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#jubilee x reader
fun-k-board · 5 days
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Works I'm planning to release by next week -
X-Men '97 with a gender neutral teenage mutant who's afraid of the dark - Wolverine, Rogue, Cyclops, Jubilee, Storm, Gambit.
The Brotherhood (X-Men: Evolution) X gender neutral crush - Quicksilver, Blob, Toad.
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I'M GOING TO TRY MY BEST OKAY I really need to step up my game when it comes to writing (⁠・⁠–⁠・⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ
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6rookie-writer0110 · 2 years
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Request - Laura Kinney, Emma Frost, and Jubilee jealous headcanons
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•Emma Frost, can get very jealous.
•She won't stay quiet and she would say something.
•If that person doesn't walk away, Emma would do something about it.
•You think it's hot when she is jealous.
•She knows that you won't cheat on her.
•You start to calm Emma down.
•Emma would be possessive.
•Emma loves hard and she is very affectionate.
•Everyone knows that you're dating Emma Frost.
•When she is jealous, she would glare and say something rude to the other person.
•Emma, would kiss you in front of the person who was flirting with you.
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•When Jubilee is jealous, she would glare.
•Jubilee won't say something mean to the other person.
•She would put her arm around or kiss you in front of the other person.
•Jubilee would ramble on how it was rude for someone to be flirting with you in front of her.
•But if the person doesn't walk away then Jubilee would do something about it, Jean Grey would probably help.
•Jubilee knows that you love her.
•On purpose Jubilee would leave her lipstick on your cheek.
•It would show everyone that you are dating Jubilee.
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•Laura’s glares are very noticeable.
•She would threaten the other person who flirts with you.
•People know that you're dating Laura and they get scared when she is angry.
•Laura would be possessive.
•Laura would be distant from you because she never felt jealous before. To her, it's a new emotion.
•You would have to explain to Laura why people feel jealous.
•” Laura I won't leave you. I don't want anyone else” You said.
“ Humans are so strange” Laura joked.
You and Laura smiled at each other then you hugged her.
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klineinie · 3 months
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𝐣𝐮𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐞 (𝐨𝐡, 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡)
⤷ jubilee, a celebration of the passage of time ( and how all this, the good and bad, brings luke back to you) / luke castellan x (gn + child of aristaeus) reader
⤷ friends to lovers relationship study, whump moments, first love (twice), luke lives but with amnesia au + all titles referenced from the jubilee album by japanese breakfast
⤷ notes; pheww first fic of 2024 and it's long, the lockwood to pjo pipeline got me bad... please note that while i did read the books (in third grade), i chose to selectively ignore canon and aspects of luke's character, so things might be ooc asf
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♫ — posing for cars (woke from a dream in which you left me)
There are words first— muffled, swimming through his eardrums in the way that conch shells catch a tidal song in the waves, or how the sand grains that pass through the fingertips of children are just ten million quarter-fragments of unrealized history.
It feels like a veil laid over his senses, being submerged in water for too long, the pull of sleep waiting at the abyss between dreams and memory.
A voice says, quiet and dark, the gathering clouds on a horizon, a promise of a storm, “Luke Castellan will carry on a hero, but his crimes must be acknowledged.”
Another, low like the pulling tide, “Indeed. My son was quite adamant about his fate— we gods owe a debt, and I know you well enough to understand that you are eager to settle things quickly, brother.”
A pause in conversation, like a break in script for the characters to ponder. The veil of silence scratches against his damaged ears, crackles in the empty space like collisions between hydrogen atoms at the beginnings of a star’s birth.
“I’ve reached a decision. Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, will have his memories and dreams revoked until this council no longer deems him a threat. It is a far less cruel fate compared to others over the eons.”
Not a single protest, no curves or bumps in an otherwise linear road. Sound lies dead in the still air.
“Very well then,” says the thundercloud voice contentedly, “let him return.”
( He won’t remember much when he wakes up, only the voices and dulling pain and light— pre-dawn rays that play over his lax face, shine through the flesh of his eyelids so that his sight can be granted the small mercy to have something to fade to black from. )
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♫ — paprika (lucidity came slowly)
It’s really like a dream about falling, in a way. The fact, fleeting when he grasps it, tells him that his body is shutting down faster than his mind can keep up with, so it must fire an abrupt signal through his neurons in order to jerk him awake.
Luke Castellan lands, back bouncing upon the springs of a mattress as he’s jerked to consciousness.
Eight billion people on the planet and the first thing etched onto the blank slate of his mind is the rise of your brow and the scent of medicinal honey.
The dawn brings with it rays of light that slip over the curve of your face and refract through your irises golden, Midas-touched.
Eight billion people.
You.
( Seconds can feel like lifetimes. He only needs two to commit all of you to memory, the curve of your nose and the slant of your lips and the shape of your eyes, how the sun tilts shadows and highlights over the geometry of your features. )
“You…” He searches for the words, sifting through the little information left in his mind to try to compare this situation to something similar. He comes back with nothing.
“You’re awake,” you finish for him, and your voice makes his eyes flutter, a viscous substance sinking him deeper into a space removed from lucidity. Your face draws in on itself. “It’s too early, go back to sleep.”
He finds two of your knuckles lightly tapping the space between his eyes before they roll back as he falls once again into the dark abyss of sleep.
-✦✦✦-
“Chiron,” you whisper once Luke’s breaths deepen, gazing into the dawn through a windowpane, fingers sticky with the gold honey you’ve been smearing onto gauze, “what are we going to do with him?”
The centaur only shakes his head mournfully. “Even I myself am not sure. The gods have their own reasons for this.”
“They’re terrible at reasoning, then.”
Chiron’s mouth is a steady gash beneath his beard. “I can’t say that I disagree, child.”
Your hum of acknowledgment is curt, short in the way a dagger’s blade is sharpened and shaped. Chiron’s reflection in the pane nods in a silent goodbye before his shadow fades away to check on the other campers.
The room is silent now, save for the occasional stirring breaths from Luke. He shifts ever-so-slightly, sheets rippling around the familiar curve of his body.
You stop momentarily to gaze at the way his lengthy limbs splay crescent amongst the honey-soaked bandages that grace his skin, knowing that when he wakes again, he won’t find familiar comfort in anything, a discordant note standing out in an otherwise harmonious symphony.
You let him sleep, a stutter in routine wrapped with mercy and forgiveness. Shadows flit past the pane once again, the Apollo cabin by the singsong way they talk amongst each other.
They’re here for the bandages slathered in antibacterial honey, the smell hanging tangy and sharp in the air; a few linger in the doorway to glance at you in pity, Luke in wariness. You expect everyone to know now about what their parents decided to do to him.
Will Solace’s eyes meets yours momentarily, the blue of them shining crystalline in the dawn like the shallows of a sun-soaked beach. They glitter when he blinks, once at Luke, twice at you, thrice in understanding as he offers a small smile of thanks; a wish of good luck is tucked into the secret fold of his lips.
( You’ll probably need it. )
Luke makes a strangled little noise in the back of his throat when he wakes. It’s a struggle for him to open his eyes— you know this because you’d administered to him a small amount of honey infused with a sedative when Chiron had first carried his limp and broken body through the door.
“You’re awake,” you repeat, a ghost of words, voice dipping low as to not startle him. Luke slowly claws his way out of the sheets, blinking dazed in the afternoon light. His eyes focus on yours in a haze.
“Who…”
“Am I, who are you, where are you?” you finish for him again, an old habit that never found its way to dying hard. He offers out his arm instinctively, trusting, when yours reaches out to pick at the corner of a peeling bandage.
Your fingertips, deft, are still wet with honey when you peel back the dressing wrapped around his underarm. The dagger wound there is nasty, but the draining ooze and pinkening skin means that it’s healing, and that the ambrosia worked.
“Yea,” he says around a cardboard tongue, reaching stiffly with his free hand to grasp shakily at a cup of water on the nightstand. He swallows it in a single backwards knock of his head and dabs at the corner of his lips with his wrist. “Everything you just said.”
Your mouth turns up, a beckoning lamp to his moth of curiosity. “Your name,” you start, “is Luke Castellan, child of Hermes.”
“Like the herald?”
“You remember your mythology. That’s good, it means you’ll have a better time adjusting.” Luke averts his eyes at the comment, ears shining pink. You continue. “I’m a child of Aristaeus, a minor god— he’s the patron of rustic stuff like beekeeping and home crafts, basically Demeter if she was a male who loved the cottage life.”
He snorts, childish, and it feels like you’re twelve all over again, rolling in the fields, mouths smeared pink with juice and strawberry seeds embedded in your tongues. The taste of your first summer with Luke still lingers unsoured at the back of your mouth.
“So,” he says while you pull off his old wound wrappings, “let me get this straight. You and I—” he gestures with a finger “—are like demigods or something, as in Perseus and Heracles?”
You nod. “Except Perseus and Heracles are—”
“Zeus’ kids, and we have different parents, yea.”
“I expected you to be calm, but not this calm.”
Luke’s face blooms into a tight grin, cracked and curled with a wilt at the edges, and it’s noticeable, the way his eye twitches. “I’m processing. Sorry, it’s just going so fast and I don’t know what to ask first, I…”
He sighs, frustration bleeding into his voice.
“‘How do I start’, you mean?”
Luke hums, a little sound that vibrates through the air, hangs like the first notes to a hymn. “Did we…know each other?”
“Everyone here knew you.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” and then again, “did we know each other?”
You turn to the window, silent, mind lingering on that grove a little ways from the strawberry fields, where the persimmons hang ripe during cold season and little camellias unfurl, an assurance of the coming spring.
“Yea,” you breath, a little puff of air that fogs the glass pane, like mist settling superimposed over the meadow outside, “you could say it like that.”
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♫ — tactics (memories of peaches, the sun on my neck)
You’d just turned fourteen when you first set eyes on him, all downy black waves of hair and dirt-smeared cheeks. He’s holding back tears, a glittering film of saline that obscures the deep brown of his irises; a little girl is tucked shivering into his side, wise eyes peering through dark curls— she can’t be more than six or seven. One of the newer satyrs, Grover, stands behind them, head tilted downward in shame.
Luke Castellan, Hermes, and Annabeth Chase, Athena, their names escape his mouth trembling like broken-winged birds trying and failing to flutter off south in the winter, but Thalia, she—
( There’s a new tree on the hill, looming tall amidst the gathering clouds that promise rain. Power radiates from it in waves, blanketing the camp in a humidity reminiscent of late Long Island summers. Ah, how uninspired of Olympus’ king. )
You follow in the wake of Chiron’s tail as he escorts them to the Big House infirmary, giving time to the Hermes and Athena cabins to prepare. Some of the Apollo kids are there already, restocking supplies; one with flaxen hair hands off two orange shirts and leather strings to the newcomers, and another with honeyed eyes dabs alcohol-drenched cotton over their lacerations.
“Do you want tea?” you ask when the old centaur’s tail flicks against your back, a signal to break the web of silence. “I have, uh…well, I only have chamomile right now.”
Annabeth nods quickly, lips pressed together as a chill passes through the infirmary window. Luke gives you a sidelong glance, wary. The curtains ripple in the night air, allowing the moon to lay soft on the curves of Luke’s face.
It gives him a somber look with the way the cold light paints his burnished edges, like clothes hung too long on a line, colors bleached away by the sun.
“What about you?” you ask, a murmur carried slow in the eddies of air left by the medics’ departing wake. “Honey, sugar, milk?”
“Whatever you want,” he responds curtly, mouth set in a line as hard as marble, bearing resemblance to the statues carved stoic in museums.
You huff lightly, already retreating to the kitchen. “Alright.”
Chiron clears his throat, steps forward and leans down kindly to meet Luke’s gaze halfway. They talk in quiet tones, secrets sewn into a memory only they will know.
Annabeth shuffles close behind you— she’s taller than you had been at seven, the top of her head just inches from your shoulder.
“Luke likes sweet things,” she admits, arms crossed in a loose defense, guarded when she glances at the dark windows. “I saw him eat three chocolate bars in a row before.”
“Really?” you laugh, soft in the way snow falls on Half-Blood Hill in the winter. “I never would’ve guessed.” She nods, lets down her arms. You step aside, making room for her to watch the kettle come to a boil, fascinated with how the dried leaves unfurl under the pouring braid of water. “First time having tea?”
“I had coffee before, it wasn’t that good,” she says. “Can I try it plain first, then add things until I like it?”
“Sure,” it’s a quickfire response. You’ve never met another kid so engaged in the art of tea making, whether they were acting or not. It’s a nice change of pace. “I think Chiron’ll live if we have a little sugar. Careful, don’t burn your tongue.”
Annabeth blows gingerly at the amber liquid, smiling at how the steam parts to make way for her slipstream breaths. She takes a small lap and you laugh at the face she makes.
“Wanna try some honey I made?”
She nods, eager to experiment. You grab a spoon, dipping it into the jar Chiron keeps at the counter, a gift from you to celebrate your claiming. Annabeth’s eyes glitter when the taste diffuses across her mouth.
“Hypothesis,” she offers, a true gem of intelligence, “I’ll like tea with honey only.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I think milk tastes gross, ‘specially whole milk. Chamomile is meant to be calming, so sugar would probably do the opposite.”
You grin, brows raised, when she hops to the cutlery drawer, pulling out a clean utensil to scoop more honey into her drink. She uses the spoon she’d already licked to stir, taking sips between additions to get a hang of the flavor.
Four spoons later, Annabeth nods in satisfaction. She studies the detailing on the utensil's handle, memorizing each cut in the silverware, curls bobbing along to each tilt of her head. “I’m remembering which spoon I used so I can get the same combination next time,” she says when you glance at her curiously.
“I’m happy you like it.”
She peers at you again, dark eyes flashing with a flame you’d find in someone older than their years. “I like you and your tea and your honey. You’re nice, a lot nicer than other older kids. Just like Luke.”
You smile at the compliment, warmth blooming in your chest, seeping past that ribbed cage of bone and spreading to the tips of your fingers. “Thanks.”
“We just met, but I think we’ll be really close, like siblings.”
Straight to a point, six steps ahead; that’s what you glean from Annabeth Chase. You can tell she’ll fit right in with the other Athena campers, maybe even make it to counselor; you know that the day she surpasses you is inevitable.
“I’d love that.”
-✦✦✦-
Luke can hear everything. It’s a thing he’s trained himself to do, a hunter’s skill honed, practiced, and perfected. Chiron only speaks a few words to him, condolences and basic camp rules. Says that his half-siblings will always be there for him, extend a guiding hand when the tunnel loses light.
( He doesn’t believe the centaur. )
He slides out from the doorway he’s been lurking behind, the shadows clinging to his shoulders, leaving their little imaginary claws in the fabric of his camp shirt.
Luke takes in the sight of Annabeth’s little form swathed in orange, perched on a chair with the toes of her shoes dangling a breadth above the floor. She’s sleeping, cheek pressed against the oaken table surface, cornerfolds of her lips sticky with content by the way they curl upwards.
The chamomile and honey combination must have done wonders for the demigod child. He’s glad, a joy that unfurls like tea leaves in his chest, that she’ll be able to sleep full nights at camp.
“Your tea’s starting to chill.”
Luke meets your gaze, irises overlaid with the warm tone of the ceiling lights, the dual beads wrapped around the leather of your necklace glimmering and gold-spun; Midas-touched in the way the sun shines through the veins of dappled leaves.
He threads his hand under the mug’s handle, cradling the warm glass in his cold palm. The tea is amber, the color of dried ichor, spilt godsblood, hazy with the addition of honey and sugar.
“Thanks,” he says, staring at how the liquid eddies with every tilt of his hand. “Chamomile, right?”
You nod, a light hum escaping the column of your throat as you slide into the seat beside Annabeth. You join her in resting your head against the table, watching her at peace, wood lacquer gleaming under your skin in a haze.
“It’s good for sleep. The Demeter kids let me pick some from their gardens,” you say, an offer for him to walk right into your life. “And I made the honey myself.”
“Who’s your parent?” he asks, curiosity an overwhelming tide that flows over him.
“A minor god,” you share, words pungent at the seams, a bite of rind. “Aristaeus. He does beekeeping and handy stuff— Chiron says that it’s close to something called smallholding.”
“You don’t have a cabin, then.” Your expression blooms into a bitter one; Luke didn’t mean for it to come out almost cruel. “Sorry,” he apologizes, stitching a tear before it gets too big.
“It’s okay, I’m used to it. I don’t really wish I had one to be honest, because I’d be alone in there. At least in the Hermes cabin, it’s warm at night ‘cause of everyone’s body heat. You’re a Hermes kid, aren’t you?”
“Yea.” The silence is a break in script so that Luke can finish his cold tea. The glass makes no sound when it’s placed back onto the table, beads of amber liquid distorted at the bottom. “It’s good. Sweet.”
“Annabeth told me that you had a sweet tooth,” you admit, tilting your head up to meet his gaze. His eyes are brown, the shade of toiled, nutrient-rich earth— the kind of soil that’d give year-round growth without tiring.
Luke chuckles under his breath, looking at the aforementioned girl with a swirl of fondness in his irises. “Snitch.”
-✦✦✦-
Two summers pass in a blur. You and Luke are sixteen, Annabeth, nine. She grows in height and prowess, climbing the ranks of the Athena cabin. You hear that they’re planning an election for the next counselor as the current one prepares to leave the nest for college.
“Don’t tell me you grew another two inches overnight,” Luke grumbles when Annabeth bounds up to the two of you. She’s fitted in a bronze chest-plate, blue paint smeared over it, and she grins when the boy tugs at the leather straps. “Wow, I wish I had this for the last game.”
