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lovebugism · 1 year

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Hi I am begging on my knees for more of your steddie x reader it’s so good I’m crying

BIZARRE LOVE TRIANGLE | baby fever

summary: steve's got a bad case of baby fever. it's not so bad until you start getting sick with it too. eddie has to come up with a solution before all of you fall ill.

pairing: steve harrington / f!reader / eddie munson

a/n: i just realized i haven't posted anything steddie related in almost three months. i am so sorry. this is a total travesty. please enjoy this 3k blurb and find it in your heart to forgive me <3

You squint at the grocery list scribbled on a bright blue sticky note. It’s a mish-mash of all your different handwritings. Some are certainly neater than others. “This just says crabs… I think...”

“It doesn’t say crabs, you loon,” Eddie laughs from where he mans the shopping cart beside you. He’s steering the thing about as well as his van. “It says cereals.”

“No, it says a bunch of gibberish that no one can read but you,” you retort with a giggle of your own as you follow him down the breakfast aisle. “And we just need one box of cereal, alright? Singular.”

He turns to you with a cartoonish pout on his lips. “But why?”

“Because you’re like a kid, Eds. You eat the entire thing in one sitting, and then you’re absolutely haywire for the rest of the day.”

And, just like a child, the boy stands in front of the vibrantly colored boxes of cereal with a wide grin on his face.

The local grocery store was smaller compared to the others in town, but they had every brand of the breakfast food known to man, stacked in neat rows from the floor to ceiling.

Eddie’s got a twinkle in his eye as his gaze runs over them all. And even though you think it’s all boyish and hilarious, you let him have his fun.

He grew up unable to enjoy all the goodness of overly sweet cereal because bills and food with actual sustenance were always more important. Now, he’s got a halfway stable job with Wayne at the car shop, and he’s living at his own place with his boyfriend and girlfriend, and he can buy whatever the hell kind of cereal he wants.

So, as far as he’s concerned, everyone who said he’d never amount to much can suck it.

And you know you’ll let him buy the whole damn grocery store out of their cereal if that’s what he wants. It’s the least you can do for the world’s best boyfriend — a title he begrudgingly shares with Steve The Hair Harrington.

You’d give him the world if you could, but for now you’ll have to settle for a couple of boxes of Lucky Charms.

“Okay, so the OJ’s we got last time tasted like absolute shit,” Eddie mutters, mostly to himself as he crouches to peer at the lower shelves. “I saw a commercial for Waffle-O’s this morning, and they looked pretty good. But I know you like Breakfast With Barbie and Steve ate a bowl of C3PO’s every day for, like, two weeks, so…”

You stand by the cart and laugh at his rambling. You turn to look behind you with a lighthearted joke sitting on the edge of your tongue. It dissipates when you realize Steve isn’t next to you.

Instead, he’s still standing at the end of the aisle with his back to you and Eddie — like his feet forgot how to work when he caught sight of the family across the store. It’s a mother and a father, dressed in their mid-weekday finest, with a baby swaddled at their chest and a toddler bouncing in the seat of the shopping cart.

And you know it’s got the boy totally lost in his own head. You know he's picturing you and him and Eddie as that happy family — the one fills every store you walk into with baby babbles and bubbly laughter.

Steve told you his senior year of high school he wanted a baby, that he wanted six of them, and that he wanted them all with you. And you were just a stupid seventeen-year-old girl who would’ve done anything he asked you to, though you definitely drew the line at babies.

But you’re older now, and far more settled than you had been all that time ago. Steve’s ready for a family, but you don’t think you’re anywhere close.

“How about we just compromise and get all three?” Eddie finally concludes with the boxes already in his arms. He dumps them into the cart and notices that your attention is elsewhere. He realizes then that Steve’s gone too because his attention is stuck on a nice family minding their own business.

“Not again…” he murmurs to himself while you go rescue the boy.

“I’ve never seen someone so sick with baby fever in my life,” you laugh as you drag Steve back to the cart by his wrist.

“I can’t help it!” he defends weakly. “They were so cute! They were all matching and I couldn’t stop thinking about how I can’t wait to coordinate outfits with our baby. Doesn’t that sound like the cutest fucking thing ever?”

“It sounds very adorable, Stevie,” you nod understandingly and try to ignore the way your stomach twists at the thought of him and his baby girl wearing matching pastels every time they step out of the house. “And we can be just like them in five years—”

“Five years?” he gapes.

“Maybe even ten,” Eddie shrugs and nonchalantly tosses a box of Count Chocula into the cart.

“Ten years— You guys are insane if you think I’m waiting ten years to have a kid!” Steve protests with a pair of buff arms crossed boyishly over his chest. “I’m not getting any younger over here, you know that, right?”

“You’re twenty-five, Steve, stop being so dramatic. We’re just now trying to get settled. I’m still in school, you’re still working at Family Video, Eddie’s still… Eddie. Don’t you think we should have actual careers before we have a kid?”

Steve huffs and rolls his eyes, feigning annoyance even though he knows you’re right.

It’s not like he wants to keep working at the stupid store on Main Street. He keeps putting off the conversation with his dad about another job, because he puts off every conversation with his dad. He’s scared of what asking for a position at his firm will do to his pride.

“She’s right, and you know it, Steven,” Eddie tells him, then scoffs. “I mean, can you really imagine me with a baby strapped to my chest on tour?”

You and Steve both pause and tilt your heads to the side as you picture the sight, terribly in sync as always. You can imagine it, quite perfectly actually, tangible enough to touch.

“Well—”

“That’s the cutest thing I think I’ve ever heard,” Steve finishes your thought for you.

Eddie cowers at the sudden attention. “Okay, stop looking at me like I’m a piece of meat, alright? We are not having a kid right now. There’s no fucking way.”

Steve all but deflates at the rejection as Eddie pushes the cart down the aisle, desperate to escape the bubble of tension the conversation had created in the cereal section.

You smile sheepishly over at Steve and wrap your arms through the crook of his elbow, standing on the tips of your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “He’s being grumpy about it, but he’s right… It’s just not a good idea right now— but it will be, okay? One day. Just not… to-day.”

┄

The day, for you, comes exactly seven of them later.

You accompany Steve on his morning run and his routine stop for coffee. You’re not quite sure how he’s still mobile because your muscles are screaming, even after the warm shower you took to soothe them.

You left him alone for all of half a second to use the bathroom while he ordered drinks for him and you, and something extra for Eddie for when the boy decides to roll out of bed.

When you return, you find him bouncing a baby on his hip — a young thing, maybe three if you had to guess, with two buns in her hair like bunny ears and a sparkly pink dress to match the bows she wears in them.

Steve smiles down at her, talking to her in a baby voice and saying something you can’t hear because you’re frozen in place. You resemble him at the grocery store a week ago, when he was thrown into a daydream so suddenly that his body all but shut down.

You look at him now, tickling the baby’s sides just to hear her giggle, and you see him with your firstborn — sleep deprived, covered in spit-up, and still the most beautiful human you’d ever seen.

You have to shake your head to remove the thought before it ruins you entirely.

Freshly jostled from your stupor, you walk over to him. “Steve… Please tell me you didn’t steal someone’s baby.”

He laughs. “What? No! She was just a little fussy, and I offered to take her while her mom looked for something,” the boy explains. You look just behind him to see the woman bent over at one of the smaller tables, sifting vigorously through a large baby bag.

“She doesn’t seem very fussy now,” you observe, eyes flitting between his and the child's and noticing they’ve both got matching grins.

“She doesn’t, does she?” he smiles, softly scratching at her sides again to make her laugh. And she does, most enthusiastically so, tilting her head back and letting the giggles spill from an open mouth.

He turns back to you, with wide eyes and raised brows and a bemused grin. “I like she likes me.”

“Of course, she does,” you scoff. “Babies always like you.”

The mom returns with a snack in hand and a relieved smile. Steve passes the baby back to her with little effort. She whines at the loss of him, though the brightly packaged treat is quick to quell her sorrow.

“Thanks for taking her,” the mother's grateful smile falters with exhaustion. “If I don’t give her the same snack at exactly the same time every day, she tends to go a little nuts.”

Steve tells her that it’s no problem, that he was a part-time babysitter at one point in his life, and that her kid was better than those little shits combined. He censors himself before the swear slips out, though.

You go your separate ways when the barista calls out your drink orders and walk hand in hand back to your place.

“Did you get their names?” you ask him before taking a sip of your latte.

“The mom’s name was Maeve and the kid’s name was Harper—”

“Holy shit,” you mutter.

Steve snaps his head over to you because he thinks you’ve burnt your mouth. Instead, he finds you with a distant smile on your face.

“Those are the cutest names I’ve ever heard. It sounds like something out of a fucking cartoon or something.”

“Yeah…” is all he can say because his mind is preoccupied with a million other thoughts. He doesn’t tell you them, obviously, but you know they’re there. The sly smile pulling at his lips makes it obvious.

“…Why are you looking at me like that.”

“Because I’m totally gonna wear you down,” he grins and brings his coffee to his mouth, sipping through his smirk.

You only scoff in response. “Never.”

┄

It doesn’t take you very long to realize that Steve was right.

You spend the rest of the day thinking about it — about him with a baby and how perfect he'd be as a dad. The thoughts plague you far more than they usually do. They take up the entire frontal cortex of your brain and make it nearly impossible to think about anything else.

You’re self-aware enough to beat yourself up about it.

You were just telling him that it wasn’t time yet, and you knew you were right. As far as you’re concerned, you still have another few good years before you’re ready to even start seriously considering it.

But here you are, having to calm yourself down every time the thought of Steve Harrington with a baby, your baby, crosses your mind.

You wait until the boy heads to bed to talk to Eddie about it. You find him in the kitchen, eating handfuls of Breakfast with Barbie like a maniac. You’re too preoccupied to make a snarky comment about it.

“Steve wasn’t lying,” you warn him.

“..About what?” he wonders through the mouthful.

“About him not waiting ten years to have a baby! He wants one now!” you explain through a yell-whisper hybrid. “And he told me he was going to wear me down, and he was right.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide too, like he’s just learned you caught some sort of plague. You have. It’s called baby fever, and it’s only a matter of time before the entire house is afflicted. “Shit…”

“So you have to be the strong one, Eddie.”

“Oh, god,” he whines with pinched brows. “Why does it have to be me?”

“Because I saw him hold a baby today.”

“…And this is a bad thing?”

“Of course, it’s a bad thing! My hormones went crazy, okay? It’s like my brain stopped functioning, and I started thinking with my ovaries or something! All human instinct told me to lay down and procreate the second we got home!”

Eddie laughs to himself. “Are you sure it was human instinct, or was it just you on a normal Wednesday?”

“I’m being serious, Eddie,” you tell him, a sudden solemnity to your features. “You have to put your foot down whenever Steve talks about it because I will cave.”

“Alright, alright, have some Barbie cereal and settle down,” he tells you with a playful grin.

He offers you the box and you pout for a moment before sticking your hand into it and pulling out several red and purple butterfly pieces.

The boy wraps an arm around you with his free hand. He pulls you closer and noses at the crown of your head. You sigh as you relax into him.

“I’ll take care of it, okay? I actually have the perfect idea.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” you waver through a mouthful of cereal.

“Don’t worry about it,” he lilts with a grin, smacking a kiss to your forehead. “Let me take care of it.”

┄

You and Steve are tangled in bedsheets, both slowly rousing but trying desperately to go back to sleep.

You’re laying on your stomach, face smushed into the pillow you clutch to your head. Steve lays halfway on top of you — his legs knotted with yours, arm splayed over your back, and softly snoring in your ear.

Both of you noticed the lack of Eddie’s presence, but chose not to linger on it too much, figuring he must’ve gone for a breakfast run.

He returns hardly a moment after the thought of him crosses your mind. You hear the door open and shut again, then the shouts of your names entwined with a muffled barking.

You groan at the intrusion on your sleep.

Steve huffs and shifts against you, voice gruff with fatigue as he wonders: “Why do I hear a dog?”

The mixture of confusion and subtle knowing has you both shuffling out of the bedroom and trudging into the living room.

You round the corner and find Eddie standing by the door with a rowdy goldendoodle bouncing at his feet. He’s trying hopelessly to undo its leash when the thing starts to squirm at the sight of you and Steve.

Eddie’s eyes flit to the both of you when he notices you standing across the room. A smile bursts like early morning sunshine on his face. “Surprise!” he beams.

The metal of the leash clicks when he finally gets it unbuckled. The dog dashes your way, all but jumping into Steve and then spinning in circles with excitement as it tries to figure out who to accept attention from.

“You got us a dog?” the boy wonders, head cocked back to dodge the thing as it licks at his chin.

“You said you wanted a baby,” Eddie shrugs. “So, I got you a baby.”

“This is so not what a meant,” the boy grouses in response, though he’s got his arms wrapped around the dog like he’s hugging it. “I mean, it’s not even a baby— it’s huge.”

“The woman at the shelter said he was eight months old. And he is a he, so stop calling him it.”

You crouch beside Steve, scratching the dog behind his ear. He pants with his tongue sticking out, almost looking like he’s smiling. It makes you smile too.

“We don’t even have dog food. Or toys. Or a bed,” you stress. “What are we even gonna name it?”

“Well, I took care of exactly one of those things,” Eddie lilts with a grin. “They only had that gross artificial shit at the grocery store, but they did have some badass collars and an engraving machine, so…”

You and Steve peek through the dog’s golden curls and find a black band with silver spikes dotted around the neck. “Super metal, huh?” you hear himEdiejoke as you reach for the dangled heart pendant handing around the collar.

“…Ozzy?” you recite.

“See what I mean?” he beams. “Metal.”

#published by bug #steve harrington x reader #eddie munson x reader #steddie x reader #stranger things x reader #steve harrington imagine #eddie munson imagine #steve harrington fic #eddie munson fic #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #st drabbles #stevie drabble #eddie spaghetti drabble

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raitonsfw · 4 months

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𝚖𝚊𝚖𝚊'𝚜 𝚋𝚘𝚢 | 𝚗𝚊𝚔𝚊𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊 𝚌𝚑𝚞𝚞𝚢𝚊

synopsis: He was a mama’s boy, through and through– in more ways than one.

warnings: 18+ mdni, fem!reader, smut, mommy kink, dom!reader (kinda), sub!chuuya (again, kinda), cunnilingus, blowjob (while he's on the phone with his mother), chuuya’s obsessed, just a tiny drabble.

a/n: im so sorry, i honestly know nothing of stormbringer and all the light novels so i have no idea what his actual family relations are. just pretend ig! im currently still obsessing over soukoku in the main manga and anime, ill get into the actual lore of chuuya soonish so he’s not so ooc. wc; 500ish. m.list

divider credit: @benkeibear

You knew Chuuya put up a front. He’d puff out his chest in the midst of enemies when he was with you in public and sneer at them if they made the wrong move, threatening to pull his gun on them. You watched him as his ego soared outside, at the bar with his Mafia members, yours boosting as well when it came to the night. Because you knew who he really was, seen that vulnerable side of him; behind closed doors, that man was begging on his knees in the middle of the room like the whore that he was.

When he wasn’t out shielding his face with a stereotypical mask, he was stuck underneath your heel, nearly kissing the floor as you demanded the most of him. He worshipped you like a goddess, as if the straps of Greek mythology held you hostage and brought you to him. A deity of some sort, higher than the clouds that held Mount Olympus, he begged for his Aphrodite. Begged for her– you to touch him, his cock dripping against the fluffy carpet it hovered over.

He’d whine as you stood over him, harshly pushing his face and his greedy tongue into the swell of your cunt. He’d lap up your wetness eagerly, the mess of it sticking to his face and damn near almost drowns in it. And while he’s doing that, he’d whimper into you, ‘please and thank yous’ with ‘fuck, mommy’ barely coming out as you grinded against his mouth. By the end of it, you would be cumming in waves on his face and a new carpet would be the first thing on your mind because Chuuya had busted all over it halfway through eating you out.

And some days, your boy would call his own mama, his voice cracking a few times as you worked your pink tongue around his thick cock. The hand that wasn’t preoccupied with his phone would fly to your hair as you swallowed around him, saliva dribbling from the corners of your mouth and down his cock. Chuuya would babble on and on about nonsense, barely able to concentrate when you were sucking the soul out of him. He'd lose his train of thought, his sentence trailing off, and you’d listen to his mother scold him over the phone for losing his place in his over-elaborated story.

He’d have to call her back though to apologize as he’d hang up without so much as a goodbye teetering from his lips, his entire mind foggy from the pleasure you instilled in him. Whines would leak from his mouth in hushed intervals, ‘fuck, right there, please, keep going…’ and he’d push your head down further, making you choke and gag on his cock, thrusting up into the tight heat of your mouth. Chuuya isn’t particularly forceful, he could never do that to you, to his mommy, and he’d shoot his load down your throat, right then and there as he thought about what you could do to him when he eventually scolded you about the phone call bit. But he wouldn’t be mean about it, of course.

He was a mama’s boy, through and through.

a/n: wanna get tagged in future writing posts? join my taglist!

extra a/n: part 2 coming soon!

#𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 •┈••✦#bungou stray dogs x reader #bsd x reader #bsd x you #bsd smut #bsd chuuya #bungou stray dogs chuuya #chuuya x reader #chuuyabsd #chuuya smut #chuuya x you #chuuya x y/n #chuuya x fem!reader #chuya x reader #chuya nakahara #bsd chuya #chuuya nakahara #fem reader #𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚏𝚠 ✰

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saturnbellfromhell · 1 year

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ASTRO OBSERVATIONS II

So you've seemed to really enjoy my astro oberservations, so today I'm going to do some more! I hope you enjoy and if there's any questions, feel free to ask.

💧5th house stellium

I've noticed these natives don't like to change their routine for anybody. They can come off a little bit selfish because of it. They also like to tell everyone everything about themselves. If they've finished any college, o you will know. There also really into working out, looking good, smelling fresh and love to be noticed, but don't like saying that. They are also very curious about things only they like, if they think what you're talking about is boring to them, they will let you know.

💧 Aphrodite and Saturn in the 1st house

This can be a very complicated placement. In one way the native is considered a beautiful individual, but they themselves cannot see it that way. The glowup will come later in life and the native will have some complications with their skin, weight etc. But it will pass!

💧 Mercury in Aquarius

These people are known to be book worms and love to learn, constitley. But they do have this tick about them where they always think they know the best.

💧 Gemini Moon

They're so fucking funny without even trying, I swear. If you ever want to hear something chaotic, call a Gemini moon. They are the feral club rats and can befriend anyone. But at the same time they maybe have 1 or 2 people they really open up to and tell them how they really feel. I feel like they can be even more detached than Libra and Aquarius moons. They can also be prone to sleeping with someone and than regreating it the next day.

💧Pluto in the 4th house

This can mean a very turbulent family life. A very love-hate relationship with their mother. They maybe didn't grow up with the mother and than reconnected with her later in life. The mother can become very ill later down the line and it falls on their lap, making them have a symbiotic house life. The native takes cares and adores the mother, but the mother also becomes a burden to deal with. These people also have a very strict way at looking at family life, children. They don't relate to people wanting a white picked fance and 4 kids running around the yard. Try to understand these people, they really have a soft spot. .but don't be too aggressive with your questions.

💧Earth Venuses

I think what they all have in common is they're really big pleasers in the bedroom. Quite dominant and right to the point. The guy earth Venuses love to be small spoons when cuddling, but will never ever admit it! The girls are really big sweethearts in private, but seem really cold and profesional outside the house.

💧12 house stellium

I've never met a 12th house stellium person who wasn't the sweetest person ever. They are so down to earth and try to understand all. They are the shoulder to cry on, for sure.

💧 North node in Leo

They love tattoos, standing out, having piercings, having some bold jewelry piece. Having some sort of style everybody wants, but can't recreate. But they deal with some much self doubt at the beginning of their journey. Since their South node is in Aquarius, they are prone to go back to their humanitarian ways, people pleasing etc. It's also tough in relationships, since they feel the need for independence and shinning on their own, but also want to understand their partner and help them. I would recommend them to shift your priorities to bettering yourself, career etc, not other people. It's your time to shine and you deserve it, more than anything!

