can't recall what he did exactly, but it was during one of his usual beatings. Something about being a "failure" and "an idiot who deserved everything he gave to him". The memory is fuzzy now, he didn't even realize he stopped shaking from fear.

Lorroakan doesn't say anything, not that he could from the pain, but he looks fearful. A fear of death, perhaps? What a coward.

His mouth spits blood out, and he looks ready to beg. For mercy, Rolan hopes, because how humiliating would that be, for a master to beg for his life from his student?

His mentor doesn't get the chance before he stops moving, the life leaving his eyes, wide with a permanent terror. Rolan wonders if he's going to one of the Hells, his soul forever tortured.

After the initial shock dies down, he runs his hands down his face, uncaring of the blood trail he leaves on his bruised cheekbones as his eyes shine with glee. He killed Lorroakan, the Lorroakan, and yet he felt nothing but pure joy. Is this how Tav feels when they kill someone they hate? This addicting satisfaction that makes his blood rush with adrenaline?

By the gods, is he going insane? He can't find it in his heart to care, so he laughs.

He laughs and laughs, loud and prominent, echoing in the stillness of the room. What a fool he has been. Was it always this easy to kill someone? Does it matter now? It felt so fucking good. Even as he calms, his happiness still remains. In all honesty, he thought he could have died here. When he first struck his master, it was out of terror. He was going to beat him again, and he pleaded for him to stop. It didn't work, and when his teacher's staff raised once more, he held out his hands and- Bursting into a new, quiet giggle fit, he rests his head on his still-wet hand, staring down at the body with a smile. "Oh how the mighty have fallen, Master Lorroakan. Though, you were not mighty to begin with."

A small part of his breaking mind is screaming at him, wondering what in the hells has he done? What would Cal and Lia think if they saw him now, practically bathing in his master's blood? What would their mother think? What would they think when they realized he it enjoyed it?

It doesn't matter, they're all dead, including the man he once was.

He gets up on surprisingly steady feet, leaning down and grabbing Lorroakan's hair by the scalp, beginning to drag it towards the balcony. "Master Lorroakan, do you believe in karma?"

There is no response, but it's not as if he was expecting one. The body's getting cold.

"I'm not talking about you, oh no, I'm talking about yours truly." He says casually, grip tight. "My parents abandoned me, and when I get adopted into another one, their mother dies. Then The Descent, where I saw prowling devils and undead roam the streets, tearing people apart. When we finally escape, we're exiled by Elturel, our only home. When we finally make our trek to Baldur's Gate from a grove that hated us, Cal and Lia are eaten alive by shadows."

He finally reaches the railing, leaning against it to rest briefly. "Then, when I eagerly arrive to you with nothing, you beat me for saying the wrong answers to nonsensical questions. Yet look at you now."

Lifting the head to his face, he grins happily as he stares into the lifeless eyes of his mentor. "Master, I believe karma is finally on my side, after all this time. This tower is mine now," he snorts, trying not to laugh again, "I suppose I should thank you! None of this would have happened if it weren't for your weakness."

He picks up the body proper now, getting closer to the railing. "Goodbye, Master. I'm sure there's a special place in the afterlife, just for you."

Without thinking twice on it, he throws Lorroakan's body off the edge, watching it fall down the edge of the tower. He can't see the bottom from here, but he can't only imagine the body mangling as soon as it hits the ground. The people down below probably won't recognize who it is, but that doesn't matter.

All of this knowledge in the tower he now has access to, but where to start? He should probably clean all the blood but...no, he'll keep the stains there for a while longer, as a reminder of one of his greatest achievements.

A spineless wretch is what Lorroakan was. A pathetic, greedy human who wanted to keep this almost infinite knowledge and artifacts all to himself. Now it was all Rolan's, the new master of Ramazith's tower.

Master Rolan has a good ring to it, and he's too excited to get started on his infinite studies.

That's when he notices that dwarven man in the corner of the red stained room, shaking like a leaf. Another apprentice under Lorroakan. He saw everything. What was his name again? Ah, well...

He fires his magic missile in an instant, killing the man from where he stood with the brightest smile he's ever had in many years.

There cannot be witnesses, now can there?

#forest-writes #rolan #bg3 rolan #holy rolan empire #rolan bg3 #dark!rolan #rolanites

77 notes · View notes

writeforfandoms · 6 months

Text

Waking Lions 19

Find the series masterlist

I am so sorry this is late, life has been lifing me real good recently. I'm hoping things calm down a bit now and I can get back on a more consistent schedule again. Especially this close to the end of the story.

You and Gray have a little talk. This is not going to end well for you.

Warnings: Gray is Unhinged (and not in a fun way), sadistic character, sadism, lowkey psychological torment, spy shit, swearing, hopelessness.

Word count: 1.4k

All the air had left the world. Your eyes started to burn as you stared at Gray, brain working incredibly slowly. You breathed in, everything snapping into hyperfocus.

Gray. Gray was here. He’d found you. He’d found you alone.

You were dead.

“Ace, now, is it?” he asked, conversational, as if you were old friends. He stepped up next to you, motioning you to walk a certain direction. He didn’t have a weapon in his hands, but you knew him too well.

He either had a gun on him, or he had someone watching from a discreet distance, ready to shoot you.

You were so fucked.

He paused when you failed to move, raising one eyebrow at you. Slowly. Letting you feel the weight of his judgment.

"Are you really going to push me to use force?" He kept his voice low, still falsely pleasant.

You eyed him. You had no idea how serious he was. You couldn't read him, fear clogging your brain, tinting your vision. So you took a step, a little slow, a little shaky. But you moved.

And he smiled.

"You gave me quite the hard time," he continued, matching your pace. "Finding you was more difficult than I had guessed."

You swallowed hard, hand sliding into your pocket. Thank fuck your phone was on the opposite side from Gray. It took a moment of cautious fiddling, but you got it recording. Just in case.

"I am impressed you have managed this long," he continued, still cool as anything. "I would have expected you to get yourself killed much sooner than this. But then, you did have help."

You swallowed again. No. He wanted to make you scared, make you suffer. You needed to take some control back. Even if only a sliver.

"What do you want?" You managed to keep your voice almost entirely even, only a slight waver at the end giving you away. But Gray already knew what kind of terror he instilled in you.

He chuckled, turning the two of you down a different street. "Well, you've made yourself a bit of an obstacle again. You've done good work, I've heard all about you from a… mutual friend." He glanced at you, smirking, just to see that barb land. "But unfortunately, you also tried to get me locked away for life. I can't just let something so personal slide, you understand?"

Oh you understood. You understood all too well. He had held a grudge all these years, and spotted the perfect opportunity to take you out and decided to take it. But if he was going after you…

"You've wanted me dead for longer than that," you managed, eyeing him. He still looked too pleased, too confident. It made you want to knock him down a peg or twenty.

"Oh, that?" He chuckled, as if it were silly. As if trying to kill you as a child had been nothing. "Well, that was business, wasn't it? I was after your father's business, you were incidental." He paused, watching with barely concealed glee as you struggled to hold down your rage. "Until Laswell took you in."

Horror washed cold down your spine, smothering your anger in an instant. Laswell. If he held a grudge against you, he certainly held one against Laswell. And she was here, she didn't know he was here.

If only you had a way to tell her, to warn her. To keep her safe, the way she'd kept you safe years ago.

Almost as quickly as the horror, a kernel of relief settled in your heart. She was surrounded by the 141, and the others. She was safe.

Much safer than you, at any rate.

"Oh don't worry," Gray soothed mockingly, cruel glee lighting his eyes when you glanced at him. "I haven't forgotten about her! In fact, I have something special planned for her as well."

You swallowed. He sounded too gleeful about that. You had always remembered him as being cruel and cold, but this? This was a level of cruelty you hadn't seen before. He was unhinged, deranged. Enjoying your fear. Enjoying taunting you. This was somehow worse than you had imagined. This wasn't just killing you, this was torturing you first and enjoying every moment of it.

You didn't remember this from your childhood memories.

"So, where are we going?" You knew you wouldn't get a proper answer, but it was the first thing that popped into your mind that wasn't panic or protective screaming for him to leave Kate alone. Your fingers twitched against your phone. Oh, Kate.

He smiled, amused and condescending, and stopped next to a car. A plain black sedan. You could have snorted at it, in other circumstances. For now, you just stopped a couple steps away. A bodyguard stepped out of the driver's seat, walking slowly around the car. Giving you a good look at the glint of a gun under his jacket.

You could have laughed, if you weren't so scared. This felt like old time mob shit. Your life had turned into a movie.

"You'll find out, soon enough," Gray said as the guard opened the door. He slid into the car, sinuous and easy, those cold eyes locked on you with glee.

You had no real choice here. If you tried to run, you'd be shot. If you got in the car, you were just as dead. It would just take longer.

Gray knew it too. He was enjoying this, enjoying watching you struggle.

But if you got in the car, there was a chance. A very slim chance, but still a chance.

"You know they'll find me, right?" You asked, voice deceptively mild as you shifted your weight. Biding your time. Trying to draw out any further information for the recording.

"Who, your new friends? Task Force 141?" Gray laughed, soft and cruel. Your heart jolted at the realization that he knew exactly who he was dealing with. The guard shifted, taking a half step forward, though he did not reach for you. "Oh yes. I know all about your new friends. SAS. You got your fingers into some very interesting pies." Gray smiled, cruel, dark. You could all but see the blood in his teeth from tearing people apart.

You shivered. Just once. But that was enough - he latched on to that moment of weakness.

"There are only the four of them," Gray continued, almost gently mocking. "What are four men to me? Four more lives? Bah. Nothing." He leaned forward, closer to you, lowering his voice to a menacing murmur. "Their lives are worth nothing to me, except the suffering their deaths may bring you." He paused a moment, purely for effect. "If you live that long."

Rage and horror warred in your veins, running cold, keeping you rooted to your spot. You needed to keep him away from John. Away from Kate. Away from the others.

"So. They can try," Gray finished, showing far too many teeth in his smile. "They can try."

You swallowed. He was very confident in all of this. Of course he was, he'd had years to plan out his revenge. Nobody even knew you were missing. They would have no real clues to go off of, no way to find you.

And he knew too much. About the 141. About Kate.

About you.

You were going to die.

Shivering now, you ended the recording and finally stepped towards the car. The guard moved away from the door, apparently content to let you get in and close the door yourself.

Which worked well for you. As soon as he was around the car, you got in. And dropped your phone in the grass next to the car.

The door shut between you and the outside world, muffling the noises of the city. Muffling everything. The air was thick in the car, tense.

The engine turned on, rumbling quietly. You looked out the window as the car started to move and risked one last look at your phone, sitting in the grass.

They wouldn't find you. They probably wouldn't even find your phone.

You were alone.

Maybe it was better this way, if you could keep Gray away from them.

Swallowing hard, you set your trembling hands in your lap and looked out the window, silence thick as a blanket settling over the car.

You should have told John how you felt about him.

You wouldn't have the chance, now.

#waking lions #john price x reader #john price x you #f!reader

154 notes · View notes

yandere-writer-momo · 11 months

Text

Yandere Baki Shorts:

How Deep Is Your Love

Merman Jun Guevara x mermaid reader with a side of Katsumi.

Katsumi is kinda a butt in this so I am sorry Katsumi fans

“I’m not a merman, (your name). I don’t know why you keep giving me so many shells.” Katsumi rolled his eyes as he handed them back to her without a second glance. She worked so hard to find those blue crayfish shells… blue was such a hard color to find but Katsumi said it was his favorite. “I don’t like them.”

(Your name) was rejected yet again by Katsumi. The tiger wanted nothing to do with her despite her finding him an even bigger, bluer shell. Maybe she needed to get a bigger one?

(Your name) had seen a big conch right in the estuaries between the ocean and the river. It was almost a foot and a half long! Perhaps he’d accept her then if she presented that one to him? It might be a little dangerous for her to fetch it, but it would be worth it if Katsumi finally accepted her as a mate.

“I’m sorry… Please. Meet me by the river tomorrow, I swear it’s the last time.” (Your name) told Katsumi as she held her hands close to her body. “Please.”

Katsumi sighed as he ran a clawed hand through his dark hair. He was annoyed with the mermaid’s persistence in bothering him. He didn’t understand why she kept bringing him so many shells. It’s not like he could do anything with them.

“Fine. When I’m done hunting I’ll meet you there.” Katsumi sighed. She was probably going to give him another stupid shell. He didn’t understand why she was so insistent on gifting him such things. “I probably won’t be able to tomorrow. But I’ll come if I have time.”