Chiron strolls by, pats Annabeth warmly on the shoulder. “This is a good piece of armor. I can see it serving you well.”
When the centaur is far enough, Luke leans in between you and Annabeth, hand shielding his mouth. “I heard Clarisse’s new spear is electric. Travis got too close last Friday, said it hurt like a—” he looks past your shoulder to make sure Chiron is out of earshot; by the face he makes, wide-eyed and meek, he’s been caught “—ahem, he was out for the rest of the game.”
Annabeth makes a face. “I thought Hermes was Team Red last time. We beat and picked you for the next game, remember?”
“Yea, you did.” You cringe at the reminder, the unhealed bruise on your lower back throbbing purple and dark, a sore reminder of being pushed to the ground by a Dionysus kid. Luke thumbs his brow, the beginnings of a faint white scar carving its way into his skin. He says that he tripped over and cut himself on a prank wire that Travis and his newly-arrived brother had set up, in the middle of friendly territory.
The younger girl says, brows furrowing and lip curled in bewilderment, “Did Clarisse at least get punished? It’s against the rules to attack an ally.”
Luke scoffs lightheartedly, rubbing slim fingers over his knuckles. They’re bruised from hand-to-hand practice, little blushing peaks of tendon and bone. “Travis was just making a big deal out of it, you know how he is.”
You hum a note of agreement. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked himself out on purpose every time Hermes had to play with Ares.”
“I think he’s been out— or at least let himself get captured— three of the last five times we’ve played Red.”
“No way. He should’ve been on dishwashing duty instead of me! I say ‘fuck’ once and I’m arms deep in lava, he cheats out of Flag and gets pampered in the infirmary?”
“That’s because Chiron caught you saying it in front of a six-year-old,” Luke laughs, jostling your shoulder with his, warmth pressing into your side. His lips are peeled all the way back in a grin, eyes crescent slivers of joy and lashes brushing soft against his sun-drunk freckles. Like shimmering crow’s feathers.
You manage to wrap an arm loosely around his neck, holding him in a headlock that you know he can easily worm his way out of, knuckles finding home against his scalp. Annabeth looks towards the sky in exasperation, rolling her leather cord in her fingers, the two beads clacking against her father’s ring. “And who was it that swept my feet out, huh?”
“Oh please, you knew you were going to lose, champ.”
“‘Champ’ this, ‘champ’ that— just wait ‘til my bees get their stingers in you, Castellan, just you wait.”
-✦✦✦-
“Did you…” Luke trails off, like the wispy end of twine after being pulled too tight, stretched too wide. A clear snap in the middle, two limp pieces of string; one for before the war, one for the aftermath.
He shifts a little in the bed, sheets crinkling paper-like, wound dressing gone save for the little sticky spots of honey and medical-grade adhesive. His mouth clicks damp when he opens it again. “Was I loved?”
“Very.”
-✦✦✦-
A quarter-mile off from the Big House is the Big Shed (real funny name, hilarious, in fact), smack-dab in the middle of the verdant strawberry fields. The wood panels are painted robin’s egg, the same shade as the house, blue in the way the sky passes over camp during high noon.
It’s spacious, interior lacquered dark, cobwebs in the corners gleaming like star-spun gold when you creak the door open on a midwinter dawn. Luke yawns from behind you.
“Don't know why it’s called the ‘Big Shed’ when it’s more like a ‘Mid-Sized Cottage,’” he says, voice already creaking at the edges with puberty. He’s already gained a few inches too. “If you packed them like sardines, you could fit all the unclaimed and minor gods’ kids in here.”
“You mention this to anyone and I’ll be the one attacking allies next flag day. Chiron’s letting me use the shed for beekeeping and stuff, I don’t need a would-be Ares wrecking it up.”
“You have an unusual animosity towards the Ares cabin,” Luke tells you, swaying around in the wide space.
The dust suspended in the air shines white, luminated by the sunlight streaming in through the two windows built into the shed-slash-cottage; it coats him in a sharp and angelic glow, like exposure and brightness turned too high on a developing photo.
“Annabeth taught you that word, didn’t she?” you sigh, flipping an old lance in the corner, using the butt-end of it to take down the spun-gold webs. “I only dislike Ares’ kids because they go for your ankles with the blade’s flat side. Makes them bruise, and then you can’t run very fast the next game.”
“Aw, poor you. Need me to kiss it better, champ?” he says with sarcasm dripping off the honeycomb of his voice, holding the sheathed end of his sword to bat at the ceiling corners.
“If you’re fine with licking the blood-n-sweat-soaked heel of my sock, then feel free to go wild, Castellan.”
It’s easy to be with Luke; oftentimes, you find that your breaths fall into perfect step with his. Even if one or the other of you goes a little faster, your beats still match, syncopation; a musician could keep a time signature or compose a romantic waltz to it, whichever of the two.
Luke breaks the silence first, cracks it in the middle like spiderwebbed ice under the quicksilver blades of a skater. “I’m…going on a quest. I’ll be gone by the time spring ends and come back in the summer.”
“Oh.” You wish you could say more, but suddenly you’ve become Sisyphus, punished by the divine with the boulder lodged in your throat that is too heavy to push through. All you can manage without the weight crashing down is a stupid, “You’re leaving?”
“Only for a couple months. I thought against it at first, but my dad offered me the quest and I couldn’t refuse,” he shares, sheepishly palming the back of his neck. “I can take care of myself, you know. You don’t need to worry.”
Now that you’re looking at him, somber in the pale morning rays, you can see every second of the sixteen years and ten months eroded onto his face. He looks older than he should be, burdened with the stress of being a demigod.
The light shifts over his features as the sun reaches greater heights, bruised shadows spilling out from the sharp angles that all of Hermes’ children have.
“No,” you stammer, “no, why would I be worried? I know you’re good, better than me, even.”
“Don’t say that. You’re amazing too.” Luke gazes up through his fan of crow’s feather lashes. You don’t miss the way they shine dimly, wet with unshed tears. He laughs through it, blinking quickly as to not let the saline film burst. “You’ll make sure no one steals my bunk though, right? And you’ll burn offerings in my place?”
“Yea,” you breathe, the word condensed into a puff of icy air. It billows white, clouds your vision momentarily in a blizzard-like haze. When you come back from it, Luke is still there in front of you, eyes red, Adam’s apple bobbing in a muddle of emotion. “Course I will. You’d do the same.”
“Thanks,” he whispers. A spot of water falls at his feet, washing away a small dot of the dust that coats the floor. “I’ll bring enough drachmas so that I can Iris Message you whenever I’m safe.”
“You better. When you’re back, we can hang out in here. I’ll have a proper beehive outside by then, and I’ll borrow a loom and a spinner from the Athena cabin so I can teach you how to make yarn. We can weave a blanket together for Annabeth in time for fall,” you muse, to which Luke smiles at the thought, soft like the snow that blankets Thalia’s evergreen needles.
“Threatening me with a good time, champ? I might just want to come back in one piece.”
You breeze past the joke, taking a gliding step towards him, closing the gap, bridging the abyss. You both crumple to the floor entangled in each other’s arms, your head pressed underneath the jut of his chin.
The three painted beads of his necklace tickle your lashes. From here, with your forehead against the column of his neck, you can feel how his jugular pulses faster with the pump of blood that keeps him alive. The wandering point of your nose, a compass, finds its true north in the hollow between his collarbones; Luke curls closer, words unspoken, the tracing shapes of his fingers against your back a promise in a language only the two of you understand.
-✦✦✦-
“I have this feeling,” he confesses suddenly, years into the future, soil-rich irises soaked in hope. “That we’re like opposite poles of the same magnet. Like I’ve seen you in a dream that I can’t really remember or you’re a face that I’ll always look for in a crowd. You know what I mean?”
-✦✦✦-
Silence in a hazy dawn, lit by the midwinter sun, dust angels dancing around your melded frames on the floor. Then—
“I’ll wait for you.”
It’s all he needs to cup your face, place his lips on your temple. Luke lets himself be selfish just this once, the bitterness in his chest simmering down as if you’re the dying flame controlling its boil. You leave a kiss on the corner of his jaw, just underneath the thin lobe of his ear where the sun shines through it and paints his neck a blushing red.
( To Luke, it’s a blessing from you, worth far more than his father’s. )
He doesn’t need to say I love you, nor do you. You both know it already, like a forgotten dream resurfacing at the right time, déjà rêvé.
-✦✦✦-
“Yea,” you breathe, the words diffusing through the still air of the Mid-Sized Cottage. The beehive outside buzzes excitedly, a light breeze from an open window twanging at the wool fibers hung taunt on the spinning wheel, brushing over the empty loom, its return to the Athena cabin long overdue. “I know the feeling.”
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♫ — kokomo (though it may not last, just know that i’ll be here longing)
Luke keeps his promise, comes back the next summer now seventeen years old with a dragon’s claw in his fist. A scar runs from his eye like a tear track, splits his cheek, a single bolt of lightning.
He wades through the whispers and rumors, swims through the crowd in a straight shot to the cabin so that he can flop onto the bunk you saved for him and drift off in a dream about weaving looms and wool blankets.
You jump up when the entire cabin cheers as he walks through the doors, silhouetted by the midsummer rays. Luke sees that you’ve changed too, a little wiser, spine a bit longer, eyebags deeper and new scars littering your fingers like a healing constellation.
Later you open your palm, a bead resting in the bed of your flesh like a pearl in an oyster— he pulls you close by the waist into a corner and kisses you in earnest thanks, for getting an extra bead for him and for saving his bunk, the offerings, the messages, your love.
“I took in a new hive,” you whisper to him that night, cradled under the feather-soft down of his duvet. His knuckles brush over your scars, like five little Halfblood Hills blushed pink with dusk scraping at a star-freckled sky. “They make a habit of stinging. And then it gets itchy after.”
( You’d told him sheepishly during an Iris Message that you’d given up your own bunk to a little kid no older than four; he had just smiled sweetly, knowing you could never resist a child’s puppy eyes.
You can sleep in my bunk, Luke had told you, shimmering crystalline in the rainbow’s refraction, prismatic. It’s one way to make sure no one steals it. And when I get back, it won’t be so cold at night.
Didn’t realize you were such a flirt, Castellan.
You remember that he had winked, cheeky, like he was the male lead of some Hallmark romcom. It’s the natural Hermes charm, champ. )
-✦✦✦-
You’re tracing the soft pink outline of his scar when it hits you like a freight train. You realize then that he’s changed, gone through some kind of metamorphosis during his quest; it had been so subtle and overarching that it’d completely washed over you for a good couple of weeks; the occurrences had become so common, unremarkable and predictable like a flock of geese flying south for the winter that you hadn’t thought anything of it.
It’s not like you don’t understand that people change as time ticks on.
You know that your skin has started to prickle with cactus needles as your abilities grew with the increase in risk; Annabeth’s behavior is trending on the moody side with every new camper, waiting still for the day she can prove herself— she likes coffee now too; hell, even Clarisse calms down, temper dimming down to a low, simmering boil.
And Luke…. Call it intuition, hypothesis, whatever— you only know, a fact engraved so deep in your dermis that it punctures muscle and scrapes bone, that something’s wrong. But you trust, still, that you both will hang on, hold fast, brave the storm like all the heroes that came before you.
But the thing is, heroes don’t live happy. Perseus will turn himself to stone with the very weapon that bestowed upon him glory; Heracles will die deceived, betrayed by the unwitting hand of his lover; Achilles will perish in a ruined city, the indestructible man shattered by something so little and insignificant as a spear-pointed arrowhead.
Heroes don’t live happy, but Luke isn’t a hero.
You know this, a memory from the night he came back, woven in the dark warmness of the Hermes cabin, a tapestry of sleep-mussed mumbles.
You remember how he woke with a bare, rattling gasp, the raw and sandpaper-dry tremble of it reminding you of the sound that people make when they’re close to death.
“I failed,” he whispers into your skin when the rush of it ebbs, a sanctuary of truth. Luke swallows gasps between his words. “I wasn’t ready, wasn’t strong enough. He sent me to Hesperides, y’know? Told me about the apples, said that if I could get one for him, he’d share it with me.”
You hum in sympathy— a comforting hymn, balm against a bruise, kissing it better— thread your fingers through his hair and watch how the moonlight shines on the black strands. White and black, a sneer of ink on parchment by a careless hand.
“You wanted immortality from it?”
“No,” he says, quieter, a little wet sound wrenching from his throat, and you know, in a reminiscent daze, that this’ll be the last you see of him like this, vulnerable. “I just wanted to see if he’d still be proud of me.”
Luke isn’t a hero, and the whole of camp knows this, locks it away in their Pandora’s box of open secrets. But Luke isn’t happy either, so the habit you’ve grown of burning extra offerings never dies.
You think of it as a cumulative toast, of sorts, to the gods that never cared, hopes mixed into the divine ash like poison in wine.
-✦✦✦-
Luke disappears midway through the field trip to Olympus. Your fingertips are left cold in your coat pockets despite the crackling energy generated by Zeus’ domain, and it’s not until later in the elevator ride down do they warm up again.
He slips through the gaps to fill the one beside you, slides his hand into your pocket and twines your fingers together; you don’t miss how his sword-calloused palm pops with static at the contact with your skin. You ignore it and try not to flinch at the quick, needle-like pierce of pain.
“Sorry, I had to use the bathroom. Ate something bad at breakfast,” he murmurs, leaning into your side to kiss your cheek, curls brushing against your temple. Luke rests an arm along the horizon of your shoulders, slim fingers toying with your leather cord, watching how the seven beads— two more than his own— slide back and forth on the string.
“Do they even have toilets up there?” you whisper, amusement bleeding into the corners of your voice. “Ambrosia and nectar don’t really get digested normally, so I just assumed that gods never really needed to poop unless they did it on purpose.”
“You’re right,” he says between breathy laughs, wispy with the winded heaves of his chest, “Zeus probably wouldn’t look so high and mighty if everyone saw him hunched over in the middle of a shit. And to answer your question, the seats are solid gold.”
“Absolute insanity.”
-✦✦✦-
Percy Jackson is a sprightly boy of twelve, everything about him cool-toned in the way the sun shines and refracts under the sea’s waves. When Grover stumbles into camp dragging the demigod by the armpits, shouting of Minotaur horns and flipped cars and moms dissolving into clouds of ichor-hued dust, people obviously take interest. Especially Annabeth. And on a sourer note, Clarisse too.
Even Luke, who’d been in a deeply sullen mood, had turned his face up to the angle where the light played over his eyes just right, irises shining a liquid gold, amber and gilded, Midas-touched with something you’d only learned to identify as a revelation.
What kind, you weren’t sure, but it stung as badly as taking in a new hive, to know that your efforts to cheer him up were undermined by something as commonplace as a new arrival.
Though, you swear to yourself then that you don’t hate Percy for that. You get where he’s coming from, the sinking feeling of neglection because he’s unclaimed, the anger that comes with it; you know, too well, how it feels to think you’re unwanted. You’ve been in his shoes for your first year and a half at camp.
But then he gets claimed by Poseidon, and that summer, Luke leaves for good. It’s a flash of events, like a too-fast slideshow that you can’t take notes on or a seconds-long flipbook that took months to complete; you recognize the familiarity of an out-of-body experience when reminiscing about a memory you can’t really remember, the alien tang of it bitter on your tongue.
They talk of his betrayal for months, about how he had tried to kill Percy and his siding with the Titans; the gathering clouds draw close to Thalia’s tree, a promise of a storm and the coming war, a warning to the lightning thief.
You’ve accepted, another fact carved deep enough to shatter bone, pierce your heart, that Luke made a choice, the wrong one; you convince yourself that you made the right one by not blaming Percy for the stares and the whispers, the shoulder-checking and glares that scream about your suspiciousness.
Still, you keep his bed in Cabin 11, burn extra offerings in his place, check the Big House’s fountain for missed Iris Messages. Hope is a bitter thing, like poison in wine. You had swallowed it down anyways.
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♫ — be sweet (make it up to me and know it’s better)
“Where do you go at night?” Luke asks, swathed in his red knit sweater. The weather’s gotten colder still, a far cry from the humidity that had rolled a suffocating blanket over Manhattan on the eighteenth of August— the day he came back to you. His fingers tap a song on the glass in his hands.
“What d’you mean by that?” you deflect, spine shaped gentle in a curve as you sit at the spinning wheel, wool slipstreaming between your deft fingers.
The device makes a soft sound, a shh shh that comes with each press of your foot on the pedal, like a mother hushing a child to sleep. It’s a calming song that he’s used to hearing in the in-betweens of the cottage.
( He doesn’t dream, hasn’t been able to since he woke up that day, but sometimes he thinks he can hear it in his sleep, the hush of wool, like the blades of a rippling meadow rubbing together under a blanket of sun or the friction of a cricket song in the quiet summer.
He thinks that once, you told him that you’d teach him how to spin and use a loom, that you’d weave a blanket together for someone special; as far as he knows, it’s only a figment of his imagination used to fill the blank spaces. )
His thumb strokes the glass arch of his mug’s handle, amber liquid trembling with every movement. “You come at sunrise to take care of your bees or spin yarn and tell me stories, bring me meals and sometimes Chiron comes, and then you leave. If this is meant to be your space, then where do you sleep when I use the bed? Are you being forced to sacrifice your time, caring for me?”
“No one’s forcing me to do anything,” you say quickly with no room for insinuation. Luke realizes the absence of the wheel’s shush, you having stopped to fully lend him attention. You sigh, and it’s heavy, a weight that pulls your chest downward with the exhale; he’s reminded of rain catching leaves and how they sink with each drop. “I sleep in Cabin Eleven. There’s someone I’m waiting on to return, and I’m saving a bunk for him.”
