#just when I thought I had stopped getting new symptoms

[yoonivy]

symptom of your touch.

modern!aemond targaryen x fem!reader

genre. smut & angst. friends with benefits.

All through his life, Aemond got used to it; toiling for the things that Aegon is freely given. But you… You were the only exception. Aemond cannot bear to lose you to Aegon too.

warnings. rough sex, creampie, breeding kink, dirty talk & degradation, mirror sex. unrequited love.

author’s note. titled after the aly & aj song but also heavily inspired by a taylor swift song!

word count. 7k+

--

It is Aegon who invited you to come over to watch movies with his family that night. 

But when you make the two second walk from your front door to his just next door, your best friend isn’t even there.

“Where is he?”

Daeron shrugs at your question, opening the door wider so you can step inside the Targaryen household. “Dunno. He left, like, half an hour ago, though.”

You heave a sigh, tapping the phone in your hand. 

To Aegon — where are you????

You hear their mother, Alicent, calling you from the kitchen so you make your way there.

“Hey, sweetie,” she greets with a gentle smile when she sees you. “Have you ate, yet?”

You nod, slipping onto an island stool beside Helaena. “I ate dinner just before I came over.”

You caress your hand on Aegon’s younger sister’s arm as a form of hello and she smiles sweetly at you while her mother lifts up a tupperware for you to see. “Well there’s leftovers here if you get hungry later, okay?”

“Thanks, Alicent,” you chirp as Alicent stores the food inside the refrigerator. 

After an exhausted huff that causes the tendrils of the loosened hair from her bun to fly, Alicent still manages to give you a grin. “No problem, my love,” then with a frown, she looks down at the smatchwatch on her wrist. “Do you know where Aegon is? I thought we’re having a movie night?”

You shake your head. “I texted him but he hasn’t answered yet.”

“That boy… I swear…” 

“Let’s just start without him,” Daeron suggests, strolling into the room to grab a can of Coke from the fridge. Alicent grabs the drink from his grasp before he could open it.

“You’ve already had too much today,” is all Alicent says when the soon to be high school senior whines out ‘mooom!’ .

“We can watch a movie we know he won’t like first so he doesn’t get mad when he comes back during the middle of it,” Helaena speaks up just as your phone vibrates with a new message.

From Aegon — i’ll be back soon 😘 — just start without me

You scowl, noting that he didn’t really answer your question. But whatever. 

“Aegon said to start without him,” you tell his family. 

Alicent sighs, head shaking. Then she turns to Helaena with a smile, “Bug, can you pick the movie?”

Helaena nods enthusiastically, hopping off the stool to do just that.

“Daeron, help me with the snacks,” Alicent instructs, already grabbing bowls from the cupboards. “And ____, sweetie, can you get Aemond? He’s in his room.”

The request has you gnawing on your bottom lip, reluctant, but you take a deep breath and say, “Yeah, sure.”

Alicent looks over her shoulder, kind eyes on you. “Thank you.”

Then her attention is back on Daeron, who once again tries to open a can of pop. “Daeron!”

You leave them to enter the small hallway, stopping at the bottom of the staircase. You stare up at the second floor, anxiousness twisting knots in your stomach. 

You have not spoken to Aemond since the party at Quentyn Martell’s last weekend.

You still remember the crushing look of hurt on his handsome face when you told him what you needed to tell him, all too well.

Every step you take up the stairs reminds you how awful you’ve been to him all summer. It was completely unintentional, but you can’t deny how selfish you’ve been. Especially since you know that Aemond would be willing to do it over and over again if you only asked him to.

You rap on Aemond’s door with the back of your hand, hearing him call from inside, “Yes?”

“We’re, um, gonna start movie night now…” you trail off, speaking to the closed door. Your voice is so soft, like you don’t want to be heard by him. “If you wanna—”

The door suddenly swings open, and you meet Aemond’s wide open stare. 

You cannot help but stare back. You still cannot believe this is your best friend’s younger brother. The gangly boy you grew up with. 

Aemond has filled out more, still lean yet definitely defined in all the right places. He chopped off his gorgeously long hair into a cropped haircut for the first time in forever. Although you were initially sad about the haircut, the short hair grew on you. Especially when he styled it to part neatly to the side — he looks so handsome.

When you saw him for the first time in the beginning of the summer, you thought you were dreaming.

His first year away from home was good to him.

“Hey,” you breathe out, offering him a wavering smile.

He takes you in completely, violet eyes washing over you. Every second has you feeling smaller, nervous for his final reaction. Then finally — “Hey.”

An uncomfortable silence falls between the two of you. And you feel so uneasy, you had to turn away from his stare, cocking your head down the stairs. “Um, we should…”

Frowning, Aemond nods. “Right.”

He slips out his room to walk ahead of you, and for some reason your stupid, stupid guilty conscious makes a grab for his arm to stop him on his track.

“Wait, Aemond–” He stiffens under your touch. You press your lips together before asking, “Do you want to talk about what happened first?”

Aemond whips his head to look at you, and you notice the dark circles under his sullen eyes. He looks so sad and you hate yourself because you know you are the reason. 

He shakes his head slowly, prying your hands off him with such gentle care. You’re not sure if he is trying not to hurt you or himself. “No. Let’s just have a good night tonight, alright?”

After a tentative nod, you follow him down the stairs and to the living room, lagging a few steps behind to give him space.

Unfortunately, since the two of you are the last to arrive, the only seat available is beside each other on the couch. But luckily, since Aegon isn’t there yet, there is a comfortable space between the two of you. 

After the second movie is done, Alicent heads to bed first for work in the early morning. Being a widowed mother for eight years already, Alicent has gotten used to being the breadwinner for the family even if now her children are helping support her — with the three oldest already in university with decent paying jobs on the side. She can stop working if she wanted to — Viserys left a big inheritance — but you think she’s just lonely and needs something to occupy her time during the year when the home is empty except for her and Daeron.

Halfway through the third movie, Helaena says her goodnight with a yawn. She hugs you and Aemond, then kisses Daeron’s forehead (which he pretends to be grossed out by), before she heads upstairs to her room.

Before the fourth movie even starts, Daeron’s snores are resounding loud in the room, mouth wide open and asleep on the reclined leather chair. Aemond sits up to throw the blanket that Helaena had abandoned on his little brother and then settles right back down beside you — even though there is another couch now empty for him to sit on.

With Aemond by your side the entire night, you tried not to look at your phone out of respect for him and his feelings. But as it gets later and later, you can’t help but start looking between the television playing the fourth movie, your phone, and the door like clockwork. 

You’re worried. It’s already past midnight and Aegon is still not home. 

You’ve sneakily texted him a couple of times during the first two movies, but he hasn’t answered. 

You open up SnapChat now, knowing that would probably give you an idea on where he might be. 

Of course, the first story you see is of Aegon sticking his tongue down Jeyne Westerling’s throat just 10 minutes ago.

You close off the app with a disgusted grunt, finally deciding it’s time to go.

“I’m gonna head home,” you tell Aemond after an irritated huff. 

“I– alright…”

When you stand up, Aemond does too. He follows you to the front door.

“You can stay the night,” Aemond says before you step into your shoes.

You stand up straight, still no shoes on, to give him a wan smile, “I have my perfectly good bed just next door, Aemond.”

Aemond nods slow, glaring at the ground. Then his gaze flicks up to meet yours, his purple eyes so intense that your mouth parts in a soft gasp. He presses his lips together to wet him with his tongue, and rephrases his previous statement into a question, “Do you want to stay the night… with me?”

Your heart catches in your throat.

“I thought that– Didn’t you—” you draw a slow, deep breath; trying again so you don’t stumble your words anymore, “You said you wanted to stop this.”

“I was drunk when I said that.”

“Drunk words are sober thoughts,” you remind him.

Aemond scoffs, looking off to the side. “Then that saying is clearly false.”

Then his gaze finds yours again, wide and imploring. Don’t make me ask again, his pretty violet eyes say, because you know I will. I always will.

You should say no and go home. 

It’s a terrible idea and you’ll regret it now that you know how much it hurts him when you leave him after.

But your better judgment gets away from you, remembering how Aemond’s body feels against yours. 

“Okay…I’ll stay the night, ” You tell him, slow yet sure. “…With you.”

Aemond lets out a shuddering breath he had been holding, cupping your face to pull you into an unhurried and tender kiss. It’s sweet and chaste. That’s how it always starts.

As quiet as you both can, you slip into his room together, Aemond’s hand holding yours. 

As soon as he locks his door behind him, Aemond’s mouth is on yours again. This time with more heat, stoking a burning flame deep in your loins. His large hands slip under your shirt, grasping tight on your hips. When your mouth parts with a keening mewl, he takes that opportunity to slip his tongue in your mouth, deepening the kiss with a pleasured grunt of his own.

Aemond pulls apart from you, glancing down to unbutton and unzip your jeans with experienced quickness. 

“Off,” he commands between heaving breaths, watching you through dark and hooded eyes as you do exactly what he says. 

When you kick away your jeans, Aemond is already pulling you back to him and pushing your back against the wall, lifting up your right leg around his waist to grind the hard bulging in his pants against your panty covered core. 

You stutter out a moan into his mouth, and he hushes you, catching your bottom lip between his teeth, pulling and nipping until they feel swollen and raw. You damage his the same with every fervent kiss you crush against his mouth. 

Neither of you stop, unable to pull away from the other’s lips or grinding hips. Not even when Aemond slips a hand down and pressed his fingers onto the cotton of your frilly black panty, the pads of his fingers becoming wet and sticky at the contact. 

It has him choking out an airy moan, cursing under his breath. “Seven Hells…  you’re soaked.”

You bite at his shoulder to suppress a whine, bucking into his fingertips as they tease the sensitive button between your thighs. 

“All for me, right, pretty girl?” He huskily murmurs in your ear, his finger rubbing and rubbing until your legs start to shake around him. 

You nod fervently at Aemond’s question, and he rewards you with a smirk, another bruising kiss, and his fingers pulling your panty to the side to trace up and down the folds of your cunt. He spreads your slick with every slow glide, and it has you needy for something more. 

“Aemond, please…”

He lets out a husky chuckle as you feel his fingers teasing at your entrance. You move your hips to try to force it to slip into you, but Aemond pulls away with a playful hum. “Uh-Uh.” 

Your mouth opens to protest, but then Aemond suddenly tucks a finger inside you. It has you keening and whining instead, grasping onto him tightly.

“Good girl,” Aemond praises breathily against your temple. He put another finger in beside the first and starts fucking into you at a moderate pace and occasionally scissoring wide. You wince at the stretch but you love it. His fingers slide slowly in and out of you, deeper each time until they’re all the way down to the knuckles, curling so it hits your sweet spot. Biting down your bottom lip, you stifle a moan as you come undone, dripping onto Aemond’s hand. He groans without stopping the flick of his wrists, keeps you shaking and writhing against him throughout your whole orgasm, “That’s it… That’s a good girl.”

Once you’re spent, Aemond pulls his fingers out of you. He brings it up between you, both noticing how much it gleams, fully covered in your juices. Keeping his gaze in yours, Aemond presses his soaked digits against your bottom lip, which you open without hesitation, darting your tongue out to taste yourself on him. Aemond grunts, sticking his fingers deeper in your mouth. Eyelash fluttering at him, you close your lips around his digits with a hum, sucking and licking until your essence is nearly gone. 

Aemond grins in satisfaction, gaze soft with endearment, and then he is kissing you once more.

“I can’t wait any more,” he tells you, pressing his hard bulge onto you as evidence of that. 

Stumbling onto the bed, Aemond falls over you; his mouth hot on the juncture of your jaw and neck; and his hand spanning wide and grazing up your ribcage, dragging your shirt up with him.

He groans when his thumb brushes across the underside of your breast, finding you bare.

“Knew you weren’t wearing anything underneath, little tease,” he sneers in your ear, biting at the lobe while his fingers twists at a nipple until it pebbles under his touch. “That’s why you came over, right? Wanted me begging for another taste?”

Eyes squeezing shut, you shake your head no. 

That’s not what you wanted. You didn’t come over to hurt him again.

But when Aemond dips down and his warm mouth latches onto the nipple on the side of your chest that his hand was not already groping tenderly, your back arches for him. For more.

And so there might have been a small chance that he is right in his assumptions.

You feel Aemond’s teeth grazing your skin. And when you glance down at him with a whimper, he meets your gaze with mirth and something more feral in his own. Then he is biting down around the well-sucked and hardened nub, teeth marks replacing the one he made there last week that is fading away. 

As your hand threads through his hair, Aemond’s tongue laves across the valley of your breast, tasting salt skin, and then proceeds to do the same to that nipple exactly what he had done to the one before. 

His hand trails down, pushing your underwear aside once more to press his fingers inside again — though this time, it’s slow and his thumb is drawing lazy circles around your clit.

You come for the second time that night like that, from the combination of him fingerfucking you and biting your chest multiple times as if laying his claim on you.

Aemond sits up on his knees to look down at you. 

He admires the sight of you laying under him with your shirt rucked up over your tits, heavily breathing, nipples wet and raw from his mouth, and your cunt dripping for him while your thighs are covered in your mess that he made of you. 

Aemond hunches over, a palm pressed on the mattress just beside your head and his other hand gripping so tightly around your jaw that your mouth falls open.

“You’re such a messy slut ,” Aemond sneers at you, but his tone has a hint of lightness in it, praiseful; and when he spits in your mouth right after, you swallow it down with a contented mewl. There’s a glint of possessiveness in Aemond’s dilated eyes, the violet irises hardly visible anymore.

“ My messy slut,” he all but growls, kissing you again and again and again. 

There is something about the way Aemond kisses you. It is like he is trying to put all his mounting feelings there against your lips, because he knows if he says it aloud, you will just likely run away. 

So you let him. Let Aemond kiss you as though the two of you are lovers. Like this isn’t just a beneficial arrangement between two lonely and desperate people.

When he pulls back, he stares at you for a while, his hand curled at the side of your face while his thumb tenderly grazes along the fullness of your cheek. He licks his lips, as if he is going to say something, but then he stops and shakes his head to himself.

“Come on, get on all fours,” he commands instead, laying a solid smack on your outer thigh to get you moving. You roll over, getting on your elbows and knees while also throwing a playful glare over your shoulder at him, mouthing a reminder that his sister is just in the room next door. 

After rolling his eyes, Aemond pulls his shirt off and throws it carelessly somewhere in his room and pulls his jeans and underwear enough for his hard cock to spring out.

You entice him with a sway of your hips, and what you get in return is a slap over your cunt. It makes you accidentally yelping out loud, but you cut it off by dropping your head forward to bite down on the pillow beneath you. 

“Act like a whore and you get treated like one,” Aemond reminds you, gripping your hips hard enough to leave indents of crescent moons on your skin. You nod in understanding, smearing makeup all over his pillowcase. 

Aemond grabs the fat of your ass, spreading your cheeks apart. It feels so lewd, how you feel him leering at the way both your holes clenches, how you’re absolutely dripping down your legs and onto the cover of his bed.

“The prettiest little pussy in the whole Seven Kingdoms,” Aemond murmurs, so softly as if he had not meant to say it out loud, and yet the compliment sends a thrill down your spine while you whimper for him.

But that does not compare to the noise you make when he gathers up saliva in his mouth, only to slowly dribble it out to drop onto you, letting it drip down the cleft of your ass all the way down through the folds of your pussy. “But it’s so soaked and eager for cock like a slut.”

You can’t help but hum in agreement, pushing back to grind your ass along his length. He lays a wet smack to your ass for that little disobedient act, though before you can arch away, he pulls you towards him, his cock spearing you wide open. In this position, you feel every twitch of the veins on his cock while he reaches so deep inside you. The leaking head of his cock pressing against that sweet spot with every thrust of his hips against your ass. You shut your eyes to focus on the wonderful feeling.

“Gods, you’re so tight and sweet,” Aemond hisses, throwing his head back. The way your cunt squeezes around him is like a chokehold. It’s hard for him to breathe at how amazing it feels, his body moving and his heart racing for more. 

He looks back down again, the sight of the mixture of his precum and your juices frothing around the base of his cock as he slams into you again and again has him groaning.

He grabs onto a fistful of your hair, pulls you up until your back hits his chest. The new position has you sinking down on his cock, writhing and mewling with every inch you take.

“Look up,” Aemond whispers in your ear, and when your eyes finally flutter open, you see the reflection of yourself and Aemond in the mirrored sliding door of his closet. It is quite a sight – your red-rimmed eyes, your tear stained cheeks, the heavy heaving of your arched chest, the hickeys and bite marks all over your body, and the way your glistening cunt is stretched so wide around Aemond’s huge cock. “Gods, you’re gorgeous. And you look so good getting fucked.”

To prove his point, he guides you to ride him with his hands on your hips. 

“Keep your eyes on me, sweetheart,” Aemond orders as he pulls your hair back tighter, fucking up into you when he pushes your hips down. You moan out his name which makes him smirk, his hand covering your mouth to muffle your incoherent and pleasured noises. “Shh… Shh… Shh… If you get any louder, someone’s gonna barge in here and see how you’re such a cockslut for me… So just keep quietly taking my cock like a good little girl, yeah?”

Nodding, you press your lips together in hopes to obey him, not wanting to get punished when you are so close. You watch yourself in the mirror getting fucked so roughly, the heat inside you continuing to build up.

“Fuck, you feel so goddamn good,” Aemond hotly murmurs against the side of your neck, leaving more hickeys there as a reminded of tonight.

You’re greedy. So greedy. 

You love the way Aemond makes you feel.  

He fucks you rough and hard in the way you crave; but with every touch, you feel his adoration for you.

You revel in it. 

Greedy. Greedy. Greedy. 

“Come on, baby, come on my cock — Fuck! You look so good, bouncing on my cock… Can’t wait to fill your tight little cunt… Gonna breed you— yeah? You like that, little slut? Fuck, that’s what I thought…”

Aemond loses it when you nod at his accusation of you wanting him to breed you. He drives into you until your eyes start to roll back, seeing stars.

You made him this way. This is how you slowly coaxed him to take you. When this first started, Aemond was sweet and caring, cooing praises into your ear with every slow thrust of his hips. But as it went on, you asked more of him. A hand squeezing around your neck, a strike rippling your bottom until it’s bruised, had him uttering spiteful and awful names that made you cry —  you don’t know why but that’s how you like it. 

(Perhaps it’s because of the rumors you heard about another Targaryen guy who likes to fuck girls just as roughly.)

At the thought, you come impossibly hard. Your squirt goes everywhere, has Aemond slipping out at how wet it is. He groans in both frustration and satisfaction, pushing back inside you just in time to fill you up to the brim with his cum. He empties inside you, rolling your hips against him until you are too sensitive, whimpering for him to hold on a second. 

Aemond does not care and does not give you a moment to catch your breath, already pushing you back down on the bed and turning you on your side, lifting your leg to hang on his shoulder and guides his already hardened cock back inside you again. Though feeling oversensitive now, you can’t deny how much you want more. Until you can’t think anymore about why your best friend still hasn’t made his way home yet or whose bed he ended up in tonight.

Aemond fucks you until the morning light, has you shaking and quivering and cumming in every new position — on your back, in a mating press, his tongue spreading over you, behind you again… 

--

You wake up cuddling with Aemond, after only a few hours of sleep. But you feel well rested despite that and the strenuous activities you partook in all night and early morning. 

Humming in content, you nuzzle your face into the nape of Aemond’s neck. Surprisingly, this morning you are the big spoon, your arm and leg thrown over Aemond’s body like a clingy koala.  

Ever the light sleeper, the butterfly kisses you leave on his spine has Aemond stirring, turning his body in a still half-asleep pace to face you. 

“Mornin’,” he drawls huskily, an adorable sleepy grin on his lips. 

“Good morning,” you greet back with a smile, a bit more chirpy and awake. You lean in to give him a sweet peck on his lips, but Aemond pulls you in for something deeper as his hand slides to the nape of your neck in a possessive hold. You mewl as his tongue slips in your mouth and when you feel him thickening up against your thigh.

Gently, you push him onto his back, mouth still on each other with passionate kisses as you climb on top of him. You only part for his lips for a second to grab his hard cock to ease your cunt over it, sliding him inside you with a wet squelch. 

Aemond sighs at the tight clench of your walls around him, languidly kissing you while you roll your hips over him. The sex is slow and sweet, gentler than all the ones the two of you had in the last eight hours.

You cream around him in such a lovely way, softly moaning his name in his ear for only him to hear. That’s all it takes for Aemond to come inside you again.

“I need to pee,” you tell Aemond a couple minutes later, your fingers running gently through his hair while his face is tucked into the crook of your shoulder.

Aemond doesn’t immediately let you free, he even tightens his arms around you. He pulls his head back though, the back of it hitting the wall behind him, just to peer at your pretty face. 

“Just piss on my cock… You’d probably like that,” he says with a teasing smirk.

You shove at him, laughing as you get up from his softened length and off the bed too. “Shut up!”

Once you find your tiny crop top, you put it on. You find your underwear too, but it’s so ruined that you throw it at Aemond instead. He catches it easily, balling it up in his hand and takes a deep inhale, all the while without taking his gaze off you.

Though the sight makes you heat up from head to toe, you wrinkle your nose at him. “Gross.”

Aemond only grins. He knows you well enough — you like depraved shit like that. If you already weren’t so stuffed full of his cum, he’ll probably find you wet again just from his little panty sniffing stunt. 

As you put on your jeans and socks, you and Aemond are making playful conversation.

It’s easy. It’s nice. It feels a little too domestic that it has Aemond thinking this could be a start of something. But he knows he shouldn’t get his hopes up like this.

“— I still can’t believe the Oberyn Martell is actually going to be a professor at your uni next year…”

“You know, it’s never too late to transfer,” Aemond tells you with a frown. The school he is attending now was your dream school all your life, and yet when you got in, you declined the offer – to go to the same school as his brother. “You got in once. You can easily do it again.”

“Yeah, but…” You are standing by his desk, flipping through the brochure detailing the seminars Oberyn Martell, a famous political journalist, will be holding for the rest of the year before his official classes for the next year at Dorne University. You shrug, sending a weak smile his way, “King is pretty good too. I’ve no real complaints except for…”

In the middle of speaking, you trail off, staring out the window as a heavy revving of an old car engine can be heard outside.

Aemond already knows who it is. 

It’s Aegon, pulling up into the driveway in his sleek red 1968 Shelby. But what really gives it away is how your brows knit together as you watch Aegon walk up the pathway, whistling happily without a care in the world, as if he wasn’t out all night making you worried sick.

Aemond is looking at you the same – longingly and sad. Hoping and wishing and praying for you to feel something for him, even just a tiny bit of what you feel for his older brother. 

“I should go,” you tell Aemond with a wan smile after you quickly check yourself in the mirror to fix anything amiss.  

Sighing tiredly, all Aemond can do is nod as he stares down on his lap.

Without another word, you leave him there glancing down at his hands that just touched you all night, memorized every curve of your body, and found all the right places that made you sing in pleasure.

--

Aemond heads downstairs ten minutes after you left, already hearing laughter coming from the kitchen. The air smells of fresh brewed coffee, bacon, eggs, and waffles. 

He passes by Daeron in the living room. The youngest Targaryen has a plate of all of that beside where he sits on the ground while his focus is on the story-driven zombie apocalyptic video game on the television screen. 

When Aemond arrives at the kitchen, he stands by the arch of the door, leaning on his side against it with his arms crossed in front of him. 

He hates how his heart aches, watching as you laugh so joyfully at a story Aegon is animatedly telling while he pours maple syrup on a plate of waffles that the two of you were sharing . Aemond knows you don’t like things too sweet, and yet you allow Aegon to drown the waffles until they are soggy.  

It’s always like this. You give, Aegon takes. You give up your dream school because Aegon’s fragile ego couldn’t handle being rejected and wants you beside him at all times. You let him treat you like shit because you are so in love with him. 

You’re so enraptured by Aegon’s attention finally on you that you don’t even notice that Aemond has been there for a while. 

Aegon tells a joke that has you laughing so hard, your head tilting back to expose your neckline.

All of the sudden, Aegon stops laughing with you, a frown on his face as his hand reaches out to touch a mark on your neck. “I didn’t know you’re hooking up with someone…”

Clearing your throat, you pull away from his touch, smoothing your hair down to hide the mark. “I’m not.”

Aegon rolls his eyes, “Oh, cause you really gave yourself a hickey… right. So who is it?” He starts to name all the guys the two of you know, and everytime you shake your head and tell him to stop, he just gets even more annoyed and angry. 

Aemond can tell that Aegon is jealous, always so possessive of you even though he doesn’t want you. But you don’t notice, you just think he’s mad cause he thinks you are screwing one of his friends.

“Can you just let it go, Aegon?” You grit out, after telling him once again that no, you are not screwing either of the Cargyll twins.

“I don’t get why you won’t tell me who it is? I tell you about all the girls I hook up with all the time!”

“And you think I want to know?”

“Just– tell me–”

“She said to let it go, Aegon,” Aemond barks out, finally making his presence known. 

Aegon stares between his brother and you, breathing heavily in anger. 

“Whatever. I don’t need this,” Aegon fumes in conclusion, storming out the kitchen door that leads to the backyard, and it slams close behind him.

Chewing at your lip, your gaze is set on the door he just left from.

Aemond takes a tentative step towards you. “Don’t, ___…” You glance towards him, the telltale sign that you are about to burst out crying evident in the hiccupy way you are trying to get air through your parted mouth. Aemond presses his lips together, trying to convince you to stay by how carefully he is approaching you. You deserve to be treated as a first choice. Aemond would always treat you as such. “Stop… Stop always being at his beck and call.”

You seem to think about it. Maybe he can finally get through to you — but then the revving of Aegon’s car is so loud, it snaps you out of it. You frown, eyes watering. “I’m so sorry, Aemond…”

Then you are running out after Aegon like you always seem to be.

--

Summer’s ending, and every single day, Aemond’s wishing for it to just be over.  

Sure he can change his flight back to Sunspear to an earlier one, but he knows his mother would question why and also be incredibly sad about it. Aemond does not have the heart to do that to her. 

He has all his luggage packed already, eager to just book it to the airport as soon as he is able to. 

It’s been too much to bear. He still sees you pretty much every day but he hasn’t talked to you since that morning a week and half ago. 

But of course, you and Aegon have reconciled. Attached to the hips once again. Best friends forever and ever and ever and ever — just like the two of you would often promise each other since you were young. 

Aemond calls it the honeymoon period. When you and Aegon make up after a fight (one that Aegon is usually the cause of and the one that starts it for no reason) and spend every waking minute together for the next few weeks. Aegon will demand for your time whenever he wants it, has you waiting by your phone for his call and canceling plans that he is not a part of. You don’t seem to mind though, as long as Aegon showers you with needy and dependent affections… Until a new girl catches his eyes that has him wagging his tail and tongue hanging out. He then neglects your friendship in pursuit to get in her bed, causing another fight.  

Rinse and repeat. 

The cycle will never end. 

Not unless you end it. Decide that you’ve had enough of Aegon treating you like a convenient option instead of a priority. 

Or more unlikely, for Aegon to finally return your feelings. 

But Aemond highly doubts either of those will ever happen. 

“Hey, are you ready yet?”

Speak of the devil…

Aegon peeks his head inside Aemond’s room. He didn’t even bother to at least knock before he barged in. He takes a look at where Aemond is sitting against the headboard of his bed with a book in his hands — dressed in dark blue jeans, a plain white t-shirt with a black short-sleeved shirt loose and unbuttoned over it. 

“Oh good, you are!” Aegon then opens the door wider. “Actually, can I talk to you about something?”

Aemond huffs in irritation, and before he can even answer, Aegon steps inside like he owns the place, closing the door behind him.

Aegon takes his sweet time – glancing around, picking up things on Aemond’s desk to look at, then putting it back down, flicking at the picture taped on the wall… Finally, he turns to face Aemond and comes out with it, “Do you know who _____ is hooking up with?”

Aemond’s eyes widen slightly but then quickly keeps his expression carefully neutral, not wanting to give anything away. “No. Why would I know?”

Aegon nods slowly, but there’s something about the way his lips purses to the side seems disbelieving.

Aemond clears his throat after standing up from the bed. “Why are you even asking me?” 

Did you tell Aegon something? About you and him?

“I dunno, just asking…” Aegon shrugs, mouth pulled down in an exaggerated frown. “…You two have been spending a lot of time together lately, so I just thought you would know.”

With narrowed eyes, Aemond reminds him, “The only reason we’ve been spending a lot of time together is because you’re always ditching her for other girls.” 

Aegon licks his lips and then grins uncomfortably at how his younger brother just called him out. “I see that now… I think it’s because I—“ Aegon stops mid sentence and sniffs noisily, rubbing his hand over his mouth as he starts to pace a bit. 

Aemond is quick to pick up on his brother’s odd behaviour and eyes him quizzically. 

Then Aegon stops and looks directly into Aemond’s eyes — an expression of open vulnerability sets on Aegon’s features that Aemond feels his stomach drop. 

Oh fuck no… Don’t you fucking dare say it, Aemond thinks with a slight shake of his head. 

“I think I like her, Aemond,” Aegon confesses, eyes wide and watery. “I think I’m gonna tell her tonight.”

At his sides, Aemond clenches his fists, his nails biting into his palms enough to hurt. But his expression remains unbothered, apathetic even. 

“Why are you telling me as if I care what you do with your life?”

Aegon chuckles with a roll of his eyes. “ Please, I’m not a complete idiot…” He is grinning as he takes a step closer to Aemond. “I know you’re in love with her…” Aemond cringes at the truth being said so loud in his otherwise quiet room. “…and you have been ever since we were young.”

Aemond’s glare on Aegon is heated. 

So Aegon knew, and yet he always held your loyalty and preference to him over Aemond’s head.

With another step forward, Aegon is right in front of Aemond. The younger Targaryen’s nostrils flare, trying to keep his anger in check with his steady breathing. 

“And I’m not cruel, Mondy…” Aegon says, and yet he is looking up at him with a taunting smirk. “I care about you, so I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

Then, just as he is about to turn and leave Aemond’s room, he clamps a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, fingers digging in as he sneers into Aemond’s ear, “And just so you know… I intended to replace every filthy mark you’ve stained on her body with my own.”

