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erodasfishtacos · 3 years

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HSLOT PHILLY

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Harry is predictable.

He falls into the same patterns during every tour since he was on the Up All Night with One Direction.

The excitement that comes with the first couple of shows begins to fade as he starts his world wide tour that doesn’t end for nearly eight months.

His constant adrenaline wears off and his exhaustion from not having toured in two years settles deep in his bones.

YN senses it from a mile away, has nearly eleven years experience dealing with her jet-lagged, exhausted, and stubborn husband.

It hits the day of the Philadelphia show, they got in late the night before, and YN always set her alarm for seven thirty in the morning to workout.

Ninety-five percent of the time, Harry got up with her and they either did a jog around the new city or they took advantage of the in-hotel gym.

Four percent of the time, he would whine and tug the comforter over his head, whimpering, “M’too tired, baby. Stay in bed w’me.”

And then the one percent, which was today.

The alarm emits a low, constant beep that rouses YN, in the time she takes to rub her eye and come back into reality - Harry hisses with a sharp edge, “Turn tha’ fuckin’ thing off.”

She bites her tongue at his tone, reaching to turn it off but she can already tell what day they’re going to have.

YN slips out from under the covers and automatically gets a comment from her husband, it another whiney demand, “Cover m’feet, y’too the blanket off them.”

“Yes, your majesty,” YN replies reproachfully, rearranging the blankets before quietly moving around the room to change.

“Stop makin’ so much noise.”

“Turn off tha’ light.”

“S’too early f’this, d’you not care that m’tired?”

She chooses to ignore the remarks, hoping that he can sleep off the attitude.

When YN is about to leave, he grumbles, “Y’need to kiss me goodbye.”

Harry purses his lips for a soft kiss, not moving a muscle, and after that - she leaves to head down to the gym.

YN is required a body guard, definitely when she isn’t with Harry or a group of people, and she decided not to follow those rules today.

She had her TPWK water bottle in hand, a cute workout set on ***, and her AirPods tucked in her ear with some Spice Girls playing.

It’s only about twenty minutes into her exercise, a light jog on the treadmill, that a young girl slips up beside the machine.

YN is kind, stopping the belt to smile for a selfie before the girl scampers off and she resumes her run - music blasting.

However, what YN didn’t know, is that fans had found out early in the morning which hotel they where at and a hoard was rushing towards the small gym.

It’s not even ten minutes later when a swarm of fans in rushing into the work area, lining up around her machine with their phones flashing and recording.

She tries to be nice, “Hey! Uh, I’m just trying to workout. I’m sorry, but no pictures please.”

Then there is loud protest and people shoving each other, begging and pleading for a selfie or for her to sign something - all because she was Harry’s wife.

There is literally no exit to escape to, so she relents and anxiously calls Frank - one of the body guards - to come retrieve her.

The whole way back up to her hotel room, Frank is lecturing her about safety and how she could have gotten hurt.

And when he scans the keycard for her hotel room, she feels her stomach drop because Harry is sat against the kitchen counter.

His brown locks are rumpled and going every which way, just in his briefs that are low on his narrow hips, and absolutely irate expression on his face.

“Are y’fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Harry snaps, brow furrowed and jaw clenched - his arms were crossed tightly against his chest.

“Good morning to you, sunshine,” YN mutters, shutting the door and kicking off her tennis shoes to the side.

“Don’t,” Harry replies sourly, “Please explain t’me why I get woken up by Frank to be told y’getting mobbed in the gym? And y’didn’t to call him.”

YN bristles at his tone, giving him a pointed look as she steps further into the room, “It’s not a big deal. I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Y’right about that, y’weren’t thinkin’. It is a big deal, y’could have gotten hurt - shouldn’t have t’babysit m’own wife,” Harry huffs, stomping back over to the bed and sliding back under the covers.

“You better watch your tone-“

They’re interrupted with a knock to their door, Harry throws the covers over his head and leaves YN to open the door.

It’s Jeff, who barges in with a coffee in one hand, “Come on, H. Did you forget? You have soundcheck early today and then you have to meet with FullStop to review the details of that new merchandise contract.”

“No, move it,” The popstar groans, muffled from the heavy blankets over him, and his manager and wife give each other a knowing look.

“We can’t. Get up, we need to leave in fifteen,” Jeff replies casually, unbothered as he sips from his to-go mug.

It has Harry dramatically ripping off the covers and getting out of bed, as he charges off towards the bathroom, he shouts backwards, “Wish someone would have fuckin’ told me! Like m’manager or m’wife!”

“Oh my god, here we go,” YN groans quietly to Jeff, snatching up the few things she needs for the venue as well as Harry’s and shoving them in his duffle.

He comes out a few moments later, dressed in running shorts and a vintage Queen shirt - going to tug on his Nikes without a word to either.

But in true Harry fashion, even when he’s mad, he’s still a gentleman. He slips the duffle off his wife’s shoulder so she doesn’t have to carry it.

“Thank you,” She murmurs but he avoids eye contact, being the first to open the hotel room and trudge towards the awaiting car.

It’s a quiet ride, Harry looks out the window with a deep frown and puffy eyes - eyes heavy from the lack of sleep.

Usually, he’d be curled into YN - snuggling as close as possible and asking for her to pet his hair to soothe him.

Not today. But he does have his hand on her thigh.

There’s already fans at the arena and Harry doesn’t acknowledge them - keeps his head down and walks quickly into the private entrance past the barricades.

When a irritated fan screams, “Asshole! We waited all night here for you!”

YN watches as Harry goes to turn, to say something but she pushes him forward through the door to prevent him from doing something he’d regret when wasn’t in a foul mood.

They manage through the long hallways, filled with bustling tour crew, and everybody there to make the show happen.

Sound check isn’t as fun as it usually is, the band stays low-key when Harry does exactly what he needs to do and nothing more.

And after the merch meeting, Harry has reached his limit apparently.

He was so tired, so fucking moody that he couldn’t deal with anymore human interaction.

YN has to step in when she gets a text from Harry Lambert.

Come get your husband. Sarah’s Kitchen.

She sighs, excusing herself from hanging out with Jeff and Glenne - she can hear him from the hallway and now she’s finally get irritated.

“I asked for that specific brand. It’s literally one of the only things I’ve asked for on this tour.”

YN takes a deep breathe before stepping in, there are crew trying not to stare as Harry complains to Sarah about something unimportant.

“Harry,” She says flatly, “Come on.”

He snatches his water bottle and follows his wife out without another word, trailing behind until they end up in his dressing room.

“You need to stop. You’re being a literal nightmare today,” YN tells him, watching him as he digs in the duffle.

“Where is m’charger? Did y’not pack it?” He ignores her words.

“I must have forgot. Harry, I know you’re tired but you can’t be treating everyone like-“

Harry pushes back the bag, seething for no reason, “I’ll treat people however the fuck I want!”

“You’re acting like a spoiled popstar right now,” YN replies, attempting to stay level-headed and calm with him.

“S’my show! M’tour!”

“Yes and everyone is here to support you and you’re treating them like shit. Including me, I’m your wife - the one person in the world that’s here for you no matter what and you’re being downright mean.”

“Y’so fuckin’ sensitive,” Harry mutters angrily, digging around to try to find a charger in a different bag.

And…that stung a bit.

When he doesn’t get a response, he looks up and notices how her demeanor had changed - it brings him back to reality for a little bit.

“I’m not going to stay here and be talked to like that because you don’t feel good. I’ll leave you alone because you are being insufferable.”

“Bab-“

YN is already out the door, storming back to Sarah’s kitchen to apologize for her husband’s diva behavior and everyone shrugs her off - knowing it’s not her fault.

She is sat down with the band and a few others when her husband saunters in, he doesn’t look at anyone else as he walks up to his wife.

“Baby, can I talk to you?” He mumbles, his warm hand coming to cup her shoulder.

“Harry,” YN says back, they’ve been together for so long that those words are all she needs to say for him to formulate a response.

“Come nap w’me please, need you. I’ll apologize t’you,” Harry says, his palm encompassing and big on her.

“Harry,” She repeats.

The crew looks on in amusement as Harry huffs, he lifts his head and speaks loudly to the room at once, “I apologize for my behavior. I have no excuse for getting upset like I have been today. I hope you guys can forgive me.”

Everyone assures him that they forgive him, most of them have dealt with actual spoiled celebrities and Harry was just having a bad day (which still really wasn’t that bad.)

“Okay, come on, bunny,” YN agrees, satisfied and can’t help but smile a bit when she stands up and Harry automatically intertwines their fingers to hold her hand.

The sofa in his dressing room folds out to be a bed and they still had hours before the show.

Once they’ve locked the doo and settled down on the mattress - they’re both laying on their sides, facing each other.

“M’sorry, darlin’,” Harry whispers, “I haven’t been very nice t’you today. I was just upset about the gym thing and just being so tired.”

YN hums, combing throwing his fluffy curls with her fingers as his hands explore over her hips and belly like always.

“You always get like this every once in a while on tour, like a little spoiled popstar,” YN says softly, no sharpness in her tone, “You also need to be nice to your wife.”

“M’always nice t’my wife,” He mumbles childishly, leaning forward to nip at her chin, “I am sorry, know tha’ when I act like that it embarrasses you.”

“You’re better than acting like that,” YN reminds him, allowing him to tug her into his warm, now bare chest, “I’m never gonna let you turn into some fame monster. You’re gonna stay the kind, funny, compassionate person I met when I was young.”

And when YN doesn’t get a reply, she glances to see Harry’s eyes shut, mouth slightly parted as he breathes rhythmically and his entire face relaxes as he sleeps.

“Still my boy,” YN murmurs lovingly, nuzzling before letting sleep overtake her.

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henryhas2moms · 2 years

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4a is just a wasteland of missed potential… while i love it when emma has a story with her parents, emma actually has a lot more in common with anna than she does elsa while regina is much more like elsa. all four characters have self esteem issues but for different reasons. emma & anna have grown up being pushed aside and abandoned and not knowing why so as a result they’re very insecure and anxious. elsa & regina have been made to feel like monsters and they know exactly why (regina has… better reasons than elsa to feel this way but that doesn’t make it hurt less, and it IS worth noting, i think, that in the original snow queen tale, elsa would have been the villain (putting ingrid aside)). not to mention elsa & regina being afraid of their magic but finding it the only tool they have to reclaim some freedom, albeit in unhealthy ways that they have to learn to remedy.

and while it’s kind of hard to believe emmas parents not trusting her, they have been wary about emma learning magic before so it makes a sort of sense. except regina (and to a lesser extent rumple and cora) is the reason they’re wary of magic so it makes NO sense why they would sideline regina except for one scene where she advocates for emma to henry and to emmas parents (which is a GOOD SCENE but just highlights that there should also be GOOD SCENES between regina and emma). like it’s interesting that in strorybrooke emma & elsa have trouble containing their magic while regina has trouble getting her magic to work at all. it’s interesting that we figured regina’s magic was dangerous because rumple taught her dark magic but now emma’s light magic is dangerous (and this could’ve been a nice thread into 4b/dark swan stuff).

but it all culminates in emma & regina and elsa & anna finding a family they never thought they could have :’) which is really the main theme of both frozen and ouat and at least they give us something of that (mostly for emma let’s not even talk about how 4a ends for regina but hey! regina could have even had a parallel with anna where their insta love partner falls through and they find a stronger bond with the family they found with kristoff & emma & the charmings (which neither of them expected) elsa & henry (which they never doubted but there’s sort of an “oh they really do love me back” moment with the regal believer porch scene from 4.02 and like. all of frozen). i think emma faired better than regina bc she had a storyline with her parents (as much as it sucks that s4 is the last time she has multi-episode arcs with them) while regina gets sidelined from the main story as she tries and fails to not have an affair with a man who’s wife she was trying to save from a magic coma. (which as much as i appreciate regina being noble and heroic in direct opposition to her own self interest showing her character growth, this would be even better if marian weren’t so literally fridged and (don’t even get me started on marilena i’m still pretending marian is alive and well and taking roland on camping trips)

edit: not to mention emma doing the anna thing where she’s relentlessly chasing regina and regina doing the elsa thing pushing emma away which is a direct reversal of emmas tendency to run away and reginas tendency to never let anything go ever and isn’t that interesting? but the family they have as sisters (elsa & anna) and as friends co-parents etc (emma & regina) is worth fighting for okay

#there were some really great moments between emma & her parents throughout the arc and between swan queen in breaking glass #and evil snowing in shattered sight but this just makes me ache for missed potential all the more #not even getting into ingrid and lily rn #oh i’m typing in the backseat of a car and getting a little carsick rn :|#but i had to get some thoughts out #anti oq #but pretty mildly #ouat critical #less mildly #text #swan queen #frozen #s4 #elsa & anna #parallels #okay #mine #tag essay #regular essay ig

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insomniamamma · 3 years

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Late Bloomers: Ezra x F! Reader w/Cee

A/n: Set in the "Liminal" AU in which Ezra becomes his niece, Cee's legal guardian after a car accident kills his brother, Damon, and costs him his arm. Set sometime between "Ferris Wheels Are For Old People" and "Surf City Goodness." Reader is Ezra's neighbor. Established relationship (sort of, IDK how to tag what they are). For @autumnleaves1991-blog and @clydesducktape Writer Wednesday.

Warnings: Not a whole lot. Kissing. Touching. A little spicier than I usually go, which isn't saying whole lot. A little language. Cee, as usual, needs her own warning. Set during the pandemic shut down. Mentions of covid. Also, I feel like 'The Apple' needs it's own warning. I'll link the trailer at the end.

"You sure you don't want to come with us, Birdie?" Cee sits at their scarred kitchen table, her laptop, textbooks and a pile of papers around her. She frowns. "I gotta study," she says, "Ms Stewart is really serious about this quiz. She's not grading on a curve this time." Ezra narrows his eyes. "You have never spent a Saturday night studying in your life," he says. Cee frowns up at him. "You've never been in Ms. Stewart's physics class," says Cee, "She's a hard ass. Anyway, I'm still pulling an 'A' in her class, but I don't want to fuck up my average." "Jesus, Cee," Ezra mutters, and you have to smile. She rolls her eyes. "I know, I know--" "Don't say 'fuck' at school," they say in unison. "They're doing double features all summer," says Cee, "I can miss one. I've seen all these movies anyway." She smirks, "I want to hear what you think of 'The Apple.'" Ezra rummages around for his keys and Cee drops you the most exaggerated wink you've ever seen in your life. "Have fun, guys," she says.

Covid has nuked most of the things you used to do for fun, restaurants and shows, hell, even the libraries are closed. The only business in town that's thriving is the Star-City Drive In. There haven't been any big studio releases in a while, so they've been doing Fright Night Fridays and Sci-Fi Saturdays. Tonight's double feature is Flash Gordon and The Apple. "They've got this weird way of operating the concession stand now," says Ezra, "Cause of the pandemic. You've gotta text them your order and I guess they bring it out to you--" Ezra's gotten pretty good at working his phone one-handed, but you can see the frustration clouding his face. "Let me," you say, loading the menu onto your phone, "Let's get a big popcorn and share it. You okay with the fake butter?" "Of course I'm okay with the fake butter, what kind of monster do you take me for?" "How about candy?" You ask, scrolling through, "It's the usual suspects." "Sno-caps," he says, "How about you?" "I'm thinking Milk Duds," you say. "Now that is an excellent way to lose a filling, Sunshine." "Popcorn and Milk Duds together? Worth the risk," you say and text your order off to the concession stand. It's not quite dark yet, a reel of movie trivia that no one cares about shines ghost pale on the screen. Ez has got the radio tuned to pick up the sound, but there's not much to listen to yet so it's turned down low, background noise with the cicadas and birdsong. The big screen backs up against a farmer's field run wild and a dark stand of trees. "Switch places with me," says Ezra, and gets out of the truck. He comes around to your side and opens the door for you. "Why?" "Indulge me," says Ezra, so you do as he asks and settle in to the driver's side. Ezra's truck has bench seats with vinyl that creaks and cushions that hiss slightly as you move around. There's a tap at the window and you hook your mask over your ears and crank it down, popcorn and candy and you already payed with your phone, but press some rumpled bills into their gloved hands. "Why'd you want to switch places?" You ask around a mouthful of popcorn. "Shhh," says Ezra, "The movie's starting."