“Who?” he gathers the courage to ask. His chest pangs— is this how monsters feel when their physical essence is ripped apart by Celestial Bronze?
You smile, set down the unspun rove of wool, soft like the waking of dawn, bitter grief sewn into the gentle curl of your lip.
“You. I’m waiting for you, and I always have been.” And the pain ebbs away, assuaging the muscle in his ribbed cage of bone.
“You know,” he starts, staring down into the eddy of tea, swirling with sugar and the honey he had helped you make. The words waterfall from his lips, spilling, escaping like fluttering doves, and you listen patiently— that’s what he loves most about you, among other things. “That on the day I went with you to the cabins, I wandered off while you talked to the Apollo kids. There was this girl, tall with curly hair— she pushed me. And then a guy, he had blue eyes and four beads, helped me up.
“He told me that he forgave me, even though I made the wrong choice. He was with another girl, she had black and blonde braids, one was white— she said that I was a good brother, and to stay out of the inner camp until they get everything sorted out.”
“Clarisse, Percy, Annabeth,” you name them in an exhale, pulling your stool over. He thinks, briefly, of cradling you on the floor in the haze of a midwinter dawn. A dance of dust angels to a silent, harmonizing symphony. “That tracks.”
“What did I do to deserve this?” he mumbles, bringing the mug close to his eyeline. Stares from the glass lip into his warbled reflection, studies the scar he can’t remember getting, watches it twist with each watery ripple. Monstrous. “I can’t remember things for a reason— the gods took that away. I angered them, killed people or something, and they let me live at a cost.”
Your chin dips down in something he can only identify as a mix of shame, reluctance, and grief.
“You can’t dream because it’s how—” and then you fade for a moment like a rove spun so thin that the fibers starts to separate “—you were exploited for vulnerabilities. Your memories, the dreams, they’ve been sealed until Olympus stops seeing you as a threat.”
And then Luke looks down at himself; the pills of wool on his red sweater, how the knit cuffs of his sleeves peel away from each other; the thinned knees of his jeans, washed white with use; the striped socks that clad his feet and the scuffed, extremely creased house-shoes he’s shoved them in.
“I don’t see how I’m a threat.”
It makes you laugh in a huff. He nurses the mug, laps at the last residuals as you continue, maintaining sidelong eye contact.
“To start, Kronos visited your dreams and manipulated you into starting the Second Titan War.”
( You don’t even blink twice when Luke sputters into the glass. )
It’s not even the worst of it, because then you tell him, “You were also blackmailed into taking a bath in the River Styx, then you got possessed, almost revived the Titan King, and at the very end you stabbed yourself in the armpit and exorcised him and somehow, you didn’t die instantly so—” you pause to take a deep breath, winded “—they chose to save you and here we are.”
“You’re lying. There’s no way they’d lift a finger to help the same guy who tried to overthrow them.”
“I didn’t believe it either, but Percy was being serious. He vouched for you.”
“No way.”
You clamp your jaw, seal your mouth and give him a pointed look. It’s all raised brows and pursed lips, bunched shoulders and splayed, shrugging hands. And though he’s dyslexic, he can still read body language to know that your expression is telling him, it is what it is.
Luke makes a face regardless, cards a hand through his black hair, fingers catching on the singular white curl he has, like a smear of correction fluid. “Come on, champ, you really believe that the Olympians would bow down to some demigod?”
“I mean,” you manage, and there’s a faraway haze clouding your irises, reminiscent, scar freckled palms scraping his when you pull the empty mug away, “they did to Percy.”
You trace the lip of the glass absently as Luke folds his hands together, twines his fingers so that the pinkened Halfblood Hills of his knuckles form a pale little valley.
“Okay, okay. Say he did,” he sighs, cupping his face in his palms, the pads of his fingers pressing white into his eyes in the way he always does when he has headaches. “But if the ‘me’ before Kronos saw how much better camp is doing, I’d be less inclined to revenge.”
And then the beats click together, syncopation.
“You think, Castellan?”
“I don’t think, champ, I know.”
You smile, genuine this time, and he takes a moment to engrain that into his mind too, the way your mouth curls upward like the peel of an orange, how your eyes crinkle half-mast into little crescent moons, the lines that are drawn onto your face.
He thinks, that in a past life, you must’ve been a mortal that gods and poets and rulers fell for. His Penelope, Hyacinthus, Psyche, Adonis; your Odysseus, Apollo, Eros, lover.
And Luke says, a whisper that fills the space, gold seeping into the cracked clay of your soul, ichor from the veins of a sun, healing in a spiderweb of scars— kintsugi, “I think I loved you in a life before this.”
You hum, the note of it hanging in the air like a maestro’s hand before a symphony. The small faucet in the Mid-Sized Cottage rushes with life when you turn it on, spilling water into the empty glass, a riptide of bubbles like seafoam. You come back, flicking droplets from your hands, and he swears that he sees you reach into your pocket for something.
“You did— but Luke, you aren’t the same without your memories,” you tell him, voice low, and it feels like dying. “You might have loved me then, but do you now?”
He sinks into a moment of the in-betweens, thinks about honey and ichor-hued tea, the cottage, the loom and spinning wheel, how the hush of it quells the ugliness that rears its head on the bad days.
Remembers how his first seconds felt like eternities, how he’s already spent a lifetime and a half with you; he likes it, and the scar on his face burns with secret greed and shame for wanting.
It all echoes around him, some jubilee of the things he knows, remembers, daydreams about. The half-moon crinkle of your eyes, the strawberry fields at dawn, the cricket song on that late summer night when you stayed in the cottage for once, the silence of your foot lifting off the pedal to listen, and how he wishes to pour all this and more into a flask, get drunk on it every night and feel the high of your kisses.
You extend your hand to him, scars and old sting-marks freckling your skin like a constellation, an untold story that he wants to dive into and never leave.
Cradled in the bed of your palm are two leather cords. One with five beads, the paint flecking off at the edges, and the other blank like a piece of notebook paper ready to be scribbled on, a tale waiting to be written.
Luke folds the first around his wrist and loops the second over his head. He gets the feeling that he’s been here before.
“May I?” You nod and he reaches the pads of his fingers hesitantly to graze the cord that’s wrapped around the column of your neck, studies how the autumn rays overlay the eight beads warm and gilded. “I’m sorry for making you wait three years.”
“That’s alright, I’ve forgiven you already.”
He hates himself for the way your voice cracks easily, hooks the red sleeve of his sweater over his thumb to dab at the tears that gather in your eyes, pale flesh peeking through the soft wool stitches.
Luke promises to himself that though the action is just a smear of antibacterial honey on a gaping dagger-wound, he’ll spend his days patching it up if it meant your happiness.
His hands splays out, the fit of his rough palm against the side of your face like laser-cut puzzle pieces that compliment each other perfectly; he pulls you in gently, the guiding rope to a docking boat swathed in river mist, and presses a soft kiss to your temple.
Luke’s lips part, tongue clicking damp when he whispers into the sanctuary of truth that is your skin, “I think I’ll love you in this life too.”
“Yea,” you say, little more than a murmur carried slow in the eddy of air that surrounds the two of you, and you tuck yourself under the jut of his chin, letting the wandering point of your nose find true north again in the hollow of his collarbone. “I know the feeling.”
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⤷ post-script; 8.5k words holy… i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!! if i do write more luke, i'm considering a collection (not series) that just focuses on these two and the in-betweens/before and afters, drawing inspo from jubilee ofc.... as always, reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated, i give you permission to respectfully scream at me :)
⤷ editor's note | 2/25/24; i ended up changing the ages of luke and jubi due to a misinformation issue regarding luke's show canon age that was incorrectly inputted in the official wikifandom way back in december, so now he's actually 19 as of tlt instead of the previous 16 yrs--and yes, i did read the books but i wanted jubilee's premise to be show-based bc of charlie bushnell. i made a little post abt it (warning; i swore a lot)
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jubilee40 · 1 month
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“Fuck, princess. Your pussy is addicting.” Boyfriend Ran Haitani groaned, his balls smacking against your ass as he tirelessly thrust into your pussy. His hands gripped the fat of your ass.
“Ah, baby, My-my-my break is almost over.” The sounds of your ecstasy filling the women’s restroom. Your work uniform pulled up to show your tits bouncing in rhythm to your boyfriend’s thrust, your khaki pants and panties pulled down to your ankles.
“Don't worry, I'm close to filling your slutty cunt.” Ran chuckles, one hand moves away from your ass to tease your aching clit.
The only thing stopping a customer from walking in and seeing you being fucked against the wall is the cleaning caution tape across the door.
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akiseochi · 6 months
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DAY ONE • BONDAGE (ft. jubilee nguyen)
tw: rope bondage, dumbass theatre kid yandere, weapon, no actual smut sorry, gn!reader
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“Don’t move…”
You could feel Jubilee’s hot breath against the back of your neck, along with the cold blade that trembled a few centimetres from your chest. Even with the weapon so close to you, you couldn’t find it in yourself to be afraid of him, your hands relaxed despite being bound tightly.
“You’re not scared?” He spoke against your skin, eyes shot wide as he glanced at you. “I can kill you.”
“Yeah?” You tilted your head, baring your neck to him with a teasing smile. He didn’t seem to like that.
“Are you making fun of me?!” He snarled. “I can do anything I please with you!”
You could see how his brows creased with irritation, eyes wide. He was so close, you could see all the light flecks of brown on his skin, and the green hue of the dark circles he hid under his makeup. He tried to be so intimidating, and yet…
“I trust you, Billee, I don’t mind letting you tie me up. I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You’re being naïve.” He hissed, trailing his quivering knife down the front of your shirt. “You’ll regret that.”
The dull side of the knife ran carefully along the fabric of your clothes, shaking in his clammy hands. As soon as the knife touched your skin, he dropped it, cursing to himself.
He really was being careful not to hurt you, despite his words. In fact, he had barely touched you since he’d ‘kidnapped’ you, twenty minutes prior.
“You can touch me if you want to, Bills,” you encouraged him, “I don’t mind.”
His breath hitched, jaw tightening. “I—I don’t care what you mind! I’ll do what I want!”
Again, his actions completely defied his words, trembling hands coming around your body to lay on your sides. It took him a while, but his cold hands began to trace underneath your shirt.
“Is this really okay…?” He mumbled under his breath, hesitant.
His hands roamed down your hips, cold, trembling hands circling the skin under your clothes. Gradually, he travelled lower and lower, muttering softly into your neck as his hands kneaded your thighs.
“You shouldn’t be enjoying this…” he stroked you, fingers stuttering nervously. “Are you enjoying this?”
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ax-writes · 5 months
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masterlist
your city gave me asthma series (i'm not like her)-
jubilee line- talking about london and how he got asthma and the poor people who committed suicide on the line.
saline solution- he's struggled with intense health anxiety for a very long time: health anxiety meaning that he's constantly afraid that he's sick, dying or suffering from some other medical issue he isn't aware of. the lyrics detail his constant grappling with these ideas..
since i saw vienna- visiting austrian capital vienna, while simultaneously experiencing loneliness, companionship, and the urge to keep travelling.
losing face- getting broken up with his partner and being told to wait for them, only for his ex to immediately get a new partner.
your sister was right- this song is about the singer feeling dejected and insecure in himself because he's a bad lover. he treated the girl he loved incredibly poorly despite how he feels for her, and feels guilty because she ignored the warnings from ger sister that he would hurt her.
la jolla- about a man who doesn't feel good enough and has distant dreams if leaving to start fresh somewhere different.
i'm sorry boris- singer becomes torn between leaving the united kingdom when the uk government is struggling to do good for the uk and staying home because his loved ones are there and he doesn't want to leave them behind.
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mardibum · 2 years
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It took you long enough
Chapter I: A fresh start
Relationships: Quicksilver x fem!reader  —   Warren Worthington III x fem!reader
Warning: angst but nothing else (things will get smutty at some point, but not in this chapter)
Summary: The story takes place in 2022, in an AU similar to our world, so there are no mutant powers. Reader is a french girl entering our heroes university (kind of similar to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters). She will meet characters from the X-Men Universe, making friends, meeting boys, finding her way in this life. I don’t want to spoil anything but there will be a love triangle, a very slow burn and some smutty stuff towards the end. Just remember that I’m a Maximoff girl ;)
Author’s notes: This is my first time posting a fanfic omg!! I am french (like the reader, yes), so I’m really sorry if there are mistakes. Don’t hesitate to tell me, I would be happy to correct things! Tell me if you like the story, I will be updating the following chapter very soon 
---
Entering this new school was quite a challenge for you, but after all, maybe it was what you needed. You left France to start studying in the US, near New York, after a hard breakup. You needed a fresh start, new people to meet, a whole new world to discover. This university had a great reputation and with your grades in France, you had had no difficulties to integrate their program. Before leaving France, you had been very eager to go; but since you arrived, you were starting to feel very stressed. What if you had made a terrible mistake? What if you could not make new friends? 
You were there for just two days and already regretting it. You spent the first two nights at a hotel, waiting for the welcoming week at your new school. You were told that a lot of activities and parties would take place during this time. You felt anguished at the idea of meeting new people, even though you came here for this exact purpose. Maybe it was not too late to come back to France and reintegrate your old school. 
You were supposed to finish your Master Degree in mathematics there since you had already studied for four years in France. The dean had made a speech for you, newcomers. It was a bald man in a wheelchair named Charles Xavier, who seemed quite nice. There were very few new students with you at this presentation, since it was just for people integrating a master degree from another school, like yourself. You had watched the other people around you, but did not get the nerve to talk to any of them, anxiety and shyness washing over you.
As you got out of the classroom where the presentation took place, you remained standing in the beautiful wooden hall with your two suitcases, people swarming around you. You were told by the dean that students were supposed to show you the building and that you got to present yourself to more meetings during the week. But, something felt quite off, like you did not really belong there and it was starting to make you feel very anxious. You were starting to plan your escape when a girl wearing a very colorful outfit came right to your direction to greet you:
“Hey! You’re one of the new students right? I don’t think I have seen you before! My name’s Jubilation Lee, but you can call me Jubilee.”
She was shaking your hand quite vigorously, a big smile on her face, obviously waiting for you to introduce yourself.
“Oh! Hi, my name is Y/N YL/N. And yeah, I’m new here” you said sheepishly.
“ Oh my god, she said. Are you french?? Oh my god, your accent is sooooo cute! You’re going to make a lot of people fall for you, I’m sure!  I’m already thinking about people I could introduce you to! Do you prefer girls or guys? Or both? Or none?”
“ Oh thank you, but I’m really not ready for that right now” you said, feeling embarrassed. “ I just got out of a pretty serious relationship, so I think I’m going to stay away from boys for the moment.”
“ Oh, I’m really sorry sweetie…” she said, and you were sure she meant it. Maybe finding a friend might not be so difficult after all. “But you know, some times, the best way to forget about a guy is to fuck another guy. And I have a bunch to introduce you to” she added, winking at you.
You felt your cheeks warming at her words. You were definitely not ready to “fuck another guy”, but at least this girl was quite nice and fun. And it could not hurt to meet new people.
“Ok” she said, “I am supposed to show you the different classes, offices, libraries, cafeterias, etc. We are going to do that quickly so that I can bring you to your room and then we will go to the welcoming party in the park and you will tell me everything about you!” Her speech flow was very quick, so was her path inside the building. She really was something and you liked her energy. She was showing you every room of this amazing building. Even for a French girl like you, it was quite astonishing. Everything was stone and wood. Your school in France was very different, you had not had the chance to go to a very prestigious university there. 
While she showed you the cafeteria, she asked you if you cooked. “Yes, I do. Quite a lot actually” you answered, a light smile on your lips. “Oh my god!” she said, “you’ll have to cook for us! Peter is going to love you, he is such an ogre!”. You had no idea who this Peter guy was, but you were happy to know that your cooking skills could be useful here.
“You’ll see, we have the cafeteria but we also have a huge kitchen at the end of the building, near the dorms. I hope you’re going to make us some delicious french meals, I can't wait!!”
You laughed at her reaction and that’s when you saw him. One of the most handsome guys you had ever seen. Oh god, you were so fucked. He was standing 10 feet away from you in the hallway, talking with a very beautiful dark haired girl. You felt a pinch of jealousy in your heart when you saw them laughing together, even though you did not know who that guy was. Jubilee must have seen you gazing at him because she grabbed your arm, turned you to her, a big smile on her face and whispered quite loudly : “Oh my god! You already have a crush! I must introduce you to him!! That is the perfect guy to forget your stupid ex with!”
You tried to escape, feeling more panicked by the second, while she was pushing you towards the guy and his friend. Noticing you and Jubilee, they watched you quizzically as you were battling with her. Jubilee did not let you run away and still pushing you, greeted them, a big smile on her face : “Hey guys! What’s up? I need to introduce you to Y/N, she is from France and she will study here from now on!”
The pretty girl smiled at you and reached your hand to shake it “Hi Y/N, I’m Rebecca!”. You shook her hand and answered to her shyly: “Nice to meet you.” Your gaze automatically switched its direction and got caught in the boy’s eyes. He was so fucking handsome, you felt your cheeks immediately burn as his eyes bore into yours. He, too, grabbed your hand to shake it. His hand was big and soft and as he studied your face and smiled, you heard his beautiful voice say to you : “Hi Y/N, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Warren.”
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t-marveland · 20 days
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𝐗-𝐌𝐞𝐧 | jubilation lee
Jubilation Lee x Reader
Warnings : aucun
Mots : 45
Masterlist
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Tu étais en classe d'histoire et le professeur devait former des groupes.