Aegon’s smirk then turns to a playful smile as he lightly smacks Aemond’s cheek twice. “Mum wants to leave soon to get a good spot at the beach, so hurry up, yeah?”

--

It is a Targaryen family tradition to celebrate the annual summer festival that marks the end of summer at Blackwater Bay beach. But obviously with what Aegon has planned to do tonight, Aemond would rather be anywhere but there. 

When Alicent’s mini Cooper pulls into the parking lot of the beach, Aemond guesses it’s a little too late to back out. He steps out of the car, just as a red Shelby parks just right beside them. 

Aegon exits his car, sunglasses on even though it’s already pretty dark outside. You’re not with him, Aemond notes, only the Cargyll twins follow after Aegon. You must be coming here with Alys and them.

Aemond helps Alicent grab the coolers from the back of the Cooper along with Daeron, letting Helaena take the lead to a perfect grassy area to watch the fireworks from. Aemond doesn’t stick around, deciding to walk the boardwalk that trails along the beach.

That is when Aemond catches sight of you, in a pretty white linen summer dress and your toes already in the sand. You are laughing with Alys and Rhaena, a lit up sparkler in your hand.

So pretty, like a shining star.

So close, yet so out of reach.

Just when he is about to step onto the white sand to make his way to you, someone bumps harshly past his shoulder. 

With a scowl, Aemond watches on in bitter jealousy as Aegon runs to you, feet on the sand and an unlit sparkler in his hand. He captures your attention with a call of your name, and you look back at him, smiling so beautifully — a smile solely reserved for Aegon. It has your girlfriends giggling, skipping away arm in arm to give the two of you some time alone together.

With a nod, you press the tip of your sparkling sparkler to light his.

As soon as it does, Aegon leans close, murmuring something in your ear. When he pulls back, your eyes are wide, a mixture between guarded and hopeful.

In the dark, Aemond can barely read your lips,

You do?

Aegon nods. 

Then his lips are on yours just as fireworks light up the night sky in brilliant arrays of colors and patterns. 

It’s a picture perfect scene. One that could be in the movies when the leading hero finally gets the girl.

And as always, Aemond is left way far down on the list of credits in the story of Aegon’s life. 

All through his life, Aemond got used to it; toiling for the things that Aegon is freely given. 

When Aegon got his father’s beloved car when he passed away, Aemond didn’t care.

When Aemond got into the best school in the whole Seven Kingdoms and yet the fanfare wasn’t nearly as huge as when Aegon got into King’s Landing U, Aemond also didn’t care.

But even if he had anticipated it happening again – he didn’t think it would hurt this much.

Because it’s you . You are the one thing that Aemond wanted so badly for himself. He has been in love with you all his life and would have done anything for you, if you’d only let him.

Aemond chuckles bitterly, tearing his gaze away from you and Aegon, still locking lips.

Now you’re just another prize that Aegon has won without merit. 

And Aemond? 

He is the fool who stupidly got his hopes up — because all along, you were never even his to lose.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x reader #aemond smut #aemond targaryen smut #hotd imagine #hotd #aemond #aemond targaryen

[almonddirge]

Hand shaking worse with a bonus of leg shake bad too

#almond rambles #just when I thought I had stopped getting new symptoms #literally cut my daily walk down by a third because I physically wouldn’t be able to make it home otherwise #*shakes fist weakly at god* kill me already. I’m done with this

[feelslikegold]

.

#so #I guess I need to vent bc I can’t handle my anxiety and isolation any longer ig #my mother has been in the hospital for a week now #she had pneumonia but then they found all these things #like a blood clot in the lung and stuff #and they said it was symptoms of long covid bc me and her got hit hard in 2021 with covid #and they put her on a lot of medication and ran a bunch of tests #and they said that from long covid #she has some damage to her heart #idk anything about medical stuff and she’s waiting on the cardiologist to go talk to her #but I am 2000 miles away #and feel so helpless and so hopeless #and i’m really close with my parents/the baby of the family #and I have had severe anxiety since she went in #and each day it gets worse bc tests show something new #and I literally do not know how to handle it #I also have obsessive repetitive thoughts that are god awful and they have not stopped in a full week #so I have made myself ultimately SO sick from anxiety like I have my own chest pains rn #and then the hypochondriac in me is like…I had covid when she did and we had the same lingering symptoms so like. is my heart damaged too 🙂 #and yeah like. I have had severe panic attacks daily now like I just had one in a parking lot and had to go home and now I just feel????? #so numb and so????? I genuinely hate this I cannot handle shit like this

[kajiimotojiiro]

Ugh

#im going to ramble in these tags for a bit so that the potentially triggering tags #are located way way way down and no one will look at them i just #so uh yeah hows the weather anyone else having insane sinus drainage #i actually had a patient call me today worried because her nose was running and her head hurt and im like #well if it isnt getting worse and its only been a few days and you have no other symptoms you probs have sinus issues like everyone else #in this state but if youre super worried and antihistamines dont help please contact your doctor i appreciate your faith in a pharmacist #being able to diagnose over the phone but i actually legally cannot do that #are these tags long enough yet #possibly but who knows anyway if youre here uhhh tw animal death ahead #im a petsitter and have been for like. 10 years now and i share sits with my mom sometimes bc i work full time and cant always get there #anyway at one of our shared sits today she went in and one of the little cats was just #suddenly dead. like she wasnt that old and yet she was just. stiff and gone and we're both just so fucked up over it #like i wish there had been some sign and we could have saved her even though it was likely an unfixable heart defect #and her people apparently had taken her to the vet LAST WEEK and didnt bother to tell us that she seemed to be feeling poorly last week #and theyre just like oh we'll get a new cat when we come back #meanwhile my ocd has been going insane since then bc i have really bad intrusive thoughts centering on keeping my cats alive #like half of my rituals are specifically for my cats #and i just keep think about poor sammie dying alone and scared bc we werent there with her and her people had been gone since friday #and it just makes me so fucking sad my heart is breaking but i cant stop thinking about it and no distractions are working #rip sammie you were such a sweet little cat and im so sorry you had to go alone and scared

[nexus-nebulae]

someone online: *talks about Symptoms Disorder*

me, curious: oh what is that

me: *reads the summary*

me: oh

me: *reads the symptoms list*

me: o h

#echos #in related news. am considering asking my doctor if i might have POTS- #like........ that symptom list is a Bit Too Accurate #and considering everything else we thought I had came back negative it might be this #honestly. i hope it is? just so that we can PLEASE figure out what's wrong with me and stop doing tests all the time #The main thing that gets me is we thought i had anemia because i get mini blackouts when i stand up #but then we did an iron test and its completely normal levels #so it might be this instead #plus a bunch of other stuff that Really Fits

[that-jack-kline-bestie]

fuck I’m gonna die forever and ever and I don’t want to do that

#tw intrusive thoughts #I overdose ONCE and now I can’t stop remembering what it feels like when your heart stops beating #literally I can’t even sleep at night I’m terrified I’ll die in my sleep #like yeah okay heart problems from this drug are extremely rare and you’d probably notice symptoms before it turned fatal if it ever did/ #/get life-threatening #but fuckkkkk if that helps much #I just want an ekg or something but my parents would know and it’d be so expensive and plus I’d have to explain that I stole my moms new/ #/meds as soon as I heard she got them and then I’d have to explain that I have had a bit more of a drug problem than they know about and/ #/GOD drug problems are so fucking common on my dads side it’ll disappoint him so much and it’ll give my mom one more thing to have a martyr/ #/complex about bc she’s just ‘so stressed’ man youre the one who didnt notice i was so high i could barely walk straight for a goddamn year #fuck #anyway

[queers-gambit]

Curiosity Killed The Cat

prompt: after rescuing you from kidnappers, you overhear your boyfriend-turned-savior complain about how clingy you've become.

pairing: Mafia!Bucky Barnes x female!reader

fandom masterlist: Marvel

word count: 5.1k+

note: author wants things out of her drafts! also don't take this fic too seriously, it's not much at all - just me writing for the fuck of it until i'm ready to focus on my bigger projects.

warnings: modern AU, Mafia AU, obvious cursing, small hurt and comfort, brief depiction of physical violence and self-destruction in the form of: loss of appetite, lack of sleep, other symptoms of depression. NOT edited! author is ashamed because she knows she can give you something better but oh well.

browse the Clingy Baby collection masterlist here

Your feet planted, jarring you to a halt the moment you heard your name in a conversation you were not apart of.

You heard the hammering of your heart, echoing beats of your blood pumping with harrowing desperation. Hands turned cold and clammy, sweat breaking out on your brow and then freezing, feeling as if your throat had swollen to a new restriction and you were anchored in you in place.

Rooted.

But for now, all you could identify was the paralyzing anxiety that anchored you to your spot and made your heartbeat thunder in your ears. You stood outside the lounge, unable to comprehend relevant thought; still listening to low, docile tones continue their conversation, but you couldn't hear real words.

You were stunned. Panicked, confused, hurt - so very hurt. That seemed to register, too; you were really, really hurt.

This was perhaps why curiosity killed the cat.

You reprimanded yourself for listening in - transporting back to childhood during all the times your parents would scold you for eavesdropping. You knew it was wrong, you knew this was a private conversation meant to be shared between trusting confidants, but you couldn't help it - you heard your name and stopped. It was natural, right? To feel curious regarding a conversation seemingly about you that you, yourself, was not apart of?

Curiosity, indeed.

Blinking rapidly, you remembered the only other time you felt such mounting, pressurized fear, and while it might be dramatic, the only other time you could remember this level of anxiety was from about two months ago...

"Yes, baby, I got the bacon."

"And the jalapeños?"

"Uh-huh, the biggest they had."

"Cream cheese?"

"Do you know who you're talking to?" You laughed into the phone. "I'm a professional housewife by now, you can relax. I got all you needed for your fancy little dinner experiment."

Bucky laughed down the phone, "Oh, please, like I didn't see you salivating when we watched the segment on Top Chef."

"Hush," you laughed, too. "I'm leaving the store now," you told him, pushing out of the heavy glass doors, "and should be home in, like, 10 minutes?"

"Lemme pick you up."

"I have legs to walk with, so, no thank you."

He sighed, "Well, I'll open the wine to let it breathe. Red's still good?"

"Let's do a white tonight, please."

"Good deal," he mused softly. "Hey, I was thinking earlier - "

"Hang on," you pleaded.

"What's wrong?"

"No, nothing. There's just a van slowing down, I don't want to get hit," you chuckled some, looking up and down the street before crossing. "Sorry, so, what were you thinking?"

"We haven't been to Paris in months."

You smirked, "I'm sure our plants in the apartment are dead by now."

Bucky laughed, "Oh, I am, too. But, look, how 'bout it, Peach? You, me, all the croissants we can consume this weekend. I'll take Monday and Tuesday off, we can leave tomorrow night."

"Oh, that sounds nice," you moaned. "Paris in the spring? Baby, that's so dreamy!"

"So, is that a yes?"

"It's a hell yes," you grinned. "Do you know the weather?"

"Supposed to be nice and sunny, not too warm or cold. Figured this would be ideal," he chuckled. "But does the weather matter if we're in bed the whole time?"

"No, we're not wasting our time!" You laughed. "We're gonna go do shit, okay? Stereotypical tourist-couple shit."

"I'll bring the camera."

"And I was hoping we could have dinner at that little place we love?"

"I wouldn't take you anywhere else," he mused.

"I think it's - FUCK!" Bucky froze when he heard the screeching of tires; a van coming up to a skidding halt, flurry of voices all yelling but he heard yours clearly. "No, no, no, hey, hey, what the hell's happening? Hey! What's this - hey, hey! Don't touch me! Ow, shit! No! Hey! Fuck's sake - oh, my God! Ow! Hey!"

"Baby!? Peach! Hey! The fuck's going on!?"

There was a thudding over the phone, and Bucky listened to more struggling - more fidgeting and fighting - and then the slamming of a car door. Still calling your name, Bucky heard a scrape over the line before a different voice answered your phone, "James Barnes. On behalf of HYDRA, you're overdue on your payment and we warned you there would be consequences. Deliver the full amount of 17 million - "

"It's 15," he growled.

"Two million more for the inconvenience of stalking your woman."

"If you even so much as touch her, I swear to God - "

"17 million at midnight, at the pier, or every minute you're late, she'll receive the brunt end of our frustration."

"Don't hurt her - "

"Midnight, Mr. Barnes, at the pier - you know where. Don't be late, she looks like she won't last long."

The line went dead after he heard your screech of pain, confusion, and fear. The moment the line cut, he dropped his phone and slowly lowered himself to sit on the kitchen floor, shock coloring his system. It wasn't that he didn't have the money, quite the opposite - but he and his men had a plan in motion to take out HYDRA, their org's competition, and this was totally against all they anticipated. After a minute to sit in his own worry, Bucky jumped to his feet, grabbed his phone, keys, wallet, and two handguns; holstering them both before shrugging his suit jacket on.

He made every phone call he could, gathering the men he trusted most to (one of) his warehouse(s).

For hours, you were strung up by your wrists in a joint-pulling position while the Brooklyn Mafia formulated a plan of attack. It was the most pain you've ever known, but then the abuse started and you were blinded by this new pain. You had bruises most places, cuts that wept blood; scars that would never heal, wounds that wouldn't ever close. You were delirious, miserable, confused, just dazed and confused; praying to a God who didn't listen.

"Oh, look at that," your captor mocked, holding a thick-bladed hunting knife in hand, "it's one minute til midnight, and I don't see your loverboy anywhere."

You sniffled, unable to respond.

He stared out the lone window, tisking and narrating, "Nope, I see not a soul - and with how protective he is over you, you'd think he'd want to ensure your safety. Not leave it to chance, huh?"

You whimpered as the clock struck midnight, your heart hammering in heavy-hung worry. You had tears in your eyes, heart nearly beating out of your chest, feeling incredibly nauseous. The desire to scream never lessened, just fearing what was to come; the men in the room making you fear for the state of your life, their knuckles cracking. You only begged, "Please. Don't."

The main captor laughed, "You can do better than that! C'mon, give me the satisfaction of tellin' ol' James you begged for mercy - but it wasn't enough to sway me. I'll lie, for sure, and say it happened but it will be so much sweeter if you actually do it."

"Please," you shook your head, avoiding eye contact. "Just don't do this, please."

"Oh, honey," he mocked, "it's not our fault he's late. Lads! Have at her, but leave her face for now - she's still real pretty."

You listened as he gave commands in Russian, understanding after the years at Bucky's side; whimpering when the first blow landed to your gut and knocked the wind out of you. The minutes drug by and you felt your resolve crumbling, heart still hammering to a never-before-felt speed that made it feel as if it were jumping out of your very body at every single pulse point. You struggled in your restraints, but it was futile by how tight you were bound; unable to protect yourself.

At 12:03 am, the doors blew open in a resounding blast; concrete crumbling and sprinkling the floor. You cried out as the smoke choked you, coughing through the haze; only barely able to make out certain figures to know Bucky had brought his best men. However, despite the sting to your eyes from the swirling dust and smoke, you saw a lone man stalk through the blasted wall, through the fray, and straight up to you.

"Bu-Bucky!" You choked in relief as he reached to untie your feet first. You dangled for only a moment as his metal prosthetic ripped off whatever held your wrists to the torture contraption. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Bucky, holy shit, baby, please, please, please," you rambled as he freed you and instantly caught you on his broad shoulders.

"I got you, Peach, I'm here, I've got you," he promised in your ear, hoisting your legs around his waist so they latched and then wrapping his arms around you securely. "Don't let go and don't look up, okay? Hear me, Peach?"

You nodded into his neck, only able to cry.

Bucky jolted and jerked slightly as he moved through the fight again, but not a minute later, you were stepping outside into the sobering, brisk spring air. This was the moment you understood how dangerous and fleeting life with Bucky could be, making a promise to yourself that if he says take the car, you'll take the fucking car.

And now, here you were, outside the high-rise apartment's lounge (which was just a converted bedroom), listening to your boyfriend complain about you some 2 months after the whole fiasco. HYDRA had been all but wiped out, and in the weeks since, Bucky's men had gone on smaller missions to eradicate the HYDRA members they heard rumor of being local. Yet you didn't feel safe, yet.

You didn't feel safe if you weren't around Bucky.

Everything made you jump: the beep of the done-dryer, that spritz of the automatic fragrance mister in the bathroom, the "duh-dunnn" of a loaded-up Netflix. Keys jingling, car horns, the barking of the dog in the apartment a floor below you... Everything.

Being around Bucky was just like holding a safety blanket. He would always protect you, and for about a week after your rescue, he laid in bed and around the home with you; being lazy; time off work to simply hold you and assure you were safe. Safe in his arms. Safe in his embrace, his presence.

So now... To hear this... You were devastated.

You didn't mean to eavesdrop, it just sort of happened. It was still earlier in the morning, but Bucky hadn't been in bed beside you and based on the feel of the sheets, his body hadn't been there in a while. So, you made some coffee and then ventured around the home in search of your lover; coming upon the lounge and hearing voices from within.

You knew it was common for Steve Rogers and / or Sam Wilson to stay late or visit early, so, you weren't shocked by that, but did falter in announcing yourself when you heard Sam ask how you were doing since the kidnapping. He used your name specifically, making Bucky sigh, and for your curiosity to peak.

"She's different, man."

"How so?" Sam wondered.

"She doesn't like being without me now," he chuckled without humor. "I'm serious, she won't go to the gym until I do, waits to have meals together, won't leave the house if I'm out, and," he scoffed to himself, "you can forget going to the grocery store or anything - she's even stopped going to work - "

"You told her to stop working, like, two years ago when y'all first moved-in together," Sam deadpanned.

"I know," Bucky shrugged, "but it feels tenfold now that she's so reclusive."

"It's normal," Steve sighed gently.

"Yeah? Is it normal that I can't even go take a shit without promising her I'll be right back?" Bucky snapped in exasperation. "It's that bad, she's that fucking clingy, man. I go in the kitchen to make dinner, she's in there 30 seconds later to 'help' me. I take a shower, she finds a reason to linger in the bedroom, but that was better than before, when she wouldn't even shower by herself. It's just a lot, she's everywhere I look. I'm starting to find new reasons not to come home, man, she's always fucking here - and when I walk in the door, she's on me. I need to fucking breathe, but I can't tell her to stop, she'll get her feelings hurt and then I'm the bad guy."

"Man," Steve laughed, "you can't be the bad guy if you go to her in a calm and collected manner, but it's only been two months. She's still recovering."

"Exactly why if I say anything, no matter how calm and collected, I'm the bad guy. I get she's hurting and tryna recover, but Goddamn, does she have to be in every room I'm in? Do everything with me? How do I tell my traumatized girlfriend to back off? Let me breathe?"

Sam laughed, "You don't! You just said it - she's traumatized! Cut the girl some slack, she's got a lot to fuckin' deal with!"

"I'm not negating from that fact," Bucky argued, "I'm just trying to say, the way she's clinging onto me like she can't function without me is just grating at my nerves. I just need to breathe and recharge, but I can't tell her that - fuck's sake."

"Buck," Steve smirked, "you're worried Peach isn't gonna listen, but that's her literal superpower. Just communicate, she can't read your mind, but you need to remember how traumatic all of that was for her to experience - she's scarred from that kidnapping, man. So, sure, you need to recharge, but she needs the support."

"Is it wrong to ask for a day here and there to do that? To recharge?" Bucky asked quietly.

"If you communicate, it's perfectly reasonable to ask for," Sam assured softly. "And whatever you do, don't tell her you think she's clingy. Chicks hate that, that word is, just, like, taboo or something. Real heavy, negative connotations."

"But she is," Bucky growled quietly, "'s like she's afraid to let go 'cause I'll disappear or something."

"Oh, noooo," Sam mocked, "I'm Bucky and my girlfriend loves me too much and trusts me too much and actually feels safe and dependent on me too much - ohhh noooo!"

There was a thump, Sam's cried, "Ow!", and Bucky telling him to shut up. You slowly backed away from the door, trying to settle your breathing as you made your escape down the hall. When back in the kitchen, you whimpered and let the first tears fall... The first of many you shed in the hour it took you to prepare breakfast for everyone; doing your best to eat as you cooked so you didn't have to linger around the men. You took Bucky's words to heart, and maybe you were too sensitive, maybe you should venture outside again.

So, when the lads came out, you set the table without making eye contact with any of them. "Here," you directed, setting the pancakes down, "I made breakfast, come eat, it's still hot."

"Wow," Sam smiled brightly, "thanks, Peach!"

You hummed, still avoiding their eyes as you just set the abundance of food to the table. "You... Cooked without me?" Bucky asked you with skepticism.

"Mhm," you hummed, setting the coffee pot down to a hot pad, "and I'm going out shopping with Nat, so, eat up, lads, I'll do the dishes when I get home. Love you, boys, bye," you waved them off, snatching your keys and then moving to the door to stuff your feet into your sneakers.

"Woah, woah, woah," Bucky left the table, approaching you urgently, "hey, what do you mean? You're goin' out?"

"Yep, figured I've stayed in too long, might as well get out and remember life doesn't stop just 'cause I'm sad."

"Peach - "

"I'll see you when I get home, Buck, okay?" You mumbled, slinging your purse on your shoulder.

"Well, here, here, hey, wait, hang on," he pulled his wallet out, handing you over a wad of big bills. "Spend it all, okay? Have fun, call or text if you need me, yeah?"

"Sure."

Bucky leaned in to kiss you but you just opened the door, ready to leave. He frowned, watching you, barely managing to call a quick, "Love you!"

You didn't return the sentiment, feeling hallow and all too silly to return the affection. In your purse was your laptop, headphones, chargers, and whatever else, so, instead of meeting your friend, Natasha - being just a ruse to avoid Bucky - you started small and just went to the local café. You used to frequent it back in the day, but times were changed, and yet, they were all the happier to serve you the same as before. Getting cozy in the corner, you set up camp and ordered your favorite coffee basically every other hour - letting the day waste away as you caught up on work emails.

Might've wasted time on Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest. Got shopping done on Amazon. Browsed through Target's online selection. Checked out the sale items at Kate Spade. Perused Fenty Lingerie because you could.

Before you knew it, a message was coming in over your MacBook from Bucky, asking where you were - why had you turned your location off?

You packed up and with a to-go cup, made the short trek back home. When you got back, Bucky was pacing in the living room; staring at his phone and typing, then deleting, retyping, groaning, glancing up, typing again, then doing a double take. "Where've you been, Peach? Huh!?" Bucky demanded. "You're late!"

"Out with Nat," you eased.

He huffed through his nose, nodding slowly, "You have a nice time?"

"It was okay," you answered. "I'm gonna go to bed after I shower."

His brows furrowed, "I have a meeting tonight."

"I know."

"O...kay?" He let you go, wanting to ask why you didn't ask him to join like you had so often in the past few weeks.

And it didn't stop there, in fact, it got worse. When Bucky got home from his meeting, he was actually shocked to see you nestled in the bed; teetering on the edge of the shared space while snuggling a weighted body pillow.

When he tried to give you a snuggle, you stirred to life and pushed him back, muttering, "Too hot."

The following morning, he was relatively surprised to see you up and about before him; barely getting a word in before you were slipping out the door to go on a morning jog. He was confused by how all of a sudden, where you were once everywhere he looked, now, you were disappeared and distant and gone. You worked out alone, cooked alone - but always left him a plate, but long gone were the cute little sticky notes you left for him. You once haunted the apartment by never wanting to leave, and now, ghosted in and out of it on a daily basis.

You never bothered to go far from home. You liked hanging at the coffee shop and luckily, your job let you work from home most days, and the rare time you were due back in the office, it was only about a 20 minute walk. You got better at lying, couldn't even remember the last time you and Bucky had sex, and even now, the last time you had a meal together. You didn't text him about your day; where you once might've told him about an adorable dog you saw on the street, now, you only ever texted him if he asked a direct question.

Food lost appeal, your appetite vanished.

Sleep evaded you, plaguing you with nightmares when you did rest.

Interest dulled, passions were snuffed, and only fearful, confused anger remained. It showed in the way weight seemed to shift around your body, thinning; the lack of sleep creating dark rings and bags under your bloodshot eyes.

After two weeks of this, Bucky grew irritated and short with everyone around him. It reflected in his work, the way he spoke to everyone; even Steve and Sam getting the brunt end of his anger. Without you to assure him, Bucky was off his rocker; losing his cool; his patience stretched far too thin. So much so, the two mates approached an outside associate, Natasha Romanoff, after a particularly snappy meeting to plead for her to talk to Bucky.

"James," Nat greeted as she strode into his office without knocking.

"I know you're my oldest friend, but you don't have that privilege yet," he mused, never looking up.

"What?"

"Not knocking. What is it, Nat?"

"Just came to check on you, you know, like friends do."

"Hm," he chuckled without humor, "and what did Peach say to you?"

"About...?"

"Me."

"Nothing, I haven't gotten ahold of her for weeks."

Bucky paused, slowly lifting his head in confusion; brows furrowed and mouth set in a firm, straight line. "What?" He grit.

"Huh?" Nat wondered.

"She's been telling me that she's hanging out with you for the past two weeks," he revealed.

"Nope, not since the incident with HYDRA."

Bucky's (right) flesh hand crushed the pen in his grip, taking a long breath. "All right," he sighed, "so, why come today?"

"What's really going on, Buck?" She worried softly. "Is it really whatever's going on with Peach? You're this pissed off? What'd she even do?"

"She just..." He cut himself off with a long sigh. "It's nothing."

"Bucky," Nat gave a pointed look.

"She's just avoiding me," he muttered. "It's like she's barely home, almost like a ghost."

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Yes, and no," Bucky snipped, rolling his neck out. "I'm just worried about her now, she's never not communicated before."

"Something's bothering her," Nat shrugged. "She probably needs you right now, Buck."

"I can't do it all," he whispered. "I can't be who she wants and run this organization at the same time."

"She doesn't need that, she just needs you to be her partner," Natasha spoke softly. "She needs to feel loved and supported, and surely, she maybe felt weird about whatever you were projecting. Instead of taking it out on your men," she smirked, "why don't you just talk to her? 'Cause I hear you're bein' a more-than-usual asshole lately. You need to ease up or get laid, 'cause you're taking it out on good, loyal men, and that's entirely unfair."

"They can take it."

"Sure, but they shouldn't have to," Nat rolled her eyes. "Look, since you won't answer me, I'm assuming the sour mood is in regard to whatever relationship issues you have right now?"

"Sure," he tossed the pen away, opened a skinny drawer to his right and select an identical one.

"Bucky," she growled.

He sighed, "She's lying to me, Nat. Saying she's with you when she's not... Is this an affair? She's gone all the time now."

"No way," Nat laughed. "Baby girl doesn't have the energy to entertain anyone - let alone two men. You're just the exception."

"Why lie, then?"

"Maybe she didn't want you questioning her..."

"No shit."

"Well, did you get into a fight?"

"No."

"Any reason she doesn't want to be home?"

He shook his head with a sigh, "Not that I know of."

"You had to do something."

"Honest, I haven't. She was being all clingy, but then one day, a switch flipped."

Nat frowned, "You think... Your girlfriend is being clingy... Because she was kidnapped and beaten up... Because of your fucking job... And is probably scared...out of...her mind...? I get that correct?"

Bucky paused for a long moment, muttering, "Oh, my God."

"Yeah, you asshole. Think of it that way! She's afraid!" Natasha snapped. "And probably picked up on your energy, so, she made herself scarce."

"I didn't mean - "

"I don't care, go home, apologize to that sweet angel - she doesn't deserve this."

Bucky paused, "What is 'this' exactly?"

"James. Focus on the present - your woman. Go make this right. We all know you're this big, bad dude - but it's okay to be a little sensitive towards the woman who loves you without condition!"

Bucky relented, figuring the redheaded Russian mobster was right.

The entire drive home, Bucky considered the ways you had changed in the few, short weeks since he vented to Sam and Steve about your clinginess. You didn't take meals with him, didn't cook, work-out, or do anything you used to do together. Sex? Forget it. Dates? Nope. Cuddling? No, you're always 'too hot'. And when he thought about it, he remembers seeing the wads of cash he'd leave for you stuffed in his sock drawer - surely trying to make him think it was just another emergency fund he had hidden. You never spent his money, feeling humiliated by his choice of words.

Clingy...

You didn't text or call him when he was gone, you hadn't even so much as kissed him in what felt like ages... Well, more like you hadn't initiated any kisses...

His heart weighed in his chest as he realized he hadn't even so much as hugged you in days. You were rarely in the apartment together, and when you were, you were just silent and busy with chores. It was as if you operated on the exact opposite schedule as he did, went to new extents to avoid him, and his heart clenched in his chest.

When he got home, you were caught cooking in the kitchen - being obvious that you weren't expecting him. The door slammed and his baritone voice snapped, "Peach!"

You gulped, holding the sauce-covered wooden spoon to your chest. When he rounded around the corner, he found you and slowed down, sighing in relief. "What's wrong?" You worried in a timid tone.

He panted lightly, relaying, "Needed to find you."

"I'm here."

"I know," he relented, charging up to you and engulfing you in a tight, heavy hug. "I needed to talk to you, Peach," he whispered.

"What's wrong?"

"You. You're what's wrong."

"What the fuck does that - "

"No, no," he pulled back to stare down at you fondly, "I don't mean it like that, just that... You're struggling. I can see that. But you're not alone, I'm here with you, and I got a little caught up in my head when I realized someone was so very dependent on me - it fucking scared me. But then... Then you just shut yourself off and hid away from me, and oh, my God, it's so much worse, baby. Don't do that," he breathed, "okay? Don't ever shut me out - don't stop loving me, don't stop talking to me, don't give up on us. I can't read your mind, you can't read mine, it's not an excuse - but we understand better when we trust each other enough to communicate what's required. I'm so sorry I got caught up in myself, I didn't know what you needed - but I'm here now, I'm here - I'm not leaving you."

You collapsed into his chest, taking a shuddering breath.

"Don't ever stop talking to me, Peach," Bucky whispered, kissing the top of your head; keeping you close. "I'm so sorry, baby, if I - "

"If?" You snapped, pulling back to glare at him through your tears. "I heard you, Bucky. I heard you talking to Sam and Steve, and about how clingy I am."