Flash Gordon is just as fun as you remember it being, majestic in its absurdity, a big love letter to all the terrible pulp sci-fi movies that came before, the two of you watch and snark and laugh and sing "Aaa-ahhh" whenever someone says Flash's name. We owe it to Queen, you say, and Ezra smiles big the way he does when something's caught him off guard, the way that crinkles his eyes and reveals his dimples, indeed we do. We owe it to Freddie Mercury. At some point his arm finds it's way around your shoulders and you lean into him. "So this is why you wanted to switch spots," you murmur. He raises his prosthetic arm, flickering movie light shining on the double hook at the end. "Can't exactly get handsy with Mr. Claw, now can I?" He grins, "These hooks might be a little chilly." "And pokey," you say, demonstrating with a dig to his ribs. The end credits are rolling. "You ever seen this next movie?" "The Apple?" He says, "No. Some sort of cult-movie thing. Cee made me promise not to IMDB it. She said I should go in with an open mind." "Oh boy," you laugh. "Right? Cee's tastes are all over the place. I suspect this will be either amazing or terrible on a scale that recalibrates our internal gauge of what terrible is." "You know she set us up, right?" "Yeah," says Ezra, "Little Bird fancies herself quite the matchmaker." "She winked at me." Ezra dimples. "Did she now?" "She looked like a cartoon," you laugh, "About as subtle as a ton of bricks." Ezra brays laughter and leans against you, squeezes you closer to him at the same time. He is beautiful when he laughs, all dimples and teeth eyes screwed shut in mirth and you take this opportunity to press a kiss against that tender place on his jaw where his beard refuses to grow. Ezra freezes, you feel his body go rigid against yours, and your first thought is to apologize, to pull back, and then he reaches for you, his broad, calloused palm cradling your face, drawing you to him, presses his lips to yours, a soft, reverent kiss that he does not fully withdraw from, his hand now resting on the nape of your neck, forehead pressed to yours, somehow more intimate than a kiss, this closeness, breathing each others exhalations, leaning against each other. "Cee's not wrong," you say, "We're good together." "We are, aren't we?" He gives your nape a gentle squeeze, and lets you go. The opening titles of The Apple flicker on screen and the music starts up.

"Oh, Ezra, what the fuck did we just watch?" "I don't know if 'watch' is the right word, Sunshine, we did not 'watch' The Apple. The Apple happened to us." "I don't think I've ever understood Stockholm syndrome until now." "I have been assaulted," says Ezra, "My civil rights have been violated." "It's like..." You trail off, "It's like if someone took '1984', 'A Star Is Born' and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' and put them in a blender. I'm pretty sure this movie violates the Geneva conventions." Ezra laughs and so do you, leaning in to each other, giggles that become kisses, soft at first, but increasingly hungry, laced with need, your arms twine around his shoulders, his hand lingers at your side, toying with the hem of your shirt. "S'okay, Ez," you say as he nips at your jaw and then your neck, gentle graze of teeth that makes you shiver, "You can touch me." He kisses you deep, his tongue fever-hot against yours, hand sliding up the soft slope of your belly, cupping your breast, and you arch into his touch-- Tap Tap Tap. And there's a bright light shining through the passenger's side window. "Oh shit," says Ezra. You frantically yank your shirt back down, heat creeping up your neck, your cheeks, your earlobes flaming. "Movie's over guys," says the shadowed figure behind the flashlight's glare, "Take it someplace else." You open the door to switch places back with Ezra, the overhead light shows him red faced and horrified. "I'm sorry, I just--" "Get us out of here, Ez."

You stare out into the dark past the window, half-moon shining over fields and trees like a lazy eye. You snort laughter. "What's so funny?" "We got caught," you say, "We got caught necking at the drive-in like a couple of teenagers." "You're laughing because we got caught?" "I'm laughing because I've never made out with anyone at a drive-in, even when I was a teenager, and I'm laughing cause we got caught. After watching that trash-fire of a movie. We got caught making out over the end credits of 'The Apple'. I feel like we deserve some kind of award." You rest your hand on Ezra's leg, can just pick his smile in the dim lights from the dash. Ezra chuckles. "I never made out with anyone at the drive in before tonight either," says Ezra. "Bullshit," you say, and give him a good-natured poke. "It's true," he says, "For one, I didn't have access to a car. I would've had to borrow Ma's car, and there was no way that was ever going to happen. Also, I was not what the girls back then referred to as 'dating material'. Skinny as a rake with a mouthful of braces and an obvious birthmark? I was like a puppy trying to grow into it's ears and feet, a late bloomer if you will." You move your hand higher up along his thigh and give him a squeeze. "Better late than never." "Indeed."

Flash Gordon Trailer

The Apple Trailer

#writer wednesday #ezra x f!reader #ezra prospect x f!reader #ezra (prospect) x f!reader #ezra and cee

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sabraeal · 3 years

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All That Remains, Chapter 8: The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure [Part 5]

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2021, Day 3: Strength Upright: Compassion, Courage, Self-Control Reversed: Weakness, Doubt, Discord

Once upon a time, a troll makes a mirror.

Is that not how we started this story, so long ago? How so many start: a vile creature forges an object. Who and what change in the telling; a troll makes a mirror, a god conjures a box, knowledge grows in a garden. In the end, it is all the same: what is once contained is opened, unwitting. Or lost, foolishly, in a heart so cold and cruel that it becomes bent to another purpose entirely.

But that is merely an allegory, a fiction composed to cover the raw edges we leave when we rub against each other. For that is the truth, is it not? There is no fell creature, no capricious and omnipotent beings to blame for our misery. There is only us, carving our place in our story by smoothing pieces off another. A snow queen is not made from frost and cold but by the blades of others, slicing slivers from her flesh until only ice remains.

That is the truth we cannot bear: the only monsters we face are the ones we have made. The only poisons we drink are those human hands have brewed.

And it starts like this, always: a girl in a garden, remembering the image of a rose, and wondering, how could I have I forgotten?

“You were quiet at dinner tonight.” Shirayuki hasn’t been at court long-- or rather, in court, privy to all its secret signals and capricious undercurrents-- but she knows that this is as close to an “are you all right?” as Haki can come. If confrontation is only allowed the glint of a knife, affection is stifled to a hint of warmth, a fire made in a room one is forbidden to venture. “I hope that the meal agreed with you.”

A flash of pharmacy white flutters at the corner of her vision, frustratingly out of reach. It’s been so long since she’s been there, since she’s thought of anything but silverware and schottische; when she tries it’s like a hundred voices shouting at once, each demanding to be heard. Just like being at Lilias, heads bent over a knotty problem--

“Shirayuki.” The consort does not crouch; it’s best, Lady Mihoko often remind her, to pretend one has no anatomy beneath the waist. But Haki does perch on a cushioned stool, her brows drawn tight over the elegant line of her nose. “You are not...indisposed, I hope?”

A solid shake dispels the fog mired around her. “What? Oh, no! I only...” It would be a mistake to speak of loam between her fingers, of the satisfaction of hearing a pod snap from its stalk. “I didn’t have much to say with my, erm, conversational partners.”

Royal brows raise to stunned arches. “Is that so? I would have thought you’d find much in common with Lord Kazunori and Lord Seiichii.”

They had both been older men, southern lords drawn to court for Seiran’s summit. Kind enough, but they spoke to her as they would their own daughters, which is to say: warmly, but brief. Not of any topics that one might sink their teeth into, lest it leaving lines around her mouth.

“I think they were more interested in talking to each other than to me,” she admits. In part because of her sex, and in part because-- well, her body may have been in that chair, obscuring the twining gods and goddess painted across it, but her mind had been a wing away, wondering if it was yet time to harvest the roku berries, or whether this year’s crop of apprentices knew akegi from yura shigure. “It seems there’s much to discuss before they all meet for, ah...discussion.”

Haki hands her a rueful smile. “There always is.” With a sigh, she sweeps to standing, as statuesque as any marble in Wistal’s halls. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it. I’ll have to ask the majordomo to find you some more scintillating seatmates tomorrow.”

“Ah..!” Tomorrow. Never had a day seemed so far away, so much more than a handful of hours between dawn and dusk. At Lilias, the nights had wavered between seasons, some so short she hardly slept between sun set and rise; and others so long that she woke in darkness, only to leave the lab in the same. But still, none seemed so long as this, and for no reason at all.

“Is something wrong?” Haki turns to her again, concern rumpling the curved lines of her mouth. “Do you have plans...?”

“No!” Shirayuki rushes to assure her. “It’s only...you mentioned dinner, and suddenly I felt so...”

“Weary?” Haki offers, when she won’t. Her eyes soften with mouth to match, smile turning her from heavenly to beatific. “I’m not surprised. You have been hard at work these last few months.”

And hardly anything to show for it, in Lady Mihoko’s learned opinion. Shirayuki bites back a groan. She would be sixty before that woman found her approaching passable, and even then, she still wouldn’t be good enough for a prince’s wife. Not when his children might have some chance, no matter how slim, of seating their sullied bloodline on the throne of Clarines.

“Perhaps you have earned a break.” Shirayuki blinks, staring up into the consort’s glowing face. “A private dinner seems in order. A night of no pressure of expectation.”

It sounds too good to be true. “Oh, no! I couldn’t--”

“Give me but a moment.” Haki hesitates at the door to her boudoir, lips lifted in an impish grin. “Perhaps my good brother might find himself available as well?”

Her mouth snaps shut. It’s been ages since she saw Zen, just the two of them. He came to dinner rarely-- understandable, with the summit only weeks away, and entirely under his purview, despite Seiran’s tacit position as host-- and where he went, Mitsuhide and Kiki went too. Haki had been her closest companion these past few weeks, the only friendly face, but Shirayuki longed for someone who didn’t look at her and see a princess, but--

Nervous energy courses through her, jolting her to her feet. Her hands itch, wanting for something to do, and with no plants to hand, they land upon the package on the receiving table. It’s wrapped in humble brown paper, folds clean and crisp, twine tightly tied. Haki’s medication, she realizes, dropping it from her numb hands. Made in the pharmacy. There’s a note on top-- instructions. She’d recognize them anywhere; after all, she’d written more than a few of them herself.

It’s curiosity that makes her pluck it from where it sits. It’s been ages since she’s been in the lab, but her knowledge hasn’t faded; there’s no harm in seeing whether there are any mistakes. An apprentice could have made this, after all. The dose does, as Garack was so fond of saying, make the poison.

She flips open the card, already flushed with the thought of being useful, but--

It’s not some apprentice’s writing at all. Oh no, she knows this spidery scrawl all too well. It was on every jar at her bench, every treatise she read late into the night.

It’s Ryuu’s.

Ignorance is bliss, they say. Always with a laugh, but stewing beneath it is envy and longing in equal measure. A pining for times past, for a childhood never quite as innocent as we remember.

For that is what we miss: innocence. Not the not-knowing, but state of not needing to know. The trust we felt towards those who always knew in our stead, who kept us safe from the dangers that pressed in around us. The ones who protected us with little lies; the small pauses to omit what might scare us, the careful editing to make our worlds the giddy fantasy we dreamed.

But there comes a day where all children must grow up. There is a day we must know these things for ourselves, so that we may see the world with clear eyes. For even innocence can be a cage, should some other hand try to lock you within it.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, but oh, only if they can keep you from knowing what it is you do not know.

May I ask you a question? the little girl asks, her gaze no longer on the garden, but the horizon beyond. It is bent in her vision, the glass made in such a way that each diamond blows out the edges, warping the world around it. She had never noticed when she looked only at the garden so near to it, but now...

Now the imperfection is all she can see.

Anything, the sorceress replies, her fingers wrapping around the caps of her shoulders. They’re cold, as cold as the glass beneath her palms.

The girl looks at their reflection, at the way the wave of the glass make those fingers bleed into talons. Where have the roses gone?

Shirayuki’s hands tremble, her eyes tracing every last loop, every hurried curve. “I didn’t...”

Haki peers around the jamb, letter folded in her hand. “Did you say something, my dear?”

This is the closest she’s been to Ryuu in months; even from where she holds it, the scene of lavender and akegi shigure waft from its paper. Not scented, not on purpose, but just from being left in a desk’s cubbyhole with his hastily tidied samples. His parchment smelt the same in Lilias, fragrant as the hothouses themselves.

Her chest can hardly contain her breath. “I didn’t realize that Ryuu was overseeing your treatment.”

A shadow flickers over the sorceress’s face, her grip painful for but a moment before she is her usual smiling self. A moment that could have been imagined, if only the girl was so sure it was not.

Roses? the sorceress asks airily. I’ve never grown any roses.

“Excuse me?”

“It only makes sense,” Shirayuki hurries to add, placing the card back atop the package. “He’s taken over for Chief Garack, and she always oversaw the royal--”

“Shirayuki.” Her name is firm from Haki’s lips, just shy of a scold. “I’m quite sorry but...who are you talking about?”

So many tales speak of trust as a blade, one that may be used to cut, that breaks when forged from brittle iron. A weapon, wielded and forgotten on the battlefield once the story is done.

But you and I know better: trust is a spell, woven to protect. It is a shield, unseen but always felt; sense by faith and not by fingers. And when it wavers, it does not break, does not shatter like a blade upon a stone; no, nothing so dramatic as that. Instead, it frays, unwoven one thread at a time, unnoticed until--

Until the hole can no longer be ignored.

She doesn’t leave the consort’s chambers meaning to break her curfew; oh no, when the door closes behind her, Shirayuki has every intention to head straight to her own. Her feet drag beneath her, weary from contorting herself into a mold that barely fits. There’s nothing she’d like more than to divest herself of all these courtly trappings and pass effortlessly into oblivion.

But she turns a corner, her mental map of the palace resolving, and she realizes: in one direction is her room, and in the other, the pharmacy. It’s late, but Ryuu would still be there, committing his last-minute thoughts to page while the offices emptied around him. She misses him, a longing so intense it aches.

It would only be a short visit. If Izana brought her before him in the morning, trying to act as both judge and jury-- well, Ryuu would be her physician, once she and Zen finally managed to make it down the aisle hand-in-hand. It only made sense to keep a cordial relationship with the man who would bear the next branch of the Wisteria tree into the world.

And if she missed him, the boy who straddled the line of friend and brother and son both-- there was no need to explain that to the king. It wasn’t as if Izana made a habit of confessing his ulterior motives to her. Though strangely, she thought he might understand that better than anyone.

Or all but one. And he...

Well, if there was a single person who might know where he went besides her, her feet were carrying her to him now/.

Were you to ask the girl, she would say she had not chosen night on purpose. The sorceress had housed her, fed her, loved her in her way; even with the image of the rose burned behind her eyes, she trusted her still, in the desperate way one does when one knows they should not, but cannot bear to contemplate why.

Opportunity chooses for her; the late afternoon sun burns hot, and when they finish their dinner, the sorceress excuses herself to lay down in the dark, to merely rest her eyes-- and does not wake, not even when the door creaks as the girl slips around it. The moon guides her steps when she walks into the garden, bright as the day itself, but she does not need it: her feet carrying her better than memory could.

There is one there, just as there was this morning: a petal, pink and sweet, fragrance so familiar she knew it even without sight.

Come out, she murmurs, digging her hands into the earth. Come out my lovely, my dear. I have been searching just for you.

A tendril spirals up from the ground, tentative. It flips and flaps, and oh, she is too shocked, too awed to help it. Even still, it finds her, wrapping around her finger, and with a single drop of blood the bush emerges, whole and dirt-smeared, from the soil.

What, it murmurs, impatience tinging its words, took you so long?

In the day, the pharmacy is all rush and chaos: apprentices burning tinctures and ushering patients to their rooms; masters emptying drawers as soon as they are filled, only for other herbalists to hurry to replace them. Guards arrive with injuries and nobles with ailments, no moment ever dull while the doors are open.

But at this hour, when the lords and ladies are all tucked in their beds-- or are at least pretending to be-- and the work is done, the pharmacy sleeps. There is no herbalist at the front desk, only the push bell Ryuu despised when she was his apprentice, since it always meant she would be pulled away from him or he away from his project.

A necessary nuisance, he called it once, and Obi had laughed. Just like me, eh, Miss?

She no longer remembers what she said-- it was early enough when he was one still, though she’d like to think she was too kind to say it-- but now she wishes, even if just for a moment, that she could tell him how much of a gift he was to her. How much he had made tedium bearable, even when she hadn’t known it for what it was.