❝━ Très bien, le premier groupe sera composé de (T/P) et de ...❞
Le professeur fit une pause et réfléchit à ton futur coéquipier cependant Jubilee l'interrompit et leva sa main.
❝━ Moi !❞
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nebusokuxp · 3 months
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Chapter seven of jubilee is up! :D
BOOK LINK
If your interested in it please give it a look! I've worked hard on it :D
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meiieiri · 4 months
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water’s edge | 02
₊˚.༄ pairing: crown prince!gojo satoru x f!reader | setting: modern royal au | official playlist
₊˚.༄ summary: in a world where titles define their fates, gojo satoru, the crown prince of japan, and his wife-to-be, face a tempestuous court of deception and schadenfreude. as they waltz on the edge of ruin, can their love endure the treacherous waters that threaten to pull them apart, or will the whims of the enigmatic chrysanthemum throne prove strong enough to drown them both?
₊˚.༄ author’s note: did i really just punch out a 12.9k chapter? 😅 thank you again to the loml @angstbot2000 for beta-reading! sorry for the wait everyone and thank uou for the sweet messages! again, reblogs are highly appreciated.
₊˚.༄ masterlist
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Flashback: Shinjuku Opera City (a week after the jubilee gala)
Click. Beep. beep. beep Your wristwatch mimicked a ticking time bomb right now. You breathe once to make sure you were still, for all intents and purposes, alive. The smell of the Sauvignon blanc laid in front of you was so heavenly, its grape-like aroma tempting you to take a sip but you couldn’t, afraid that your body will just reject it in its current state of shock. You must have had a few too many earlier, your commoner palette not exactly used to the refreshing and crisp taste of white wine directly sourced from the rolling hills of Pouilly-Fume, and you must be hallucinating all this in your drunken stupor. Yes, all this was a hallucination, some sick naive dream you conjured after sharing a passing glance with the prince of the nation. It had to be, otherwise, why does it feel that your body has shut down? You were unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to think.
And you were adamantly sure that you had also been rendered unable to breathe.
“…Huh?” That probably sounded stupid to your unlikely companions, well, normally it isn’t that stupid if you haven’t said that every five minutes or so during this fateful encounter. “This is a mistake. You really want me to-?”
“-Yes,” he said immediately, his mother nodding alongside him. His finger glided across the rim of his scotch glass. He took it neat, of course, the Crown Prince is a man of good taste. “I can ask my people to help you move your belongings to a more dignified residence tomorrow morning.”
The empress frowned at Satoru’s backhanded comment about your way of life. “Satoru, you’re scaring her,” she whispered worriedly to her son.
“If she’s smart, sure,” Satoru hisseed under his breath. If he was going to propose to you and consequently marry you under his parents’ orders, he was going to do it his way. “Look, Ms…?” he trails off, your name escaping him.
“(Y/N),” you provided. “My name is (Y/N).”
He makes a soft ‘tch’ sound which goes unnoticed since you were too preoccupied in shaking away the haze of thoughts in your mind dimming your ability to think. He continues, “As I was saying. Ms. (Y/N),” he puts emphasis on your name, etching the loathsome sound of it into his mind. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
What did he mean by that? “Excuse me?”
“I know I said that I was just a fan when I sent you those flowers after your performance tonight but, I guess you could say I’ve become an admirer of yours.”
This was all scripted, and Satoru, despite having had a memory good enough to memorize has a good his entire family tree including the collateral branches before he even graduated from primary school, found the words getting stuck in his throat and he trailed off, his mind was filled to the brim with nothing but the face of the woman he is unwillingly betraying in the name of protecting his status.
But wasn’t this what she wanted when she threw herself at the emperor’s feet that night? She was selflessly allowing him to go through with this despite knowing that every false tender word that he says to you would be a dagger to her heart, that every moment spent with you instead of her would make her cry a river of tears.
It feels as if this entire thing was a circus he had been forced into because his crown was hanging dangerously off the edge of the tightrope above him. Forced to perform, forced to act, forced to smile so that he wouldn’t feel the sting of the whip his father, the ringleader, had in his hand. Wasn’t that something Satoru has always done? How was this any different from all the elaborate ruses he’s been ordered to perform? Gojo involuntarily looks behind his seat, craning his head back, hoping to see the familiar figure of the love of his life standing exactly a meter away from him, just as she’s always faithfully done, but that was all wishful thinking; Himiko had been removed from the duty of accompanying him tonight.
“I don’t think I’m just a fan,” he continues, turning his attention back to you, the words confessing his so-called love being uttered stoically. You stop him right there, the amount of bewilderment in your heart at a fatal maximum. His hand finds his pocket, searching for the godforsaken ring he is about to present to you. “And I—“
“—You’re just curious, Your Royal Highness,” you dismissed his so-called feelings with a shake of your head. “You’ve never been with someone outside your circle, and you’re curious about what it would be like to be involved with a commoner like me.”
When the words leave your lips, a stretch of panic washes over your face. Did you just disrespect the prince and the empress by doubting the sincerity of his words? Or did they disrespect you by treating you like a moron? Were you just supposed to believe that Prince Satoru had feelings for you? Your mind was spinning, and you were feeling a migraine aura beginning to form at your peripheral vision. You had to get out of there. Quickly moving the chair back so that you could stand up, you bow contritely to excuse yourself from the room. “Ms. (Y/N), please wait!” the empress sighs exasperatedly when you leave the private dining room of the high-class restaurant, your heels clicking against the marble floor as you hurriedly see yourself out.
Perhaps, they were being too hasty for you to say “yes”, too secretive about their true intentions. If they were to even have a chance of convincing you to marry Satoru, they have to let you in on the truth. Luckily, despite her age, the empress catches up to you just as you are about to hail a cab which was proving to be difficult since it was now past eleven o’clock and even the busy skyscraper district of Shinjuku was starting to look deserted.
“Ms. (Y/N),” she breathes, stopping just a few feet from you. “Please hear me out. I’m sorry, this was a mistake…”
“It's fine, Your Royal Highness, I know the Crown Prince doesn’t like me the way he says he does. I may not be as highly educated as you but I’m not an idiot.”
The empress looks on sadly. “Well,” she sighs, standing next to you. “I knew you would figure it out sooner or later. Still, I’m really sorry for what happened back there.”
You don’t respond for a long while, contemplating what to say; the air between you is one of awkwardness and something’s gotta give, otherwise, you and the empress would be standing in the middle of the empty street like total fools. You are the first to break, “Your Highness. Why me? And what’s this really about?”
Why on earth were you chosen over so many other women in Tokyo’s most affluent families to become Prince Satoru’s wife? You expected that this so-called dinner would be nothing more than a courtesy call to thank the prince and the empress for visiting the last night of your show. One could only imagine the emotional whiplash you felt when the prince suddenly offered for you to become his wife which was totally unexpected considering you have never spoken a word to one another before. Just what kind of a messed up Shakespearean romantic tragedy did you wind up in? This entire thing felt like a work by some deranged author who’s had one too many to drink while writing this poisoned manuscript of a love story.
“It’s exactly as the prince said,” she says succinctly. “The prince isn’t getting any younger and he’s in need of a wife. That’s what I would have told you if you were one of those shallow high society women I’ve had the displeasure of meeting.” The empress bitterly thinks about one specific girl that is so loathsome and vile that she has forcibly brought Satoru on the brink of total destruction. Last week’s fiasco with the emperor was a warning shot, and knowing her husband, there won’t be a second time.
You frown, not liking it when people are purposefully brought down to compliment another. “I’m sure that’s not true,” you mumbled, not really knowing what to say.
“But it is,” the empress insists. “People who are born with everything have this tendency to think they are above everyone else. Maybe that was what caused the prince to become this way, because his own mother was born from nothing,” she chuckled.
Knowing that the prince was the only son she will ever be blessed with, having had him at the age of forty-one, she overindulged Satoru by giving him everything, and bending to his every will. So, Satoru grew up confident that he’d only have to point at a storefront window and his mother would get it for him, otherwise he’d throw a tantrum. Maybe that’s what’s going on — all the scandals, all the controversies — was this another one of Satoru’s tantrums because they refused to allow him to have a relationship with, much less marry, his chief-of-staff?
“Nothing? I thought Your Highness, well before you married His Majesty, was an heiress to a car company. I don’t think you should lump yourself in with us.” Those who were truly born from nothing, you thought to yourself.
The empress puts a hand over her mouth as her shoulders begin to shake as she giggles. “Is that so?” she laughs, reaching into her coat pocket, in search of something. Finally, she feels the familiar feel of the trinket she keeps with her day and night.
You expected her to pull out something more valuable than a five yen coin, and it looked like it’s an old one, judging by its rough and rust-stained edges. “See this?” She carefully places the coin in her hand as if it were a precious item. “This was the first ever money I ever had to my name at only eighteen years old. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it even now,” she smiles wistfully as memories of her youth, albeit a simpler time away from the intrigue of the imperial court. She gently places the memento in your hand.
It was so light, it barely weighed a few grams yet it held so much of the empress’s heart in it, like a personal diary that has kept her company throughout the years, or perhaps it was a compass that led her to the path that resonated with her true self- the girl of only eighteen that had the look of a dreamer in her eyes, or maybe it was an anchor that served to keep her feet firmly planted on the humble ground in spite of her exalted status as the emperor’s consort.
You studied the coin. “Only five yen?” Even you, a musician whose finances are scattered to the wind, could make more than five yen in less than an hour. You were confused. Was this another one of their tricks to get you to say yes? No, it couldn’t be, seeing as how the empress seemed so genuine now, almost like the conversation you were having was like a mother and daughter having a heartfelt chat.
The empress nods. “I was a store clerk at a music shop when I was young. It was the only way I could save up and go to college. Of course, this was all before my father invented that powerhouse of an automobile when he was tinkering around with a few of the customer’s cars in the mechanic shop he ran.”
Listening intently to the empress’s story, a sense of solidarity seemed to grow between you and her. “And this was your first salary? Hard to believe music shops pay so little back then.”
“No, no. That was a tip I received from a customer when I returned her wallet. She left it in the shop and I ran after her. Of course if I were a thief, I would have taken off with it, but it was completely empty.” That caused you to laugh. Who knew that the empress who always carried herself with poise and dignity had such a deadpan sense of humor? “So, she gave me the only coin in the wallet to thank me. A five yen coin. Since then, I’ve kept this with me at all times. Call it an old lady’s sentimental ramblings, but this is what keeps me from letting all this get to my head.”
You nod in understanding. But what did this beautiful story have to do with marrying Satoru? The empress senses the question before you could even form words to ask it.
“What I’m saying is that Satoru was my outlet,” she sulked. “My second chance. So I gave him everything his little heart could ever want. And as a mother I know it was wrong of me to raise him to think he’s above everything and everyone.” She didn’t actively do that, though. Satoru just developed that toxic kind of thinking somewhere down the line. “I’m sure you’ve heard the nasty things they say about my son.”
The atmosphere suddenly turns sullen. You remembered how you watched in horror when Prince Satoru appeared on your TV screen the morning after the jubilee gala. You normally saw the prince attending royal functions such as groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and while you are aware, just like everyone else in the country, that Satoru had his own share of misfits, you dismissed it as the actions of a rebellious young adult. You never thought for one second that you would see the prince battering a man until he was closer to death than a rat caught in a mousetrap outside of a shady gambling den in an unsavory district in Tokyo.
“I’m pretty sure the press is stretching the truth at times.” That was the right thing to say, you didn’t want to badmouth her son in front of her.
She scoffs humorlessly. “I’m not asking you to defend him. What I’m asking of you is to help him.” She takes your hand in hers. “Ms. (Y/N), this marriage may start out as a publicity stunt, but you could turn into something better than that.”
Maybe you’d fall in love with the prince, and maybe he could open his heart to love another again, someone who was healthier for him than Himiko. While the disbelief in your face was clear, the empress’s words give you a sense of hope but again, being excused from this narrative was what you wanted more than anything. “I think you overestimate my power, Your Highness. What you are asking of me will only end badly, I’m sure of it. It’ll be a disaster for everyone.”
Looks like there was no convincing you. A lot seems to be going on inside the empress’s head and you sympathized with her anxiety, but this was something you couldn’t do. You have been what people call a “pushover” your entire life, but the subject of your marriage is critically non-negotiable.
“I understand,” the empress is now resigned to her son’s fate. It seems, after all that song and dance in front of the emperor, it was all futile in the end. At this rate, this time tomorrow, the son of the empress’s unwilling mistress would probably be declared heir apparent and she would be powerless to stop it.
“I’m sorry, it’s just my mother taught me that marriage is sacred and that I should never mess around with it. You could have asked me for anything, Your Highness, and I would have said ‘yes’ in a heartbeat.”
“Your mother seems like a very wise woman,” the empress smiles softly. “And she’s very lucky to have you as her daughter.”
You stiffened at that. “I…I wouldn’t know if she feels that way, really.”
A wave of confusion crashes over the empress. What did you mean? “Sorry?” she clarifies. You hesitate to let her in on your own pain and you feel a slight prick of guilt poking your heart. She had been so vulnerable tonight, so open with you about her grief while you guarded yours in a titanium safe. She decides not to push the subject further and instead places a hand over yours comfortingly before turning to leave.
A thought occurs in your head and everything seems to slow down. The cars passing by the main avenue of Nishi-Shinjuku seemed to be running at 10 mph instead of the road’s minimum 20 mph. The billboards towering over you have momentarily lagged like some fatal error occurred in the LCD screen.
…This was wrong, you shouldn’t even be thinking of this.
...What would make you any different from a bloodsucking gold-digger?
…Don’t run after her.
She wouldn’t want you to do this. It would kill her if you did this. But haven’t you killed her many times before? What would make this time any different? Absolutely nothing. Your mind is made up.
“Your Highness, please wait.”
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6:12 AM.
You didn’t know that the smell of flowers could be so vile and revolting.
Sat in the middle of a room with about a hundred bouquets of flowers from a multitude of well-wishers, at six in the morning on the day of your wedding, you gaze up at the huge mural of your new residence in the imperial palace. The pupils of your eyes followed each image on the vast painted ceiling which, compared to your tiny Tokyo apartment, felt like the entire sky altogether. Your eyes follow the image painted by Kanō Eitoku depicting life in the old seat of the imperial system, Kyoto, each blink of your eyes, you hone in on a new aspect of the mural: the mountain of Ryūgatake, the old imperial palace which you were told still existed today, the grasslands surrounding the ancient capital, and the people of Kyoto as they go about their daily lives.
If only those people could speak and were not just plastered images on a lifeless cement canvas to keep you company, maybe you won’t feel as lonely having had to wait for your wedding day to roll by without your husband-to-be by your side.
Sighing, you fall against the carpeted floor, your hands clutching a greeting card from one of your friends who gushed about how you had suddenly become a princess-to-be overnight and how you must be so happy to be engaged to such a handsome man that is prince Satoru Gojo. You hold back your tears, your fingernails digging into the vellum card.
You’ve given up calling the Imperial Household Agency to connect the line to Satoru, they come up with a different ruse each time. “Please, I need to speak to the Crown Prince,” you would sniffle into the line’s speaker desperately.
“His Royal Highness is busy right now in his office.”
“My apologies, Ms. (Y/N), but Prince Satoru is unavailable right now due to [insert name of engagement which is perfectly-timed with the wedding consultations he’s supposed to attend with you here].”
“Prince Satoru is currently away to inaugurate the new building for [insert any imperial charity foundation here].”
But you know all those so-called reasons for his absence were lies, excuses to keep their future consort from overthinking where her distant fiancé could be. Come to think of it, you haven’t seen Himiko around either, that alone should be enough to answer the lingering questions in your head about Satoru’s whereabouts. It wasn’t as if you could suddenly act like some jealous spouse when 1.) You aren’t married yet. 2.) You are the trespasser in their relationship. 3.) You are simply a bandage solution to clean up the prince’s image, someone who had unknowingly been at the right place at the right time. You are well aware of where you stand in the grand scheme of things; that kiss as you drove out of the palace compound that day should have been a good enough reminder that you will never truly be your future husband’s better half.
That title, the one you unwittingly stole from a woman you’ve never even met before, is something you can never truly call your own. You were no different than the typical other woman who would wear the legal wife’s wedding dress like some thief.
Yet how is it that you know all of these things like scripture but you still spent the entire night crying over a man who finds it physically impossible to be in the same room as you? Why did it hurt so much when you saw your fiancé shield his girlfriend from the autumn chill the same way you hoped he would shield you from the many challenging questions during that press conference? Why does it feel like a dagger had been plunged into your chest when you saw Himiko kiss Satoru so tenderly, and your husband-to-be returning the gesture with equal fervor?
You lay on your side, the velvet texture of the carpet somehow providing you some semblance of comfort. What would your retainers say when they come into this room and see the crumpled form of their future empress on the floor, her knees hugged to her chest as she tries to make sense of everything that has happened these past few days? You imagined that they’d probably think you were crazy, and Satoru would probably jeer at the thought of having a simpleton as a wife.
You were only a girl of twenty-three summers, you should be enjoying your twenties by doing the things that you love with the people you love. These sunny days of youth pass by in the blink of an eye, but in your case, you have been totally robbed of it, now being primed to become not just a princess but a wife too. While the former is certainly an intimidating role, the latter is just downright petrifying for someone as young as yourself.
Not a single soul save for the empress went to check up on you last night, the only people you were expecting to keep you company today are the hairdressers and makeup artists to prepare you for the wedding. Of course, the austere members of the Imperial Household Agency are also set to make an appearance in your chambers today probably to make you sit through another briefing session on court etiquette. You glance out the window, it was barely light out due to the winter equinox when nights are longer than daytime, and somehow that made you even more sad than you already were laying down on the floor of your room, desolately alone.