(Your name) smiled brightly at the tiger. She clapped her hands together in glee. The violet fins on her head flapping as the pearl strands adorning her hair and body shook as she bounced on her feet.

“I won’t let you down.” She smiled before getting back into the river. Her legs transforming into that of a colorful betta fish.

Katsumi sighed as he went back to training. Ever since that mermaid came here, she never let him be… he didn’t understand why she always gave him so much attention. Why she brought him so many blue shells after he told her his favorite color was blue. Why she would bring him all kinds of fish to eat when she barely ate herself. Katsumi didn’t understand the mermaid at all.

Katsumi thought she was strange but he didn’t dislike her. (Your name) was always his companion and he didn’t want it to change.

(Your name) sat on a large rock in the center of the river. She nervously ran her fingers through her hair as she waited for Katsumi. Her eyes darting to the forest once and awhile to see if she spotted him yet.

She had been waiting for him since dawn but the sun was starting to set. Her bag of shells and other shiny things were tightly secured to her body in her little satchel she found on the bank a few years ago. But the star of the show was out of the bag.

The conch she traveled into salt water to get was held tightly in her left hand as she continued to wait for him. She almost died getting it, but it would be worth it if Katsumi finally accepted her.

“He said he’d be here…” (your name) whispered to herself as she clutched the giant shell to her. She still had hope that he’d show up. She was sure it would be different this time. That Katsumi wouldn’t stand her up again. (Your name) had gotten him the shell! The one she’d ask him to be her lifelong mate with! The one she traveled dangerously for to proved her devotion to him!

The rusting of bushes brought her out of her musings. Her face perking up immediately. She knew he’d come!

“Katsumi-“ a squeal left her throat when a thick net was thrown on her, her hands clutching her conch as she shook in fear. A group of humans stepping out of the forest with bright smiles.

“We finally caught one! A mermaid!” One of the humans shouted as they high fived each other. “Hopefully we can finally pair him and he’ll stop behind so aggressive.”

(Your name) could only shake in fear as the humans hauled her across the river and onto the rocky bank. Their strength easily put matching hers as they picked her up and put her into a large box full of water attached to a carriage.

“It’s okay! We’re not going to hurt you.” They shushed her as she cried. (Your name) didn’t know what was going on. She was so scared and confused.

(Your name) hissed when one of her scales were knocked off when her tail hit the side of the box, one of the humans apologizing to her. The quickly removed the net and cast it off to the side once she was in the box. (Your name) quickly swimming into a corner as she clutched her tail to her chest. Her hands gripping the conch like a lifeline.

“Sorry! It’ll be okay, we’re going to go relocate you so you can be with your own kind.” One of the humans babbled as they locked (your name) up in the box. “Won’t that be nice?”

(Your name) looked one more time back into the forest with a saddened expression. Had Katsumi told humans of her existence? Did he… did he want her gone and that’s why he agreed to meet her at the river?

(Your name)’s heart clenched at the thought of the betrayal. She didn’t think Katsumi would sell her to humans like this… he didn’t have any interest in money.

Maybe he would save her? Yes! Katsumi would save her.

(Your name) tried to reassure herself as the carriage began to move. She still had hope that Katsumi would come, even though he probably would never return even an ounce of the affection she held for him.

What a sad little mermaid.

When the carriage finally stopped, it startled (your name) awake. The mermaid quickly swimming back into a corner as she clutched the conch to her chest.

Why were there so many fish in giant tanks? What was that?!

(Your name)’s head snapped to see a big shadow that swam across the giant tank. He’s body shivering when she felt eyes on her.

“Oh! He saw you!” One of the humans cheered as the slid her glass box over to the giant aquarium. The side door of the glass box was now connected to a little door to the aquarium. “He never usually comes out like this… this is so amazing.”

(Your name) flinched when the door to her box opened as well as the one to the giant aquarium. Her body shaking as she glanced into the aquarium that was full of colorful fish and numerous rocks and plants. What did these humans want her to do?

(Your name) squealed when the humans began to hit the side of the box, the mermaid rushing out of it and into the aquarium in fear. The door locking behind her as the humans cheered.

“There we go! That wasn’t so bad right?” One of the humans asked as they smiled at her. (Your name)’s head darted around the aquarium in fear when she saw that shadow again.

(Your name) quickly propelled herself over to a cave that was concealed with Java ferns and hornworts. Her heart nearly leaping out of her chest when she heard something big swim by.

And that’s when she saw him, a bull shark merman. A scream ripping out of her throat when she came face to face with the large merman, his hand quickly covering her mouth.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He shushed her as she trembled and cried. His brown eyes softening at how small she was. “I promise I won’t hurt you. I was taken from my home too. Where did they snatch you up from?”

(Your name) calmed down but she still gripped her conch tightly to her chest, the merman peeling up at the sight of it.

“Where did you get a shell like that?! Aren’t you a freshie?” The merman asked as he excitedly looked at the conch. “It’s dangerous for a fresh water like you to go in the salt like that, I can’t believe you got a conch!”

(Your name) smiled as she showed him the shell. This was the first time anyone has ever been excited to see the shells she gathered.

The merman noticed the change in (your name) demeanor once he talked about her shell. This little mermaid didn’t seem used to seeing another of her species… so that must mean she’s unmated. Which was perfect. He has wanted a mate for years!

(Your name) shyly opened her satchel and showed him all of her shells, his eyes widening in shock. Mermaids didn’t usually collect so many shells like these unless they were trying to impress a mate so that must mean… she was constantly rejected. But how could someone reject her! She had to be the prettiest mermaid he’s ever seen in fresh and salt water! And she was so sweet too!

“You really gathered all of these?” The merman asked softly as (your name) shyly nodded. His heart clenching at how sad she looked. “Were they for the same person?”

(Your name) smiled sadly at his question. The merman quickly changing subjects.

“My name is Jun. Jun Guevara.” Jun introduced himself to her with a toothy smile. His sharp teeth glistening under the artificial light. “I’m your tank mate. What’s your name, anjo (angel)?”

“(Your name).” The mermaid introduced herself as Jun smile brightly.

“What a pretty name.” Jun smiled at her as he glanced around. Maybe if he got her a shell, she’d feel better? “Hold on for a second, okay?”

Jun then swam away, leaving (your name) to curl up in the cave. She still didn’t quite know what was going on, but Jun seemed nice. She’s never seen another mermaid before and especially not a merman. This was all so new to her…

(Your name) glanced at her conch with a smile. She was so happy someone thought it was pretty… it warmed her heart that someone thought her shells were pretty.

(Your name) looked up to see Jun holding up clam shells to her. Her (eye color) eyes widening at being offered such a pretty gift.

“Here. They’re not as pretty as your conch, but I wanted to welcome you.” (Your name) went over to her bag and began to rummage through it. She then presents him some blue crayfish shells. Jun gasps at how vividly blue they are. He’s never seen such a pretty shade of blue before… these were rare!

“Oh wow! These are so pretty, where did you find these? Blue is such a rare color.” Jun whispered only to be surprised by (your name) showing him that most of the shells in her collection were blue. She must have searched tirelessly for all of those… blue was such a rare color to find and she had so many of them…

Jun was jealous of the person she tried to impress. He would have died if someone presented him such a rare color like this.

“You can have them all.” (Your name) told Jun as she handed him the bag. “These were all rejected anyways, I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them…”

“I won’t ever reject your shells!” Jun said as he happily accepted the beautiful shells. “I’ll bring you so many shells too! So that you always smile, anjo!”

(Your name) laughed at Jun’s declaration. She’s never had someone want her shells before, it was kind of nice…

“Okay. I look forward to them.” (Your name) smiled at the bull shark merman. Jun was so sweet… she wished Katsumi was sweet to her like this…

A week and a half had gone by and Katsumi felt strange. Where was (your name)? Why wasn’t she here? She was always by his side with her babbling but it’s been too quiet lately and he didn’t like it.

At first it was nice not having her beside him but now… it was strange.

(Your name) wasn’t there to eat fish with him or hand him a silly little shell she found… she wasn’t there by his side and he hated it. He hated it more than her being there. Katsumi couldn’t stand the silence without her being beside him.

Katsumi glanced around the forest as he looked around for the mermaid. She was always close by but she’s never been away from him for this long… he was starting to get worried about her.

“(Your name)?” Katsumi shouted, his tail flicking as he searched for her. She couldn’t still be at the river waiting for him right? (Your name) wasn’t that in love with him right?

Katsumi shifted into his tiger form as he began to try to sniff her out. His eyes widening in horror. Why did he faintly smells humans?!

Katsumi went running into the direction of the river, a roar escaping his throat when he saw the net on the side of it. He quickly shifted back as he held the net in his hand. Did they take her? Did they hurt her?

Katsumi shook when he saw one of her scales attached to the net. His clawed hands snatching it up as he brought it up to his face. (Your name) had been captured…

Katsumi roared loudly as he began to folllow the carriage tracks. His black eyes a bright gold as he began to track her down. He hoped she was okay… god forbid anyone hurt her.

Over the course of a month, (your name) and Jun became closer.

Everyday he brought her shells. Pretty shells she’s never even seen before. Jun said they were from the ocean. Since Jun was a bull shark, he could go between salt and fresh water prior to being put into the aquarium.

Jun said he used to collect all kinds of shells before he was put in here, he also used to have a bag to put shells in and other trinkets. He just didn’t have any use for them anymore since he was captured. So he scattered them across the tank for entertainment. Jun said it was like a scavenger hunt and it kept him from going insane with loneliness.

Jun was put into captivity when his had gotten attacked by pirates. They were going to eat Jun if Jun wasn’t strong enough to fight them off.

But the damage was done to Jun’s fins. He couldn’t attract a mate in the wild anymore since they were so damaged.

Jun said he was lucky to be alive thanks to the humans who put him here. They were trying to restore mermaid populations since mermaids were nearing extinction due to humans hunting them for their flesh.

“I’ve been in captivity for two years.” Jun told (your name) as he ran his fingers through her hair. “Then they got wind of a mermaid spotted all alone in a river that would sit on rocks all alone by some locals in the forest. So they went to fetch you.”

Jun adjusted the necklace he made out of all the blue shells (your name) gave him. The shells clinking together a bit when he did so. He was so proud of her gift. Of her love. Jun couldn’t wait until it was all his.

“Oh but I wasn’t alone.” (Your name) smiled. “I had Katsumi.”

Jun’s face soured when (your name) brought up that stupid tiger. He didn’t understand why she held the tiger in such high regard when he rejected her all the time and never was grateful for anything she did for him. Jun was a better fit for her! They were also both mermaids so they could be mates.

They were meant to be. Jun accepted her shells and she’s accepted his. They were practically mates already. Jun knew he was moving fast but he’s been alone for so many years and (your name) was so perfect. All she had to do was give him that conch and he would ensure they had lots of young. As many as he could physically give her.

“But now you have me, anjo.” Jun beamed as he brushed his stubble on his chin across (your name)‘s shoulder to get her attention back on him.

(Your name) giggled as she smiled at Jun. “You’ve been so wonderful to me. This is the first time in two years I’ve had someone actually enjoy my company.”

Jun frowned before pulling her closer to him. “Well I really enjoy your company. I could never get bored of you.”

Jun’s eyes sparkled as he kissed her shoulder. (Your name) jumping a bit at the sensation.

“What was that?” (Your name) asked in surprise as Jun smiled brightly at her.

“I just wanted to give your shoulder a kiss is all.” Jun then place a kiss on the side of her neck beside her gills. “And here.”

“Jun…” (your name) whispered as Jun smiled at her. “Don’t tease me like that.”

“Who said I’m teasing you-“ Jun’s eyes widened when he saw a giant tiger running rampant in the aquarium room. The humans scattering out of his way. The bull shark merman standing defensively in front of (your name) as the tiger stared into their tank. “Stay behind me, (your name)-“

Jun quickly swam after (your name) when she swam towards the tiger. The merman grabbing her as she smiled brightly.

“Katsumi!” (Your name) shouted when the tiger transformed into a man again. Katsumi quickly looking on how to open the tank.

“(Your name)!” Katsumi shouted as he started looking for a way to let her out. “I’m so glad you’re okay. It took me awhile to figure out how to get in here but we can go home now.”

Katsumi flinched when Jun suddenly slammed into the tank. His ears drawn back as he glared at the large merman in with the mermaid.

Jun glared at Katsumi as he sat himself between (your name) and him. “Why are you here? Don’t you know mermaids are going extinct?”

Katsumi froze as he glanced at the signs. (Your name) was brought to a conservatory… which meant they were trying to get her to mate with this merman here? Oh god.

“(Your name), I’ll get you out!” Katsumi found the latch and he went to open it but the humans began to shout.