💧 6 house stellium

They are prone to join the army and actually are really good at it. I mean this this is house of routines and discipline after all.

💧Sagittarius Moon

These people are something, let me tell you that. A Sag Moon is prone to work in other cities or countries. Their mind is very sharp and clean about what they want. I've noticed they can be big loners in their free time. Like they live to be the head of the party, cracking jokes and doing their thing, but in their house they are very reserved and quite. They need to recharge for the day, that's for sure.

💧 Air- Water dominant people

This is very confusing to the native. I mean on one side we have a emotional and semi psychic sign and on the other a rational and mental sign. These people are prone to heavy changing over the years, really stepping into their personality can be difficult and always altered by surroundings and people. They are a little bit bipolar also. Some days they'll want to speak with everybody and party their butt off, the next they want peace and quietness. Sometimes they want to travel the world and others they never want to leave their home. It depends on the day, I guess..

xoxo nk

#astrology observations #astro placements #astrology #zodic signs #zodiac #aste #astro observations

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dreamcubed · 2 years

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king of my heart | mattheo riddle x reader

song; king of my heart [taylor swift] pairing; duke!mattheo riddle x baron's daughter!fem!bookworm!reader genre; arranged marriage, fluff, angst, hurt comfort, s2l word count; 11,2k timeline; bridgerton au warnings; minor character death, talk of death, minor character terminal illness, minor character severe injury (involving blood), abusive parents (verbal, neglect, vaguely implied physical), patriarchal gender roles, misogyny, implied ptsd, trauma-related nightmares (nothing graphic), verbal conflict summary; your refusal of marriage led your father to relinquish permission for you to choose your own husband, allowing him to make the decision himself and ensure the most status and wealth possible. the problem? the man he chose for you was closed off and arrogant

this is my longest oneshot yet so buckle yourself up!

masterlist

"i made up my mind, i'm better off being alone."

————————————————

Your father hadn't been pleased with you the last couple of years, as you had refused to attend the many balls of the engagement season. Marriage was not within your interests, no, your interests were with the shelves upon shelves of books in your family estate's library.

Of course, that did not matter to Baron D/N, as in his mind a daughter should only be at home until she is of marrying age, at which point she moves to her husband's estate. You despised the patriarchal traditions of your society, but because of those very same traditions, you could do little to change the matter.

"Y/N," he spoke to you at dinner one night, sat far away from you on the industrial-sized table, "Due to your refusal to find a husband, I have had no choice but to find one for you."

Your eyes snapped up to him in shock, and you felt the anger in your fingers as they clutched your cutlery tightly.

"Do not develop an attitude with me," he said, "I have been more than generous the last few years in allowing you to find your own match. You have no one but yourself to blame for refusing attendance at the balls of betrothal season."

"Why should I have to marry?"

"You are twenty years old. It is time you moved on from the L/N estate and last name."

"But why?"

"Because it is expected of you as a baron's daughter," he breathed a deep and angry sigh, "You will not bring shame on to this family."

"What about what I want?"

That is when your mother, the baroness, spoke up, "This is not a negotiation. A husband has been found for you, and- thanking the Lord above us- he is of a higher status than our family."

While your family held title as barons, it was still the second lowest aristocratic title - only two pegs above commoner. It allowed you luxuries such as a large home, servants, and respect, but the chances of you marrying into a higher status were often low. Your mother had come from a titleless family, but one that held a lot of wealth. It had been a blessing to her family to be invited to the prestigious engagement balls, where she met your father.

"He will be dining here tomorrow with his mother. A gown has been prepared for you for the occasion."

You knew there was no hope for protest, so instead asked, through gritted teeth, "What is his name?"

"Mattheo Riddle," your father replied, "The only son of Duke Thomas of Slytherin."

Surprise rippled within you: how had your parents persuaded someone of such high status to marry you? You wouldn't even inherit the title of baroness, as although you had no brothers, you were not the eldest child. Your oldest sister was the only daughter who would continue to live at home, with her husband who would become the baron.

"It was both fortunate and unfortunate timing," your father answered your question without you even speaking it out loud, "Much like yourself, Mattheo Riddle refuses to attend the betrothal balls, but he has finally been persuaded into marriage under his father's wishes."

"Duke Thomas is to pass soon," your mother continued for him, "His final wish before he parts is to see his only son married. It just so happened that your father wrote to him just after Mattheo had agreed to wed, and Duke Thomas jumped at the opportunity, despite our lower status."

"I did not expect anything to come of writing to him, of course," Baron D/N said, "I was merely trying my luck. Since he agreed so quickly, one can only assume that he does not have long left - not long enough to see his son through a betrothal season, at the very least."

You nodded, staring down at your plate.

Your worst fear had come to fruition.

***

"Stand straight, Y/N," your mother spoke harshly to you, as you stood in the entrance lobby of your house in a navy blue gown and a much-too-tight corset. Beside her stood your father, matching the sage green colour scheme your mother was adorning.

The grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs informed you that Mattheo and Duchess Isabella's arrival was imminent. On cue, the knocker of the front door echoed twice throughout the walls and ceilings of the estate, and a servant of yours rushed forward to let the guests in.

You immediately fell into a curtsy alongside your mother, while your father took a bow. A handful of what appeared to be bodyguards of some kind stood either side of the mother and her son, of whom were dressed grandly in dark green. You took the moment to take in Mattheo's appearance as, after all, he was to be your husband. He was taller than you (and looked somewhat older as well), with brown hair and a strong jaw, paired with dazzling yet cold eyes.

"Your graces," your father spoke, "It is an honour to host you in our humble home."

Duchess Isabella gave the slightest of curtsies, before she said, "The honour is all ours, Lord Bombast."

"May I introduce you to my wife, Baroness M/N, and my daughter, Y/N."

You curtsied again as the woman smiled gently at you.

"Then may I introduce you to my son, Mattheo, soon to be Duke of Slytherin."

The man stepped towards you first, and bowed as he took your hand in his and kissed the back of it, rising as he said his first words to you, "It is an honour to make your acquaintance, my Lady."

"Likewise, your grace."

Your party soon progressed into the dining hall, where you sat opposite Mattheo. You remained silent as your parents engaged in conversation.

"Yes, it is simply awful," Isabella said, "He was so worried that he would not live to see Mattheo wed, which is why he was simply ecstatic to receive your offer. He sends his utmost apologies for not being able to attend, of course."

"We completely understand," your mother replied, "Trust me, we place no blame on him for his absence."

"In an ideal world, he would have liked to see Mattheo through betrothal season - he has always believed in the course of natural love - but that is a tedious process and one he likely would not live til the end of. So few people follow the route of arranged marriages these days, so he really was rather glum. Your letter lifted his spirits immensely."

"I am glad for that," your father said, "I hope that his worries can rest now."

"They surely can," Isabella sighed, "Although I am saddened that it took Thomas being on his deathbed for Mattheo to finally agree to marriage."

You observed as Mattheo remained unreactive to the situation, and couldn't help but ponder what married life would be like with him. Would he allow you to indulge in your book obsession? Or would he expect you to fill the traditional role expected of a woman? It was terrifying to you, that this man held the power to take away your one true passion.

"Our daughter has been reluctant to marry also," your father said, "In the end, I had to make an overriding decision."

"How come?" Isabella looked in your direction, expecting you to answer.

Your mother quickly cut in before you could speak, "She has been pre-occupied with her love of literature, which we can hopefully leave to rest now."

"So you are an educated woman, Miss Y/N?"

You nodded, "I never wish to leave it to rest," you side-eyed your mother, much to her frustration.

Isabella hummed, "I do enjoy a good piece of literature from time to time, I think it is vital to have a passion for something in life."

"Where do your passions lie?" you couldn't help but ask.

"I adore art," she beamed at you, "You shall see how grand my collection is once you move to the estate- you needn't worry, of course, I shan't be there often. I plan to spend most of my time in the country house once Thomas passes."

"A painless passing I hope it is."

She smiled sincerely at you.

***

Once the meal concluded, your mother elected to give the Riddles a tour of the house, which caused you to fall to the back of the group alongside Mattheo.

"I don't know what you expect out of this union," he said to you suddenly, his tone harsh, "But I am not here for a relationship with you. I am here to allow my father to rest in peace, nothing more, nothing less."

"If you shall leave me to my literature, then I shall be more than content," you said in response, assuming a cold tone as well.

Evidently, you took him a bit by surprise, but he nodded nonetheless. "Very well then."

Perhaps the marriage would not be such a bad one, if Mattheo was to leave you to your own devices and allow you to continue your life of a bookworm. In fact, it may be an upgrade, as you would no longer have to deal with your parents' nagging about it being an unwomanly hobby.

It was then that your parents turned around to engage in conversation with Mattheo, leaving Isabella to take your side as she gave you a warm smile.

"My son may seem cold, but I promise you that he has a kind heart," she said quietly, so as not to be overheard, "I am somewhat worried about how he would treat his wife, though you seem very capable of standing your ground."

"I would like to think I am, your grace."

"You are to be my daughter-in-law, don't worry yourself with such formalities. Refer to me as Isabella."

"If- if you're sure."

"I certainly am," she sighed, "I think my son needs a wife who isn't afraid to argue with him, as controversial as that may be."

You looked forward to the back of Mattheo's head. "Is that so?"

She hummed, "He's too arrogant for his own good, though I love him so."

"I will do my best to be the wife he needs, Isabella."

"I have no doubt you will, Y/N."

***

The wedding was the following week: it also served as another betrothal event for the masses, as it was currently betrothal season. That element was under Duke Thomas' request, as he wished to see the magic of young love flourish once more before he died - his words.

Despite never wanting to get married, you had thought far enough along the idea to know that you would have preferred a smaller ceremony. You hadn't attended a ball since you were very young, and to be the centre of attention at such a glamorous event was very overwhelming. All eyes were on you as your father led you down the aisle, past the rows upon rows of people you hardly recognised. Your dress was suffocating, but gorgeous, being a mellow cream colour with baby blue embroideries decorating the extravagant skirt.

You felt shy with all the attention, and flicked between staring at the lilies in your hands and Mattheo who was stood at the altar. You hadn't seen him since you first met, but his expression was as cold as ever.

When you reached the step, your father guided your hand to Mattheo's extended one, and said something to him about trust and protection: you weren't really paying attention, as you were alarmingly aware of the nerves within you. Your body's auto-pilot was the only thing getting you to move to face Mattheo after handing the bouquet to your maid of honour - one of your sisters.

As the priest began the introductions, you reluctantly looked up at Mattheo to see that while his eyes were on your complexion, his mind was not. That all too familiar glaze of being zoned out was settled on him, and you couldn't help realise you must have looked the same. His hands felt cold in yours, but perhaps that was only because you were so hot from the anxiety. Even with all the sensations swirling inside of you, you couldn't help but appreciate how gorgeous your husband was; perhaps under different circumstances, you wouldn't have minded being courted by him.

No, those were silly thoughts. You held no desire for marriage.

"Miss Y/N L/N, do you take his grace Mattheo Riddle to be your lawfully wedded husband, and promise to care for him, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"

"I do," you said as unwaveringly as you could, watching as Mattheo took the smaller gold ring from the velvet cushion presented by the ring bearer, and pushed it on to your left ring finger.

"And your grace Mattheo Riddle, do you take Miss Y/N L/N to be your lawfully wedded wife, and promise to care for her, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"

"I do," he said monotonously, and with a shaking hand you then picked up the larger gold ring, and put it on his finger - praying to God that he didn't notice your nerves.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride!"

You chewed on your lip, looking up at Mattheo who appeared to be unmoving. For a moment, you thought he wouldn't bother with the final touch of a wedding ceremony, but then his lips were on yours. It was chaste, and only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough for you to get butterflies, and then hate yourself for that.

Cheers then erupted from the audience, and you both turned to face them hand-in-hand, providing a curtsy on your end and a bow on his for them all to see. In the corner of your eye, you saw your mother and father smiling- for once- proudly at you from their seats. Next to them sat the Duke, looking as ghastly pale as ever, with the Duchess sat by his side. In spite of his illness, Duke Thomas looked incredibly happy, and that was the one upside to all of this, you supposed: you had fulfilled someone's dying wish, and surely that was a good deed.

As the progression from the church to the Slytherin estate began, you were faced with many rushing to you to offer their congratulations. You thanked them politely, finding yourself fiddling with your new gold wedding ring as a nervous habit. It appeared appropriate to attach yourself to Mattheo's arm as you walked, and so you did just that. Even if he wanted to, he made no objections, and remained appallingly aloof to everyone that spoke to him.

You at least had the decency to be kind to people, despite the fact you did not want to be there just as much as him.

When you reached the Riddle estate, you were shocked to see how large it was. You had never taken for granted the considerable size of your own home, but in comparison to the Duke's it was nothing but a shed in the back garden.

In the dining hall, the meal began after Duke Thomas provided a toast, one that Duchess Isabella had to help him out with due to his poor health. They were both still in good spirits, even after your father provided a somewhat backhanded toast about you a few moments later. Still, his words reminded you that you would no longer have to live with him and his distaste for your interests.

The library in this estate must be enormous.

After the food was finished, guests began to be ushered to the ballroom where a live band was playing elegant music on their violins and flutes. As per tradition, you engaged in a dance with your new husband, unsure of where to rest your eyes. You landed on his own eyes, as that would be where the audience would expect you to be looking. He returned your gaze with a ferocity that you didn't expect, and it was only then you realised how firmly his hand gripped the small of your back.

Soon other couples joined the dance floor, allowing the two of you to segue off. The peace didn't last long, of course, as everyone was interested in speaking with you both. By this point, your social battery was drained, so you let Mattheo do the talking even though his demeanour was cold and unwelcoming. It was evident how highly he thought of himself just in the way he spoke.

You remained attached to his side, feeling exhaustion all over your body, as he worked his way through the number of eager guests. You had forgotten how shy you got when you were socially tired, and subconsciously found yourself leaning into Mattheo for comfort.

Eventually, you were able to disappear from Mattheo's side and from the ball to sit outside in the gardens, where the night breeze gently tickled your cheeks. The corset was as tight as ever, but you finally felt as if you could breathe somewhat as you admired the starry night sky.

"May I join you?" a feminine voice spoke from your side.

You were a little startled, but looked in the voice's direction to see a woman who appeared to be almost a female version of Mattheo.

"I am Countess Delphini of Oslashire," she curtsied at you, "Mattheo's sister."

You stood up to curtsy back, and went to introduce yourself despite her evidently knowing who you were, but then realised you didn't know what to say for yourself anymore.

Sensing your confusion, she smiled, "It'll only be a short time before you're Duchess Y/N of Slytherin, but for now I suppose you should just say future duchess."

You nodded at her, sitting back down on the bench and gesturing for her to do the same. "Has he always been cold to everyone?" you asked.

She chuckled, "Yes, I suppose he has. He never much liked what was expected of him and grew resentful because of that."

"I can't say I'm all that different in that sense."

"No? Well, then, one can hope that makes you a good match."

You hummed.

"I heard from Mother that you have a love for literature. Is that so?"

"It is. I surely hope Mattheo shan't make me give it up."

"I doubt it. He never was one to care for tradition."

You had obviously already discussed this with Mattheo himself, but you didn't know what else to talk about with Delphini.

"You have your consummation shortly, though," she said, "And while I doubt Mattheo cares for it, everybody else does."

You nodded, "I am aware. The bedding ceremony is just for tonight, though."

"I wish you all the best in your marriage, of course," she gave you a genuine smile yet again, "Write to me if he causes you any trouble - as his big sister I'm sure I can talk some sense into him."

"Thank you, Lady Courtesy."

"Delphini," she corrected, "You're my sister now."

You smiled, "Thank you, Delphini."

***

Delphini had been correct about Mattheo's stance on the bedding ceremony, but he still made the effort to keep up appearances...

...by providing a vial of animal blood to make it look as if you successfully consummated.

You did indeed share the bed that night, but it was in complete silence and as far away from each other as you could manage. When you arose the next day, the servants rushed in and were satisfied to see the blood stain left directly on the centre of the bed, and hurried off to share the news.

Shortly after you were dressed, Isabella knocked on the door with a face wrinkled with worry, and you and Mattheo could instantly recognise the problem. Mattheo rushed out of the door, while you stayed idly behind with the duchess.

"Come," she said, "He will want to see you, you're his daughter-in-law."

You nodded, and followed her to the master bed chamber. When you reached the grand double-door, Mattheo was just exiting, and looked up at his mother solemnly, yet ignored you. Delphini sat on a red velvet bench along the hallway, her eyes cast down.

"He requested Y/N's presence," he said, his voice sounding hollow.

Dumbstruck, you approached the door and tapped twice on the wood. The faintest of "you may enter"s came in response, allowing you to enter the room.

Duke Thomas was sat in bed, in his nightwear, visibly much paler and more exhausted than he was the day prior. Cushions behind him propped up his weak form and a table for in-bed eating was set to the side with half-eaten soup in a fine china bowl. Despite his grave illness, he gave you a small smile.

"I am relieved to hear that your consummation was a blessed one," he said in a gravelly voice, followed by an awful coughing fit, to which you hurried to his side to hand him the glass of water from his bedside table.

"Please, drink, your grace."

He accepted the water, and struggled to swallow some of it. "You are a kind soul," he eventually spoke again, "It is comforting to know my son is in capable hands."

"I will do my best to care for him... and our future children, your grace."

"I have no doubt," he sighed, "I wish that I did not have to leave my dear Isabella and children so soon, but it is the Lord's decision. He knows what he is doing."

"May your journey to heaven be a peaceful one."

He hummed ever so faintly, just as another coughing fit began. This time, he refused the water. "My death is almost upon me. Please, I am entrusting you with Mattheo. As the next duchess, you must keep him in line as Isabella has done so for me."

"Of course, your grace."

"That is all I had to say... I would like to spend my last moments with my wife, so if you could please fetch her for me, I would be eternally grateful."

"Right away, your grace, it has been a pleasure to speak with you."

"You as well."

You quickly exited the chamber, and looked towards Isabella who was sat next to Mattheo and Delphini on the bench. They were all holding hands with one another, and while the duchess and her daughter showed signs of tears, Mattheo did not.

"He requested his wife in his final moments," you bowed your head, as Isabella sniffed and stood up hurriedly.

"Thank you, my darling," she touched your cheek softly, which made you freeze. Her touch was gone as quickly as it came, but you remained glued to your spot, relishing in the brief feeling of being genuinely cared for.

Delphini graced you with a precious smile when you finally looked in the siblings' direction, and shifted away from Mattheo to gesture for you to sit in between them.

Out of politeness, you obliged, unsure of how to act. You couldn't help but be consumed with sadness also, as that was the closest you had ever gotten to witnessing death, and it pained you. However, you did not want to make the situation about you, and so simply allowed Delphini to take your hand when she sought comfort.

As for Mattheo, you did not know what to do, or what to say. He was not looking at you: his gaze was trained ahead of him as if he were boring holes into a particular spot on the wallpaper opposite.

You don't know how long it was before Isabella rejoined the three of you, composed, yet evidently heartbroken - but it simultaneously felt as if it had been a while, and mere seconds. Delphini rushed to bring her mother into her arms, while Mattheo stood up with a deep breath. You stood beside him, not touching him in anyway, but still close.

"My condolences, my Lord," you said softly.

He did not reply. His eyes remained trained on to the same spot as before.

You knew better than to say anything more to him, and as you turned your gaze back to the sobbing mother and daughter, a thought settled in you: you were now the Duchess of Slytherin.

***

After the funeral, Delphini returned to Oslashire with her husband, and - true to her word - Isabella retreated to the countryside. Mattheo then moved into the master bed chamber, leaving you behind in his old room as neither of you held the desire to share with the other. The several nights that you had been forced to share a bed were awkward, silent, and socially distanced.

You soon found solace in the depths of the substantial Slytherin estate library, where you were only ever bothered by maids dusting the shelves. The large room - much bigger than the one back home - was kitted with plush sofas and armchairs, along with darkened oak desks. You felt at home in the space, and often didn't bother to wear more than a simple plain frock there, with no corset. It was certainly unbecoming of a duchess, but who was there to see you?