Instead she bites her lips, rubbing at the ache in her breast. It’s hardly the first time she’s forgotten to say what matters, but-- but this won’t be her last chance. Obi might be away now, but he will be found, and she will tell him...

Everything. Every last thought she had since the moment they last spoke; her apologies and her worries, her failures and her triumphs. Because Obi hearing them-- that’s what makes them real.

Her hand wraps around the third door’s knob by habit; even now she expects to open it and see her projects spilled across her desk, to see a curtain closed beneath the other, and a window open between them. To see it waiting for her the way her heart waits for them, empty and waiting to be filled.

But there’s nothing of them there anymore. Nothing besides memories that no longer fit over the space it has become.

Her feet carry her onward, down to the last room, a sliver of light slipping across the hall where it’s been left ajar. She still expects to see a curled mass of blonde hair bent over the desk, long tables sprawled with books and half-finished studies, a bottle of roka medicinally sitting in the corner. But instead--

Instead it is a dark one, a riotous shrubbery of walnut and teak in desperate need of pruning. That had been her job in Lilias, along with Yuzuri’s helpful hands, but is seems no one here has yet talked the Chief Herbalist to task.

Give it a few years, Garack would tell her, and he’ll have herbalists as eager to get into his hair as you three were with me.

She leans against the jamb, a sigh slipping past where her heart clogs her throat. Ryuu had once fit beneath a desk half this size, and now he towers over it even seated, looking more and more like Shidan with each passing day, a man overgrown by time and deadlines.

“Ryuu.” It’s a palpable hit when their eyes meet. Everything else about him might change, but that gaze, so wide and thoughtful-- that never does.

Until now. One moment they spark, a fire lit behind blue glass, and the next...

It gutters, his gaze slipping away.

“Shirayuki.” His voice is so much deeper than in her memory, so much older. And colder too. “Excuse me, Lady Shirayuki. Is there something you need?”

“No.” She clings to the doorway, too aware of how fine her dress is, of how little it belongs in this place, his sanctum sanctorum. How little she belong here, now. “I saw a card you wrote to the consort, and I...wanted to see you.”

“A card?” His eyebrows twitch; she can no longer tell if it’s in surprise or confusion, not on this stranger’s face. “Ah. The powder for her migraines. Did you want some as well?”

“No, I’m-- I’m well.” It feels like a lie, even as she says it. It wouldn’t have, only hours ago. “I just...I’m here for you.”

His knuckles blanch where he grips his pencil. “Well, you’ve seen me. I trust you know your way out.”

You’re too late, too late, the roses say, their sing-song jangling in her ears. I’ve been hidden away for so long, and even now I cannot find him. The betrayal in their voice is thick when they ask, How could you forget us, your flower and your boy, when we have always grown together?

“Ryuu.” It leaves her lips cracked, broken; her mouth no longer knows how to form the shape that calls to him. “I know it’s been...a while, but please don’t think that I didn’t want to-- that I wasn’t thinking about you. I just...”

His pencil pauses on the page, but he does not speak. He just looks at her, the way he would at a stranger, and this room is suddenly a desert and ocean both, too far and deep to go by foot alone.

Still, there is nothing she will not brave, not for him. “It was hard to come,” she admits. “I’m not allowed in the gardens, and I’m not allowed to take patients. Coming here, watching everyone working the way I always have...”

It would have been like watching someone eat a feast while she was starving.

His eyes soften, even if they don’t precisely thaw. “I know that you’re marrying the prince, and that you don’t have time for m--” his lips press tight-- “this. I’m not upset because you’ve set your career aside.”

“But you are...” Her words limp as she says them, wounded fawns searching of an elusive mother. “You are upset.”

His hands flex as he places them on the wood, utterly silent. “I knew...” he breathes, so harsh it scrapes her own throat too. “I knew you’d have to give things up--important things. But...”

Ryuu had always spoken slowly, thoughtfully. But still, these moments when he meant what he said, when he composed rather than conversed-- it had never taken him to long to tell her what he meant. He trusted her, knew that even if his words came out garbled or his message was lost in a sea of ellipses, she would salvage it, gluing it back together with his intention.

So when he sits silent, it wounds her almost as much as his words.

At last his gaze lifts again from his work, but the glare he fixes on her-- “But I never thought you’d let one of them be Obi.”

Her mouth works, but the well from which she draws her reason is empty, leaving only pain in its wake.

“I didn’t...I didn’t let him leave,” she murmurs, more wind than whisper. “He never told me he was going. He just left without even...”

Saying goodbye. As if all these years had meant nothing at all.

“There’s a guardsman,” she says instead, her voice trembling toward something approaching even. “He said he saw Obi leave with--” a woman-- “someone.”

Ryuu grunts.

“He ran off with Torou, once.” She wants the words to come easy, but each one emerges from her trembling, the way her fingers are against her skirts. “On the way back from Tanbarun. That’s...that’s probably what this is. An old friend that needs help, and then he’ll come right back--.”

“He won’t.”

Each breath is a stab, deep in her chest. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” He stands; a production with how much of him there is now. Cautiously, his hand extends, a fist hovering over the knotted wood of his desk.

It takes all her courage to take the first step, and all of it again to take the next. On and on until she’s crossed the room, hand outstretched, quivering beneath his own.

His palm opens, and into hers falls...a seed. Tiny. Blue. As clear as glass.

“An orbia seed?” Shirayuki lifts it up to the light, the plumule a hazy bead nestled in its luminous cotyledon. It’s impossible to tell by sight, but still, she’s sure-- it would germinate, if she planted it. “I was collecting these before we left.”

“I know.”

“It’s funny,” she murmurs, a smile lifting her mouth. “I never did find a blue one.”

“I know.” His explanation comes in fits and starts, a path never worn in the telling. “I had one. I gave it to Obi.”

“You...?” The thought catches in the light, just like the seed between her fingers. “Oh. Oh. But...” Her mouth curls, a silent question: why?

“I don’t know. I thought he might...” Ryuu’s shoulders twitch, as narrow as Obi’s when he first blew in with the wind. Before he settled into the man he became. “When he was ready...”

Of course. Her hand closes tight around the seed. Obi had what she needed all along. And she’d never known, not until...

Not until he was gone. “Where--?”

“I found it on my desk.” Ryuu’s fingers flex, falling by his side. “The morning after he left.”

Where did he go? the little girl asks, desperation choking her as surely as her tears. Where can I find him?

How should I know? the roses reply, thorns in their words as well as their stems. You are the one who left me buried under the ground. How could I watch him when you let us be trapped together?

“Did you...” Her mouth works, cutting itself against her question. “Did you tell Zen’s men, when they came? Do they know that he...?”

Said goodbye, she cannot say, to someone at least.

“No.” Ryuu blinks, his eyes as round and innocent and blue as ever. “They never did. Come by I mean.”

This is not the first time we have spoken of betrayal, is it? Of the wound that never heals, the jagged cut that scabs over only to be ripped open anew. The injury that teaches one to be wary, lest one be inflicted again.

But that is only after the wound is made. When it is first done...

Well, it is strange how long a heart can bear a blade through it without ever feeling the killing stroke.

“You are thinking,” Haruka remarks, with no small amount of disapproval. “I can tell.”

Shirayuki blinks down at her place setting, expecting to see broth dripped across the tablecloth, or perhaps the edge of her sleeve dipped in yolk, maybe even her tea dribbling over the edge of her cup--

But there is nothing. The white linen is pristine beneath her gold-rimmed plate, her sleeves and elbows tucked up and off the table, and if anything, her beverages of choice are picturesque in their vessels, juice beading with moisture and tea gently steaming. “What am I doing wrong?”

It, historically, has been the wrong question to ask the marquis, sure to send him into a silent huff that will stretch from first course to fifth, disapproval deepening with each sorbet. In his vaunted opinion, the fact her inexperience might cause her to trespass the unspoken rules of good manners is bad enough, but to not know precisely when and how it was done-- now that was truly unforgivable.

However, today he merely settles back in his seat, rubbing his fingers against the cloth tucked over his lap, and fixes her with his unerring gaze. She doesn’t shrink beneath it; oh no, instead something in her chest shifts, almost as if-- as if it grows.

His lips twitch, just the slightest upward tremor. “Nothing.”

Her mouth opens, then closes, stymied. “Then how did you know?”

A single, noble arch lifts. “Because you have never once stopped.”

It is to the tiger-lily the little girl turns, after the roses. They are a pompous flower, no doubt, as proud and self-important as any big cat, but despite their bluster, they are honest. The noblest flower in this garden, hearty and constant, and though they sniff when she kneels down upon their bed, dirtying her hem, they listen.

Have you seen him? she asks, heart lodged tight in her throat. Have you seen my precious boy?

“So what is it,” Haruka murmurs into his glass, “that has you so engrossed, young lady?”

Her lips press together, teeth plucking at the scar. “You told me once that I should know who is my ally, and who is my-- Zen’s.”

The rim has hardly touched his lips, but Haruka sets down the crystal, hands folding behind his plate. “I did.”

“But those are not the one two options, are they.” It’s not a question, not anymore. “Sometimes they may seem to be one or the other, or both at the same time, but really-- it’s their own, isn’t it? Everyone is just trying to do what they think best.”

“That is...” The marquis takes in a steady breath. “A very mature way to see a frustrating problem.”

“The consort has said that she is my friend,” she says slowly, each word shaken loose from her heart. “But she is also lying to me.”

“Is she?”

Haruka, she had said once, these long skirts tangled around her legs, binding fast as any chain, he’s hard to read.

Is he? Zen’s hand was cold against hers, like touching marble. Izana’s had been the same so many years ago; she wonders if it might be a problem with their circulation, perhaps passed down from a parent, but this doesn’t seem the time to ask about his mother’s medical history. He’s always seemed clear as crystal to me.

Though, he continues, mouth set in a rueful grin. After a childhood of lectures, maybe it’s easier. I can tell how stupid he thinks I am just from the degree of his eyebrows.

His brow is furrowed now, a tight knot over the bridge of his nose. There’s no angle, no lift, and Shirayuki isn’t quite sure what that might say about his perception of her intelligence. If it were anyone else, she might even call it concern.

“Is she lying to you,” he asks, posing it like Lata when he wants to ask something particularly perverse as a rhetorical. “Or are you not asking the right questions?”

Her fingers clench tight on her lap, linen rucking up between her fingers. She likes this far less than Lata’s. “Your Grace...”

Now his brows raise, shock stark on his face, “Yes, Miss Shirayuki?”

“Do you...?” The words stick in her mouth; to ask them is to admit defeat. No-- distrust. That the best interests everyone has been working towards are not her own. “Do you know where Obi is?”

I have seen no precious boy, the tiger lily trumpets, as proud as ever. Only a little girl loved by all who see her. How lucky she is to garner such attention!

I care not for me, the little girls mutters, impatient. Where do you think he has gone?

Away, away. The flower bobs beneath its own self-importance. He has been taken away. Down and gone and buried with the roses. Perhaps you are the better for it.

“No.” It’s the truth; he wouldn’t bother to lie to her. “As of now, his location is unknown, even to the king himself.”

She licks her lips, nails biting into her thigh. The orbia seed burns a hole in her hip. “Are they looking for him?”

A shadow ripples over his face, gone before she can follow it to its source. “Someone might be.”

“I mean Zen,” she clarifies. “Or Izana.”

“I know,” he replies, voice impossibly gentle from such a forbidding mouth. “I think we’re ready for the next course, don’t you?”

Innocence and ignorance, truth and illusion, trust and betrayal-- we have meditated upon each, as if they are but separate concepts that can be held to the light and have each facet revealed in turn. But surely you seen that they have all brought us here, to this part, to this singular place: a knife buried in a breast, a garden made into a cage. A girl in each, who has finally seen the truth beneath the illusion.

We should rejoice, should we not? For these girls who might free themselves, might heal themselves? But yet you do not, do you? For you know the trick of it:

A wound does not truly begin to bleed until the blade is removed. And a girl like this--

Ah, her hand is already at the hilt.

For once, Shirayuki is relieved that it is her round-faced guard that awaits her and not a more experienced one. Or worse yet, Kiki, who would anticipate her before she could get a word in edgewise.

But luck is on her side; this dear boy springs from his place on the wall, every muscle tense with anticipation, quivering to do his duty, and she-- she is ready to take advantage of it.

“Ready, my lady?” he asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet, a hound eager to be given his leash. “It’s off to the ballroom next, isn’t it? With Master--?”

“Not today,” Shirayuki informs him swiftly. “I need you to take me to the king.”

The color leaches from his face. “The...the k-king?”

She nods, tight, officious. The sort Lady Mihoko gave her maids; the sort that belonged alongside a command obeyed.

“But, my lady...” He shuffles on his feet, loath to disappoint her. “Don’t you need an appointment to see His Majesty? I don’t think you can just go right in and--”

She’s already walked past him, chin held high. “He’ll see me.”

It may seem humble before the dawn, its petals as rumpled as bedsheets, drawn over its head like a child-- but when the sun casts its fiery crown over the garden, it is the convolvulus that is ascendant. It needs no dazzling pattern, no fanciful pinwheel of petal and sepal to make itself stand above its floral brethren, but only purity of color. For there is no other here that is so purely white, that has a color so simply blue. The tiger lily might roar among the plots, but it is to the convolvulus it bends, when it rises from its nightly slumber.

The little girl watches as the sleep falls from its petals, witness to its splendor. What, it asks, ruffling its delicate mane, could have made you seek me out, girl?

There is a not-insignificant portion of her life that has been spent waiting; not in the way of most of her colleagues-- for water to boil, or a titration to drip, or even for a letter of acceptance to arrive-- but for men with nothing else to recommend them but birth to decide they’re bored enough to receive the royal pharmacist. Shidan had called it fundraising and Kazaha glad-handing, but Shirayuki can admit now, as she flies past Izana’s steward, leaving him and her guard in her wake, what it really is:

Insulting.

The view always arrests her when she enters the royal solar, and this morning is no different; the sun setting, finishing its bright arc through the sky, but the angle of it, with the windows as they are-- it sets the king’s hair alight, a halo burning.

A target, she names grimly; and she the arrow. With his steward calling her name behind her, she takes a determined step toward him.

“Have you not heard then?” Izana asks, hardly bothering to look up from his papers. “I already approved your request to be excused from dinner.”

Shirayuki hauls up short, skirts swishing around her ankles. “Dinner?”

“Yes.” His brows raise, as does his gaze, already bored. “My brother already spoke about at length this morning. So if you seek to move me as well, please note that I have already stepped aside.”

“I...” She blinks. “I wasn’t here for that.”

Interest sparks in his eyes, quick as a struck match. “Then by all means, scold away. At least--” his mouth quirks, too amused-- “I assume that is your intention, marching into my office unannounced as you are.”

“Forgive me.” The steward presses a hand to his heaving breast. “Mistress Shirayuki--”

“It a force of nature,” his master replies, mouth curling like parchment corners. “So I have often had occasion to find out. You may leave us.”

“Your Majesty--” Izana merely lifts his brows, and the man stutters to a stop. “Of course. As you wish.”

“Now,” he hums as the doors close. “Just which wind sent this storm spinning into my office?”

Bound here you might be, but I know the trick of this place, the girl says, kneeing at the bed’s edge. What roots grow here touch the roots of all the morning’s glory. And you who wake with the sun-- you keep the closest watch on the horizon.

If there are any in the garden who know of my precious boy, she continues, the breeze rippling the convolvulus’s ruff. It would be you. So tell me, please...have you see him?

“It’s Obi,” she admits, heat stinging her cheeks. “I want to know the, er, status of the search.”

Izana blinks.

Oh, how kind it would be if this confusion was feigned, if it were all just a show to drag out her loyalties; to force her to admit that even if Zen was her heart, she could not turn her back on her home. That this was simply another moment where she would show him that friendship was strength, and the walls he erected himself were merely a folly.

But there is no smug satisfaction buoying his words when he asks, “The search? Didn’t Sir Obi leave my brother’s employ months ago? The beginning of the summer, I believe--”

“He didn’t quit,” Shirayuki insists, even as the seed weighs heavy between her skirts. “He disappeared, and Zen said he had put men out to search for him.”

A flower has no face, but the girl need no smile, no hooded eyes to discern the sorrowful bent of its stem.