"I was wrong," he insisted. "I was overwhelmed and tired and just stretched thin, the easiest thing to do is attack those closest to me, and that's you. It's not right, it's the worst I could do to you after all you've been through, and I'm so sorry. I was wrong, you're not the person to take this out on - and I'm so sorry, Peach."

You sighed, "I don't mean to be... I don't mean to cling - "

"Nah," he chuckled, caressing your cheek, "you cling as much as you want. Cling as tight as you want, baby, don't let me go. I'm sorry for what I said and the way it made you feel, it was wrong - so fucking wrong of me, and I see that. When you pulled away from me, I just... I couldn't think. It felt so wrong, and I knew it was my fault." He took your face in both palms, promising, "I'm so sorry, Peach."

You shrugged meekly, "It's okay."

"It's not."

"No, but apologizing is a step in the right direction."

He nodded, "What else can I do?"

"Nothing - "

"Peach."

You paused to think, smiling shyly, "Movie night?"

"Whatever my pretty girl wants," he nodded.

"Hmm... Get a bath with me?"

"All right... Sure, okay..."

"And face masks."

He sighed, "Okay."

"And mani-pedis."

"Baby."

"You said you were making it up to me, right?"

He smirked, "That's right... All right, yeah, sure, fine, we can..." He sighed again, "We can do all that, Peach, whatever you want."

"I just want you," you told him softly. "I didn't mean to be so clingy. I was just afraid... I felt afraid everyday, just so very unsure in this life. You're the only thing that makes sense to me, Buck, and when I heard you, I just... I guess I realized how dependent I'd been and wanted to give you space. Last thing I want is to smother you, to drive you away from me."

"Not ever gonna happen," he promised softly. "I just didn't handle it like I should've. I'm sorry, Peach, but I'm here now - for whatever you need. Want me to take a few days off, just be together? I'll arrange it. Want to get away for a bit? We can go."

"I just need you," you whispered. "Only you and I should be okay - I can be okay if I have you, but feeling like I lost you? Even a fraction? Buck... James, it was such a harrowing feeling, I wasn't sure what to do to move forward. So, I think I just panicked, shut down; thought if I could just get back to normal, you'd love me again..."

"I never stopped loving you," he swore, "I just had a bad lapse in my own judgement. Nothing against you, baby. Nothing."

You nodded again, letting him tuck you into his chest; perfectly snug under his chin as he coiled his arms around you. He let out a long sigh, his guilt swelling to new heights, but for that present moment, everything seemed okay.

Felt okay.

Appeared okay.

And you'd both do whatever it took to remain as okay as you possibly could.

requesting rules and masterlist

Marvel masterlist

Clingy Baby collection masterlist

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x you #marvel #marvel x reader #marvel au #mob bucky barnes #mob bucky au #mob bucky x reader #mob bucky x you #mafia au #mafia bucky barnes #mafia bucky x reader #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes hurt/comfort

[viennakarma]

In my life (I love you more)

Part 2 of Say Something (Alternate ending)

Summary: Navigating pregnancy is an adventure on its own, but doing it with your recently divorced ex-husband is on a whole new level. But maybe it's the perfect opportunity to find your kinship once again.

Word count: 8.3k

Tags: Female reader, established relationship, ex-wife reader, reader is an architect, cheating, smut, pregnancy symptoms, pregnancy sex, fingering and oral sex, lactation kink (briefly), chilbirth (not descriptive), lots of fluff, open ending, happy ending, not beta read

Relationships: Lewis Hamilton x Reader

Notes: Again, sorry if it's rushed or something, I was just going with the flow. Feedback and opinions are appreciated xx

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It’s different getting settled on your new, divorced life, and with a baby on the way. You kept trying to establish a new routine in your new place, while going over and over on what to do in your head.

You knew you were keeping the baby, because that’s something you always wanted. And for a few weeks, you weren’t sure if you would tell Lewis.

Then, you started thinking about going through the pregnancy alone, which you knew you couldn’t do. Then you thought if, god forbid, something happened to you during childbirth, if you died, who would take care of your child? What would happen to your baby? But also, you got lost in thoughts about the future, about the kid not having a father growing up, about your kid finding out you had hidden them from their father. You wasted only a couple of weeks until you made up your mind.

You knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night keeping something like this from your ex-husband.

That’s how you were a little over twelve weeks when you finally sent Lewis an email. You could’ve called or texted him, but you were only willing to talk in person.

I’m not sure if you’re interested in hearing anything from me now, but I urge you to come meet me this Saturday at 11 am. I have some important things to talk about with you.

Attached, you sent him the address of your new home. It was a complete shot in the dark, adding the fact that he never replied to your email, you were unsure if he was gonna show up.

Hugging yourself inside your winter coat, you wondered if you did right by inviting him to your home. But then again, you didn’t want to have this conversation in public and risk Lewis being recognised.

You made tea and were waiting outside on the porch when he finally showed up, right on time.

God, he was easily the most handsome man you’ve ever seen in your life, still. He was dressed in a dark blue coat, and simple cargo pants. He stopped when he saw you, visibly emotional.

“Hi, lo- Y/N” he almost slipped up.

“Hi, Lewis. I’m glad you came,” you whispered with a small smile.

You were just as stunning as the day Lewis saw you for the first time, beautiful skin, sweet smile and the kindest eyes.

“What happened? Do you need help?” He asked, and you just shook your head, with a small smile, and he added “you look so content. So different from the last time I saw you.”

“I am, Lewis. Still adapting but I really am,” you gestured for the house, you started walking, “come on in. It’s cold outside.”

You two entered, and removed your shoes by the door, getting comfortable.

“I need to tell you something, Lewis.”

“Is it about the divorce? You know I would come back to you whenever, you just need to say the word and I ca-”

As he started rambling, you just removed your coat, showing your little baby bump, now starting to show. Lewis stopped talking abruptly. He was shocked, jaw slack as he stared from your face to your belly a couple of times.

“I’m dreaming,” he turned around, slapping his own cheek as if to wake up.

“I’m pregnant, Lewis.”

Lewis turned around again, taking in your figure. You were wearing those elegant pajama sets you’d always wear whenever you wanted to feel comfortable at home, but the shirt was hugging your figure tightly, specifically around your middle, displaying the baby bump.

He felt a lump on his throat. He had dreamt of this throughout your relationship, but even more after he lost you. Lewis would dream of you and your family almost everyday, waking up crying over what his mistake cost him.

But now, now you were right in front of him, pregnant with his kid.

You mistook his silence for confusion, so with a heavy heart, you said:

“The baby is yours, but I don’t mind if you want to take a paternity test. I know it’s been a few months with no contact, so I understand if you have doubts ab-”

“No, no! I believe you- I do!” He interrupted your turn to ramble, “I guess I’m just a little bit shocked.”

There’s a brief, awkward silence as you two stood there. Lewis was staring at you so intently, so in awe that it made you squirm, so you walked further inside, going to the kitchen to leave your cup of tea, now empty by the sink. Lewis still walked after you, still looking at you like you had hung the moon or something.

“You’re stunning, Y/N. Just how I imagined you would be when pregnant.” He whispered. You felt yourself blush with the open compliment.

“Thank you, the morning sickness is dying down now, so I’m feeling much better these past few days.” You told him.

Someone rang the doorbell, and you went to check followed by Lewis. You opened the door to your new neighbor from down the road. He greeted you quickly, and handed you a small box full of cherry-tomatoes.

“Oh, thank you so much, James! You’re a lifesaver!” You waved at him, as he got in his car and drove away.

Happily skipping back to the kitchen, you washed and put the cherry-tomatoes on a plate, seasoning it with a little bit of salt and pepper. You ate the cherry-tomatoes raw, only after the second bite, noticing Lewis was still there, even more confused.

“Who’s that guy?” Lewis pointed to the door. He didn’t like the idea of other men coming to visit you. Especially that James guy who looked at you as if you were the most beautiful goddess to grace the earth. Well, you were the most beautiful goddess, but still, only Lewis looked at you like that.

“He’s my neighbor down the road, a couple of kilometers down. Him and his mom have a small plantation of fruits and vegetables. I told her I was craving cherry-tomatoes and she kindly sent them to me,” you said, taking another bite right after, “this is the best I’ve ever had. So fresh!” You exclaimed, eating a couple more.

Lewis looked at you, giddy with your little cherry-tomatoes, and he felt something in his chest expand. He smiled at you, looking so happy and healthy. The last two images he had of you were, you miserable around the house in Monaco, and the other was of you making love with him so passionately but so sad. The last time he touched you intimately, and lovingly, it was painfully obvious it was a goodbye to you, but to him it had been a chance, he had let himself be blinded by hope.

He had so many questions about the pregnancy, about how you had been feeling and what you wanted to do that he couldn’t help but feel a little overwhelmed. Still, he took a deep breath and just said:

“Have you been having lots of weird cravings?” He asked, staring at you, still munching on the cherry-tomatoes.

“I’ve been craving fruits a lot this past week, the other day I wanted green mango with salt, but it’s so hard to find tropical fruits around here!”

Lewis grabbed his phone and texted Kevin, one of his assistants, telling him to find fresh mangoes anywhere as fast as possible.

“How are you? How are you feeling?” He put the phone away, eyes focused on yours.

“In regards to health, me and Peanut are completely fine. I’ve been really sleepy, taking naps all the time…”

“Peanut?” He smiled, eyes shining to the little nickname.

“So, the first craving I had was so bad I spent three days eating anything with peanuts. People have some really creative recipes on the internet.” Your words made Lewis laugh out loud, that one giggle that you had not heard in months. One laugh that used to make you so happy, “but really, we're fine. I’ve had some doctor visits now.”

“That’s good. I told my family about our divorce. Mum tore me a new one.” He gave an awkward smile.

“I know, she called me to apologize.” You let him know. You were still in touch with his mom, not having the heart to cut her off.

“Hey,” Lewis leaned in, his expression serious again, “I know I failed you in our marriage. But I won’t fail you in this pregnancy, ok? I want to be there every step of the way, if you allow me to.”

“I know, Lewis. I never doubted you would,” you sighed, pushing the plate away. You always knew Lewis would want to be there for you and his kid, “I just- I’m sorry it took me a while to reach you. I was confused and overwhelmed, heartbroken, everything at once, and I had to comprehend what I wanted to do. In the end, I couldn’t allow my baby to grow up without a father, and I know you will be a loving one.”

“Thank you, I hurt you so deeply, just- Thank you for letting me know about Peanut.”

“I know it will be difficult to get over our problems and the divorce, but I was hoping we could co-parent, as friends,” you told him.

“Whatever you want, I’ll do whatever you want.”

“I’m aware that's not how we planned things to go…” your eyes were wet with unshed tears, sometimes you still mourned the future you had with Lewis before, “... But we can do it, right?”

“We can do it. Peanut will be so happy.”

He was so sure, so confident, that it gave you a weird sense of security, knowing he will be there no matter what, knowing Peanut would have a loving father. It was a huge weight lifted from your shoulders, and now you could just focus on trying to go through a safe pregnancy.

“Tell me about your routine, how are you adapting here?” Lewis stood up, looking around.

You told him how you had reduced your work hours, to only work during the mornings, usually finishing up around noon, then you had lunch, then if you had any errands to run, you’d go to the city, then prenatal yoga class, and doing your hobbies the rest of the day.

While you were explaining your routine, you went to the pantry and got cat food out, your new companion showing up, meowing.

“You got a kitten.” Lewis pointed out.

“That’s Olive. I’ve always wanted one,” you said as if he didn’t know it, your fingers scratching behind her ears. Your voice didn’t have any malice, but Lewis’ own blame made your words feel like a jab.

“I know.”

Lewis stared at the fluffy gray cat. You had always talked about how growing up you had a cat that passed away when you were around fifteen. You had mentioned adopting a new one a lot after you got married, and still, Lewis never felt inclined to support the idea, he thought you two already had Roscoe, who you had to leave with a caretaker most of the time. He just thought you two wouldn’t have the time for another pet. It made something inside him burn with shame seeing that now that you were divorced, you finally got the little pet you always wanted.

You kept talking, telling Lewis how your parents are constantly traveling here to keep you company on weekends, and how you had been changing a few furniture, because you bought the house already furnished, but you wanted it to feel more like you, including a flowerbed by your porch. How you met a couple of neighbors, and how you had been exploring Edinburgh’s museums and galleries at least once a week.

It hurt him hearing about how you were moving on, meeting people and places, buying things and making plans when he was still stuck in the past. He was still wishing every morning he would wake up in your arms again, how he would share one big cup of coffee with you in the mornings, how he used to hold you in silence for a good 20 minutes after you woke up because you don’t like talking as soon as you wake up. How you would peck his lips every time he had to pack a bag to leave. How he would kiss your ring finger every time before he hopped in the car for a race.

Now he would walk past your office, and your work supplies weren’t there anymore, and the furniture didn’t have charcoal stains anymore, and the house didn’t smell like your tea and the bedsheets didn’t smell like your strawberry body scrub and shower gel thing.

Lewis spent the day with you, chatting like you were just two friends catching up. There was still a lot of baggage none of you wanted to touch just yet, so you just brushed past any awkward silence, and distant, cold chatter. It took a couple of hours to feel fully comfortable with each other. You had seen Lewis as the love of your life for so long it was mind boggling now having to put him in a “friend” category.

He left by the end of the afternoon, after leaving dinner ready for you.

“Will you unblock me?” He asked, getting ready to leave. You laughed but nodded, “You can text me anything. If you need something, anything really, call me or text me, yes?”

“Will do, Lewis. I’ll text any pregnancy updates too,” you walked him to the door, “Oh, wait! I forgot something.”

You went back inside scrambling into your purse for the sonogram image you had gotten the last doctor visit. You went back and handed it to Lewis. His eyes shone with tears as he understood what it was. He ran his thumb through the picture, tears falling down his cheeks. 

“Oh, wow. That’s my baby.”

You noticed how Lewis was still wearing his wedding band, and your chest constricted a bit. You knew more than anyone that it would take some getting used to remove the ring as you were still getting used to not wearing yours, but you had forced yourself to leave it behind. You wondered if Lewis had gotten rid of it after the divorce was finalized.

“Can I- Can I tell my family about the baby?” He asked you, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.

“Yes. Tell Carmen to call me after you tell her.” You smiled softly at him.

He stared from the picture to your belly, your small bump.

“Wanna touch?” You offered, and he smiled.

“Only if you’re ok with it,” he muttered. You nodded, raising your shirt up.

You pulled his wrist, placing his palm against your stomach. His hand was warm, calloused as you were used to feeling them on your body. His thumb moved up and down, caressing your bump and raising goosebumps in your skin. It took him a full minute to let go, like it was physically painful to leave.

“Take care, yeah?” He told you, walking away.

“You too.”

You went back inside after locking the house, the sun was already setting as you sat down to eat the dinner Lewis prepared. He had promised you to come back in a couple of days after his work commitments.

The next morning, you were working when the doorbell rang, and it was a delivery guy. He handed you a box and left. You opened it on the kitchen counter, and it was full of fresh mangoes and a small note.

“Anything you need. -L”

Lewis came back three days later, letting you know when he was at the airport. You knew he had told his family, since Carmen had called you and you spent a good hour talking to her on the phone the night before. You heard a noise outside and you went to your porch to see Lewis arriving in a pick-up truck. 

You walked up to Lewis with a small smile. He closed his fists, physically restraining himself as to not hold your pretty face and kiss you silly.

“Hi,” you said and your voice was sweet.

“Hi, beautiful mama,” he whispered, which made you blush. You eye the back of the truck.

“What is that?”

“I bought some stuff,” he patted one of the boxes, “this is an ergonomic chair, appropriate for pregnant women, I thought it would be useful since you’ll still be working for a while. And they had it in your favorite color too!”

“Lewis.”

“I also bought a few books on pregnancy, maternity and paternity. Already sent a few copies to my place too. There’s a bunch of baby clothes over there, a few are gifts from my family but most of them I just bought because I thought they were pretty cute.” He pointed to the other boxes.

“Lewis, it’s too much!” You wanted to reprimand him, but it was also sweet how dedicated he was being.

“Nothing is too much for Peanut and Mama,” he dismissed you, “and I didn’t even buy a lot of stuff because I thought we should do it together.”

He carried the boxes inside, while you got started on the meal for lunch.

“Why is this ladder here?” Lewis pointed to the folded ladder in the hallway.

“Oh, I was going to change the light!” You told him.

“Are you crazy, woman?! You can be doing all that while pregnant!” His voice echoed from the hallway.

“I’m pregnant, not ill!” You screamed back, and he laughed out loud.

There was only silence for a few minutes, so you checked the hallway to see Lewis changing the lights. As he came down the ladder, he put both hands on his waist.

“Anything else needs fixing?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know how to fix the door handle, would you?”

“Please, how would you doubt me?”

After Lewis fixed the bathroom door handle, he came back out and started helping you with the food. You ate while Lewis told you about his family’s reaction to the news. He guaranteed everyone was happy, but they were refraining to call and text you so as to not overwhelm you.

While you were on the phone with your mom, Lewis decided to unbox the new chair and take it to your new office. He looked around, seeing how this office was smaller than the one at home, but cozier. You had a big window with lots of natural light bathing the room. Whenever you were working on your projects on paper and charcoal, you liked using natural light to draw. There were a couple of scented candles around too. 

He took a little while to fully assemble the new chair, but as he came back down, you were taking a nap on the couch. He grabbed the blanket and covered you, and went back to put the dishes away. It was different, he hadn’t been so domestic in so long, and certainly not when you were married. Now he was just happy to be of service, to help you around just like things had never changed. He noticed you had put a panel on the kitchen, just like in the project for your family home, and your planner was there. It showed you had a doctor visit by the end of the week and pregnancy yoga twice a week in the afternoons, it also had your next museum visit marked for after the doctor. He took a picture of your planner, to align his to yours.

“Y/N, hey,” he woke you up softly, confused, you stared at him, “you have yoga class in like an hour, will you go today? I can drive you to the city.”

“Yes, sure.” You got ready and Lewis drove you there right on time.

“I’ll just drive around for a bit, text me when the class is over,” he said as he dropped you by the gym’s door. He ended up going shopping for baby stuff, and had at least seven shopping bags by the time he went back to pick you up. He stopped the car by the entryway of the gym, where a man had been excitedly talking to you. Lewis made a face, it seemed like everywhere he went, there was someone into you. Of course, you were radiating this glow and charm of a pregnant woman, seducing everyone around.

Impatient, Lewis honked softly to catch your attention. He bit his tongue as you said goodbye to the man, who hugged you way too tight for Lewis’ taste. You were happy and Lewis hated that you were giving that rando your sweet smile and attention. He didn’t say anything as you got closer and he left the car to open the door for you, instead, he showed you all the stuff he had bought you and the baby.

When the end of the week came, Lewis also came back as you were leaving for your doctor’s appointment. You had invited him but he also had taken a picture of your schedule.

At the doctor’s you laid on the bed and the doctor started the ultrasound, Lewis gripped your hand firmly, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“See, here, this is your baby,” she pointed at the little gray mass on the screen, she gestured to the nurse, “and this is their heartbeat.”

The sound filled the room, and Lewis felt like his world stopped and reset, a warm sensation in his chest, finding what felt like something to live and something to die for. He listened while you asked the doctor for updates, but his eyes never left the screen, where he could see Peanut.

As you left the room, with your next appointment scheduled, Lewis stopped you in the parking lot, pulled you to his chest, holding you firmly and breathing into you. He was crying, you held him and that moment, something started to heal inside you. Maybe you’d never get your husband back, but you could count on him as a friend, as the father of your kid.

“Everything’s gonna be alright, Lewis. We’re gonna do great for Peanut.” You whispered into his shoulder.

-

You and Lewis managed to get a routine, he was coming back frequently, he claimed your guest room and was staying for two or three days at a time, only leaving for his commitments. Both of you already did therapy separately but you also decided to go a few sessions with a family therapist to try and navigate the new family dynamics as divorced parents to an unborn baby. You talked about the cheating a lot, which brought big emotions during most of the sessions, with the therapist mediating until you could talk again. Lewis for the most part accepted taking you anger and sadness and hurt, apologizing profusely over and over again, reassuring you that he made a mistake he regretted every breathing moment. It took a while to make peace with the fact that his mistake shouldn’t define him forever, to accept and give him the opportunity to grow and learn for the sake of your baby.

“The season will start soon,” he told you one day, late at night as you ate quietly. You only hummed a response, unsure of what he wanted you to say or what point he was trying to make.

“Ok, understood,” you muttered, knowing he probably was letting you know he wasn’t going to come visit you as much, which honestly made you a bit sad, kinda used to his company by now.

“What I mean to ask is, can I move here? I know I won’t have much free time, so instead of going back to Monaco, I was wondering if I could come straight here. Of course, I would need to bring a few things, training gear, stuff from my office,” When you didn’t answer him, jaw slacked, he thought you might not like the idea, “But it’s ok if you rather not, too. I mean, if you prefer your privacy and all- I totally respect-”

“It’s ok, Lewis, you can move here for the remainder of the pregnancy,” you calmed his rambling, and he smiled seemingly relieved.

“Thank you, I don’t want to miss anything,” He whispered, crouching down by your side, putting his hand on your belly, “right, Peanut? Daddy’s gonna be right here.”

The next morning, you woke up, the breakfast was ready, and you looked around for Lewis, until you found him outside. He was wearing gardening gloves, making a hole on the ground with a trowel, and behind him a wheelbarrow loaded with flower pots. He was also shirtless, sweat glistening on his skin and above his tattoos, back muscles prominent with every move, which had your pregnancy hormones feeling some kind of way.

“Morning, what is going on?” You asked, hugging yourself as you approached him.

“Well, you said you wanted a flower bed on the entryway. So I had the time and thought I would do it for you.” He shrugged, removing the gloves.

“You didn’t have to, but thank you.”

As he stood up and when he turned to you, your eyes fell on his necklace, and more specifically, your wedding band hanging from the necklace like a pendant. You had wondered if he had gotten rid of your wedding ring, but now you knew where it was. Lewis swallowed like he was self conscious, putting his hand over the ring. It was so different whenever you thought about the cheating and the divorce, about the new normal you had to get used to. You weren’t angry at him anymore, but it would require a lot to rebuild the trust you once had in him. You decided to not address the elephant in the room, so you just looked away.

“I’m going to eat, thank you for breakfast, also.”

He only nodded as you got inside, swallowing the lump in your throat with a glass of juice and slices of bread. You didn’t mention the ring, but you could notice he kept wearing the ring under his shirts.

You went back to watch his races, commenting about it with Olive and Peanut, cheering when he was going well and complaining when he wasn’t. You’d hug him whenever he came back, for emotional support, you’d tell yourself.

You two decided you wouldn’t find out if Peanut was a boy or a girl, leaving the mystery to whenever they were born. And as the pregnancy progressed, it was inevitable that you and Lewis got closer, almost like best friends as he had seen your many lows of the pregnancy. That one time you craved cauliflower with barbecue sauce, or when you ate corn with sprinkled smashed cheetos on top, or when you farted loudly. He also had seen you cry because the delivery guy didn’t wave back to you as he was leaving, or when Olive hunted a small gecko and gave you as a present and you started just bawling. Or when Lewis hummed a song by a rapper you disliked and you started going off, snappy.

Honestly, Lewis took your mood swings and weird cravings like a champ with the patience of a saint. He had read about how pregnancy could cause your emotions to be all over the place, with outbursts of sadness or anger, and according to what he read, he just needed to help you let it all out. He had studied hard about pregnancy and was always willing to help. Funnily enough, you saw him more that season than all the five seasons you witnessed when you dated and was married to him.

One night you went to bed early, and when he went to your bedroom to check on you, you were moving a little, grunting in your sleep. Lewis immediately went closer, shaking your shoulders to wake you up from your nightmare.

“Hey, hey,” he called and you opened your eyes wide and you looked a little winded, “had a bad dream?”

Your eyes started tearing up, and he sat by your side, putting an arm over your shoulder for comfort. He ran a hand up and down your back as you wiped your tears. 

“Are you ok?”

“It wasn’t a bad dream!” You whined like a little kid about to throw a tantrum.

“Ok, you want to talk about it? Maybe I can run you a bath?” He offered.

“It was a sex dream!”

Your words caught him a little off guard.

“I’m sorry?” He tried to understand what he should do or say.

“Goddamn pregnancy! I’m horny all the time now, but I can’t cum with my fingers! And I bought a bunch of toys but the delivery had messed it up and it never arrived!” You cried even louder now, and Lewis had to bite his tongue so as to not laugh and cause more anger.

“I could help you with that,” he offered, softly. He was actually scared you’d punch him in the nose for offering.

Instead you just stood up huffing and puffing, and went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind you.

“Sorry!” He shouted, standing by the door. Then a minute later you opened the door again, poking your head out.

“Will you help me?” You pouted.

“Of course, baby,” he walked inside, and you stood there wearing only a t-shirt and panties, “do you have something in mind or do you want me to freestyle?”

“Freestyle. Fuck, I just need to cum.”

Lewis sat by the closed toilet and patted his lap. You walked over to him, letting him position you sideways on his lap. God, you were so frustrated, and so horny your panties were shamelessly wet from the dream. He cupped you, running his middle finger up and down between your legs.

“Lewis, fuck,” you moaned, hyper sensitive, but still not enough, “if you’re going to tease me, I better finish the job myself.”

“Calm down, woman! I was just creating the buildup!”

“I’ve been building up for the past three weeks, Lewis. I need the finishing!” You whined and Lewis chuckled, pushing your panties down until they hung from your foot.

A loud moan escaped your lips as he ran his finger over your cunt, spreading out your wetness and when the pad of his finger found your clit, your hips jerked. You nuzzled into his neck inhaling his perfume and laying your weight on him, letting him do his thing. You had been feeling so sensitive because of the pregnancy, every single touch made your body jolt, curling your stomach already so close.

“More, Lewis, please,” you moaned into his skin, and he only hummed, pressing a finger inside you. His other arm was around you, holding you firmly against his chest.

“Like that, baby? That’s how you want it?” He asked, egging you on, going harder.

You could only moan as he took his time pressing into you, curling his finger and finding your most pleasurable spot.

“Oh, Lewis, fuck-” you moaned all the way up to your orgasm that had your toes curling and eyes rolling back. It took all his restraint to not eat your moans with a sloppy kiss.

Lewis slowed down, but he didn’t stop fingering you, and when you almost felt like it was too much, he kept going, cooing you.

“That’s ok, baby. Give me one more, yeah?” As you whined, pushing his hand away, he gave you a couple of seconds and went back, “you can take it, love. Gonna sleep so well after. You’re my good girl, aren’t you?”

He practically pushed you into the second orgasm, shaking, hand pressing your nails into his skin and you bit into his neck to muffle your moans.

Breathless, you just melted into him, sleepy again after cumming so good. Lewis cleaned you and carried you back to bed, letting you fall into slumber.

Raging hard, he ended up in the bathroom of the guest room, fisting his own length thinking of your moans and your teeth on his neck, that’s how he finished under the running shower.

The next morning, he smirked as you walked inside the kitchen, his winning smile hidden behind a mug.

“Shut up, Lewis, or I swear I’m gonna cut your dick off!” You warned. He held back a laugh.

“I didn’t say anything!” He raised both hands in surrender.

“Yeah, but you thought.”

“Look, whenever you need release, I’m right here for you to use me any way you want.” He smiled slyly.

“SHUT UP!” You threw a grape at him, which he caught in the air and ate. “I won’t be needing your services anymore, but thank you.” You whispered begrudgingly.

“If you say so…” He shrugged.

But that same night you ended up laid on the table, your dress hunched around your waist as Lewis ate you out like a man starved for the better part of an hour. You came loudly, grinding your hips to his face, pulling on his braids as he pulled orgasm after orgasm. Until you were limp and sleepy, and he cleaned you up and took you to bed.

It kept happening, but you never kissed or fucked, he would just relieve your tension with hand and mouth, and the few times you tried to reciprocate, he denied and said you were pregnant and needed the stress relief. You’d usually go to sleep right after he pleasured you.

After he left for a race week, you received a medium box full of sex toys, ranging from vibrators to suckers and dildos. He left a note saying it was for whenever he wasn’t there to fulfill your needs.

One morning, you were working, finishing up the last of your projects before going on maternity leave, when you felt a little poke on your belly, from inside. You squealed, and in mere seconds, Lewis was speeding up the stairs and barging into your office.

“What happened? Are you ok? Do we need to go to the hospital?” He panted, getting close to you. You just held his wrist and pressed his palm against your bump, where you had felt the thing.

“I think Peanut just kicked!”

You two stayed silent as you waited, and then you felt it just as Lewis felt on his hand. You cried, Lewis cried, and then he crouched, pressing his face to your belly, feeling a little kick on the side of his face. He laughed between tears.

“Peanut, daddy’s right here! You’re going to be so strong, baby!”

As your bump got bigger, and the pains got a little bit worse, you tried new sleep positions because of the back pains. Your feet swelled and your boobs and nipples got a bit more sensitive, so you had to change bras. Lewis was such a great help throughout the gestation, that you’d  always remember him as a great source of strength. Sometime after you were seven months along during Summer Break, Lewis ended up taking you to a spa resort one week, somewhere in Greece, where you had one of the best times ever. You got massages, went into the hot tub, swam in the pools and went to the beach.

One random day back home, you were feeling particularly bothered by the backache, laying down in different positions and walking around with a muscle pain tape glued to your spine. Whenever you felt like that, your mood got irritable due to the pain.

“I saw something on the internet, I think we could try,” Lewis suggested.

“What?”

“Just trust me, yeah?” He asked and you nodded.

He stood right behind you, his chest pressed to your back, and his arms circled your waist, both hands settling under the bump. Then he just pushed up softly, taking the weight of the baby. You moaned feeling instant relief on your back, your head falling down on Lewis’ shoulder as you breathed deep.

“It’s ok, take your time,” he murmured close to your ear, “we should do this a few times a day to ease the pain.”

Eventually you two sat down to discuss baby names, and decided on each making a list and then comparing if you had put the same names. The boy names list ended up with three names matching and the girls’ list had only one match. You came around with choices for both, but ultimately decided to leave the decision for after Peanut was born.