A knock at the door awakens you from your trance and you sit up, arranging your hair neatly and pulling on your shoes. Sighing, you make your way towards the door and see someone who you do not quite expect. He momentarily shifts his attenton to the battalion of attendants behind him, nodding to them. “Leave us alone.”
“Your Majesty, good morning,” your breath hitches in your throat as you hastily bow your head before the emperor who seemed to be more anxious about this day more than you, seeing as he is already dressed in his three piece suit and slacks ensemble with the Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum hanging between his lapels.
The emperor was an enigmatic figure who mostly kept to himself, his chamberlain and main staff often joking amongst themselves how the emperor was really a recluse who had only been born to become the sovereign ruler of a nation by an unfortunate stroke of fate. Your future father-in-law hums in acknowledgement and you are left to wonder if this is where Satoru gets his aloof nature from. “Good morning, (Y/N). May I come in?” he asks as if this entire compound wasn’t his.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
He eyes the many bouquets in the room, sighing heavily as he does, the guilt of putting you in this impossible position weighing on him. He admits that he jumped the gun when the empress offered to have Satoru marry someone who could brighten up his public image from the many blemishes it incurred during the night of the jubilee when he and Himiko were seen together, causing trouble in the casinos of the infamous Kabukichō red light district.. To have you bear the weight of becoming a lamb to the slaughter with this marriage was just downright cruel, knowing that his son will certainly make it his life’s purpose to destroy you, but what choice did he have?
It is the crown that makes the choice for him, he’s been told by his own father.
“Listen, do you have the slightest idea of what you’re about to go through?” the man whom you would call your father-in-law in just a few hours asks flatly.
Of course you do, Satoru has already given you a taste of what your marriage is going to be like. You solemnly nod “I think so,” murmuring softly, crestfallenness is evident in your voice. “Satoru has made it clear.”
The emperor purses his lips as he fumbles with a tulip that had been nestled in one of the bouquets in your chambers, “Well, it’s good that you know. I know my son and I am not here to tell you that everything you’ve seen these past couple of days will get better,” he eyes the telephone, one you haven’t even placed the phone back onto the handset in hopes that Satoru would call you. “In fact, it’s only going to get worse from here.”
You frown, crestfallen. “How so?” you asked, your hand gripping the fabric of your dress. “Are you saying that this is just the beginning?” Truthfully, you were fine with this being the beginning, only if you could have the reassurance that all this will come to an eventual end. But it seems now that this was going to be life as you know it, with a husband who gags at the sight of you and has the innate ability to treat you like you were his personal bedwarmer and doormat.
“Yes,” the emperor says gravely, a dark look crossing his features. “So if you’d like to back out now, now is your only chance. Satoru has made enough messes, a canceled wedding will barely do anything to his reputation at this point.”
He’s right; these past days have only proved that Satoru is probably granting you a way out, maybe that’s why he has done nothing else but to ignore you as a final act of mercy if you ever decide to bail. One tiny kiss on the cheek is nothing when he starts to go missing in the middle of the night to attend to his mistress’s beck and call, when he starts to bring home his mistress for dinner to actively spite you with their relationship, or when he, god forbid, starts fucking in her in your marital bed while you’re away on some royal function.
You could live a full life without him, having barely even known him save for his proclivity to emotionally torment you, but it feels wrong to just…up and leave after all that song and dance in the press opportunity.l Shaking your head, the emperor’s offer is refused insistently.
“I’m not going to give up on him, I won’t give up on our marriage before it even begins,” your eyes bore into the emperor’s own. You’ve promised yourself and the empress that you’ll see this through, if Satoru is going to make your life a living hell, then, you’ll just have to take all his blows like a champ.
“I don’t doubt your willpower, (Y/N). I’m just saying that this might be even more difficult for you than you think,” the emperor warns. “Satoru doesn’t just push back, he’ll run over people who get in his way.”
“Your Majesty, it’e alright. I’ll manage somehow.” you mumbled. “The empress and I made an agreement that if I marry Satoru, I…” you trail off, not really wanting to reveal more than you should, the emperor waits for you to continue, his eyebrows furrowed together.
What would you get if you married Satoru if not unnecessary suffering? And even then, that didn’t sound like a good deal, the emperor thinks to himself. You could have gone on happily with your life, blissfully unaware of the trials of being married to the white-haired prince, you probably would have continued climbing the career ladder before finding someone to settle down with, maybe you’ll have a few kids along the way, and Satoru would also be blissfully unaware of a certain (Y/N) (L/N) existing on this plane of reality with him.
Why were you so committed to marrying him?
“I’d be able to…” you stutter. There was no use hiding it now but maybe you could conceal the truth a little longer, if not for your sake, but for the empress — no, a grieving mother — who met you in a hotel café that night with the weight of the world on her shoulders and asked you to keep the details of this transactional union a secret. “I would…”
The emperor raises a hand to stop you, though he is mildly perturbed at your hesitance to open up to him, he decides that whatever you and his wife were keeping from him does not concern him or the throne and that it is simply a thing that should be left unsaid. He really didn’t want to pry into the details of the contract you agreed to, and since you seem to have already made up your mind, all he could do now is hope that you do not give up so easily on his son the same way he did, and that this choice to marry Satoru would not backfire on you or the imperial system in the long run.
“Stop. I understand,” the emperor nods, his shoulders seemingly slumping in defeat as he is unable to convince you to cut it and run from the horrible fate you were speeding towards at a hundred miles an hour. Maybe Satoru was right to make you out to be an idiot, the emperor frowns. “But…don’t say I didn’t warn you, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you all the best.”
And just like that, the wedding pushes through as scheduled, having declared before the father of the groom that you weren’t one to give up so easily, or…maybe it’s just your blind optimism talking.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” you settle into an ornate curtsy, your foot gracefully tucked behind the other, your hand postured in a cordial handshake with His Majesty. The emperor’s pupils dilate, his mouth runs dry and he feels like something in his body had momentarily stopped working or had broken entirely — he knows that trademark act of obeisance so well — you’ve perfectly captured the image of a younger version of his wife who had perfected royal protocol in just under a year when they got married. She must have sought to teach you everything she knew or rather she was forced to learn by herself when she was in your position in an act of true esprit de corps. And for a moment, he finds himself surrendering to your doe-eyed but unmistakably poised charm, and he starts to become more convinced that you were a worthy future daughter-in-law.
He shakes his head, swiftly snapping him out of his trance, now was not the time for these things. The emperor nods back to return the gesture before turning to leave, just as your attendants are about to arrive to get you ready for the ceremony. “We’ll see you in the cathedral, then, (Y/N).”
But as soon as he is halfway out the door, he turns back to look at you one last time as (Y/N) (L/N), for the next time he will see you, you will then be (Y/N) Gojo, his first daughter-in-law, the first royal bride in centuries who neither hails from a family of politicians nor influential persons alike, the icon of a new chapter for the imperial family.
He sighs, turning back around to face you, having almost forgotten the task he’d been entrusted with by his wife. “I almost forgot. Ijichi,” he calls to his faithful grand steward who is waiting outside your chambers to bring forth a rather special gift he and the empress intended to present to you after the ceremony but he figured now might be a good time. The tall, lanky and sickly-looking spectacled man known as Ijichi bows before you which leaves a strange feeling festering within you, he was carrying a navy blue felt case that seemed so valuable that he had been compelled to wear gloves to prevent his bare hands from touching the fine fabric.
The emperor motions to open the case and your face pales when you see what is inside. “This is intended to be worn by the Princess Royal on her wedding day but since I don’t have a daughter to give that title to, the title will now belong to you.”
The tiara in his hands is a hefty thing, molded entirely from the most of valuable of silvers, it resembled the Queen Mary Fringe Tiara that had been worn by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on her wedding day, with an abundance of baton diamonds dotting every conceivable nook and cranny. It takes some time for you to adjust when it is placed upon your head, it only weighed a modest 1.7 kilograms, it was much lighter than the many tiaras the family keeps hidden away in the imperial vaults but for someone like you, it is an awfully heavy thing not just in the literal sense but also in the figurative side of things.
As of this moment, you weren’t just an ordinarily forgettable face in a crowd anymore.
“Carry the weight.” The emperor’s voice is commandeering. He steps back, scanning how the tiara looks on you from afar and though it looked awkwardly placed on your head with how you are struggling to balance its weight, you still managed to carry it adequately. “Now…you’re one of us.”
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8:55 AM.
“Need some help?”
Satoru looks up to inspect the reflection on the mirror and a sad smile crosses his face when he sees the familiar figure of Himiko leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest as she gazes at her beloved getting ready for his wedding day. “You don’t have to be here.” He begrudgingly fumbles with his collar, unable to meet her eyes. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he professes, despite having immeasurably hurt you these past couple of days instead.
Himiko shakes her head. There was no use in grumbling about it now when just on the other side of the palace, Satoru’s unworthy bride-to-be was being pampered by her many ladies with manicures, foot massages, and practically anything to make you happy while she, the prince’s true love, was condemned to watch him be cruelly given away to someone else. There was a sense of finality with how hundreds of palace staff rushed through the hallways carrying all sorts of wedding paraphernalia to decorate the Chowaden reception hall and the courtyard to welcome the wedding guests.
Satoru frowns when her hands find his collar, she skillfully untangles the ribbon medal and readjusts the silver emerald-studded necklace that came with it.
Please…just one more minute…one more minute with you, Satoru closes his eyes as Himiko’s thumbs tentatively rub his chiseled cheek as if she were memorizing every bump and every curve of his skin before someone else tries to claim that they know every bit of Satoru inside and out. She knows it will never be true, no one can ever know Satoru the way she intimately knows him, not even if he was going to marry another woman. It may be possible for you steal everything from her — the emperor and empress’s favor, the public’s warm approval, the ring that had been fitted to accommodate the size of her finger before it was given to you — it may have been easy for you to pull the rug from underneath her, but it would be difficult — no, impossible — for you to ever claim ownership of Satoru.
He was hers and she was his, Satoru leans against Himiko’s touch, sighing woefully. “I’ll make her pay, I promise. I’ll break her, destroy her again. And again. And again until nothing’s left of her,” he recites the promise, punctuating the words with a kiss every time, as if they were having an illicit wedding of their own, and his words were a marriage vow — the only one that he will honor with every fiber of his being. Himiko bites her lower lip before she slowly nods, appeased.
“But Satoru, marrying her is the only way for you to be restored as heir apparent. Either way, we can’t win without doing this your father’s way.” Her hands leave his collar and she sadly gazes out the window, her narrow eyes glazing over the ancient ginkgo tree at the center of the palace’s vast atrium which was now shedding their green leaves to take on the tell-tale yellow hue as autumn draws near. She always loved the view of the palace courtyard from above, especially in this room where she and Satoru spent many nights proving their love for one another.
Gojo frowns at her melancholia, he comes up from behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I’ll think of something, I promise this won’t last longer than it needs to,” he kisses her cheek, nuzzling it with his nose tenderly.
“I don’t mind waiting, Satoru, I’d wait for you forever, and as much as we both hate her, we need (Y/N),” she spits out your name as if it were rat poison in her mouth. “So, let’s just play along. It’s not like we’re not used to meeting in deserted parking lots at midnight, right?” She offers him a half-smile, reminding Satoru that their entire affair has always been illicit in nature.
It’s not like she was accepted by his parents to be their son’s future consort. They’ve been through this before, hundreds of times rather, even before you came along. They’ve had to deal with so many forces ripping them apart over the past three years from the oh-so-omnipotent emperor who hardly wields any political power to his neurotic wife whom she has called, on several occasions, a bitch.
And yet, together they remained as it has always been, with Satoru cradling Himiko in his arms as he peppers kisses up her neck, sucking at the soft flesh, his hips flush against hers. He does this in front of the window for any unfortunate passerby to see. Hell, Satoru was hoping you’d walk by and see this heartbreaking display and maybe you’ll just run home in your wedding dress with your tail between your legs.
“We don’t have to get used to it, Himiko,” he mumbles into her neck, inhaling her sweet perfume, the one he liked the most. “One day, we won’t have to hide anymore,” he kisses her cheek tenderly, caressing the bone of her wrists which still bore faint marks from the handcuffs that had been wrongfully placed on her with his thumb. “And people can say whatever they want about us, and it wouldn’t matter because I will have been the emperor by then and you, my empress.” He presses their foreheads together, the tips of their noses barely touching in a moment of silence.
After a long while, Satoru lets go of Himiko, his eyes scanning hers as if he were searching for answers hidden deep within her soul. “What is it?”
“I just wish you hadn’t stepped in back there.” It was a thought that kept him awake these past agonizing nights. “Maybe if you just stayed out of my father’s office, this wouldn’t have happened. I was alright with you visiting me in my jail cell, you know.”
“As if I’d ever let that happen,” she sighs when he pulls away to fasten his cufflinks, suddenly feeling a bit disheartened at the loss of his touch. She kisses his cheek, looking at his reflection through the mirror, her eyes alight with adoration. “I promised I’d always be your ally, didn’t I?”
When she and Satoru first met three years ago in the selection for his chief-of-staff, Himiko Zenin, despite coming from the affluent Zenin clan, lagged behind compared to her contenders who aced the exams that tested their knowledge on the law, constitution, history of the imperial system, royal protocol, foreign languages and other aspects that may prove useful for the prince’s right hand. But there was one thing that she had that all the other applicants didn’t have, and she demonstrated that perfectly when Satoru unexpectedly dropped by during the final interviews to speak to each of the candidates himself.
Satoru stared at Himiko with a bored expression that day, his being devoid of any emotion. “Ms. Zenin, it seems you did poorly in all of the exams,” he glances at her file which should have been tossed in the bin by the time she placed last in the jurisprudence exam. “And you’re affiliated with one of the more morally ambiguous families in the country. Looks like today’s just not your day, huh?”
It was true. Having Himiko Zenin as his chief of staff was dangerous from the get-go. The Zenin clan’s head back then during the time of the selection was on trial for graft and corruption. But, there was something Himiko had that all the other applicants did not. At the time, he couldn’t quite put a finger on it but now, after years of selfless service to him, Satoru realizes that it was the ferocious loyalty that hid underneath her then perfectly ordinary shell which he personally refined into the gem of a woman she is now, and she never swore allegiance to the crown but rather to him, Satoru Gojo.
“But, I’ll indulge you,” he reclined against his chair that day, his arms crossed. “Why should I even consider you as my chief of staff? What can you offer me that the others before you cannot?”
Her answer to that question instantly won him over and in that instant, Himiko’s life had changed forever. “Whatever you ask of me, Your Royal Highness, I’d give my very life for you.”
Satoru turns away from the mirror, his lips instantly on hers. His hand dangerously hovered over the hem of her dress. “S-Satoru, what are you doing?” she moans into his mouth as Satoru moves both of them to the bed, he climbs atop of her as she lay on the mattress, her locks splayed over the silk sheets. She knows what he’s doing, this was almost like a film she has seen many times before; this was how tense conversations with Gojo go with him impatiently parting her legs, their hands desperately discarding their clothes until they are left utterly bare before one another.
He wanted to destroy you the same way you destroyed what he had with Himiko. This anger translated into his rough pace. He roughly jostles his hips against Himiko’s, her arms wrapping around him as he buries his cock inside her, his lips covering her milky flesh with dark-purplish bruises, marking her as his.
Call him a sadist but he hopes that Himiko would change into a dress that could flaunt her marked skin so that when you fearfully look around the cathedral, warily searching for her, your heart would break at the sight of the countless hickeys on her neck and collar. He wanted to see you cry the first of the many tears you will shed for the crime of marrying him.
“Satoru…!” she cries out as the luscious feeling of his girth pistoning in and out of her. He grunts as he feels him inch closer and closer to his high. “Mmph—‘Toru,” she whines when he reangles his hips, plunging deeper into her, his arms locking behind hers as he violently chases his release. He’s so close. “I love you, I love you…-a-ah!”
A symphony of pleasured groans falls from his lips, his very being uncoiling as he cums. His hips involuntarily keep thrusting as hot spurts of his cum drips down Himiko’s entrance, mixing with her own release. Himiko frowns as Satoru clicks his tongue at the soiled sheets beneath their connected forms. He groans as he pulls out, sinking into the warmth of her embrace, his still hardened cock poking her inner thigh. “Promise me you’ll only love me?” she whispers as her fingers absentmindedly play with his white hair.
“I promise,” Gojo murmurs into the crook of her neck as he lulled to sleep by her soft, even breaths. “I promise it’s only you…no one else.”
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11:45 AM.
Only half an hour left. A crowd of, from what you have heard, 70,000 have gathered on the strip of the main road that the bridal car will pass en route to the cathedral.
“It’s true,” your maid of honor who people refer to as Ieiri says, showing you her phone which showed the many tweets from news agencies, famous personalities and normal people alike about how excited they were to witness your wedding day. There were countless social media posts consisting of yours and Satoru’s official engagement picture and many have taken to hosting their own live-streaming sessions of this monumental day.
“Everyone’s so excited. I wish my wedding would be this big,” one of your bridesmaids sighs dreamily. You manage a small chuckle at her, maybe if she knew of your plight right now, she would probably be eating those words alongside the many petit fours she’s been munching on this past hour. “Look at all those people,” she continues scrolling through her phone.
“It’s the first televised imperial wedding so obviously, it’s a big deal, Riko,” Utahime laughs. “Not to mention, it’s the first time a member of the imperial family would be married in a Western-themed ceremony.” For everyone to see.