I am but the morning’s glory, the convolvulus sighs, and when the night comes, I fold myself tight. Your boy does not pass me in my waking hours, so perhaps it is that he travels in the night.

But what does that mean? asks the girl. Why would he only travel at night? He is but a boy, a boy, and he walks in day.

The convolvulus is quiet, swaying in the garden’s eternal summer. I do not know, he admits. I do not know at all.

“Ah.” His eyes soften, no longer the unrelenting velvet of the night, but the waves of deep water, and Shirayuki finally has cause to find out: to experience Izana’s pity is a thousand times worse than his disdain. “I am not privy to the movement of my brother’s men, so long as I do not need them in attendance. He must not have put in his last report...”

“Please.” Her hand flies up between them, earning her an incredulous lift of a brow. “It only makes it worse that you are being decent about it.”

His laugh surprises her. “So you’d like me to gloat?”

“No.” Her breath saws out of her, great heaves that shake her shoulders. “I want you to grant me leave to find him.”

“You?” His brows raise, even his eyes widen, but to his credit, he does not ask, but what could you do? Instead his mask settles back over his face without a ripple, the king staring out from behind it. “It would be a waste. I have heard from your tutors that you are making good progress. Lady Mihoko even ventured to say you might make a passable princess, if you pushed out an heir fast enough.”

Her mouth twitches. Only yesterday, she would have nearly fainted with relief, but today-- “What praise.”

There’s a stern tilt to his mouth, a forbidding set to his eyebrows; if she didn’t know any better, Shirayuki would call it concern. “As I recall, our agreement did address this.”

“Then you mean...?”

“Yes.” He nods, splaying his palms across his desk, almost as if he were bracing himself. “If you leave the palace grounds, you forfeit your chance to be the one at my brother’s side. A princess leaves such things in the hands of her guardsmen--” his mouth twitches-- “and her husband.”

You want her to go, do you not? Even now you quiver at the edge of your seat, begging this little girl to open her eyes, to keep them open, to see through the illusion and run as fast as she can. You want her to leave the garden, to break through the last of this enchantment and leave safety behind.

But tell me, what would you do, with the knife quivering it in your chest? To forget it is to live with the pain. To remove it is to be free.

An easy choice, you might say. Who could live with a blade in their breast? Ah, but do not forget:

There is no way to know if the wound is fatal until the knife is removed.

“There is something I wonder, Mistress Shirayuki.”

His musings shatter the brittle silence between them; that fragile bulwark that has kept her in his skin. Now that it’s gone, she trembles, every muscle in her body fighting the urge to cross the king’s study and shake him until decency falls it.

A hopeless quest if there ever was one. “Is there something else you could possibly say to me?”

She says it sweetly; most would hear only that-- the tone rather than the content. But Izana has not sat so long on his father’s throne by being that sort of man; no, his mouth curls, amused.

“No. It’s only...” he hums, gaze lifting from his paper. “I wonder when you started to think Obi left.”

Then what do you know? the girl says, anger and bile rising in her tone. What good are you?

A flower cannot smile, but she feels teeth when it replies, I know that it will cost you, and cost you dear.

Izana might as well have struck her. Shirayuki rocks back on her heels, only just catching herself before she trips over her own hem. “I-I...what do you...?”

“When you came in here, you first talked as you had before.” Long fingers knit beneath his chin, though he does not deign to rest on them, not alert as he is. A cat before a kill, still toying with with the prey between his paws. “You insisted on his disappearance-- the implication being, of course, that you deny his own agency in his departure. Kidnapping or coercion, one might say.”

She cannot see its teeth, but Shirayuki isn’t so foolish to believe there is no trap. “Y-yes..”

“But now you come to me and ask after my men.” His mouth quirks. “You ask for my permission.”

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?” she asks, fingers clenching in her skirts. “A princess wouldn’t depart without the approval of her liege.”

“Of course.” He waves a hand, as if all those rules she spent late nights learning mean nothing at all, as if they were worth less than the paper on which they had been printed. “A princess would. But you, Miss Shirayuki, you--” his eyes spark, the way she only saw that night in Lilias as he closed the gates-- “you jump from windows. You follow a flower into a cave. If you truly believed your companion in danger, I doubt there is a single promise that would keep you by my side.”

She cannot breathe, let alone hazard an answer. Not when even a flutter of an eyelash could give her away.

“Which begs the question, doesn’t it?” His gaze fixes her to where she stand, pins through a moth’s wings. “Just what reason would make him leave?”

Me? the girl cries, already thinking of her lovely red shoes, of the boat they bought her down the river. Why me?

Because my dear, the convolulus hums. It is your fault that he has left.

The doors swing open, and the steward steps inside, sparing her an infuriatingly smug glance. “Sir Lowen, Your Majesty.”

“A moment,” the king tells him, “Mistress Shirayuki and I are nearly done her.”

The man nods. “I will tell him to await your will.”

Shirayuki blinks. “What--?” It’s trial to catch her breath, to make her heart stop pounding in her breast. “What is Mitsuhide doing here?”

“You need an escort to your dinner, do you not? I thought he would be the most palatable option for you.” Izana fixes her with a meaningful look. “I do hope you find your answers, Mistress Shirayuki.”

You don’t know me. Obi’s gaze is raw in her memory, too gold. You don’t know anything about me.

You know how he is. Zen’s smile curls at the edges, brittle, like parchment pasted to vellum. Obi has always come back on his own before.

Zen will take care of it. Mitsuhide won’t meet her gaze. I’m sure Obi will be back any day now.

“Don’t worry.” It’s a miracle that the words don’t catch between her teeth, the way she’s clenching them. “I will.”

A hand wraps around a hilt. A breath shudders. And with one, swift tug--

The blade moves but an inch.

#obiyukiweek21 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #All That Remains #snow queen au #ans #YET ANOTHER CHAPTER #WHERE I DO NOT REACH THE END OF THIS PART #it's coming guys #really it is...#...one day....#but at least you get this small glimmer of hope #FOR NOW

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pokeasleepingsmaug · 3 years

Text

Agrotera

Based off this post . I also started a companion piece to it about Apollo doing music therapy with the girls and his redemption arc for all his problematic rapey actions in the past, so I can post that too if you’re interested.

Artemis doesn’t quite remember when Apollo traded his golden bow for something smaller, sleeker, easier to conceal and faster to fire, but she’ll never get used to the gleam of the pistol at his hip, and she’ll never relinquish her prized silver bow. She worked too hard to perfect her skill with it over the long millenia, brought down too many enemies with it, and cried out in a hunter’s triumph when her arrows struck true. She still uses the hand-draw technique like the archers of old, eschews the use of a quiver because they’re clumsy and slow her down when she’s in pursuit. Easier to hold her arrows in the hand that holds the bowstring.

Archery is an art that’s been lost over time to cheap trick-shots and Hollywood inaccuracies. But she’s a goddess and a huntress, and the tense snap of a bowstring sounds like poetry as she sends an arrow singing through the air. Maybe Apollo’s right and she has a dramatic flair, but she thinks that’s pretty rich coming from the guy who shot plague-arrows into half the Greek army during the final year of the Trojan War. If she ignores the fact that she once ripped a man to shreds with his own hounds, she can believe that Apollo is, in fact, the more dramatic twin.

The drama queen in question leans against the wrought-iron rail of their third-story apartment’s balcony, pistol gleaming at his hip as he takes another drag from his cigarette. “You can’t save them all, Art,” he tells her on an exhale, and she wrinkles her nose and waves the smoke away. She isn’t worried about the health risks, sometimes even wishes she could die, but the smell is another matter entirely.

“I could if you helped me,” she tells him, an edge of steel in her voice, and he sighs and rolls his jaw.

“Fine. The next time you hunt.”

She’s spent centuries with Apollo and knows when he’s only giving in because he’s tired of arguing, but she’ll take the win because she can’t stand to lose. “You have to take your bow.”

Apollo looks at her with one perfect eyebrow raised. She nods. “I was going to take it anyway,” he snaps. She doesn’t bother to hide her grin. He stubs his cigarette out against the railing and shoves past her through the sliding glass door, muttering as he stalks down the hallway to his room. They have rooms more as a matter of principle, since neither of them need to sleep. Both of them choose to, sometimes. It breaks up some of the tedium of immortality.

Artemis takes her twin’s spot at the railing, looks pensively at the sun rising above the city skyline. It seems distant today, the pinks and oranges less vibrant than normal. Apollo does this sometimes to show his annoyance, and still has the nerve to accuse her of being dramatic? He practically invented the concept.

…

Artemis has always been most comfortable in the dark, but it’s been decades--or has it been centuries?--since the goddess of night skies and deep woods danced in moonlight filtering through leaves. City streets are her haunt now, hunting monsters of a different kind in the glow of street lamps and neon signs that dull the once-magnificent night sky into something mundane.

She misses the time when mortals thought there was magic in the night and in the forest, when they used to pour unwatered wine and sing hymns to her, full of awe and fear. She was powerful once, adored. She isn’t either of those things anymore, but somehow she feels stronger than ever. More purposeful.

She’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, faintly gleaming silver bow and a pile of pale ash arrows resting on the floor at her feet. “Apollo,” she calls, half-annoyed. “We’re hunting for prey, not lovers.”

“I can’t find my bow.” His voice carries, muffled, from inside the apartment.

“It’s in the hall closet, hanging on the wall. Right next to the door.”

“I’m looking in the hall closet!”

“Apollo. Your bow is bright gold. It glows, for Christ’s sake,” Artemis mutters. She paces down the hall, about to show Apollo exactly where his bow is, when he emerges from the closet with a triumphant shout.

“I’ll tell Zeus you said that. Hey, can I borrow some arrows?”

“Oh my God,” Artemis groans, wondering if he just loves to torture her. “How are you even alive?”

“Probably because I’m immortal. So, arrows?”

“Fine. They’re more for show, anyway.” She stoops to scoop up her bow and a handful of arrows, leaving about half for Apollo.

“For show?” He questions, letting his eyes rove over his twin. She’s dressed all in black: black skinny jeans that hug her athletic legs and a black tank top beneath an unzipped black leather jacket. Her revealed skin is pale and gleams faintly silver, thick black eyeliner ringing her eyes, her lips the color of fresh blood. She reminds him of a panther in the breathless moment before a pounce.

“Also, you can’t wear that. All black everything.” Artemis glares scornfully at his yellow t-shirt.

“I don’t own anything black,” Apollo tells her matter-of-factly, smiling at her shocked face. “I’m a sun god, Art, not some weird emo moon goddess.”

“I wouldn’t say that around Selene.”

“Selene loves me.”

“Selene tolerates you,” Artemis informs him, ignoring the offended noise he makes. She decides to let Apollo’s questionable wardrobe choices slide this time. She supposes he looks intimidating enough to accompany her, with his artfully messy hair, bright blue eyes, and the faint golden glow of his skin. At the very least he looks not quite human, and that’s probably the best she’ll get from him. Maybe they can do a good cop, bad cop routine or something. They’ve been doing that for centuries anyway, they’ve pretty much perfected it. She whistles once, a short, sharp burst, and her black-and-tan hound rockets off the couch. She reaches an affectionate hand down to scratch his long velvet ears.

“Do we have to take him? He’s not, you know, inconspicuous.”

“Aristo has been with me on every hunt since Pan gave him to me!” Artemis scoffs, more offended than ever. The old satyr gave her six dogs and seven bitches back when the world was still new. She still has the entire pack, but Aristo is the only one who comes into the city with her.

“Where are the rest?” Apollo asks absently as he locks the door behind him.

“With Hecate.”

The twin gods head out into the city, walking down the sidewalk like any ordinary mortals might, and turn toward the college campus. Frat houses are usually a good hunting spot. Artemis pauses to smile up at the moon. Selene has it shining its very brightest for her tonight, a hunter’s moon perfectly round and low in the sky. Aristo trots happily at her side, Apollo has been quiet for probably three whole minutes, and she dares to hope, briefly, that she won’t need to hunt tonight.

Apollo grins as they turn down a street, following a stream of girls in tight dresses hobbling in too-tall heels, and Artemis smacks his arm hard enough to earn a disgruntled yelp. “You’re disgusting.”

“I look at guys the same way,” he reminds her with a shrug.

“That doesn’t make it better,” she snaps, beginning to regret bringing him along, but the thought is interrupted by Aristo whining low and urgent in his throat. He bays, giving voice to his full-throated hunting song, and she follows the hound as he tears across the frat house lawn, partygoers stumbling out of his way. Artemis runs after him like she’s just an ordinary girl chasing her escaped dog.

Apollo curses behind her as he starts running. Aristo waits for them at the front door of the house, still singing, and his claws leave deep gouges in the dark wood as he paws insistently at the door. Artemis shoves it open and follows him immediately up the stairs. He reaches the landing and skids around a corner, baying as he stops in front of a closed door.

It’s locked but Artemis kicks it open with a crack of hinges sudden as a lightning strike. What good is a door against a god? She sees the boy first, the harsh moonlight streaming through the open window turning his eyes to black pits and deepening the shadows under his cheekbones. He reminds her for an instant of the type of monster she hunted in days long gone. He’s frozen in place as the door bangs against the wall, so stunned he doesn’t even notice the seventy pound dog hurtling toward him until Aristo hits him like a howling torpedo. His arms windmill as he topples out of sight.

Artemis walks around the bed, lazy and graceful, following the sound of yelling and growling, of sharp gnashing teeth waiting for her command to sink into frail mortal flesh. She finds Aristo pinning the thrashing boy to the carpeted floor with his front paws on his shoulders. “Call off your dog! Please! Get him off me!” The voice is high and hysterical with mortal fear, and Artemis smiles down at him indulgently.

“I am Artemis Agrotera, and I will deal with you another time.” She calls Aristo off with a sharp whistle. The boy scrambles to his feet, crashing back to the floor as his shoulder collides with Apollo’s thighs. Apollo reaches down and draws him up by the arm, smiling with a menace that can’t quite match his twin’s.

“We’ll be seeing you,” he promises silkily, gives the arm a gentle squeeze, and stands aside to let the trembling criminal pass. Artemis sinks down on the edge of the rumpled bed, wipes tears from the girl’s cheeks with her thumb, and drapes her black jacket over the bare, shaking shoulders. The girl sobs and pulls the jacket tighter. Artemis makes a shushing noise in her throat and stands, scooping her up bridal-style like she weighs nothing at all.

The girl hides her face against the goddess’s chest as they leave the house. Fear and guilt war in her, eating her alive with teeth that slice like knives because she knows what will happen. The police will ask her how much she drank and what she was wearing and if she was flirting with him, if she’d given him any indication that maybe she wanted this. The thought turns her stomach, but they’re outside in the cool night air and the moon is so bright it seems to shine just for her.

Artemis looks down at the girl in her arms, and her heart breaks into a thousand pieces for the first time that night. “I’m taking you to someone who can help.” The walk back to the apartment building is about ten minutes, but the silence and the shaking girl make it seem like eternities. When they arrive, Artemis fumbles her car keys from the pocket of her black skinny jeans and hits the unlock button. “Do you want to sit in the front with me, or in the back with the dog?”

The girl’s wide brown eyes flit between Artemis’s perfect moon-pale face and Aristo’s floppy ears and kind brown eyes. “The dog, please.”

“His name is Aristo.” Artemis says, setting the girl on her feet and opening the back door for her. Aristo leaps in, tail wagging, and the mortal girl slides into the seat beside him. “He loves hugs.”

“Aristo,” the girl murmurs, burying her face in his neck with a shaky breath. “My name is Laurel.” Artemis’s stomach clenches. Apollo looks like he might be ill as he climbs into the passenger seat. He knows where the first laurel tree still grows, nearly as old as the surrounding hills.

Artemis starts the car and within minutes they’re speeding out of the city, turning off the highway onto winding back roads, and she rolls all the windows down to feel the wind in her hair and focuses on that to still the angry shaking of her hands. “Hey Art, does Hecate know we’re coming?” Apollo asks as they turn up the long dirt driveway, past a sign that says Crossroads Farm in fading purple paint.

“She always knows.”

Sure enough, the front porch light is on and lights are shining through the front windows. “We’re here,” Artemis announces for Laurel’s benefit as she parks.

“Where are we?” Laurel’s voice fills with fear. Artemis’s heart shatters into a thousand pieces, for what must be the thousandth time tonight.