“Stop! You’ll kill them!” One of the humans shouted. “Please. There’s only five hundred mermaids left in the world-“

“Did you think this is what she wants?!” Katsumi hissed. “(Your name) and I have always been together and I’m taking her home. She has to come home…”

(Your name) put her hands up to the glass as Katsumi put his hands on top of hers. Being without her for this week and a half was unbearable. He didn’t want a life without her in it. He never wanted to be without her by his side again.

“You can’t have her.” Jun spat angrily as he smacked his hands on the glass. “You don’t appreciate anything she does for you!”

Katsumi froze when he saw a necklace Jin wore around his neck that was made out of blue shells. All the shells he had refused over the last two years.

“(Your name)? Why does he have all your shells?” Katsumi asked softly as his brow furrowed. Katsumi didn’t understand the significance of the shells. How important they were to mermaids.

“Mermaids give shells to the one they want to mate with.” Jun replied with a smug smirk. “And we’ve been exchanging shells together in the tank. So she’s my mate now.”

Katsumi’s eyes widened in realization. The reason why (your name) had been giving him blue shells all the time and fish was because she wanted to mate with him… she wanted to be with him? And he had rejected her for two years… he felt awful.

Katsumi felt tears fall down his face in realization. The tiger pressing his forehead against the glass.

“I didn’t know… I’m so sorry (your name).” Katsumi cried as he sniffled a bit. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

(Your name) swam away to the little cave to grab the conch but Jun stopped her. The bull shark putting himself between her and the cave.

“Anjo, please don’t go.” Jun tightly held her hands. “Please don’t leave me. Please.”

(Your name) turned back to glance at Katsumi who was clicking his claws against the glass like a cat does to a fish tank. She then looked at Jun before smiling at Jun.

Jun was nicer to her and he was the same species as her. He had proven to her that he would be a more suitable mate for her so the choice was obvious… it was Jun.

(Your name) handed Jun the conch and he began to tear up.

“You’re not leaving?” Jun asked her as he clutched the conch to his chest. “You’re going to stay here with me?”

(Your name) nodded with a smile. Jun hasn’t rejected her once and he’s given her so many shells… he was perfect.

Katsumi began banging on the glass, trying to get (your name)’s attention. His eyes wide in horror.

“(Your name)! Let’s go home! Please. Please don’t stay here!” Katsumi was now banging his fists on the glass. “Look at me? Look at me!”

Katsumi was now frantic when (your name) didn’t look at him. Her eyes now on the bull shark in front of her. Her own species.

“I’ll accept every shell you give me from now on and I’ll catch you fish too.” Katsumi began to try bargaining with (your name) as he continued to bang against the glass. “You can tell me stories! You can sing! I’m sorry. Please don’t stay here, please come home.”

“I’m sorry, Katsumi.” (Your name) told him with a frown. “You’re not a merman.”

Katsumi could only watch as (your name) and Jun headed into the cave together. The merman giving Katsumi a devious smirk.

Katsumi could only sink to his knees in realization that (your name) was never going to return to the forest with him. That all his years rejecting her lead her into the arms of a merman…

360 notes · View notes

songmingisthighs · 1 year

Text

Fire of My Passion

group : ateez

pairing : poly dragon!ateez × reader, dragon!seonghwa × reader

genre : angst, fantasy, mature

word count : 13.2k

warning : slight gore (murder, abuse), death threat, murder intent, depiction of attacks and casualties, mentions of people getting hurt, psychological anguish

a/n : this is a fic based on @thelargefrye 's dragon!ateez universe !! honestly i really love the fics, i've been recommending it everywhere. if you haven't checked it, please read them first before you read this >:) you can find the dragon!ateez fics here here (m, mdni) here (m, mdni) AND BY THE WAY SMALLS IF YOU'RE READING THIS, I'M SO SORRY IT TOOK SUCH A LONG FUCKING WHILE IDK WHAT I WAS DOING ASOGHOSIGOSIJ I STARTED BULLSHITTING AND I CAN'T STOP

There were things that Seonghwa was used to; calm surroundings, his books in the library, his mates, and his clan. Everything was in order, as it should be since generations before and he loves it. This castle is his home, his sanctuary, where his past happened and where he will establish his future. All were as they are supposed to be.

That was until you came.

"Sunyeol, no!"

Just the sound of your voice was enough to ruin his whole day.

The voices made Seonghwa snap his head to see you running after a hatchling not too far behind him, a little boy named Sunyeol who was holding something in his hand, running past him with glee while you were in tow. Less than three months ago, Seonghwa didn't have to worry about being aware of things around him when he sleeps as the clan was secure in the mountains but now, his mates were sleeping with someone who could potentially kill them without having to lift a finger. How will his ancestors react upon learning that he and his mates, high-ranking members of their clan, were sleeping with the enemy and have mated with the enemy and even brought said enemy to their home, their little safe haven? To be frank, Seonghwa didn't know which part was worse but he resented himself for not preventing you from being admitted into their lives. Because as usual, the witches do whatever they want and everyone was simply supposed to go along with it despite the pain and anguish. So imagine his fury when he saw members of his clan being happy with you. He hated it. He hated YOU so much.

Seonghwa's steps halted when he saw you cornering the boy and alarms started blaring off in his head. The scene was just too reminiscent of the countless murders of both adults and hatchlings in his life. "Alright, Sunyeol, you give me my stone back or else," it was obvious (to you and the hatchling at least) that you were being playful, it was nothing but a ruse to make things fun and the hatchling looked very much happy and engaged, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," each step you took made Seonghwa's heart beat louder in his chest, ringing in his arms like drums, "And we both know we don't want me using the hard way," the smirk on your face was menacing to him, it was a sign of threat. At that point, Seonghwa was no longer even looking at Sunyeol, his eyes transfixed on you, on how you were preying on that little hatchling boy.

In a flash, Seonghwa had you pinned onto the wall, his arm pressing onto your chest suffocatingly in a diagonal angle, using his sleeve to separate you from him because he couldn't imagine the disgust, the utter uncleanness, the absolute filth on your skin latching onto him. "Is that your ploy, witch?" Seonghwa's eyes narrowed as he glared at you with seething hatred, the pure anger that his eyes conveyed was enough to have your stomach sink in fear. "You come here, you pretend to be this nice little witch when the truth is you were just waiting for the opportunity to erase our entire existence, right? And this is how you start? From our precious hatchlings?" smoke started coming out of Seonghwa's mouth and fear struck you deeply. You were confused because you were playing with a hatchling, helping Mingi with his duties one second, and the next thing you know, you were about to die in the hands of a high-ranking dragon for being playful. You tried to claw his arm off of you, desperately trying to get oxygen back into your lungs, but it was apparent from his grip that Seonghwa's aim was to kill as he was seconds away from murdering you.

Had it not been for Sunyeol's cries, asking Seonghwa not to hurt you, you would have surely lost your life that moment. Even when the boy was brazenly tugging on Seonghwa's shirt harshly, screaming at the top of his lungs to let you go as tears streamed down his chubby cheeks, Seonghwa still hesitated to let you go. In his head, he was only thinking of the fact that he might not get a chance like this anymore, to get you in such a vulnerable place that he could just take your life so easily. But the sound of the boy's cries seemed to remind him that he couldn't just make a decision about not only his but his other mates' mate single-handedly. Surely the council will disapprove and his mates (the ones that like you at least no matter the small number), will have his head on a stick.

With resolve wavering (as much as he hated to admit it), Seonghwa let you go, pushing you off to the floor where you croak, struggling to breathe despite being able to feel the oxygen fill your lungs again. With a last glare sent your way, Seonghwa turned on his heels to leave but not before reassuringly patting Sunyeol on his head.

Truly, Seonghwa had no idea as to how and why would his kind be so accepting and understanding of your kind. Since they were merely hatchlings, they were already warned about what witches do, what they were capable of. Cautionary tales of how witches put enchantments on dragon folks lure them to their dwellings and make them turn into their dragon form before killing them. Their scales were sold as armour to dragon hunters, their teeth turned into necklaces that serves as wards with runes on them or ornaments like trophies in their homes, their blood drained to be used as an elixir or potion, and the rest of them were either put on display as a reminder of what they managed to kill, unable to get eternal rest or let just thrown away carelessly as if they were nothing. Those who were killed like that died a gruesome death with the lucky ones got to die in their human form. Seonghwa could never forget the time Hongjoong burned down an entire village filled with dragon hunters when he saw his father's dragon bones propped in the square as if he was nothing more than a statue while his mother and brother were killed in front of it. How he took his family who were already gone, into his strong talons and stayed there as everything burned around him. That day Hongjoong unwillingly became the clan's leader, shouldering the burden and the pain that he was yet to be ready for.

You can ask anyone and they'd say that Park Seonghwa is benevolent, he is kind and understanding, and he is compassionate. But he truly drew the line at you and your kind. He would never forgive you for just entering their lives and messing things up. Things might seem okay and good now, but he knew that the likes of you would only bring pain and misery to their lives, he knew it. It's hard being someone who can see things clearly but not wanting to mess things up as too much was on the line.

For now, all he could do was keep an eye on you and prepare for when he needed to defend himself and his mates, his clan. He'd give his life for them but moreover, he'd take your life to salvage them.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Thankfully for Seonghwa, you spent the next several days cowering in the shadows. He walked around in pride whenever he saw you clutching your chest when you saw him before turning around on your heels and running away. Usually, you'd be walking around with Wooyoung or Yeosang, Mingi would only be around you when you were working with him and he convinced himself that it was simply because he saw you as nothing more than a coworker, nothing romantic. But the three seemed to know nothing which means you hadn't told them that Seonghwa almost killed you. To that, Seonghwa gave you trust points for not being a tattle tale.

It felt refreshing not seeing your face so often as before. One might even able to see the little spring in Seonghwa's steps and the slight smile that was returning after months of not seeing it.

But of course, all good things must come to an end.

One fateful day, after the sun has long set and the halls of the castle was illuminated by candle lights, Seonghwa walked out of the library to be met with the sound of hurried steps.

"Hyung, they came! They fucking came!" San cried out, panting when he reached Seonghwa with Yunho next to him, looking equally distraught. Confused, Seonghwa looked at San and Yunho with clear confusion in his face, "Whoah, whoah, whoah, calm down there," despite his calmer tone, Seonghwa felt uneasy from how his two mates were acting. "Dragon hunters attacked the border residence, we have casualties," the words that left Yunho's mouth froze Seonghwa's body.

He didn't remember what he said, he didn't even remember moving because when he came to, he was at the place where the hunters attacked. A good dozen were being treated for trap wounds, cuts and bruises, and not far from where they were, five bodies covered in white cloth laid still. People were crying over their burnt houses and while there were only two burning houses, it was two to many.

"Where are they?" Seonghwa's voice was eerily calm and stern, an absolute darkness filled his aura and both San and Yunho could feel it. "They ran off to the woods, we have three patrols chasing after them," that was all Seonghwa needed from San for him to transform and chase after the hunters himself. It wasn't hard for him at all as his eyes managed to catch their thermal signature and they were mocking the dragons they killed, obnoxiously yelling how the tip was worth the gold they spent and it just angered Seonghwa even more.

Moments passed like a second and the next thing Seonghwa knew, he reemerged from the forest drenched in the blood of the hunters he just... exterminated. His eyes was golden and face hard, wildness and fury apparent and for a moment he seemed soulless, like a simple sentient being whose job was to kill and had no remorse nor any emotions whatsoever. Not even San nor Yunho dared to got close to him as they didn't know how Seonghwa might react. Heck, they didn't even know what was going on in Seonghwa's mind as he walked past them towards the castle. Neither of them would have guessed nor expected for Seonghwa to immediately target one person in particular.

You.

Dripping blood, he was making a trail everywhere but he didn't care. No, he couldn't care less about the mess he made. He was going to do what he should have done from the beginning. He should have protected his kind, he should have protected his mate, he should have made sure that you had no chance to hurt them even for a bit.

Luckily for him (but unluckily for you), he saw you walking from the path in the garden, seemingly coming out from the forrest it led to. And everything clicked in his head. You were the one who tipped the hunters in the first place. You were the cause of the despair that befell them. You were everything Seonghwa thought you were and more.