Mattheo had a very busy schedule after his father's passing, likely due to having to re-establish allyships and connections. You didn't know for sure, however, as the two of you seldom talked. To keep appearances up for the servants who liked to gossip, you would eat your supper together in the evenings and engage in emotionless small talk, but that was it. The subject matter never ventured further than a brief synopsis of your day's activities, and comments on the quality of the food.

It was obvious he wasn't paying attention when you told him of the new books that you had begun reading, but it wasn't like you were listening either when he spoke about the titleholders he had met with. You would be a hypocrite to be offended by it.

Though, you soon found yourself standing outside of Mattheo's work study, as you had a request itching at the back of your mind. You wanted to begin writing your own novel: to do that you would prefer a typewriter over a quill. Perhaps he would grant you what you wished, after all, it was the first thing you were asking of him.

You nervously tapped on the door three times, praying that your maid had been correct about his whereabouts and you weren't standing outside of an empty office like a fool.

"Who is it?"

"Your wife, my Lord."

You could hear the surprise in his tone when he said, "You may enter."

You complied, and upon entering felt embarrassed about the warmth his appearance left in you. He had removed his blazer, and was simply in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. You would be a fool to say he was unattractive.

"What is it you want?" he looked up from the layers of parchment on his desk, his eyes locking with yours. You noticed the black typewriter sat on the edge of the desk and allowed your gaze to linger on it, which he noticed.

"I have a request."

"And what would that be?" his eyes were back on his work.

"I would like a typewriter."

He stilled the movement of his quill, looking at you again with curiosity in his eyes. It was the most emotion you had ever witnessed on him. "What for?"

"I wish to write my own novel, my Lord."

The next few seconds of silence felt suffocating to you as you couldn't at all read Mattheo's expression.

"I understand it is not very womanly of me, however nothing in our marriage is traditional so I concluded that it wouldn't be an outrageous request."

"Very well," he said eventually, "I will arrange a typewriter for you."

"Thank you," you curtsied out of gratitude, "I will not make waste of it."

He watched curiously as you then excused yourself from the office, as he found you a rather peculiar woman. Truth is, you were not what he had expected out of an arranged marriage: he had expected your family to only care for status and wealth, which may be true of your parents, but not you. No, you didn't care for the fact you were the duchess of a large area, or for the hundreds of expensive clothing you could afford: you only cared for literature, which didn't cost him a penny thanks to the size of his library. The typewriter would be the first charge put to your name since you wed.

Yes, you were peculiar, and you fascinated him.

***

There was a typewriter sat on one of the desks in the library the following afternoon, which you saw upon returning from lunch. You hadn't expected your request to be filled so efficiently, but you were far from disappointed: only excitement consumed you as you hurried to take a seat in front of it.

An envelope was laid across the keyboard, with the official Riddle family wax seal keeping it shut. With a frown, you opened it, to see it was a short note from what appeared to be your husband.

I wish to be the first to read your novel once it is completed. - M.R.

You couldn't help the smile that tugged at your lips as you felt that familiar warmth inside you yet again. Your parents would have laughed at you if you had even hinted at the idea of wanting to be an author, but Mattheo - of whom lovelessly married you to please his father - seemed genuinely supportive of your goals.

Perhaps it was arrogance that made him think he had the right to read it first, but that was a thought you quickly pushed aside. You didn't care if it was.

It took you awhile to get used to the feel of typing on a typewriter, and many times did you have to remove the paper and white-out your mistakes, but you couldn't be more thrilled. The ideas swirling in your head were taking life on the pages before you, and you found yourself almost halfway through the outline of the plot you had created by the time a week had passed.

Friday afternoon was when Mattheo entered the library with somebody by his side, someone of whom you didn't recognise. You looked up from your work curiously, as your husband never ventured to this part of the estate.

"This is my library," he said to the man, who had platinum blond hair and a lean figure, "My copy of Dawns Before Dusks should be in here somewhere."

"What purpose is that maid serving?" the man jabbed his thumb in your direction.

You were mildly offended, but then again, you were dressed in relatively casual clothing, and (like usual) you lacked a corset.

Mattheo looked at you, and then looked back at the man, "That is my wife, Duchess Y/N of Slytherin."

One would have thought that the man would be taken aback and started muttering apologies, but all he said was, "She is not dressed like a duchess."

"My Lady," Mattheo said to you, ignoring the man. Your attention was caught in further surprise: he rarely addressed you in such a manner. "This is Earl Draco of Ranibury, an old friend of mine. He spends a lot of time abroad, so he was unable to attend the wedding."

"Pleasure," Draco looked you up and down, which made you feel small.

Mattheo took his inner cheek between his tongue. He didn't know why he felt so defensive of you, but how dare someone of a lesser rank not bow to you, his wife?

In order to ease the tension, you stood up and asked, "What was it you were looking for? I know the library quite well, I am sure I can be of service."

"Dawns Before Dusks by Andrew Philips," your husband replied.

You nodded, vaguely remembering running your fingers over it as you searched the shelves not too long ago.

"What is a woman doing behind a typewriter?" you heard Draco ask as you moved to the part of the library you remembered seeing the book in.

"She is writing a novel," Mattheo replied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, which in your society, it was not.

"She should be birthing children, not writing silly little romances."

Your fist tightened. You weren't writing a romance.

"What my wife does is none of your concern, Lord Courtesy."

You watched as Draco's eyes narrowed through the bookshelves.

"My apologies, your grace."

Your fingers skimmed over the requested book, and you pulled it off the shelf before finding your way to where they stood.

"Here it is, my Lord," you handed it to your husband, purposefully ignoring Draco.

"Thank you, my Lady," he gave you the sincerest smile you had ever received from him, and the way you looked as a result must have been obviously flustered. "Please return this when you have finished reading it," he then said to Draco, "I hope you enjoy it."

"I hope so too."

You were glad to see Earl Draco of Ranibury depart.

***

At dinner that evening, you were more than shocked to hear words of apologies exit your cold-hearted husband's mouth.

"I must apologise for Draco's behaviour earlier. He had no right to disrespect you in such a manner."

"It's- it's alright."

"It most certainly is not, no wife of mine should be-" he stopped himself as his tone became angrier and harsh, which caught you off guard.

Was he defensive over you? How come?

"Nonetheless," he cleared his throat, his voice calmer, "I will not be having him visit anytime soon."

You nodded, "Thank you, my Lord." Admittedly, Earl Draco had put you on edge.

"But on the subject of visits, we are visiting your parents' estate for dinner tomorrow evening. They invited us."

You felt your breath hitch. You had been so utterly relaxed without your parents breathing down the back of your neck whenever you dared to open a book, to the point you had somewhat forgotten of their existence.

Mattheo observed your reaction carefully, but he didn't say anything, instead choosing to continue with the meal in silence.

***

"Welcome back to our humble estate, Mattheo," your mother said to your husband in the entrance hall, completely disregarding your presence. You hadn't missed the cold and unloving walls that once again surrounded you.

"Your grace," your husband passive aggressively corrected, "That is your grace to you, Lady Bombast."

Your mother's face contorted into an expression of mild horror, but she quickly composed herself and said, "I was assuming that as your mother-in-law such formalities would be wavered."

"Well, you assumed wrong," Mattheo held his arm out for you to take, to which you obliged.

"I trust my daughter isn't giving you too much trouble," she continued, sparing a harsh glance in your direction.

Subconsciously, your grip tightened on Mattheo's bicep, and the action did not go unnoticed by him.

"Not in the slightest, Lady Bombast," he said, taking you by surprise with the hint of softness in his tone, "She is a pleasure to have in the house."

"Really?" had you not known your mother like you did, you wouldn't have noticed that the joking tone was feigned. However, the slither of sharpness to her voice as she said the simple word stood out to you like a glaring red warning sign: she was both shocked and horrified that your husband spoke nicely of you.

"Please, come through to the dining hall," your father interceded, having the slightest of word fumbles before adding, "Your grace."

Once all four of you were sat down for the meal, you could only chew on your goose as you listened to your parents talk about themselves for Lord knows how long. Eventually, however, the conversation was somehow steered over to you, despite how little relevance you actually had in their lives.

"One can hope that the literature habit has been put to rest," your father said, looking at Mattheo in a way that suggested it was a question.

"Why would it have been put to rest?" your husband asked in response.

"It's unbecoming of a lady, of course," your mother interjected, "This has been discussed already."

"It's hardly unbecoming to be intelligent and educated, Lady Bombast."

"For a woman it is," your father said, the touch of anger to his tone evident.

You remained silent as Mattheo straightened his back and looked towards you.

"In my family, it is seen as a virtue to have a wife or daughter of whom is intellectually capable. In fact, it is vital. What if something were to happen to me while our children were still young? My Lady Y/N would have to be in charge until the eldest is an adult. It would not do for her to be incapable of such a task."

Your parents, for once, were completely silent. Meanwhile, you couldn't stop a smile from itching to form on your face.

"Y/N has recently started writing her own novel, in fact. That is something the average man even struggles with, so perhaps it would do for you to stop speaking down to my wife, especially when she is your superior?"

"Of course, your grace, my apologies," your father eventually spoke.

Mattheo scoffed, and your eyes widened further.

"Classically stupid of a man such as yourself to apologise not to the woman you have offended, but to her husband."

You observed as your father gulped discreetly and made eye contact with you. "My apologies, Y/N."

For the first time, you decided to speak up, still feeling spiteful towards them. "Your grace," you corrected, pleased to see your father's shocked reaction, "It's your grace to you, Lord Bombast."

"Surely you don't mean that," your mother said, "We are your parents, Y/N-"

"Once you have earned the right to address me by my first name, I will allow you to do so."

You flicked your eyes to Mattheo, of whom had the vague ghost of a smirk gracing his lips as he looked at you.

***

Due to the journey between the Riddle estate and your childhood home being a long one, you and Mattheo were to stay the night at your parents'. This, of course, meant that you would be sharing a bed chamber as well as a bed, as your parents were not aware of your unusual sleeping arrangement at home.

Once you exited the large wardrobe in your night robes, you couldn't help but smile at Mattheo sat at the foot of the bed in await for his turn to change. This moment wasn't like the short period after you had just wed when the two of you shared, no, back then you wouldn't dare to look in his direction at all. In fact, you would be long asleep by the time he retired from his office, and he would be long gone by the time you awoke. You would've believed he didn't sleep in the same bed at all if it weren't for the couple of occasions you woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the toilet, to see him asleep on his side of the bed.

Now that you thought about it, you hadn't gone to bed at both the same time and place as him since the day of your wedding.

"Thank you, my Lord," you said gently, giving him a pathetically subtle curtsy, "I appreciate you defending my honour."

"You may call me Mattheo, darling."

Your stomach flipped at the nickname, and you nodded your head a little too excitedly, "Thank you, Mattheo."

"Of course," he stood up, facing you proudly, "No wife of mine should be disrespected in such a manner."

You smiled, and for a second he looked like he was going to return it, but then he disappeared into the wardrobe to get changed himself. Despite that, you didn't feel defeated in the slightest - no, you felt hopeful that this marriage might not be a loveless one, even if it took a while.

It was that night that you had a nightmare.

It was strange, really, that you had never once had a nightmare when growing up within those walls, despite your parents disregarding you every step of the way, leaving you to be raised by the servants. You had never even been a child who frequented nightmares unrelated to home life: consisting of ghouls and monsters, as was normal at a young age. No, you weren't someone to have night terrors.

Perhaps it was the fact you had lived in peace for a short while, away from the suffocation of your parents, which allowed your body to relax and leave its default defensive mode. Yes, that was it - you were off your guard when you arrived for the dinner, and no longer had an effective tolerance for everything bothersome in this estate. Suddenly, your mother's words were no longer something you were used to, and the eery cold draught that followed you around the hallways was no longer something you could ignore.

You were weakened by having experienced a peaceful life, and thus everything in your alleged home was affecting you negatively, like it had tried to do so for years.

You didn't know whether you were frustrated or relieved that you had subconsciously put down your shield.

But, right now, as you watched walls around you close in, with torn book pages flying around, you just felt scared.

"Y/N, Y/N," you heard a panicked voice say, and just like that you were pulled back into a reality where you no longer were being suffocated.

You took in a large gulp of air - ever grateful to feel the oxygen fill your lungs - and forced your eyes open. There, in your line of vision, was Mattheo's head hanging over yours, his hands gripping each of your arms.

His worried expression relaxed once he realised that you were awake, but it formed again when he saw the hot tears flooding your cheeks.

"Are you okay?" he hurriedly asked, moving his hands from your arms to the mattress either side so he could support himself better without hurting you.

That was when a sob escaped your mouth, and as your vision blurred, you lifted your arms up and wrapped them around his neck, pulling him down so he fell on top of you. You began crying into his shoulder, only mildly aware that he wasn't trying to pull away at all, instead letting you hold him. He slowly returned the embrace by dropping one hand into your hair and the other on your waist.

When your sobs eventually died down, he moved from on top of you to a seated position against the headboard, and wordlessly pulled you up with him and into his side.

"Darling, it was just a nightmare," he finally spoke.

You shook your head, "It was too real."

"No matter how real it felt, you are safe now. Safe with me."

Subconsciously, you nuzzled your head into his shoulder and felt the warmth radiating off him.

You remained in silence for a while, but eventually, you parted your lips again to make a statement that caused a switch to flip inside of Mattheo.

"I want to go home."

***

When you returned back to the Slytherin estate, it quickly became apparent that something had changed between you and Mattheo. You started spending breakfast with him as well as dinner, and occasionally he would visit you in the library.

Deep down, you wanted to share a bed with him again and feel the comfort of his presence while you slept, but never would you ask such a question. Instead, you opted to build the courage up to visit him in his work study during the day, with a book clutched in your hand.

"Your grace, his grace is very busy and does not want interruptions at this moment," one of the servants dedicated to your husband said to you, just as you reached the corridor where the work study was.

You don't know what it was inside of you that made you feel so highly of yourself, but you then said, "I am his wife, my husband's rules do not apply to me."

"Of course, your grace," the servant bowed his head, "My apologies."

You nodded at him, and proceeded to where the door you were after was.

You knocked twice.

"What is it?" a harsh tone replied - similar to that of the one he used when you first met.

Instead of replying, you slowly pushed open the door and peeked into his work space.

"Reuben, I told you not to bother-" he stopped speaking when he saw you, and his irritated expression dropped, "-oh."

You bowed your head as you fully entered the room, "My apologies for the interruption, my Lo- Mattheo."

"That's quite alright," he said, "Did you need something?"

You opened your mouth so speak, but then realised that you had no answer to his question.

Mattheo saw the book in your hand, and asked, "Is that a book recommendation for me?"

"No- yes- I-" you steadied yourself, so as to stop the slur of words, "It is a marvellous book that you should read, though I have not finished it myself yet."

He raised an eyebrow at you, wordlessly questioning your presence in his office further.

Your eyes flitted to the armchair tucked in the corner of the room and facing the desk that your husband sat at. "I was- I was..." you took a deep breath, "I was hoping I could join you in here and read while you worked."

"Oh-"

"It was a stupid idea of me, though, my utmost apologies for bothering you, my Lord," you said hurriedly, "Please don't blame Reuben - he did say no interruptions but I used my higher status to force him to let me proceed."

"Darling, if you would allow me to speak, I would like to say that you are welcome to join me in here," he gave you a smile.

And you froze. Mattheo had never truly smiled at you before. Not like that: full and genuine. Not even back in the library when Draco had been present had his smile been so warm.

"I see you had your eyes on the armchair. Feel free to take it."

You forced yourself to nod, despite your composure remaining rigid. He gave you an encouraging look, which allowed your body to slowly unfreeze and move over to the green velvet armchair. Your usual lack of a corset meant that getting comfortable on the chair was easy, and you were soon curled up with the book as if you were a cat.

Mattheo continued with his work, but allowed himself the luxury of glancing at you every now and then, admiring you caught up in your own world.

***

Of course, things were going too perfectly for too long, and you should have realised that a loving marriage with Mattheo wouldn't be an easy feat to achieve. But, to be fair, the obstacle you were faced with was neither of yours fault.

"Your grace," Reuben had said worriedly to your husband, on another day that you had elected to join him in his work study. It was getting rather late, and the sky was already darkening. "Unfortunate news from the former duchess."

Mattheo's face had immediately paled, "What is it?"

"Your mother has taken a rather substantial fall while exploring the woods surrounding your countryside estate," the servant said as quickly as he could, "She is alive - but the injury was severe and she has lost a lot of blood."

"Reuben, prepare the carriage," your husband instructed.

"Yes, your grace," Reuben bowed, and scurried out of the room.

"Mattheo-" you said gently.

"I need to be alone at this moment," he cut you off, much more harshly than he had spoken to you in a long while.

You were hurt, but stood up nonetheless, "Of course, I understand." And then you left the room.

One thing was for sure, however: you weren't letting him go to the countryside estate alone.

It became apparent that he had expected it to be a solitary journey when he was surprised to see you waiting in the entrance hall dressed in appropriate travel wear.

"My Lady, this is a journey I must make alone," he said, his tone cold.

You disguised your furthered hurt well, and shook your head. "It would be disrespectful of me not to visit my mother-in-law when she is so severely injured."

"I do not want you with me." That statement cut deep, but along with the pain came another emotion: anger.

"I will not be treated in such a way," you snapped, "I am your wife, and I am here for you no matter what."

"You hardly know me."

"Because all you do is shut me out," your anger was fizzling into upset, and he could hear that you were suppressing a sob when you said, "So, stop it. Stop it."

Mattheo stood staring at you in silence: with only the candle lamps providing light, his eyes looked darkened. You could just make out that he had his inner cheek pulled between his teeth, judging by the dent in his smooth skin that you could see through your somewhat blurry vision. Finally, he reacted to what you said, and started taking powerful strides in your direction.

Instinctively, you began backing up, but you could only move backwards so far as you soon hit the wall.

Mattheo stilled a few inches in front of you, and appeared to be glaring into your eyes with a ferocity he had only ever briefly shown you before. Sure, he had been cold and arrogant for a while, but he had never been vicious.

You were, admittedly, convinced that he was about to slap you- punch you- hit you in some way or other.

But he didn't.

Instead, his lips crashed on to yours, which caught you so off guard you let out a "hmmph" while his hands cupped your face. The kiss was chaste until you recovered from your shock and took the step to deepen it, allowing Mattheo to begin moving his lips against yours in reciprocation.

"Your grace, the carriage is rea-" Reuben's voice came to a halt as you and Mattheo quickly separated from one another, although he didn't move away from you. The servant bowed deeply, his face paled, "My apologies, your grace, I did not mean to interrupt. I simply came to inform you that the carriage is ready for departure."

"Thank you, Reuben," your husband said, although he wasn't looking at the poor servant - no, he was holding intense eye contact with you, his hand having moved to rest on the wall beside your head.

Reuben looked shocked at having been thanked, but a small grin soon settled on his face as he disappeared back outside to where the carriage presumably was. Of course, Mattheo didn't see that, as his back faced the entrance.

"You told me at the beginning of this marriage that if I left you to your literature you would be more than content, and I have done exactly that. You lied to me," his words seemed harsh, but the teasing tone woven into his voice told you otherwise.

You shrugged, letting a cheeky smile grace your features, "I blame you for making me fall in love."

Mattheo stilled entirely, and you were about to apologise for the impromptu confession, but he spoke again before you could.

"Come, we must get moving," he said, pulling away from you entirely.

You regretted dropping the L word, but at least he wasn't stopping you from going with him.

***

The journey was long: so long that you slept a significant amount of it. Mattheo was too sick with worry to drift off, but he let you lay your head in his lap as you stretched across the velvet seat.

When you woke up, the sky was a golden-orange and the sun was peeking over the horizon, glistening through the open carriage window. You pushed yourself up from Mattheo's lap as you yawned, rubbing your eyes and settling against the backrest.

"How much longer?"

"About another hour."

"Have you slept at all, my Lord?"

He shook his head, and changed the subject, "I have told you already, you don't always have to call me my Lord. Mattheo is fine."

"Right, sorry," you said, suddenly remembering what had happened not long before you left the estate, "I'm sorry for- I'm sorry for saying that back then."