One of your newly appointed helpers enters the room, and jogs over to you as quickly as she can in her heels, she has a small jewelry box delicately decorated in an ecru gift wrapper in her hand. “Ms. (Y/N), this is from the prince. His butler told me to give this to you.” You’ve been sad all day and your ladies-in-waiting heave a sigh of relief when they see a hint of a smile on your face, even if it did hold a bit of apprehension.
“Really? For me?” You stand up to accept the small token, careful not to ruffle your wedding dress too much as per the dressmaker’s instructions since the fabric used to construct the piece was susceptible to crumpling. Momentarily setting your phone down on the vanity table mid-text, you graciously accept the wedding gift. Maybe Satoru was starting to warm up to you and that he is now chipping away at the wall he built between the two of you. You hoped that by sending you this gift, this would be the start of something new and better with your husband.
But given how things are, that would be impossible. This was probably just a gift he sent to appease you after many days of effectively acting like you don’t exist.
You open the box and your ladies chatter around you excitedly. “It’s so pretty!” the youngest of your bridesmaids, the daughter of the Japanese ambassador to France apparently, marvels at the pair of earrings. Briefly smiling at her, you then turn your attention to the small letter that was neatly slotted between the groove of the box’s padded interior that held the earrings in place. His handwriting was so conscientiously beautiful that it almost looked like a computer-generated font, there wasn’t a hint of clumsiness in each stroke.
“To (Y/N),
I’m sorry about these past few days. This won’t make up for it, but, I’d like to join you in wishing for a successful marriage together.
– HRH Satoru Gojo”
Your heart slows at the cold closing. He had omitted the words “love” and “sincerely” before his name, but you expected that. If scraps of affection are all you could ever hope to get out of him, you have to learn to deal with it sooner or later; this was your life now, you will always be second to the love of his life. It must have taken everything out of him, and it must have caused an argument to erupt between him and Himiko, to send you this and you understand that he’s also having a difficult time with how things are now but it mattered so much to you to see him try. Regardless if this gift was given to you freely or not, you couldn’t refuse it, even if every voice in your head was screaming at you, reminding you of the horrific scene you saw that day when you caught your fiancé kissing another woman out in the open immediately after you announced your engagement.
“Would you like me to put it on you?” Riko asks. “I’m sure the prince will be happy to see you wear these.”
“You really think so?” you wince when your helper struggles to find your earlobe piercing. “I didn’t know he could be so sweet.” That’s obviously a lie; you know full well Satoru could be sweet, it just pained you to remember that he’s capable being sweet to another deliberately causing you immense grief. Your helper stiffens slightly. She has seen him become sweet before, albeit to another, but she didn’t have to divulge any details and accidentally ruin your wedding day.
She nods shyly, succeeding with the first diamond earring and then the other. She steps away from the mirror. You looked radiant. “Y-yes.”
Noticing her discomfort, you expertly steer the conversation elsewhere. “I see. Well I should probably return the favor.”
You’ve gotten Satoru a wristwatch you and the empress had personally had commissioned by a famed watchmaker that could rival the craftsmanship of a Rolex. It just arrived last night and well, given your current mental state then having taken the brunt of Satoru’s ire the past few days, you couldn’t bring yourself to wrap it. Momentarily deciding if you still had time to have one of your helpers buy some wrapping paper, you realized it would be cutting it too close so you hastily scribbled on a blank dedication card you randomly plucked from one of the bouquets you received. Luckily, some of them had extra cards.
“To Your Royal Highness,
Please don’t apologize, I’m sorry too for being pushy lately. Thank you for the gift, I’ll be sure to take good care of it. Happy wedding day, and I’m looking forward to better days together!
Wholeheartedly yours,
(Y/N) (L/N)”
Reading through it one last time, you affix your name at the end. “You guys are so sweet,” your youngest bridesmaid gushes as she presses a button on the room’s telephone to request for a butler. “I’m sure the prince will love it.”
“Whatever ‘sweet’ means.” You grimace, your unease getting the better of you. A few moments later, a butler peeks into the room. You bound over to him, placing the present in his hands. “Could you please give this to Prince Satoru?” you asked him and the butler looks slightly bewildered at your choice of words. If it was an order, you could have just said so. Perhaps you were still getting used to the idea of having people waiting to attend to your every beck and call.
“Right away, ma’am,” the butler replies obediently nonetheless. “Also I ran into His Majesty’s chamberlain just a while back and he asked me to remind you of the time. Everything’s ready,” he informs you just as he turns to leave in the direction of the palace’s east wing where Satoru's private chambers are. Upon hearing that, the bridal entourage starts to get ready to leave ahead of you, they’ll be going to the venue with a separate convoy from the bride’s since you’ll be driving through some of Tokyo’s major avenues en route to the cathedral.
You watch as they file out of the room in their cream dresses, each one of them, despite having known you for only a little less than half a day, pull you into a bone-crushing hug wishing you well. “Congratulations, (Y/N).”
“Thank you,” you kindly smiled at each one of them as they left.
When you are left alone to your devices, you take one last look at (though you could hardly recognize yourself) the mirror, swallowing harshly, your hand absentmindedly playing with the locket which you continued to wear, ignoring the gracious advice of the Imperial Household Agency’s grand steward to set it aside for today’s festivities as it was uncustomary for royal brides to wear articles of clothing and accessories that did not hold any relation to the imperial family.
Only thirty minutes to go ‘till everything changes. Wait no, that was grossly inaccurate. Everything changed the split second you laid your eyes on him. Since then, everything seems to be a jumbled haze like some sort of psychedelic trance that just won’t end. Reaching for your phone one last time, you hastily search for a particular contact number, your finger hovering over the call button. No, there’s no point, you sniffle softly. Calling her would only make things harder than it already is and backing out of this now is out of the question.
Another knock is heard on the door, but it isn’t as insistent as the first few ones as everyone was starting to get a bit frustrated at you. Did they think you were stalling for time? “Just a minute,” your voice wavers. You just received a new text message from the number you were planning to call.
“We’ll be moving her in a few hours. Will send you her new room number when we get there.”
Bringing the phone to your lips, your heart makes somersaults in your chest when you receive the news. The sacrifice you were still yet to make has already paid off and your ledger of personal favors crossed out with a red marker effectively completing your transaction with the empress. Without even giving you time to text a quick “thank you”, another urgent knock is heard on the door. “Ms. (Y/N), I’m very sorry to interrupt but, we should get going now.”
“I’ll be right there,” you said again, quickly typing another message on your phone: “I wish I was there with her. Please hold her hand for me.” The second it goes through, you quickly shuffled towards the door, your head bowed in apology. You hold your breath as you balance the tiara on your head hoping that it won’t fall as it hangs precariously off-center on the crown of your head, your eyes trained on the ground as the door slides open. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries, I’m pretty patient. Ijichi, on the other hand? Not so much.”
His voice is feather-soft and melodious like a harp string being plucked delicately so that it produces a clear and deep bell-like sound, the very language he chooses to speak with is devoid of neither a shrill nor sharp word unlike the fusillade of orders you’ve been mercilessly bombarded with this entire day. Walk like this, speak like that, don’t do this, and most certainly never do that, you must have gone through a decade’s worth of rules and regulations to follow during the ceremony and even after you’ve said your “I do”’s. Still, you found solace knowing that Satoru is slowly warming up to the idea of cooperating with you, and has even found it in his heart to give you an olive branch of sorts which was now hooped through your earlobes, sparkling under the light like a clear drop of water from the sky.
At first, you naively think it’s him. Did Satoru really come over to see you? While that seemed uncharacteristic of him, the very thought of him voluntarily visiting you planted a sense of relief in you regardless. Maybe he wanted to settle things before the ceremony, to be upfront with you about his intentions in this marriage, how the two of you will be towards one another going forward, and if your luck holds out, maybe he’d finally let you in on his acts of impropriety with Himiko.
But, you would recognize Satoru’s indifferent timbre anywhere, this voice was far too different and seemed much kinder and softer than your fiancé’s.
You slowly open the door to greet your guest, confirming your suspicions as you meet the gaze of a man you haven’t met before. He seems severely unfamiliar.
No, wait. That can’t be it, he may seem unfamiliar but he’s definitely recognizable. In fact, you’ve seen him a few times before, standing feebly next to your fiance during the emperor’s birthday broadcast. Then, it clicks. Wasn't this…?
“Crown Prince Suguru?” you blinked. He’s the only senior member of the imperial family that you’ve never been officially introduced to. Of course, you are on speaking terms with the emperor, the empress and of course, Satoru, but never the prince that idly lingered in their large shadows.
The raven-haired man chuckles deeply at your shocked expression. Clearly, you didn’t expect to meet him under these circumstances, and that caused you to accidentally refer to him as the Crown Prince when that title only belonged to Gojo. He looks at you endearingly, finding you intriguing.
So this was the woman his younger brother is to be married to. Suguru has heard a lot about Satoru’s docile bride-to-be, in fact, he received news of the engagement while he was in Rome, the last leg of his first solo tour in Europe. People were so quick to label it as a pivotal point in the history of the Japanese monarchy and that you are the symbol of change, specifically, they likened you to a camellia blooming in a sea of chrysanths, a breath of spring in the imperial family’s everwinter – alluring in every sense of the word. But, alluring isn’t exactly a word he’d use to describe you seeing as you’ve only just met but, right now, he found you to be so adorably cute that he might just start to believe the things they say about you on the news.
“It’s just Prince Suguru. Satoru’s the Crown Prince.” The gentle correction makes you so flustered that you feel blood rush up to your ears, a tell-tale sign of your abasement. “But you could just call me Suguru.”
“Oh, right, my mistake,” you rub your eyelid, growing embarrassed. “Prince Suguru,” you stressed his correct title, remedying your earlier mishap. Despite you being in heels, you can’t see past him, given that he towered over you so easily so you stand on your tallest tiptoes, trying to peek over his shoulder. “You haven’t happened to see Mr. Ijichi, have you? He was right outside the door a few minutes ago.”
Suguru buries his hands in his pockets. “He just left, you’re welcome,” he winks at you, having sent Ijichi on his way when he accidentally stumbled across him furiously tapping on your door as he was making his way to his car.
Ijichi was…difficult to get along with — he’s short-fused, demanding at some times, and he is what people could call a stickler for the rules — Suguru isn’t doesn’t really want to say nasty words about his father’s grand steward and he’d give credit where it’s due since Ijichi is not just efficient when it comes to running the imperial household but he is also fiercely dedicated to every member of the imperial family.
Still, he couldn’t count the many times Ijichi had to scold him for all the mischief he caused while he was growing up even if his life depended on it. The worst scolding he got from the older man was when Suguru went missing on his fifth birthday, having snuck out of the banquet hall with at least ten pieces of bread stuffed in his pockets with every intention to feed them to the many ducks in the imperial garden’s ponds.
“What?” your eyes nearly pop out of their sockets, you were going to get an earful later. “You mean he went ahead without me?”
“It’s alright. You’ll see him later, sure he’s probably going to talk your ear off but he means well, trust me,” Suguru flashes you a reassuring smile.
You look at him, your lip curled into an uneasy grin. “That doesn’t sound like fun,” you bemoaned, having had enough reprimands to last you until your next life. “So, with Mr. Ijichi gone, forgive my bluntness, but am I right to assume that Your Highness will be the one to bring me to the cathedral?”
Suguru accommodatingly holds out his arm for you to hold onto. “You assume correctly,” he says warmly. You expect him to hurriedly lead you down the steps leading to the palace’s main driveway, but he does something entirely different. “Are you ready to go or do you still need more time?”
That was the first time anyone in a kilometer-wide radius has asked you what you want to do instead of telling you what to do.
Suguru watches every small change in your expression. He figured that you must be pretty tired of people treating you like some robot, training you to blindly obey every order perfectly. The jet black-haired prince has only known you for two minutes and his heart is already disintegrating for your current predicament of feeling completely and entirely alone. If he could alleviate your troubles even with just a small act of kindness by engaging in polite conversation with you and actually listening to what you have to say instead of talking over you like most of your etiquette coaches have done all day, then, he’ll gladly tune in to listen to you even as you read through an entire book of sonnets if you ever felt up to it.
Being validated comes a long way, and if anyone understands your plight, it was him and even if he didn’t understand, he’ll do everything he can to try regardless.
“I-I’m ready,” you nodded hesitantly and Suguru doesn’t walk ahead right away and allows you to set the pace as you walk past the line of attendants that bowed to you and the prince as you made your way to the imperial family’s very own Toyota Century convertible which had been custom-made for you.
The open top roof gave onlookers access to see their future empress as the motorcade departs from the Kōkyo Imperial Palace and follows a 4.6-kilometer route that will travel to the St. Mary’s Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Tokyo. Neither you nor Satoru were practicing Catholics yet, the imperial family has decided that a Christian-themed wedding rather than the ancient Buddhist matrimonial ceremony that is usually done away from public view would make the imperial system appear more accessible to the people.
Suguru helps you into the car, gently arranging the train of your gown so that it doesn’t get all wrinkled. “Thank you, Your Highness” you whisper to Suguru who squeezes your free hand as if to say “you’re welcome”. The car’s engine hums to life the minute the two of you are settled in the backseat. “W-what am I supposed to do now?” you asked, readjusting your grip on your bridal bouquet.
The prince lets out a humored snort, having forgotten that this was your first official function. Showing you the correct way to wave and the right angle to face and bow to the crowd, he watches you closely, allowing you to struggle for a bit before stepping in to help with some encouraging words. “Just keep smiling and waving. It’s just like being onstage, you know.” At the center of the motorcade, six police cars patrol every side of the convertible forming a ring of protection just in case someone in the crowd with ill-intentions would try to harm either you or the monarch next to you.
Countless people erupt in happy cheers at the sight of you and Suguru, some are simply content with waving while others are holding up flowers and tossing them to the front of the crowd barriers in jubilation. “It feels a little more intense than just being onstage,” you mumbled, your eyes landing on a little girl sitting in her mother’s arms as she waves a little Japanese flag in her hand which looked like she made it in her arts and craft class. You awkwardly wave at her, chuckling when she happily waves back, delighted to see you directly looking at her.
“Well, you’re doing great.” He inches closer to you, wrapping a steadying arm around your waist while the other guides your hand, gently angling it in a more prominent position so that you look a little more assertive. “Like this,” Suguru helps you wave in a more continuous manner, teaching you to center the motion by keeping your elbow mostly stationary and allowing only your wrist to subtly move from side to side. “And keep doing what you’re doing. Make eye contact with them; make them understand that you see each and every one of them.”
Suguru watches you bow and wave to the spectators with a proud smile on his face; the motorcade has now reached the Shinjuku area and is nearing its destination of Bunkyo-ku where the cathedral is and even still, the crowd doesn’t appear to thin out. Suguru feels like he’s watching history unfold before his very eyes. He wonders if Satoru had purposefully chosen a commoner to conjure up a classic “love conquers all” romance of his own wedding day, if he did, then Suguru must congratulate him for a job well done. No one has ever come out to see a member of the imperial family in this sheer number, he daresay, not even the empress on her wedding day or His Majesty on his coronation day.
But with you, this day is nothing short of a revolution.
“Your Highness, you’re staring.” Suguru hums, confused, before realizing that he’s been looking at you funny. “You’re still staring,” you said succinctly.
“Oh, sorry.” Suguru says awkwardly and you couldn’t help but let out a slight snort. “What?” he cocks his head in your direction. You were laughing, though brief, the very sound of it brings a smile to his face. “It was about time though. We’ve been in this car for more than fifteen minutes now and that right there is the first genuine act of happiness I’ve seen you make,” he remarks. He was starting to think that you were incapable of smiling which he found a little unsettling since brides aren’t exactly despondent during their wedding day. Of course, what would he know? His little brother had gotten married ahead of him.
You crinkle your nose in mock displeasure. “That’s kinda mean and probably the last thing I’d say to someone I just met…with all due respect, Your Highness.”
Suguru grins at your tiny jab at his character, and to think that he nearly bought into the whole “as demure as a butterfly” thing they said about you in the papers. Make no mistake though, he sees how elegantly ladylike you are, but he also sees how you are so effortlessly spellbinding with your wit translated into a few short but sweet words. No wonder Satoru fell for you and even gave up his vice-like romance with his chief-of-staff to marry you, he thinks to himself. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry that was a bit uncalled for.”
“Oh— Your Highness, I was just joking.” You waved to the crowd of people on Suguru’s side of the car, grimacing when you see a few schoolboys, probably university students with how tall and mature they looked, pretend to blow you kisses. Indulging them, you subtly return the gesture flustered beyond all measure. Everything feels so public now, and you are left wondering about how you could survive the rest of your life like this.
“…I knew that.” Choosing momentary silence, Suguru finally decides to chip away at the facade you were putting up. He could see it in your eyes, you were a cross between scared and unhappy which is clearly normal for someone who is marrying into the oldest monarchy in the world. You weren’t at all what the members of the Imperial Household Agency said of you when you were out of earshot: a sorry excuse of a future empress who is privileged in every way but can’t find it within herself to stop her endless complaining. “Just trying to make you smile, that’s all.”
Shouldn’t your future husband be doing that? You sighed. Oh right, he was probably busy comforting Himiko. She probably needed him now more than ever after everything you’ve done to torment her. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Suguru,” he corrects kindly. “If you’re going to marry my little brother, you could, at least, drop the troublesome title when you’re talking to me.”
Little brother? How have you never heard of this before? You knew Satoru had a brother, but you never thought Suguru would be the older one out of the two of them. If that was the case, then, why didn’t he get the title of “Crown Prince”?
“Weird, huh?” He breaks you out of your trance, as if he heard the question swirling around in your head. “Why is Satoru the Crown Prince and not me?”