When your birthday came in late July, Lewis took you to another trip, for a surprise.

“Where are we?” You asked as he blindfolded you on your way out of the private jet.

“We’re in London.”

“Oh, I love London!” You whispered excitedly, getting inside a car.

“I know you do.”

It took a few minutes, but eventually, he took you out of the car and walked you a few steps. Then, he removed your blindfold, and you stared at a big house. Not any house, but the home you had designed, your family home. The one you would give him on his birthday, but he saw when you were at the low ending of your marriage.

And it was just like the project, the same materials, the same colors, the same height and size. With all the little details you had poured your heart into.

“Happy birthday, this is yours.” Lewis whispered, handing you a key set.

“Lewis? What?” You turned to him, feeling your eyes watering.

“I know that we divorced, and things are different now… But I think it’s only fair that you get to raise Peanut in the home we dreamed of,” he said and you just nodded, the tears falling down, “and I hope you save me a guest room, for when I want to spend time with Peanut and Mama, if you allow.”

It was time you admitted that you and Lewis had grown so much closer than you ever did while married. It was good and most of the time you’d say it was everything for the sake of Peanut, but you knew better. You could silently admit to yourself that Lewis was an indispensable presence in your life. You needed his steadfast support that you been getting throughout the pregnancy, you needed his company in the mornings and his laughter in the evenings, you needed the feel of his hands on you be it for comfort or for intimacy.

And you fucking loved him.

It was like you’ve never stopped, even through the pain and the divorce, like your heart had always been in the palm of his hands.

But the pregnancy was like falling in love all over again.

You turned around and pulled Lewis by the coat, pressing your lips into his. It felt so right, like you should’ve never stopped. Lewis held your neck, pressing you into him.

“Lewis…”

“We can talk about it, yeah? Take as slow or as fast as you want. I just-” he paused, pecking your lips twice like he couldn’t get enough, “-I love you, my baby. And we can do whatever you want.”

“Let’s just, let’s take it slow first, yeah? See what- see what happens.”

He nodded, kissing you once again before taking you for a tour of the house. It was just as beautiful as you had imagined. The house was already baby proofed, and it had electricity and water already running.

“You can move here whenever you feel like it.”

“Yeah, I think I will soon rather than later. But I’ll keep my place in Edinburgh too.”

When the due date came, you had already moved to the new home, and it was so much closer to your parents and Lewis’ parents to visit, so Carmen was coming to see you a couple of times a week. She usually cooked for you, leaving meal preps for the days she couldn’t come.

To keep everything on the low with the media, you and Lewis decided against a baby shower. No one knew about the divorce, nor the baby.

“Lewis, it’s time to pack your bags,” you said walking into the room.

You were honestly so fed up with being pregnant that you just wanted to give birth. Your body was uncomfortable, you couldn’t sleep right in any position, your breasts were so full that it was leaking all the time and the bump got in the way of pretty much anything.

“I don’t need to,” he said, sleepily turning off the alarm.

“Lewis, you’re going to miss the flight!”

It was race week, which meant he would leave and only come back Monday. Hopefully, Peanut will be born next week. You were already a little over 39 weeks so you’d give birth pretty much any minute now.

“I’m not racing this week,” he said simply.

“You what?! You can’t do that! You need the points!” You exclaimed, pacing around.

“Love, Peanut will come any moment now, I won’t be away and risk missing this.” Lewis stood up, holding your shoulders and standing behind you. He held your bump and lifted it just like he had been doing, which helped you feel immense relief.

“Lewis, I can’t believe this! You’re literally competing for the championship! You can’t afford to lose any points.”

“I won’t be able to get in the car and drive knowing you’re here mostly alone or maybe that you’re going through labor alone. This is not up for discussion, I have spoken to Toto and everything is already set.”

You wanted to cry. You had not told him about how you were worried he might miss the birth, but he must’ve picked up somehow. You two had been in an entirely new level of connection, Lewis attuned to your wants and needs without you needing to express.

You turned around, kissing him. He held you close, reciprocating as his hands explored your body. And with just a little make out you were lit up and horny again.

“Can we make love?” You asked him, between kisses.

“Are you sure?” He mumbled, nipping at your bottom lip.

“Please, I miss your cock,” you whined, pulling his shirt.

That did it for him. He undressed, and you eyed your wedding band on his necklace. You pulled your dress up and Lewis groaned as he saw you were wearing only a support bra underneath, no panties.

“We need to see what positions is more comfortable though, I-”

“Spooning, missionary or cowgirl” he kissed you again, taking your hand and leading you to the bed.

“How do you know?”

“I read a book.”

“A book about sex?” You giggled.

“A book about pregnancy sex.” He corrected which made you laugh even harder.

“Ok then, get in the bed. On your back,” you bossed him and he obeyed.

You didn’t take too much time to straddle him, his cock between your pussy lips as you ground up and down on him, leaning down to kiss him. You were dripping wet, finding comfort on the way his abdomen held most of the weight of the bump. You looked down to him, his lips were open and he helped you up until you had him lined up and into your cunt. Both of you moaned out loud. The first time for both since your goodbye before the divorce.

Lewis sat up and pawed at your boobs and you moaned with sensitivity. He tried to remove your bra, but you stopped him.

“It’s going to leak everywhere, Lewis.” You shook your head.

“What kind of husband do you take me for?” He asked as if you were being silly. He unclasped your bra and as soon as you were free, ready to complain, he mouthed your nipple, sucking hard. The relief of the milk coming out was so great it had you groaning.

“Oh, Jesus! Fuck, fuck, fuck-” you moaned out loud with the relief his sucking caused, so much that your cunt clenched with the pleasure, “that’s so good baby, fuck- you’re so good!”

You started moving your hips, the experience so otherworldly that you could only ride him, letting him suck at your tits as your mind exploded with mind blowing sex. You shook so hard through the orgasm that Lewis had to stop and hold you firmly, only moving his hips under you to cum hard to the feel of your cunt milking him.

He stared at you like you were the most beautiful woman on earth, with so much love and devotion that you couldn’t help but bash in it.

You fucked any given chance for the next few days, making up for lost time. Lewis’ favorite position was spooning while he fucked you from behind, holding your body flush against him, kissing your neck and shoulder.

Saturday evening, you started feeling pain, sometimes every few hours. Lewis wanted to go to the hospital immediately but you, having talked with your doctor, knew it was too soon, and you’d only wait for hours in a hospital room.

You slept on and off the entire night, the jolts of pain waking you up every couple of hours. In the morning, you and Lewis had breakfast and decided to watch the race to see how Mick was going to do. You didn’t make it past ten laps, when the water broke when you got up for snacks.

“Oh my god! Ok, now we’re going to the hospital, yeah?” He asked and you nodded, taking your phone to let your doctor know you were going to the hospital.

Lewis was a mess, running up and down the stairs to grab your hospital bag, then he forgot the car keys and went back up again.

“Ok, stay calm, we’re fine,” he said, helping you up.

“I’m calm, Lewis.”

“Yeah, I’m talking to myself.”

You laughed as you two got in the car and to the hospital. You still felt these jolts of pain, each contraction getting closer and closer from the one before. You were put in a bed to wait for the right moment for the baby to crown. Lewis never left your side, even to call his family and your parents to let them know, he stood by you.

When it was a little while before the time to labor, you couldn’t handle the pain anymore, opting for an epidural on the spot which made the pain bearable. Then finally came the time to push, and Lewis stayed there, holding your hand and whispering words of comfort when necessary, and words of strength when needed.

“You are doing great, love. Come on, on three you push with all you can yeah? Promise I’ll stay right here! Come on, no- no-” he held your face softly, “I know you’re tired but you can’t rest yet! Stay here, and we’re going to see Peanut soon! Come on, when the doctor calls three, you push!”

Your memory would be hazy but you’d never forget Lewis’ patience and strength dealing with you. His voice guiding you through every single hour, his eyes that were so kind and his hands on you.

“I can’t Lewis!” You cried, but he held your face, looking deep into your eyes.

“You can! You can because you’re the strongest person here! I love you so much. You can, I’m right here with you. One more push, Peanut is almost out.”

Then, there was the loud cry of the baby in the doctor's hands. Gasping, Lewis stared at the baby while the doctor cut the umbilical cord. You looked at Lewis, who was bawling, face sweaty but the complete adoration in his eyes said more than any words could ever.

“This is your baby girl, Mom and Dad!” The doctor handed you the baby curled on a blanket.

“Oh my god. Love, this is Luna, right?” Lewis leaned down, whispering and watching his baby’s face.

“Luna…” You whispered, looking at her perfect little face.

“Our Luna…” Lewis whispered.

-

You were making tea in the kitchen when you heard Luna starting to cry, progressively louder. You could hear Lewis trying to calm her down, and when you came back to the living room, he was softly nursing Luna, and she was still whining.

“Everything ok, Dada?” You asked him, saving him a mug with tea.

Chuckling, he held Luna against his naked chest, and she was getting calmer and calmer. You sat on the couch, watching them. But then Lewis started mumbling a song, softly like a lullaby, and after a few seconds he sang a bit louder so you could make up the lyrics.

But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them

In my life, I love you more

Funnily enough, Luna started to drift to sleep again, curled on her Dad’s chest. He put her on the little carrier, covering with the blanket then sat beside you, pulling you into his chest.

“Can you believe that? We made the most amazing bundle of love!” He said, kissing the top of your head, “Thank you so much for taking a chance on me, for letting me be part of this. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, honey.”

“I told you we were gonna make it.”

You felt like your heart was going to burst with so much love, for Lewis, for Luna and grateful for the second chance you took on this life and these dreams. You knew there was still a lot of work to put in, not only in raising your daughter but also in rebuilding your life with Lewis, but you were sure you'd have the rest of your lives to work on it.

#f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fic #f1 #formula 1 #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton x you #lewis hamilton +18 #f1 smut #smut #Spotify

[thehmn]

It might simply be that I don’t frequent ADHD forums enough but I haven’t seen a whole lot of talk about learned social withdrawal.

As a child I made friends left and right but as we all turned into self-conscious teenagers it slowly became more and more difficult for me. Plain and simple, other people thought I was weird. For some reason I never got bullied which I think is related to something my teachers kept telling my parents “She’s such a sweet, bright child and we can tell she’s not malicious or trying to be disruptive on purpose but we can’t teach her anything”

Basically people couldn’t figure me out. I had good social skills with both children and adults, I had a good moral compass, i felt compassion and empathy for others and was willing to go against my friends if I felt they were being bullies, I taught myself English and my drawings showed good observation skills. Because of all that it was decided I should start school a year sooner than most kids and my parents were very proud. Unfortunately that’s probably one of the main reasons why I was never diagnosed with raging ADHD as a child. People soon realized I didn’t do well in a school setting but assumed it was because I “wasn’t done playing” and my ADHD symptoms were interpreted as childishness.

So as I got older my classmates started to distance themselves from me. They were always kind and friendly but they didn’t know how to deal with me and ever since then people have always been worryingly comfortable with calling me weird to my face. I get the impression it’s because they think it’s a choice on my part. To them I’m clearly of “normal intelligence” so I must be acting like this on purpose and my parents would repeatedly tell me to “just act normal” as a child when I told them I was struggling to make friends. I tried so damn hard but kept failing. I knew something had to be different about me and when I first heard about ADHD I thought “That’s me! That’s how I feel!” but my parents said that was impossible because I wasn’t hyperactive.

Because nobody wanted to help me I eventually learned to just stop trying to make friends and keep to myself. I was so tired of being told by friendly, well-meaning people that I was so weird and quirky and unique only for them to distance themselves once they realized it was permanent and not something I could turn on and off for parties. I always enjoyed being alone so it wasn’t a huge loss but it did feel incredibly lonely at times.

Things got a lot better when I became an adult, mostly because adults are generally more chill than teens so my ADHD behavior isn’t as embarrassing to them and ironically they’re often surprised to learn I don’t make friends easily. Unfortunately I learned to be withdrawn in my formative years so new friends are still a rarity. Before I really sat down and put my past into context I even started to wonder if I had autism despite not connecting with anything autistic people said about their experiences. I went as far as to be tested but wasn’t surprised when the diagnosis was negative because of course it was, I kinda already knew that. I was just looking for an explanation.

So while there can be overlap between ADHD and autism (I have just such a friend) my experience is also that oftentimes people with ADHD simply learn to stay away from social situations and entertain ourselves which ends up looking like autism to outsiders.

#adhd #add #autism

[javierpena-inatacvest]

Maybe, Baby?

Summary: You and Frankie aren't trying for a baby just yet, but when your weird symptoms start to throw your body for a loop, you start to wonder if you actually might be pregnant

Pairing: Husband!Frankie Morales x Wife!Reader (no use of y/n)

Word Count: 5.4K

Warnings: SMUT (18+), Unprotected p in v sex (wrap before u tap, silly gooses), creampie, praise kink, size kink (if u squint), unintentional breeding kink (lmaoooo, it's me, sorry not sorry), birth control/family planning, pregnancy (or maybe not? part 2 maybe? hehe) symptoms, Frankie and reader mention being closer to 30 than 16 (turns out when you're an adult, it's not a teen pregnancy anymore), reader has hair that can be played with, Frankie being the sweetest husband alive (all the gold stars for him), Frankie is so excited to be a dad that I just may pass away

A/N: I know y'all voted for me to finish chapter 20 but i lied (I'm so sorry), but I wrote this in a day and husband Frankie was really speaking to me on this one 😭 This one is brought to you by my raging baby fever and perhaps some real life inspiration WHOOPS, art imitating life on this one ig 💀 Poorly beta'd bc that's how I roll!!!

Ever since getting off birth control a few months ago, your body had felt… different. 

While you were glad you had made the change for yourself, you still found yourself shocked every month when a new sort of symptom decided to appear at some point in your cycle that you had never dealt with before- acne in new places, weird cramps, and crazy mood swings that showed up out of nowhere before your period were just a few of the things you were learning to manage as you figured out your body post birth control. 

Another symptom you hadn’t expected was that now, you were insatiably horny. 

All the time. 

While Frankie had been more supportive and caring in helping you deal with all of your not so pleasant symptoms than you could have hoped for, he was also more than happy to help you with your newly found positive one, too. 

The only problem was, after so many years of not having to worry about the consequences of your sex life on birth control, you and Frankie were finding it very hard to adjust to be more… careful. 

As you got hornier and hornier, the box of condoms that Frankie had bought after you stopped taking the pill had been seeing less and less use, and to be honest, hadn’t really seen the light of day from the back of his nightstand drawer in about a month an a half- and if you were being even more honest, on top of that, Frankie’s pull out game was almost nowhere to be found. 

You both knew that you wanted a family in the future- That was a part of your reason for getting off birth control to begin with. The two of you had agreed to hold off at least for a little longer to try and get your life more in order before bringing a baby into it, but with with your new lack of protection when it came to sex, and constant horniness around the clock, you both were beginning to have a feeling that that your agreed upon timeline for having a baby might be harder for you to maintain that you thought. 

Especially when you found yourself morphing into an unspeakably horny monster when you were ovulating. 

So little did you realize, that as you were brushing your teeth in the bathroom as the two of you were getting ready for bed and you caught a glimpse in the mirror of Frankie, stripping out of his shirt and jeans, leaving him only in his boxers as he searched around in your dresser for pajamas, that was the reason you nearly spit out your entire mouthful of toothpaste to try and get a mouthful of something else. 

You couldn’t help but ogle at your husband's broad body and freckled tan skin, muscles flexing as he shuffled through your drawers, pulling out an old, worn gray t-shirt and tugging it over his head, running his hand through his messy, curly hair before searching for his pajama bottoms.

At this point, you had honestly braced yourself on the edge of the bathroom counter to keep yourself from falling over at how mouth-watering he looked, already feeling the wetness beginning to pool in the cotton of your underwear at the thought of wanting to rip his clothes off just as fast as he had put them on. 

Letting out a yawn, Frankie raised his hands above his head so a sliver of his soft belly peaked out between his waistband and shirt hem before making his way into the bathroom, sleepily padding along the tile floor until his body was behind yours, chest flushed against your back and arms wrapped around your waist. Even more prevalent, his bulge pressed against your ass, making the wet spot in your underwear grow damper by the second. 

“You ready for bed, querida?” Frankie cooed, placing a soft kiss on your shoulder and smiling at your reflections in the mirror. 

While you were absolutely ready to get into bed, sleeping was not going to be your activity of choice.  

“I think that maybe…” You paused, turning around to face Frankie, his body caging yours against the counter, palms splayed flat on either side of your hips, looking down at you with his sweet, brown eyes, “I think that maybe we should do something else before we go to sleep.” 

“Something else, huh?” Frankie smirked, raising his eyebrows at you as your hands began to run up and down his arms, slightly squeezing the muscles of his biceps as your fingers crept under the fabric of his shirt sleeves. “And what might that something else be, Hermosa?” 

“You know exactly what it is, Fransisco. You expect me to watch you just roam around shirtless in our bedroom and not get all hot and bothered? God, you’re so fucking hot.” You moaned, letting your hands run up his shoulders and around his neck, pulling him in for a long, electric kiss. 

“Damn, what’s gotten into you, babe?” Frankie chuckled, trying his best not to blush at your comment, sliding his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him. 

“I don’t- Fuck, I don’t know, I just know that if you don’t fuck me right this second, I think I’m gonna explode.” 

While your statement may have had a flair for the dramatic, it was just about as close to the God’s honest truth as you could get- You were so worked up, you felt practically feral, the ache in your core so strong that you really did feel like you were on the verge of implosion. 

Before you even gave Frankie time to respond, your lips were crashing into his with a ferocious intensity, your hands grabbing fistfulls of his t-shirt as you stumbled back towards your bedroom, bodies bumping and bouncing against the walls and door frames, mouths never parting as the back of Frankie’s knees finally hit the mattress, forcing him to fall backwards onto the bed. 

Crawling overtop of him, you were already straddled over his hips, grinding your bottom half on the bulge growing in his pajamas as your hands crept under the hem of his t-shirt, running along the tanned, soft skin of his chest, making him let out a low groan that rumbled in his throat. 

Frantically shuffling himself further onto the bed, Frankie’s hands dug into your hips and over your ass as your hands slid down from his chest to his waistband, fingers tugging at the elastic to shuffle his bottoms and boxers down his legs, quickly followed by your own, dropping to a crumpled pile on the floor. 

Feeling your fingers wrap around his cock, already painfully hard, you swirled the precum leaking from his tip with your thumb before dragging your hand up and down his length, leaving Frankie sitting up in surprise while he watched you begin to hover over him, dragging his dick through your folds. 

“Hermosa, are you sure you don’t need me to-” But before Frankie could finish the rest of his protest to make sure you were ready to take him, you were already sinking down onto him, whimpering at the sweet sting and stretch of his fullness, followed by the ragged moan escaping Frankie’s lips. 

“Oh fuck… Nuh uh, Frankie. I need to feel you, baby. Needed to feel you inside me.” You whined, taking Frankie cock inch by inch until he had bottomed out inside you, his tip kissing your cervix, the fullness making you cry out in pleasure. 

Normally with Frankie’s size, you would have needed to warm you up first, but with how wet and worked up you already were, you were able to take him with ease, desperate to feel him buried deep inside you. 

“Jesus fucking christ, queirda, you’re so fucking wet. Fuck, baby.” Frankie moaned, feeling you begin to slide up and down his length, coating him with your arousal with each swirl of your hips. 

Arching your back, you jutted your hips forward, bracing your hands on Frankie’s strong thighs, circling your bottom half against his, whimpering at his fullness and the hairs at the base of his cock brushing against your clit, selfishly already longing to chase your own high to ease the ache that had been burning in your core. 

“Fuck, Frankie, you feel so good. Feel so fucking full with you in me.” You whimpered, bouncing even harder and faster on Frankie’s cock, the lewd sounds of your skin slapping his and wetness dripping from your heat coating the walls of your bedroom. 

“Yeah? This what you wanted, pretty girl? Wanted me to stretch this pretty little pussy out and fill you up?” Frankie groaned, gritting his teeth as he began to jut his hips up into yours as you rode him, the added depth of his thrusts making you cry out in pleasure. 

And for as fucking good as it felt, the horny monster you had morphed into had you greedily craving more- to have Frankie stretch you open in a way that had you seeing stars, so much that you could still feel the next day, long after the two of you were finished. 

“I-I want more, p-please, baby. Fuck- Fuck me harder, Fransisco.” You cried, your sweet voice whimpering his full name turning him almost as feral as you were, letting out a low growl as he grabbed you by your hips, flipping you so that your back hit the mattress and he was caging his broad body over yours. 

Practically ripping the t-shirt still covering your upper half off your body, Frankie dove face first between your breasts, groping one while hungrily sucking at the other, flicking your pebbled nipple with his tongue, his free hand reaching down to line his cock back up with your entrance, sliding back in to your aching core with ease. 

Frankie let himself sink all the way back in, filling you to the brim before hooking his arms around your knees, pressing your legs against your stomach, smirking to himself at the ragged moan you let out as the new angle opened you up even further. 

“You want me to fuck you harder, Hermosa?” Frankie mewled, slowly dragging his length out of your heat, looking down to see your shiny slick soaking his cock before looking back at you and the wrecked expression plastered across your face, frantically nodding in desperation. “Tell me how badly you want it, sweet girl.” 

“Fuck, I need you so bad, Fransisco, please.” You begged, damn near close to tears with how deeply you needed to feel Frankie ease the emptiness inside you. “Please, baby, I- oh fuck-”  

Before you could even finish the rest of your plea, your breath was already hitched in the back of your throat as Frankie began to pound into you at a relentless pace, tightening his grip around your thighs while he pressed them closer to your chest, grunting with each rut of his hips into yours. 

“This what you want, querida? Meirda- so fucking wet and tight, baby girl. You feel so fucking good, holy fuck.” 

It didn’t take long for the all too familiar tingle at the base of your spine to start spreading through your body like a wildfire as Frankie continued to slam into your g-spot, making you chant his name like a prayer, your brain at a loss for any other words than “Fuck, Fransisco.” 

And as if you already weren’t close enough, when Frankie reached down to thumb at your clit, rubbing in relentless circles against your sensitive nub, you knew you were a fucking goner. 

“That’s it, Hermosa. Cum for me, baby. Want that- oh fuck- want that prefect pussy to fucking soak me.” Frankie groaned, feverishly pounding into you, desperate to feel you come undone for him giving him long enough to fight off his own high that was rapidly building in the pit of his stomach. 

A few more thrusts were all it took to have the coil snapping in your belly, crying out Frankie’s name as you came, orgasm ripping through your body with a blinding intensity, eyes scrunching shut and jaw hanging open while pleasure and euphoria flowed through every ounce of you. 

Still blissed out and wrecked out of your mind, your eyes shot open as Frankie’s mouth crashed into yours, swallowing your whimpers and moans in a messy dance of tongues and teeth. 

“Fuck, you’re so fucking pretty when you cum. Jesus fuck-  fuck, I’m close too, baby. W-where do you want me, Hermosa?” Frankie asked, barley holding on long enough for you to answer, his thrusts becoming sloppier and sloppier as his hips began to stutter, gritting his teeth and furrowing his brow with every ounce of self control he had left. 

Still barley coherent enough to form a sentence, your brain blurted out the only thing you could think of, and the only thing that you really wanted in the moment. 

“Inside, Fransisco. Fuck, cum inside me, baby.” 

That alone was almost enough to send Frankie over the edge, letting out a long, low groan, sloppily rutting into you as his brain went blank alongside yours, starting to babble incoherently. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck- you want me to fill you up, queirda? Fuck, I’ll fucking fill you up so good you’ll be dripping out of me for days. Oh fuck, shit baby, fuck, oh I’m gonnaahhhhhh-“ 

Just like that, Frankie took one last thrust, spilling deep inside you, coating your walls with his spend as his body slumped into yours, the pair of your chests rising and falling in sync as you both came back down to earth. 

“Jesus Christ… Holy fuck, Frankie.” You giggled quietly to yourself, blissfully filled with post orgasm ecstasy as your husband carefully pulled himself out before rolling over next to you on the bed, pulling you close against his chest. 

“Fuck me, Hermosa, holy shit.” Frankie chuckled, pressing a soft kiss into your forehead, tracing small circles on your back as he held you, heat radiating off of each other's sweat-ridden bodies. “God, I love you. We should probably get you cleaned up. You wanna shower?” He asked, smirking as your face lit up at his nearly rhetorical question. 

“Only if you’re up for round 2, Morales.”   

“My eyes are up here, Fransisco.” 

“Hmmm? What did you say?” 

“Exactly my point. Can you stop looking with your man eyes and look with your normal, helpful people eyes to help me decide on a dress for Benny and Victoria’s wedding?” You sighed, laughing to yourself as you raised an eyebrow at Frankie, his gaze still fixed on your chest. 

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll be helpful.” Frankie huffed, overdramatically rolling his eyes at you, playfully throwing his hands up in defense as he leaned back against the dressing room door, looking you up and down in one of the cute floral dresses you had picked to try on for your friends’ upcoming wedding. “It’s just that… Nevermind.” 

“It’s just that what, Frank?” You asked tilting your head in confusion at your husband as his eyes traveled back to your breasts, furled look in his brow like he was really staring there to prove a point. 

“It’s just that- Baby, I don’t know if it’s just the dress or what, but your boobs look huge. Like, they always look good, believe me, but like… Whew.” Frankie whistled, practically shaking his head in disbelief at how good you looked. 

“Really?” You asked, turning around to face the mirror in the dressing room, gently cupping your breasts, grimacing as you held them in your hands. “Yeah, I guess they do… Honestly, I was gonna complain about how sore they’ve been all day. I wonder if maybe my period is just coming early?” 

“Maybe? You did ride me pretty hard the last couple nights and put on a good show, so maybe they hurt from all that bouncing and-” 

“Frankie! We are in public!” You playfully scolded, giving him a flimsy slap to the chest to cut off the rest of his thought, the two of you quietly giggling to yourselves and trying to “Shhhh” each other from drawing too much attention to your dressing room stall. “The dress, you goofball, yes or no? Sooner we pick, the sooner we can go get food, because your wife is starving.” 

“I vote yes on the dress. You look beautiful in it, querida.” Frankie smiled, stepping behind you to press a kiss on the side of your head. 

“You just like it because it makes my boobs look huge.” 

“What? Can you blame me for wanting to stare at my gorgeous wife’s boobs all night?” 

“God, you are ridiculous, Fransisco. Fine, boob dress wins. Now let’s get out of here and go get some food before you get stuck in a titty trance and I die of hunger.” 

While the rest of your Saturday was spent enjoying the delicious Mexican food that you had picked up on the way home and a much needed night in on the couch with Frankie, there was a tiny part of your brain that couldn’t seem to shake his comment from earlier about how big your boobs looked. 

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t agree with him, because truth be told, they felt huge, too. They had been sore since you had woken up this morning, and while you had chalked it up to what you and Frankie had been up to the past few nights, or bad PMS symptoms, there was still just something about you that felt off. 

Later that night, during your movie marathon, you had paused whatever new action movie Frankie had been begging to watch since it had popped up on Netflix a few days ago for a popcorn refill. 

While Frankie meandered around the kitchen waiting for the next bag of popcorn to finish popping, you stayed curled up with your blanket in your corner of the couch, mindlessly scrolling through your phone, until a sharp twinge began to cramp in your lower stomach. The feeling took you by surprise, digging your fingers into your side to try and ease the dull and achy sensation as your face scrunched in confusion, wondering why in the world you had what felt like period cramps in your belly. 

“Hey, you okay, Hermosa?” Frankie asked, returning with popcorn in hand, his face painted with concern to see the pained look scrunched between your brow as you curled deeper into the couch. 

“Oh, y-yeah, I’m fine. I just um, I just had a weird cramp I guess. Probably just ate all that popcorn too fast.” You replied, trying to convince yourself just as much as you were trying to convince Frankie that you were overthinking whatever mystery symptoms had just flashed through your lower half. 

“Here, lemme just set this popcorn down and then I can rub your back while we finish the movie, okay?” Frankie smiled softly, setting down the bowl on the coffee table before crawling back under the sea of blankets on the couch with you, laying your head against his thigh like a pillow while his hand traced up and down along the small of your back. 

“Thanks, Frankie.” You whispered quietly, taking a few deep breaths as the familiar warmth of your husband’s palm worked up and down the worn fabric of his shirt that you had put on earlier. 

“Of course, baby. If you need anything else, just let me know, okay? Just promise me you’ll take it easy on the popcorn if you have any more there, Killer.” 

The two of you laughed quietly as Frankie leaned down to press a soft kiss into your messy hair laid across his lap before picking up the remote to let the rest of the movie play as your eyelids began to get heavier and heavier as you slowly drifted off to sleep. 

“What’s inside this box?” 

“Open it up and find out! It’s a surprise for you!” 

“Okay? Huh, why is it just a pregnancy test in there?” 

“It’s yours! Congratulations! You’re having a baby!” 

“Ahhhhh!” You shrieked, panting as you woke from a cold sweat, shooting up from the couch. “What the fuck…” You whispered to yourself, coming to and realizing that you were now awake and had only been dreaming moments before this. Running your hands over your face, you blinked a few times to be greeted by the dim light of the TV still flickering in the background, Frankie sprawled out and snoring by your side where the two of you must have fallen asleep on the couch during the movie. 

“What a weird fucking dream…” You sighed to yourself, shaking your head as you quietly pushed yourself off the couch to stumble to the bathroom, pulling your phone out of your sweatpants pocket to check what ungodly hour of the night it had to be since the two of you had crashed on the couch. 

2:07 A.M. 

You let out a low grumble, pushing your sweatpants down to your ankles as you sat down to pee, blinking your eyes open wider to look through the notifications piled on top of each other on your lockscreen. Mindlessly swiping through a few junk emails and text messages from group chats, one notification in particular caught your eye, rousing you from your half awake state. 

“Feeling down? As you begin your Luteal Phase of your cycle, it’s normal to be less cheerful compared to last week when you were Ovulating! Click to track your cycle symptoms for today!” 

Oh shit.  