Just as you stepped back into the castle, Seonghwa ambushed you, pushing you off of the steps and out onto the grass. The impact didn't wound you but it surely knocked the breath out of your lungs, causing you to choke as you tried to retrieve the oxygen that was oh so harshly forced out of your body. "I should have killed you when I had the chance," Seonghwa's voice was cold as ice, void of any emotion and it frightened you. You began scrambling backwards only for Seonghwa to take steps closer to you and it was only when the moonlight hit him that you realized that he was drenched in blood. "How could you?" He caught up easily and grabbed you by the hair, pulling you up as you hiss in pain, "What could you have possibly benefitted from killing innocent people?" When you were at eye-level with him, you were able to take notice of the tears brimming in his eyes, some had dropped onto his cheek and mixed with the blood before pooling on his sharp chin. "We let you stay with us and this is the thanks we get? You tipping those hunters where we live and letting them attack us? Attack the people who are precious to us? The innocent people whom we swore to protect and you made us break our promise for what? What did they promise you?" At this point, the hand that gripped your hair had moved to the side of your head as his other hand gripped the other side with his thumbs on your cheeks, smearing blood that penetrated your nostril harshly but it wasn't as bad as the pressure Seonghwa was putting on your skull. "S-Seonghwa," you whimpered, your hands gripping his in an attempt to pry him off of you. The tears in your eyes did nothing to stop Seonghwa from trying to crush your skull. He was in anguish, he was mourning, he was betrayed and he didn't even have his trust in you in the first place. So how could he have let this happen?

Your fingers had begun scratching his hand as you cried for him to let you go, begging to not kill you while proclaiming that you did nothing, that you didn't know what he was talking about. But he didn't care, he didn't want to care anymore because he was hurt, he was angry, he wanted to punish you for what you did because how dare you deny the truth when it was so glaring?

"P-please Seonghwa, don't k-kill me," you cried, managing to grab his thumb and still trying your best to remove his grip on you. "I didn't do anything." "I should have killed you the second you stepped into this place, I should have killed you like you deserved after exterminating us like vermin." Emotions were running too wildly in Seonghwa, every emotion that he never realized he had were running through his body like crazy, controlling his mind and action to the point that he didn't even realize that he was crying hard at that point. Though tears blurred his vision, he was still able to see the look of absolute fear on your face.

Your brain was swirling with ideas on how to escape the situation because the last thing you wanted was to die in the hands of your mate's mate. And then you got the idea, you found your escape.

"T-think about Y-yeosang a-and Wooyoung! Think of how much," you momentarily paused to adjust to the feeling of Seonghwa's fingers digging into your skull and you were sure that it was permanently dented. At the mention of his mates, Seonghwa seemed to come to momentarily. The grip loosened slightly but his hands were still caging your head so while it gave you a little bit of hope that you'd be able to keep your life. "Think o-of how much they'll resent you if you were the one to make me disappear," it was apparent that your tactic was working, Seonghwa's sharp nails slowly relaxed from your scalp, allowing you feel the sting from the breeze that brushed through your hair. "Let me make myself disappear, that way they'll hate me and not you and it'll be much easier for them to move on.

Your words struck Seonghwa rather deeply as he considered your words, thinking that you had a point and he'd get an easy out with his mates. As someone who was always level-headed, Seonghwa was rather surprised at himself for being taken over almost completely by his emotions and even more so that he was even considering listening to you. It was truly a cursed day and the quicker you were gone, the quicker he can move on and forget about how shitty it is.

When Seonghwa's hand let your head go, you finally realized how warm his touch was because as soon as he let go of you, the breeze blew rather harshly and goosebumps rose on your skin. Or maybe it was the realization of what just happened, you were going to have to leave your boys without saying goodbye. Technically speaking, it was just Yeosang and Wooyoung and probably Mingi, but you think it was better for your sanity to believe that the only reason Mingi would miss you was that now he didn't have anyone to help him with the hatchlings. And God, leaving the hatchlings that you had grown so close with. Just as a couple of them proclaimed their love for you because they thought you were so cool and kind and loving and they wanted to see more of your grimoire, Weiss. How were you going to move past this life? The life that you never expected but found to love despite the obstacles in every way. How were you going to survive waking up all alone when you've been so accustomed to waking up with Wooyoung and/or Yeosang in bed with you. Their dragon warmth that could not be replicated no matter how much you asked Weiss (because he didn't want you to accidentally burn him) helped you through rainy days and anxiety-filled nights. It was one of your favourite things about them and they'd be more than happy to provide it to you. But over anything else, you can't believe you were leaving them just because your life was on the line.

Just as you were about to say your goodbyes to Seonghwa (not that he was going to care, but it was just polite that way), when he suddenly grabbed you by the neckline of your top, pulling you close to his face so he could speak lowly with his teeth bared and body vibrating. "I'm letting you off for now but make sure I can't find you, you hear me? I'm letting you off because I don't want Yeosang and Wooyoung to hate me for killing you no matter how fun it would be. Because believe me when I say that I have made a list of how to kill you in an excruciatingly painful and slow way that you would actually much rather kill yourself than have me spend my precious time and energy on you," each word was like a stab to your gut but the pain it inflicted was nothing compared to the fact that you actually believed him. Genuinely, you know for sure that he wouldn't hesitate if you gave him the chance.

Seonghwa then pushed you by your chest, not so hard that you fell but just enough to send you reeling slightly, stumbling before running off into the darkness in the woods. The last thing you remembered was Seonghwa's golden eyes turning back to their normal dark brown colour shining in the darkness as he returned to the castle. It was all you could think of as you travelled through the safety of the shadows that the trees cast, thinking that even if Seonghwa were to send his dragon guards at you, you'd still be able to feel the safety of the idea of being hidden so organically.

You must've run beyond your strength because the next thing you know, you stumbled down a hill and you fell rolling down. The impact all over your body seemed to bring your realization back a little because when you finally landed limply on the clearing of the meadow at the bottom of the hill, everything came crashing down to you. How you were so close to losing your life in the hands of your mate's mate, how you were accused of doing something you didn't even understand or know and weren't given a chance to defend yourself or even to provide your point of view, how you selfishly traded your love for your own life like a coward, and how you might not be able to see your mates again anymore. It was only then and there that you cried, your throat turned raw when you screamed out of agony. The pain of falling down and your ankle twisting was nothing compared to the pain of being separated from your mates and you couldn't even imagine what Yeosang and Wooyoung would wake up to, how they would react. For now, you for sure know that they'd have nothing but hatred towards you and you were willing to burden it all if it meant that they would be kept safe. Maybe Seonghwa was right, maybe whatever happened was your fault somehow, maybe you brought them bad luck or maybe there was a reason that you couldn't even think of at that moment. But you stood firm on your resolve that you were doing this for your boys, for them all.

As painful as it was for you, you wiped the tears off your cheeks and stood up straight, letting the pain all over your body drive you by reminding you of what was important. You could still see the castle where you had resided for more or less three months, the towers were slightly covered by trees but you could never mistake it, and you could never forget what it look like. But you couldn't focus on reminiscing now, not when you can't shake Seonghwa's accusation that you were the cause of their despair. So with a shaky breath, you cleared your mind and summoned Weiss who opened itself up for you with no question as your hands raised.

"Let's get to work."

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The past three weeks had been hell for everyone in the castle, especially for the residence. It was nothing like Seonghwa expected whatsoever. He had thought that by eliminating you, their lives would be much different and for the best. Never could he have imagined that the situation was much more complicated and dire.

"How is he?" Hongjoong asked, looking tired and stressed.

The head healer sighed and shook her head much to his and Seonghwa's disappointment. "Well, what do you know?" Although Hongjoong tried to sound confident, it was obvious that he was beyond worried, there was a slight quiver that indicated fear and while other people couldn't have noticed it, Seonghwa knew Hongjoong well enough that he was truly fearing for their newest addition. "Well... He's... Mourning, sir, the simplest explanation is that he was separated from his mate for too long that his mental state just... Broke," she explained timidly in a slightly bowed stance as to avoid Hongjoong and Seonghwa's gaze. At the mention of Wooyoung's mate, Seonghwa's body froze slightly, it was as if his body was involuntarily reacting to the trigger word or words in this case, immediately reminded of the scene where he drove you away by threatening to kill you. As far as Seonghwa knows, nobody else knew about that incident, no one knew he had almost destroyed you that night and that he didn't even see where you had gone to. He was just glad that you were gone. This, however, the news that Wooyoung suffered a mental break and Yeosang became so weak that he injured himself in a patrol was something Seonghwa didn't expect. In all honesty, he felt bad, he felt as if he was responsible, but he didn't want to believe that it was his fault so he put those thoughts on the back burner, trying to focus on how to better the situation instead.

The explanation didn't make Hongjoong feel better though as he couldn't really comprehend what is it that made Wooyoung experience such a devastating break. He tried looking at the two assistant healers but they too were avoiding his gaze as best as they could. "That's stupid," Hongjoong groaned in frustration, hands rubbing at his face harshly, "The oracle said he's our mate and if you haven't figured it out yet he's with his mates right now so you must be wrong!" he growled, terrifying the healers but didn't let them respond as he turned and walked away, yelling to them one last time, "You better come up with a better explanation and treatment plan for him!"

With a last glance spared to Wooyoung's bedroom as the healers reentered, letting the sound of Wooyoung moaning and crying in pain escape, Seonghwa followed behind Hongjoong. Maybe it was best for him to tell Hongjoong what he did, what he had done to Wooyoung's... mate. No matter how much they denied that a dragon could mate with a witch, they have to consider that fact now, especially with Yeosang's incessant and teary attempt of convincing them. The mood in the castle had gone down considerably and at a pretty drastic speed. One could argue that it was the stress of handling the dragon hunter issue and rebuilding the ruined houses and also calming the people down, ensuring their safety with double the patrols which obviously took time to assemble and set their working schedule. It was a miracle that all of them were still functional even though barely. Though, Hongjoong's dedication of time and effort to accommodate the situation was proven fruitful as they have yet to see nor sense another attack from dragon hunters. The patrolmen hadn't even sensed witches or their runes or potions around, meaning that it was more likely than not safe for them. Hongjoong and the others took this as a win as one issue is at least resolved. For now.

Other than Wooyoung and Yeosang, Mingi seemed to receive the third biggest hit. It had been a while since Seonghwa saw him practice his sword skills, abusing the life out of the dummy they usually use for practice and even managing to break three with a wooden sword for practice. As a carer of the hatchlings, Mingi was never expected to be the best in fighting as his main priority was protection over the little ones. While basic fighting skills were needed in order to protect the hatchlings if needed, none of them had ever seen Mingi letting out so much frustration and emotion which made him look terrifying. Thankfully, the children would provide him with some comfort, allowing him to still feel some semblance of warmth as he took care of them but once his duty ended, he would... clam up and go back to his sword practice. Yunho, San, and Jongho on the other hand looked detached even during their duties. While their quality of work wasn't affected, their mood does and it made them even more unapproachable, especially with the glare that Jongho and San would give to the other patrolmen. Yunho would more often than not venture off by himself, excusing it as him wanting to check something out by himself before involving the others.

"I went to the Oracle again," Hongjoong sighed as he and Seonghwa reached a secluded part of the castle, "I... Asked them about this whole thing," with his back against the cold stone wall, Hongjoong was able to lean his head back and just closed his eyes. Seonghwa sidled close next to him, his hand circled and rested on Hongjoong's hips to pull him close, the sudden act made Hongjoong open his eyes to look at his mate before accepting and just letting him get as close as he want. "What whole thing?" Seonghwa asked, his thumb began rubbing on Hongjoong's hips gently in an attempt to comfort the man. "Apparently... It was true," Hongjoong's head dropped to rest on Seonghwa's shoulder, feeling the absolute weight of responsibility burdening him so heavily that it was as if he could crumble then and there, "(y/n)... She's our last mate," an incredulous scoff escaped Hongjoong's mouth as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. Almost immediately, Seonghwa's body tensed up and froze, not believing his ears. "Yeah, I was surprised too," Hongjoong nuzzled his head deeper into the crook of Seonghwa's neck with his eyes closing once again, "What are we supposed to do? That little witch ran away and now once again we're left with cleaning her mess. How are we supposed to make sure that Yeosang and Wooyoung will be okay? They have truly mated with her so they're suffering greatly," Seonghwa felt Hongjoong lifting his head up slightly and when he looked down, he saw his strong leader's eyes brimming with tears, a rare occurrence that truly broke his heart, "How are we going to help them, Seonghwa? Why can I protect everyone else but them?" Seonghwa was quick to envelop the man in a tight hug despite he himself slowly becoming affected by his mate's words, he knew he had to be strong so Hongjoong could momentarily falter.

"Don't you even worry," Seonghwa said firmly, unknowingly using his own words to convince himself as well, "We're gonna get through this. We're going to be okay."

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone else, Yunho had taken it upon himself to venture off again. He had been feeling something... odd in certain areas, as if something was calling for him, wanting to be found and rescued by him.

It was odd.