"Saying what?"

"That I... that I - you know - love you."

You watched carefully as he pursed his lips. "It's fine, I- I am not angry with you. I just do not believe I am ready to say it yet."

"Don't feel obliged to say it," you added, "I wasn't expecting a return, but I want to be honest with you. That's how a healthy marriage works, right?"

"Yes, I appreciate it," he gave you a smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. You knew that the sadness swimming in his irises had very little to do with you, of course.

***

The countryside estate was much smaller than the main one, but it was still larger than your childhood home. Despite its smaller size, you found it to be more appealing than any previous house you had seen, with the surrounding trees accentuating the controlled yet chaotic flower gardens surrounding the main building. There were a couple gardeners tending to the area, and they clearly had instructions to keep things homely and natural - as opposed to symmetrical and neat, like your usual place of residence.

The very second you stepped over the threshold, Mattheo hurried off in the direction of his mother's bed chamber; you decided he would want some time alone with her at first, and so took control of ordering the servants to bring your belongings inside. The only worker who came with you on the journey was the carriage driver, who was in much need of some rest.

"The master chamber is prepared for you and the duke, your grace," what appeared to be the head servant of this estate spoke.

"Oh- okay," you didn't know how to tell the servant that you slept separately, as Mattheo had taken care of those arrangements when they were first put in place. Instead, you opted to leave the subject alone for now. "What is your name?"

"Diane Higgs, your grace," she curtsied, "At your service."

"Could you prepare breakfast, Diane? We're awfully hungry after such a long journey."

Diane didn't hesitate to pass the message to the kitchens as you felt another rumble in your stomach. You also felt the desire to freshen up, but decided that you should see Isabella before then, so asked the nearest servant where her chamber was.

You knocked on the door when you reached it, and a familiar feminine voice called out, "Who is it?"

"Y/N."

"Oh, darling, come in," the kind woman replied, giving you the green light to turn the door handle and enter, "You needn't knock, Lord knows that Mattheo didn't."

You smiled abashedly, pleased to see her so chipper despite her shallowed complexion. Mattheo was sat on a chair beside the large king-size bed, holding his mother's hand in his own.

Closing the door behind you, you stepped further into the room and cautiously sat at the end of the bed, facing them both.

"How are you feeling?"

"The doctor says I am gradually improving," she sighed, "But it's still early days. The wound has been stitched up-" she gestured to her leg, which was covered by the duvet, "-so it's simply a matter of whether or not it becomes infected."

"The doctor said it was a miracle you didn't die after such blood loss," Mattheo added, "And that your weakened state could mean your body will not be able to fight even the mildest of infections."

"Ever the pessimist," Isabella dismissed him with a wave of her hand, making you crack a small smile, "You take after your father in so many ways, Mattheo."

The man in question rolled his eyes.

"Ah," the former duchess exclaimed, "I am rather hungry, perhaps we should tell the kitchens to prepare breakfast."

"I already did," you said, "I am famished myself."

"Perfect! That means it shan't be long. Normally it's ready when I wake up, but somebody here woke me up earlier than normal." She gave a teasing side-glare to her son.

"I have been worried sick about you, Mother. I couldn't wait any longer for confirmation you are alive."

Isabella chuckled, "Delphini should be here soon. She is a tad further away so it takes her longer." The last sentence was clearly said in your direction.

"Is her husband coming?" you asked.

"I doubt it, the two seldom travel long distances together. Plus, I don't believe the man particularly cares for me."

"I find that hard to believe," you said, genuinely shocked.

"Not everyone is as sweet as you, darling, my son is very lucky."

You looked at Mattheo to see his eyes were already cast on you, the faintest ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

"I shall instruct the servants to deliver everybody's breakfast here," he announced, as if to distract from the subject.

Neither you nor Isabella objected to him leaving the room: part of you wanted some time alone with the woman of whom had been more of a mother figure to you than your own flesh and blood anyway.

"I hear you're writing a novel."

You looked up in surprise, "He told you?"

"Yes, very enthusiastically, too. He certainly adores you."

Your cheeks warmed at the notion. "I have actually finished it now. There are probably still many mistakes, but I have the original copy bound and ready to send to a publisher's."

"Oh, really?"

You suddenly stood up, "I brought it with me - I did promise Mattheo that he could have the first read, but I am sure he would want me to let you instead considering you are bed-bound."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course," you nodded, "I shall fetch it."

Isabella watched as you left with a full smile on her face, meeting her eyes and all.

***

Delphini arrived around lunchtime, without her husband, just as Isabella had predicted. By that point, you had spent some more time with both the former duchess and her son, before the former requested some alone time to which you obliged. That was when Mattheo gave you a tour of the grounds, occasionally giving a brief childhood story that took place in the various locations. You felt ever so slightly closer to him after each one.

It wasn't until dinner did you speak with Isabella again, and it was at the main dining table, with her having had a significant amount of aide to get down there.

"The novel is quite marvellous, Y/N," she said, "I couldn't put it down! I'm not finished yet, though, so no spoilers."

"What are you reading?" Delphini asked.

"Y/N's novel."

Mattheo looked up at you with widened eyes from across the table, and you couldn't help but smile when you said, "I know I promised you the first read, Mattheo, but I figured your mother was more deserving at this time."

"I better at least be the second," he said with a roll of his eyes, but it was clear his anger wasn't genuine.

Delphini and Isabella looked between the both of you with a glint of something in their eyes that you couldn't quite place.

***

When you awoke the next morning, the sunbeams of dawn were peeking through the cracks in the curtain, and placing a golden-pink glow on to the pillows. You stretched, and turned to your side to see one sunbeam landing perfectly across Mattheo's unconscious and worry-free face. In a moment of self-indulgence, you allowed yourself to admire your husband's features: his soft brown curls, his strong jaw, and his plump pink lips. He was such a handsome man that you couldn't help but feel childish butterflies swimming in your stomach.

Because he was yours.

It was then that you felt the need to touch him, to hold him close, to be in his arms - a craving that ran as deep as your bones. Your mind was too sleepy to have regained your usual second-guessing thought process, and the moment felt surreal, so you began shifting closer to Mattheo's half of the bed. The first body parts of yours to touch were your arms - gentle, at first, so as not to wake him. Then your leg touched his, but it wasn't as gentle as the arm, as you hadn't been looking at where his leg was. Thus, it was more of a knock; far from a painful one, of course, but enough to stir him in his slumber.

He felt your presence before he opened his eyes, but when he did he was greeted by your widened eyes staring up at him in fear of being caught red-handed. Fazed wasn't how you would describe him, no, he looked as if he had expected you to be so close to him, at least to some extent.

You hadn't realised he had moved his hand until it was softly caressing your cheek, and you snapped out of your nervous daze when he mumbled the word, "Cute."

You stilled once you had deciphered his mumbles, which Mattheo felt thanks to your body contact.

"Darling," he murmured, "Don't be so shy."

"Sorry," you eventually forced out.

At that, he opened his eyes wider, in contrast to the mere slits of vision from before, and pulled you properly into his arms. "You have nothing to apologise for."

You hummed into his chest.

"When we return home, I would like it if you were to move into my chamber."

Your heart swelled.

***

Isabella, thank the heavens, recovered fully from her injury without infection, and was back on her feet after a few weeks. You and Mattheo returned home after three weeks in the countryside, when you were sure that she was in good health once more. The former duchess had complimented your novel tremendously, and passed it on to her son for him to read, who then passed it on to his sister. By the time you all left, every family member staying with Isabella had read the book, and they had all graced you with praise.

You sent it to a publisher, avoiding the use of your full first name by dropping it to just its initial, so as to not be rejected for being a woman. It was accepted, and while you never met the publisher in person, by the time the day of a month after its first release arrived, many of the higher class of society had read it. You suspected that both your husband and sister-in-law's influence had something to do with its popularity.

It was on that same month milestone that you were hosting your first ever reading, with much more guests in attendance than you had anticipated. It would be your first time revealing that you - a woman - were the author of the book. People had most likely assumed it was your husband, or perhaps a secretive brother of his, that had wrote it, due to the last name Riddle having been the one that you used. While you had always been annoyed that women were expected to change their last names, you were actually rather pleased with the change of your own. You now held the last name of a family that actually cared for you.

That thought alone made whatever consequences of revealing your identity you would have to deal with less daunting to think about. You would have a support system to help you through them.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mattheo announced from the podium set up in the ballroom specifically for the occasion. The alarming number of titleholders in the room went quiet and looked in his direction. "Thank you all for coming on this momentous day for our family name."

You were stood in between Isabella and Delphini by the edge of the room, both of whom were only visiting for the event, in order to support you. Their presence almost had you completely forgetting that your parents were nowhere in sight, despite having received an exclusive invitation. Although, you could spot a couple of your sisters within the crowds of people.

"I am sure that many of you will be wondering which member of my family it is that wrote such a beautiful piece," your husband continued, smiling with pride as he spoke - a contrast from his usually arrogant stance, "And I truly wish that I could take credit for it - but it makes me just as happy to be able to say that the author is the love of my life. So, without further ado, may I introduce to the podium my dear wife, her grace, Duchess Y/N Riddle of Slytherin."

Gasps rippled throughout the audience, and you gripped Delphini's hand tightly as you prepared yourself for the attention.

"Go on," Isabella whispered in your ear, "They will love you, I'm sure."

You nodded, and let go of your sister-in-law's hand, before beginning the walk to where your husband stood proudly. When you reached him, he placed a kiss on your lips, and then said loud enough only for you to hear, "I love you, my darling."

He hadn't said it before, and you hadn't said it since you let it slip the first time. It was only now you registered that he had described you as the love of his life only moments earlier - to an entire room of people, no less. You bit your lip as you felt your nerves reduce, and replied, "I love you too. Thank you, for all of this."

He smiled, "Of course." And then moved away from the podium, allowing you to gaze upon the audience of aghast faces alone.

"Well," you began, "This is evidently a surprise to you all..."

————————————————

masterlist

written; 11/08/2022 —> 20/08/2022 published; 22/08/2022 edited; 25/08/2023

#mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle x y/n #mattheo riddle x you #mattheo x reader #mattheo x y/n #mattheo x you #riddle #voldemort #lord voldemort #bridgerton au #delphini #harry potter #harry potter oneshot #harry potter oneshots #hp oneshot #hp oneshots #hp

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i-drop-level-one-loot · 8 days

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hii I JUST LOVE YOUR WORK i stay and read them every day tbh, it's my first time requesting so I'm a lil nervous (also english isn't my first language so if i write too tangled things don't mind please) yandere disease has been corrupting my mind lately like this disease has taken over the world and now people are divided in two types: yanderes and darlings. Every darling is forced to stay with their yanderes by their parents and government when they turn 20 , like goverment has been taking care of yanderes too much, there's territories and special occasions where yanderes can meet darlings, if darling tries to escape people are just gonna drag them to their "soulmate" otherwise they think darling are too weak and fragile to protect themselves.

If you're too busy, just ignore this. I also know how hard it is to write. Hope you're doing good💗💗

Your English is perfect ❤️ better than some native speakers' ❤️ I'm sorry this took so long, I hope you enjoy!!

Yandere!Fiance x GN!Reader

There were conspiracy theories as to how it happened.

Populations around the globe had declined dramatically, worrying nearly every country in every continent. The most popular theory online was that to combat the rapidly declining birth rate, one (or more) of the suffering countries conspired to create a new kind of biological warfare; an illness directed at their own people to foster relations. Unfortunately, while half of people were naturally immune to the attack, the other half were affected too much.

It was just a theory. Nothing could be proved. No government wanted to get to the bottom of the "attack" because their economies were booming; who would want to rid people of an illness that drove the rate of divorce to an all time low? It didn't matter if there were a few hiccups along the way.. As long as people were pushing out more babies, governments across the planet were more than happy to just create new laws to keep the death rates minimal ensure happiness amongst couples.

(Reader) prayed on their knees like fanatic, begging any God that may be listening, for years that they could be one of the Lovers instead of a Darling. They were terrified of the idea of becoming someone's Darling; becoming a prisoner to a loving murderer. No matter how perfect each family unit seemed to be, the young adult could see it in their father's eyes, the longing for the outside world, away from their mother. The suffocating love their mother drowned him in; the almost unnoticeable quiver to his smile.. (Reader) wished upon every single star in the sky that they could fall madly in love with someone, just so they didn't have to live through the rose tinted hell their father did.

But every crush they had was normal, none of the guys they thought were cute in highschool awakened some kind instinct in them. Eventually (Reader) turned 19 years old, and found out that they were engaged.

"To who??" (Reader) nearly barfed onto the dinner table. Their parents sat across from them, smiling happily from the good news they had just delivered to their child.

"He went to the same elementary school as you! Isn't that romantic?" Their mother cooed, poking her husband while doing so. "Apparently he's known since forever that you two are soul mates, but he's been too shy until recently to approach the Family Planning Bureau about his feelings~"

(Reader) gripped their thighs under the table while their eyes stung from the blossoming tears. ".. Do I have to meet him?" They asked quietly.

Although the building was painted bright blue and was surrounded by a beautiful, flowery landscape, it felt like a prison with it's tall chain link fencing.

The sorrowful expression on their father's sympathetic face burned into their retina so painfully, that every time they blinked while on the bus to their first meeting with their "fiance" they could still see it. He knew just as well as (Reader) did that there was no escape.

Even the walk towards a private meeting room past other Darlings felt like a death march. (Reader) could only hope that the "electric chair" wouldn't be too painful.

The kind guard opened a door, and a young man they did not recognize sitting inside immediately stood up, his face bright red.

His freckled and bespectacled face was almost hidden by his wavy, unbrushed hair. A smile stretched sweetly across his round cheeks, and (Reader) noticed that his blush went down his neck. "Ah- (Reader)! It's nice to- it's nice to meet you!"

It didn't matter that he was incredibly adorable: (Reader) was determined not to let their guard down.

"You said we went to elementary school together?"

"Yes-"

"-I'm sorry, but I don't remember you." They interrupted him, curt and to the point.

Instead of looking offended, his eyes softened and his smile became (somehow) warmer. "I'm sorry." He motioned to a seat near the table he was just sitting at. "I can explain everything.. if you give me a chance."

Reluctantly, (Reader) sat across from him. It was hard to deny that he was attractive, really being their ideal man, but they continuously bit the inside of their cheek to prevent themselves from feeling any sort of positive emotion. They knew better than to fall into this trap.

"My name is Anthony." His freckles almost disappeared entirely under his blush. "I'm sorry I never had the confidence to approach you.."

"Huh?" The confused teen forgot to hold their tongue. "Isn't it, like, frowned upon to talk to your Darling before registering with the bureau?"

Anthony rubbed his hands together nervously. "I - I really didn't want you to meet me this way.." He sucked in air between his teeth, looking faint. "I.. Do you believe in true love?"

A pang shot through (Reader's) heart. They remembered every time they would chase a crush, yearning for something true and genuine. Reading love stories from the days before the bureau, and wondering if that was what love was really like once upon a time. "No."

He sighed sadly. "I believe.. or at least, I want to believe in true love." Anthony sat straighter, staring into (Reader's) eyes with a shaky confidence. "I should have asked you out when I first met you in the fifth grade. I'm sorry I was too nervous to talk to you back then."

Vibrating adrenaline shook their system as they tried to make sense of what this stranger was saying.

"I wanted to ask you out, and take you on dates, and get to know you like in the old days."

"Why didn't you?"

His head fell slightly, obscuring his face entirely. "I thought that my feelings for you weren't strong enough.."

(Reader) suddenly felt as though they were connected with Anthony on a spiritual level; as though he was the only person in the whole world to understand them. The need for love, conflicting with the fear of not being a Lover, being destined to be labeled as a Darling. "Are you.." (Reader) dropped their voice to a whisper, "are you a lover?"

Sorrow filled Anthony's figure. Shoulders slumped, and back shuddering under his uneven, heavy breaths. "Would you report me if I wasn't?"

It was as if God had finally answered (Reader's) prayers. Their heart was racing; their head felt lighter than a cloud. Stuttering over their words, the young adult had to avert their gaze. "I don't remember you.. but I wouldn't mind getting to know you." Even though they didn't love him, Anthony felt like their one and only chance to fall in love naturally. To not be trapped like their father.

"Then.. I can see you again?"

(Reader) smiled. "Yeah.."

....

The second (Reader) left the room, Anthony's head hit the table with a loud bang.

It felt like he was going to vomit with how excited he was, and he couldn't contain his giggles any longer. Being in the same room as his childhood love was almost too much for him, and he almost ruined everything.

Anthony had worked so hard to make (Reader) love him.

He knew they liked shy, nerdy types, so he morphed into that. Destroying his eye sight so he could wear glasses, growing out his hair so he could always look slightly dishevelled, biting his tongue until it bled to force himself to stay in character.

Tears pooled around his nose on the table. He was smarter than the Lovers that made his precious (Reader) scared to be a Darling.

"I'm so happy..~" Anthony sobbed loudly in the empty room. "Please fall in love with me quickly~ Although, I don't mind waiting on you forever.. I want you to love me now..!"

#yandere #yandere x reader #gn reader #thank you for interacting with me #sorry it took so long #yandere fiance #yandere oc #cw manipulation

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luvrsbian · 1 year

Text

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐂𝐔𝐓𝐄

A/N: she's finally here!!! this was initially supposed to be a one shot but has kinda turned into a draft up of a pretty plotless, sweet, fluffy mini series. it follows canon for the most part minus eddies death ofc but because im bad with canon lore and science shit, its not heavily mentioned (some minor canon lore was changed but it's not super important.) this is a fem!reader, no use of y/n, set in 1992, 4k words, and i've kept reader pretty vague for inclusivity minus some background lore. this series is not 18+ (yet) but my page is, so please do not follow if you are a minor. thank you sweet baby mona @enam3l for beta-reading for me (ily)

MASTERLIST ✿ PART TWO

Eddie Munson liked his life. He liked his friends, even if a lot of them have now dispersed across the continental United States for school, jobs, general life (minus Robin who has somehow managed to make her way to Australia doing God knows what.) He liked his home, a house on the edge of town – slightly bigger than the old trailer – which he still shared with his uncle. He liked his style and hobbies and taste in music and movies that haven’t really changed much in the last 5 years since his final senior year.

He really liked his job.

Which felt odd for him to admit to himself.  It wasn’t anything like what he thought he would be doing. A younger Eddie Munson would imagine himself traveling city to city, adored by fans, living creatively and free spirited. 

But a middle school janitorial gig kept him young. One could argue 26 wasn't even that old, however, compared to his friends (who he'd already been older than) with their careers, relationships and growing families, he felt like a lonely old man. So, yeah, the awkward, funny, and extremely honest pre-teens made him feel young. 

Initially he thought the job would be lonely. It’s a small town with even smaller schools. Besides him, there was only one other night janitor that he alternated weekend cleans with and only really ran into during day-to-night shift changes. Ron was nice enough, older than Wayne, with a far higher patience for children. Unsurprisingly, behaviours from high school died hard and the teachers and administrative staff all kept to their own little cliques. Resulting in Eddie keeping to himself, rarely speaking outside of his custodian duties or the occasional faculty meeting.

He didn’t even think he’d interact with the students aside from cleaning the odd vomit or getting stuck balls out of the gymnasium rafters. He unintentionally found himself yet again the outcasted mother goose to a small hoard of pre-teen metal heads when their unofficial leader, Matty Sherman, caught site of the various posters Ed keeps hung up on his office (custodial closet) door. The seventh grader quickly forcing himself under Eddies wings and refusing to budge. Matty was a good kid. Reminded Eddie a lot of himself at that age. He was loud, abrasive, and way too confident for such a gangly frame in ill-fitting clothes. Matty had hair though which 13-year-old Eddie couldn’t relate to.

There was also Ms. Virginia Wagner. The eccentric, nurse who has been working at Hawkins Middle since Eddie was attending. Maybe even before that, he wasn’t quite sure and whenever he asked anything close to finding out her age, she quickly shut him down. She was sweet. She was funny. She was also a mean old hag sometimes, but God did Eddie love that about her. If he was just 20 - or more realistically 40 - years older and wasn’t almost certain she swings the other way, he’d shoot his shot. 