You could feel your heart beginning to race as you opened up the app, scrolling to the calendar tracker for the month. Swiping through the days, it didn’t take you long to realize that despite all of your weird symptoms you had been chalking up to PMS, you were almost two weeks away from starting your period. Frantically scrolling backwards, you began to try and rack your brain of all of the times in the past week that you had sex with Frankie while you would have been ovulating, and out of that number, how many times he hadn’t finished inside you, let alone even attempt to pull out. 

And that number was a big, fat zero. 

That’s when it hit you like a fucking freight train- You weren’t PMS-ing.

More than likely, you were pregnant. 

“Holy fuck…” You whispered to yourself, your voice trembling and heart pounding as you buried your face in your trembling hands, your mind flooding with a million different thoughts all at once. 

How could you not remember that you were ovulating? Would Frankie be upset? The two of you weren’t even trying for kids right now. Would you be a good Mom? What were you even going to need to do to prepare? Your house was starting to get small for just you and Frankie, let alone a baby. How were you going to find a new place to live in 9 months? And get a new car? How were you- 

“Baby, you good in there?” Frankie groaned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he stumbled into the bathroom, letting out a yawn as he opened the door, bright light flooding into the hallway and revealing the sobbing mess you had become, still pants down, hunched over the toilet. 

“Woah, hey, hey, hey. Baby, baby, what’s going on? Talk to me, Hermosa. Are you okay? What happened?” You could feel Frankie’s demeanor immediately switch as soon as he saw you in the bathroom, instantly dropping to his knees by your side, his hands gently grabbing your face to shift your gaze towards him, carefully swiping his thumb to dry the tears that had been streaming down your cheeks. 

“Frankie, I- I- Fuck.” You stuttered, gulping hard as you tried to catch your breath, fighting back your nervous sobs as you locked eyes with Frankie, wondering how in the world you were ever about to brace him for the news you were about to tell him. 

“Hermosa, what is it? Please, tell me baby, what’s wrong?” Frankie pleaded, softly squeezing your face in reassurance as he waited for your response. 

You took a few more deep breaths, composing yourself enough to at least try to get a coherent thought out, swallowing hard as the words left your mouth. 

“Frankie, I-, Frankie, I think- I think I’m pregnant.” 

Frankie’s eyes went wide, his jaw practically hanging open as he tried to process what you had just told him, wondering if he hadn’t heard you right in his groggy state. 

“W-what?” 

“I think I might be pregnant, Frankie.” 

Before you could even bear the thought of looking at his face again, filled with fear that it would be a look of shock and disappointment, you buried your face in your hands again, fighting with everything in you not to cry and keep your composure. 

Frankie sat quietly for a moment, his hand covering up the gaping hole his jaw had made as it nearly hit the floor, shaking his head in disbelief before wrapping his hand around your wrist, pulling your hands to look at him. 

“R-really? You- fuck- You really think you’re pregnant?” 

As your eyes met his, you couldn’t believe the look on your husbands face- Not only was Frankie practically grinning from ear to ear, the sweet brown of his puppy dog eyes were welling with happy tears of their own, waiting on your every word as if he still didn’t believe what he was hearing. Silently, you began to slowly nod your head, biting down on your tongue, your heart feeling like it was about to shoot out of your chest. 

“You’re...y-you’re not upset?” You stammered, sitting up a little taller at Frankie’s reaction. 

“Upset? Hermosa, why in the world would I ever be upset?” Frankie laughed quietly, gently tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear as his other hand cupped your jaw. “Querida… There’s nothing more I want on this earth than to have a family. And-fuck- The fact that it gets to be with you? That you might give me a family? How could I ever be upset about that? 

“Well it’s not like we were really trying for a baby, Frank. We said another year or two. With the house and money -” 

“Hey. We’ll figure it all out, okay? I promise, we’ll be more than okay.” Frankie smiled, his goofy grin still stretched wide between his cheeks, finally easing some of your worry. 

“I don’t even feel like I’m old enough to have a kid. I feel like I need to call up MTV to tell them I’ll be on the next season of 16 and Pregnant.” The two of you snorted, shaking your heads in awestruck disbelief that a stupid joke about a reality TV show could soon become your reality. 

“Well considering we’re married, have a house, and most importantly, are much closer to 30 than we are 16, I think they may have a hard time pitching the show “Married Couple Has a Baby”.” Frankie teased, giving you a playful nudge as the two of you laughed, giving you a few seconds to catch your breath before trying to dig into details. “Did- Did you take a test? How long have you known?”

“No, I don’t know for sure yet, Frank. It’s… It’s just a feeling, I guess. But the huge, sore boobs, weird, period-like cramps and the fact that we really haven’t been the most careful are all pretty good clues.” 

“Well, I mean, I don’t know, we’ve tried to be care-” 

Before Frankie could even finish the rest of his thought, you were already giving him the sassiest look you could muster in your overwhelmed and sleepy state, making the two of you laugh again he let out a sigh of defeat. 

“Okay, yeah, we really haven’t been that careful at all. Sweetie, listen, I- I know it’s not what we had planned, but… I mean, if you are pregnant…” Frankie paused, smiling at your stomach as he gently place a hand over your belly, tears welling in his chocolate brown eyes, “Baby, I would be so excited. Nervous as hell, but so fucking excited.” 

“Me too.” You sniffed, looking down at Frankie’s palm splayed across your stomach, heart swelling at the thought of Frankie being dad, thinking of how sweet and caring and perfect he’d be as you grew your little family together. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you pulled Frankie in close, letting out a shaky sigh, whispering your words through happy tears. 

“I love you so much, Frankie.” 

“I love you so much too, Hermosa. More than anything.” 

For the sake of Frankie’s shoulder, you pulled away to wipe your tears to keep from soaking your husband’s shirt, quietly laughing to yourself at the fact that this whole time you had been talking to Frankie, you had still been pantsless, hunched over the toilet. 

“It probably would have been way more romantic to tell you all of this not at 2:30 in the morning, pantsless and hunched over the toilet like a little gremlin.” You snorted, Frankie following suit as he shook his head, running his hand through the sleepy curls of your hair. 

“I wouldn’t want it any other way, mi amor. C’mon, let’s get you up to bed.” 

As the two of you sleepily trotted your way upstairs, curling together under the warmth of your comforter with Frankie’s chest pressed against your back, you couldn’t help but smile as his arm draped over your stomach, hand resting on your belly while his thumb traced soft circles on your skin, imagining what it would be like if a few months from now if you really were getting ready to add another member to your family. 

The next morning, as the sunrise began to spill through your curtains, casting bright orange and pink shadows on your bedroom walls, you couldn’t help but stir as the familiar scent and warmth of Frankie’s body was missing from his side of the bed.

 As you sat up in the sea of blankets and comforters, softly rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, you saw Frankie’s frame quietly sneaking through the bedroom door, fresh mug of coffee and bag of breakfast in hand with a stupid smile plastered across his face as he was greeted with your barely awake grin. 

“Good morning, beautiful.” Frankie cooed, setting down the coffee and breakfast down on your nightstand as he sat down next to you on the edge of the bed, pressing a tender kiss into the sleep-ridden ends of your hair before wrapping his arms around you in a long embrace. 

“Good morning, handsome.” You yawned, stretching your arms over your head, letting out a little grunt and laying your head on Frankie’s shoulder. “What’s all this for?” You asked, gesturing towards the coffee and oversized McDonald’s bag, assuming it was the reason for Frankie’s absence when you woke up. 

“I- I don’t know, I uh- I was just really excited when I got up this morning. It was early, and I didn’t wanna wake you up, so I made a trip to CVS to buy some pregnancy tests for you and figured I’d pick up breakfast on the way home.” Frankie smiled sheepishly, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, brushing past his untamed morning curls. “I know- I know you can’t really take the tests yet- I spent a lot of time reading the boxes in the store and wasn’t really sure what the best one was to take, so I got like, 4 different ones for when it's time.” 

“God, you’re so sweet. You’re the best, you know that? It’s about to be a long week of waiting before I can take one of those. Do you- fuck, Frankie, do you think it could really be positive?” You asked, tears beginning to well in your eyes again as you smiled up at your husband, already beaming back at you, picturing the two pink lines showing up on all of the tests he had bought for you. 

“Maybe, if we’re lucky.” He smirked, gently cupping your face, swiping his thumb across your face. “But if it’s not, then maybe… Maybe we start trying for a positive one on purpose.” 

“R-really?” You grinned, biting down on your lip in excitement. 

“Really, really.” Frankie replied, bringing his lips to yours in a long, slow kiss, soaking in the sweet taste of you on his tongue. “And maybe…” 

“Maybe, what, Fransisco?” You giggled, bringing your mouth back to his in a sweet and sloppy kiss. 

“Maybe…. We start trying right now, ya know, just to be sure. Wouldn’t want all those pregnancy tests to go to waste.”

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[sunnys-out]

Alexia, mi reinita, mi amor, mi todo | Alexia Putellas x Reader

A/N: Not me wanting to get this out still on Alexia's birthday like I'm turning an essay in at midnight. Ok honestly I would write a part two of this but that's only if people are interested. Again requests are closed for now.

So it's a little angsty, has a little hurt/comfort (I know this woman gives the best hugs let's be real), and some Alexia fluff.

Based on this prompt list: #4, #20

Warnings: Anxiety/panic attack symptoms

WC: 1860

Alexia had resolved it in herself that she would use whatever leverage she had to have you stay at Barcelona. She was not the type to use that card…she was not that kind of player…the type to threaten to leave to get what she wanted, but the thing she wanted was you. She had tried to speak with some of the staff about it but they were “conveniently busy”. With no success, she texts you “Voy a casa, te veo pronto, amor” (I’m going home, I’ll see you soon, love)  before driving over to your shared home.

Barcelona was dragging their feet with regards to your contract of whether you would be renewed or be traded to some other club, some other league, some other country. You had spent 4 years dedicated to Barcelona and had earned your spot in the midfield. The statistics you pulled throughout your career there were phenomenal, the kind that made your girlfriend proud to see because she was there from the beginning. So why was Barcelona playing a cat and mouse game with your livelihood?

______________________________________________________________

“Alexia, mi Reinita, mi amor, mi todo (my little queen, my love, my everything),

You know that I am better with my words written on paper than spoken to you. You still make me nervous when I look at you; I still blush as quickly as I did when we first met. I write this to you because I’m going to America to Bay FC…the deal has been done and the announcements will be out in a couple of weeks, but I wanted you to be the first to know. 

______________________________________________________________

The amount of times that Alexia had found you at that kitchen table with your head covered by your arms crying out your frustrations at another deal that went nowhere. She would never say a word and just quietly wrapped her arms around you and kissed the back of your head before laying hers on it. Once the crying stopped her hand would gently rub your back until eventually you began to move and pulled her into a hug with your head at her abdomen with a quick whisper of “let’s go to sleep”. Her only words would be “of course, cariño (dear)”.

______________________________________________________________

I know how you are mi amor (my love) but fighting the club is not worth it. It is hard to swallow the reality that the club that I grew up watching, grew up to play in, does not carry the same love and dedication I had for them…for me. You were one of the first people I met 4 years ago when I transferred from my club team in Mexico. It was a big move and you were there to just welcome me in, you knew immediately that I did not take change very well and was uncomfortable with everything. 

______________________________________________________________

Alexia, at some point, blocked some sports news outlets on your social media because of how overwhelming the “(y/n) Transfer Rumor” posts were getting for you. You did not want to leave Barcelona, you had made a home there with Alexia and the thought of leaving all of what you had terrified you. 

You could already hear the comments from the “fans” questioning your loyalty, why you couldn’t just confirm that you would be staying at Barça or leaving the team all together, why you were silent on the rumors? Alexia would be there with her head on your shoulder quietly holding you in the kitchen quieting the noises in your head with a simple kiss to the temple.

“Mi princesa, go sit down.. I’ll make dinner” she’d whisper into your hair as she led you to the table and made dinner while you watched with warmth at the woman before you. 

______________________________________________________________

I remember you would tease me about my accent when I spoke Spanish and said you would give me lessons if I made you a bag after you saw me crocheting mine on the bus to my first away game. I know that the Spanish lessons were just a way to spend time with me. You could have asked me to be with you at any point and I would have said yes. I remember you teaching me how to dance in our kitchen one night after saying that I was worried about making a fool out of myself at my brother’s wedding. I’m going to miss our 3 am dances we would do when I was pacing the kitchen stressed out of my mind on this transfer.

As you said, “Here I don’t want you to walk back and forth alone, just dance with me instead…I'm here”. I still remember the feeling of you under my palms; every curve, every line as I would take the lead of the dance and you would look at me calmly guiding my hands like how you did when you first taught me…yeah I’ll miss those quiet moments the most. 

______________________________________________________________

You had not gone to practice that morning due to stomach issues and you had to basically push Alexia out of the door so that she went to practice. 

“I’ll get some rest do not worry, mi Reinita” You say as she answers with a quick kiss.

She grabs her bags and gives another kiss pulling you in,“I’ll be home as soon as I'm done ok?”.

Alexia entered through the doorway of the shared home and saw several moving boxes littered on the floor. Confused, she looks for you as there is not the usual soft music that you play when you are doing chores and finds you wrapped in a blanket sound asleep on the couch.

Her bag is gently put to the ground as she rounds the corner of the couch. She sees the coffee table littered with papers and your phone with an unread message from her.

She quietly looms over the papers, seeing a copy of your original Barcelona contract, the proposal, the rejection to the proposal, another club offer and, finally, the letter to confirm intention to transfer. Your phone lights up with another notification; getting the attention of Alexia who notices the handwritten letter that remained unfinished under your phone. 

You were a semi - heavy sleeper so she picked up the letter and began to read as her soft smile appeared, fell and then reappeared.  The boxes made sense now, you were organizing your things ahead of time to leave. Seems that you received the news that morning, explaining why the staff were busy when Alexia tried her best to speak with them.

She looked down at your handwriting again…she’s so familiar with it as you have always littered her spaces with sticky notes of encouragement, love and everything in between. You always thought she had thrown them away but on your 2nd year anniversary she showed you the box where she had kept every single note that you had written to her. 

It didn’t matter to her; she kept all the ones that said “Hi Ale, can you get some milk?”, “Reinita, there is dinner in the fridge”, “I’m too lazy, I ordered pizza oh and I guess Patri is coming over?’ 

This letter no matter how long she will keep especially close to her.

Alexia sat at the other end of the couch and began to read the last bit of the letter.

______________________________________________________________

I know that I will be so far from you and that you will miss the things that I do. You were always a romantic like that mi amor (my love). That’s why I am going to leave you my favorite book, the one that I always read way too many times and have cried over just as much. The only thing that I ask is that you don’t open it until I am gone and you are missing me. Just saying not to is going to make you want to open the book even more but please listen to me on this one. :)

I don’t know what the fixtures of the NWSL are yet but I know that you will want to -

______________________________________________________________

You stir and stretch out your legs pushing Alexia in the process. The resistance pulled you from your sleep.

Alexia laughs softly as she pats your leg, “Sleep well, cariño (dear)?” 

You only nod as you rub the sleep from your eyes. Without a word, you sit up and look at Alexia who fiddles with the note that you had written. 

“I wish I was at least awake when you found out, amor (love)” you start as you shift over to be closer to her.

“Are you mad at me?” your head now lying on her shoulder.

Alexia looks, almost, offended at the comment as she turns to you.

“This is your decision, cariño, you know that I will support in whatever you do and wherever you go…I’m sad, yes, but seeing you living out your dreams has been a honor for me…so no I’m not mad solamente bien orgullosa de ti (only very proud of you)”.

She pulls you closer, her hand softly rubbing your arm as she hears the small sniffles coming from you.

“Promise me you’ll watch at least one game” you say softly.

Alexia laughs and kisses the top of your head, “Amor, I’ll watch every one”.

______________________________________________________________

The announcement came and went and so did you. You found yourself preparing for the inaugural season for Bay FC. The fans had taken a liking to you immediately and the management welcomed you with open arms. 

Alexia, remained in your shared home that now was quieter without your presence. The spaces that normally were filled with little posts were bare, the days for chores weren’t filled with your questionable music, and Alexia no longer needed to dance in the kitchen at 3 am.

After a particularly hard practice, Alexia returned home missing you more than usual. As she plopped down on the couch her eyes fell on your book that you left behind for her.

She remembered that you had asked her to not open it until you were gone to your new club.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, it was the book that you read every year during the summer without fail. No matter how many times you read it, Alexia would see you tear up and close the book to compose yourself before continuing. 

She got the book and opened to the first page and seeing a small, sticky note,

“I miss you, mi reinita”.

Alexia flipped the page and found another one,

“You can text my mom for her soup recipe, she’d only give it to you”

A laugh escapes her as she continues through the book finding more and more of your notes that you had written out. She skips to the end and finds an older looking note.

“I love you, Alexia Putellas…” with the date of your 1st anniversary with Alexia.

And below with newer ink and dated the day that you had left.

“And I… I still love you, even after all of this time”.

#woso x reader #woso imagine #barca femeni x reader #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas x y/n #woso fanfics

[inkdrinkerworld]

Spencer reid sends you a period basket every month no matter where he is!!! Without fail there’s a bouquet of flowers, your favourite chocolates, a poem or excerpt from whatever he’s reading, and some of your favourite skincare or body care and he just likes knowing that he’s going to get either a video or FaceTime call from you to tell him about it

Omg like Yolanda and Zack on TT!!!

Spencer knows that your period is a little irregular so he waits for the minute you start exhibiting pms symptoms.

He always checks to see what you have and what you need and takes stock mentally of all that he wants to get you too.

This month had been a little harder on you than others and so he goes a little crazy.

“My period came,” you sound a little pleased, glad it hasn’t been too late this month, but also a little peeved because the cramps are not letting up.

“I got your basket right here, angel.” You look up at him as he holds a bouquet in one hand and a basket in the next. “They’re fresh, the lady at the florist had just picked them.”

You lean up for a kiss, Spencer smiling when you take it and take a big inhale of the carnations. “Thank you Spence,” he hands over the basket next.

You go through it, taking the essentials, your pads and tampons and then your chocolates, out first. Then you see the folded sweater on the bottom. “Spence,” it’s a soft material, softer than your usual sweaters, something that you want to switch into now. You hardly hesitate to do it.

Then you see the face masks and serums and even some aromatherapy oils. “Thank you baby.”

Spencer accepts the way you vault yourself into him, holding the back of your head close to his chest as his other arm wraps around you.

“You’re the best boyfriend ever.” You whisper into his clothes and he chuckles.

“That’s just boyfriend duties, sweetheart. Plus one of the things is late. Should be here tomorrow though.”

You pull back, shocked and a little skeptical of how breezy his tone is. “Spencer Reid.” You try to be stern.

“Yes, my love?” He strokes your face from temple to jaw, tilting his head down a little as he stares at you.

“You’re no fair. What did you order?” You ask softly, a little lost in your adoration for him.

“A box set. The new series you wanted, I preordered it.” Tears spring fresh to your eyes, your bottom lip trembling as you feel the openness of his love for you- of how easy he finds it to dole out his love and affection and dote on you.

“Hey, no tears.” He wipes them away with his sleeve, gentle pressure on your cheeks. “I thought you’d be happy, or are these happy tears?”

You nod, “You’re just…” you can’t seem to settle on the right word. “,perfect.”

Spencer laughs rubbing your arms. “Thank you, but that’s not possible. Wanna watch movies with me? There’s the good popcorn, in the cupboards too.”

“Spencer stop. You’re gonna make me cry even more, I’m already so emotional.” He only hums, kissing your forehead as he reaches for the tv remote.

#spencerreid #spencer reid #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x black reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x yn #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #dr spencer reid

[russellsppttemplates]

I thought you didn't want to tell anyone (Charles Leclerc)

It appears that the Leclerc family is growing

Note: english is not my first language. I got this request from @myheartgoesvroom a good while ago and I finally had the time to write it!

Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated 🤍 and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!

my masterlist

Tw: mentions pregnancy symptoms, feeling sick, being bothered by warm temperatures/heat

Tag list: @myloverjk-blog

"Are we all ready to go?", Charles checked with everyone inside the jet, seeing the nods and Charlotte, Lorenzo's girlfriend shrug her shoulders, "I slept funny last night, it's just tiredness", she said, closing her eyes and resting her head against the seat, "I'm going to sleep for a little bit".

Charles told the pilot they were ready, sitting next to you in the three seater, his mother sitting next to you on the other end, "I hope you are all going to take this time to rest", Pascale looked at all of you, "if I see any of you checking work e-mails, I'll swat your phones myself", she chuckled, seeing Arthur shake his head and Charles grab your hand in his, "if I see you in your phone, I'm locking it", you threatened, "you need to rest, amour, this season has been pushing you too much", you mumbled, kissing his cheek as Carla started talking about something she had seen on the news.

When you arrived at the airport, it didn't take long until you were in the van that was taking you to the hotel you were staying in, "well, these are some winding roads", Carla said, opening the window to get a little bit of fresh air, "we're nearly there, miss", the driver smiled apologetically, "but it is true, these roads are not the the weak".

"I'm usually fine, but motion sickness is bothering me a lot today", she muttered, taking big and deep breaths as she looked out the window, "it's that one there right? Looks really good!".

The check in was done seamlessly and everyone was given a card key before you headed to the villa, the staff members that helped you with the luggage also explaining a few of the amenities and how the services worked for you since you were staying in a villa and not in the hotel building.

"We have to go see about the rental cars, and the boat, too", Charles put his hands on either of his brothers' shoulder, "which one of you guys want to come with me?".

"I'll join you, and we can stop by the supermarket to get some snacks, yes?", Pascale suggested, grabbing her bag as the boys grabbed their wallets, "do you need us to go?", Charlotte asked, "no need, chérie, they can go and get the cars and we'll do the shopping. Go rest for a little bit, yes?", Lorenzo said to his girlfriend, kissing her forehead and leaving the three of you to unpack.

"The rooms are all pretty identical. The suite is bigger and has a bigger balcony, but they all have a bathroom", Carla pointed out as she opened the door to exemplify, "it has a bigger bed, but Charles will sleep glued to me, it's not like a bigger bed would make much of a difference", you blushed, "so if any of you guys want it, go for it. Or we can leave it for Pascale", you suggested, seeing the other two girls nod and go to each of the smaller rooms, leaving the one closest to the suite to you and Charles.

The room was decorated in a minimalist way, tones of white, beige and light brown complimented by the sunlight coming from the window to the balcony. While the girls unpacked, the boys and Pascale got back and discussed the plans for dinner.

"I can get them to deliver the food to the door, no problem", Charles said as Charlotte admitted that she was hoping for an early night, her headache still bothering her, "we just have to set the table and they'll bring anything we want", he showed them the menu, "I'm not picky", you said, "but if they have that local dish, you know the one with the chicken we had last year in that restaurant? I'll have that", you said to your boyfriend, getting up and heading to the kitchen with his mother, hoping you'd be able to find all the cutlery, cups and plates that you needed.

When the food arrived, everyone helped set it up in the table, "I'm just going to wash my hand quickly and I'll be right back", Charles mumbled, kissing your cheek as he held out his hand that seemed to have some sauce on it.

.

The first full day began with a walk along the beach since you wanted to get to know the area and Charles didn't mind joining you, walking hand in hand along the wooden decking, "it's really warm today", you pointed out, fixing your cap and adjusting your sunglasses, "yes, last year wasn't so warm, right?", he said, "it's a good thing we always have the time and the opportunity to come here year after year, specially as a family.

"They won't say it out loud, but I know maman, Lorenzo and Arthur, and girls, too, they consider you family already. The guys specially, I think they've always considered you part of our family and Pascale Leclerc herself has never failed to mention how much you and I were made for eachother since I was old enough to understand what that meant", he kissed your knuckles.

"I'm very grateful for that, I'm very grateful for you", you whispered, almost like you were telling him a secret even though you made conscious effort to let him know how much you loved him and cherished him everyday, not wanting him to ever entertain the idea that you didn't feel those things towards him.

The walk was going well until the heat started getting to you, "can we go walk along the water, please?", you caught Charles' attention, "I think it's getting a bit too warm for me, I'm nearly tripping over my steps", you giggled as Charles pulled you to the warm sand, "do you want me to carry you? Get some water? Look, there's a bar", he pointed, walking with you to the beach bar and getting a bottle of water, "here, amour", he handed you the bottle.

"I think it's the heat", you blushed, "and I admit I could be more diligent about my water intake", you admitted, holding Charles' hand in yours and pulling him towards the water, the freshness from the water in your feet helping you cool down.

Walking back to join the rest of the group, you noticed Charlotte in the water with Lorenzo and Pascale while Carla and Arthur stayed in the sun loungers, "I see Charlotte is feeling better, that's good", you smiled, arranging your towell and laying down on it, "can you reapply my sun block, please?", you asked Charles since he was still up.

"Sure", he grabbed the spray bottle, rubbing the product on your skin, "and are you feeling better?", he asked, "I think my mother always has a hand fan with her, I can go a look for it in her bag", he offered.

"Are you feeling okay?", Carla checked, emphasising you, "I'm fine, just bothered by the heat, I was not made for these temperatures", you chuckled.

"Oh, I just remembered that really hot summer in Monaco where you had to stay inside because the heat outside made your face go tomato red in less than a minute!", Arthur teased you, "Hey!! I was about eleven, I was going through puberty and, like I said, I wasn't made for these temperatures", you added, "Carla, if you want to to hit your boyfriend for that one, you have my blessing".

By the time the rest of the group came back, lunch time was approaching and you made your way to the villa, deciding to make something for lunch since you had the fully equipped kitchen. The boys were on the grill and Pascale was seasoning the fish, "you have to make sure it's properly cooked", Lorenzo explained to his younger brothers, assertive that no raw fish would end up on the table, "do you guys need help? Y/N is just finishing the salad, Carla went upstairs and Charlotte also went up to wash the salt off of her skin".

"She's okay, right?", Arthur asked, the worry in his voice noticeable, "I think so, yes, she said something about cream for her shoulders, I think", Pascale quirked her brow, "her skin was slightly red when we walked back here", Charles pointed out, still not convincing his youngest brother as he walked upstairs to check on his girlfriend.

"I don't want that towell, I want this one", Carla stated, swapping the identical towells on top of the sun loungers after everyhting was tidied and you decided to spend the afternoon by the pool, "sure have that one", Arthur smiled charmingly, "do you want anything else?", he asked her, "I can go and get if for you", he said as he saw her negative nod, moving to the lounger next to her, "I'd like a beer, actually", Lorenzo called for him, "then you can get up and go get it yourself, brother".

.

After you arrived back from dinner, Charlotte went upstairs so she could rest, Lorenzo excusing them and wishing everyone a good night before they went up, leaving you, Charles, Arthur, Carla and Pascale in the outside area, sitting in the sofas as you talked about the plans for the next day, "are we still up for the boat?", Charles checked.

"Do you feel better?", Arthur asked his girlfriend, rubbing her shoulder, "yes, I told you it was just the road. I'm not used to winding roads like that, not all of us can be fine at all that speed and turns and bumps", she nudged her boyfriend, "are you sure? We can just sit it out", Arthur insisted, "I'm fine, Arthur, let me go on the boat with my favourites. You'll also be there, but that's a pain I have to deal with", she teased him.

By the time Pascale asked for your intake on something, you were already asleep, holding one of the pillows, "Oh, bless her", she smiled, catching Charles attention to your figure, "I should take her to bed", he stated, getting up and storing his phone on his pocket.

"How do I...", he mumbled to himself, trying to find the best way to move you to the bedroom without waking up, "you can just wake her up, Charles, like usual", Pascale noticed her son's dilemma, "she needs her rest, she's... she needs all the help she can get from now on", he said, sliding his arm around your back and the other under your knees, successfully holding you safely against him, "Good night everyone, see you tomorrow", Charles said lastly, heading to your bedroom.

When he laid you down on the bed, you stirred a little bit, opening your eyes, "hey, beautiful, I did my best not to wake you up", he cooed, softly touching your cheek, "you can go back to sleep, amour, here", he nodded, taking his t-shirt and shorts off before laying down next to you, pushing you to lay on his chest, "have a good sleep, my loves", he kissed the top of your head.

.

"Are you sure you're okay?", Arthur asked Carla again for what felt like the tenth time in the thirty minutes they had been on the boat, "if anything feels wrong, you tell me and we will go back to the port?", he nudged, "yes, amour, I will tell you", she told him, looking at you and silently questioning if you too thought this was a bit much, her quirked brow showing her own confusion, "he's just being caring, I guess? It would be worse if he didn't care about you", you reasoned, grabbing your bag and finding a spot to lay on.

"I have your water, amour, to make sure you actually drink more that the average for a little kid", Charles said, walking to meet you in the deck with two big bottles of water, "I have ice cold and room temperature, depending on how you're feeling", she smiled, sitting next to you and placing a tote bag down, "I also have snacks if you get peckish", he said, "we just had breakfast, Charles".

"I know, but of you get peckish, it's okay, it's normal, so you have your snacks here if you want them", he added, laying on his stomach as his arm wrapped your body near your waist, his hand rubbing small circles and shapes on your tummy.

.

"Lorenzo just called me to check if I was okay. Am I being inconsiderate if I think this is too much?", Charlotte confided with you, "don't look at me, Charles suggested I sit this paddle game out 'and take the opportunity to rest, amour', like that's not what I have been doing", you reasoned, seeing Carla walk in with a pharmacy paper bag, "Arthur asked someone from the reception to bring me this, and then he texted me saying that 'they're safe' for me. Isn't medicine safe anyway?", she took a box from the bag, "those are anti-sickness pills", Pascale recognised after reading the box.

"We all believe something is wrong with them, don't we?", Charlotte was the first to point it out, verbally you soon after found out, as Pascale shook her head as he laughed, "something has been wrong with them since this holiday started. I know I raised attentive boys, but neither of them have let either of you out of their sight, I mean, yesterday I heard Charles tell Y/N that he was going to use the bathroom and he would leave the door semi open so she could call him if she needed anything", Pascale offered, seeing you roll your eyes, "that was true, I was hoping no one heard it", you blushed, "no worries, the walls are not that thick, chérie, and Charles didn't exactly whisper either", she rubbed your shoulders.

"So they're treating us like we are made of porcelain and no one knows what is up with them?", Carla asked, "a couple of nights ago, Lorenzo told me he would wait until I was ready to tell him", Charlotte shrugged, "I just let it slide because I didn't know what he was talking about and, honestly, I was closer to dreamland than I was to here, so I didn't pay it too much attention".