“Are you psychic or something?” you playfully teased, slowly growing more comfortable with the jet black-haired prince that sported an Apollo-like smile - warm, and inviting. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
Suguru shrugs. “Why? Whose mind do you want to read?”
Satoru’s, you smiled sadly. Maybe by unraveling the inner machinations of your soon-to-be husband’s mind, you could learn to meet him halfway by understanding him a little better; no person is born inherently cruel and while you had your doubts, you know, in your heart, that Satoru is no exception to that rule. “No one in particular.”
“Ah, well, I expected that.” He grinned at how guarded you are, reclining against the plush seat of the car to rest his stiffening back for a minute. The convoy is about ten minutes away from the cathedral now.
You offered him some consolation though, grateful for this light-hearted chat. “Let’s just trade answers next time.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
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Himiko thought this day would be horrible but it turns out it isn’t as bad as she pessimistically thought. If she only knew that this was how the love of her life’s wedding would go with him still inviting her to his bed before he gets hitched off, then, maybe she shouldn’t have been so awful towards you who never stood a chance against her. Competing with you would be like making a rival of a rat; it would be unnecessary trouble. Still, even if she had all but won against you (as if you were worthy enough to even become her opponent), that didn’t stop the Zenin clan’s little darling from causing a little trouble today.
Her eyes flutter open to reveal Gojo’s handsome slumbering face, utterly spent from their lovemaking session, their naked forms still entangled together under the cotton-percale sheets. She stretches her supple body luxuriously, and pulls away from Satoru’s embrace earning a small “mmph” of disapproval from her lover. Giggling, she plants a soft kiss on his chiseled cheek.
“Your Highness?” Someone says from behind the door. Taking one last look at Satoru’s sleeping form, she walks leisurely to answer it, clad only in the prince’s shirt which ran above her knee.
Leaning against the door, she answers for the prince, a detestable act similar to a cardinal sin. It was forbidden for a mere servant to speak for any member of the imperial family. In the past, in the Japanese empire’s golden age, a servant who took the words out of their master’s mouth would have their tongue swiftly sliced off. But Himiko is not a servant, nor is she subject to the rules as long as the prince was around. “His Highness is asleep.”
On his wedding day? The butler nods stiffly. “I see. Ms. Zenin, can I trouble you with this? The prince’s fiancé has sent him a wedding gift.”
Himiko doesn’t answer for a long while and a tense silence fills the room. “Fine, but have you done what I asked?” she relents opening the door, the butler’s face turns red at the sight of her lack of modesty. “Having you run my errands isn’t cheap, you know.”
The attendant bows his head, “Yes. She’s currently wearing it right now, last I saw.”
“Good. I’ll be taking this then.” She shakes the box to get a feel of what’s inside, not that it would be anything of high value though given its cheap sender.
Curiosity gets the better of her and she succinctly opens the gift, her eyebrow quirked. A watch. Very typical. She notes how it’s made out of silver and she scoffs harshly. Even if she didn’t chuck it into the trash, Satoru would have done it himself since he prefers gold pieces over silver and he most certainly wouldn’t want to touch anything that was from you given how he loathed the very idea of you.
The attendant gulps when he sees Himiko harshly discard your gift. “Ms. Zenin, don’t you think that giving her that would be taking it too far? You know how the Crown Prince feels about those earrings. If he ever were to find out that it had gone missing…”
She turns her head in the direction of the bed where Gojo was currently tossing and turning in his sleep. “Then, I’ll tell His Highness that his chief butler,” her eyes were aglow with cunning as the butler trembled slightly at her murderous gaze. “Is a thief who stole from the imperial vaults, and if you ever decide to rat me out, who do you think the prince will believe? A nameless no account like you or me?”
It slowly registers in the attendant’s mind that he had been utterly played when Himiko asked him to give those earrings to you via an under the table agreement, it’s not like Satoru prepared a wedding gift for you anyway thinking that showing up to the accursed wedding in itself is a generous gift already. “…You used me…!” he whispers angrily, not wanting to rouse the prince.
Himiko shrugs nonchalantly. “And you were stupid enough to be used for a few banknotes. Now get lost, I’ll just inform His Highness of your voluntary resignation tomorrow morning.”
She closes the door on the rattled servant and saunters back over to the bed, slipping back under the sheets. Satoru sleepily notices the bed dip with her weight, and unconsciously snuggles closer to her, his arms wrapped around her form. She lovingly strokes his disheveled hair alternating between twirling his locks in her index finger and massaging his scalp as if she hadn’t just ruined a man’s life two minutes ago. Her hands reach for the phone on the nightstand and she scrolls through her feed watching a video of the bridal car pulling up to the cathedral.
She boredly watches you step out of the car with your hand looped through Suguru’s arm shyly waving to the thousands happily anticipating this glorious day while your bridesmaids help you with your wedding gown’s train so it doesn’t snag across the concrete steps. It takes about five minutes for the cathedral’s towering doors to open and she smirks when she sees you slowly make your way inside, completely oblivious to the fact that your groom is not at the end of the aisle where you expected him to be and is instead still soundly asleep next to her.
The silence that follows is indicative of the horrific scene that greeted you and Himiko switches off her phone, settling back into the pillows contentedly. Serves you right, (Y/N), she smirks.
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12:30 PM.
Funny how you think that you’re immune to awful things that happen to other people…before it happens to you. There’ve been hundreds of stories like this before, but you never thought that you’d find yourself in the long list of unfortunate jilted brides. Your hands tremble as you hold your bouquet of white calla lilies and baby’s breaths. Surely you must have gone blind or something or this was all some sick dream, you desperately search the cathedral room with abject horror in your eyes. It couldn’t be…you take an uneasy step toward the witness as your wedding guests whisper amongst themselves, their hearts filled to the brim with condolences for you.
Something in you jeeringly mocks you as if to chide you for living too long in the forest of your fantasy, dodging every pocket of reality’s sunlight as it shines through the many trees you’ve cultivated with your delusions that this…whatever the hell this is…could miraculously work out in the end. That you stood a chance against all the cards that were catastrophically stacked against you, and that he could give you even just a scintilla of respect if it was truly impossible for him to ever learn to love you.
“Suguru,” you instinctively clutch his hand as if by him squeezing your hand back, you could miraculously be put together again. You were so heartbroken that you didn't even realize that you just called him by his name, forgoing the mention of his venerable title. “…I-I…” you gulp as you feel the dreaded words lodge deep in your throat, clogging your airways with uncried sobs.
“Oh, (Y/N), I’m so sorry…”
“…Where’s Satoru?”
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water’s edge taglist: @dummyf @kentokaze @esthelily @mandysfanfics @userbananababes @strawberryjimin13 @snowprincesa1 @naturallyspontaneous @kooromin @gojoist @dcvilxswish @13-09-01 @peachipeachy @iluv-ace @sawendel @helloitsshitzulover @jjuniescuderia @ackermendick @starrylibras @timetobegone @heelariously @idktbhloley @jeon-blue @8aif9sgbsnn @purpleguk @rednezvous @yeseurri @floralsightings @yoheyyosup @dontwannacry04 @dragonladyy
REBLOGS AND INTERACTIONS IS WHAT KEEPS AUTHORS GOING SO SHOW SOME LOVE ✨💕 mwah! see you all in episode 2.5!
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mischiefmoons · 6 days
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✩°。⋆mischiefmoons' 1k celebration⋆。°✩
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i just hit 1.5k but let’s not talk about how overdue this list is lmfao—just wanted to say an absolute thank you from the bottom of my heart to this online community of friends that i’ve found in the past 6 months. you guys make me brave to post my deepest thoughts and craziest creations and the little corner i take up is overfilling with love for all the unhinged comments and chats that genuinely have made my life better during this little postgrad gap year. to many more!
i wanted to gather a list of creations by some of the most talented people i share this lovely space with, some friends, others people i idolize—please support them as well and show them the love you all have shown me!
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luke castellan
poisoned mercury (series)- @wlntrsldler (camprock!au luke castellan x fem!reader)
three weeks - @too-deviant (luke castellan x apollo!reader)
spill ur guts / we’ll write sins not tragedies (series) - @kamaluhkhan (luke castellan x nemesis!reader, some mdni)
the jubilee recollection (series) - @klineinie (luke castellan x aristaeus!reader)
you don’t know me - @kestisvrse (spidey!luke castellan x reader)
freaky friday - @too-deviant (luke castellan x reader)
sleepy girl - @sovksluv (luke castellan x hypnos!reader)
rotten to the touch (series) - @supercutszns (luke castellan x reader, suggestive)
the search for glory - @sunsburns (luke castellan x ares!reader, suggestive)
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other men seared into my brain
jupiter was supposed to be a star, but failed - @delicrieux (regulus black x reader)
hunger -  @perlelune (coriolanus snow x reader, mdni)
truculent (series) - @theoldsports (coriolanus snow x reader, mdni)
second son (series) - @cherryslyce (regulus black x reader)
i know it when i see it (series) - @bageldaddy (pornstar!joel miller x reader, mdni)
ever since new york (series)- @eideticmemory (college!mgg x reader, mdni)
rocks at your window (series)- @fbfh (ricky bowen x reader, some mdni)
adhd chronicles (series)- @hotchfiles (aaron hotchner x reader)
statuesque lovers - @e1dritchjackal0pe (farleigh start x reader, mdni)
american teenager (series) - @lanascinnamongirls (spencer reid x bau!reader) 
we could be love (series) - @hotchfiles (aaron hotchner x rossi!reader)
treacherous (series)  - @moonlightspencie (remus lupin x reader)
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labeled these to the best of my ability and my goldfish brain of a memory but remember, you are responsible for your own consumption
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assortedseaglass · 3 months
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🌟Wintering | Yuletide🌟
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Tom Bennett x fem!Reader
Summary: The war is over and Tom Bennett returns home, seeking comfort in a friend from his past.
Content Warnings: Drabble, Language, Smut (p in v, oral!f receiving).
Yuletide Masterlist
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Wintering, verb. To hide, hibernate, seek comfort or rest, especially after turbulent times (in humans).
“Fuck,”
Your back was beginning to ache. You hadn’t given a moment’s thought as to where you were when you’d burst through the door. Just being at home, away from prying eyes, was enough. Now, the dado rail was bruising the base of your spine with every harsh thrust.
“Fuck,” he hissed again in your ear, immediately silencing himself by covering your mouth with his own. The warmth, the wetness, was delicious.
“Tom, please,” you whined into his mouth. Even through the dull pain in your back, your legs hooked around his waist ever tighter. At your plea he looked down at you, his hips still rolling lazily. When he saw the scrunch of your eyebrows, the sheen of sweat above them, and the way your lower lip pillowed as you bit down on it, Tom Bennett grinned.
He continued grinning as his hips began pistoning at an unholy pace into your wet heat. That wolfish smile was the last thing your saw as your eyes finally closed, too overwhelmed by pleasure to stay open, as you threw your head back against the wall. Bastard. He knew he was good.
You’d heard at the dancehall last night that the final battleship into port, the HMS Valiant, was due to arrive the following day at around 3 o’clock. You also knew, from working with Lois on the ambulances, that this was Tom’s ship. When Mrs Beatty and a few other ladies from your mother’s Women Institute suggested meeting the last of the lads to come home at the dock, the idea spread through your Manchester suburb like wildfire.
No sooner had your mother come home with the news were you being bustled onto the number 54 bus with a hamper laden with fresh clothes, bottles of beer, spam sandwiches and the little change that each family could spare. Old men, and women of all ages, piled into the buses and made their way to the docks. A few families still had bunting from the King’s jubilee and strung it from dockyard cranes.
The furore was extraordinary. The battleship was already looming large on the horizon when you all emptied from the bus, and young and old cheered themselves hoarse until the ship made its way into port. Sailors, forgetting regulations, leant over the ships’ railings and waved to family and friends. When the battleship finally docked, it let out a long blast of its horn and the crowed roared with glee. Mothers and sweethearts were already crying when the gangway was let down, and you saw that even some fathers were wiping their eyes.
You watched with relief as faces you recognised filed off the boat. Mr Martin’s only surviving son, thirty-eight and with three children who each ran into his arms. Frank Smith, the school bully’s rat-faced sidekick. The lad that worked at the corner shop, nineteen now, having received his papers the day he turned eighteen. Each was greeted by their family members and someone with a ‘welcome home’ hamper.
All, except one. Tom Bennett, one of the tallest lads on the boat, walked down the gangway in a few elegant strides and stopped on the dock with a sigh as he hitched his kitbag over his shoulder. He lifted his eyes to the sky, the October afternoon already darkening to a mournful blue.
As with the rest of the young men, the war had not been kind to him. Shadows haunted his slim face, prematurely aged from the horrors of a war none of them should have fought. At home, he was the stuff of legend. Survived the battle of River Plate, Dunkirk and went on the run in Europe, only to be sent back to war the moment he returned. More lives than the luckiest of cats, your mother said. The worst, of course, was the loss of his father and his home. The grief hit the Bennett children hard. Tom Bennett jumped onto the first battleship in dock, and Lois left baby Vera in England to go nursing in Africa. Now, Tom Bennett stood on the dock with no-one to welcome him home after six long years.
You hurried forward.
“Tom-” As though he knew you were there before you even spoke, he looked down from the sky to your flushed face.
Though he said your name quietly, a smile flashed across his boyish face. Your stomach somersaulted. He’d always been the handsomest rogue in Longsight, and still was with his blue eyes and sandy hair. At least there was one thing the war hadn’t taken away from him.
You held out the hamper. “Welcome home, Tom,” and with a sincere smile you stood on tiptoe to kiss his sallow cheek. A faint lipstick smudge lingered there and you smiled all the more.
“I’d be flattered,” Tom teased, gesturing to the hamper. “If every other Tom, Dick and Harry didn’t have one too.” He laughed as he took the hamper from you. His large palm covered your own and you shivered.
There was history there. Only a few pages, but history nonetheless. At once, you were transported back to the parish dance of 1935. Both seventeen, you as green as the grass, he already-world weary and wandering. He danced with no-one the entire night, though many a girl looked hopeful, yet took your hand for the last dance. When you thought about those innocent years before the war, in the darkest hours of the night or after a few too many sherries, you swore you could feel Tom’s hands burning against your waist, and at your neck as he kissed you. Your first.
Tom too, was remembering the first moment you touched him. A maths lesson with Miss Greene. He’d been caught flicking pencil sharpenings into girls’ hair and was sent to sit in the corner at the back of the class. You, as much a sweetheart then as you were now, were tasked with handing out textbooks. Unfortunately for you and luckily for Tom, they were on the shelf above where he sat. A cocky grin on his face, Tom didn’t move. He loved winding the girls up, and you were something different. At sixteen, you were curvier than the rest, and watching you flush pink was his favourite hobby. And so, he didn’t move. With pride, he chortled as you blushed and reached for the textbooks above him. His smug smile faltered however when, in order to reach the books, your legs came to rest on each side of his spread ones. With one of your thighs either side of his, he swallowed. He could feel the heat coming from the apex between them, smell your perfume and feel the way the soft flesh pressed against his. When you finally retrieved the books, it was your turn to smirk at the red flush peppering his cheekbones.
“Where are you staying, Tom, now your back?” You asked, voice low. Your mother was not far away.
“Bench in the pub, presumably. Most of the lads are heading that way for a party. Then I’ll find meself lodgings above some dodgy back-alley business.” He huffed a humourless laugh. You looked him directly in the eye.
“Stay out ours tonight.”
Tom leant close to you, wetting his lips. “What would mother say?”
“Don’t know, she’ll be down pub with the rest of them. Loves a sherry and a sailor.”
Half an hour later, you were pressed against the wall of your mother’s hallway, Tom Bennett lapping hungrily at your slick centre. Beneath your skirt and petticoat, the lewd sounds of his tongue against your wet sex filled the quiet evening.
Now, buried to the hilt within you, his swollen head bullying your core, Tom forgot the last seven months he’d spent living on the Valiant. Forgot the suffering of the last six years entirely. For between the softness of your thighs, the scent of your neck as he tucked his face against it tenderly, he’d found, if for a moment, the thing he’d been fighting for. Warmth, kindness, rest­. A place to winter.
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The usual suspects: @arcielee @targaryenrealnessdarling @theoneeyedprince @ewanmitchellcrumbs @ellrond @cyeco13 @babyblue711 @exitpursuedbyavulcan @humanpurposes @myfandomprompts @barbieaemond @anjelicawrites
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klineinie · 2 months
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— 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀)
⤷ it's dawn, it's winter, and he's a traitor; aka you find each other even through the war (you always do) / luke castellan x (gn + child of aristaeus) reader
⤷ wc; 2.2k | canon typical violence, swords and stuff, luke and jubi fight literally, angst + tracklist: in hell — japanese breakfast
⤷ the jubilee recollection ( masterlist )
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♫ — with my luck, you’ll be dead within the year
It’s dawn, and Luke Castellan is wandering a meadow. The tall grass brushes against his shin, twines their verdant blades around the rough fabric of his pants in a braid.
It’s dawn, golden rays settling over the rippling field, Midas-touched and bright, the striking purr of crickets petering out as the sun rises higher.
It’s dawn, and Luke is lost in a field, Backbiter in hand—and he could just score the blade against the soft dirt ground, open a door back to the Princess Andromeda, but…. Well. It’s winter too.
It’s winter, and Luke Castellan is a traitor. It’s winter, persimmon season, and he knows that the grove back at camp must be bursting with the deep orange fruits.
It’s winter, and he knows that you didn’t get his botched Iris-message, because you’re standing across the sea of gold staring at him, sword and shield in each hand, a short dagger at your belt.