The Summer season was extremely uneventful for Eddie. Due to the kids being out of school, his hours were cut in more than half with only the yearly repairs and deep cleaning needing to be done. He went into work about 3 days a week, spending the extra free time to do some manual labour gigs here and there around town. When he wasn’t working, he was hidden away at home watching movies, listening to music, trying to plan out ongoing and future campaigns for Hellfire meetings that have begun to be fewer and far between now that everyone has dispersed. On some rare occasions when he didn’t feel like a complete shell of a person and was able to leave the house to socialize outside of life obligations, he met up with the few friends that remained in the Hawkins area (which at this point in time was really only Steve Harrington and Gareth Emerson.)

It was now the Monday of the week before students would return back to these fluorescent lit halls. That meant all other faculty were now gracing the school to prepare for the year ahead. Organizing and prepping and finalizing lesson plans and class rosters. 

Eddie had a slight pep in his step as he walked through the halls, scuffed up sneakers squeaking on the shiny, extra polished tiles. He whistled a silent tune that clashed with the jingles of his keys that he swung around his middle finger. Getting to the janitors closet to put on his navy coverall and put his hair into a low bun. He zips up the stiff material, covering the self-altered muscle tank top that had the logo for some local band down in Indianapolis he saw a few years back before things went to shit. A cracked and stained mirror hanging up over his work sink being used to make sure his hair looked casually messy in the bun. With a final once over, he hooks his keys to the belt loop of his coveralls and preps for the day's work. A glance at his wristwatch, the one that has somehow survived hell and back just like him, reads 7:58. Just 4 hours and 2 minutes until lunch. 

He couldn’t wait.

Eddie used those 4 hours and 2 minutes to check each stall in all bathrooms were fully stocked with toilet paper and the likes, clean the actual toilets themselves, and make sure the water was running properly in every sink. Once that was taken care of, he began on his biggest task of the week of dragging desks and chairs out of the back storage building to be put into classrooms. Sheryl from the administrative team having left the small packet of papers indicating how many seats each room would need for the coming year. 

He could move the chairs in stacks at a time but could only really stack two - maybe three if he was careful - desks on his hand truck before it became a safety problem. Once moved into the main building, he had to wipe them down, tighten any loose screws that could make them wobble, and make sure they were still in usable condition. Eddie had completed almost 3 of the 32 classrooms before lunch finally rolled around. 

He grabbed his lunch sack from the custodial closet and whistled on his merry way to the nurse's office. He’s been eating lunch with Virginia for as long as he can remember. Of course, there was those 5 years of High School and then the year of recovery following the events of his second senior year, and the summer breaks of course, but besides all those he’s been eating with her for a good 7 years. 

This ritual beginning in his 6th grade, the first year he moved in with Wayne, all sad eyed and past aside due to events outside of his control. Kids he had grown up with suddenly not wanting anything to do with him. He wouldn’t really make any friends again until 7th grade, and his first band of misfits was created, Corroded Coffin. 6th Grade was the worst year of his life until 1986 and now it’s about tied. 

Sadly, in middle school who you ate a meal with or gave the time of day too was so integral into maintaining the hierarchal balance of the ecosystem. It was bullshit. With everything that happened that lead to his father going to jail and him burdening his uncle, the kids of Hawkins middle school decided Eddie wasn’t worth risking their own reputations. He doesn’t remember exactly how it happened, his brain kicking the memory out at some point to make room for more important stuff like D&D lore. But he does remember he went from eating lunch in the bathroom to eating it in Nurse Wagner’s office. 

Even after being integrated back into the Middle school social circle, he couldn’t just leave her to eat lunch by herself. She needed him with his alternative music education and retelling of the fantasy books he’d been reading lately and his strong headedness that could keep up with her dry and sarcastic quips many interpreted as rudeness. Although Eddie would still refuse to admit it, in actuality he probably needed her more than she needed him.

He doesn’t knock, just moseys his tall frame into the nurse's office, wide dimpled smile on his lips as he hears rummaging coming from the actual office area that was blocked off by a wall. He looks at the two plastic-y beds covered in paper sheets, inhaling that antiseptic smell that can only seem to be found in medical settings. No fluorescent lights were on, only natural light being let it from the two big windows. 

There are curtains on them now which surprises him. Floral pinks and yellows with lace on the edge that really fit the grandma vibes Virginia has but refused to acknowledge. The windows all have blinds, but curtains were deemed a non-necessary commodity by the school board budgeting team, meaning if you wanted curtains, you’re gonna have to fork money out of pocket for them. Eddie had asked Virginia about it once, commenting about how it would help spruce up the place. Make it look a little less sterile. She told him to go to hell, that she’s a nurse not rich. Any out-of-pocket money she spent on work only going towards things that actually matter, like the allergen friendly laundry detergent and the nicer, name brand candy for the candy bowl.

Putting his lunch on the side table of the first bed, he lays down in a relaxed position. Hands behind his head, legs crossed, eyes closed, he lets out a relaxed sigh.

“Virginia, dear, I really love what you’ve done with the place,” he calls out to her, hearing the close of the filing cabinet and footsteps soon following, “feels all homey now, dontcha think.”

The footsteps stop.

“I'm glad you like them. You feelin’ comfy there?”

That was most definitely not Virginia Wagners voice.

Eddie jolts up, eyes wide and cheeks red. He’s not one to get embarrassed easily but since recent events he’s been a bit more reserved in how comfortable he gets around strangers. And you were most definitely a stranger. A pretty stranger. A very pretty stranger in a teddy bear patterned scrub top and an oversized cardigan with embroidered sunflowers. You’re a disorienting mess of patterns and colors but you’re also, like, really pretty and Eddie isn’t sure how to go about this.

“You’re not Virginia,” is all he can get his voice to come out with.

“I’m not Virginia.” You give a chuckle. A positive response, Eddie thinks.

“Where’s Virginia?”

Eddie is now standing away from the bed and closer to the door, ready to run from the situation if needed (something he’s learned to embrace in the last few years.) You give him a friendly smile, hands in your cardigan pockets, the sleeves bunched up. You look cozy. 

“Florida. She’ll be in the Caribbean by the end of the month,” you supply. He can tell your fingers are fidgeting in your pockets. His hands are fidgeting at his waist, pinching at the material of his coveralls. 

“Why?”

You shrug your shoulders, “Retirement.”

“Oh,” Eddie sighs, eyes breaking contact with yours for the first time since standing, shifting to look at your white - almost pristine - sneakers on the tile floor her spent all summer mopping and waxing and removing scuff marks from. “That sucks.”

You snort. Teeth biting your bottom lip to stop from laughing at him further during this awkwardly endearing meeting. Your own eyes looking him over now that he isn’t completely focused on you. He’s cute. His cheeks stained your favourite shade of pink once he realized you weren’t the now retired nurse he had been so fond of. Hands covered in jewlery. His inability to stay still so natural it makes you think he doesn’t even realize he’s been shifting his body weight back and forth from his toes to his heels this whole time. Tall, lean, maybe with some extra fluff hidden under the baggy attire. He’s got some shadow of hair on his cheeks. And if you weren’t a civil person and he wasn’t a stranger, you’d be begging to kiss at the column of his throat.

Your gaze moves to look around the waiting part of the office to avoid thinking even more things about this guy. A brown paper bag chicken scratched with the words ‘ED LUNCH’ catches your eye. Before you have a chance to speak yourself, he starts his interrogation again.

“Who are you?”

Your attention cuts back to him quickly. With a smile that shows all your teeth and a hand leaving your pocket, held out for him to shake, you give your full name.

He takes it with his own reserved smile. His hands and rings are warm, but they still tingle your skin from the unfamiliarity of the metal. You enjoy it you think. Before he can introduce himself, you beat him to the punch.

“You must be Edward, right?”

He grimaces, “Just Eddie,” your handshake falls. His hand back to his hip and your hand back into your pocket, “Just Eddie is fine. More than fine, actually. Preferred, really.”

Another chuckle from you. Eddie knows he’s funny when he wants to be but if it’s this easy to make you laugh, he doesn’t ever want to stop.

“Well, just Eddie,” you smirk at his eye roll, “you can join me for lunch if you’d like. I feel like my presence may have ruined your initial plans,” you let out a huff of a laugh and gesture to the lunch sack by the window. He grimaces again at your wording and shakes his head.

“It didn’t ruin any plans just was shocking ‘sall,” his hand moves from his hip to rub at his slightly scruffy chin, pretty brown eyes back on yours, “but um, yeah. Yes, I’d love- like to join you for lunch.”

You smile. He smiles back.

Eddie has sat in this chair, in this office, and eaten his lunch for years. Today it feels awkward and unfamiliar. 

It might have something to do with you sitting where Virginia used to sit. Same chair, same desk, same office, but completely different. Virginia didn’t decorate her space, leaving it functional and impersonal, if people wanted to know about her life they could ask her. She wasn’t going to flaunt it. 

You were very different. An orange, gaudy looking vase filled with fake flowers. A matching candy bowl with various sugary, little treats. A picture frame of you and what he could only assume was your family based on the similar features shared between each person. A decorated Coke can with the top cut off and trimmed with glued on lace and covered in holographic stickers of vibrant cartoon animals, sparse enough to still see the iconic red drink logo, was now holding an assortment of colorful gel pens. 

Even the chair wasn’t safe from your interior decorating, a purple knitted blanket folded over the top of the rolling seat. The seat itself now adorning a red, white, and black cushion of an ugly faced bulldog with a spiked color and cap with the letter G, the words ‘GEORGIA BULLDOGS’ splayed above him. A sports team he assumed. 

The conversation hadn’t started back up since the introduction in the sick room. Both of you taking your respective seats in the office area, opening your lunch bags and digging in. 

Eddie being a creature of habit brought his usual bag of pretzels, a can of Pepsi, and a sandwich made of whatever he could find in the kitchen. Today it was two slices of whole wheat, mayo, lettuce, the last piece of deli ham, and shredded cheese. 

Your own lunch seemed much more put together. For starters, you had an actual lunchbox, a bulky and vibrant plastic thing with Snoopy sleeping on his dog house on the front. Inside, there was your own ziploc bag of green grapes, a can of Coke, and a sandwich cut into triangles. White bread, crunchy peanut butter, and grape jelly. A Little Debbies Swiss Rolls pack sitting on the corner of your desk for dessert.

He’s mid chew on the final bite of his sandwich, half his Pepsi left, his pretzels being the first thing devoured, when you speak up. Your own sandwich having on triangle section left, grapes gone, and Coke untouched.

“Have you always lived in Hawkins?”

You’re wiping your mouth with a folded paper towel, curious eyes focused on him. You’re very good at that, he’s realized. Eye contact. Focusing on your center of attention. Eddie has never been good at it, having to remind himself to look at the person talking to him. It’s polite, Wayne would say, shows people you’re listening and interested in what they have to say. Eddie gets so worked up in remembering to seem focused, he loses it and doesn’t hear what’s being said. He hasn’t had that problem with you so far. He thinks he could look at and listen to you all day if you let him.

“Born and bred,” he swallowed his bite and shrugs his shoulders, rubbing his hands together to get the crumbs off, “you’re not though, are you. Feel like I’d remember you,” he raises an eyebrow. Feeling a little more confident in himself, especially with the obvious signs of you not being a local, and gives a playful smirk.

“You got me,” you hold your hands up in mock surrender, moving your arms back to rest your elbows on the edge of the desk, “I’m from Georgia.”

Eddie nods, the seat cushion making sense now. It’s your home team for… sports. A sport. Probably football. Eddie mentally pats himself on the back for guessing it was a sports team. Good on him for knowing sports. (Eddie doesn’t know sports.)

“So,” Eddie lulls, small talk never being his forte. Much more interested in getting into the nitty gritty of conversation when interested in someone but he doesn’t know you yet. He needs to find something to relate with you on and he can’t do that with tidbits he may know from growing up in town like he could other people his age or older here. “You’re like a southern chick,” it was your turn to grimace. 

“You’re really bad at this,” you snort and shake your head, finishing up the last of your own sandwich. Tidying up your desk, throwing away the ziploc bag and sandwich wrapping and paper towels. Opening the coke can and moving the swiss rolls pack to in front of you, looking back to Eddie. With a tilt of your head and saccharine grin you ask, “Splitsies?”

He nods at the opportunity to get a sweet little treat before addressing your initial comment, “Small talk requires talking and I just don’t really do that anymore with people who don’t already know me or just have a preconceived idea of who I am,” he shrugs his shoulders again, voice softer, slight regret in being too real. Eyes watching your fingers open the package, folding another paper towel (which he has now realized are coming from a roll kept in the lowest drawer of your desk), and setting one of the processed roll cakes on the indented paper before placing it in front of Eddie’s seated and slouched body. “Thank you,” He looks back up to you and you’re already looking at him.

“Virginia told me a lot about you,” you smirk, lifting your own cake to take a bite. Your eyes not leaving his except for split a second to give an appreciative glance and hum to the cream filled ‘pastry.’

“We’ve been corresponding for months,” you snicker at your own use of the word, making you feel like some sort of 18th century countess or captain, rather than a young nurse taking over the position of an older nurse. 

He looks panicked at this reveal. Which is cute considering he had a bit of white cream on his upper lip. Although he looked so pretty when his brow furrowed, it was clear he was frightened so you were quick to reassure him.

“All good things, of course. I think she’s just worried about you. It’s cute, really, just really cute.” Another kind smile on your lips and your hand holding out the paper towel - his now eaten roll was sat on - as hint for him to clean his mouth off.

Eddie knew Virgina wasn’t one to gossip but the prospect of a rare new person in town he’s actually interested in, being privy to all his shit-uations without him telling them himself, scared him. But Virginia did love to meddle and that may be worse. She was a big supporter of Eddie needing friends his own age. 

Letting out a sigh of relief that his tragic history had yet to be exposed, Eddie returned your smile with his own half one. You reach into your desk again, pulling out a letter instead of paper towels this time. ‘Edward’ scrawled in a familiar, loopy handwriting with blue ink on the white envelope caught his eyes. Eyebrows furrowed in confusion and intrigue. 

You hold it out for him to take like it was something precious, “This is for you.” From Virginia, is unspoken but recognized between the both of you. Who else would it have been from. Eddie flushing as he realized, Virginia never told him about you. Virginia never even told Eddie she’d be leaving. They didn’t speak much, or really at all, during the summer unless they happened to run into each other outside of these brick walls. 

Callused finger pads grazed your palm when he took the letter from you, he kept his eyes focused on examining the letter. A sad smile on his lips appreciating the loops of the E and W and curves of the D’s. Realistically he knew Virginia probably wasn’t gonna be gone from Hawkins forever, she had roots here. A son. That’s son kid or maybe kids now, he wasn’t sure, hadn’t checked in on Rick since he got out of jail in ‘88. But it still hurt that she was gone, without a word, and was happy enough to talk to her replacement about him but not to him about her. You.

“I’m gonna read this later,” he mumbles and puts the offending but appreciated letter in his deep pocket. A quick glance at his watch read it’s been about an hour since making his way into the nurses office, lunch was over. He threw his trash out in the bin by your desk and gave you a friendly smile, standing from the seat in front of your desk.

“Maybe we could do this again sometime,” eyes shifting around the office again, not really taking things in, just needing to not get trapped back into your gaze. “Ya know, with my lunches free now and everything,” he humorlessly chuckles.

“Eddie,” you spoke softer than you had before, a more sympathetic smile on your lips, “I’d really like that.”

He looks at you now. You have really shiny eyes. What a weird observation, Eddie thinks, but it’s true. With a quick wave of his hand before retreating them back into his pocket, fingers playing with the paper edges of Virginias letter. He begins his trek out the door. 

“Hey, next time though,” he stumbles in a spin to walk backwards while speaking, “We’ll speak more about you than about me. Feel’s like you know too much about me,” he huffs with a smug smile before spinning back to look forward. “See ya, Peach.”

Your sweet laughter follows him out into the hall. You call out, “See ya, Eddie,” to his retreating back, watching the door long after he’s left. 

“Peach,” you snort and shake your head, teeth tugging on your bottom lip to stop from smiling too wide.

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drdemonprince · 1 month

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Just chiming in to agree that that person is not a selfish bitch. I'm also really put off by moralistic performances of emotion, and I know in my case it's because it was part of a pattern of abusive behaviour that my mother did.

Anytime you expressed to her that there was a problem with her behaviour, she seemed to genuinely believe that if she put enough effort into weeping and crying on her children's shoulders, and verbally denigrating herself for being an inherently bad an immoral person, and stressing so much that she developed physical illnesses from it, then she could follow that up by asking for forgiveness - as if it would be cruel for us to continue her suffering by denying her that forgiveness. Except that to her, "forgiveness" meant "it's all swept under the rug, I have Atoned By Suffering Guilt, so now it doesn't matter and I can keep doing it again." (I really wonder how much the religious background of her parents' generation came into the formation of this worldview.) And at the same time, she refuses to read news that's "too upsetting" and never engages with literature or media about dark themes "because there's enough of that in real life."

It might be cynical of me to read this pattern into the way people talk online about genocide. But I keep seeing parallels. My perspective is that a) if you're not regulating your emotions well enough to function, then you have less capacity to offer practical help; and b) people who are actually trying to survive genocide want unnecessary human suffering to END, so you're not aligning yourself with that hope by engaging in rumination etc that compounds suffering with not practical benefit to anyone.

But also, watching my mother's behaviour has led me to add perspective c) that a lot of people (in Christian cultures?) haven't developed enough understanding of the complexity of the world and how to relate to it, and genuinely believe that an overblown emotionally affected reaction, followed by helplessness and thereby inaction, is the only possible way for them to respond when they're confronted with upsetting information that demands action from them. Being raised to think in a black-and-white "good vs evil" dichotomy, and thinking about people as "either morally good or morally bad" rather than thinking about people as neutral and behaviours as either ethically helpful or harmful... it doesn't give them a conceptual framework to integrate upsetting information and then carry on getting things done, it's like their moral anxiety gets them stuck and that keeps the emotions escalating.

I see people discussing this pattern in the context of religious trauma, and in the context of the cultural construct of "whiteness" - the discovery of something morally bad has to be followed by an extreme emotional reaction that basically amounts to protesting your own innocence and helplessness to deny responsibility for your direct behaviours (in my mother's case) or complicity in a corrupt system (in the case of overwhelmed average people learning about genocide).

Maybe I'm rambling more than I'm analysing here, but the comparison stands out a lot to me and it's troubling to watch.

yo anon no this is gold, thank you for sharing. This is remarkably astute.

I will add the quick caveat that hyperempathic people who are debilitated by their sensitivity exist, of course, and have very real struggles and none of this is intended to denigrate them. In practice, their behavior can have the impact of silencing criticism or distracting from the issue at hand but being wired that way certainly does not doom a person to behaving in a counterproductive, manipulative manner.

This critique is more about performative over the top empathy as a tactic (conscious or not) of offloading responsibility, and as a pseudo-religious ideology that makes predominately white western cultures particularly ill-equipped to deal with the consequences of their global plundering. almost certainly by design. Most moral teachings that we encounter in the west promote this tactic and ideology, and it gets very deeply ingrained in most us if we don't devote a ton of attention to uprooting it.

thanks for this great response.

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lambsinner · 2 months

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૮꒰˵• ﻌ •˵꒱ა Like a Lamb to the Slaughter૮꒰˵• ﻌ •˵꒱ა

✧˖°Chapters 1-3/???✧˖° AO3 copy

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚Alastor x Overlord!Reader˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Content warnings: Lots of cannibal1sm, g0re, graphic descriptions, canon compliant violence and suggestive content, n3crophilia mention, brainwashing and mind control elements related to Reader's powers, eventual smut in future chapters

Length: 7,400 (all 3 chapters)

Summary: After the Radio Demon returns from a seven year hiatus, you've changed your mind about seeking revenge on him for murdering you in favor of rekindling your ill-fated romance. It's been a century, but even in these demon bodies you are more enamored with him than ever! Luckily, Alastor has big plans and you're a perfect piece to assemble his bigger picture.