"What would you tell him, though? And it seems like they haven't talked about whatever is going on between them either. Was it something they saw?", you reasoned.

"We have to try and think like they're thinking so we can figure out", Carla said, "a hard task at hand considering how they think", Pascale retorted.

"They've been very caring with us, more than usual, and it's each one of them with each one of us, and not with you", you pointed to Pascale, "do they think we're ill? We're not mad at them, right?", you looked over, "so, it's, like a health thing, something that requires changes in the long run and- Oh no", you pitched in, sure that if you were a cartoon, the light bulb would be lit up on top of your head.

"I think my card is not working properly, I'm going to the front desk to see if they can sort it out or give me a new one", you informed Charlotte and Carla as you closed the door before you. When you went to the front door to grab the towells one of the staff left there, you weren't quick enough and let the door close, and when you tried to ring your card in, it didn't work.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience", the man at the front desk apoligised, "it's okay, these things happen. Thank you again, have a good day", you smiled at him, grabbing your new card and walking back to the villa.

The house had three big bedrooms, the suite, a big living area connecting the kitchen to the living room and the outside was even bigger. You had direct access to the patio where you had a big table and barbecue area, as well as a pool and a big garden with a small gate at the end that led to the beach. Overall, it was the perfect place for you to spend your holiday and you had been looking forward to spending time with family.

You were taking in the view and enjoying how the warm air surrounded you when you stumbled on someone, "I'm so sorry, are you okay?", you asked, looking at the whole situation and seeing a few games on the floor and a small box you recognised from the pharmacy.

"I'm good", a shaky voice said, "I'm sorry I ran into you, I have to admit I was distracted", a young woman around your age apoligised back to you, "I work with kids all day, why would I be so nervous to be pregnant?", she blurted.

Sensing her nerves, you thought you could help her, "do you need help with that? I'm pretty good in a crisis so I can be a sound mind of you want to", you attempted.

"Would you, actually? I really need to vent it all out", she cringed, "I'm staying right here, let me just tell the girls", you opened the door, "Carla! Charlotte!", you called, seeing them join you in the hall, "this is Ana", you introduced, "these are Carla and Charlotte, we are all dating brothers, different ones, I mean", you chuckled, "and Ana here could use our support because she has to take a pregnancy test", you smiled.

"It's very nice to meet you, you can use this bathroom, here", Charlotte said warmly as she opened the door of the bathroom by the stairs.

After reading the instructions, you left Ana to do her thing before she opened the door again, "so,", she smiled nervously, "is this your first time here?". "Yes, we've never been here. Last year we stayed somewhere else. So far, so good", Carla responded, "pardon my question, but are counting on a certain result?".

"My boyfriend and I have been together for a long time, and we've not been not trying, I guess?", she chuckled, "it's just nerve wracking you know? I work with kids, that's why I have all of those games, I work at the kid's club", she explained. The phone with the timer beeped, catching her attention and making you rub her back soothingly as she got it and read the results, "you're pregnant, Ana", you smiled.

"She must've put it in the trash and they saw it, let me check", you said as you walked to the bathroom, "there it is! She put it in the trash and they all saw it", you reasoned.

"Well, that surely explains a lot of it. I have seen Charles, particularly, dote on your like your a porcelain doll, but even these last few days were unusual for him", Pascale chuckled, "the way he helped you up the stairs? That's when it clicked for me that something was really different".

"Well, the things is that there's nothing different", you stated, "and Lorenzo and Arthur too, then!", you rubbed your temples, giggle alongside with the rest of the women in the room, "Pascale, with all due respect because you've raised these men impeccably, sometimes they're not the sharpest", Carla touched her shoulder, "should I be offended because I followed their train of thought?", you wondered.

When the boys arrived back from their paddle game, you and the rest of the group stayed in the living room as they headed up for showers, claiming you'd prefer to stay in for the night since you weren't feeling well, earning all of the three boys' approvals without further questions.

Charles was the first to come down, hair still wet as he walked to you, kissing your forehead, "do you need anything, amour?", he asked and acknowledged your negative answer, sitting next to you and cuddling you to his chest, "have you been feeling good today?", he brushed your hair and pulled it behind your ear. On your end, you were trying your best to keep a straight face, "yes, I'm fine, got all the rest I needed", you smiled, kissing his cheek and allowing him to place his hands under your top you were wearing and touch your tummy.

A little while later, Lorenzo walked dowstairs too, stopping by the kitchen to grab a bottle of water for him and another for Charlotte, checking if she was feeling better while Arthur also joined you in the living room.

"I'm just ordering dinner", Charles said as he typed on his phone screen, "they say they can put everything with eggs on the side and separately, and there are no raw ingredients, everything is washed and I-", he was interrupted by Carla's loud laugh.

"I'm sorry, I can't do it, not when I know where all of this is coming from", she continued as Charlottle broke down, too.

"What do you mean?", Charles said as the confusion on his face became clear, "Charles, amour, look at me", you called, "do you think there is something wrong with me? That my health status has changed?", you questioned honestly.

Charles fumbled with his words, "I mean, amour, I- do you want me to say it out loud or whisper in your ear? I didn't know of you wanted to tell anyone because you haven't told me either, and that's okay! But do I say it now?", he yelped, "you're pregnant, Y/N", he stated.

Arthur and Lorenzo got up as if on cue, both belting out "Y/N's pregnant, too?", before looking at their girlfriends and seeing their giggles, "you think the three of us are pregnant?". The brother's looked between them, "I saw the test in the trash bin, and Carla had just been in the bathroom, so I assumed we were having a baby", Arthur reasoned, "Charlotte hasn't been feeling well, it's her test", Lorenzo offered, "are we talking about the same test on that bathroom or has that bathroom been the 'pee on the stick and find out you're pregnant' Station?", Charles argued back.

Chuckling you got up and cupped Charles face with your hands, "it happened once and it's Ana's test", you smiled, "the girl from the kid's club. She was scared to take it and we gave her some support, that's all", you smiled, "no one's pregnant here", you finally said.

The boys made a collective "oh" noise until Arthur spoke, "you were not feeling well and I just thought that it was yours", he said to Carla, accepting her hug, "same goes to you, you kept saying the food tasted funny and I connected the dots, that apparently weren't so clear", Lorenzo said to Carla.

Charles had shifted on his feet a couple of times before he turned to you, "I thought you didn't want to tell anyone, that's why I didn't say anything. If you did not feel comfortable in telling it, it was because you wanted privacy and I respected that. I thought you'd eventually announce it when you were ready so I didn't push for it either, I just wanted to be there", he admitted. You kissed his jaw soflty, "well, there's no baby in here, the test does not belong to any of us".

"It's a good thing to know, though. Whenever the time comes, I'm having enough grandchildren to spoil to my heart's content", Pascale clapped, getting up and heading to the outside area, "Oh, look at that sunset, it's beautiful!".

"So, no baby...", Charles trailed off, holding your hands in his, "I have to admit that, in a way, I'm relieved, because that would change up our lives a lot, especially with three babies in the family", he chuckled, "but when things are more settled, in a few years surely, we can start our family if you want to", he smiled charmingly, "of course, whenever the time comes. I love you, Charles, I love you so much", you smiled, "but, please, whenever that happens, don't coddle me like I'm a porcelain doll", you attempted, "Oh, that will have a to be another negotiation I'm afraid, amour".

#charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic

[exitpursuedbyavulcan]

What is Broken II (Aemond Targaryen x Pregnant Wife!Reader)

The war, the "Dance of the Dragons," as they have come to call it, is over. And yet, you are not celebrating. You have just learned that your husband, Prince Aemond, spent the last months of the war with another woman in his bed. Not only that, but his mistress is pregnant. Just like you...

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x fem!reader (third person, no use of Y/N), side Aemond Targaryen x Alys Rivers

Warnings: Angst, pregnancy and related symptoms, infidelity.

Author's Note: So, this did end up getting split in two. It just reached a natural stopping point and it made more sense to add a part IV instead of have an unnaturally long part II.

Taglist is done via reblogs

What is Broken

The next morning, she watched with red-rimmed eyes as the sun emerged over the horizon. As the brightness forced her to look away, she took a moment to thank whichever god had given her the foresight to send Aemond to sleep elsewhere. It had been another horrid night, and to explain it after all that had been said between them would have been far beyond miserable.

He would return soon, she was sure. With new honeyed words and gentle touches. With his beautiful pleading eye and perfect pouting mouth. With the softness of the elusive loving smile he reserved only for her.

Or did he? He had given Alys so many things she thought only they shared. Why wouldn’t he give the whore that smile as well?

The very thought had her stomach lurching again, but she raised herself to sit against the head of the bed and steeled herself against being sick. She took deep, controlled breaths, turned towards the eastern window to feel the fresh air coming off the bay, and set her mind free to wander.

Not entirely free, however. She did not let her thoughts go anywhere near her husband.

Instead, she thought of only nice things. The flowers that would soon bloom in the gardens with the coming of spring. The fresh fruits that would once more grace her table. Weather fine enough that she could ride through the Kingswood on her beloved steed, Litse, once more.

Eventually, the roiling faded, and she looked down to her stomach. “Kōdrȳsi rhinkpa jemo gaomua hae jālosa yno gaoman?” Is that as unpleasant for you as it is for me?

A soft thump near the top of her stomach felt very much like a noncommittal answer.

She laughed a little. “Iā jeme ñuha boteri raqāt daor?” Or do you enjoy making me suffer?

That question received no answer.

Just when she was about to say something more, she heard the door to her chambers creaking open and soft footsteps approaching. Of course, he would come to her so early; he had always slept so little. She clenched the sheets in her fists, preparing to face Aemond once more.

But it was not Aemond who walked through the door.

Instead of a single violet eye, she was met with a warm, brown, tear-filled pair that matched her own, and a helpless cry escaped her lips before desperate sobs overtook her. “Mama!”

Alicent ran to her side, taking her only remaining daughter in her arms and fighting back her tears. One hand rubbed soothing circles on her back while the other gently cupped her chin and lifted it so she could look into her daughter’s eyes. “Oh, my dearest girl…”

She buried her face in her mother’s rich auburn hair, savoring the comforting smell she’d known since infancy. There was no question that Alicent had been told about Aemond’s misdeeds – though whether he told her himself or she heard another way, she could not decide.

“I hate him,” she whispered weakly.

“No, you don’t,” Alicent countered immediately. She pulled away, took her hands, and softened her voice. “You are not capable of hating Aemond, my dear. Nor is he capable of hating you.”

“Then why did he do this to me?”

Alicent sighed, brow furrowing as she pondered her son’s actions. She did not have a good answer, for Aemond had always been the perfect son, save for the death of Lucerys Velaryon, and now, she supposed, this. It was behavior she had anticipated from Aegon, or had in the past. With her eldest son, she knew he acted out of his anger that he could not be the son his father wanted.

But with Aemond…

Aemond loved his wife. He was discontented with many things in his life – his position as the second son, his injury, and his father’s negligence – but never with her. His gaze had never strayed to any other woman, even before their engagement. Once they were betrothed, it was rare to find his gaze anywhere else but on her. He was so happy with her, always. What could have altered his devotion?

“I do not know,” Alicent finally answered. The words did little to soothe her weeping daughter. “Men… they can be wonderful when they truly love you. But even then, they have their weaknesses. Aemond was gone a very long time. Perhaps he was simply lonely?”

She shook her head and ripped her hands from her mother’s. “If he was lonely, he could have come back to me. He was supposed to return to me several times but never did.”

While Aemond was at Harrenhal, she, Aegon, and their grandsire had sent countless ravens asking for his return. Otto and Aegon asked so they could hear the news from the battlefield and try to adjust their plans accordingly. She asked because she missed and needed him. Badly.

He always sent some excuse. The battle was not yet over. Vhagar was too tired to fly. He did not want to leave his stronghold undefended when enemies lurked nearby. She had trusted each excuse like a fool.

“Did you know she’s carrying his child?” she asked, drawing the blankets further up her chest as if she could protect the life inside her from the horrible fact.

Alicent nodded. “I did. He told me.”

She frowned. At least Aemond had the decency to tell their mother himself. “What else did he tell you?”

“He was very upset, my dear.” She tried to suppress the kernel of joy that sparked at her mother’s words. “Not at you, of course, but at himself.”

“As he should be.”

“Yes, he should. But he loves you so much,” Alicent grimaced, setting a hand on her daughter’s belly. “And he loves your family so much. He is inconsolable at the thought that you may never forgive him.”

That kernel of joy went up in flames, and she looked at her mother with unfettered rage. “Why should I forgive him? He has betrayed me and has done nothing to regain my trust beyond his weak, selfish apologies.”

“Yes, but –”

“He lied to me again last night!” she cried. “He said it was only once. He looked me in the eye and lied! And he thought I would be stupid enough to believe him.”

Alicent sighed heavily as she looked away from her daughter. This wasn’t like Aemond – none of it was. Even after hearing his tearful explanation the night before, she was no closer to understanding it. Nor to finding a way to fix it.

“That was wrong of him,” she said at last. “All of it was – is. My dear, I do not know what to say or how to make it better. Your father, for all his faults, never strayed. I cannot begin to imagine the pain you are in. But – ”

“But what?” Her daughter glared at her with narrowed eyes, and her hand clenched into a fist by her side. “I cannot begin to imagine forgiving him, nor how I will ever look at him again without feeling this… this rage. Mother, I cannot be a wife to someone who hurt me so deeply, no matter his supposed remorse.”

She looked down at her stomach, then back to her mother. Though her eyes were red and wet, and her lip trembled, she wore a look of absolute determination. “I want to go. I don’t know where, but I don’t want to be here. I can’t bear to be with him.”

“Oh, my darling,” the queen pulled her daughter to her chest once more, not speaking again until she had calmed. “In any other circumstance, I would arrange for you to leave for Oldtown within the day. But it is not so simple.”

The princess stiffened in her mother’s arms.

“There are so few of us left, and we have already spent so much time apart. We cannot let ourselves become estranged.” Alicent bowed her forehead to rest against her daughter’s. “We cannot appear weak, especially not you and Aemond.”

She was frozen, but at that, she gathered enough strength to lift her eyes to look at her mother. “What do you mean, ‘especially’ not us?”

“There are no more heirs, darling, not of our line. But you,” her hand rested gently on her daughter’s cheek. “You are changing that. In mere weeks, your children – yours and Aemond’s – will become the new heirs to the throne.”

“They might not,” she argued weakly, her voice soft and breathless. “They may be daughters.”

Alicent smiled sadly, placing a hand gently at the top of the girl’s stomach. “This one has given you enough trouble that I would wager the Red Keep itself that he’s a boy.”

She put her hand over her mother’s as she tried and failed to smile. The Maester came to the same conclusion many weeks ago. Then, she had been thrilled at the possibility of giving Aemond an heir. Now, she wished desperately for daughters.

“Why do our heirs matter?” She asked. “Aegon will remarry and have his own soon enough.”

The question was met by a heavy, cloying silence.

“Mother?”

Alicent schooled her face into the careful neutrality that had served her so well as queen, though the tears shining in her dark eyes betrayed her heartbreak and grief. “I am afraid Aegon will not marry nor sire any more heirs. The Maesters… they predict he will leave us by the year’s end.”

Her heart stopped, then sank. “But that means Aemond…”

“Will be king soon,” Alicent confirmed. She again brushed her daughter’s hair behind her ears. “And you will be his queen.”

The implication hung over her like a black cloud: a queen could never leave her king.

-

Aemond knelt in the Royal Sept at the feet of the Father. He had not slept the night before, not after he told his mother what had happened and watched her cry harder than he had ever seen. He’d gone all the way back to his rooms – those he shared with his wife – before remembering the promise he had made.

He could not go back to her. To her arms. To his home.

So, he ended up in the Sept. He didn’t remember walking there, leaving the Holdfast and crossing the upper bailey. He just knew he’d been kneeling there long before the sun crested the horizon. He’d prayed and wept and begged the gods to either reveal to him a path to redemption or strike him down and spare him further torment.

The gods ignored him. He could not blame them for it.

His lamenting was halted by the sound of the carved stone doors opening, followed by a strangle rattling sound Aemond could not identify. He turned and saw his brother and king for the first time in months.

A servant stood behind Aegon to push the wheeled chair in which the kind sat with a blanket over his lap to conceal his crooked, atrophied legs, but was dismissed with a wave of a red, scarred hand. Aegon’s injuries after Rook’s Rest had been so horrific even Aemond struggled to look at him. The scars he now bore were hardly better. The king looked twisted, broken, and weak. It was a miracle little Jaehaera could look at her father without collapsing in terror.

As Aegon wheeled himself down the Sept aisle, Aemond steeled himself against the horrible expression on his brother’s face: empathy, disappointment, and rage.

In their youth, even Aegon had been protective of their youngest sister, to the point that he restrained himself from making too many lewd comments in her presence. And after years of Aemond calling him depraved, perverted, and whorish, he would, of course, delight in the irony that his little brother was just as weak as him.

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” Aegon drawled. His voice was as damaged as his body, weak and rasping. “But then I saw our mother. I always thought I was the only one that could make her look like that. So sad and weepy and disappointed.”

Aemond reminded himself that Aegon was finally the uncontested king and that throttling the life from him was now more than ever considered treason. “I hardly think you are qualified to pass judgment on me,” he growled.

“No,” Aegon smirked as he brought his chair to a stop at Aemond’s side. “But I think I am well qualified to gloat, don’t you?”

Suppressing his sneer, Aemond turned to face his brother. “Are you? How many unsuitable women have you bedded? How many bastards have you sired?” He scoffed, but his threadbare feeling of righteousness immediately gave under the lead weight of his desperation. “Why does my wife abhor me when I make this one mistake when Helaena never cared when you did the same over and over again?”

“Because Helaena never loved me, Aemond.” For the first time in their lives, Aegon was the calmer and more rational of the brothers. “She cared for me as a sister, but she never loved me as her husband. Not like our haedus loves you.”

“I love her, too.” Aemond’s face fell into utter regret and despair. “So much.”

“Yet you still broke her heart.”

Aemond turned back to the statue of the Father, bowing his head. “I did not mean to. I didn’t mean to hurt her – I would never intend to hurt her.”

“I know,” Aegon angled his chair and slumped slightly. “But you did. Over and over. I saw it. Not just with your adultery, but every time you did not come home when she asked. Whenever you took Vhagar into battle without warning her – and us. And each day you weren’t here when those babes put her through the seven hells with – ”

Aemond’s heart stopped, and his entire world with it.

“‘Babes?’”

Aegon’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t say that.”

The same blatant liar he’d been for years.

“You did,” Aemond insisted, his rage at himself now turning on his king, his mother, and everyone else who had kept this secret from him – other than his ābrazȳrītsos. He could still never be angry with her. “Why did you say that?”

After a moment of frustrated silence, Aegon finally answered. “Because the Maesters have determined that your wife is carrying twins. Something you would know if you had come home when we asked.”

“I was fighting your war,” Aemond growled, rising to his feet so his brother could no longer look down at him, “to defend your throne. It was not always possible for me to return.”

“You mean it was ‘never’ possible, right?” In that moment, Aegon truly seemed a king – mature and wise for the first time Aemond had ever seen. He almost resembled their father, as he had been on the few occasions they saw him sit the throne. “You never returned. Not for your duties, and not for your wife.”

“I…”

“If you’d come home immediately after you first fucked whoever-she-is, or any other time we summoned you, perhaps things would be better. But you didn’t, and now you must deal with the consequences of your own stupid mistakes. Again.”

Aemond flinched at the harsh words but could not deny their veracity. The death of Lucerys Velaryon had sparked a war that nearly tore House Targaryen and the realm apart. Now this… this could tear his marriage apart.

His family could be broken beyond repair before their child – their children – were ever born.

A scar-mottled hand grabbed his arm, pulling him away from his despair. “I apologize. I did not come here to make you feel worse than I am sure you already do.”

“Why did you come, then?” Aemond stared at the mangled hand that held him still. He could not bear to look in his brother’s eyes.

Aegon sighed. “I am sending you back to Harrenhal.”

“No.” Aemond ripped his arm away.

“Brother, the peace talks…”

“I said no.” He clenched his fists.

Aegon slammed his hand down on the arm of his chair, the sound echoing through the Sept. “I am your king, and I am giving you an order! You do not get to say ‘no.’”

Aemond froze, his rage roiling, desperate to spill over. But Aegon was his king, and other than his ābrazȳrītsos, his duty to the throne and his family was the thing most dear to him. So, he remained still and silent as he listened without protest.

“Cregan Stark and his army are due to arrive at Harrenhal in mere days,” Aegon explained. “I am in no condition to travel so far, and it would insult Stark and the others who were loyal to Rhaenyra to ask them to travel even further. So, as you are still Prince Regent, you will return to the Riverlands and act as my proxy in the negotiations.”

Absorbed by all that had happened since he’d arrived in King’s Landing, Aemond had entirely forgotten that particular duty. He’d known he had to attend before he left, but how could he go now? What would his wife think if he went back to Harrenhal – where Alys remained – so soon?

“You will take our sister with you.”

“I cannot,” the weak, whispered words escaped him without thought, “I cannot do that to her. You cannot do that to her.”

Somehow, the idea of bringing her with him to Harrenhal was worse than returning there himself. What would happen if she saw Alys? Spoke to her? She was already so hurt, and he did not want her to break entirely. He could not stand it. He would not allow it.

“Aegon, please,” he begged, dignity cast aside in favor of protecting his ābrazȳrītsos. “Do not make her go.”

The king straightened in his chair. “I wish I did not have to. She has already endured so much, and I have no desire to cause her more pain. But I have no other option.”

“Why? What could be more important than keeping her safe?”

Aegon’s face was drawn and filled with regret and grief. “Ensuring the realm sees you as a strong king when I am gone.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the Red Keep itself, and Aemond’s heart grew heavier still when he realized what his brother meant.

“You do not have much time left, do you?”

“Likely only a few months, according to the Maesters. But I’ll be gone by year’s end,” Aegon answered, trying and failing to summon a wry smile. “It’s almost not worth it to un-name you Prince Regent, when the crown will soon be yours once more.”

Silence fell once more.

Aemond wanted to argue. Against going to Harrenhal. Against bringing her with him. Against being king. For if he was king…

“She will be bound to me forever,” he said, not realizing he was saying it aloud, “in a way far stronger than just our shared blood or marriage. She will never be able to leave me.”

Aegon gripped the arm of his chair tighter. “Is that what you want?”

“I…” Yes. No. Aemond fumbled for his words, running a hand down his face as his thoughts raced through his mind like a thousand whirling dragons. “I want her to stay with me, but not at the cost of her happiness.”

Aegon considered the answer, the picture of a king passing judgment. At last, he nodded once. “Even if she decides she hates you, she will not leave. Her sense of duty is nearly as strong as yours, and she would never wish to raise the babes without their father.” He gestured to himself, then Aemond. “She knows well what becomes of children with no true father.”

There came a knock on the Sept door before Aemond could say anything more

Aegon sighed. “It is time for you to leave, I’m afraid. The wheelhouse is waiting.”

“What about – ”

Aegon waved a hand. “Mother went to your rooms this morning to explain the situation to her and help her prepare for the journey.”

“Can we not simply fly?” Aemond did not want for her to have to be stuck with him for the entire journey. The gods forbid that they should be made to share a tent or room at a roadside inn. Though doing so would delight him. He’d missed her so much that he would gladly take any moment he could with her, even when she was so angry with him.

Because she would be angry with him, and spending time with him would do nothing but make her miserable. Her happiness was more important than his. Always.

His brother scoffed as he began wheeling down the aisle toward the door. “Not in her condition.”

Of course. Aemond felt a fool for not realizing it himself. He’d flown Vhagar with Alys, but… she was not as far along as his wife, nor as delicate. A carriage it must be.

He should never have flown with Alys. Not for her sake or that of her child, but because flying atop Vhagar was something he did with his ābrazȳrītsos. It was something sacred they shared, and he had willfully desecrated it.

Gods, he had to get Alys out of his head. He could never become the husband his wife deserved when the witch still haunted his every thought.

Aegon stopped at the threshold of the Sept, again reaching out to grab Aemond’s arm. His eyes glinted with violent promise as he locked eyes with his brother. “If you do anything to hurt her again, intentional or not, I will exile you to Essos, and you will never see her again. I will declare you dead and marry her myself to ensure her children inherit the throne.”

“She deserves a better husband than you,” Aemond spat. It would break him never to see her or their children. But he knew he would deserve it.

The king smiled wickedly, still only a shadow of his former self. “She deserves better than the both of us, brother.”

Aemond bit back his retort and inclined his head to his king as he had at the coronation. “I swear on my life, I will never hurt her again.”

-

Aemond was waiting for her in the courtyard when she finally left the castle, well bundled in a thick, fur-lined cloak. The weather had turned, a final storm of the departing winter. Now, the sky reflected her mood – gray and somber.

At least the explosiveness of her anger had calmed, and she was relatively sure she wouldn’t strangle Aemond along the journey. But to go to Harrenhal with him, to be in the very place where he had betrayed her, to face the woman who carried her husband’s bastard …

She could be brave. She had to be brave. This was her duty, and her duty was sacred.

Aemond had taught her that.

She did not acknowledge him as she kissed her mother and brother farewell, nor as she walked to the steps set at the wheelhouse door.

But then he held out his hand to help her in.

Reluctantly, she took it. The brief touch was marginally more tolerable than the possibility of her stumbling and him having to catch her by the arm or, gods forbid, her waist. That would be far too much of a touch, and she was not sure she was ready for it – if she would ever be ready for it.

He stepped in just behind her, the two of them standing there for a moment, wondering where to sit. In the past, they’d always sat next to each other at the rear of the wheelhouse, with her head on his shoulder and his arm around her waist. But now, the thought of doing so again made her nauseous. So, she turned to the seat in the front.

“Wait,” Aemond grabbed her shoulder, then immediately released it when he saw her wince. He cleared his throat, then motioned to the opposite seat with his hand. “Please, sit here. I don’t want you getting sick riding backward.”

She looked from the seat to his wary smile. Surely he didn’t expect her to still sit with him, did he?

“I’ll sit on the other side,” he added after a prolonged moment of silence.

“Thank you,” she whispered with a nod of her head. But when she began walking to the rear seat, Aemond again stopped her.

“Before you sit, let me…” he trailed off, stepping to the front seat and gathering most of the pillows and cushions that lay atop it into his arms. Then, he deposited them on the other side. He spent several minutes arranging them until they were finally to his liking. “There.”

He reached out his hand again to help her sit. This time, she did not take it. She was more than capable of sitting down on her own, and she was well aware that Aemond knew that, too. He was merely trying to touch her again, and that, she would not allow.

Once she sat, Aemond began fussing again. “Please stop,” she sighed when he started crossing the wheelhouse to fetch even more pillows. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I do need to do this,” he insisted. She could have sworn his eye shone before he turned back to the pillows and blankets. “I want you to be comfortable. You deserve it.”

“A few pillows will not make me forgive you.” For a moment, as Aemond’s shoulders tightened, she almost regretted the words. She had spoken in haste and with cruelty. It was not something she was accustomed to. Somehow, his misdeeds were turning her into a mean and petty woman.

She was just about to apologize when Aemond spoke again, his voice more timid than it had been. “I know that, but I want to do it anyway. I want to show you how much I love you. Please.”

He looked at her pleadingly, desperately. It had been many years since he looked at her like that. When she was a girl, and she fell gravely ill, he stayed by her bedside against the instructions of the Maesters, holding her hand and begging her not to die. She had to look away from him to avoid falling into that memory.

“I am perfectly comfortable,” she said. “So you needn’t do anything more.”

With a sigh, Aemond threw the pillows in his arms carelessly on his seat, except for one – a small round cushion with the Targaryen three-headed dragon embroidered upon it. “Just this one more, please.”

She looked at it suspiciously, some instinct in the back of her mind telling her not to allow it. But his voice was so weak, so desperate. And if it could help her be more comfortable on the long journey, what harm would it do? She nodded. “Very well.”

Aemond beamed and crossed the wheelhouse. With the pillow in hand, he knelt in front of her and brought a hand to hover over her belly. Before he made contact, he looked up to her, a hopeful smile still on his lips.

But that smile was no longer reassuring to her. Instead, it brought on a wave of mistrust and fear. “What are you doing?”

Finally, he laid his hand on her. “I…” His cheeks flushed, and he suddenly could not meet her eye. “This is to cradle your belly while we ride so you are not rattled around so much.”

Her hand flew out and latched onto his wrist, her hold so hard the skin around her hand quickly grew red. She did not want to see him, so she narrowed her eyes until her coming tears blurred her vision. It took several tries for her to speak through her rapid breathing. “Did Alys teach you that, too?”

Aemond looked as if she had just driven a dagger through his heart. “She did, but –”

“I told you never to do that!” She ripped the pillow from his hands and threw it across the wheelhouse with all her strength.

He stayed kneeling, one hand braced on her seat. He had not flinched, only closed his eyes. “Wifey, if it makes you comfortable, if it helps you, then what does it matter how I learned it?”

“Because…” She furiously wiped her tears away, steadfastly looking away from him. “I don’t want you to think about her when you’re touching me.”

“I promise I am not thinking of her,” he insisted. “I could never think of her when I have with me.”

“No, only when I’m hundreds of miles away.”

He closed his eyes and drew in a shaky breath, his hand never leaving her belly. “How long have you known?” Aemond rasped out. “That we are to have two babes?”

Her eyes widened in surprise at the words. How had he known? Who had told him? She did not look at him, did not want him to see the blush of shame that came over her. If either of them should be ashamed, it was him. What he did was far worse than keeping a secret, even one as important as this.

“It was meant to be a surprise,” she whispered. “But you did not come back when you were meant to – you were supposed to return and give Aegon a report on the war. You didn’t.”

Aemond bowed his head, hiding his cheeks – likely just as flushed as hers. He sniffed, as he often did when upset, and shook his head. “If I had known – ”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she snapped back. “Your… she was already pregnant by then, wasn’t she?”