“Crossroads Farm,” Artemis tells her, voice gentler than Apollo’s ever heard it. “You’ll be safe, I promise.”

“Who are you?” Laurel looks at them with wide, suspicious eyes and hugs hard enough around Aristo’s neck that he whines.

“Artemis, and this is my brother, Apollo.” Artemis waves her hand vaguely in the direction of her brother’s faintly shining face and ridiculous yellow t-shirt. They aren’t so ancient that their names are completely unfamiliar, because Artemis can see recognition stirring in Laurel’s fearful brown eyes.

“Like the ancient Greeks?”

Apollo nods. “Something like that. Come on, you’ll like Hecate.”

Before Artemis can stop him, he reaches toward Laurel’s hand to guide her up the steps. The mortal recoils from him, and Apollo looks so heartbroken Artemis almost pities him. She reminds herself he doesn’t know any better yet--he’s never spent time with a girl like Laurel before. He doesn’t understand the panic in her veins, the constant nagging fear she’ll carry with her for the rest of her life. He’s never heard a girl wake screaming from a nightmare she can’t stop reliving every time she closes her eyes.

“Shouldn’t we go to the police station?” Laurel asks, but she follows Artemis up the front porch steps anyway. Apollo walks a respectful distance behind her, half-dejected and half-protective, but completely silent. When Artemis opens the door, Hecate is already sitting at the scrubbed pine table with four steaming mugs of tea, the picture of serenity.

Hecate was called Iphigenia once, and she was the first mortal Artemis rescued; led to a gleaming sacrificial knife by a man who was supposed to protect her. She understands, in a way Artemis will never be able to, the fear and the guilt and the panic that feels like it can stop your lungs from filling. “Hi,” Hecate says simply, gesturing at the mugs. Laurel takes the empty seat beside her, and Artemis pointedly sits in the chair beside Laurel. Apollo huffs as he takes the seat furthest from her. “It’s herbal tea,” Hecate says, answering the girl’s unspoken question. “It will help you sleep without dreams.”

Laurel nods, wraps her hands around the warm ceramic mug and inhales deeply. “It smells good.” She hesitates, her eyes dancing over the three deities. “Are--are you really Greek gods?”

Artemis is proud of Apollo, for once, for the way he doesn’t let his face fall. She knows there’s nothing like a tragedy to unravel a mortal’s world; she’s seen it more times than she cares to remember and yet she can’t forget any of them. If something like this can happen--stories that happen on the evening news, to other people--then stories older than street lamps and cars can happen, too.

“Yes.” Artemis has found, through trial and error, through centuries, that simplicity works best.

“Artemis is the protector of young girls,” Apollo says, like that explains everything. “She’s been doing this--geez, for how long, Art?” He’s trying too hard to act casual, but Artemis can see he’s shaken. It takes some getting used to; this is only his first time and she has literal millenia of practice. She takes a deep breath and reminds herself to be patient.

“Since mortals stopped protecting their own daughters. When police began asking a girl what she was wearing, instead of asking a boy why he felt he had the right to take her sense of safety away.”

“Right. That long.”

“I was the first she saved,” Hecate volunteers conversationally. “Back when Troy still stood tall on its hill.”

“That clears things up,” Apollo mutters, rolling his eyes conspiratorially at Laurel. She rewards him with a tiny smile, and Artemis is half-surprised he doesn’t jump up and dance. He only grins, and she knows he’ll take whatever victory he can get even if it doesn’t feel like enough. A smile from Laurel won’t erase his past mistakes.

“It should clear things up, you were there,” Artemis reminds him. “You built the walls of Troy with your own hands.”

“Yeah, look how well that worked out.” Apollo pouts into his tea, unable to let go of that centuries-old sting. “Fucking Eris and her fucking apple.”

Artemis raises an eyebrow. “That was literally ages ago. We have other problems now.” Apollo follows her gaze as it rests on Laurel, sipping her tea and watching them with open fascination.

“How is this even my life?” Laurel wonders aloud.

Apollo shrugs, apparently having recovered from his earlier unease. “You’re just lucky, I guess.” The joke falls flat, he hisses in a breath and scrambles to fix his mistake. “Sorry, Jesus, I’m so sorry.” Tea sloshes over the side of his mug as he sets it down carelessly and reaches across the table for Laurel’s hand. She withdraws it and stares flatly into the contents of her mug.

Apollo’s face is crestfallen as he looks to Artemis for guidance, and she’s amazed that a god can be so painfully dumb. “Smooth,” she barks, patience momentarily snapped. Aristo rests his head on Laurel’s lap, much more comforting than Apollo could ever be, and she strokes him silently.

“Laurel,” Apollo begins, but she cuts him off with a shake of the head.

“It’s fine. Can-can I stay here tonight?” Her eyes are wide and wary as she turns to Hecate.

“Of course. I’ll show you to your room.” The gentle goddess stands, leading the exhausted mortal down the hallway to the left of the kitchen, through the living room, and toward the bedrooms in the back. They’ve done this too many times since Hecate bought this place a couple decades ago; there’s a dozen bedrooms here reserved for the girls Artemis brings. Sometimes they only stay for one night, sometimes for a week, sometimes they’ll leave and show up again unannounced months later, dark circles under their eyes and a constant tension in their shoulders.

Hecate never turns them away, only cooks them meals with the vegetables from her garden and gives them tea to help them sleep. They spend their days outside, reading in the sunlight or roaming with Artemis and her dogs, wearing loose chitons and carrying bows. There’s two other girls here besides Laurel; Kate, the girl Artemis helped last night, and Andrea, who showed up here a week ago and cried in Hecate’s arms again.

“Artemis,” Hecate calls down the hall, interrupting her thoughts, “can Aristo sleep with Laurel tonight?”

Artemis hates to relinquish her hunting partner, but he looks up at her with soft eyes, and she knows he would rather spend the night cuddling with Laurel than chasing her attacker. “Make sure Pelea has the scent,” she tells the dog. He wags his tail once in agreement and pushes through the doggy door to find Pelea. “He’ll be there soon,” Artemis calls back.

She and Apollo sit in silence, Apollo fidgeting with his empty mug as Artemis waits for her dogs. They’re only gone for a few minutes, Aristo trotting in with Pelea on his heels. He bumps his snout against his mistress’s hand as he trots by. Pelea rests her head on Artemis’s lap, tail wagging as Artemis scratches her ears.

A few minutes later Hecate glides into the kitchen on silent feet and sighs as she sits at the head of the table. “She’s settled in with Aristo. When are you guys going?” Artemis ducks her head to look out the window, squints up at the huge, bright hunter’s moon, and looks over at her brother.

“Ready for part two?”

“What’s part two?” His voice is apprehensive, and Artemis thinks it’s hilarious. She likes that she can still surprise him even after millenia.

She smiles wolfishly as she stands and stretches, slow and lazy. “The hunt.”

“Oh. I was wondering why you went by Agrotera earlier.” It’s an epithet he hadn’t heard her use in at least a few centuries, but it was one of the earliest used to describe her. Artemis Agrotera. Artemis of the Hunt.

She rolls her eyes so hard, she can practically see the back of her own skull. “Don’t tell me you still go by Phoebus.”

He shakes his head, looking away. “I stopped using my epithets a long time ago.”

Artemis steps forward and grips his chin, forcing him to face her. She hates the shame she sees there, but she knows it’s been a long time coming. “Apollo Akesios,” she says softly, firmly. “Averter of evil.” Sometimes even gods need to be reminded who they are.

“I don’t deserve that one. Maybe I never did.” His voice is low and full of sadness, but Artemis isn’t about to let him get away with wallowing. Self-loathing isn’t becoming for the god of the sun.

“Then earn it now. I don’t have time for your pity-party, Apollo, I have hunting to do. You can either hang out here and mope over Laurel--and we both know it isn’t really about her, anyway--or you can help me catch the asshole who did this.” She releases his chin; he rubs his jaw ruefully. Her grip had slowly tightened the more worked up she became.

“Fine, Art, geez. But tomorrow I’m going to Greece.”

“Tell Daphne if she ever wants to be human again, she has a place here,” Hecate interjects from the table. Apollo waves a hand in acknowledgement, trying to ignore the way his stomach drops at the name. He’s barely finished composing himself by the time Artemis is halfway out the door, and he starts after her with a muttered curse. They slide into her silver car, and he doesn’t have time to buckle his seatbelt before she’s peeling down the driveway.

“You can help me with this anytime you want, you know,” Artemis tells him, voice raised to be heard over the wind roaring through the windows. She’s tired of seeing her brother so lost, so far removed from the god he once was. They all are, except maybe Hades, because there will always be death. But hunting like this, protecting young girls like she used to, it reminds Artemis of who she is. She wants this feeling for her brother, too, because she loves him dearer than all the world of mortals.

“I’m not much of a hunter, Art.”

“No, but you invented medicine. You’re a healer. These girls, they need someone. Hecate does what she can, but sometimes it isn’t enough. Sometimes it takes more than herbal tea and an essential oil diffuser. For some of them, positive energy and sunlight doesn’t cut it. Hecate’s a minor goddess, but you? God of the sun, remember? Inventor of medicine and music and poetry. And Selene, she makes the moon shine brighter for them so they’re never caught out in the dark, but you can teach them to carry sunlight in their hearts again. You don’t have to hunt with me, after tonight. But when you get back from Greece,” she shrugs, “there’s a purpose for you, if you want it.”

Apollo doesn’t have to answer, because Pelea barks suddenly from the backseat. Artemis barely checks her blind spot as she pulls over, parking so quickly she scrapes her tire against the curb. She jumps out of the car and opens the back door for Pelea. Apollo unfolds himself from his seat and jogs alongside Artemis, following the hound.

“When did you train your dogs to do this?” He wonders idly, not expecting an answer.

“A couple hundred years ago, maybe? Around the time Ivar the Boneless invaded Ireland.”

“That was over a thousand years ago, Art.” He looks at her, bemused, knowing she doesn’t care about the specifics. It’s important to him, though. They’ve never kept secrets from each other, and this stings more than he wants to admit. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“You and Hermes sort of disappeared for a century or so, I didn’t want to bother you.” Apollo tries to remember this specific disappearance, thinks maybe it was when he and Hermes hung out with Calypso on her island for a while. It’s nice to leave the world sometimes. Pelea trots easily in front of them, scenting the cool breeze, and the moon is huge and high in the sky. It’s barely past the middle of the night.

“Where’s she taking us?” Apollo grumbles. Artemis, ever the patient hunter, smiles serenely at him and doesn’t grace him with an answer. Pelea’s tail wags in slow arcs. Artemis knows they’re getting closer but she enjoys the pursuit. She hopes the boy is laying in his bed, unable to sleep, feeling in his cowardly bones that vengeance is coming to him. She wants to hope he feels guilty but knows he probably doesn’t, so the most she ever hopes for is fear.

Pelea bays, just once, the sound that used to be the death-song of so many stags, and Artemis hopes the boy shivers at the sound. She sees him in the distance, a shadow against the horizon, a dark shape moving between houses. Pelea takes off after him eagerly, Artemis and Apollo hot on her heels. Pelea veers around to cut off his escape as the twins reach him.

Artemis reaches out, a pale arrow clasped in her hand, and rubs the shining silver point down the length of his spine. “I told you I would find you,” she croons, sing-song as a baying hound.

He stops dead in his tracks so suddenly that Apollo nearly crashes into him. Artemis strokes the arrow down the boy’s back again. She rubs her hand almost seductively along the back of his neck, leans closer, and whispers in his ear, “Turn around and face me.” She releases her hold, lets the arrowhead drag along his shoulder and chest as he obeys her. She tickles him lightly with the tip, just above the place where his heart beats so hard she can see the pulse throbbing in his neck. “Do you remember my name?”

He nods frantically, too terrified to speak. A sharp smell reaches her nose, she glances down to the spreading stain on the front of his jeans and clucks disapprovingly. “What was my name, again?” She drags the arrow up to the wildly thudding pulse at the juncture of his chin and neck.

“Art--Artemis A--Agro….” he trails off, she increases the pressure until he starts bawling. “Agrotera,” he chokes. She nods, pleased, and eases back just a bit.

“I’m not going to kill you,” she purrs, arrow still pressed against his throat. “This time. A quick death is too merciful for men like you.” She sighs, as if she regrets that. “In Sparta, where they worshipped me centuries ago, they gave all their women small knives. That way, if a man ever tried to force himself upon her, she could slash him across the face and the entire world would know what he did. That was a good time for women, when they didn’t need me to protect them.” She stares him down with eerie, unblinking silver eyes. “Do you know her name? The girl you attacked?”

He shakes his head, and Artemis gently traces the tip of the arrowhead along his jawline. “Her name is Laurel. She’s twenty years old and has a little brother, and she’s studying biology in college. She wants to be a cancer researcher, and travel the world, and she always loved the night until you made her afraid of it.” Artemis pauses, gives him a soft smile. “So now I want you to be afraid of it, too. I think they had it right in Sparta, all that time ago.”

Quick as thought, she darts the arrow up and slices along his cheekbone. The slash is clean, surgically precise, and will heal in a narrow, smooth pink scar. It’s high enough up that a beard will never hide it. “That custom is long dead, more’s the pity.” She shrugs, twirls the arrow so that it flashes in the moonlight, and tastes the dark blood on the silver arrowhead with the tip of her tongue. “Coward’s blood, I knew it. No descendent of Sparta.” She brings the arrow up again and runs it down the slope of his nose. “No one will know why there’s a slash on your face except you. Every time you look in the mirror, you’ll remember what you did. That is my first gift to you.”

She smiles, as if he’s just won the grand prize on a game show. There’s something feral in her eyes, a wildness mortals thought dead long ago. The boy is shaking uncontrollably. A first gift implies a second, and he doesn’t want anything except for this to be a dream. “So my first gift was knowledge, and my second is a promise.” She looks at him like she’s waiting for him to thank her.

When he’s silent, she shrugs and continues. She inspects the arrow as she speaks, not looking at him. He doesn’t deserve the attention of her gaze. “I promise that I will be watching you until the day you die. I promise that if you ever do this again, if you ever raise your hand to a woman, I will be the last thing you see.”

She reaches down, scratches Pelea’s ears affectionately. “This is Pelea. The dog I had with me earlier was Aristo. They’ve been alive longer than this country.” She gestures vaguely with the arrow; he instinctively raises his arms to protect his face. Artemis tries to hide the savage pleasure this brings her, but can’t quite keep the triumph from her ice-cold eyes. “They were given to me by Pan, the god of shepherds and wild places. Did you know he invented panic?” She tilts her head thoughtfully. “I perfected it, though.” The moonlight gleams off her perfect white teeth as she smiles.

“Once they have your scent, they can find you anywhere in the world. There is nowhere you can hide, nowhere my hounds cannot find you.” Her voice is mild, almost pleasant, and it makes the boy sob with a terror that’s older than instinct. Centuries ago, humans feared the gods; that fear is buried just beneath the surface of their conscious minds. It’s nearly effortless for Artemis to awaken it. “Do you understand me, mortal?”

He nods rapidly.

Artemis smiles and steps back. “Good. You may go now.”

She turns on her heel, crisp as a soldier on parade, and walks gracefully toward the car with Pelea roaming ahead to sniff a tree trunk. Apollo glances at the boy, takes in the abject terror and awe on his face as he watches Artemis walk away, and gives the boy a smile that could be mistaken for friendly before he follows his sister. The walk is quiet, with only the swishing of their feet through dew-damp grass and Pelea’s deep whuffs as she scents the air. Artemis opens the back door and the hound leaps in happily.

The twins climb into their seats and buckle their seatbelts, and Artemis drives them out of the city back toward Hecate’s farm. “Can’t you take me back to the apartment?” Apollo whines, not sure if he can face those girls when he can still remember Daphne morphing into a laurel tree to escape his touch.

“I like to be there when they wake up. Someday, you will, too.”

“After Greece, maybe.”

“You’ve waited too long to apologize.”

“I waited too long to learn my mistakes,” Apollo corrects.

She smiles over at him, full of pride. “I knew you would, though. I hoped it would be centuries ago, but better late than never.” She shrugs, like a few centuries isn’t a big deal when you can never die. “If I’d known hunting was what would make you realize, I would have taken you with me a long time ago.”