It’s winter, it’s cold. Luke shivers under your gaze, hawk-like with the way your back is turned against the rising sun, shadows dimming your features. He’s never felt real fear, not before this moment.
It’s a chilly, bleak, mid-winter dawn when you rush forward, sword arm drawn and locked, and even through the fear that thrums through his veins and chokes his stomach in knots, Luke can’t help but feel glad that you’d be the only one to hurt him like this.
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♫ — laid on your side (i cried and cried)
You’re fast. It’s a trait of yours that reminds Luke of a wasp, stinger sword-sharp and darting with the intent to kill. It’s also a trait that makes Cabin 11 the most desirable for teams in capture the flag.
You disappear from his line of sight when you start moving, ducking into the field and using your surroundings to your advantage. Luke surveys the rippling grass, notes where the blades distort with irregular movement.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
There’s a blur of orange, a shade reminiscent of persimmon skin spiraling under the peel of a knife, and Luke’s chest vibrates with the brutish shock of your shield.
He grunts, recognizing the burning press of bronze against his skin in the impression of Hermes’ staff, the Caduceus—two snakes locked in combat, their imprinted and detailed heads digging into his clavicle as if to bite, to draw blood.
You make a grating sound in the back of your throat, frustrated and low, grit and gravel and years of war weighing on it.
( Luke’s spine tingles, a snake curling and braiding itself between the segments of bone to settle comfortably at the base of his back as something he only identifies as a longing satisfied. )
His heels dig into the soft dirt as a deterrent against falling, battle instincts automatic. Luke punches away from your shield despite wanting to pull you closer, knowing that you’d try kill him right here, right now.
Not that he’d really mind—if he was to die, he’d rather it be by your hand instead of someone else’s.
“Look,” and he’s backing away, hand outstretched in caution, Kronos yelling and rattling at the cage in his mind—fight, coward!, “I’m sorry.”
Your teeth grit, jaw muscles feathering in the shadows of your face. Luke wonders then, if you could process the fact that he’s lacking any defense. He’s not carrying a shield, armor-free, prone and exposed like the soft meat of a crustacean, the vulnerable belly of a rabbit.
You rush him again, fueled purely on offense, the short, classically shaped blade of your sword bouncing off the long and tempered edge of Backbiter. Luke has already given up on seizing the upper hand, concentrating all of his willpower into deflecting and watching his blade.
Luke lets you take your rage out on him, weapons ringing clear in the meadow, a violent song of bronze against bronze. He thinks you know now, that you can’t cut him. Percy probably told everyone that he’s bathed in Styx already.
Your energy begins to ebb, peters out to the point where you collapse your shield into the form of a protective arm guard, the fitted plate of divine metal glinting in the growing dawn.
He takes the moment to retreat, and you circle around each other, carrion-starved vultures out for flesh. Luke’s head is stuffed with the cotton-like clouds that hover above the field, exertion blurring his vision and pounding at his pulse.
You advance again, slow, almost like a hunter, and Luke recalls the sparring rings back at camp, remembers how you’d tackle and wrestle him into the dirt, sword thrown to the side. But you aren’t kids anymore, and a sword discarded is a life wasted.
One thing he forgets to consider in his distracted reverie: the field’s form. It splays a blanket over a hill, the grass growing into an incline, hardy little blades spreading across the earth regardless of condition.
He steps back again, shoe wavering uncertain in the air for a moment before finding shaky footing on lower ground, and Luke knows that you’ve driven him to the edge. You’re still wordless, silent; he wonders briefly if this is just a dream, a one-in-million of the nightmares he has.
( Maybe it is a nightmare, being hunted at your hands, but he finds himself grateful nonetheless that you’re here in front of him. )
It’s not a dream, just reality in the way your advance begins to gather energy and speed, blade tucked harmless against your side, and you leap across the dirt, bounding through trampled grass and into his waiting arms. The exhausted warmth of your body wakes him and he wraps you into a protective embrace as the two of you fall backwards.
You both tumble down the hill, grass on grass on bodies on shirts, choked grumbles of pain and definitely bruised knees, and when you settle in the dust, Luke finds the razor edge of your sword tucked against the impenetrable skin of his prone throat.
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♫ — hell is finding someone to love
He’s laying on his back, spread-eagle like a butterfly-cut chicken, ready to be flayed open as you straddle his stomach, thighs locked against his body in a cage. Luke finds himself unafraid of death, staring you deep in the irises in the only familiar way a remorseful lover can.
“I missed you,” is a rasp that frees itself from the cold bronze press of your blade, threaded with a breath unraveling to the quick, “I missed you a lot.”
You push your sword harder into his throat, his skin dipping under the weight. You’re breathing terribly hard, and he can see how your eyes sparkle with saline, bloodshot and red-rimmed with grief.
There’s a smear of dirt across the high curve of your cheekbone, a cobweb-thin cut beading with red at your brow. His heart writhes with regret—he gave that to you while parrying to deflect a vicious blow.
“You lied to me,” and your jaw is locked, a gate of enamel that holds back the cry that he can almost feel trembling deep in your chest. “You left me.”
“I’m sorry.”
You breathe deeper, a near gasp in a battle with yourself to keep your oxygen. As you shudder, your tears free themselves and pepper onto his dust-smeared cheeks. His right hand, lax against the earth, crawls across the ground to lay gently on your hip.
“I have orders to—,” you tell him quietly, hesitant, arm coiling to draw your blade across his bared throat. You don’t finish but he already knows what they asked you to do. “Can you forgive me?”
“Of course. But this won’t work,” he confesses, and in a blur too quick to catch, your sword is buried into the dirt above his head like a grave marker, and he presses the dagger from your belt into your hands, the tip grazing against the weak spot at his left armpit.
Luke relaxes under you, tilts his head back to gaze at the burgeoning sky for the last time. He’s never thought about how blue it is until now, the vibrancy of it matching the outer paint of the Big House and its Big Shed back at camp.
“Go on,” and he’s smiling when he whispers it, even though he’s practically letting himself die at your hands. “Do what I can’t. You’re my real Achilles heel, anyway.”
“No,” you choke, wavering in despair. Something warm blooms in Luke’s chest, fills the cavity to the brim, seeping between every organ and vessel. “You’re not being fair right now. I see you for the first time in years, and we’re supposed to be enemies, you can’t just—”
“Please.” And it’s gentle in the way he gives you permission, his forgiving hand teaching the strong jut of your hipbone circular postulates and geometry. “Do it for Annabeth.”
You choke on another cry again, a half-aborted gasp for breath, fingers curling into claws that bunch at his collar. “I can’t.”
Luke smiles, soft, and it’s almost like he’s thirteen again, losing his first sparring match to you, wooden swords forgotten in the dust of the sparring ring because you’d gone for his ticklish stomach like the brilliant fighter you were.
( He’s happy that you’re taking the life that he’s already given wholly to you. )
“Be strong for me,” Luke rasps, throat drying. His right hand, the only free one, travels from where it had circled shapes into your hip, up your waist and past your shoulder, rough palm stopping at the side of your neck. “Hold fast.”
His thumb reaches up, brushes away the tears that are beading on your lashes, dries the damp tracks that are already eroding at your cheeks. Luke finds it endearing that your face still heats at his touch despite the biting cold and the situation you’ve found yourselves in.
“Brave the storm,” you whisper the words back almost automatically—he knows that you’ve never heard such a saying, knowing it only as a thing that’s reappeared from some forgotten dream—escaping in a breath carried slow by the eddy of air that wraps around the two of you in the dust of the hill’s foot. There’s something tucked secret into the fold of your lip, a brutal and solemn set that makes you look like you know more than you let on.
You move too quick for Luke to process in the moment, the needle-sharp point of the dagger releasing from where it presses into his underarm, and the blunt end of the hilt digging into the side of his neck with a speed he can only recall as ruthlessly efficient and a pressure that bleeds dark spots into his peripherals until he finally falls into a dreamless sleep.
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Luke wakes alone and spread-eagle in the field, skin bitten cold and pale by the winter’s breeze sifting through the tall grass. Backbiter pins down a familiar weight in his outstretched hand, and he takes grip of the tempered sword, digs the tip into the soft dirt to pull himself up.
When he’s fully upright, ankles rolling sore and knees chilled to the tendon, he finds a pack by his imprint in the dirt. Your pack, to be specific.
It smells sweetly of a mandarin’s citrus and the lacquer of the cottage’s floors when he lifts the flap, jars of honey and the deep orange skin of persimmons gleaming in the dim light. There’s a paring knife too, small and silver, initials scratched rough and ancient into the handle.
( He makes out ‘L.C. +’ encased in an uneven heart, realizes that you’d been through his things after he left and tongues at the soft tissue of his cheek in embarrassment. )
The knife, still sharp, slides under the persimmon’s skin, peels it in one go, the shiny orange thing falling to the ground in a neat spiral like a piece of confetti. It’s high noon, mid-winter—at this time, you’re probably having lunch somewhere, maybe messaging Annabeth and Percy through Iris.
Would you tell them that he almost let you kill him? Would they think of you as a traitor for letting him live?
The persimmon splinters sweet under the brunt of his teeth, and he keeps the seeds in his pocket for later—maybe he’ll grow them as a reminder, or something; Luke scores a mark in the ground, gazes into the swirling door it opens, and….
He looks back, up the hill blanketed in the tall ripples of grass, verdant blades twining around his ankles. Looks at the trampled areas, dirt peeking through the field’s hardy roots, the imprint where he laid under your blade and wished for a forgiving death.
Luke thinks then, before he leaves, that this is how you’ll find each other again, staring across an ocean of distraction and only finding the face you’ll always look for in a crowd. You always do.
( Eight billion people. You. )
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p.s; giggled a lot when i wrote this, sorry...to the anon who asked if jubi and luke were going to meet during the war even tho hermes said not to, you awakened something so terrible that i wrote this in like. a day. honorable song mention to mitski’s i want you 😗😗
comments, nice asks, and esp REBLOGS are greatly appreciated!!
luke tags (open); @melllinaa @amortencjja @niktwazny303 @arsonnaire
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jubilee40 · 2 months
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Thinking about having Reiner Braun’s hands tied to the bedpost, completely naked with a hard-on with the reader topless, grinding against his erect cock in her white cotton panties. Reiner’s eyes are mesmerized by her hard nipples.
“Please baby, let me cum.” He groaned, doing his best to thrust against you. You don't stop your movements but lean forward, pressing your breast into Reiner’s face, he eagerly sucks and kisses your nipples.
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akiseochi · 7 months
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I SAY WALKIN’ JUST EXTREMELY CLOSE BEHIND …!
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NOTE … hwah
CHARACTER(S) … penelope papadimitriou, jubilee nguyen
WARNINGS … yandere, billee being a fucking loser theatre kid
EXTRA … gn!reader
REQUEST … “May I request Penny and Billee with a partner that is scarily sneaky( like able to get across creaky floors without making a noise and sneak up behind you type) who just walks up behind them for kisses or hugs randomly? 👉👈”
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penelope papadimitriou • no reaction
Penny tends to have little to no reaction at sneak attacks
She’s had people pop out at her a bunch, so she kind of just brushes it off
Actually, she’s more surprised that it’s her partner surprising her, than the fact that you popped up on her
When she realises who it is, she’ll light up completely and cling to you, maybe even pick you up
She would drop anything she was doing for you
(***Was most likely cooking for you and puts it down gently so she doesn’t fuck it up and make you starve)
You probably can’t escape her for like three hours sorry
You were used to giving people a start whenever you began a conversation, so when you approached your girlfriend and she didn’t jump, you yourself were a bit surprised. At least, you would’ve been, if you weren’t so sleepy.
“Eh? Ey! Agapi mou!”
She turned around and met you with a smile. It seemed to take her a moment to realise who it was, but when she did, you felt her arms around you and your feet leaving the floor.
“How are you, my love?” She looked up at you, long black lashes fluttering. “Did you sleep good? Are you hungry? Sit, sit!”
Before you could get a word in, you felt the cold marble of the kitchen counter underneath your legs, and a warm ceramic plate on top, savoury steam dancing around your cheeks. She kissed the side of your face, the sugary honey-cocoa scent on her curls tickling your nose, and held a heaping forkful to your lips.
“Déa is coming in a hour, we can eat and go for grocery shopping! If we go outside, we can be together for a whole day! Eat eat, don’t be shy!”
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jubilee nguyen • kyaaaaaaa
Screams
No matter how much you do it, you’ll get a squeak and a jump from him
He’s sleep deprived and sad, he’s way too wrapped up in his head when he thinks he’s alone pls spare him
Would have to recover for a hot second before he touches you bc why would you scare him like that </3
After getting over his initial shock, he’ll try and play it off like nothing happened and just spout on about how you’re weird for actually being into him even when he’s supposed to be the creepy one
But in a teasing way y’know <3 (it’s actually his crippling self esteem)
Anyways he may put a bell on you at some point just so he doesn’t have a heart attack
“Wah!”
Ouch. You should’ve probably stopped doing that a long time ago. Every time you approached your boyfriend, you could practically feel the ground shake from how loud he was.
“Bills. It’s only me,” you reassured him, retracting the hand that was on his shoulder.
“O—oh!” He straightened quickly, pushing his frizzy, awkwardly dyed waves from his eye. “I knew that. I was just… acting! B—because I’m an actor! Obviously.”
You nodded, not finding it worth it to call out his horribly executed lie. “Right… anyways, I want a hug, I’m hot.”
“It’s twenty degrees, what d’you mean, you’re hot?” He narrowed his eyes, dark liner moving with the skin.
“Twenty degrees can be hot.” You shrugged, taking his frigid, almost skeletal hand in yours. “Please, Bills?”
He grumbled, sighing theatrically. “You’re meant to be scared of me, not asking me to hug you…” he paused for a moment, before circling your waist with his slender arms. “I oughta lock you up in the attic and cool you off…”
“You say something?”
“Nothing, darling.”
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taglist ;; @shadestar413 , @shsl-supreme-simp , @kerokira , @spleen-official
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ax-writes · 4 months
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chapter 2
in which- wilbur is acting awfully weird, and his bestfriend, tommy, isn't helping
chapter info- uncertainty, worrying, tommy being a shithead, anxiety, graphic descriptions of clothing /j, bittersweet maybe, nervousness, overthinking, more so thoughts
a/n- lmao, sorry this took so long to come out. i've been hella busy with school and assignments but now i have seven weeks to do whatever so many more cool things are gonna happen
pronouns- you/yours
masterlist-
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months had passed since that short meet at the tube, but you’d seen him more at least. you’d gotten to know him better, you got to meet some of his friends, and him meeting some of yours. you knew each other better than you’d ever known anyone and you felt like you were finally getting somewhere in this friendship.
you’d organised with him to meet at his flat, and he’d let you know that his friend, tommy, would be over, so you were expecting a very loud child to run at you when you opened the door. however, that was not the case. instead, all you heard was wilbur and tommy in presumably wilbur’s room talking. very loudly, may i add.
“i feel like they’d murder me, ya know? which is what makes them so… i don’t know, attractive?” wilbur’s voice rang through the apartment, and your heart dropped. why were you suddenly so jealous over an unknown person.
“you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” tommy laughed, and made his way towards the door, causing wilbur to catch your gaze. his door was slightly ajar and all he felt was fear of what and how much you had heard
“wait wait… tommy don’t go and tell them that!” wilbur begged. God, he was scared of a girl he’d met on the tube line. he’s a fucking mess over someone he’s known for close to two months.
“you literally called them a three course meal plus dessert. you have never talked about anyone like that. not even your ex! you have to tell them!” tommy whisper-shouted, gaining your attention. 
you’re sat on the sofa at this point, having kicked off your shoes and shrugged your jacket off at the door, waiting for the two males to emerge from wilbur’s bedroom. there was banter and chatting and overall just wilbur pleading and tommy forcing him to say something. if you had a say, it was unfair. a boy younger than the man forcing him to go tell you that he has feelings for someone, but him begging to not have to tell you.
‘strange’
but now, you had a very tall man in front of you, a shy smile on his face. he resembled a sad puppy more than he actually resembled a grown man.
‘weird’ 
and a younger blonde boy behind him, grinning widely, poking at the poor man’s back.
‘what is going on’
“get coffee with me tomorrow, 10am, at the cafe down the road” and that’s all that was muttered throughout the night, some marvel movie now playing per tommy’s request. and both you and wilbur couldn’t be bothered paying attention to the movie, too caught up in your own thoughts, which seemed to occupy the other.
‘this feels awfully familiar’
the next morning rolled around. wilbur had texted you and told you what you needed to wear, soothing your anxieties.
you threw on a beige sweater and some random pair of sweatpants, fixed up your bed head, pulled on a pair of worn out converse, and you were out the door, your feet carrying you towards the cosy cafe.
‘fuck’ 
there he was. 
scrolling through his phone, a solemn expression spread across his features. his beat up sweater wrinkled and decorated with ramen stains. his jeans creased and rolled up at the ankles, dotted with specks of dirt. his converse falling apart and fading at the edges, smeared with mud around the soles. and his hair-
‘god, his hair’
his hair flopping in front of his eyes and curling in every direction, the sunlight hitting each curl just right.
and as you were about to make your way towards the door, he held eye contact with you, a slight smirk on his lips.
‘he caught on’
after the coffee, date, hangout, you didn’t know, you were sat back in your boring, plain, expressionless flat, you couldn’t help but have your mind caught up in a tangle.
wilbur was certainly a gentleman, but there was no context on why you had to have that coffee with him at 10am on a saturday morning. there was no closure. what was happening now. was he trying to get your attention, was he trying to progress the friendship, did he want to be more than what you two already were-
‘no, that can’t be possible’
until the next saturday and a weird message from tommy.
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