Every day, Yunho woke up to the feeling of wanting to venture a little bit further out than his usual patrol would take. There was something about the hills that called to him but every single time he got closer, he found himself walking back to the clan. And each time he returned to his people, there was a sense of longing and sorrow. Today, however, he woke up and sense that he felt different than the previous days. He couldn't quite explain it, but he sensed that whoever or whatever it was that was calling him is reachable now. So he rushed to the path that called onto him, fully hoping to see something new, some kind of explanation.

What Yunho didn't expect, however, was the sound of a mountain troll roaring followed by the sound of branches crunching but louder. Immediately, Yunho got into his battle stance, thinking that the troll sensed his presence and wanted him gone from the area. His ear and thermal sensors were able to pick up where the beast was coming from and where it was headed easily. However, what intrigued him was another signature that was much smaller and seemed familiar. It was only when he saw you being thrown to the ground by the mountain troll as if you were nothing but a book.

"Fuck," You groaned, trying to get up and running away but the monster grabbed you by the leg and dragged you closer to it. You were already so weak from trying to run away from the brute, and it was getting so frustrating and hopeless as you were a lot smaller and weaker than the thing. To be frank, you could've taken Weiss out and performed magic to daze the monster so you could make your escape but that would be counterproductive as it would leave a signature and you were trying to not get caught or found by anyone. So equipped with only your with and your desperation to survive, you tried your best to pry the hand of the monster off of you by throwing whatever your hands could grab from the ground at it. But it was no use, it had no effect whatsoever and it even looked unbothered. A loud cry was ripped out of your throat when you felt its claws sink into your skin, to ensure that you wouldn't go anywhere and it was then that you realized that you were facing the last moments of your life without having your task completed.

Thankfully, Yunho stepped in just as the troll was about to drag you by your injured leg to its dwelling, possibly to be torn apart and eaten by its group. With unmatched strength and clean movements, Yunho easily sliced the monster's arm off of you and sent it running to the other side, growling, howling, and injured. Yunho could've run after it to finish the job like how he was trained to do, but he was more worried about you. When he turned his back to offer you some help, you weren't where you initially were and it made Yunho panic slightly as he hadn't even gotten the chance to talk to you. His eyes darted around to see you limping away in the direction from which you were running away from. "Hey!" Yunho called out, jogging to catch up with you easily as you were injured and he was not human.

To be quite honest, Yunho actually felt glad that he saw you again after a long while. There was a sense of relief that came with seeing and confirming that it was indeed you; his chest felt lighter as if a weight has been lifted off and he actually felt... happy. Said happiness was ripped away from him however when he first noticed that you weren't where you were on the ground. "What are you doing?" his hands shot out as you stumbled slightly, situating them near your body so if you were to fall, he could catch you, "We should be getting you back to the castle! You're injured!" he exclaimed, cringing when he saw your bloodied leg that you still forcibly use to stand. It felt odd for him to be so nice to you especially since your nice gestures had been reciprocated with nothing but disdain and rejection from him for months.

Much to his surprise, you barely spared him a glance as you shook your head whilst simultaneously producing Weiss into the open air. Oh, how the tables have turned. "Go away, Yunho, I have important work to do," ouch. "Like hell you do, you need to be taken care of right now," your stubbornness was almost endearing to Yunho at that moment as it reminded him of his mates, specifically Hongjoong. It was no secret that the leader has his priorities set on his pride and his pride only so more often than not, they were forced to use force on their leader to make sure that he gets his rest. So out of instinct, Yunho held your elbows so he could usher you to the castle to get some help and hopefully some answers. But his heart stopped in his chest when he felt you slap his hands away as you turned to look at him. Yunho's eyes widened at the impact, completely stunned and surprised. You were glaring at him but he could see that it wasn't hatred, not from how your bottom lip was trembling and tears were brimming in your eyes. "Don't make this harder than it has to Yunho, go away," you said before turning around and going back to "work" just a little bit further away from Yunho.

Yunho followed suit and he was about to scold you for not wanting his help when he watched what you were doing. Your hands moved in almost a graceful manner, going into your pocket and producing a white powder to spread on the grassy ground as you recite a spell. Slowly, a translucent film-like barrier appeared from the place where the powder was spread and up to the sky. He didn't know how tall it was, but he had a good idea of what it exactly was. "You put up a barrier to keep us inside," Yunho muttered as his eyes slowly trailed from the barrier down to you who had moved further away to continue the process. "Were you trying to imprison us?" the question had no malice in them but the way he immediately thought the worse of you made you flinch slightly, "Of course not, if I wanted to do that, Wooyoung wouldn't have been able to visit my cottage," you sighed before continuing your work. Immediately, Yunho's eyes widened at your revelation, "How did you know that? Have you been spying on us?" again, he didn't mean any harm, it was just that he was in such a state of shock that it caused him to have a poor choice of language. Still, you didn't know that and it still hurt. "No, I was never spying on you all. I was making sure that you all were safe from hunters," you planned on concluding your explanation there, clapping your hands to get the remnants of powder off before limping away.

Of course, your exit was not made easy. Yunho grabbed your arm and turned you to him, this time looking at you with genuine worry in his eyes. "(y/n) please, come back with me to the castle, you need help from the healers!"

You had been hoping for months that one of them other than Wooyoung, Yeosang, and Mingi would reach out to you and asked you to stay just as Yunho was doing. But you couldn't shake off the fear Seonghwa had struck you. You couldn't even go back to living in your cottage as you were afraid that he might find you just to make sure that you were really gone or that Wooyoung or Yeosang might find you and brought you back or even just told him that they saw you back in your cottage. You couldn't risk it and you couldn't risk going to your mother's place as they could sense the dragon off of you and they might enchant you to tell them where they were. So you hid in plain sight, you set up camp in the meadows, right where you fell off after your encounter with Seonghwa and stayed there even after your barrier was set up and it was a good thing that you did because, during the past three weeks, several hunters got close to the area and you had to drive them away with enchantments and monsters ran rampage that almost broke the ward in the barrier. You had pride in your work, everyone inside was not able to look past it and those outside can't peek in except for you. If they even thought of venturing past, the barrier would incept their minds and lead them to go back to the clan instead. Of course, they were able to go out past the barrier, but not from the front entrance that you set which was the area of your camp, they were very much welcome to use the path past the river. You mostly patrol the front entrance and every once in a while, you were able to see some of them with other patrolmen. Mostly Yunho and Jongho, but you remembered seeing Yeosang and how weak he looked just three days after you left. You really wanted to hold him, hug him, tell him that you were sorry for leaving without saying anything but it was for his own good. And then you saw Wooyoung in your cottage. You didn't mean to follow him per se, you were just making sure that in his frantic state, the hunters wouldn't find him or he wouldn't do anything stupid. You even had to enchant him to go back and that was the last time you saw him.

It took everything in you to not give up and tell Yunho everything; what had happened and most importantly, how much you wanted to go back home to them, be with them. But you couldn't. You don't belong there with them.

"I'm sorry Yunho," you whispered. Before he could ask what you meant, you had placed your fingers on his temple, the touch allowed your powers to permeate Yunho's mind and sent him into a frozen state. You could feel his consciousness lowering ever so slightly as you recite the spell that would make him think that this was a dream and send him home. Yunho could feel it, your magic coursing through him and it felt warm, it felt nothing like what his elders told him a witch's magic was like. As you and him connected on that deep of a level, unbeknownst to you, Yunho was able to feel your pain, fear, longing, and love that wasn't just for Wooyoung and Yeosang, but for every single one of them including his clan. It was his first taste of pure and genuine love and devotion and he felt safe in it. Just before Yunho lost consciousness completely, he said something that surprised you as it was the first time someone had managed to peek out from your mind spell. "W-What about Yeosang? What about Wooyoung? They- we, we need you." A soft, sad smile appeared on your face and you shook your head at him, deciding to say something that you had no idea he would take to heart completely.

"He'll be fine. They both will, take care of them for me please."

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The guilt was eating Seonghwa inside and out.

It had been a week since Hongjoong's revelation that you were supposedly their mate too and he felt like he was going insane. Days spent putting out one fire after the other with Hongjoong but thankfully it wasn't literal fire like the ones before. The things he had to handle were mostly over his mates being so unfocused they made mistakes in their jobs. San accidentally hurt himself during patrol, gashing his own leg by mistake when he tripped and fell down the stairs so harsh he had to be put to rest for two days. Jongho looked so worn out that he actually broke down crying one night to Seonghwa, saying that he didn't feel quite right and it was exhausting knowing something's wrong but not knowing where to start fixing it. Yeosang and Wooyoung were still in the same state; Yeosang's weak with cheeks hollowed, lifeless as he remained catatonic in his bed while Wooyoung reached a new level of despair; only saying "(y/n) please come back, i need you," as he made numerous attempts to travel out of the castle to find you only to pass out not even three steps from the garden. Frankly the only functional ones were Mingi and Yunho, keeping up with their duties while filling in wherever they were needed. Yunho was especially surprising because he suddenly spend his nights in Wooyoung's room, accompanying and making sure that he was okay before leaving to rest himself.

But everyone had their limits and this was it for Seonghwa.

He couldn't admit this before but he felt that his chest was hollow, his heart beating without his heart being there and his passion diminishing. Even Hongjoong took notice of this when he noticed Seonghwa slowly skipping his meals and remained to himself for the majority of the time, not saying anything when it wasn't truly dire. This, of course, led to fights between the two eldest as Hongjoong was afraid that he would be the last one standing, holding onto every last bit of remaining sanity in the group desperately while his partner was reduced to something similar to Yeosang. Seonghwa kept trying to convince Hongjoong (and himself) by repeating over and over again that he wouldn't, that he had a better grip on his sanity and control over his urges than Yeosang because he had never done the mating ritual with you. But of course, what he neglected to tell Hongjoong was the fact that he was so guilt-ridden that he has been functioning on anxiety for a couple of days and he had been travelling outside for a bit every day in hopes to see you. For the first time ever, Seonghwa was actually disappointed that he didn't see you anywhere near the castle and not even your cottage every time he checked there.

You truly did believe that he would end you and somehow he disliked that. The idea sent a bitter taste to his mouth like poison or rancid meat.

Now, however, he had to put his feelings and stress aside because he had to deal with Wooyoung who had once again left his bedroom without anyone noticing to venture out of the castle in search of you. With frantic steps, Seonghwa looked for Wooyoung, hoping that he'd be in the garden where you and he once spent hours cultivating and replanting herbs to be used or studied, or in the library where you spent the whole night reading dragon folklore to Wooyoung while stroking his hair, or even in the kitchen where you two stole cookies in broad daylight as a challenge to see if either of you were as subtle as you claimed. It surprised Seonghwa how he know so much about your behaviour yet claimed that he had no care for you whatsoever. Maybe he had been too stubborn to admit the fact that despite your identity, the connection was truly there and it was strong. His stubbornness also exists within the actions that he made namely not telling anyone else that Wooyoung had once again made a crazy escape in a very unwell state because he thought that as the oldest and the second in command, the last thing he needed to do was to involve people who were resting and made it seem like he couldn't handle certain issues by himself. God forbid that.

Suddenly Seonghwa remembered where you would sometimes take Wooyoung when you couldn't find the herbs you needed to make your (demonic mind control) potion. "Shit, he better not be there," despite his complaining, Seonghwa transformed as he jumped up to fly to where he thought Wooyoung might be. It was at the bottom of the hill where there were tons of stumps where mushrooms could grow freely and due to the type of wood growing in the area, there was one type of mushroom, a special and rare one, that could either heal someone's ailments and clean the body or kill them when consumed incorrectly. He remembered you talking about that because you had once prepared the drink for Seonghwa after he spent two weeks dealing with an issue with the neighbouring clan and was so close to passing out. Of course, back then he accused you of trying to murder him and slapped the glass off your hands harshly so that there was a large red mark on your skin for the next couple of days. Ironically, when he did pass out, he was brought back to good health by your mushroom incense which made him throw up all the toxins and fatigue that accumulated in his body from his neglecting it so bad which to stay true to his hatred towards you, he claimed that his body was rejecting whatever it was you used to incapacitate him and decided to just be better so he could fight you off.

From the sky, Seonghwa could barely see anything through the thick trees but he tried his best to sense Wooyoung. After all, he was weak and slow, it shouldn't be too hard to locate him. It wasn't until he heard sobs and a voice calling out for your name so brokenheartedly that Seonghwa dove down and transformed as he reached to ground to see Wooyoung lying on the dirty ground limply as his hands tried to pull the grass so he could crawl to his destination. Seeing him like this made Seonghwa's eyes water and his heart clench so painfully harshly that he thought it might stop beating. This was all his doing, it was all his fault for making a single-handed decision out of his sheer stubbornness and trauma, incapable of considering the fact that his mates might have been right about you because he thought he knew best.