“Art, that was…. He looked at you like they all used to look at us. You were terrifying. I haven’t seen you like that in thousands of years. Agrotera, indeed.”

She smiles, pleased. “Mortals haven’t changed much, really.” She turns up the long dirt driveway of Crossroads Farm. Hecate left the porch light on for them, but the windows are dark this time. Artemis puts the car in park and kills the engine before she turns in her seat and fixes her bright silver eyes on him. “So will you be here in the morning?”

She’s really asking if he wants to see Laurel again, and Apollo knows it. And he does want to, but he can’t. Not yet. First he needs to see a different laurel, a tree nearly as old as the hills and twice as wise.

He shakes his head. “I’ll be in Greece at first light. Tell Laurel,” he blows out a breath between pursed lips. “Tell her I’ll be back by dinner.”

“I’ll tell her, if she asks,” Artemis promises, knowing she probably won’t. She hopes Apollo doesn’t pick up on that, but his face falls before he can stop it. She’s spent millenia reading his emotions, and her heart breaks into a thousand pieces for what must be the millionth time that night. She draws her twin into a hug. “Good luck, Apollo Akesios.”

He wraps his arms around her. “I promise I won’t disappear for a century this time. This is my place now, just like yours.” He ends the hug and straightens, brows pinched together in the middle. “Should we end the lease on the apartment?”

“No. That’s my base of operations in the city. I just let you crash there because you were a broke street musician.”

Apollo huffs, offended. “Not anymore, though. I’ll see you tomorrow, Art.” He sighs and rolls his jaw. Artemis nods and opens the car door. When she reaches the porch and turns back to the car, the passenger seat is empty. She opens the door and steps into the kitchen. She hangs her gleaming silver bow on the hook by front door and tiptoes down the hallway.

She peeks into three bedrooms, at the girls finally able to sleep peacefully, snoring hounds curled up at their feet. It’s not adoration like she once had, but it’s still a home, and these healing girls are just as much a family as her band of huntresses ever were. For what must be the first time that night, she thinks her heart might be whole.

#modern mythology #greek goddesses #artemis #apollo #hecate #iphigenia #selene #greek mythology #modern greek mythology

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impeccablebackside · 2 years

Note

1, 4, 5. 9, 15, 18, 20, 22, 25 for Tugger and Teazer (a lot of numbers I know askfjehcb)

Oh my goodness anon, you are stealing all the horny. No worries though. There is enough to go around for everyone.

I am going to try to keep these answers concise because there are 9 prompts (from this ask set), but we all know how that is probably going to go in terms of length, so just enjoy the ride.

1. Are there any names they like to be called in bed/names they call their partner? Any names they wouldn’t use/can’t stand?

Tugger likes being called daddy to some extent, but realistically his real name on the lips of his lovers is by far the most gratifying thing that he can hear. He does not really call his partners anything aside from their name, preferring to praise them directly. Any derogatory names thrown at him do not go over well, and he would never be degrading to his partner, unless they really wanted him to be and even then it would be a unique scenario where he would have to be comfortable with it.

Rumple likes hearing her name spill out from the mouths of her lovers, only stopping when she is wrapped around their face. They better know who is making them feel good and who they have to in turn work to please. There is something great about hearing the slightly breathless way her lovers call her name, and it rings out so sweetly. When calling for her partner, she only chooses their name and possibly a 'good girl / boy', but it is done with a sultry edge that is usually punctuated by moans of pleasure. She usually works in the names of her lover in with her praising, as it makes them more enthusiastic. She is not into degrading words, as they work to anger her (not a bad thing per-se), so if you call her something rude, you better damn well make up for it, or be made her bitch until she gets her enjoyment out of you.

4. Are they more of a dom, sub, or switch? If applicable, are they a top, bottom, or vers?

Tugger dabbles in a bit of both worlds of being a dom and sub, though he leans more to the dom side. It is not that he is actually dominant and forceful, just that he is commanding and controlling in the best possible way for his partners. He will switch roles based on how his lover is feeling, and take or relinquish control accordingly. With more occasional partners, he is mainly dominant, ensuring that he is taking them apart and making them remember his skills. He is a definitely a top more so than a bottom, but will bottom for a few people if they are willing to take the reigns. Only those he is closest to get that opportunity.

Rumple is typically more dominant (depending on the person), but will backtrack on that for certain lovers. Though, she is a top in every sense of the word, constantly riding atop or mounting her lover as well as directing the show. Queens or toms, she likes the physical contact of throwing her entire body into another’s. Specifically driving her hips and grinding in a rhythmic way. Facing forward or back, it is a experience. There is considerable variability and flexibility (literal or not) with her partners. Her small size also allows for some more unusual positions in general because she can fit on top of others. She is a big time bratty sub, teasing and playing with her lover, and talking back quite often. She makes it a bit hard for them to get their satisfaction from her easily. Not to say she does not give it up in the end, it just comes with a challenge. Rumple is also the type to show off for her dom / domme to get them more riled up. Once they get a piece of her, they are a bit more willing to take their (sexual) frustrations out on her. She knows what she is doing, and gets railed, fingered, or eaten out with a bit more intent, sometimes working her into overstimulation. The truest switch around in all fairness, because once she gets dominated, she is wrapped around someone’s face forcing them to eat her out so she too gets her fun in.

5. Do they have any really out-of-left-field kinks/fantasies? Maybe even something that they wouldn’t necessarily want to act on but have still thought about?

Tugger does not have any fantasies that would be considered strange. Fulfilled by being the male sex symbol around, he can get whatever and whomever he wants if he wanted (but he is not like that - he has respect). He does have a mindset to be pinned down and fucked by someone bigger than him, as he is always taller and bigger than his partner (because he is tall and not because they are unduly small), but that is not all that left field.

Rumple may have gotten a bit overly enthusiastic about being a Peke / Pom a few times, and that has lead to some weirder interactions with others (who may also have been dressed as a Peke or Pom as well). It did not descend into petplay (which is not a bad thing for me - I can dig petplay), but they were more in character than not. He being on all fours awakens something in her, and licking and sniffing around never hurts.

9. What’s their favorite way to get in the mood? How do they set the mood?

Tugger does not have a specific thing that gets him going. Aside from being horny and always needing to impress, he does not need a lot to get motivated. Each partner has something he is drawn too, either emotionally or physically, and he lets that move him. He will also exploit and explore such things, focusing his energy on whatever individualistic facet of his partner until he gets some gasps of praise. If they like a certain way of getting fucked, he will give that to them. Otherwise, he gets caught in a cycle of praise where he tries harder when getting sweet words out of his lover, which leads to more praise and him fucking harder. Tugger does not set the mood really, if he is down and his partner is down, then it goes down. He will do a bit of lavish and romantic gestures for Bomba, but it is not typically meant to lead to sex, although it usually does.

Rumple is always slightly horny, so she gets in the mood quickly. It usually does not make much in all fairness. She is in complete control of her urges, but she loves pleasure so much that it is hard for her not to be in the mood. He bigger turn ons is someone rubbing her thigh or nuzzling her hip as a bit of foreplay, and that will assuredly set her off. Especially when she is standing and the other person is on their knees or back. She will grab them with force and direct them to give attention to her wet pussy, demanding they eat her out or play with her clit. Ass slaps work with this too. Rumple does not set the mood often, as most of her encounters are not spur of the moment so much as they are a right now sort of thing. When she tries to be more romantic for Vic, she will gather flowers and soft pillows, and that honestly makes the white queen just as eager to fuck her stripe-y queen because she know how hard she is trying to be romantic.

15. Describe their favorite sexual encounter.

Tugger's favourite encounter was his first time with Bomba (and first time period). They both fucked it out thinking that they were personally both the hottest shit around, and that they were getting it from the hottest thing around. It was almost a 'no one is good enough for me aside from them' mentality that led to it, aside from a lot of flirting beforehand. Bomba and him were both grinding one another, and they both just straight up told the other that they were going to fuck (if they were cool with it, of course). The sex was messy and pleasurable, with them both honing their skills they would become known for later. A mutual exploring of bodies that lasted for hours. The revelatory shared orgasms, where he could see just what his dick could do still is the golden notch in his belt.

For Rumple, I will go more hypothetical / loose on the details. She prefers the smaller singular experiences rather than one bigger one. He first times with Vic and Tanto live highly in her mind, as well as her first time with Mungo. Her favourite situation was a threesome where she got to be dominant with one lover and submissive with another. Controlling the pleasure of another gives her a lot of excitement, but not as much as she gets when she rides them. Queens or toms, she likes the physical contact of throwing her entire body into another’s. When she sees the flashes of her work making her lover shiver, it gets her off a bit. Alternatively, being treated as a sub gives her the opportunity to low-key serve someone, and really get in close to explore their body if needed. As much as she is not one to follow the ‘authority’ of someone, she will bow down so to speak, but still be a bit bratty just so she can get more out of it. She has threesomes where love was more important than lust, and those were good in their own right. Other times where it was more lust filled were also fulfilling too, but a good midway point tends to work out better.

18. Their favorite actions during sex—chin-grabbing, hair-pulling, wrists being pinned, etc.

Tugger, as mentioned by another user (who may have sent this ask - Hi) likes getting his mane pulled when he is fucking someone. Them grounding themselves through him and pulling him in closer makes every thrust harder and deeper, and it also shows that they are falling apart underneath / above him. He also likes when someone grabs his ass with both hands when he is balls deep in them, which again pulls him in more to deepen his actions. On the flip side, he likes holding her lover with his hands wrapped around the sides of their hips and fucking them from behind.

Rumple does not have a got-to, but will take some good spankings, tail pulling, errant clawing, and hair pulling when she is fucking, but is not big on anything rougher than that. To her, the whole point of sex is the good feelings. Attention should be paid her pussy and making it feel appreciated, so other actions are good but not as good. When she is giving punishment, she is a hair puller, 'guiding’ her lover towards an area that needs attention. She will forcibly push / pull someone’s face to eat her out. She also likes to hold her partner down and pin them when she is riding them, but her shorter arms and legs make it more of a symbolic gesture rather than actual 'trapping'.

20. What do they like seeing their partner in when they “dress-up?”

Tugger is not picky with what his partner is wearing, because he is one of those people who thinks everyone is legitimately beautiful no matter how they are dressed. However, seeing Bomba in darker (think black, navy blue, or a darker red) lingerie looking downright legendary makes his heart skip a beat. Her natural beauty exemplified by the delicate beauty of the lingerie makes the smooth talking tom bumble as he tries to give kind words to her aside from 'holy fuck' or 'oh shit' or 'wooow'. When she goes for more playful, with brighter (think white or yellow or a lime green) stuff, she is just as hot but the mood is not as overly sultry. He still never tires of seeing her body - no matter what.

Rumple does not care what her lover is wearing because she is focused far more on getting to their flesh underneath, and any clothing is just a hindrance in a way. For Mungo, she straight up does not care, but his croptop looks pretty cute to her. For Victoria, she definitely drools at the sight of the white queen in flowy white gowns with lacy white lingerie or a visually striking black lace set with stockings. Rumple tries to be more delicate and slow when unwrapping her beautiful present, and will kiss up / down Vic's legs and chest before kissing against the outside of the fabric of the panties before sliding them to the side and tastefully licking away at her.

22. Favorite thing/part about sex—intimacy, role-playing, etc.

Tugger's favourite thing about sex is eliciting a moan or gasp of pleasure from his partner, especially if they are singing his name. He likes the notoriety and aura of being so good of a lover that other people know about it (either by word of mouth or them hearing his partner wail), but actually proving it is utterly compelling to him. Tied in with the mutual pleasure experienced, not much beats knowing he is making someone else feel so good. Not to say he does not get something out of it either, as his own pleasure and lust is satisfied as well.

Rumple’s favourite thing about sex is outright pleasure involved more than anything. Never quite satiated, and always slightly horny, her favourite thing is getting a chance to cum. There is a deep seated desire in her to fill the need for that satisfaction, so she always does. It sometimes goes to a world where she is getting fucked almost as a need and want to feel something. This is where it links with the idea that it is not about the length for her, more about the enjoyment and release. Quicker and purposeful sex goes over better than lengthy and drawn out, plus she can go for multiple rounds so less time means more orgasms. She also lives for the taste, smell, and feel of other queens - sometimes focusing so much on a pussy that she forgets about the person who 'owns’ it.

25. Share a sample line of dirty-talk

I am bad at these anon.

For Tugger, he would be bent over behind his partner fucking them while whispering into their ear something like: "You like that? Louder. Tell me how much you want it."

For Rumple, I am going to rip these straight from a Mungoteazer one-shot written by someone else (I hope that is alright) because I could not possibly best the following:

“Oh–That’s it, love,” she crooned, grinning a little as a spark of pleasure flashed up her body. She flexed her claws. “Make me feel good, Jer. Be a sweet boy for me.”

“Such a good boy, my sweetheart, my handsome tom, my–my Jerrie…”

It would make fucking melt to hear her like that, and her partners are no different.

#there you have it anon #sorry it took a bit of time but i like taking my time #plus some of the rumple thoughts serve me well so i have to get those right too #if you want more send more for anyone anons

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johnkrrasinski · 4 years

Text

𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐥𝐞

Chapter 5: Now I’m in Exile

full masterlist // series masterlist // commission open // support my work

Pairings: Dark!Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 8,310

Summary: Steve Rogers; a Hollywood A-lister and your clandestine occasional hookup. Best friends since childhood, but people change and friendships fall out. Now you were merely strangers with benefits. What happens when one day you stopped being his doormat to be a better man’s queen? The selfish Steve Rogers would not like it. How far is he willing to go to get his favorite possession back?

Warnings: smut, non-con/dub-con, dark Steve (in later chapter), angst, Steve Rogers is an asshole in this one, no redeeming qualities. (MUST BE 18+)

A/N: this series is dedicated to the lovely @belovedcherry who commissioned this story and developed the concept. thank you for being a friend when i truly needed it. i’m really glad that you trusted me to write this story for you. with all my heart, i sincerely hope you like it. this series will be updated every day.

The calling tone reverberated in your hand as the beaming grin on your face mirrored on the screen. With every passing second, your anticipation grew. You couldn’t control your fidgeting so you took a deep breath and-

“Hey, boo!” Natasha’s voice modulated.

You lifted your right hand to the front camera’s level, revealing the rose golden Cartier wrapped finger as it glimmered under the light.

“Oh my God! Did he…?”

“Mhm,” you nodded. “I’m engaged, Nat!”

Natasha put a hand over her mouth, “holy shit! Girl, I’m so happy for you! Congratulations!” the gaiety on her face was palpable, you could feel it through the screen. There’s a reason why she and Wanda were the first people you passed the happy news to. After your parents of course.

“Thank you so much! I can’t believe it. Eight months ago, I thought I’d be single forever but here I am…”

“Yeah, things escalated quickly for you! Now you are someone’s fiancee and seven months pregnant. It’s mind-boggling,” she spoke like a proud sister. “I’m beyond happy for you. Really, I am.”

“I know this is probably too soon but, will you be my maid of honour, Nat?”

“You know damn well there’d be no wedding if you didn’t ask me to. Hell yeah, I will!”

“Ah, yes!” you hurrayed in excitement. “Alright, I’ll catch up to you later, okay? I gotta call Wanda too.”

“Do whatever you want boo, it’s your day.”

You hung up the phone and went through your contacts list, then clicked the phone number under Wanda’s name. The excitement bubbled up in your chest as you pictured the smile on her face when she sees the new lustrous thing on your finger.

Eight months earlier…

“Hey, y/n. It’s me, Adrian. It was a pleasure meeting you last night. How is the dress doing?”

“She is going for a dry cleaner. It was lovely to meet you too, except for the drink-spilling stain of course.”

“Sorry about that. But it got me your number and I would’ve done it again if that’s what it costs.”

You smiled down at your phone under the warm glow of the morning sunlight. “You showed me pictures of your dogs and cat so it’s a win-win situation for us both.” Wink emoji.

“Perhaps you and I could chat more about my dogs and my cat over a cup of coffee?”

“Will you promise you won’t spill the coffee on my shirt this time?”

“You have my word.”

“I’ll consider it, then.”

“Next Friday, at 7 PM. Write that down on your calendar.”

“I didn’t even say yes.”

He sent an adorable picture of his pomeranian dog looking up at him with pleading eyes. “How can you say no to this face?”

“Say no more. I’ll see you next Friday.”