Chapter 1

Every Thursday, with few exceptions, the Radio Demon would pay a visit to The Cackler–the most highly rated sports bar and comedy club in the Cannibal Colony–and after returning from a seven year disappearance he picked up his heartburger habit once again.

Just as you’d hoped he would.

For the better part of a century, you’d waited for this moment, and licked your lips from two tables away as the waiter took down his order at the VIP gazebo.

The employee met your eyes for a moment and offered a small nod as he returned into the restaurant.

Excellent.

Alastor sat with that trademark smile plastered on his face, staring ahead, waiting with the patience of a predator.

The fresh carnage of Extermination Day just a week prior hadn't phased him.

You thought you’d lost your chance when he’d vanished, but in his absence the goal had shifted and now you weren’t quite sure if this would work but if it did you could be returning home tonight with a powerful connection to the most powerful overlord in hell.

If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be returning home at all and that luxurious high rise would be back on the market for the next cut throat sinner who clawed their way to wealth.

The sizzling of the deep fryer hissed from the kitchen.

You took a drink of your fruit punch blood juice and watched the two other patrons who had been sitting outside get up and leave.

No one else needed to be here.

One hundred thousand four hundred and ninety three souls were under your belt now, and although it was no small number it was a puddle compared to the ocean of the damned that the other overlords floated atop of in their inflatable yachts.

Would it be enough?

And what would Rosie think regardless of the outcome? You’d never told her the truth about your fascination with Alastor, but of course she’d never asked since he was the prized gentleman of the colony and so it was natural to admire him.

Everyone wanted a piece of him or to give him a piece of themselves.

She’d been so kind to you, much kinder than your own mother back when you were human, and now you regretted not just telling her the truth.

The waiter returned to Alastor’s table with a steaming hot heartburger, layered with a four cheese epidermis topping and packed into a whole wheat bun.

He readied his fork and knife because he always ate his food like a gentleman.

“Thank you my good sir,” Alastor said with a laugh, eyeing the prize. “This smells so delectable.”

He sawed off a thick slice of your heart, which was by far the scariest part of yourself to serve to someone no matter how many times you’d regrown it.

You gripped your lamb ears and watched with anticipation as he chewed and swallowed.

It was faint and indiscernible, like the voice of someone shouting at you from across a misty lake, but you could feel it forming in your chest.

He took another bite and the cognition began to come into focus.

He swallowed again and again.

Your senses sharpened and your heart–the one you’d just grown this morning, not the one Alastor was now devouring with both hands–pounded in your chest as you became overwhelmed with the feeling of knowing . Your mind absorbed an intuitive understanding of his soul, his essence, but it was like staring directly into a pit of tar.

Normally this was when you could feel a connection strong enough to your victims to pull them to you in both body and mind, but this was like pulling on a rope that had been severed and falling back on your ass.

A monotonous, static buzzing snapped you out of your inability to assimilate.

It hummed between your ears.

Alastor was looking back at you with a stretched neck, his black horns noticeably extended.

The waiter was pointing in your direction with a naive smile.

You awkwardly waved. “Uh, h-hi?”

Tentacles struck out from below your seat and ensnared you from the waist down, pulling you and your chair through a micro portal. You landed across from Alastor’s table in the gazebo, your forehead hitting the front of the table from the impact.

“Ow!”

“Oh pardon me,” he said, waving off the waiter. “I just had to thank the source of that delicious meal!”

He rested his chin on his palm, elbows on the table as he looked over you. “And imagine my surprise to see that it’s you .”

You rubbed your head. “Me?”

“Oh, yes.” His horns retreated back into his head. “For a second there I thought I was being attacked by some sort of mindwashing magic! But it’s just you , the little lamb that Rosie has told me so much about.”

You scooted your chair underneath the table and leaned over. “She’s told you about me?”

“All about you, my dear!” He reached over and pet the top of your head. “She told me about how you helped keep the colony fed during that sinner drought thirty years ago. About how you led in dozens of fresh bodies a day and even let Rosie have a few cuts from yourself.”

“Th-that was a thing that happened.” You couldn’t stop yourself from staring into his deep red eyes. He was even more handsome up close!

All too soon he stopped petting you. “That’s not all. She mentioned that you’ve been quite smitten with me, but prior to my absence we never seemed to run into each other! Which is a real shame. But I am so pleased to finally make your acquaintance.”

“W-Well, I…I’m happy to see you, too! More than you know…um…”

“There is no need to be shy or worry your pretty little head.” He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t bite.”

You glanced away from that cheshire grin of his and cleared your throat, trying to find the right words. “I…”

So you couldn’t assimilate him. That was to be expected. And although you couldn’t place why, it was a relief.

Plus, he didn’t want to kill you for trying. Nice.

Alastor waited for you to speak.

“I used to listen to your radio show,” you said, nervously twirling a lock of your black curls around your finger. “I was a big fan. Hearing you take down this or that overlord. I guess I was nervous that if I put myself on the map…”

“Oh!” He waved his hand dismissively and chuckled. “I wouldn’t hunt you ! Those days are long past me and–”

His voice deepened. “There’s no one left to give me a challenge.”

All those evenings of listening to the Radio Demon broadcast the torment of the overlords he usurped had left you wondering what your own screams would have sounded like through the filter of the airwaves.

What did your screams sound like when you died nearly a century ago?

“Well,” you whispered. “I’m trying to be secret about this whole overlord thing that I’m doing although I guess now it’s getting hard to stay incognito. I don’t care much for the title.”

He laughed. “You and I both! I get it. If too many bigshots found out just what you could do I expect you would be hunted and someone would try to intimidate you into a contract that you don’t want to take part in.”

“Contracts are kinda scary. If I enter one it has to be…” You looked at him, then glanced away, feeling your face blushing. “Um..well…”

Decades and decades of rehearsing this very moment and now those mountains of words had crumbled into the dust.

You hadn’t expected Alastor to look at you with such adoration, to have already had such a high ideal of you from Rosie.

This was embarrassing! You were glad to have not told her everything now.

“The thing is,” you continued. “I do really like you, Alastor…so-so yeah I guess I’m ‘smitten’ with you but do you really not remember me?”

“Hm…” He lifted an eyebrow and tapped his chin, the black finger tips of his glove drumming below his bottom lip. “I surely must have seen you around at some point but all I know about you has come directly from our dear friend.”

Taking a deep breath, you stood up and planted your palms on the table so that you could look him more closely in the eyes. “Mardi Gras 1932…”

His left eye twitched. “We knew each other on Earth?”

“Briefly. Oh, wow. This is so awkward.” You giggled nervously and pointed between the two of you with both hands. “You, uh. You killed me.”

Alastor gasped, the pieces connecting together for him.

His smile did not falter, however. “Oh yes. I remember now. That was one wild week. How awkward indeed!”

You bit your lip.

His pupils were the shape of dials as he reminisced on your murder, digging up a memory that maybe he’d never revisited before now.

Which details stood out the most, you wondered.

Had he committed the horrified expression on your face to memory?

Was he comparing your face then to now? What inhuman creatures the two of you had transformed into, but he was even more attractive now.

What had your corpse looked like? Was it a lot of trouble to bury it?

“I wasn’t sure if this was you at first,” you admitted, walking around the table and reaching out to touch his head, curious to feel the texture of his ears.

He grabbed your wrist before you could make contact without looking at you. “I suppose you want an apology? Maybe even revenge?”

“Not anymore.”

He sighed and squeezed you, clearing his throat and speaking without his usual filter. “Well, I am sorry. You were not the profile of my usual prey but...”

“...I know.”

You closed your eyes.

Back then, standing in the dim moonlight of the forest Alastor held a cleaver over the fresh corpse of a stocky man twice his size.

His dress sleeves were rolled over his biceps and he was panting, the adrenaline still freshly coursing through his veins.

With the glint of his glasses in your direction, you realized that you couldn’t have been more wrong about his plans that night. You shouldn’t have followed him.

“Oh, it’s just you.”

He extended his free hand towards you.

“Come here.” “Come here.”

Alastor stood up and tugged you into a warm embrace, his height towering over you.

You wrapped your arms around his torso and squeezed nice and tight, hoping he could feel your breasts pressing against him. “You’re much taller than I remember.”

“And you are just as short.” He stroked your hair. “My, how did you end up here, anyway?”

Inhaling the clean scent of his suit, with just a hint of sweat, you shrugged.

“Say.” He gently clasped your shoulders. “Why don’t I make it up to you?”

“Hm?”

“I happen to know someone that is working on rehabilitating sinners.” He looked down at you and pinched your nose. “You could still get to heaven yet!”

You giggled. “Nah!”

“No?”

“Like I said.” You rubbed your nose with your wrist and parted from him. “I’m really kinda over that whole deal. Other than…”

You crossed your arms and grimaced. “Other than dying a virgin ,but–”

Alastor cackled and his filter turned back on. “Well you weren’t buried as one, if it makes you feel any better!”

You pulled at your ears and shrieked. “You had sex with my corpse?!”

“It was the spur of the moment, darling!”

“Well that doesn’t make me feel any better!”

“Decided you’re still mad?”

“Jealous, maybe. That’s totally not fair.” You turned your back to him and pouted. “Can’t believe I’m jealous of my own dead body that is definitely just bones by now!”

Alastor summoned his cane and twirled it around. “If it’s really that big of a deal, I can offer a repeat performance .”

Your face heated and you rubbed the black wool on your arms that acted as sleeves. “I-I mean…if you want…um…don’t…don’t force yourself.”

“Dear.” He set his cane to the ground and leaned over so that his breath tickled the back of your neck. “You really don’t mean to tell me you’ve not had sex in all this time?”

“Of course not! I mean! I have!” You puffed your cheeks. “It’s been like a hundred years and I have a nice shape, c’mon, of course I've had sex since I’ve been here! It’s just um…”

You shyly looked back at him. “...it’s different okay.”

“How cute that your little crush on me is so withstanding even when we’re in these bodies.”

At least he sounded happy about it?

Looking down at your hands and grey palms, you tilted your head.

It was hard to imagine what inhabiting your old body was like anymore.

“You can make them go away, right?”

“Huh?” You turned to see that your interactions had drawn a small crowd of your fellow cannibals from the restaurant. These were people who, by now, had eaten your meat hundreds of times.

You sent out the signal for them to go away and waved your hand. “Ugh. Sorry. I’ve been holding this in for a while and…”

You looked up at him. “Sorry for being weird. I’m glad to have it off my chest.”

“You know.” He vanished his cane and grabbed your face, twisting his thumbs around the sides of your lips, forcing you to grin. “Maybe it’s just that little lamb face of yours but when you aren’t smiling you look so sad. Mind if I try something?”

He got down on one knee. “Just relax.”

The fabric of his gloved fingers combed through the back of your hair as he firmly held your head. It was hard to relax with his face so close, but you faintly nodded.

“Good girl.” Alastor pressed his forehead against yours, his ruby eyes glowing with a sultry shine.

As his lips brushed against yours, slightly chapped and rough, you took a breath and placed your hands on his shoulders.

He kissed you, his wet tongue snaking into your mouth and his razor sharp teeth clinking against yours.

You could taste the remnants of your heart in his saliva and the rich spices he’d ordered it to be cooked in.

His tongue was thick and long, lapping across the roof of your mouth and the tip tickling your uvula.

Moaning into him, you rubbed your palms across his chest.

As you kissed him back, trying to shove your tongue as far as it could go into his mouth, he gently took your tongue between his teeth. He gripped it all the way back to the sublingual glands and lightly grinded into the flesh.

It stung.

He chomped down.

His teeth penetrated the soft flesh and quickly chewed the tendon loose as you screamed and instinctively tried to pull back. He tightened his grip in your hair.

Raw, burning pain rippled down your esophagus. Blood gushed from your severed tongue and filled the bottom of your mouth.

Tears streamed down your hot face and you tapped his shoulders with your fist.

Alastor released you, your tongue dangling between his teeth and leaking blood down his chin.

“UHHHH!” You sobbed, the ripped remnants of your tendon pulsing around in your mouth as you tried to form words.

He sucked your tongue into his mouth and chewed it in his cheek as if it were a piece of gum.

Doubling over, you let the blood pour out of your mouth and splatter onto the pavement floor of the gazebo. Your hair swayed down in front of your face, catching some of the hemorrhaging.

“Now that won’t do.” He politely stood next to you and pulled your hair back with one hand and fished a pocket watch from his jacket with the other. “Take your time, dear, I just want to see how long it takes to grow back."

Chapter 2

Vox stood in the corner of his office with a glass of champagne, overlooking the still fresh destruction of Pentagram City in all of its ghetto glory.

It was finally inventory day which meant every head in the building was buzzing about, signing forms, and some employees were scheming to get out of their contracts by trying to fake their exterminations.

What a pointless venture.

With more cameras going up each day and fresh sinners arriving with the expertise to build Hell’s first facial recognition database, deserters would eventually receive a formal and permanent termination.

He groaned when his assistant entered his doors. “What.”

“Sir, w-we’re still taking inventory but so far the losses look to be at about eight percent among all Voxtech employees. We’re estimating about a third of those are deserters.”

Vox turned to him and took a drink. “Do you remember what I told you this morning?”

His assistant checked the notes on his clipboard. “That we need to draft up a mandatory GPS insert shot for new hires?”

“No.” Vox finished his drink, slowly and deliberately, letting the spectacled buffoon before him soak in his anxiety.

He set down his glass loudly. “I told you that I did not want to hear the numbers until the counting was done. I have other things on my mind right now.”

From the chaise lounge positioned at the edge of the room, Valentino laughed through a cloud of smoke. “Yeah, like daydreaming about Alastor .”

Vox’s face glitched for a split second. “Shut. The fuck up, Val.”

“Why don’t you come over here and make me?”

The assistant meekly adjusted his glasses. “S-Sir, I didn’t come up here just about the numbers there was something else I thought you should know. We’ve caught surveillance of that lamb demon. Uh, the-the guy who was supposed to be keeping up with that is one of the deserters so…it was this morning on the south border outside the cannibal district.”

Vox perked up. “Interesting. Yeah, that guy is fucking dead when we find him.”

He turned to the set of large monitors lining the wall to his right and adjusted his bowtie. “Let’s see…”

The channels began flicking rapidly, but he knew exactly which feed’s archive to flip through.

“Bingo!” A bell victoriously dinged from his speakers as grainy video footage displayed a lamb sinner demon wearing a teal dress with a voluptuous bust and two bulky bodyguards on either side of her.

“So who is she again?” Val took a long drag of his smoke. “Looks like she belongs in a gang bang. God damn.”

“Seriously?” He pointed at the image. “Remember like seven or eight years ago when we kept getting new hires who were contracted to some lamb girl they didn’t know the name of?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“She fell off our radar around the time–around the time…fuck.”

She walked through the streets with an upright confidence that betrayed her small stature and as she stepped into the border of the Cannibal Colony the other two demons dismissed themselves.

Vox slammed his fist onto his desk. “Damn it!”

The lamb demon disappeared from view into the streets where cameras were never permitted to be installed.

Val scoffed. “What’s the big deal? Just some minor overlord being supported by that old timey cannibal bitch. Look at her. What can she do other than look sexy and take dicks?”

“No, no, no.” Vox ignored him and turned to his assistant. “No. We are not losing this bitch again! Get hunters after her ass now !”

* * * * *

You smacked your newly regenerated tongue across your palate and whined, sitting on top of the gazebo table. “Okay, I think it’s done.”

Grabbing a napkin from the holder in the middle of the table, you tried to wipe the dried blood from your chin and groaned.

It wasn’t going away and you’d already managed to splatter it on your dress, which was permanently stained as it was.

“Five minutes and twenty three seconds.” Alastor closed his watch and tucked it into his pocket. “That’s impressive. Almost as impressive as what a good kisser you are.”

“Th-thanks…” You smiled shyly and looked away from him, closing your eyes. “Y-You, too…minus the biting part–um, I don’t mind it but can you just warn me next time?”

“Perhaps.” He gingerly pried the napkin out of your fingers.

He dabbed the napkin on his tongue, purposefully coating it in his saliva. “But do you really want me to?”

With a hum, he thoroughly wiped up the blood around your chin and mouth with it.

It was warm and wet and you couldn’t help but sit perfectly still as you answered, “no–I mean–maybe not always?”

“Do you always make such a mess?”

“It sadly cannot be helped.”

“What am I to do with such a messy girl?”

“Y’know…” You rub the back of your neck nervously as he flicks the used napkin to the table, back to the plate he’d used when eating your heart. “I’ve really slacked off the last few years and it feels like I’m backed into a corner in terms of progress…So I think I could use your advice with this overlord thing.”

“How so, darling?” Alastor took your hand and pulled you up to your feet. “You seem to have your abilities under control.”

“It’s not my ability. I need to get stronger and increase my numbers in hopes that I can at least gain enough power that the Vees won’t try to snuff me out.”

“The Vees?” He tilted his head back and laughed.

And laughed.

And then he laughed a little more and wiped a tear from his eye. “Forgive me, but I seriously doubt they are a threat to you.”

“The thing is.” You took a breath and glanced over at the urban borderzone outside of the Cannibal Colony, where high top buildings full of busted windows stabbed into the crimson sky. “In the time you’ve been gone they’ve taken down anyone who collects more than like ten thousand, twenty thousand souls. I’ve been safe thanks to sticking to the outskirts of the colony and moving apartments a lot but it sucks having to watch my back and I feel…”

You tilted your head and half shrugged. “A biiiit like a burden here?”

“Oh, nonsense!” Alastor wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “Let’s go to the city where there’s plenty of fodder and I want you to show me just what you can do.”

You followed him and smiled, leaning into him. “Sure!”

* * * * *

With Alastor by your side, you held no fear stepping onto the dingy streets of the outskirts between the Cannibal Colony and the Inner City.

All along the streets were common sinner demon riffraff, imps, and hellhounds waiting to be taken advantage of and assimilated into your disposal.

Some of them already were.

“Okay.” You held out your arms and closed your eyes, summoning a bouquet of lollipops of all colors individually wrapped with a heart sticker on top and ready to be served.

In the center of each and blended in with the syrupy concoction was the tiniest sliver of a piece of flesh cut from your thigh.

That was all it took these days, at least for the common riffraff.

Alastor glanced at the candy. “Is that…?”

“Yes!” You handed him a red one. “It may be too sweet for you, though–they’ve really jacked up the sugary in shit back on Earth so I keep having to change the recipe.”

He popped it into his mouth without so much as unwrapping it and eagerly watched you wade into the streets and begin to offer the pops to the creatures so much bigger and stronger than you.

No one ever turned down free food in the Pride Ring, yet alone candy–especially candy, because there might be drugs in it.

When was the last time you’d so openly wandered into the streets to pass out treats like this?

How nostalgic!

You took a breath and began to sing.

♫ Hell took a bite out of me

Soon as I woke up

Saw my flesh in their teeth

Pulled from the bone just like a glove

The more I screamed and cried

Realized I’d already died

But the pricks who just kept eating me

Had something change inside… ♪

A grey hellhound next to you chomped down on the treat as you waded through the crowd and tossed up the rest of the bouquet, letting the candies fly in the air.

You opened your arms to him, offering a hug, to which he accepted.

With a teal, misty glow that hit his body like a firework his soul was yours.

“And then I told them to stop

And they did!”

The minds and hearts of the creatures who had just absorbed your flesh spiraled into the assimilation all at once.

With a squeeze of your fist, they’d fallen under your control as they always had, and you made them dance with you.

♫ Lambdrop Lolipop

Choke your heart up with a clot

Lambdrop Lolipop

Blackmarket secret candy shop

Lambdrop Lolipop

Just a lick you’ll never stop

Lambdrop Lolipop

Get it frozen if you’re hot!

While you were gone I got lazy, slouched back and NEET’d up

I’m scared of the Vees ‘cause if they get wind of me whooboy I am fucked

If I’m the object of discovery

Who knows what they’ll do to me

Hook me up all day chopping meat

Like some fucked up hentai factory

But instead of getting milked

I’m getting fucked to the hilt

It’ll be a guro porno

Except worse–I can't be killed!