"Wooyoung," he called out, wiping the tears that were cascading down his cheeks as he crouched down near the man who looked so broken and lost and abandoned. Wooyoung didn't even acknowledge Seonghwa's presence, he kept trying his best to pull himself forward more but the lack of strength in his body did nothing but gave him frustration. "Wooyoung," Seonghwa tried calling him again, his voice cracking slightly as he grabbed the younger dragon by the shoulders to stop him from moving more and potentially hurting him. The sight of his dirty, tattered shirt was something Seonghwa didn't look forward to finding out. To his surprise, Wooyoung was able to shrug his grasp off of him, making his escape by using whatever was left in him to stand up. "I need to see (y/n)," he croaked, lifeless eyes staring forward at seemingly nothing, "She needs me, she's calling for me," though he said with little to no facial muscle movement, the tears that sprung from his eyes indicated just how desperate he was.

The thought of scooping Wooyoung and simply taking him away flashed in Seonghwa's head. It would be so easy to just grab him and take him away, God knows it would be best for the both of them. But Seonghwa felt in his gut that he wouldn't be able to cope with the knowledge that he has once again done something that was against what his mate wanted. Another thought flashed in Seonghwa's head, was he about to let his mate do something that could potentially end his life? Not on his watch. So how was he going to convince Wooyoung to return home?

Seonghwa's deep thoughts were cut short when he heard rustles coming from the darkness in front of them and soon cloaked figures emerged from the shadows. The second they stepped close enough, Seonghwa could smell the stench on them, the stench of dead dragons. "Dragon hunters," he muttered to himself, highly alert and swiftly pulling Wooyoung back against him. It didn't even matter to him that Wooyoung was thrashing like crazy, sounds and words from Wooyoung's mouth muddled together, making him incoherent. While this just made Seonghwa panic more, as his brain immediately thought of ways how he could get both himself and the inconsolable younger dragon out of there safely, the hunters seemed to find Seonghwa's state of panic highly amusing.

One of the hunters took his hood down to reveal his face which was half hidden by a headpiece made from intricately placed dragon scales with sections that go down his jaw to his chin decorated with dragon teeth. It was highly disrespectful to wear the carcass of such majestic creatures like that but of course, those hunters don't care, the more ridiculous they looked the higher regard they got from their fellow hunters.

"Looks like we have our work half done for us, boys. We can get the crazy one to the Head of the Coven and have her turn him into a puppet for children's show or for the circus," he laughed with boisterous laughter following after him. "The taller one we can use for accessories. Did you see the colour of his scales? We'll make bank with a lot left for ourselves," the hunter's eyes zeroed in on Seonghwa as if Seonghwa was a treasure that he had been looking for.

Horror struck Seonghwa and dread washes over his body at the mention of his dragon form. It was his fault that the hunters found them, he led them here because he couldn't be bothered to take the hard way and be discreet as he looked for Wooyoung. Not to mention his stubbornness and need to prove himself that led to him not alerting the others that Wooyoung was gone and that he needed help was going to be the reason his other mates will blame themselves if anything were to happen to them both.

"Get them, but make sure you don't nick their skins, I want to make sure we can get the best price," the same man said simply, cockily looking down at Seonghwa and Wooyoung as if he was sure that he was going to get the both of them. His confidence effectively struck his companions positively as they soon took menacing steps forward, seemingly to corner Seonghwa. Between making sure he had a secure grip on Wooyoung and trying to find a way to escape, Seonghwa couldn't even estimate the number of hunters around them. Were there more? Are they surrounded? What weapons do they have? Which clan did they come from? What do they want? There were thousands of questions running through Seonghwa's head which didn't help with him concocting a way to escape.

For some reason, Seonghwa was calling to you in his head. It was odd, he didn't know what it was exactly that you could've done and to be quite frank, he had always mocked you for it, calling you useless and unnecessary because he couldn't be bothered to learn about your power. Despite that, he was calling for you in his head because he had a feeling that you would know what to do to deal with the hunters and even how to deal with Wooyoung and perhaps even calm him down a little. The grip Seonghwa had on Wooyoung was trembling slightly, he was slowly consumed with uncertainty and anxiety and he feared that the hunters must have had something on them that made Seonghwa feel like so. According to their words, they must have had witches living among them and they have been helping these hunters capture dragons. He could only assume that those witches are powerful too because Seonghwa felt his legs trembling and his chest tightening, he was slowly being overcome with anxiety and while he was still able to function, Wooyoung was wailing. With each step the hunters took closer to them, the more sure Seonghwa was that it would be the end of him and Wooyoung. His grip slipped ever so slowly but he still tried to hold on to the younger dragon, he wanted to hold on. Because however, the situation will end, he wanted to be selfless and be there for the mate that needed him.

When a sound popped out from the left side of the hunters, Seonghwa was damn near using the last of his sanity to turn into his dragon form and breathed fire at whoever made that sound. But it was a good thing he didn't because he immediately recognized you standing there, looking seemingly harmless but he noticed the determination in your eyes and it was enchanting.

"And what the fuck are you supposed to be?" One of the hunters scoffed at you, thinking that you must be a joke.

With a raised eyebrow, you whipped Weiss out and shoved both hands into your skirt pockets. "The last thing you'll ever see, unfortunately," in a split second, your gaze shifted to Seonghwa and though you spoke in a low, almost whisper-like tone that seemed to sound louder than it actually is and echoed in his ears, "Duck"

As soon as Seonghwa's front side made contact with the ground with Wooyoung in his death grip, he heard something sizzling that was followed by the smell of something burning and men screaming around him. Seonghwa couldn't look around as the sound of men screaming into the night was deafening and it caused his body to freeze in utter shock. The only thing he could see was you standing a little far away from him and Wooyoung, face emotionless with hands covered in a thin layer of white powder and your chest slightly heaving. Seonghwa didn't know what was happening and frankly, he was rather hesitant to find out because whatever it was you did wasn't good.

Your eyes met Seonghwa soon and his stomach dropped, he had never seen you like that before and he suddenly felt the urge to say a lot of things to you. He wasn't sure what those things were, but he knew there was too much to say. He was about to get up and run to you when you lifted a hand to him and shook your head, "Run," you said simply, taking small steps to inconspicuously return to the safety of the shadows. Though he wouldn't admit it out loud, Seonghwa felt his heart clench when you told him to run, to go AWAY from you instead of TO you. He could only assume that you would be happy that he finally wanted to be close to you but instead you were acting so cold and dismissive towards him. The screams of men in pain snapped Seonghwa back to reality, however, realizing that all of the hunters were in fact distracted enough that they wouldn't even attempt to follow him if he were to safely return home. You had provided him with an escape.

So Seonghwa did what he thought he should do despite the aching feeling of uncertainty about whether or not he or any one of his mates would see you again, he had to prioritize and at that moment, Wooyoung seemed more important than anything else. He grabbed Wooyoung and moved to pull him up despite him wailing for you, calling out your name and trying to claw his way out of Seonghwa's grip. "Wooyoung, snap out of it!" without hesitance, Seonghwa slapped Wooyoung across his face which seemed to stun him enough to focus on Seonghwa, "We need to get out of here! We don't have time to spare or chances left!" Desperation palpable in his voice and the eyes that conveyed a thousand emotions finally penetrated into Wooyoung's mind and for the first time in weeks, he was able to give a sound response. Slowly, Wooyoung nodded and stood up, wincing as he realized just how sore and weak his body was while Seonghwa followed suit. Hastily, Seonghwa pulled Wooyoung further away from the group of wailing men, "You need to turn and fly away home, okay? Call for help, and I'll distract them as best as I could to make sure they don't follow you," Wooyoung opened his mouth to say something but Seonghwa raised his hand to stop him, "You are in no condition to argue with me, just trust me and do as I said."

Of course, even with Seonghwa's order, Wooyoung's heart still yearns for you, he wanted to be with you after being separated for so long. Hoping that he would be able to make eye contact with you, Wooyoung glanced to where you were standing only to be met with the sight of shadows casting through the woods. "Go!" Seonghwa growled, pushing Wooyoung slightly away when he only stood still. Reluctantly, Wooyoung shifted and flew back as quickly as he could to the castle, roaring in the air in hopes that someone from the clan heard him.

Seonghwa was too preoccupied with making sure that Wooyoung was okay that he neglected to see the leader of the hunter group coming at him with an obsidian blade. He only realized what was happening when he caught his shadow moving from the corner of his eyes and even then, Seonghwa knew that it was too late for him, he was going to be stabbed with a poisonous blade and he could potentially die. Things started to move in slow motion and his eyes closed, defeated, as he waited for the pain to strike him whilst he continuously reassured himself that even though he was going to die, he managed to get Wooyoung to safety first.

The sound of the blade taking flesh in between flesh was gut-wrenching to Seonghwa and he could only imagine how the stone would interact with his dragon blood, turning everything toxic and rotting his flesh from the inside out.

He waited and waited, but the pain never came. When his eyes finally opened, he was beyond shocked to see you in front of him, the blade nesting in your right shoulder as you stared up at the hunter dead in the face. There were a lot of things that Seonghwa didn't expect from you and on the very top of that list were you jumping in front of danger for him, putting your life at risk for him. He expected you to do that for the others, even Hongjoong (since he's the clan leader), but not him. Never him.

"Wrong move," you spat and before either he or Seonghwa could react, you pressed your powder-covered hands to his face. Then Seonghwa saw it, he saw the man's face sizzling under your touch in the areas where his dragon scale helmet was and around its area. As if it wasn't enough, you mumbled spells that soon caused blood to leak from the man's eyes, his pupils constricting to the point that they were mere dots as his throat vibrated with the agonizing cry he let out.

Only when the man dropped to the ground at your feet that you let your arms fall to your sides. Slowly, you turned to Seonghwa and Seonghwa could see the more relaxed expression on your face. Then his gaze dropped to your body, specifically to your blood-drenched hands. He didn't know whether it was the hunter's blood or yours, everything was just too messy for him to see clearly and he didn't even know where to start looking. "(y/n)..." he called out reaching out to take your arm in his grip gently but you scurried away abruptly as if you were scared, you would've continued if it wasn't for the tree that you accidentally hit, making you wince from the pain of the blade. "Please don't kill me," you whimpered slightly, inching to the side of the tree in hopes that you could make a quick exit. The words somehow struck Seonghwa deeply, he was well aware that he was the one who threatened to kill you in the first place but he never realized that you would be so affected by it. The fear in your eyes when you looked at Seonghwa without the safety of hunters to excuse your presence somehow bothered him. Just a couple of weeks ago Seonghwa would've taken great pride in instilling such crippling fear into you, but now he just hated how you wanted to get away from them now. From him.

"You're hurt..." Though his voice was wavering slightly, Seonghwa tried his best to keep a strong front, wanting to show that he wasn't letting his emotions get the best of him. And it worked, you only took further steps away from him because you felt that he was being so stoic and perhaps he was giving you a false sense of security just to trap you and kill you. So you quickly shook your head at him, not wanting his words to influence your decision to go back into hiding and plan a better strategy to protect them.

With every faltering step back you took, Senoghwa seemed to want to follow and it scared you. He wasn't taking more steps than you but his strides were longer. Right then and there, you could feel a pull to him, a pull that you've experienced with Wooyoung and again with Yeosang when he finally opened his heart to accept you romantically. The feeling was warm and comforting, reassuring of your safety and life despite the poison that was entering your bloodstream. You had been so focused on Seonghwa that you didn't even notice the little trick the leader hunter pulled to ensure incapacity towards any of his enemies, dragons or not. The poison he used was deadly to dragons, capable of paralyzing them in 30 seconds and completely killing them in 20 minutes. While it wasn't as deadly to humans, you didn't have much time until you grow weak in your tent and die slowly for days whilst locked in your own body, able to feel everything but unable to do anything.

Thinking that the chicken dance you and Seonghwa were doing could last a while, you decided that you should just make your escape so you could treat your wound as soon as possible. With a smile thrown at Seonghwa, your feet took their position to run, "I'm glad you both are safe." Seonghwa's body went into an immediate state of panic as he heard you say that, alarm bells started going off in his brain knowing that that was your way of saying goodbye. He had been so determined to find you and bring you home, how could he just let you go? It wasn't like he was trying to force you to come with him or even kidnap you, but he wanted to bring you back home where you belong. The home that Seonghwa had so selfishly taken away from you and for what, pride? In the name of trauma? Nothing could excuse his behaviour and that was why he wanted to make sure that he could make up for it. And he couldn't do it when the person he wanted to make up to isn't there.