For a moment, Aemond looked up at her in pleading before dropping his head again. “Yes,” his voice was thin and utterly defeated, “she was.” He reached to adjust the pillow by her side but decided against it. Then, he returned to the seat across from her, looking at her once before bowing his head and pounding on the roof twice.

Reins snapped, and the wheelhouse lurched forward.

-

The first hours in the wheelhouse passed in silence. Aemond hardly moved, staring at his clasped hands. She thought she felt his eyes on her several times, but whenever she looked at him, he did not look back.

She watched the world pass her by through the windows. She’d never gone north of King’s Landing before, other than a few short flights on Vhagar with Aemond. Then, she was too high to see the little differences, mile by mile. The trees changed and became sparser, as did the shrubs and flowers. The air felt different, as did the ground beneath the wheelhouse, which became softer and less turbulent the farther they went. Even the smell of the air changed. The slight brine she was so used to faded, turning into something green and damp. It was not an unpleasant change.

What was unpleasant was trying to fall asleep within the mountain of pillows and cushions Aemond had made for her. Once, she would have loved the plushness and softness of it. But with the babes in her belly, she had come to prefer more firmness.

She would have moved the pillows herself had she been able to. But between the sheer mass of cushions and her current size, maneuvering enough to do so was impossible. Grand Maester Orwyle had said even two months away from the birth, she was already larger than most mothers just before it. Of course, most mothers only had one babe to carry, not two. So, she was left with only wiggling around as much as she could to try and find a better position.

She didn’t.

With a huff, she looked at Aemond, hoping to silently glare at him and curse him for the stuffed throne he’d made for her. But this time, when she looked at him, he was looking back.

He wore an expression of concern, like he’d been watching her struggle for some time. His eye was wide, and his lips pinched together. She knew that look, and found herself now hating it. It meant he wanted to help, to understand what was wrong.

“I cannot get comfortable,” she explained, not that he deserved an explanation.

A spark of hope entered Aemond’s eye. “Do you…” he licked his lips. “I can hold you, if you’d like.”

“No!” She felt a slight pang of guilt at the hurt painted on his face at her rejection. He did not deserve her guilt, she reminded herself. “No, I’ll be fine.”

Aemond grimaced as if he could sense the lie. He probably could, for how well he knew her. “Are you sure? I can… I can just hold you. It won’t mean anything, I promise.”

Yes, yes, yes, her body seemed to scream. She had always found comfort in his arms, always slept best with him pressed against her. And him holding her would mean he would have to discard many of the ridiculous pillows. If she accepted, she could likely be asleep in moments.

But her heart… her heart would break to be held by him. She wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about if he had held Alys in this same way. If the whore had slept with her head resting on Aemond’s shoulders. If she had kissed his neck as she fell asleep, just as she had loved to do.

She would never be able to stop thinking about Alys. Every time Aemond looked at her, touched her, spoke to her. Alys would be a ghost that would haunt her forever.

A memory of the first time Aemond had taken her to the Dragonpit came to her.

He’d told her she couldn’t come with him, but relented the moment she started crying and dragged her into the carriage with him, Aegon, and Rhaenyra’s eldest sons. Jacaerys was the only one who argued against her accompanying them. He stopped complaining after Aemond shot him a threatening glare and declared that she was braver and more capable than he would ever be. But when they arrived at the Dragonpit, and Sunfyre was led up from the dens, she’d cowered behind Aemond. The sweet little creature - perhaps the size of one of the king’s hounds - she had once watched flit around Aegon wherever he went had somehow quickly turned into a beast larger than anything she’d ever seen, baring sharp teeth the size of her dinner knives. Aegon kneeled in front of her and nudged her cheek with his thumb. “Don’t worry, haedus. He won’t hurt you, I promise.” She still screamed when Aegon stepped within reach of those fangs. And again, when Aemond pulled her from behind his back so she could not hide from the dragon. “Do not be afraid, haedus. Sunfyre is only a dragon, as are you. The blood of the dragon runs true in your veins,” he said as she buried her face in her chest. Something about the words seemed to make Jace angry, but she didn’t know why. “I can’t help it, lēkia,” she whined. “He’s scaring me.” Aemond huffed slightly, petting her head tenderly. “You are afraid because you know very little about dragons. What we do not know can be terrifying.” He turned her to face Sunfyre, who was now perfectly docile while being saddled by Aegon. She squirmed to escape his grasp. “If you watch and listen to the Dragonkeepers, you will learn. The more you learn, the less afraid you will be.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked suddenly.

“My love?” Aemond looked at her as if she’d sprouted horns. But when she held his stare, he whispered gently, “You don’t want to know. Not really.”

“I do,” she declared.Though his answer may shatter her heart completely, she had to know. His childhood voice echoed in her head. ‘The more you learn, the less afraid you will be.’

She swore she could see him remember the same memory she had. His eye darted around the wheelhouse anxiously. “It is not a good reason.”

“Unless she held you at sword point each time, there is not a reason I would call ‘good.’” She hoped it was something like that, that he hadn’t been given the choice to refuse her. It would make everything better, almost fine. But if it had been something like that, he would have already told her.

Aemond was silent for a long while. Long enough for the sun to reach its peak and begin its descent.

“I’d seen only one battle before I arrived at Harrenhal – Rook’s Rest,” he began. “In that battle, one dragon and rider were killed, and Aegon and Sunfyre were permanently wounded.”

“I know,” she whispered. She’d been there when Aemond had brought Aegon, broken, bloody, and burnt, back to the castle. She’d seen what happened to him. Aemond held her hair back as she was sick in the corridor outside the Grand Maester’s rooms.

Aemond nodded. “I was so afraid, ābrazȳrītsos, of what I would see when I truly went to war. And it was just as terrible as I’d feared. Even worse than what happened to Aegon, sometimes.” He waited to continue until she had unscrunched her eyes as she fought away another wave of nausea. “Every time I was scared, raqiarzītsos... And alone. She offered an escape. A chance to not think about the war, for at least a little while.”

“And to not think about me.”

He blanched, moving to stand, but thought better of it and sat back in his seat. “My love, I never wanted to stop thinking about you. I promise. I thought about you every moment of every day. You are what gave me the strength to ride to battle again and again – knowing that once it was all over, I’d be able to return to you.”

She glared at him. “So, you thought about me while you were fucking her?”

“Gods, no!” This time, he did rise, crossing the wheelhouse to fall at her feet. “I… I didn’t think about anything when I was with her. Not about you, or the war, or even her. It was the only way I could empty my mind of all the things that tormented me.”

“… I tormented you?” The idea that she could have done anything to make him want to forget her brought tears to her eyes.

“No. Never.” He tried to reach for her to cup her cheek, but she shrank away from him. “Don’t ever think that you could. What tormented me was that I was so far from you – that I could not be there for you. And the babes.”

He could have been, she knew. He should have been. “You had many opportunities to return. Why didn’t you?” Her voice caught in the back of her throat as a sob tried to escape. “Were you too ashamed of what you’d done?”

“I was and am ashamed,” he declared, and she believed him, “but that is not why I remained at Harrenhal. I knew that if I saw you again, I would never return to the battlefield. It was hard enough to leave you the first time. I could not endure it again.”

There was silence.

She leaned back towards him and allowed him to finally lay his hand across her cheek – an unconscious attempt to soften the blow of her next question. “Is it true that you spared her only because you lusted for her? That you took her to your bed in your first week at that awful place?”

Aemond sobbed, one horrible, wretched sob. His hand dropped, and he lowered his head into her lap, clutching at her dress like a child. The urge to comfort him tingled in her veins, to pet his hair and murmur soft words to him, to gently remove his eyepatch and assure him that all was well.

She did not move an inch.

At last, Aemond lifted his head. The bottom of his eyepatch was just askew enough to allow the tears from his ruined eye to escape. “I spared her because she claimed to be a witch – a seer. The claim was backed by several residents of the keep who had no reason to lie. She offered to lend me her aid in the war, to share her visions with me so I could be prepared when I led my men to battle. I agreed. I wanted to avoid the kind of slaughter I saw at Rook’s Rest. To prevent anyone from going through what happened to our brother. Then…

“I did lie with her in the first week,” he turned away as though he couldn’t say the words while facing her. “On the sixth day. We were to advance on Darry the next morning, to… it doesn’t matter why, just that it was the first time I would lead men to victory of their deaths. I asked Alys to share her vision of what would occur, and she did. She saw how fearful I was and told me that to win the battle, I must go into it without fear. I tried to calm myself, but I couldn’t.”

He swallowed thickly, still avoiding her gaze, and dropped his hand. “Then she offered her… further aid. I will not wound you by detailing what we did. But I will assure you that I did resist.” He licked his lips. “At least at first.”

A small comfort, she supposed.

“When I was with her, all my worries faded to nothing. I thought it was perhaps a spell she put on me, but it was not. My body just needed to find that satisfaction and release. I was hoping it was a spell. For that would mean I did not truly betray you.”

He faced her again. She did not know whether it comforted or saddened her to look into his wet, despairing eye. “But I did. And I continued to do so every time my fear threatened to overwhelm me. Which was, regrettably, often.

“I was weak,” he said with a mirthless laugh, “I was so weak. I should have been braver – better. I should have been the husband you deserve. I will spend every day of my life regretting it and trying to right what I have done wrong. I swear it.” He nodded as if to affirm the oath, yet it brought her no assurance. “I am so sorry, my love.”

He said nothing else.

She still had so many questions, wanted to know so much more. Her fears had barely been quelled. But it was something. And at the very least, the emotions Aemond’s story subjected her to had exhausted her. Enough that she knew she could close her eyes and be asleep within a heartbeat.

“Thank you. For telling me,” she whispered as she moved back in her seat, away from him. “I would like to rest now.”

Aemond bowed his head and retreated to his seat without asking again if he could hold her.

Her traitorous heart almost wished he had.

-

It was raining when she woke. The weather had apparently followed them north. She leaned closer to the window, wanting the wet air to cool her, but stopped when she noticed the wheelhouse wasn’t moving.

“Ser Marston and one of the porters are arranging rooms,” Aemond said softly. She did not reply, nor look at him. A glance out the window informed her that they were in some village she didn’t know, outside a relatively large building whose worn sign, cut in the shape of a stone wall, read simply ‘Inn.’

That question answered, she still didn’t look at Aemond. She knew he’d likely been watching her since they’d arrived… wherever they were. Perhaps longer. Judging by the dusk settling over the horizon, she’d been sleeping quite a while. And yet she hadn’t woken. She wondered if she should start sleeping during the day instead of at night.

“Mother said…” Aemond halted, likely waiting for her to look at him. She didn’t. “We will be sharing a room.”

She whipped her head around to face him, ignoring the slight dizziness that came with the motion. “No.”

Aemond sighed. “Raqiarzītsos, if the innkeeper notices we are apart, he may talk about it. Rumors will start.”

“Can’t we just pay him to remain silent? That’s what Mother did to prevent rumors from spreading about Aegon.”

“And yet rumors spread nevertheless,” his voice was soft and firm, like a parent explaining something to their child. The thought sickened her.

She wanted to say that those rumors spread because their mother could not pay off every woman Aegon had his way with – there had been too many to even know who they all were. But it had been their mother herself who told her that this would happen, that she would have to somehow stomach being in the same room as Aemond at night. That the consequences of not doing so would be worse than those that would come from him being there.

“You will not sleep in the bed,” she ordered, finally facing her husband, “you will sleep on whatever chair or couch is in the room or the floor if there is none.”

Aemond sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. “Very well.”

Curious, she’d expected more of a fight. For him to insist that a servant could see the half-empty bed and raise questions. For him to try and ply her into letting him into the bed with promises of holding her and keeping her warm. For him to try something. But he didn’t.

“Good.”

-

It was not a very nice room.

The paint was chipping off the walls, and the floorboards creaked. The bed linens were faded, the fur blankets patchy. The small table on one side leaned to one side, and an unshaped piece of wood held the couch by the fire level.

At least there was a couch, Aemond supposed. And as it was near the fire, he would not have to sleep in the cold to avoid depriving his wife of blankets.

She crossed the room to the bed, sitting on its edge and looking out the window again. After he’d agreed that he would not try and convince her to let him join her in the bed, she’d spent the rest of their time waiting in the carriage looking out one window, then crossing to the other side of the wheelhouse just before they were called to their room.

Even now, he could see her eyes flitting from one building to another, following the villagers as they milled about and fixating on the livestock that wandered the streets – cows, donkeys, sheep, even a small group of piglets.

He thought it was a distraction at first. But when she continued to watch the inconsequential town for far longer than he ever would, even in a new town, he realized it was something more. When she quirked her head slightly to the right and the ghost of a smile flitted over her lips, he knew what it was.

This was the first village she’d ever been in.

She was born in King’s Landing, and other than their trip to Driftmark for Lady Laena’s funeral… she’d never left the city.

Something in Aemond’s heart cracked. He should have done something, taken her on adventures. He should have brought her on Vhagar and flown her wherever her heart desired.

But he hadn’t. He’d left her in King’s Landing, in the Red Keep. In a cage.

But now… her first trip away from the capital was one she didn’t want to be on. It wasn’t a happy occasion. And their destination was likely the place of her worst nightmares.

He should never have let Aegon order him to bring her to Harrenhal.

Aemond opened his mouth to apologize to her again but said nothing. She had already been forced to be stuck in a wheelhouse with him for most of the day. The kindest thing he could do would be to let her alone for as long as he could.

So, he went towards the door, turning back over his shoulder to look at her for a moment. She was still watching the village. It made him smile a bit. “I’m going to get supper. I’ll be back in a short while.”

She did not say anything back. She only lifted a hand to rest on the window.

-

She’d hardly noticed that Aemond had left. When he told her where he was going, she had just seen a small group of children playing in the muddy road. One of the little girls had spotted her watching from the window and shouted something to her friends. Soon, all the children were staring at her. She lifted a hand to the window to wave at them.

Then, she heard the door closing, and when she turned to look, Aemond was gone.

When she looked back to the children, they had already run off. Her hand drifted to her abdomen. “Nyke urnēbagon jemī tymāt umban daor.” I cannot wait to watch you play.

Before Aemond left for Harrenhal, he had taken her back to the nursery where they’d been raised. The furniture had been covered, as neither Jaehaera nor Rhaenyra’s son Aegon were inclined toward play. Not after what they went through. So, both had moved to their own rooms when they returned to the keep.

But the nursery would not be empty for long.

Aemond had pulled away the sheet covering the toy chest and knelt before it, examining each toy as though it were a priceless jewel. He told stories about them, recalling how they had played with them, and made guesses about which ones their child would prefer and what their choices would foretell about them.

He rediscovered the two wooden dragons they had once painted and named for themselves – Kēlītsos and Balerion. There were too many tales of those little dragons to retell them all, so he told only the one where they imagined the dragons had come alive and had flown them to the ruins of Old Valyria. Aemond would slay whatever beasts had wounded Balerion and killed their great-aunt, Aerea. Then, they would reclaim their ancestral homeland.

He’d kissed her belly then, calling the babe inside the “heir of Old Valyria.”

Now, they were the heir – heirs – to something else entirely.

To a broken family.

To a throne soaked in the blood of their kin.

To the sins of their father.

For a moment, she wished they could simply be like those children, playing without a care.

But they never would be.

They would still be children. They would still play and laugh. They would be mischievous and sneak sweets from the kitchens or stay awake long past the time they were sent to bed. They would still cry for their parents when they scraped a knee or had a nightmare.

But they would also be heirs. They would be taught by the finest scholars in the world how to bear the weight of their responsibilities. They would be trained by mighty warriors on how to defend themselves from the enemies they would have since birth. They would always know that their life was never wholly theirs.

Now, they would also always know that their father had betrayed their mother. She knew that no matter how hard she tried to prevent it, somehow, they would learn of Aemond’s mistress – the mother of their bastard half-sibling.

Part of her hated that child, the small thing that was not even fully formed and yet was the manifestation of all her pain.

Part of her, perhaps a larger part, pitied it.

After all, it was a bastard. The world had never been kind to bastards. After the role bastards had played in the war, she could not imagine it would grow any kinder.

What would the life of the bastard be like? Would it play the same games as her children? Would it have the same favorite toys, or foods, or colors?

While its trueborn siblings were learning to rule the realm and ride dragons, what would it do? Perhaps it would be a servant, like its mother, or become a laborer of some kind.

Would it know who its father was? Would it know the blood of the dragon ran through its veins? Would it ache for a bond with a dragon, as Aemond had? Would it spend its life feeling incomplete, yet never know why?

As she caught sight of the tears shining on her cheeks in her reflection off the window, she decided she did not hate the child. It was not at fault for the sins of its mother, or its father.

She said a brief prayer for it – for its health and happiness. Then one for her own children.

When Aemond came back through the door, carrying a tray laden with steaming food, she wiped her tears away and looked only once more out the window.

The children had gone home.

“Are you hungry, ābrazȳrītsos?” Aemond asked.

No, she wasn’t. But she knew she must eat regardless, for the sake of the babes. So, she crossed the room and sat at the small table.

She did not speak as Aemond served her the meal – fresh, steaming bread, warm stew, and a pot of tea. He did not try and get her to speak. He simply ate his food, watching her carefully.

He faded into the background as her thoughts continued to wander to that poor little child growing in Alys’ womb.

Would it have silver hair? Purple eyes? Or would it inherit its mother’s coloring, whatever it was?

She did not know what Alys looked like. She knew so little about the woman who had shared in Aemond’s sin.

Was she beautiful? Was she intelligent? Was she kind?

It was hard to imagine that she would be kind. That any woman who would lie with a married man would be kind. After all, she was called a witch. Was there such a thing as a kind witch?

Was there even such a thing as a witch?

Aemond said that he spared Alys because she could foretell the future. That the reason he’d first brought her into his bed was because she told him he needed to be calm for the battle ahead if he wished to prevail.

Prevail he did.

Were the visions real, then? Had Aemond only returned from that first battle, the second, the last, because of what Alys had told him?

If Alys were to thank for Aemond surviving the war, should she not be grateful for it? But how could she be grateful for something that had so thoroughly broken her heart?

How was she supposed to feel? How was she supposed to know what to feel? What to do?

“I want to meet her,” she said suddenly. Even her whisper sounded like an echoing shout after so long a silence.

Aemond stared at her. Fear and regret and anger in his gaze. His mouth hung open, and his skin had gone deathly pale.

“Alys,” she clarified. “I want to meet her.”

“My love, please. You don’t.” His voice quavered like a rose in a thunderstorm. “I don’t want you to, it won’t – ”

“I have questions for her. I will ask them.” Tears fell down Aemond’s cheeks, but he did not argue. It almost made her smile. “You may be there if you wish. But I will meet her.”

Aemond nodded. “If that is what you truly want.”

She felt no fear or hesitation. “It is.”

-

After she finished her meal, her exhaustion finally settled upon her. It had only been a day since Aemond returned to the Red Keep. Only a day since both the war and her world ended.

She just wanted to sleep. In that moment, it was all she wanted.

She had Aemond turn away as she undressed and donned her nightgown. He obeyed, staring into the fire and never once looking back until she was beneath the rough-spun blankets on the bed and gave him permission.

He only removed his leather doublet and his boots before settling onto the couch by the fire, its high back blocking them from each other’s view.

The fire crackled.

“Good night, ābrazȳrītsos,” Aemond said. “Sleep well. I love you.”

She did not reply.

She so badly wanted to sleep. But it seemed both her body and the babes in her belly wanted otherwise. No matter how she lay, she could not find comfort. No matter what she thought of, her mind would not calm.

At least she took comfort in that her restlessness was likely preventing Aemond from finding sleep as well.

When she heard his voice again, she stiffened, preparing herself to argue with him again. But Aemond did not speak.

He sang.

“Bantis ropatas Night has fallen

Yn zūgagon daor But do not fear

Sȳndror ilos daor There is no darkness

Kesrio syt drakarys vamiot ilzai. For dragonfire is near.”

It was a lullaby. One he had discovered in an Old Valyrian children’s book he found in the back of the Red Keep’s library. He had sung it to her when she was still in her crib so he could practice their ancestral language.

He stopped singing for some time when his voice settled, adjusting to the new, lower pitch. But when he began again, it was even more beautiful than before. Quiet and soft, but still beautiful.

“Yn ozelēnagon daor And shiver not

Vasīr vēzos hembistas Though the sun has gone

Drakarys kesīr ilzai Dragonfire is here

Aōhi dijaves rāelagon. To keep you warm.”

When was the last time he sang to her? Obviously not in the past six months, but when?

“Aōhi bartos mazilībās Lay down your head

Se aōhī laehossa lēdes And close your eyes

Drakarys avy mīsilza Dragonfire will protect you

Yn sepār kesan. And so too will I.”

Ah, her eyes welled with tears when she finally remembered. It had been the first night after they learned they were to have a babe, and Aemond had bedded her more passionately than he had since their wedding night and more gently than he had ever been.

He sang when they were spent, and she curled into him to sleep. Aemond brushed his fingers in light patterns over her belly and sang. But was that for her or the babe?

The last time he had sung for her and only her… she could not recall. It had been some ordinary day when she did not know she should hold onto that memory and keep it close. She did not know it was a memory she would need when Aemond went to war.

“Dōnī ēdrurī emilās, ñuha raqno Dream sweetly, my love

Bantio rȳ ēdrūs Sleep all through the night

Nyke aōma unna I will be with you

Vapār ōños arlī amāzīlza. Until again there is light.”

She wanted to be angry at him, accuse him of only singing now so he could worm his way back into her heart. But she knew that accusation would be false. After the way he fussed over her today, she knew he was truly worried for her health – and the health of the babes.

Besides, his voice and the familiarity of the song were now truly lulling her to sleep.

She was grateful for it.

“Skorī ñāqes kesīr ilos When morning is here

Se īlvon geron vamiot ilza And our journey is nigh

Īlon henkirī īlvī zaldrīzī kipili We will both mount our dragons

Sepār, sōvīlā.” Then, we will fly.”

Her last thought before her eyes slid closed was that she hoped he had not sung the lullaby – their lullaby – to Alys or her child.

-

Aemond woke to the sound of something crashing. He was immediately awake, throwing off his blanket and bolting to his feet. But he saw no one.

What he did see was an empty bed.

In an instant, his panic had risen to a peak it had reached only once before – the day he’d found out that his half-sister and her husband had taken King’s Landing, and in the aftermath, Aegon was missing and his ābrazȳrītsos was now in the hands of his enemies.

A horrible retching soon alerted him to his wife’s presence on the floor of the room, halfway between the bed and the washbasin against the far wall. But it did not quell his panic.

She was panting between harsh bouts of sickness, her arms trembling as they struggled to hold her up. Aemond moved immediately, kneeling beside her and sweeping her hair away from her face. His words of comfort and concern died instantly when he felt her lean against him.

She was so thin.

Her nightgown was soaked through with sweat, allowing him a clear and horrible view of every knob on her spine and curve of her ribs. The further she pressed into him, the more he could feel the sharp planes of her shoulder blades and the sickening lightness of her form. She was like some of the near-corpses he’d seen in the war – hardly more than skin stretched taut over mere bones.

He had not seen it before. She’d been bundled in robes and gowns and furs. And when she changed into her nightgown earlier this evening, she had not allowed him to look at her until she was buried beneath the blankets.

She knew.

She knew how frail she was. He knew and had not wanted him to know…

Had not wanted him to worry. Not while he was at war.

“Ābrazȳrītsos…”

She sobbed once before she was sick again. He said nothing else until he was relatively certain whatever illness had possessed her passed, and tried not to be too grateful that she didn’t push him away.

“Little darling, please,” he pulled her closer so he could rest against his chest. She did not resist. “What happened?”

She shook her head, reaching to wipe her mouth with the sleeve of her nightgown. Aemond stopped her, set her hand back on her lap, and used his own sleeve instead. She sighed as if the gesture somehow upset her, then slumped slightly. “Nothing happened. Nothing new, at least. This happens nearly every night.”

Every night. No wonder she was so thin.

“Still?” Aemond finally managed to ask in a rasping voice. She had been so sick in those early days – it was what had prompted them to take her to the Maesters, where they discovered she was with child. But it had gotten better in the days before he left for Harrenhal. She had said it was getting better.

She nodded, her eyes shut tight as she turned away from him. Was it from exhaustion or shame? “It…” she swallowed, and Aemond realized how dry her throat must be. He would fetch her something to drink as soon as she could stand. “It never stopped.”

“Oh ābrazȳrītsos…” his voice broke as the realization of how badly she had been suffering sank in. And all the while, he’d been sharing his bed with another woman.

If the Father truly cared for justice, he would have struck Aemond dead the moment he touched that witch.

Aemond held her close, panting with the effort it took to hold back his tears of shame. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She was silent for a long while. Then, “I’m tired, Aemond.”

“I know.”

A long pause. It took him longer than it should have to realize she was looking at him and longer still to recognize the plea in her eyes. She wanted his help. Or perhaps more accurately, needed his help.

So help her he did, eagerly. He sat her at one of the chairs by the table while he removed her soiled nightgown and dressed her in another. He brought the washbasin to her so he could help her wash her face, then brought her a pitcher of fresh water so she could rinse her mouth. He braided her hair once more and carried her back to bed,

Once he’d pulled the blankets back over her, he reached out to her. When she didn’t flinch away, he softly stroked her cheek. “Is there anything else I can get you, my love?”

She opened her eyes just slightly. “I’m cold.”

He turned on his heel to fetch his blanket from the couch. There was still warmth radiating from the hearth. He could move to the rug.

But when he’d settled that blanket on her as well, she opened her eyes wider and gazed up at him. “Aemond…”

If there was ever proof that the gods could be merciful, that was it.

Still, he had to be certain he wasn’t mistaken. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. Thank all the gods in the world, she nodded.

His veins buzzing with ecstatic joy, he walked to the other side of the bed and climbed in beside her. As he wrapped his arms around her, it almost didn’t matter that he could feel her frailness, that he knew she had only asked this because she truly was cold, or that his touch was tainted by his sins.

Aemond was sharing a bed with his wife. He was holding her. Her, and their children.

When her breathing finally settled, and she drifted off to sleep, Aemond closed his eyes, tucked his face into her hair, and prayed he dreamt of a world where he had slain Alys the moment he first saw her.

#aemond #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond fanfic #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond imagine #aemond fluff #aemond one eye #aemond smut #aemond the kinslayer #aemond x reader #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond x fem!reader #hotd #hotd aemond #hotd fanfic #hotd smut #hotd imagine #hotd x reader #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fanfic #ewan mitchell #what is broken

[saintsenara]

Riddle’s extremely fearful and aggressive reaction to Dumbledore when he thinks he’s a doctor (and the fact that he assumes this at all and believes he is being lied to) has some pretty dark implications (which of course no one follows up on). Do you have thoughts?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

and yes - this has occurred to me too... which means that my thoughts come with a trigger warning for the sexual abuse of a child, and are under the cut.

the relevant scene in canon is, of course, this:

“I am Professor Dumbledore.” “Professor?” repeated Riddle. He looked wary. “Is that like doctor? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?”  He was pointing at the door through which Mrs. Cole had just left. “No, no,” said Dumbledore, smiling.  “I don’t believe you,” said Riddle. “She wants me looked at, doesn’t she? Tell the truth!”  He spoke the last three words with a ringing force that was almost shocking. It was a command, and it sounded as though he had given it many times before. His eyes had widened and he was glaring at Dumbledore, who made no response except to continue smiling pleasantly. After a few seconds Riddle stopped glaring, though he looked, if anything, warier still. “Who are you?” “I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school - your new school, if you would like to come.”  Riddle’s reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious.  “You can’t kid me! The asylum, that’s where you’re from, isn’t it? ‘Professor,’ yes, of course - well, I’m not going, see? That old cat’s the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they’ll tell you!”

the surface-level reading of this scene - which is clearly what the text wants us to go for - is that riddle thinks he's about to be institutionalised for being "mad" - and, specifically, that he thinks that what dumbledore has been told is his "madness" is actually his magic.

[he is also clearly meant to be read as panicking a little bit that he's fucked around torturing his fellow children and is now about to find out...]

that riddle accepts he's a wizard so easily - and that he is so reassured by dumbledore agreeing that he's not mad - is something the text wants us to read as sinister. him immediately describing himself as "special" is set up as a precursor to the adult voldemort's delusions of grandeur - which the entire arc of the series, ending in his death as an ordinary man, is designed to undermine.

but i've always disliked this reading. the eleven-year-old riddle - a magical child raised around non-magical people - is objectively correct to describe his powers as "special" [in that they make him identifiably different from the crowd] within the context in which he lives. the word choice is nowhere near as deep as dumbledore decides - he's clearly known since he was very young that he's a wizard, but he didn't have the precise language to describe this fundamental part of himself until dumbledore offered it; prior to that, "special" is a perfectly reasonable alternative term.

and, in always knowing that he's a wizard, he also knows that he doesn't have a mental illness - but he must also know that this is something it's near impossible for him to prove.

in the real world, if i spoke to a patient who told me:

“I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.”

then i would be correct to describe them as experiencing psychosis. and i might - depending on their other symptoms - have reasonable cause to admit them [voluntarily or not] for psychiatric treatment.

riddle is - of course - demonstrably not psychotic. but it's not unreasonable that mrs cole would assume he is - the world she lives in, as a muggle [even if she's a religious one], is one in which people do not possess the ability to move objects or control animals with their minds, and if one of her charges is convinced that he can, then she's justified in seeking medical intervention.

[that psychiatric treatment in the 1930s can be described without exaggeration as inhumane is another matter...]

which is to say, i think we can easily suppose that mrs cole has - prior to dumbledore's arrival - succeeded in having riddle "looked at", and that the idea that he's mentally ill and should be committed to an asylum has been mentioned before. i think most of us would be instinctively [and angrily] wary of doctors if this happened to us, regardless of how nice the doctors in question were.

and maybe that's all there is to it.

and maybe it isn't...

in the doylist text, the eleven-year-old riddle's personality is the way it is because he's the villain of the series. where harry is preternaturally capable, even as a child, of all the things the series defines as admirable - above all, enduring difficulty without complaint - riddle is preternaturally incapable of them. he's meant to come across as unambiguously sinister - and the fact that the text repeatedly emphasises that he has control over his unpleasant traits invites us to view him as someone who is acting with full agency. that he lives in an orphanage is a trope which the text uses, like a campy horror film might, predominately to underscore how creepy he is - and the text, in keeping with its general lack of interest in states and their institutions, never really prompts us to interrogate the impact of his childhood upon the course his life takes.