Sure I’ve learned to love the pain

And I’ve still got a lot to gain

From being a cattle ass bitch

Converting these dicks

To be lackeys without a brain

But now it’s not enough

I still need to level up

To be proper competition

But hey you’re back

So I’ll jump on track

And here is my audition ♪

Suddenly the assimilated hellborn and sinners were again at each other's throats just like any other day, stabbing and shooting and kicking and looting.

But with two simple claps, they turned to face you in complete obedient silence.

Alastor continued to watch the spectacle with lidded eyes.

♫ Lambdrop Lolipop

Suck it like you’d suck a cock!

Lambdrop Lolipop

Slice my way up to the top!

Lamdrop Lolipop

Sold your soul up for a shot

Lambdrop Lolipop

Full organic sugar slop

Lambdrop Lolipop

Do as I ask cuz if not

Lambdrop Lolipop

Disobey, I’ll make you drop♪

And drop they did–unconscious, that is, because it would be stupid to make your own minions actually kill one another just for a bit.

You beamed, hands on your hips. “And that’s what–”

Alastor had seemed so into your little gig, but he’d vanished from his spot on the sidewalk.

Gunfire blazed from behind you, startling you so hard you fell onto your ass.

“Hands in the air, little lamb!”

You picked a candy up off the ground and stuffed it between your breasts quickly before complying. “Oh, great, oh, fuck.”

“Stand up!”

You groaned and looked over your shoulder.

Four armed sinners were approaching you, wearing uniforms so spiffy that they could only be from Voxtech.

Chapter 3

“Guys, what did I do?” You asked, your hands raised up by your bowed head, looking up at them through your lashes. “I was just dancing and uh–”

“Can it, squirt.” A sturdy alligator was the one holding a handgun scaled to fit his massive claws, followed by a lizard carrying a steel baton and tapping the head against his palm. Behind them was an unremarkable duo of horned fiends with tasers on their belts who almost looked like hellborn if not for their obvious lack of hooves.

“You’re coming with us,” said one of the fiends. “To Voxtech.”

“Voxtech?” You gasped in deliberate excitement, clasping your cheeks with both hands. “For real?!”

This was actually terrifying. The gator looked like he could chomp you in half–in a bad way. The tips of your horns only reached about half of his total height.

“Yeah, our boss wants a word.”

“Your boss?! You mean… the Vox?” You squealed and jumped up and down. “No way! I love him!”

“Uh, you do?” The lizard asked, sounding disappointed.

“Duh!” You rolled your eyes and approached them, still careful to keep your hands up. “Why didn’t you just tell me! He’s just so handsome and sexy, I’ve always had a crush on him so this is like a dream come true!”

“The boss thinks you’ve been avoidin’ ‘im,” said the gator, still not fully convinced, jabbing the barrel of the gun against your chest.

“Well this is the first time I’ve ever heard he wanted to talk to me!” You put a hand on your hip and frowned. “You don’t have to keep pointing that thing at me, y’know. Hey…”

You reached into your chest and offered him the lollipop you’d stashed there, still fresh in its wrapper. “Why don’t you lighten up?”

“Let’s just move.”

“Okay, okay.”

The two fiends stood behind you on either side in case you tried to make a break for it.

As if you could outrun them!

You followed the small party through the streets, dumbly holding the candy between your fingers like a cigarette. “Hey, mister…”

Once again you offered the gator the treat. You had to get this guy to take it! “As thanks for taking me to Mr.Vox! And y’know, you’re pretty handsome yourself…”

His eyes flickered between you, the treat, and straight ahead. “I dunno…”

You leaned forward tentatively and spoke lower. “Before I wrapped this up I shoved it up my pussy.”

He stopped and squinted his eyes at you. “I’m gay .”

“Oh.” You laughed awkwardly. “My mistake. Sorry…”

Great. You’d just embarrassed yourself for no reason and it wasn’t true.

The lizard shyly tapped your shoulder. “Miss, I wouldn’t mind having that…”

He flicked his tongue. He would not be able to take on the gator by himself but he did have that baton…

“Alright, sure.” You handed it to him. “Enjoy.”

“Oh!” He was delightfully surprised. “Th-thank you.”

The gator slapped your back and nearly knocked you over. “Keep movin’!”

You watched the lizard stare down at the candy with some apprehension as you walked along, approaching a corner where you’d be back among the populace. A handful of assimilates were close by, but where the fuck was Alastor?!

No way was he afraid of Vox’s goons, so was he just trying to avoid detection? Some heads up that these guys were heading your way would have been appreciated, even at the cost of breaking you out of your freestyle.

Rubbing your newly grown tongue against the inside of your cheeks, you waited for the unknowing victim to pop the candy in his mouth.

“Miss?” He asked, looking at you from horn to hoof. “Just an awkward question before I eat this.”

“Yeah?”

“You said you…shove these up your snatch?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well I couldn’t help but notice that, eh, you’ve got wool on your arms and legs fashioned in the shapes of sleeves and, er, stockings, so uh you shave down there right?”

You huffed and snatched the candy away from him. “Of course I do! What the fuck wrong with you? It’s always smooth down there! Never. Mind.”

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to offend!” He clasped his free hand to his chest. “I just have this thing about hair…”

“Fuck it.” You unwrapped the candy and put it into your own mouth. “No candy for you.”

The two fiends snickered. “Gross.”

The party turned the corner to a shopping plaza and you instantly caught sight of your assimilates going about their business having lunch and texting. There were only three of them–two hellhounds that seemed to know each other and a goat that looked more feeble than you.

“The car’s here.” The gator pointed to an old, beat up station wagon parked outside of a store labelled “Junk ‘n Fuck” with a cardboard sign.

“Car?”

One of the fiends scoffed at you. “What, you thought we’d walk all the way to the other side of Pentagram City?”

Your mind was racing. How to get out of this, how to get out of this…

On second thought it might be better for you to be stuffed up inside of a closed space with them if you could–

The gator opened the trunk to reveal an array of handcuffs and torture devices. “Hands behind your back.”

“What!” You huffed. “I’m under arrest now?!”

“A little thing like you survivin’ out here? The boss says you’re a risk, he don't wanna see you comin’ through company gates unless you’re properly disarmed.”

You pointed to the candy in your mouth. “At least let me finish this!”

“I could use a smoke break,” the lizard added.

Perfect.

The fiends were already unpacking their cigarettes from their front pockets, resigning the gator to light one up too. “Whatever. Ten minutes.”

There was a beat of silence as they took their first drags.

“So,” said one of the fiends to everyone but you. “Lucinda in HR. You guys see those tiddy pasties she was wearing this morning?”

“What an exhibitionist.”

“She’s just doing it to piss you off man, stop simping for her.”

“I’m not!”

Pulled into their own conversation, you casually bit down on the stick and dislodged the candy from it.

“You look for any excuse to go to HR and she knows it.”

“I told you that wasn’t an excuse–Pez wouldn’t stop harassing me.”

The lizard was still staring at you, an unlit cigarette between his scaly fingers. What a perfect victim, after all. Many such cases.

You pulled the sticky ball of candy out of your mouth, fresh with your saliva, and offered it to him with a smirk.

“Oh, thank you.” His tongue flicked out and snatched it without hesitation.

No, no, thank you .

You took a breath and felt him assimilate seamlessly.

He lit up his smoke and took a hit.

The two hellhounds under your control approached the party with convincing scowls on their faces.

The gator steadied that huge, scary gun of his and growled. “Something I can help you boys with?”

“Yeah, how much for the broad?”

You pointed at yourself. “Me?!”

“Yeah you, sweetcheeks. These your pimps?”

The fiends were snickering to themselves again and eyeing you with amusement.

The gator huffed, smoke blowing out his nostrils. “We’re escorts . Now get lost before you have to take it up with my boss.”

“Hey chill, we can pay big big bucks,” said one of them, fishing for his wallet out of his jacket. “It’s not every day you see such a fine piece of ass on the street.”

You stomped a hoof. “Hey, fuck you!”

You took a step towards them, not threatening to run away but to teach them a lesson–the gator grabbed your hair which was something you hadn’t counted on. He lifted you up by the scalp, leaving you kicking in the air and grasping at his claw.

“Owowowow!”

Clack!

Behind you the lizard under your control had tossed his cigarette into the gas tank of the car and closed the lid.

One of the fiends tilted his head. “Reynold, what are you–”

The hellhounds jumped on the gator at once, their jaws clenching at his throat and freeing his grip on you but as soon as your ass hit the pavement the explosion sent you flying forward.

You skidded across the asphalt painfully, banging the side of your head against the sidewalk. You had no time to look back at the fire.

Pushing yourself back up to your feet, the ground was shaking behind you and there was the gator dashing on all fours, seemingly immune to the giant flames raging with the hellhounds and fiends still going at each other in a bloody fury.

Run, run, run!

Denizens were either fleeing from him or recording on their phones.

He was bigger now, sharp scales leaving his suit in tatters with an extra row of teeth in place of his tongue. His spiked tail broke store windows as he charged at you.

You summoned up your carving fork, enlarged it, and braced yourself, unsure if you should aim for his eyes or his snout or–

His jaws locked around your waist, pulling you off the ground, fangs crunching through your intestines and a piece of your spine between your hips snapping.

The sensation in your legs was gone.

You dumbly fumbled with your weapon for a split second before being spat back at the ground.

“How dare you!” The gator screamed at you with a guttural voice that vibrated through the air.

He circled around you, panting, taking pleasure in watching you struggle to pull yourself up to your palms. “I never ever fail my boss, squirt. You’ve got some nerve thinkin’ you’re gonna ruin my record.”

Try as you might to will your spine to piece back together, it wasn’t happening. It would take hours.

You pathetically sobbed as you dragged yourself a few inches, smearing your leaking guts. Your abdomen felt like it was on fire and you could vomit up lava.

“You’re goin’ nowhere! I’m goin’ ta break your arms and deliver you to Mr.Vox like a chewtoy.”

His laugh blew your bangs as he kneeled over you and closed his mouth over your left shoulder, pulling you up off the ground and slowly, agonizingly, grinding his teeth against your humerus.

You screamed at the top of your lungs and instinctively your only working limb began hitting the top of his snout. A thick eruption of marrow bursting out from the fragments of bone being crunched splashed onto your face and snapped you into a keen awareness.

Oh great, oh fuck. You couldn’t afford to freak out. It would all grow back.

You summoned up your carving fork again, transformed it into its cleaver form, and gave two heavy swings into your shoulder. The bone dislodged from its socket, sending your arm flying into his throat and you down to the ground like a broken doll.

The moment your flesh hit his stomach you felt it and with the last of your strength you slammed your fist with his assimilation. “You motherfucker!”

Enraged, you made him start gnawing at his own arm with all three rows of teeth. He chewed threw his scales as if he were eating a cob of corn, tearing into the meaty layers below.

Doesn’t feel so good does it!

“Ha!” You panted. “Ain’t that a bitch.”

Your stomach had stopped bleeding, but now you had a fresh nub to worry about and it took a balancing act to push yourself back upright with just one hand.

The gator rammed his head against the wall of the nearest building, slinging his neck against the brick.

Wincing, you pressed the blade of your cleaver to the gaping wound and cauterized it. “Owowowowow….”

The scent of your skin sizzling and closing up made you drool.

Clap, clap, clap

Applause sounded from behind you and Alastor’s voice cut through all thoughts of hunger. “My dear, that was splendid! I have…a few critiques, but you far exceeded my expectations!”

You looked at him over your nub, pouting, your eyes welling up. “Alastor! Where were you?”

“Don’t give me that look, darling.” He kneeled next to you and put a hand to your face, his thumb wiping your tears delicately. “I told you to show me what you could do. And the moment you told this brute that you thought Vox was handsome I just knew you had something clever up your sleeve!”

“Y-Yeah, that’s all true.”

“I wouldn’t have let those imbeciles actually take you, darling. Come now. Let’s get you fixed up.” He looped an arm under your legs and the other held you by the shoulder, careful not to touch your wound.

You let yourself relax into his secure hold, resting your head against his neck, although you felt a little guilty for once again making a mess of yourself today and getting your blood on his suit. His scent was so strong! You sniffed, hoping he wouldn’t see your nose wriggle.

“Before we go,” he said, stepping towards where the body of your latest assimilate who by now had bashed the top half of his skull off and no longer had eyes. “I’d like to inform your newest little worker ant that perhaps he should think twice about telling his boss that his body and mind has been taken by someone else. Unless he wants to be ripped apart and tested. A sad fate for the mundane in this world, don’t you agree?”

“Pathetic!”

He squeezed you excitedly, his antlers slightly protruding out of his head. “Selling their souls for something insignificant, becoming nothing but splatters on the gears of this vile city that trades vice and blood to feed the pendulum that ticks them ever so forward to the next roll of the dice for their permanent demise.

“They are but the g̸̠͝r̷̼̽a̶͝ͅv̸̮̅e̷̙͋l̸͈̎ ̸̵̯̇ beneath our feet, tiny objects to kick out of sheer boredom on our destination to the greater entertainments in life.”

His claws were sharp against your skin, his grin stretched.

“Mmhmm,” you hummed. “I agree. And I like it when they bring me coffee.”

Alastor returned to his cheerful demeanor and laughed, nuzzling the top of your head with his cheek. “Oh, my dear! The simple pleasures.”

He readjusted you in his arms and turned away from the vile sight.

* * * * *

The screens were full of static and then all at once their picture returned with a grisly scene: Spitfire Avenue’s shops had suffered broken windows, blood and guts were splattered across the pavement (more than usual for any street in Hell), and one gigantic gator demon was laying in an alleyway waiting for his brains to grow back.

Vox sat in his office glaring at the complete lack of fucking context, tapping his fingers against the arms of his desk impatiently.

“I don’t want to…jump to conclusions here,” he whispered pointedly, his voice laced with a rage that threatened to burst through his speakers. “But I send my best hunter out there to pick up one fucking little lamb. My cameras go out.”

He stood up, pacing around the table, much to Valentino’s indifference.

He was too busy looking at his phone, checking out the view counts on his latest studio upload and mumbling, “I’m gonna have to ask Velvet for more of those slutty flight attendant outfits because Tits in Turbulence is bringing us in some baaank.”

“Ten minutes later they turn back on. And Graf looks like someone took a twenty gauge shotgun to his head. That shitty station wagon on fire. No lamb. And no…”

Val looked up from his phone. “Vox, babe, calm down you don’t even know if it’s–”

“ALASTOR!” He grinded his nails against the table, scraping coils of wood in their wake. “I know that prick has something to do with this! If he’s got that lamb contracted she needs to be taken out yesterday.”

His screen glitched out for a split second and he took a breath. “I’m cool, I’m cool.”

Sitting next to his partner, he motioned to Mimi standing idle in the corner to get him a drink.

Every week there was some new sinner spawning in the depths of Pentagram City who had potential to be exploited and although minor overlords rarely ever posed a serious issue, a minor overlord working with Alastor would inevitably be a source of trouble.

“Velvette?” Val spoke into his phone, exhaling a puff of red smoke. “Yes, yes, I know you’re busy but this is important–just a note, babydoll.”

Vox spoke up. “Hey! I need you to comb through all the videos posted to Voxtagram in the last hour geotagged near Spitfire Avenue–”

“ After you design some more of those skimpy flight attendant outfits with the boob windows shaped like airplanes–”

“No, this is more important!”

Mimi arrived with two cups of whiskey, setting them dutifully on the table before her masters.

“Vox, this is my call!”

Vox stood up and reached for his phone, only for Val to pass it to his upper hand and hold it out of his reach with a mischievous chuckle. “Just call her when I’m done, what the fuck?”

“Fuck you!” Jumping up, his hand brushed the edge of the phone sending it out of Val’s inebriated grasp and straight into a cup of whiskey.

Val shrugged. “Your fault.”

#hazbin alastor #hazbin fanfic #hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #alastor x you #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor the radio demon #alastor

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mae-i-scribble · 2 months

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I'm doing a very slow reread of orv with some friends, but since I can't talk about my spoilerous rambles with them too much I have decided to make a post here to get my thoughts out. Up to chapter 25, I've been surprised by the amount of little hints we're already getting for larger plot points and the things that are recontextualized now that I'm looking with hindsight rather than experiencing it for the first time, which really speaks to how phenomenally written orv is on a fundamental level. By the time we get to the 3rd scenario, we've had Dokja mention his mother once, when he briefly worries over her safety. Then we get this line:

"I looked around at the people. The first scenario was original sin. Thus, none of the people here were innocent. That made it more disgusting. Those who trampled on someone else to survive, who couldn’t even bear responsibility for their own life."

Of course it's firstly talking about the lack of morality in this world, when faced with the truth that between the major and minor groups of Gumho station, one fact makes them equal: they are all murderers. The use of the phrase "the original sin" caught my eye because when looking at Dokja's life, murder is his original sin- the murder of his father. That is what sparks the events leading up to this point. It is the true original sin of this world. However, that being followed by "That made it more disgusting...who couldn't even bear responsibility for their own life," is rather hypocritical in that regard. We have no way of knowing exactly how much of that night Dokja remembers at this point of the story, so there are 2 ways to interpret this in regards to his father's murder. 1) Dokja does not remember that he murdered his father, but remembers that his mother had taken responsibility for her crime and served her sentence. In regards to here the people of the minor are far inferior because they cannot adapt the way Sookyung did to their crime. 2) Dokja does remember that he murdered his father, and this disgust is equally leveled at himself, because he knows his mother is innocent but that she took responsibility from Dokja. Thus Dokja of back then is just like these people, unable to take responsibility for his crime.

Then, later on, we see the text, and Dokja specifically, focus on this particular pairing in the minor group.

"The people started to move. All in all, they were people who had already killed. “M-Mother!” “Dayoung, come here! Do this! Just like what you did on the subway with Mother!” Children and mothers."

Then in Chapter 25 we have:

"I honestly admired that the mother and child survived the bloody fight. If she had that much strength, they might be able to survive without going with us."

The English translation doesn't exactly lend itself to identifying the gender of the child, and I am miserably monolingual so I'm not sure if the original text specifies Dayoung's gender, but for thematic reasons I'm choosing to imagine them as a mother/son paring. In that regard, Dokja choosing to notice them out of everyone else, when he's an extremely apathetic person in these early chapters who doesn't care much for those not directly related to him or the story/his survival is very notable. I can't help but think he sees himself in that, as both the son of a murderer and a murderer himself. It's also notable that when complimenting the pair, he only focuses on the mother's strength. Which like. The subconscious projection is so real. To Dokja the child didn't do anything it seems, it's only because of the mother's strength that they will be able to live on. I'm sure I will be back to add more info on this as I trudge through the novel because Dokja and Sookyung's relationship makes me mentally ill all the time but for now I shall simply lay down and ponder(tm)

#orv #orv spoilers #kim dokja #lee sookyung #i think the manhwa has covered this but just in case #anyways holy shit ss went way too hard with this novel #the fucking layers #IVE HAD SO MANY DISCORD CONVOS ABOUT THE FIRST 20 CONVOS ALONE #thats how fucking dense this novel is #maybe i'll put more of the thoughts here on tumblr because sometimes i do have good thoughts and opinions actually #and my friends' viewpoints are very fun to get since they all focus on different things

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v-anrouge · 2 months

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This is a queued post and it includes talks about transphobia and mentions of self harm and eating disorders

Im here to talk and announce a break, first thing's first j relapsed, in literally like everything sh ed and didn't try to kill myself is because of a few people and the fact my pills ended. For a very long time in this blog u have not been feeling like human, it's like most of you don't even actually like and just come talk to me when im being funny and fun or when i post something rook related that you like, ive really been trying to get rid of that feeling but it keeps on coming back and it's unbearable to be in this blog at this point. this situation with Shiba only really confirmed it for me, I saw about like 4 mutuals referring to this as drama, and complaining about seeing it on dash and while obviously you have all the rights to be displeased with a constant show of negativity in your dash, i beg of you to try and think how i, a trans man, must feel seeing you refer to me and other mutuals calling out transphobia and have to read you refer to this as drama and not as a literal crime. I understand if you got annoyed by me talking about it constantly and to that i ask that you please block me, because i have been literally beaten, bullied, harassed and even doxxed by transphobes, I do not take anything that displays even a bit of prejudice against my trans siblings lightly, hence why i was so "histerical and obsessed" and was being so "stupid and acting like an idiot" as someone people would claim. I do not care what view you have of me i really don't, im used to this shit, ive been trans and alive in the most transphobic country for 20 years, it's no news, but it still hurts. And it hurts even more when I see someone say i was an idiot for blocking someone immediately and calling them out when they side with a transphobe, and it hurts even more when I see a person i thought liked me complain about "drama still going on" rest assured that i won't be "bitching" about it any longer

For soru, who cant possibly process why i have blocked you, your take on that situation and your friend have both brought me terrible flashbacks of my own past as a child dealing with transphobia, of being told people like me are sick and are the seeds of the devil and that we are animals or that there's something wrong with us, like your friend said, their apology is both not genuine and extremely poorly made as they still can't accept the fact that yes, they are transphobic, and you soru, can't imagine how it broke my soul to see your post saying you had given them a chance, but seeing the post you made after, in which you literally agree with your mother you should've stayed away from trans people, that's what broke me the most, and j couldn't even speak about it, because it's "too negative" or im "drama chasing" im sick of this, you can hate and insult me all you want soru rest assured you're not the only one you're not the first nor the last one, maybe this will come off as a surprise to the people that are sure im obsessed with drama and chasing people around but i genuinely did have a lot of respect for you, if the hours ive spent crying over this say anything at all, it's sad that this had to end this way, but not for me, I don't care, this isn't the first or the last time this happens to me, but to my mutuals who i am very sure many are angry that i have made this situation happen, perhaps i should've stayed quiet and keep being funny as people like me best, well it is too late, but i hope that you'll forgive me mutuals, for once again ruining something good.