As you turned around to flee, you felt something shoot up your spine and your vision turned black. The pain made you want to scream and you could've sworn you were screaming in pain. But in reality, your face was lax and your body swayed to the side, gravity doing its job pulling you to the ground when all strength left your body. The last thing you hear was the sound of someone calling your name, then a couple more that was followed by flaps of wings and rushed steps. You must've imagined things. Out of all, however, Seonghwa's voice was more prominent and you could've sworn the palm that supported your head as you fell belonged to him. Well, you must've been beyond delusional which means the poison was doing such a marvellous job. This was maybe the sound that was sending you off to the afterlife and to be honest, you could be hearing worse.

Now all you had to do was welcome what comes next.

Whatever it was.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

"Hyung?"

Seonghwa's head snapped up to the door when he heard someone calling for him. The door to your room was shut with a heavy thud and Mingi came walking in with some things in his hands. "I thought you were told to rest," the younger sighed, displeased that his older mate was disregarding the words of healers who had instructed Seonghwa to take it easy on himself. Seonghwa shook his head as his gaze dropped back to the woman sleeping on the bed, looking like a corpse with how she was unmoving and unresponsive but still alive as indicated by the flush on her cheeks and lips. Since when do Seonghwa think of you like that?

Though Mingi was worried for him, Seonghwa only waved a hand dismissively at him, "No, I... I put her in this situation, I should take care of her."

When Seonghwa brought you back to the castle, not only were his mates up and about due to Wooyoung's warning (and being absolutely surprised that Wooyoung was functioning normally), but they were preparing to save you and Seonghwa. So when they saw Seonghwa in your arms, they thought that you had died. Chaos ensued when Seonghwa reassured everyone that you weren't dead but were definitely dying if you weren't treated immediately. Coming to his senses first, Yunho scooped you from Seonghwa's arms and carried you to the house of the head healer just outside the castle area followed by Yeosang who regained some strength at the mention of you and also Wooyoung. As soon as you were out of sight, Seonghwa dropped to his knees, legs lost all strength as tears poured out of his eyes, coating the skin of his cheeks in a glittery sheen. That was when he grabbed Hongjoong's hands and confessed to what he did, how he threatened to end you because he thought you helped orchestrated an attack. He confessed how he almost did kill you that night, how he single-handedly exiled you because he thought he was doing what was best for everyone. He confessed how it was his fault Yeosang and Wooyoung almost lost their minds and how the others were suffering, not realizing that it was because their mate was told to stay away from them.

That night Seonghwa received nothing but confused, cold glances from his mates even as he was being patched up. It wasn't that they hated him for what he did nor were they mad, it was just the fact that Seonghwa kept such a big secret from them. Moreover, after Wooyoung recounted how you had saved him and Seonghwa from out of nowhere which prompted them to ask Seonghwa how you got stabbed by an obsidian blade. Of course, Seonghwa told them everything, he told them about how you jumped in front of him with no hesitance which saved him completely from danger. Then there was a conversation of dragon's honour, how they should never bite the hand that fed them (literally or not). Mingi was the first to innocently bring up the fact that you had been but nice and generous to Seonghwa but he had only returned your kind gestures in utter disdain. Hongjoong defended Seonghwa by saying that despite his actions, he did not break a dragon's honour as you had never saved his life before. Then surprisingly, Jongho backed Mingi up by saying that the dragon's honour doesn't only apply to live-saving situations, it also applies to general, mundane situations which prompted Hongjoong to snap at the youngest, saying something along the lines of "If I remembered correctly, you wanted to stake and burn her to see if, and I quote, 'she smells like rotting eel like the rest of her coven' when she first came to us" which was not received well by Jongho.

Now, five days later, you were still not up but the tension amongst his mates had died down and things had started to turn for the better. The warriors were less antsy and got even more confident with the additional good news that Yeosang was finally cleared to come back on duty 3 days ago. Wooyoung was once again able to function normally, returning to his studies with the healers whilst sharing the recipes he learnt from you during the time you lived together. Hongjoong was finally able to calm the council and was able to address the questions regarding the citizen's safety with more assurance. Mingi brought the good news that you were back to the hatchlings and they were more than elated, immediately asking Mingi when they could see you again which made him so happy. And Seonghwa felt much more at ease with knowing that you were there with him, knowing that they were once again whole despite your comatose state. One thing for sure though, you were never left alone without anyone's watch. Wooyoung, Yeosang, and Mingi had taken it upon themselves to sleep in your room with you with Mingi dragging a (not so) begrudging Yunho with him. Jongho would only stand guard outside your door in the afternoons when everyone else was too busy with their own duties while San would stand guard inside your room but away from you, both were still feeling awkward because they had been so bad towards you and they didn't feel their fussing over you would be justified. Hongjoong would keep watch from afar and through his staff, asking questions directly to the healers or (not so) casually asking the members on watch about your condition during their supper. Seongwha remained a constant by your side though, adamant about being there when you woke up. He would do his duties from his seat and only leave when absolutely necessary and even then, he would rush and make sure someone was in the room with you.

Whilst keeping watch on you, Seonghwa made the realization that you were the difference that they needed. It could be because of the fact that you were destined to be mated with all eight of them, but it was also possible that it was because you were... you. Never had he experienced such a drastic difference that happened with a person's absence and presence. It was as if you forged their life force, your mere presence elevated their energy in more ways than one. He had been a fool to let his ego cloud his judgement.

Mingi walked towards you with a gentle smile on his face, his hand gently placing a flower crown on top of your head, "Hi there, I... made this when I took the hatchlings outside to learn about nature. They missed you so much," he wanted to say how he missed you too, but the presence of Seonghwa only made him swallow his own words. Mingi then turned to the older male, sighing when he saw his eyes busily darting through scrolls for different businesses that Seonghwa needed to tend. "I'm worried for you, hyung," Mingi confessed, eyebrows scrunched in slight frustration at the older's stubbornness. "I said I'm fine," Seonghwa sighed, putting his scrolls down on the desk next to him to look at Mingi with a small smile, "Don't worry about me, okay? I know my limits and I just want to make sure (y/n) comes out of this okay," he reassured him. It seemed like Mingi wanted to say something, but the stare Seonghwa gave him made him shut his mouth as if telling him it was pointless to argue with him, he wasn't going to budge. So Mingi simply nodded and left the room after giving your hand a gentle squeeze to return to his evening duties.

Once he was back alone with you, Seonghwa thought that it was best for him to focus back on completing his task, he was quite behind already and he didn't like leaving his duties like that. But as he was about to delve back into his scrolls, he couldn't help but look at your sleeping figure and his legs automatically took steps closer to you. Every time he looked at your face, he couldn't help but remember the frightened look on your face the day he almost killed you. While he used to find pride in it, now he couldn't help but be embarrassed of himself, embarrassed of how he threatened someone who bore no arms as it wasn't a noble thing of him to do no matter the person. Above that, he was embarrassed of himself for treating his mates' mate like that. The regret played over and over in his head as if to mock his lack of judgement and he knew he deserved it, he was willing to bear the shame brought by his own stupidity and more if it could bring you back. The healers kept reassuring him that you would be up but they couldn't really know when and that scared him, the uncertainty and vagueness only made him stress more.

With the gentlest of touch, he traced your hand that was resting on your stomach, flipping them over to graze over the burnt skin as he winced, imagining the pain you must've felt. Turns out, when you burnt that hunter's face with the powder you had, the direct contact made your own skin burn and while it will heal, the pain you must've endured was more than you should have felt. "I'm sorry..." tears built in Seonghwa's eyes as his eyebrows furrowed tightly, creating a crease in the space between, "When you get out of this, I'll make sure to pay you back a thousandfold, you hear me?"

The lack of answer made Seonghwa fall to his knees by your bed with your hands still in his grip. His face rested by your hip as he cried hard, body shaking and hands trembling with overwhelming emotions. Seonghwa didn't even know why he was crying, it wasn't like you were dead despite him seeing your unresponsive body. He was glad that you were back with him despite not knowing how you would react when you finally came to and realized that you were back in the dwelling of the person who claimed wanted you dead if you ever showed your face again. But he knew a lot of them wanted you there with them and he knew you knew that fact too whilst also knowing that before this, the majority of them disprove your existence amongst them and had even pulled petty pranks as hiding Weiss in the dungeons for three days which caused you to panic and even stated their disdain towards you and your kind right to your face. So really, what was Seonghwa crying about?

"I'm so sorry," Seonghwa's voice cracked from raw emotion like he never felt before, his cheeks wet with tears that dropped and pooled on your bed. He tried looking up at you again, but he couldn't bear the sight for long before he hunched over with his face on your stomach, crying even harder. His lips kept mumbling apologies like it was a prayer or a mantra, not knowing what else to say to you as he felt his transgressions towards you had really crossed all the lines that exist in the world. But even then, especially then, you showed him nothing but kindness and genuineness. Seonghwa gripped the blanket over your body and the shirt you were wearing tightly in his hands as if to anchor him to reality, whatever it was.

A sudden touch to his head stopped Seonghwa's cries almost immediately because he thought he was imagining things, maybe his mind was starting to play tricks on him. Seonghwa snapped his head to your face only to be greeted with the sight of you smiling gently at him, your eyes lively and smile like a fresh breath of spring that made his chest bloom. Then he felt your fingers carding through his hair slowly and gently as if the action was filled with nothing but affection.

"Purposeless tears can kill your fire, dragon. Why are you wasting them?" though your voice was cracked from the dryness of your throat, it still sounded melodious to Seonghwa.

For the first time ever since you knew all of them, Seonghwa cracked a smile, albeit a teary one. He gently took the hand that was on his head and pressed them to his lips before moving them to his cheek where he kept it to enjoy the warmth of your life with his thumb gently caressing the inside of your palm. The initial fear of you rejecting him died within seconds, now being proven that you only had love and care for him just by how you were gazing at him. Seonghwa didn't even care if it was his imagination or if it was the delusional side of his brain trying to compensate for his guilt because he was seeing actual proof in front of him. Proof that you woke up from him opening his heart to you.

"No one could kill you, my fire, I won't let anything kill you."

And you believed him.

taglist :

@rdiamond2727 @yvnnieurl @kodzukein @phenomenalgirl9 @skzatzloveismonsterous @memorymonster @thesolarplanetarysystem @dreamlesswonder86 @maddiebabyxoxo @imababywolf @do-you-actually-care @marievllr-abg @ilsedingsx @wasteitonserendipity @bbymatz @noonaishere @honeyhwaaa @ateezourstars @yoonjunshi @yoongiigolden @camillelafaye @charreddonuts @jcngh0-hq @kpopnightingale @starryunho @atinct @mirror-juliet @hyuckilstan @jayb17 @kpoplover718 @imswitchbabemox @haatohwa @youngestdelacour @x-bluee @erinaimeexx @blackb3ll @mingiholic @angelicyeo @vampcharxter @meowmeowminnie @marvelous-llama @kawennote09 @hongjoong-lovebot @ming-ki @stopeatread @spooo00oky

@chloepurpy @cutie-wooyo

922 notes · View notes

maehemthemisfit · 1 year

Text

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐀 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄

ask — Can I ask you that the reader 💋 them while they are 😥 and 💙 in order to 😇 them, (I really hope this makes sense) Characters: Scaramouche & Xiao (This is my first time requesting something, hopefully I did it right ☠️) - requested by @oddshroom

a/n — this took me so unbelievably long to write but I'm working on my emoji asks now! okay so apparently I have no self control when it comes to writing scara so this ended up being 3k instead of 500≤1k so I'm making this separate from the xiao's. also dw love, you did it absolutely right so it was clear and concise <3

pairing — [ scaramouche x gn!reader + 💋 kissing them while they're 😥 having a nightmare and 💙 playing with their hair in order to 😇 comfort them]

edited by: my homegirl @xiao6ao

masterlist / xiao post / emoji prompt list

Since when was the melody of screams this unpleasant? Or perhaps, maybe it was never a sweet tune to begin with.

The crackling of fire howled and filled his ears, yet he watched silently as the flames ate away at the wooden structure, devouring the joyous memories he created there. Ashes sprinkled the blazing air, scurrying around like fire flies and filling his lungs.

His breathing was shallow, huffs of air spilling from his chest and reminding him of how human he seemed. But he could never be human, not when his chest was but a hollow cavern, overflowing with nothing but broken dreams and empty promises. His fingers trembled beside him, and subconsciously, he backed away from the dazzling light.

Why was he afraid? How could he be afraid? After all, he was the one who’d started the fire.