Two weeks after the date.

You regurgitated your guts out in the toilet bowl and held up your hair, trying not to let the vomit splotch a strand of it. This was the third time you had to run to the loo to spew the queasiness in your body. You felt dizziness clouding your head. What the hell is wrong with your body? This had been a daily occurrence for the past one week.

You sat on the toilet lid after everything you swallowed earlier was out. You recollected every food that had made its way into your digestion the past couple of days… Did you eat something inedible? Perhaps that ice cream in your refrigerator had passed its expiration date, but you only bought it three days ago at the grocery store and you swore it could still last for two more months.

Maybe that shrimp that you ate at the Chinese restaurant with Adrian last night was stale. Ugh, you’re gonna need to talk to Adrian about this but you didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Perhaps, it was just another sickness caused by an unknown bad food.

But you also retrospected the shift in your body for the past couple of weeks. Your period was late this month… It should’ve started three days ago, what is happening? Could it be…? Oh no, there’s no way. You and Adrian hadn’t even moved it to the bedroom yet, so that means… If you are, then… It must be… Steve’s.

Oh hell no.

You recalled, the last time you and Steve met up for your weekly (sometimes more) hookup appointment was the day after you and Adrian met up for a coffee, which was your very first date with him. You didn’t know there would be plenty more to come so you went to what you had planted your soles so deep in, which was Steve Rogers’s penthouse in the upper east.

He had you on top with your arse facing him because he enjoyed the view better than your face. You struggled to bounce yourself up and down on his massive size. He could be such a sluggard sometimes but a man like him would always get his way, and if he needed to fuck out some tension, then he’d use you as a masturbation aid for as long as he wanted.

His grip on your hips was ruthless, you knew it was going to cause some bruises tomorrow but you couldn’t care any less. Not when he was pulling you down this deep that you could feel him penetrating your womb. His grunts filled your ears with eroticism and you picked up your pace to help him reach his climax. You shut your eyes with your mouth hanging open as soft moans escaped through your lips. You clenched around him and you felt his cock throbbed, you knew it was coming. Literally. Your coil shattered just a few seconds before he released his seed deep inside you. He pulled out and went to the bathroom to clean himself up and left you rumpled on the couch.

He left to Atlanta the next day to shoot a new movie. Something about an organization reinforced by the Nazi during World War II, and how the Captain leads an elite combat unit to the battle against an organization called Hydra. You didn’t know that until you looked it up on the internet.

You hadn’t received another booty call for him ever since. He was probably sleeping with twenty-something-year-olds models in Atlanta though.

And you had made peace with the tragic reality you were stuck in. You had accepted the reality that you and Steve were like riding down a dead-end street. There was no making love on Sunday mornings and have brunch together afterwards. There was no settling down in a countryside house where your kids could run around barefoot on the front yard. There was no marriage vows and walking down the aisle in white for you.

But all that changed when you decided to take a pregnancy test and the result revealed that you were indeed pregnant. You took three more and the results were all the same. Fucking hell. What the hell are you going to do now?

You had to call Steve, right? He was the father after all. You couldn’t tell Adrian because he would despise you for sleeping with another man and possibly carrying his child and he probably would never want to talk to you anymore. He’d probably regret knowing you at all. And you didn’t want to send him away. You liked him, he was good for your heart and the more you explored him, the more mesmerized you become by his magnetic force.

You were distraught. You didn’t know what to do, you didn’t know whom to call, so you just sat there in the tenebrosity of your room, out of options and out of clue.

Eventually, you collected your nerves and you dialled Steve’s number. He didn’t answer. He told you once that he didn’t like being called unless he called you first so you never did, but this time, you had to speak to him. “Please, pick up…” you prayed while on the verge of breaking down completely.

You were directed to his voice mailbox.

“This is Steve Rogers and if I’m not picking up that probably means you shouldn’t be calling me.”

Beep. “Hey Steve, I’m really sorry for calling you this late but I really need to talk to you. Please, it’s urgent.”

Three hours later and there were still no callbacks. You had sent him twenty-eight text messages and his voice mailbox was full. If you waited one more goddamn second, you’d lose your mind. So you picked up your phone and bit the bullet and typed the words; “I’m pregnant and you are the father. Please call me back so we can talk about it.”

It was around 4.30 AM when you checked the time on your lock screen. You were fatigued; both physically and emotionally. You had to unwind from every quandary that impinged you today. It was a lot and you were at a complete loss, but you’ll figure it out tomorrow.

You didn’t sleep well that night, you kept waking up whilst it was still dark out, and you had to wake up at 7.30 tomorrow for work. You kept looking at the sleek device that was left unmuted on your bedside table in case Steve called back. He didn’t though. You only slept for an hour and you really wanted to take a day off but you’d lose your mind if you were left alone with your thoughts and no distraction. So you got out of bed, took a shower and prepared for work, with your thoughts filled with the future of this baby growing inside you and Steve. Why hasn’t he called back or even text at all? Does he really think so little of you?

The impulse to check your phone and call and text him every five minutes was adamantine. You tried to control the itch of sending him another text and voicemail but it failed until you read the words ‘not delivered’ in red under the last text message that you just sent. You tried to resend it over and over again and even tried to write a new message but it was the same result.

You moved to your call feature but after a single ring, you were diverted to voicemail. It took you a few seconds to realize that Steve had blocked you. You went to the last media to reach out to him and it was through his Instagram account. You didn’t even follow each other and you were certain that he received thousands of DMs and notifications every day from his obsessive fans. He had 39 million followers for God’s sakes, the hell is one message from you going to mean anything?

But you were despondent and you needed someone to go through this with, especially the father himself. You did it anyway without thinking twice and told him that you were pregnant and you needed to talk to him. You even sent a picture of those three pregnancy tests and attached it on your message. You couldn’t stop biting your lip and tapping your foot throughout the entire way to your work in the train. Man, were you really going to raise this child alone?

Three days later and still no signs of him attempting to return your messages. You had slowly accepted your fate that you were going to carry and raise this child alone. You still hadn’t told Adrian despite talking to him every day and it crushed your heart whenever you heard his elated tone. You could tell that he was really into you and he wanted to take this relationship further but sorrowfully, one way or another, you were going to have to tell him the secret growing in your belly and you were going to have to slaughter this exquisite potential. You wondered if the circumstances were different or you had met at another time or in another universe, would Adrian be the one you were meant to be with?

You made a promise to yourself that you were going to meet him tomorrow and tell him the truth. Delaying it wouldn’t make it any easier and it wouldn’t prevent the doom from happening. If anything, it would only elongate the hurt. So you picked up your phone after you cerebrated it on your mind and clicked on Adrian’s chat room; “meet me at the Drive Brew Cafe tomorrow? Got something I’d like to talk about.”

“Is it something really urgent or you’re just looking for an excuse to see me?” Wink emoji.

“Oh, stop flattering yourself. We really need to talk.”

“Usually, I’d ask a person the matter before I’d decide that it’s important enough for me to meet them in person but I’m giving you a pass.”

“Very generous of you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, y/n.”

You arrived ten minutes earlier than the time you both agreed to meet at. The cafe wasn’t too crowded, thank God, so you immediately ordered a cup of Machiatto for Adrian and a cup of hot chocolate to calm your nerves. After the barista called your name, you walked to the corner booth before anyone could occupy it first. You were going to need some privacy. You sat as your hands trembled from edginess. You couldn’t stop fidgeting and tapping your foot as the second passed by on the clock.

Exactly on 6.30 PM, a dashing brunet in a dark grey vest and rolled-up sleeves entered and you stood up to greet him. He just came home from work and man, it was impossible for him to ever look bad even for once, you were so lucky but life just kept finding a way to eliminate the people you cared about.

“Hey, you look good.” his British accent was thick. He kissed your cheek and embraced you with a warm smile.

“So do you. How was work?” You both sat on the opposite chairs of the booth.

“The ordinary. We had a meeting with a director of this historical film to get us to fund the project. How was yours?” The genuinely curious look on his face nearly changed your mind. Oh, how you wish you could hold on to this moment where you could still have him a little longer.

“Nothing new, just another day at work. This one’s for you by the way.” You didn’t know what more to say when your mind was cluttered so you stalled by passing over his drink.

“So, what’s so important that you needed to see me?”

“Adrian, you know, I really like you, right?” you took his hand in yours as you stared into his striking eyes. “And I’ll always be grateful that you were foolish enough to ruin my dress that night.”

He was perplexed. His eyebrows were furrowed. “As much as I enjoy your companion, I’m sure that you didn’t call me to meet you only to thank me for wrecking your dress, right?”

“Yeah, but um… I just, it’s been wonderful knowing you. And… Oh God, this is going a lot harder than I thought.”

He nodded. A dejected look on his face that you wished you could wipe out. “Let me save you the trouble… You are breaking up with me.” He didn’t say it as if he was guessing, he said it as if it was a declaration that he’d figured out before you could even formulate the words.

“Adrian… I’m pregnant. And you’re not the father, so don’t worry. I know when you first asked me out, this isn’t what you signed up for. So I’m setting you free. I’m sorry.”

You expected him to get up and walk out of the door, leaving you with your alienation but none of that was detected on his expression or his body language. “Who is the father?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Adrian…”

“Don’t I at least deserve to know who my girlfriend is sleeping with before I even took her to my bed?”

Girlfriend. Huh. Well, that’s first.

“Steve Rogers.”

“Steve Rogers the actor?”

“Yes…”

He snickered. That drew a mystification out of you. “What’s so funny?”

“So you’re into the arsehole type.”

“…How do you know what kind of person he is?”

“The movie that we had a meeting about today? He’s going to star in it and I’ve met him a couple of times at some parties. Not the nicest guy, eh?”

“I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

He sipped a bit of his coffee. “How did you get involved with a bloke like him?”

So you told him everything; the beginning of your friendship, the fallout, the moment he took your V-card in your dorm, and how years later, he still had you on a chokehold. He didn’t seem to mind one bit that the woman that he had been seeing had a history with someone. He’d dealt with much worse scenarios in his former dating lives. He wasn’t going to let other man’s neglected baby stand in the way of what could be something beautiful.

“I’m not walking away.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m staying. I like you and I know you feel the same way too. We are going to raise this baby together. No child deserves to grow up fatherless. I’m going to be its father.”

“Adrian, but…”

“No buts, we’ll get through this together. Now, let’s enjoy these tasty drinks before they get cold, yeah?”

So you nodded, too dumbstruck by the man before you. You drank your hot chocolate that was cooling down and let his presence soothe you better than the sweet drink on your tongue.

Steve went back to New York after spending nearly four months in Atlanta, shooting his movie. Man, he’d lost count on how many extras he had fucked in his hotel room but nothing felt as good as your pussy. He thought about your last text before he blocked you. You had claimed that you were pregnant with his baby. You must’ve lost your mind to think that he’d buy that shit.

So he picked up his phone, unblocked your number and pressed the call button. Three dial tones and a familiar voice answered. “Hello?”

“Hey baby, meet me at my place tonight.”

“Who is this?”

“Hillarious, y/n. I’m too fucking tired for jokes okay? Come here and suck my cock then maybe I’ll listen to your jokes.”

“Is this Steve Rogers?”

“Fuck yeah, it’s me, y/n. Who else do you think I am?”

A pause jammed the line. “I’m done, Steve.”

“What? The fuck do you mean you’re done?”

“I sent you thousands of texts and calls five months ago and you couldn’t even lift your fingers to answer.”

“I was in the middle of shooting, y/n. You know better than to call me while I’m working.”

“Oh, screw you, Steve. I’m pregnant and you didn’t even care? How much of an asshole can you be?”

“You were actually serious about that?”

“Of course you think I was joking. But don’t worry, it’s none of your concern now. We’re done. Don’t call me anymore.”

“Wait, wait! Y/N!” you cut off the line. “Ah shit.”

He tried to call five more times and you neglected every single one of them. In fact, you instantly blocked his number after the last phone call with him. You didn’t want to be associated with him anymore. You thought that Steve had forgotten about you since he blocked your number first so you never had to do it yourself. But of course, an entitled scoundrel such as he is would never stop taking and taking until you had nothing more to give.

It took you years of anguish, an unforeseen mishap and a beautiful stranger that ended up being the stupendous love you’d been looking for to open your eyes to the rotten core of Steve Roger’s heart. He ever only lusted for your flesh, he never gave a shit about you as a person.

You lived for the hope of it all, you cancelled plans just in case he’d call, and you never once suspected the pitfall, but you were no longer that foolish girl anymore. You had met a real man now and he led you to the path of love and happiness and Steve was no longer the most intrinsic thing on your mind.

Steve was going apeshit. He had never been rejected or denied before, he always had it so effortlessly. Especially by you. He thought he’d always have you by the palm of his hand, he thought whenever he asked you to jump, you’d always say “how high?”, he thought whenever you’d think about walking near to the door, you’d always turn around with a few sensual touches and sugarcoated words, but the renunciation that came out of your mouth sting like a bitch and he didn’t like his ego being trampled over.

He went to sleep later that night, dreaming about caressing you and kissing you as a lover would. Never once did he ever have such a dream about anyone before. Maybe he belonged to you more than he had realized all this time.

It was his fourth time this week of standing on the street of your apartment building after you returned his plenteous gifts that you certainly never even asked for or needed. Why would you? You could easily buy that necklace jewellery, that overpriced velvet dress, and those designer shoes with your own money. And even if you couldn't, your boyfriend could easily afford all those things for you too. But that motherfucker used his money to buy you shoddy gifts such as poorly designed accessories and tacky books and yet you happily accepted them? What a closefisted fool.

But who are we kidding? The sole reason why you didn’t accept those gifts is that you no longer cared about him. Those inducements didn’t work on you anymore. You were much happier with a better man now. What do you have to lose?

Rather than dwelling in self-pity and resentment, he hid in Range Rover in a black baseball cap and Tom Ford shades from the paparazzi and waited. Waited for her to come out. He had been religiously stalking every social media you had from another private account to track your activities. The last photo you posted on your Instagram was a picture of you and the scary college roommate of yours that he’d forgotten the name of. It was last Saturday.

“Always a delight to catch up with this one. Love you @natasharomanoff.”

under 281 likes and 32 comments. He scrolled through every single one of them and searched for any clue that might indicate your next move. Found one.

Wandamaximoff: “Don’t forget about me!! :(” so they are still friends apparently.

Natasharomanoff: “Same time next week? 💕”

“Absolutely,” you replied to the red-head.

Gotcha. He’ll be there.

So here he was, waiting for you to come out of that building to grab an Uber because he knew you weren’t so into driving. Except for that late-night rendevous of course, because he told you once that he’d hate for a single soul to know there was something going on between you and him. You were a secret and he’d like to keep it that way. Sooner or later, people are gonna talk and headlines are going to break the internet.

Two minutes later, you stepped out wearing a beige coloured cable knit cardigan and a grey jersey maxi dress underneath with a necklace around your neck. He couldn’t see it from this distance but the item had made a few appearances in some of your recent Instagram posts, and he already knew that you wore it wherever you go. It was an initial necklace of the letter ‘A’ in silver.

He hated the arising thought but he couldn’t help but think how ethereal you looked in your casual, maternal clothes. Perhaps even more than when you wore those petite dresses that always made you look uncomfortable whenever you wore them. You walked with grace and there’s this elegance that you just exuded without trying too hard. You could be wearing the most boring clothes or doing the most mundane things like looking down at your phone to text your Uber driver and you’d still look enchanting.

Man, how could he had been so blind all this time?

It shredded his heart even worse knowing that the growing fetus in your belly was his, but when that baby borns, another man would hold it instead of him and the kid would grow to learn that another man was its father instead of him. That motherfucker. He didn’t have any right in raising that baby. You were bearing his child. Not Adrian’s. You belonged to him. You always did. Fate had interlaced your paths long before you were given birth to this world. No one knew you better than him and vice versa. Not even that former roommate of yours or Wanda. Only him. He had to have you back. Whatever it takes.

He was so inflamed with debt and feebleness of his childhood that he turned into someone he used to loathe when he was younger. He strayed so far away from the path that his mom had paved for him to walk in and he wasted the one good thing in his life that kept him going when he had nothing. But he couldn’t turn back now, couldn’t cross out the mistakes that he did. The best he could do is make use of what he is capable of now and utilize it cleverly.

A scheme was formed in his head… He’d have you back in no time. One way or another.