I don't know how long this break will last or if ill ever even return to this account at all, but i sincerely thank the ones that did treat me like a human, as an equal, that actually saw the person behind v-anrouge. you can't possibly believe how much you mean to me

That's about it, do have a great day

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arlana-likes-to-write · 9 months

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Second Chance - Chapter 3

Masterlist

Warning: mention of blip, death, life support, jealousy, panic attack

Word Count: 3.9 k

So the problem with taking a long nap, it was hard to fall asleep. It also didn’t help that your stomach was a little upset from dinner. FRIDAY informed you that the common floor had ginger ale and crackers. You sat on the couch with your sketchbook on your lap and crackers next to you. You preferred drawing comics or line art, realism wasn’t your thing. But drawing portraits of people helped you remember them and the memories. You were drawing your mom when she was in the courtroom. It was rare that she let you come with her and watch her do her thing. She was afraid that you were going to be a target if people connected you to her.

You missed her so much and you wished she was here to help you through this. When the doctors came into her room at the hospital and told you your options, it was the hardest decision you had to make. But you knew your mom better than anyone, she was your best friend, and you knew she wouldn’t want to be in a vegetative state. So, she was taken off life support and her organs were donated to help save lives. You whipped a tear from your eye before it fell onto your sketchbook. “Why are you crying in the dark?” A voice laced with a Russian accent asked. You jumped, not expecting a voice. In front of you was a blonde-haired girl wearing sweatpants and a SHIELD training shirt. She was fresh out of a shower; her hair was damp and braided.

“Maybe because I don’t like crying when it’s bright outside,” she shrugged and made her way to the kitchen. You spun around to lean on the back of the couch. The blonde was taking out the leftovers from dinner. “Who are you?” If you were to make an educated guess, she was related to Natasha in some way.

“Your Stark’s kid,” she deflected your question with a statement of her own. “I’m surprised he doesn’t have more of you running around.”

“Probably does,” you said. “I wouldn’t put it past dear old dad,” she placed her food in the microwave and turned to face you, arms crossed against her chest. Her green eyes flickered to the beanie you still chose to wear. “I find it unfair you know who I am and I don’t know you.” She smirked and turned to take her food out of the microwave.

“Where is the fun in that, Stark?”

“Easton,” you corrected her. She raised a questioning eyebrow at you. “I go by my mother’s maiden name since she is the one who raised me and Tony didn’t.” Your mom never spoke ill of the man when you questioned why he was never around. Instead, she told you the truth that she never told him she was pregnant. You stopped asking questions because you didn’t need him. Your mom was all you needed.

“Well, Easton,” she smiled. “It was nice meeting you. Try to get some sleep.” She walked back over to the elevator and stepped inside.

“Sleep tight, blondie,” you sat back down on the couch and focused on your drawing. But you didn’t miss the look of surprise on her face as the metal doors closed. You chuckled, popping a cracker into your mouth. You weren’t worried about the mysterious blonde that got food quickly and left. You figured she was supposed to be here since Tony’s AI didn’t alert anyone or alarms didn’t go off. Now you weren’t an Avengers super fan but you knew of them through the news and research for your comics but you didn’t recognize her. She must be a new addition post the Blip. You sighed, biting the end of the pencil.

You weren’t part of the half of the population that was taken. There was a part of you that wished you were. The car accident happened a few months before the Blip. So you grieved your mom and those you lost. It was hard. You threw yourself into your drawings, and your research, and traveled the world to help others to ignore your grief. It worked. Was it unhealthy? Yes. But you helped a lot of people, wasn’t that worth it?

You cleaned up the crackers and cleaned the glass you used. There was an ache in your bones and you knew it was time for bed.

You were back on the common floor in the kitchen, sipping on coffee and waiting for your oatmeal to be done. You thanked every god that existed that your taste buds still liked coffee. The microwave beeped and you took it out. As you ate it you made a list of things you needed to do before the weekend was over and your doctor appointment tomorrow morning. Your new room was fully furnished even with kitchen appliances so you could donate your furniture except the desk and bean bag in your office. You could put the desk you had in your bedroom or near the window in the living room. The hall closet would be before seasonal clothes, extra supplies, and a few things you kept that were your mom’s. You had a lot of stuff which meant you needed to go through everything and donate the stuff you didn’t need. But you weren’t sure how long you would be at the tower? Was it a permanent placement? Or until you got better, if you got better. You didn’t like to think about that. “How did you sleep?” Natasha asked, walking up to the coffee pot and pouring herself some.

“Okay,” you took a bite of your oatmeal. “I think that nap messed up my sleeping schedule.” You giggled. You couldn’t help but stare at the redhead in front of you, trying to compare features from the blonde you met last night. They had similar eye color and teasing look in their eyes. They even smirked the same.

“You're starring,” Natasha smirked. “I’m sorry but I’m spoken for and I don’t think Tony would like that.” You looked away from her so she didn’t see your embarrassment but a playful smile danced on your lips.

“Sorry, I guess I’m more tired than I thought,” you looked back at the Black Widow. “Or you're just that mesmerizing to look at.” Natasha groaned, gently slapping you on the shoulder.

“You flirt better than your father, I'll give you that,” you giggled. “Well I was thinking if you weren’t that tired,” she leaned against the counter. “We could borrow a few of Stark’s cars and go to your apartment to get your things. I can bribe Bucky, Steve, and my sister to help.” Sister? Interesting. But you didn’t dwell too much on that.

“Why are you offering to help?” You asked with a tilt of your head.

“This can’t be easy,” she stated. “With your diagnosis, reaching out to your biological father, and moving into a new place with new people,” you smiled. It was not easy. “But I bet having stuff you're familiar with can make it easier.” She was right. The bed was comfortable but you missed your mom’s guilt. The walls were bare, missing your photos and artwork.

“Thank you, Natasha.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ll go round up the delinquents. Do you need clothes to wear?” You looked down at your sleeping clothes. You could change into the clothes you were wearing yesterday but they were dirty.

“Uh yeah,” you scratched the back of your head. “I wasn’t expecting him to offer me a place at the tower.” It was common practice for you to take an overnight bag when you went somewhere due to your random spots of fatigue. You expected to be back at your apartment by lunch night. Natasha frowned.

“Did you not expect Tony to help you?” The Black Widow asked. You shrugged.

“I didn’t want to get my hopes up,” you told her. The frown remained on Natasha’s face.

“Wanda will have something for you to wear. FRIDAY, can you inform Wanda to meet Y/n at her room with clothes?” The AI confirmed she would alert the witch. You smiled.

“Thanks again, Nat,” you weren’t expecting this level of kindness from the other Avengers.

“Just tell FRIDAY when you're ready,” you finished your breakfast and cleaned up the dishes. By the time you took the elevator to the floor you were on, Wanda was outside your door with an armful of clothes. You laughed.

“Got enough options?” You teased, opening the door for her. She huffed with a roll of her eyes.

“I wasn’t sure what would fit or your style,” she dumped the clothes onto the couch. “So I brought a lot,” she surveyed the mess she created. “Okay, I may have gone a little overboard.” You giggled and started to go through the pile. You settled on a SHIELD shirt, that matched the blonde’s last night, and a pair of black shorts. But a few dresses did catch your eye and you made a mental note to ask her to burrow them. After a quick shower and changing into clothes, you informed the AI that you were ready.

“Miss. Romanoff and company are in the garage,” you grabbed your wallet, keys, and phone. “Step into the elevator and I’ll bring you down.”

“Thanks, FRIDAY,” you said, walking out of your room and to the elevator. Once inside, your mind began to race. You leaned back on the metal wall, looked up at the ceiling, and stared at your reflection. Was your apartment clean? You couldn’t remember. It was another effect of chemo - you called it chemo brain. Sometimes you couldn’t remember if you turned off the oven or locked the door. It was why drawing helped so much to pinpoint and focus on specific memories.

So was your apartment clean? Gods, you hoped so. You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. You tried to push down your anxiety at the thought of 4 Avengers walking into a messy apartment. The elevator doors opened and you saw Natasha, Buck, and Steve next to a moving van and the blonde you met leaning against a red Mustang. The sight made you smile. “Hey Blondie,” her head snapped to you.

“Blondie?” Natasha questioned looking at who you assumed was her sister.

“Easton,” she smirked. “You are the reason I was pulled out of bed.” You rolled your eyes.

“I believe that was your sister,” you tilted your head to Natasha. The three Avengers watched the interaction with confusion all over their faces. “We met last night. She knew who I was but refused to tell me her name so from now until she tells me her name she will be Blondie.” Natasha shook her head with a defeated sigh.

“Ya delayueta (idiot),” she said, hitting her sister’s arm. Whatever she said made Bucky chuckle. It was Russian that you knew but you and Steve looked at each other, the only ones not understanding the language. Her sister frowned, rubbing the spot Natasha hit. “You’ll be riding with my sister,” you huffed. Her name was still a mystery but the blonde looked smug. “We’ll follow you.”

“Sounds good, you smiled, getting into the passenger seat. You didn’t catch whatever Natasha said to her sister before they got into the van. The blonde got with a sigh and turned on the car. “What did she say to you?”

“Put your address in,” she handed you her phone with the maps app already up instead of answering. You did as she asked and plugged it into the charger. “She told me to stop being difficult.” She began the drive to your apartment.

“Difficult?” You didn’t think she was. “Why are you being difficult?” But you were curious why she kept her name a mystery. You couldn’t find much about her online with a quick Google search.

“It’s more fun,” you laughed, shaking your head. “Do you not think so, Easton?”

“Whatever you say, blondie,” you smiled. “Whatever you say.”

You unlocked the door to your apartment and stepped out of the way for the Avengers to enter. It was a 2 bedroom, 1 ½ bathroom. You used your second bedroom as your office and art studio since no one was coming to visit you. You were lucky to afford a place like this on your own and a glance around it wasn’t a mess. Bucky carried in some moving boxes. “So all the furniture is gonna stay beside the stuff in my office. The pots, pans, and utensils will be donated. I guess we’ll pack as much as we can today and I’ll come back another day to finish it.”

“Anything you want to prioritize?” Steve asked.

“My clothes,” you smiled. “As much as I love Wanda’s clothes, I don’t think this is my vibe.” Natasha laughed.

“I’ll handle your clothes.”

“Steve and I will get your furniture from your office,” Bucky suggested.

“And I’ll stand here and look pretty.”

“Ya delayueta (idiot),” you teased. Bucky, Natasha, and the blonde looked at you, mouths open. “I pick up on languages easily,” A quick Google search also didn’t help. “It’s Russian for idiot,” you told the blonde super soldier. Steve smiled, shaking his head with a laugh.

“She’s not wrong.” She gasped, clutching her chest.

“Steve Rogers, how could you?” You smiled.

“I’ll buy pizza if you do some work, blondie.” You said and walked over to your hall closet to get a cooler and some reusable bags. Packing up the kitchen was going to be your job so you could go through the fridge and pantry. Natasha headed off to your bedroom and Steve and Bucky went to your office which left the blonde in your living space. She put a box together and began to take the pictures off the wall. You couldn’t help but watch her. The living room was decorated with pictures and items from your travels and the research you’ve done. She would look at the picture for a little bit before putting it into the box. It was odd, a stranger was going through some of your most prized possessions, packing them up so you could move into the Avengers’ tower. What a strange life you were living.

“So,” you looked at the blonde. “What languages do you know?”

“I’m fluent in English and German but I’ve traveled a lot and I can put up with delicate differences.” She nodded, picking up a handmade mug you got while volunteering in South Africa. You continued to watch her. There was an odd look on her face. You frowned, going back to cleaning out the fridge not wanting to think too much about it.

Yelena walked into the spare room you deemed as your office. The space was cleaned out of a desk, a bean bag, and an art easel. There was something about you that Yelena found intriguing but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She put together one of the moving boxes and began to take the artwork off the wall. They were all line drawings of various sea creatures with watercolor accents. Her favorite was the blue whale with her calf. Once they were safely in the box, Yelena opened the closet. She wondered how you could afford this place on top of your medical expenses. A majority of the stuff was extra art supplies and canvas, all still in their original packaging. But what caught her eye was the flying cabinet. She couldn’t help herself as she knelt in front of it and opened the bottom drawer. Was it an invasion of privacy? Probably but Yelena was a spy at heart and her curiosity got the best of her.

She wasn’t surprised that she found more of your artwork but the contents of the pictures were surprising. It was the Avengers in comic book format. The mission they were on Yelena didn’t recognize so she assumed you made it up. The details were impressive. She put the comic back and picked up another drawing. It was a realistic portrait of a woman. Yelena didn’t know her but she saw similar features of you in her. She made the educated guess she was your mother. Natasha called her on her flight back from St. Petersburg and explained your story to her; diagnosed with cancer and the only family you had left was Tony because a car accident killed your mother. It was weird learning about your life through pictures she had to pack. You’ve traveled and seen the world by choice. You had a loving mother and now a father that brought you in without question. Those relationships weren’t brought together by a Red Room mission. She understood the feeling that grew when she saw you. Jealousy. She was jealous. Jealous of a girl who was dying unless she got a bone marrow transplant. It was ridiculous, uncalled for. But she couldn’t help it. Every time she learned something about you, a warm feeling built in her chest and she envied everything. “For a spy, you're pretty easy to sneak up on,” Yelena jumped, turning around quickly. You were standing in the doorway with a playful smile on your face. “Whatcha got there, blondie?” You asked, walked over to her, and sat down. Smiling, you looked at the picture in her hand. “That’s my mom. It was right before the car accident.”

“They never found out who caused it, right?” You nodded, taking the picture from her. Yelena frowned, not liking the sadness radiating from you. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone through your stuff.” You placed the photo back where it belonged.

“Don’t worry about it,” you stood up, holding out your hand to help her up. Yelena hesitated (she wondered if you noticed) but finally took it. Your hand was smooth against hers beside the small callus on your finger. “You would have seen them eventually. The pizza is here. I guess you did enough to deserve it.” You teased her. Yelena chuckled, rolling her eyes. She wondered how you kept your heart. It was what Melina said to her and Natasha before the Red Room took them - ‘don’t let them take your heart.’ Life had not been easy for you but you still managed to keep your smile and sense of humor. It was another thing on her list to envy.

“Your evil, Easton,” you giggled, looking back over your shoulder.

“You don’t know half of it.”

FRIDAY told you that Tony was in his lap. You held a box that was decorated in red and gold, tight underneath your arm. In hindsight, you should have known who your father was based on the color of the box but you only saw it once or twice. When the lab door opened, Tony looked up from his workbench. “Hey kid, how was moving out of the apartment?” He asked.

“Good,” you sat down on an empty stool next to him. “I have to go back again but a majority of my stuff is here.” You watched his eyes glance at the box.

“Well, let me know if I can help,” you nodded, tracing the lid of the box with your finger and looking away from him. Tony pulled up another stool. “Hey,” you looked at him. “What’s wrong?” You sighed, handing him the box.

“The letters she wrote to you,” he took the box, eyes wide as he stared at it. “You can read them or not or destroy them. It’s your choice.”

“Thank you,” you nodded, standing up.

“One more thing,” you let out a shaky breath. “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Do-do you want to come?” You were afraid to ask him, unsure of his response. But your mom didn’t allow him to be in your life, you wanted to give him the chance. The ball was in his court. You could tell he was shocked by the invitation.

“Of course. I’ll be there,” you felt the weight leave your shoulders. Since your diagnosis, you’ve gone to your doctor's appointment alone. “Just let me know,” you smiled.

“Sounds good. I’ll see you later, Tony,” you left his lap, hearing a ‘see ya’ from behind you. You took the elevator to the floor and into your room. It was a mess, boxes everywhere. You sighed, grabbed your mom’s quilt, and sat on the couch. The quilt belonged to your great-grandmother, who passed away before you were born. She gifted it to your mom when she graduated high school. It was blue and white with stars. You had great memories of you and your mom wrapped in this quilt reading a bedtime story by the campfire. You sighed, falling deeper into the couch and allowing the quilt to keep you warm. The mess could wait and be dealt with another time.

His leg began to shake as he stared at the box still resting in his hand. He felt a panic attack building inside him. It was a long time coming with everything going on but he didn’t have time for it. On shaky legs, he stood up and opened a drawer at his desk pulling out a bottle of whiskey and a glass. It was rare that he drank but he needed something to take the edge off. He picked up the box and sat down on the small couch.

There was a part of him that thought about destroying the box of letters. He didn’t have to know what he missed in the past; he had you now and could look towards the future, no matter how short it may be. No, he couldn’t think like that. He poured his drink. “Tony, your heart rate has elevated. Should I contact Pepper?”

“No, FRIDAY, I’m okay,” he wasn’t sure if he was okay but he opened the box. He wondered if there was an order to the letters. Each one was titled - 1st Christmas, High School Graduation, 5th birthday, and every milestone he missed Jessica wrote him a letter. Tony wasn’t sure how long it took before her words began to blur and he wasn’t making sense of anything. He missed you graduating high school and traveling with Captain Mills to help research how global warming was affecting sharks. He missed all of this because he wasn’t given a choice to be in your life. The beating of his heart was the only thing he heard in his quiet lab. His breathing was erratic as he picked up his full glass and threw it at the wall. The glass shattering startled him as he sat on the ground, back against the couch. He pressed the palm of his hands to his eyes, hoping it would help but it wasn’t. He couldn't stop the growing panic inside of him. It was too much.

Soon he felt fingers running through his hair. FRIDAY must have notified Pepper and he was so out of it that he didn’t hear Pepper enter. “I’m here,” he mumbled. Pepper hummed, pushing some strands off his forehead that were stuck due to sweat.

“That was a big one,” she stated. “Just sit with me, okay?” Tony didn’t have the energy to resist her as he rested his head on her shoulder. The sweet smell of her lavender perfume washed over him. He felt better, felt grounded. His heart rate evened out and his breathing wasn’t as erratic. “Do you want to talk about what triggered it?” She asked softly.

“Later,” he said. “Can we just be?” Pepper nodded, holding him tighter. And they would talk about it later. But for now, they were just Pepper and Tony. Not the CEO of Stark Industries or Iron. Not a mother of 1 and a new father of two. In the quiet and empty lab, they were safe in each other’s arms. Just being Pepper and Tony.

Taglist: @likemick

#second chance #yelena belova x you #yelena belova x reader #yelena belova x y/n #tony stark x you #tony stark x daughter!reader #tony stark x y/n #yelena belova #tony stark #tony stark x pepper potts #Natasha Romanoff x Bucky Barnes #natasha romanoff #james bucky barnes #Steve Rogers #marvel #Marvel AU #marvel fanfiction

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