"N-No..." Scaramouche whispered, his eyes widened in disbelief as he took in the scene before him. "This... this already happened. Why am I seeing this again?" He looked to his palms— a desperate attempt at gathering his sense of self— but upon seeing his old attire, he found himself inarticulate.

This can't be. It was like he was back to being—

"Kunikuzushi," That voice... that was- "Why did you do this?" The child cried, clutching a familiar doll to his chest. It was threaded with such precision and care, casting in his mind a fond memory of the weeks he spent learning how to sew such a thing with his past friend.

Then the sight of the child’s charred skin hit him, and the endearing thought was discarded. He looked just as he did so long ago— sick, fragile.

But his eyes, oh his eyes told another story.

Scaramouche remembered his eyes, always full of wonder and curiosity, much like his own when he was just a fledgling. Those eyes that would beam up at him as the child tugged him away to a new discovery. Those eyes that would melt close as a smile formed on the child's lips. Those eyes, that were now boring holes into his own, absent of life and that childlike glee he was once accustomed to. Those eyes that were now swirling with fear, fear that was now directed at him.

"I didn't—!!" Scaramouche found himself choking, misery seeping into the depths of his chest and pouring out into his voice. He felt utterly nauseous at the sight before him, heaving breaths of uncertainty as hot tears began to spill from his indigo hues.

Shakily, he brought a hand to his mouth, searching for the words he wanted to say. "I didn't mean to... you- you broke your promise..."

The child took a step back, "Promise? What promise?" The puppet’s brows furrowed at the confusion on the child’s face, the air getting all the more jeering— threatening to strangle him— the longer they spoke.

"You said we were family. You said you would never abandon me," Scaramouche recalled. Abandon. Just the word sizzled and left a bitter taste on his tongue.

It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair at all.

“I didn’t abandon you,” the boy managed to retort, his voice scarcely a rasp. “I died!” He choked on a fit of coughs as he succumbed to the illness both his parents fell to.

Abandon… die…

Those were two completely different words, were they not? Yet, somehow, the discarded creation had found the two synonymous. The concept of death was still foreign to him all those years ago, and the timing was impeccable, as if someone were pulling the strings to all his misfortune. One betrayal after another. It was a deadly recipe of disaster that bubbled over into impulsive decisions and, finally, the roaring flames before him.

And now, he could only witness this village burn all over again— brick by brick, plank by plank— and watch the terror in the eyes of the one he called his friend, of the people he held close to where his heart should be, resurface from ashes long gone.

Damn it. It's not fair. It's not fair at all.

Another staggering step, and the flames began clawing at the child’s leg, searing deeper into his already charred skin. "Wait! Please!" Scaramouche shouted, lunging forward towards the kid now set ablaze and embraced in the wild, untamed fire. “Don’t leave me—" No, not “—again.”

But it was all in vain. He pleaded. He cried. He called, yet no one came.

His fingers crossed the child's, the doll slipping from the child's grasp and into the desperate puppet's hands. And without skipping a beat, the child burst into cinders before his eyes.

The ground kissed his knees as he collapsed, trembling hands digging into the veil that did little to shield him from the raging light. Within seconds, it was torn to shreds and soaked in the tears that he bled.

He wept, voice barely above a whisper. "Why couldn't it have been me…" Those tears, those pathetic emotions he harbored, why couldn't they stop? Why did it hurt so bad? Why did everyone leave him?

A dry, forced chuckle passed his lips that were drenched with the downpour from his eyes. He wiped them.

"Maybe I am just some faulty being." He looked up at the stars that watched in silence above him, ignoring his pleas for help. Gods… humans… even the stars were nothing but lies.

It was only then that a sensation ran down his neck, causing him to flinch from the sudden sense of touch. He whimpered despite trying his best not to, yet what he felt wasn't in the slightest unpleasant.

He leaned into it, eyes growing heavy with whatever was circling his skin, the pain that drenched him before growing numb as the flow of his tears drew softly to a stop. He felt small, yet safe under this eerie yet familiar touch, like an angel was embracing him and shielding him away from the tragedies that plagued the world.

A trickle of hope poured into him, flooding a soothing warmth through the chest that had been poisoned by a twisting ache. His fist unraveled the tattered veil, his hands now clinging onto something more plush and soft, though he couldn't see.

It told him he was fine. He was safe. He was sound.

Sound?

The air caught his mind, now devoid of the screams that smothered him just moments before. Even the crazed laments of the fire ceased, replaced by the quiet pitter patter of falling droplets— none of which he felt.

What he did feel was something soft showering his face, warm and featherlike, and another delicate touch swaying back and forth over his cheek, creating a peaceful harmony within his settling mind.

Despite the heaviness in his limbs, he pulled himself closer, his legs rubbing against silky fabric instead of the ashened ground of what had once been his home. His arms drew himself closer against whatever was bringing him comfort, the sound of something beating surprisingly washing away the rest of his worries. He drifted far away from the panic that once overcame him, the raging storm in his head now reduced to calm waves of water, carrying him safely back to reality into the arms of an angel.

His eyes, tired and spent, fought to open. His vision made out from blurring colors the sight of another person laying beside him. They leaned into him, and he felt the same featherlike sensation on his forehead. A voice he recognized— he had yet to decipher the words— filled his ears.

It was…

Before his eyes could fully adjust, he was already curling against your chest, fingers softly grabbing your shirt and tugging like his life depended on it. In an instant, the world came rushing in, his lungs breathing in the calming air of the small apartment you shared.

He was fine. He was safe. He was with you.

He called your name, his voice cracking as a groan slipped past him, muffled by his face pressing into you. Memories of his nightmare crashed back in restless waves, threatening to drown him once again. He coughed, attempting to speak through labored breaths.

"I s-saw… my, I-'' Scaramouche hiccuped, his body starting to shake like the harsh winters of Snezhnaya was biting through his porcelain skin.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, take your time.” You were quick to silence him, whispering affirmations in the mist of night for only his ears to hear. He clutched onto you tighter. “It’s okay love, I’m here.”

After the countless years of suffering the puppet endured, he wasn’t fond of being touched by any living being— at least, not after all the torturous poking and prodding he was subjected to during Dottore’s experiments, whilst promises of “making him stronger” or “unlocking his true divinity” fell on deaf ears as he withered in pain.

But you? He couldn’t help but melt under your irenic touch, something that was foreign to him for decades. It took awhile for him to adjust to your displays of affection, but eventually your arms became his new safe haven, something that was all apparent now as you rubbed gentle strokes against his back, the sobs that were born from his horrid dream now dying down to soft sniffles and hums.

The moon glowed in all its glory in the blanket of night, illuminating the two lovers cuddled closely together like birds in a nest. Its silver glow became sparkles in the stray tears that spilled over his cheeks, your hands calmly wiping them as they fell. He came to realize over some time that the featherlike touches he felt prior were you pressing kisses to his face.

The moon came and fled as the sun put it to rest, painting the darkened skies in shades of blue and red. Its rays glimmered, peaking through the window and shedding its warmth on the both of you. By then, the wandering puppet’s tear stained cheeks were dried, his breathing leveled, and eyes half lidded, swirling with bouts of serenity.

Your hand was idly playing with his hair, gently combing through and dividing pieces that fell across his face. A comfortable silence filled the air, only penetrated by the whisper that flew past your lover’s lips, calling your name. You hummed as his hand slowly crept from under the covers, reaching out to grab yours from his strands and bringing it to his chest. His warm breath tickled your skin when he sighed, the feeling being overthrown when his lips kissed the back of your palm, lingering for nearly a minute.

“Do you…” He spoke softly, still firmly holding onto you, yet his voice sounded far off, eyes distant and hazy. “Do you think I’m evil?”

The question dripped from his lips like dew to a leaf, dropping into your ears for your brain to soak it in. Melancholy sprouted from it, growing vines that entangled your heart.

The word evil ran through your head, such a harsh term to describe someone, you scrutinized. Could you really compare the word to the former harbinger lying across from you? Perhaps his past actions, but…

Do evil people cry genuine tears? Do evil people feel remorse for their wicked deeds? What truly defines evil anyway?

The fluttering of wings fanned your clouded thoughts, your answer becoming clear along with the sound of birds chirping. You tugged at the vines clenching your heart, ripping them with ease as you looked at the man in question.

“Doing good things doesn’t make you a good person,” you imparted, staring honestly into his alluring eyes. He listened intently as you spoke, hanging off of every word like a puppet to a string. “And doing bad things doesn’t make you a bad person either.”

The foggy look in his eyes finally cleared.

“I think you experienced the worst parts of the world before you could understand the beauty of it, which led to your notorious doings.” You adjusted your hand to hold his, and he gave you a gentle squeeze as your thumb caressed circles into his. “But if we look back to your ‘previous incarnation’ without your memories, or your titles before Balladeer, would you call them evil as well? Would the people who knew you then describe you in such a way?”

The question floated in the air. A quizzical frown assuming the puppet’s features. For a second, he was back in his dream again— images of fire and ash tainting his mind. He remembered those eyes that were swirling with fear, anxiety threatening to crawl up his spine again.

He was fine. He was safe. He was…

“I didn’t abandon you,” The child's voice played back in his head, oddly sounding more soft compared to the voice he heard in his dream. Another recollection filled his thoughts— it was the sight of the child pulling him eagerly, a wide grin adorning his chubby cheeks, a giggle followed by his own filling the air as he allowed the kid to guide him to some growing lavender melons.

"I- I can't reach it. Awhh," The child pouted, looking away from the tree dejectedly.

"They are pretty high up," Scara- no, Kunikuzushi observed, bringing a hand to his chin. "You'll be able to reach them if I give you a lift though."

"Really? Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! You're really the best ya know, and d-don't forget it either!" The child cheered, jumping up and down in his small burst of excitement before calming down. He tired easily, no matter what he did.

"I'm the best? But I'm just a mere—"

The small mortal coughed weakly, balling his fist right after and shouting a heartfelt declaration. "Puppet this, puppet that. You're a good person and you're a good friend. There's no if, ands, or buts about it,"

He couldn't help but reciprocate the child's smile.

"I- I guess you have a point," Kunikuzushi hummed, his face blooming a pretty pink as he tried to hide under his veil. "You know… you sound a lot like an old friend of mine.”

The memory faded as quick as it came, his shoulders now relaxed and expression thoughtful. You assumed he reached the same answer as you.

They wouldn't call him evil. Never in a million years.

“I couldn’t either," You answered his thoughts, bringing your hand back to card through his hair. "Which is why I don't think you're the monster you make yourself out to be."

He wanted to laugh, but he found himself without a voice. All those questions he aimlessly sought answers to. He’d even asked the God of Wisdom the same thing, yet her answer was quite different from yours. But could he really take your words to heart— or hold it above the words of a god? Would her answer change if he asked her again? Would your answer change if he wronged you?

He was fine. He was safe. He was good.

The sounds of rain dwindled as the critters of light rustled away, chirping and hollering to the sun’s presence. By now, its light blanketed you both, whisking off the drowsiness as you rubbed your eyes. You were in the midst of calling your lover’s name when his fingers wrapped around your leg, pulling it over his hip to bring you close once again.

He cupped your face, your eyes instinctively closing as his lips embraced yours, the warmth of his touch enough to rival the sun and the shine of the moon. No celestial body could reap what the two of you had sown beautifully together.

You held his past, present, and future, carried his vices and virtues, wiped his tears and tore down his walls even when he built them up too high.

You stayed, even when he couldn't give you his heart.

He was enough, you reminded him proudly each day. He was safe. He was fine. He was loved.

"I love you," Scaramouche found himself mumbling against your lips, breathing out a content sigh when the two of you finally parted.

It was the first time he initiated such a declaration, and while he'd never admit how much it affected him, the shy smile carved into his face spoke it well enough. His passionate gaze lit a thousand flames in your soul and it was your turn to fall into the rabbit hole of his beauty.

With another quick kiss, you touched your foreheads together, your voice a lullaby to his ears as you chimed the words that always made him feel something skip a beat in his chest.

"I love every part of you, and never forget that," you huffed, feigning a pouty expression to entice a smile— which he effortlessly gave.

"Don't worry, I won't," he laughed heartily this time, making an effort to find your hand and intertwining your pinkies. He brought them to his chin, pecking the side of your hand once more. "I promise."

TAGLIST — @sonder-paradise @96jnie @scaramouchenumber1fan @linn-a-a @wisteriaflowersss @ineriris @yesntforno @serramii @shadowmist0706 @jmgrule @imeanwatever @c00kie-cat @xtodorokismistressx @ieathairs @endlessmari @strawberryclumsy @serenity-ren-bliss

reblogs appreciated (⁠っ⁠.⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)⁠っ

690 notes · View notes