[this is despite the fact that voldemort's reliving of the night he killed the potters in deathly hallows is an incredibly accurate depiction of ptsd...]

but it's also the case that the eleven-year-old riddle's behaviour and personality fits a pattern we might expect to see in a child who is being abused, sexually or otherwise:

he's aggressive, he has a hair-trigger temper, and he becomes distressed even by behaviour - such as dumbledore speaking mildly and calmly - which would not ordinarily be expected to provoke such a reaction.

his broader emotional state is fractious. his mood changes sharply, he seems to feel emotions very profoundly, he struggles to control his emotional response to things, he's extremely easily irritated, he's attention-seeking - and he particularly seeks negative attention, and he's very highly-strung. his admission in deathly hallows that he feels calm before he kills - or before he otherwise eradicates a threat or a problem - comes with the flip-side that he's someone who appears, when things aren't going well or he finds himself in a situation which he can't control, to become quite anxious. which is a trauma response.

he's extremely isolated. the text presents the fact that he has no friends as a deliberate choice - "lord voldemort has never had a friend, nor do i believe that he has ever wanted one" - and his relationship with everyone else he ever meets, including his fellow orphans, is defined by the text as exclusively involving him controlling, manipulating, and punishing them. or: he is always the more powerful person in the pairing. but this need for control can be read as self-protective just as easily as it can be read as sinister. there are hints in canon that riddle is not just some malevolent force in the orphanage preying on mild-mannered innocents. for example, billy stubbs, the owner of the rabbit he kills, is targeted by riddle as revenge: “Billy Stubbs’s rabbit... well, Tom said he didn’t do it and I don’t see how he could have done, but even so, it didn’t hang itself from the rafters, did it? [...] But I’m jiggered if I know how he got up there to do it. All I know is he and Billy had argued the day before." on the rare occasions billy turns up in fics, he's usually - i find - written very like neville - sweet and guileless and a bit pathetic. but the alternative reading - especially when we take into account that riddle attacks the rabbit rather than billy himself - is that billy is someone he would be afraid to physically confront. indeed, it's striking that voldemort - at all stages of his life - is described as being quite physically fragile. not only is he very thin, but he's always cold and his heartbeat is described several times in canon as irregular. i think this is supposed to be a comment on the physical changes he undergoes the more horcruxes he makes - although the idea that the soul would affect the heart doesn't actually align with how the series understands the soul to relate to the body - but it can also be interpreted perfectly legitimately as something he was experiencing prior to splitting his soul. i am committed to the headcanon that riddle was quite a sickly child - and that this is one of the things which drives his fear of death - and i'm also committed to the idea that his obsession with magic is because the enormity of his magical power makes up for his physical lack. he can defeat - and humiliate and frighten and remove the threat of - billy or dennis [or even an adult man?] with magic. without it, if they were to physically overpower him, then he wouldn't be able to throw them off.

he is extremely nervous about being alone in a room with dumbledore - someone he doesn't know, and who he assumes is connected to a profession [and, maybe, who knows any other doctors he's been previously made to see...] of which he is frightened.

he doesn't trust or confide in anyone - which, as a child, means particularly that he doesn't trust or confide in adults in positions of responsibility. he's clearly uneasy with the idea of finding himself in the subordinate position in an adult-child relationship when dumbledore offers to take him shopping for school supplies - potentially because he's worried that dumbledore will try and dictate or restrict what he's allowed to buy unless he behaves in a certain way... and i am always very struck that dumbledore says in half-blood prince: "He was very guarded with me; he felt, I am sure, that in the thrill of discovering his true identity he had told me a little too much. He was careful never to reveal as much again." this is presented in the text as evidence that dumbledore is the only person of whom voldemort is afraid - by which the text means that voldemort acknowledges that dumbledore knows that an ordinary man, mortal and unimpressive, lurks behind the mask of unassailable power he has created for himself; and which the text thinks is a good thing. but we can also read it as a self-protective act on riddle's part. in his excitement, he offers dumbledore information [that he is known to be a liar, that he is in trouble a lot, that mrs cole dislikes him and is disinclined to believe anything he says] which would give dumbledore - or anyone in a similar position of power and presumed respectability - cover to abuse him, safe in the knowledge that he would be unlikely to be believed if he reported it.

he doesn't appear to feel safe in the orphanage and he's frequently absent from it - by his own admission, he spends a huge amount of time wandering around london on his own, which may even involve him staying away for several days at a time. nobody appears to notice or care about this.

he's very independent - which the text again presents as evidence of his deliberate self-isolation and rejection of the bonds of love and friendship - and his independence is unusual for a child his age [i.e. that he is capable of doing all his own shopping for school].

his knowledge of violence - i.e. how he designs the trip to the cave to be maximally psychologically devastating for dennis and amy and devoid of repercussions for himself - is also more advanced and methodical than would be expected in a child of his age. again, the text uses this to emphasise how inextricable the child-voldemort is from his adult self - and also, to some extent, to underscore the intellectual brilliance [his magic is also more advanced than is normal for a child] which his narrative archetype [the exceptional villain who is defeated by the everyman hero] requires. but we can also read it as evidence of his own victimisation. a common sign that a child is being sexually abused is that they display a knowledge of sexual behaviour which is more advanced than is reasonable for a child of their age - for example, knowing in detail how a sex act is performed, or fluently using sexual slang which they have no chance of knowing either from age-appropriate settings like school-based sex education or conversations with a parent or trusted adult, or from the sort of enthusiastic hoarding of rude words and phrases all children enjoy as they grow up. riddle's precise, clinical knowledge of how to manipulate, frighten, torture, and control can be seen as something similar. if he can - at eleven or younger - methodically break down another child until they're "never quite right" again, then this is because he's learned how to from someone.

he keeps secrets. and he also goes out of his way to extract them. his grooming of ginny in chamber of secrets - he manipulates her into confiding things she wants to keep to herself, promises he won't tell anyone, and then uses the threat that he will to get her to do his bidding - is an absolutely textbook example of how abusers use the idea of secrecy to control their victims. it doesn't make his abuse of ginny any less inexcusable if we assume he learns this from being on the other side of things.

dumbledore understands his little cache of objects as trophies he's taken from victims - and the text takes the view that dumbledore is correct in this assessment. that hoarding trophies is something widely associated with serial killers means that this is yet another thing which underlines how creepy - and how like his adult self - the child-voldemort is. but it's also the case that the adult - and teenage - voldemort places a lot of emphasis on gift-giving as part of his control over other people. the two most obvious examples in canon are wormtail being given his shiny hand as a reward for helping voldemort get his body back, and slughorn being buttered up with crystallised pineapple before voldemort asks him about horcruxes. the text thinks this is sinister - and one of the reasons it does this is because gift-giving is a grooming tactic. the text also clearly thinks this isn't behaviour voldemort has learned from the other side. and yet a common sign that a child is being abused is if they have possessions it doesn't make sense for them to own [i.e. a child from a low-income background who is suddenly decked in designer clothes] and which they can't or won't explain how they came by. riddle's cache isn't luxurious - although he's so poor that a yoyo or a mouth organ probably is a luxury to him - but there's also nothing in canon which precludes the objects being presents, rather than stolen goods. if the spell dumbledore uses to make the box rattle is caused by a statement which is both relatively ambiguous and dependent on dumbledore's subjective personal morality - is there anything in this room he's acquired through nefarious means? - then the spell would still work as it does in canon if riddle was an abuse victim given the objects as "rewards". dumbledore's tendency to locate right and wrong in the individual and dumbledore's belief that good people should steadfastly endure misery means he can be written entirely canon-coherently as someone who would think a victim who appeared to collude in their own abuse - such as a victim who "offered" a sexual act because their abuser promised them something if they did - was behaving consensually, manipulatively, and nefariously. and it's worth noting that when riddle doesn't know what dumbledore has done to make the box rattle, he is "unnerved". when he realises dumbledore thinks he's stolen the objects - and that he has no interest in forcing him to admit this aloud - he is "unabashed". perhaps because he's just received proof that an experience he doesn't want to talk about is still secret...

on the other hand, the objects could indeed be stolen - because petty criminality and anti-social behaviour, especially in pre-teen children, is also a sign of abuse.

he can be extremely obsequious - when dumbledore tells him to watch how he speaks he becomes "unrecognisably polite", he ruthlessly flatters slughorn, and he is cringingly deferential to hepzibah smith. the text understands this as evidence that his apparent charm is only superficial - another trait associated in the popular imagination with serial killers [and it's striking that so much about the young voldemort - handsome, charming, seemingly quiet and polite, true evil lurking underneath the mask - is exactly like the pop-culture persona which has been created for ted bundy...]. voldemort himself agrees that his charm is performative in chamber of secrets: “If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted." but his obsequiousness is also a fawn response - a way of minimising a threat by attempting to please the person issuing it. he becomes "unrecognisably polite" - after all - in response to this: Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts - ” “Of course I am!” “Then you will address me as ‘Professor’ or ‘sir.’ ”  Riddle’s expression hardened for the most fleeting moment before he said, in an unrecognisably polite voice, “I’m sorry, sir. I meant - please, Professor, could you show me - ?”  riddle could reasonably interpret what dumbledore says here as a threat to prevent him attending hogwarts - even though dumbledore evidently doesn't mean it in this way - and he switches to being fawning because this is something he really doesn't want to happen...

do i think that any of this is what the text was actually going for? no. and nor do i think that reading riddle as a victim of abuse excuses the violence which the adult voldemort goes on to perpetuate.

but i think it is a reading of his characterisation which is both canon-plausible and interesting - a strange, sickly child with a reputation for cruelty and dishonesty being abused by the respectable doctor who is constantly called in to treat his coughs and wheezes, who buys him little presents and charms him into telling him secrets, who then [to paraphrase the teenage voldemort] feeds him a few secrets of his own, safe in the knowledge that nobody will ever believe him if he tries to get help.

and i also think this a reading which is sincerely important.

a significant contributor to the prevalence of child abuse - no matter what exact form this abuse takes - is that we are culturally conditioned to imagine that both the abuser and the victim will look and behave in a certain way if the abuse is "real".

and this means, all too often, that we take child abuse more seriously when the victim is "sympathetic" - when they're from a stable home, and their family are respectable, and they do well in school, and they're polite and sweet, and they look innocent, and they behave perfectly appropriately for their age, and nobody would ever dare to say that they come across as older than they are, and they're white, and they don't have a history of lying, and they don't have a history of attention-seeking, and they don't have a criminal record, and they're not abusive themselves, and there's absolutely no way of suggesting that they colluded in their abuse, and the perpetrator was someone who looks like a child abuser.

someone who is creepy, low-status, ugly, unpopular. someone who everyone can tell is socially abnormal, someone who nobody would ever intentionally permit to be around their children. not someone who is charming, well-respected, attractive, rich, popular, trustworthy. not someone who has a loving family and a happy home. not someone we might be friends with.

but many perpetrators of child abuse are these second group of people. and many victims of child abuse are "unsympathetic", when their social positions and reputations are compared to their abusers' own.

they lie. they steal. they're attention-seeking. they're vindictive. they have trouble distinguishing between imagination and reality. they're violent. they're bullies. they hurt animals. they abuse other children. they take drugs. they're mentally-ill. they come from broken homes. they're in the care of the state. they're dirty. they're poor. they're odd. they're behind at school and badly-behaved in the classroom. they do things which allow their abuse to be dismissed as something they brought upon themselves - they speak or dress in certain ways, they pose provocatively in pictures and post them on the internet, they are known to be sexually active outside of the context of their abuse, they lie about being over the age of consent, they engage in sexual behaviour with an adult abuser in a way which appears [even though it isn't, and there's never a circumstance in which it will be] to be consensual or for their own personal gain, they are flattered by the attention they receive from someone who is important or attractive grooming them, they have complicated - and not always wholly negative - feelings towards their abusers.

and they are still - unequivocally - victims, and what happens to them is still - unequivocally - abuse.

tom riddle is an unsympathetic victim - not only of any potential abuse, but also of the horrors of his life which are explicit on the canon page: that he is raised in an orphanage; that he is grieving; that he knows nothing about his family; that he is thought to be mad.

the absence of any institutional response to his childhood experiences - dumbledore, by his own admission, discloses nothing about riddle to his fellow teachers - is a flaw repeated again and again in the worldbuilding of the harry potter series.

hogwarts - and the wizarding [and muggle] state more broadly - doesn't intervene in any case of neglect or abuse, from harry to snape to voldemort's own parents. the series' individualistic morality means that we aren't supposed to interrogate these collective failings. and the series' black-and-white view of good and evil - and its general belief that violence is fine if the person it happens to "deserves" it - means that it has no interest in examining the ways that poverty, isolation, and neglect are risk factors; that straightforwardly unpleasant people can still be victims; that victims can go on to become perpetrators without their victimhood ceasing to matter; and that the abuse of children usually takes place not in silence and secrecy, concealed in ways which make it fine for adults not to notice it and not to intervene, but in plain sight.

this is knowledge it never hurts to refresh. thinking about lord voldemort's childhood might be an usual way of doing so... but it is an effective one nonetheless...

#asks answered #asenora meta #tom riddle #lord voldemort #if wizards had the concept of safeguarding it would be a game changer...

[roseglazedlens]

⦑ THE FUCKING DEAD ⦒ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

➠ series masterlist | 🔃girl’s route | 🔃boy’s route |

𝐒𝐌𝐔𝐓┇𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑┇𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐅𝐈𝐂┇𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐀𝐃𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 LEON S. KENNEDY & CARLOS OLIVEIRA X AFAB GN! READER ADA WONG & JILL VALENTINE X AFAB GN! READER chapter synopsis: You are amongst the top five selected for this infiltration to take down Glenn Arias. An argument unfolds between the agents and you are forced to pick a side. chapter content: smut in next chapter, resident evil: vendetta spoilers, zombies, haunted mansion, explicit themes throughout this series. a/n: welcome to my second series!! (need to finish my first one oops) on a thursday one month ago, i thought to myself 'zombie threesome hehehe', then i took the idea and sprinted with it and this series is born. so, uh... zombiefuckers rise up?? « 3.3 k words | general masterlist | ao3 | reblogs appreciated! »

Millions are dying—Mass infections are happening across the globe swamping the streets with an unbeknownst fear. The symptoms of this virus are faint, indecipherable next to an x-ray of a man who is perfectly healthy. Not even the carrier themselves are aware of how the virus lies underneath their veins, dormant, until a click of button is pressed from a commander far away, then their symptoms worsen: a headache, a cold, veins turning purple as the poison hatches in them, spreading, until the only thing that can manoeuvre their limbs is the word: KILL.

That’s the greatest strength of this virus. Anyone can be infected, and maybe, you already are.

This product first reached the underground market three months ago. Called the A-Virus; a bioweapon succeeded in the market for its ability to infect targeted communities remotely and leaving no evidence on the perpetrator, which no other distributors had successfully produced before.

Engineered by Glenn Arias, the researcher sold over thousands of this bioweapon, becoming a billionaire overnight at the cost of lives lost from the whims of the rich. He supplied the wealthy and corrupted, like insatiable brats, with new remote-controlled monster trucks, who only aims to tear down families and have their victims beg mercy to a monster that will not speak reason.

Hence, this problem brought attention to a global scale, having the DSO come in alliance with the BSAA and other independent mercenaries to hunt down the vaccine and put a stop to Arias’ grand schemes. Handpicking five agents who are equipped with both experience and skill to combat a zombie attack on this scale of doom and urgency.

Those five agents are Jill Valentine, Carlos Oliveira, Leon S. Kennedy, Ada Wong, and you.

A plan is already in place. A distraction concocted with your intel and the help of a senior researcher of all things bioweapons, Rebecca Chambers. While Arias is busy attending fake business meetings on the other side of the world, the five of you will infiltrate his private mansion to retrieve a concentrated sample of the A-Virus. Rebecca can use the sample to reverse engineer it into a cure and send her findings to facilities across the world.

The plan sounds brilliant in writing, but when you arrived his private mansion in Queretaro region, Mexico, something is off about this place.

Arias is a mastermind, you had been warned many times, in which you appropriately prepared all your best gear for this mission to treat it with utmost gravity. You’re thinking armed guards, well-equipped security, BOWs. But when the five of you pushed open the front doors of his mansion, it was quiet.

Empty. Not a single soul. Just five of you greeted by the whisk of wind through weakly hinged windows that somehow makes the humid air stick to your skin further. Did Rebecca get the wrong info? No one lived there. From what you heard when you were in town, not even the locals dare to venture anywhere near the odd gothic mansion on the top of the hill. They said it’s abandoned, cursed, rumoured to whisk away young children if they ever step foot inside.

It’s a story they say to stop the naughty kids, you remind yourself. It’s not haunted. And you’re not a kid anymore.

The inside is abandoned. Cobwebs lay thick between cornices and carved columns, the floors laced with a film of dust on the luxurious dark wood flooring, creaking with worn age as you take each step. Besides the chandelier, every single piece of furniture is either the same colour of black or red, or nothing else. The soft red velvet upholstery and the rug are made with the same fabric. And you can find the same dark wood in every corner of this house. It’s in the tables, the shelves, the chaise, the painting frames, and stone-like head sculpture whittled with the same exact dark wood, ridged the exact uniform way.

Then, you look at the wall. Black patches of mould smearing across the burgundy wallpaper like a crime scene.

Something creaks behind you. The hair on your arms stands up as you shiver, immediately followed by a wave of embarrassment. Despite the number of times you had taken down hordes of incoming zombies like they’re cardboard targets, why is a bit of wind freaking you out? It’s not a ghost, just old foundations, maybe mice, or wind kicking something off a table, like how every old house sounds like. You look around to see if anyone else catches you jumping at nothing, before Jill says, thankfully unaware of your worry:

“God, the smell. What have they done to this place?” Her hand flies over her nose as if that will help to shield any smell whatsoever. Unfortunately, the building is moulded far beyond salvageable that the stench lingers in every part of the mansion.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. We get weeks-old corpses in body bags every day. It’s absolutely retching.” Jill’s earpiece fizzes into life, and she recognises the familiar playful lilt of Rebecca’s voice on the other side of the line.

“At least that’s refrigerated and contained, Rebecca. This fucking stinks.” Jill scrunches her face like she just ate something unpleasant.

“I’m sending my sympathies from my well-conditioned lab right now.”

Carlos appears from Jill’s behind, placing a firm, teasing hand on top of Jill’s shoulder. His wavy curls catch in the wind and his teeth glistens sparkly white. “Yeah Jill, got a problem with my natural musk?”

Jill shrugs his hand off, grimacing at his attempts at flirtation. “Take a shower first, then we’ll talk.”

In which Carlos laughs, holds his hand out at his heart as if it was just torn into shreds. “That hurts my feelings, Jill. Why aren’t you ever saying things like that to pretty boy over there?”

“I have a name, Oliveira.” The blond man turns around at the call of his nickname, familiar with the nickname, but it's not pleasantly received by him.

“I think pretty boy suits you more, Kennedy.” Carlos replies, a glint in his voice that hints something a bit less than friendliness between them.

“Ah, so you do know my name.” Leon quips back while staring directly into Carlos’ eyes, before getting cut off by Jill.

“I would, Carlos, but if I have to hear one more corny ass comeback from Leon’s mouth, I’ll throw myself out the window right now.”

“Takes a genius to get my humour.” Leon smirks.

Your eyebrows raise almost immediately to chime in. “Erm… I think we have different meanings for the word ‘genius’.”

Quiet chuckles ripple through the room. It helps that you have worked with these guys throughout the years and had come to know and get close to them—some a bit closer than just friends—but none of them are strangers by far. Usually, you would be working with only one or two of these guys, never in a big group like this, but it seems that everyone is already well-acquainted with each other.

You toss a glance at Carlos and catch him staring at you, smiling. Ah, you see now. Carlos must have been trying to lighten the mood because you had been jumpy ever since you had arrived. You nod at him, a silent thank you before the five of you venture deeper into the eerie atmosphere.

The goal is to arrive at Glenn Aria’s office. According to Rebecca’s intel, Arias hid a concentrated sample in a safe last time he was here. You will need Ada to crack the safe to retrieve the sample and deliver it to Rebecca. As you traverse the corridors, it twists and turns in different directions—whoever engineered this did not enjoy unexpected guests at all. But under Rebecca’s guidance, she walks you and your team through the labyrinth with ease and precision.

But unfortunately, not ease and precision on your part. You trip over your own leg and almost fall to the floor as you round a harsh turn according to Rebecca’s instructions, and Jill catches you right on the arm before you fall.

“Easy there.” Jill pulls you up the ground, and you regain some balance. “You good? Mind your step.”

“Why did I agree to babysit?” Ada speaks, finally, for the first time in this mission. Despite how quietly she spoke under her breath, her words abruptly cut through the air, and all attention is on her and the red sweater dress that curves into her frame perfectly now.

“Oh, I bet once you get your paycheck it will be worth it. Or will you be betraying us, huh, Ada?”

Leon smirks loudly. Ada’s face goes from tired to exhausted in one second. “You just can’t let bygones be bygones, can you?”

“That’s rich coming from someone who used to work for Wesker.” Ada’s heels come to a stop, and with a slow turn, she stares deeply into Leon’s eyes that speak a million threats without needing to be utter a word. Oh, and believe me, you do not want to be messing with Ada. You learnt that the hard way.

“Woah, guys. Let’s keep this civil. No need to get heated.” Carlos rushes to stand right between them as the duo glares at each other with passionate fury and resentment.

You nod, joining Carlos’ side to stand by him. “Carlos’s right. This is not the time to pick a fight.” But it falls on the deaf ears of Leon and Ada.

“Thousands were killed. I want what’s good for the people, and I’m not sure Ada here is on the same page.” Leon continues, adding fuel to the fire.

Ada lets out a disbelieved gasp in response, before recollecting herself and replying in her usual tone of calmness: “Someone has to pay the price. I’m just the executor.”

“Regardless of our motivations, we all are on the same side here.” Carlos attempts at resolution again, putting his hands up in between them, and fails embarrassingly once more.

The air is heated with hostility; Leon and Ada’s eyes are locked in a trance, a hazy spite that reigns their composure, that looking away from each other means forfeiting. You don’t see either of them walking away first, they are both prideful people after all.

“Uh… Jill? Some help?” Carlos looks around to find Jill, who is leaning against a wall, her arms relaxing by her sides, unphased by the fire stirring right in front of the crowd.

“Not my circus, not my monkeys.” Jill is merely waiting for either one of the parties roll over.

You feel speckles of flame through the two of them, as if steam is retreating over the top of their heads, burning not just them, but also everyone else in the room. Until the boiling point hits, and it erupts all in one second. The duo walks away, off to different directions in bitter adrenaline, until you and Carlos are just looking at each other.

“I guess we’ll take five. There’s a safe room up ahead.” Carlos is speaking, but you’re the one listening.

The five of you enters the safe room in silence. It is a storage room—despite its name, it’s quite large for a normal storage room—with boxes stacked on all ends that made the room seem smaller in comparison. A ceiling light illuminates the room dimly, but it isn’t enough to shade away years of old animosity from their past.

The lively conversations you had mere minutes ago is gone now. Just silence and awkward rustling as each of you sits in your own designated corner. Carlos and Jill find themselves a seat on top of a firm box. Leon and Ada giving each other the silent treatment, standing on farthest end of the room to each other. You are simply minding your own business, gathering materials to craft a flashbang to pass the time. Doesn’t hurt to have more supplies anyway.

There is a notable division on each side, an imaginary alliance that you choose to be on neither side. Until Leon crosses the boundary line, somehow making his way to you. He picks up an empty grenade case next to you, assembling the pieces together for your project.

“Sorry you had to see that.” A little guilt tugs at Leon’s voice.

“Not at all. I get why you felt that way.” Leon nods, a look of gratitude hanging softly through a smile. His other finger seals the flashbang cap and hands it back to you. “But you need to learn to control your temper. Especially when it comes to Ada.”

Speaking of Ada, a shiver runs down your spine suddenly. The feeling of someone sending laser signs and telepathic warnings towards you. You turn around towards the direction of the aura to find Ada, her back leaning against the wall, arms crossed without engaging or acknowledging anyone in the room. She stands by herself alone, and that’s how you had always known Ada—distant and in her own mysterious world. Not really a chatter, despite the number of times she had saved you in the past.

Ada does not look at you, but you can feel her glaring down—either you or Leon—with her entire body.

“Good to see the two of you getting along at least.” Carlos holds out two plastic water bottles to you two from a supply crate he found in the room, which Jill has finished downing two of them already.

You two gesture ‘no thanks.’ Ada does not spare Carlos a glance at his direction when he offers.

“You’re welcome, I guess.” Carlos says sarcastically, before taking in a generous sip from his drink.

There’s a moment of silence. Then, a moment of dry coughs; a squeak of footsteps, a joint click from a stretching neck. Then silence once more.

“I’ve had enough.” Jill slaps her hands on her thigh before pushing herself up from her seat. “You guys gonna keep acting like kids? Grow up, this isn’t high school anymore. Take your drama outside. If we’re gonna take down Arias, we have to get along. And yes, that means moving on from shit that happened… five years ago? Five years ago and you two are still hung up? Unlike you all, I’m actually looking forward to go home and get a decent shower, hopefully soon.”

You nod in approval as Jill speaks her mind, and you are glad at least the few of you have their priorities in order. Ada flicks her head away from Jill, but her silence is telling of how much she is thinking over Jill’s words.

“Leon, can you accept this?” Jill asks.

There’s a bit of reluctance in his voice, but he agrees anyway. “Fine.”

“Ada?”

Before Ada can respond, smoke is creeping into your vision, coming in quick. It merges into your view, obscuring it, and you whiff something artificial, some kind of chemicals that is piercing to your nose and eyes. You can’t help but wince, hands groping the air in attempts to find comfort in the person closest to you—anyone for that matter—to indicate you’re safe and is indeed not under attack. Your fingers find themselves in a fistful of someone’s shirt, muscles tensing tightly underneath the fabric on their shoulder cap.

“Leon. Is that you?” You cry out.

“It’s me. Stay close and don’t let go. It’s an ambush.” Leon pulls your arm towards him, securing your safety with his hand in yours.

There is some coughing through the air, faint panic in voices underneath the hissing of gas that seems to be coming from above. You hold onto Leon a bit tighter.

Carlos calls out desperately “Where are you guys? Is everyone okay?” as he flaps his hand around the smoke to stir it away. He finds you and Leon almost immediately, and looks down to your hands, finding them clasped tight against each other. Your hand lets go of Leon flying behind your back, but Carlos already saw it.

Jill is coughing deep from the smoke. “I-I’m here!”

“It seems like we’re all here.” Ada says, composed as ever despite the circumstances.

The smoke dissipates—until most of the fog fades away, escaping through the cracks underneath the door to the other side. Leaving the five of you standing in the same storage room darting eyes around, seemingly unharmed, and even more confused.

After what feels like a while later, Jill finally breaks the silence: “Huh. What was that?”

“No enemies.” Ada unholsters the pistol from her belt, inspecting the room and the door behind the room. “Clear on this side too.”

It’s strange. If this is an ambush, why isn’t there an attack?

Leon places a finger on his earpiece to activate his microphone. “Rebecca, come in. We’ve just been ambushed by some kind of smoke, but nobody’s hurt. Happen to know what’s going on?”

His earpiece buzzes into life. “Hmm, let’s see. From the architecture plans, I see the vents are connected to a lab below. It seems abandoned, there are no signs of anyone triggering an attack on my end.”

“Whatever it is, we need to investigate.” Leon’s voice is firm and serious. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

You swallow deeply, fear settling back inside you. “You think it’s a trap?”

“I think…” Leon pinches his chin. “…Arias knows that we’re here.”

Your heart drops—Bundle of fear, anxiety and stress springing back into your nerves as you probe at the possibility of Glen Arias knowing where you are. What you’re trying to do. Making sure you will never reach that sample despite your hardest wills.

“He shouldn’t. Rebecca, didn’t Arias get on the jet?” Carlos is also thinking too.

“Affirmative. Security footage showed Arias walking into his private jet, and it took off four hours ago. He should still be in the air. No signal of them making a pitstop anywhere.”

You hear black pumps clacking against the hardwood floor. “I’m getting the sample.” Says Ada, her foot is already halfway out of the door. “Follow me or not, I don’t care. I’m here for the objective, and only that.”

“And what if something happens to you?” Carlos asks, genuinely concerned.

“I’ll deal with it if it happens.” Ada waves dismissively.

“Ada’s right, we could be set on a wild goose chase.” Jill chimes in. “Millions of lives are dying. We don’t have time to waste.”

“I guess it’s just you and me then, pretty boy.” Carlos rounds his arm around Leon’s neck, bringing him closer in an almost choking grip, a little too close and tight to his liking. And with Leon’s history with Carlos, Leon refuses to believe this is just a friendly gesture.

Leon grimaces, removing Carlos’ hand over him. “So that’s it? We’re splitting up?” The answer is unanimous. “Fine. I guess we’ll cover more ground if we split up.”

Rebecca, through the other side of your earpiece, speaks: “Be careful everyone. You don’t know what kind of schemes Glenn Arias had set up. Please stay safe.”

“We’ll be fine, as long as we don't have any traitors in our team.” Leon says the word ‘traitor’ while maintaining eye contact with Ada. She ignores him, simply deadpans.

“Well, what about you?” Leon nudges at your arm.

You are faced with two options. Indulge in your curiosity and find the source of the gas, or stick to mission as planned? Both options will be dangerous. So who will you trust with your life?

[OPTION A] “I’ll follow the girls.”

[OPTION B] “I’ll follow the boys.”

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 thanks for reading! come check out my other works! —yours truly, rose. i love my beta reader @scar-crossedlvrs! series taglist: @j3llyd0nut @ovaryacted @daydreamrot @madcap-riflette @access--granted @obsolescent @briermelli @secretiveauthor @ghosty-frog @navstuffs @slowcryinginthedark @rentaldarling @lesbntired © roseglazedlens — please do not repost, plagiarise, or feed to ai.

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