Months went by and his patience emaciated. He had it all drawn out in his head but he had to be very careful. If he rushed or stepped on the wrong stone, he’d end up being decapitated and his career would burn to ashes. Especially with how the paparazzi and the media were always busting up his ass, like hunters with foxes. He couldn’t have that. He had worked too hard to see it all crumble beneath his feet.

He rejected all film projects and public appearances offered by his agent slash good friend, Sam Wilson. Sam was getting a little frustrated by Steve for being unreasonable. He was his most ambitious client, never one to say no to a good script and occasions that could advance his career and generate more profit for both of them.

But after he returned from Atlanta for his last movie, he had been shutting most people out. Sam was always his most trusted confidant, he was his agent, after all, it was his responsibility to make sure the client that earned him the most income was well in health and aptitude. But he was scratching his head trying to get Steve to open up to him.

Sick of Steve’s shortcoming, he called Steve and told him to come to the office.

“Fuck off, Sam. Why can’t you just talk on the phone?”

“Get your ass down here or I will come to your house myself.”

He groaned and hauled himself to Sam’s office, not in the mood for Sam’s garrulous nagging.

Steve knocked on Sam’s door and he saw Sam sitting in his usual black and white attire in his ergonomic chair. He had a frown on his face instead of his usual conceited womanizer charm. “What’s with the long face?” Sam asked.

“Nothing. I’m just worn out.”

“Cut the bullshit. Last time you got your ass to work was six months ago. What the hell is happening with you?”

“I just haven’t found any good script that interests me, Sam. And I told you, I needed a short break. I’ve been travelling nonstop for the past few years to shoot films and press tours, and now I just need to hit the pause button.”

“The Steve Rogers I know isn’t one to rest. He was power-hungry and always craved for more. You also rejected an Oscar potential role. Something’s going on and it’s deeper than just needing a break. C’mon, talk to me man. As a friend, not as your agent. Let me help you.”

It took him a few seconds to brace himself. He didn’t need to tell him the entire truth, he just had to ask Sam fora favour and then the Steve Rogers that made him millions would come back. “You know anyone who’s good at editing photos?”

“…What?” Sam was perplexed.

“Just let me know, Sam. You got any connections to editing experts? Hook me up.”

“What is fueling this?” Sam was bewildered. He looked at Steve like he had just grown two heads out of nowhere.

“Just trust me on this one, alright? You link me to a good editor and business will back as usual.”

“I know a guy.”

Your bachelorette party was fun. You, Natasha, Wanda and a few of your fellow colleagues were invited to the tea party at the garden of The Berkeley in London, which is the hometown of your fiance. You loved London and you always had such a good time whenever you paid it a visit with Adrian.

Now that the weekend was over, it was time to pick up little Nathan from your parents’ house. A beautiful baby boy was born three months ago and he was your parents’ joy. You never told them that the real father was the scrawny kid who used to lounge around on their couch every Wednesday afternoon when there was nothing much to do. Your parents loved Adrian as their own and it was all that mattered.

This baby is going to grow up with so much love from his parents and grandparents. From your chosen family who will become his aunties and uncles. He is going to be raised right in gentleness, affection, and sincerity. And it would never matter how he was conceived into this world in the first place.

You refused to leave this baby for more than five minutes but Wanda and Nat kept insisting that you needed some time for your own. One bachelorette party wouldn’t hurt. It’s only one weekend. Besides, your grandparents were obsessed with baby Nathan and they were going to take such good care of him while you were away, celebrating your single life with your girlfriends before you spend the rest of it with someone.

Now you were back home, you couldn’t wait to see your baby. You had been thinking about him endlessly in London and you missed holding him close to your chest. So you put on your coat and took your keys to drive to your parents’ house but you were stopped by a text message before you could open the door of your car.

“Enjoyed your bachelorette party?” An unknown number wrote.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Who the hell is this?” your thumb typed and pressed the send button.

“You know me. Better than anyone, just like I know you too better than your fiance.”

Your heartbeat quickened. “Stop texting or I will call the police.”

But before you could hit the send button, a picture of your face popped on the screen. But what disarrayed your mind wasn’t your face, it was the body. You were stark naked with your knees on a mattress and your ears teared up, and your lips were wrapped around a shaft.

What. The. Fuck?

“Got plenty more.” the unknown number threatened.

Another picture of you lying on the same bed, except this time you were on your back so your tits were clear cut visible and your mouth was parted slightly like you were moaning. A hand was wrapped around your throat and yours were pinned above your head by another one.

You were frozen in place and the warm autumn air descended into zero degree celsius. Your breath hitched and tears started brimming in your eyes. Who could have these pictures of you?

“I’ve got many more if you’re curious just how much of a slut you can be.”

“Stop. What do you want?” your fingers trembled.

“Meet me at the New York State Pavillon tonight, at 11 PM. Alone. Bring your baby. If you dare to report this to the cops, I will send these pictures to your fiance and post them on every existing site on the internet.”

The words didn’t leave any room for argument or further questions. So you drove to your parents’ house to pick up Nathan for the last time ever.

Adrian was working late tonight. He told you over the phone that a big project was in the work and so he and his team had to stay a little longer in the office to get it done as soon as possible. You were a bit relieved because that means, you could save yourself from whatever was bound to happen when you arrive at the abandoned historical world fair.

“Don’t forget to drink water. I love you.” You reminded him.

You wrapped Nathan in a blanket to keep him warm and you placed him in the infant car seat next to you. Your mind couldn’t stop flashing back to those pictures. Who could you possibly have done so wrong that they thought exaction would be the most fitting comeuppance. It took about 35 minutes via Grand Central Parkway which was the fastest route so you took it. Your mind also couldn’t stop asking questions, so many questions… But most importantly, who could this person be? Could it be… No, no way. You knew him. That was the last thing he’d ever do. Not because he wasn’t a nefarious person but because the world was constantly throwing themselves at him, offering him dollars and women.

He had too much in his plate to look over to yours and wanted to steal what was in it too. After months of not a single contact made, he must’ve had forgotten about you right? C’mon. This is ridiculous. But if it’s not him, then who could it be?

You arrived at Flushing Meadows a half-hour later and then you texted the number. “I’m here. What do you want?” you kept Nathan inside, fearing that whoever the culprit is might hurt him. So you stayed inside as consternation overcame you.

A few minutes later he answered, “step out the car and bring the baby.”

“Don't hurt my baby, please. Take me, but let him return safely to his father.”

“He will. Now, do as I say or I will publish these pictures.”

You trembled. You unlocked the door of your car and stepped out of it deliberately holding Nathan to your chest. You were careful to keep him from crying. The crisp air sent shivers down your spine. You closed the door and waited. Your eyes roved to all over the desolated site. Until it landed on those familiar blue eyes that held more ice than the air.

“…Steve?”

The man you used to know was different now. His face that used to be clean-shaven was now covered in a glorious beard that made him indistinguishable. His dusty blonde hair was slightly longer and he dressed in dark clothes that amplified the sinister atmosphere circling him.

You held Nathan closer to you with one hand behind his head, trying to keep him quiet. “Don’t be like that, let me see my son.”

“No. He’s not yours.” You spat.

He scoffed. “Say whatever you want, sweetheart but it’s my blood running in his little veins. In fact, I think we can take a DNA test and send it to your fiance, how about that? Also, how is Mr and Mrs. Y/L/N?”

“Leave my parents alone, Steve.”

“Are you going to cut that attitude of yours or do we have to do this the hard way? Either way, I don’t mind.”

“I’ll be good. Just please, don’t involve my parents.”

“Good, I know the good girl I knew is still somewhere inside you. Now, drop your phone to the ground and smash it.”

“…What? No! How am I going to-”

He furrowed one eyebrow at you and you instantly understood the peril if you repudiated him once more.

You took out your phone from the pocket of your coat and dropped it to the ground. You stomped it with your foot until the screen was cracked, but Steve wasn’t satisfied enough with its damaged state so he stomped it harder than you did until it was smashed into two.

He led you to his Range Rover that he parked in an empty street and opened the backseat door and you slide into it with Nathan still tucked under your neck. Then he closed the door and walked to the driver’s seat and drove away to God knows where.

“Where are we going, Steve? Nathan needs to sleep. He can’t-”

“Quiet. He’ll be home soon.”

You didn’t dare to ask more questions. The vacancy in his eyes that were reflected on the rearview mirror was petrifying enough as it is. You sat and stared out the window and think about Adrian. Was he home yet? Did he try to call or text you? What would he do when he realizes you weren’t home? You couldn’t help but think that this morning was possibly the last time you’d ever see Adrian. God, you missed him already. You prayed to whatever God was listening that he would save you and your son soon.

Please Adrian, please do something. I love you.

The soft hum of the engine made your eyes feel droopy. You tried your best to stay awake but it was nearing midnight and the jet lag was still encompassing you so the fight in you to stay awake resolved. You gave in to the lethargy with Nathan dozing on your lap.

You were woken up by a shake on your shoulder and you found Steve standing on the open door. “Get up, we’re here.”

In your still languorous state, you got out of the car hugging Nathan close. “Where are?”

The sounds of crickets saturated the ambience as only the faint glow of the moon illuminated the trees around you. There was nobody around except you and Steve -and Nathan if a three months creature counts-. You put two and two together… Did Steve take you into the woods?

“Steve, what are we doing here?”

He didn’t meet your eye or answered you but instead, he walked toward what looked like a mid-century modern wooded oasis perched on a sloping site and set on stilts. The trees blended with the wood side exterior and wraparound decks. You had no idea whose house this belonged to but it was enchanting.

“Go ahead.”

You approached the resident that was incandescent with yellow lights, giving you a little peek to the furniture inside. You hoped whoever owned this property wasn’t sleeping yet, it was literally in the middle of the night, what the hell was Steve even doing taking you to a stranger’s house?

“Steve, I really don’t think this is a good idea…” as you stood freezing on the terrace. “Can we go back now? I really don’t want Adrian to worry.”

He fumbled with a key and unlocked the entrance. “Get in.”

Your eyes scanned the room to make sure there was no one around that might bust your ass tot he police for breaching before you stepped in. Your eyes peregrinated to every corner of the interior, relishing in the smell of oak and firewood.

He then took you for a quick tour to every section of the house without saying anything that would actually straighten your befuddlement. The decorations were full of vintage and antiques. “You like it?” Steve asked.

“I mean… it’s lovely for sure.”

“Good, then that means we won’t have to redecorate.”

“Wait, wait… What?”

“I bought this house for us, sweetheart. I knew you’d love the cozy design and it’s a perfect place for Nathan to grow up in.”

“Steve, what the hell are you talking about?”

“We’ll work things out. I’ll stay here with you for the rest of the weekend and I’ll only leave when I need to work. You won’t have to worry about anything else, I’ll take care of it.”

“God, you are crazier than I thought. I’m going home.”

He stopped you by blocking the entrance door and glared. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

“Steve, get out of my way.”

“You are mine. That baby is my son, you hear me? This is where you belong.”

“I’m gonna call the cops.”

“With what? Your phone?” He derided. “You don’t even know where the hell we are.”

“Adrian’s gonna come looking for me.”

“No, he won’t. Because I’ve sent those pictures of you to him and to your boss, who is it? Tony Stark? And you don’t have any life to get back to. This is your life now.”

Your heart sunk. No, no, he can’t be. He promised he won’t if you did what he said, right?

“You’re lying…”

“I did. I sent it while you were snoozing in the car. Shit, I’d pay a million bucks to see the look on that asshole’s face when he realized just how much of a dirty slut his fiancee is… Well, ex-fiancee now.”

“Why would you- you promised you wouldn’t if I did what you asked me to.”

“Well, that agreement has changed,” he said it so nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just pulverized the life you had built for yourself, the happiness you had stacked on a shelf that took you years to collect; a great job, a loving boyfriend, an adorable baby.

You wanted to lash out, you wanted to smack him in the face but you were too wounded by what you just heard. If you returned to Adrian and your work tomorrow, would you still even have them? Would they even accept you at all? You knew better than trying to report a powerful man such as Steve Rogers to the cops, he could bribe them, he could get a qualified lawyer. He could also make you lose the battle you never wanted to be a part of even if you were the victim, he could easily paint you as the mentally unstable woman that wanted to blackmail him for money.

The media had never captured pictures of you sneaking out of Steve’s apartment. Steve never took you for a stroll in the park or Sunday brunch because that’s all you were; a secret. Steve never wanted to be seen with you and Steve never wanted to share you with the world for whatever reason. Steve didn’t mind being photographed by models and other film stars, but not you. And now, he wanted to keep you in this little vault or calaboose so that you’d never escape and the traces of your history would be erased forever from the world’s memory.

Because Steve Rogers was no longer the man you used to ride around the bicycle with during the summer or the scrawny romancer you used to know, but he was a selfish man, a man with enough ego and ego to completely metamorphosed himself into whatever he wanted to be, no matter how ruthless and perilous that person he is. And now here you were, a mere object for him to assert his powers on, and you knew it wasn’t because of his love for his son or for you, but simply because he always got his way. Always.

“Now you can stay here, accept your new life with me and raise Nathan together, or you can face the disgrace that your fiance and your boss see you as. You think he’s gonna let you come back to his house? You think your boss is gonna shrug it off and let you come back as if nothing happened? No. You’re dispensable, and one way or another, you’re gonna come back to me. Even if you don’t, I’ll find a way to make you.”

“Why me? You could have every other woman in the world… Why me, Steve?”

“Because you think that you can repudiate me… You can’t. You think you can take away control from me… You can’t,” he gritted. “Not a single person in the world can.”

The tears in your eyes fell the floor as your legs wobbled. “Now, let’s not keep our son awake any longer yeah? Put him to bed. And then… You can be the good housewife you were meant to be and perform your duties.”

So he led you to the nursery room and you put Nathan in the crib. You wanted to fight, you wanted to reach that door and run… Even if you don’t know where you were going, as long as you could escape from this maniac. But you knew better than running away to in the middle of nowhere at midnight, in the cold with your son. You also knew better than thinking that Steve wouldn’t do whatever he could to get you back under his feet… so what was the point in countering anymore? Men like Steve Rogers always wins.

After you put Nathan to sleep, he led you to the master bedroom and ordered you to strip. The routine revokes old memory. “Get on your knees,” he commanded as he sat on the edge of the bed, like a king waiting to be served.

You did as he says and stood between his spread legs. “Take off my pants.”

You unzipped it and pulled it down along with his briefs. “Good girl, now, open.”

You parted your lips, wide enough to fit him and circled your tongue around the tip. Just like you used to because he liked the buildup and you knew it better than anyone. He grabbed a fistful of your hair and tugged on it harshly then inched himself back deeper into your mouth. You hollowed your cheeks to accommodate his girth as he hit the back of your throat each time he went back in.

“Ah fuck, I’ve missed that sweet mouth of yours…” He picked up the pace and you looked up to him. His face contorted in pleasure while you were feeling anything but. You feel repulsed, you wanted to push him away but you couldn’t. He closed his eyes, relishing in the feel of your mouth around him and threw his head back.

He moaned as he controlled your movement faster, trying to get himself off. Your eyes teared up as you looked up at him, and his cock throbbed. He climaxed deep inside your mouth as he kept your head down so every drop that he had was spilled down your throat. He kept you there until he had no more to offer and then he pulled himself out. “Get on the bed, ass up, face down.”

You followed his command and waited until you could feel him kneeling behind you. “Just like old times, huh?” He chuckled. You could feel the tip of his cock nudging your clit and then he invaded your body through your entrance. “Shit, you’re still so fucking tight. Did that asshole ever fuck you at all?”

You didn’t answer but moaned instead as you could feel him stretching you like he used to. And no matter how many times he had fucked you, you never truly got used to it. Adrian’s face came in flashes; you recalled how he made love to you, how gentle he would be with you and how intimate your lovemaking session was, a stark contrast to how Steve would treat you. You also compared their sizes, Adrian was average compared to Steve. Whenever Steve entered you, it always felt like an intrusion, an unforeseen attack, rather than your fleshes weaving into one.

He retracted himself and then pushed back in brutally and you whined. He held onto your hips in a bruising grip, as he pounded into you because he was never one for a tender start; he only had wanted to get himself off and that was it. “Does he fuck you this good? Bet you think of my dick when he fucks you.”

Your body jolted every time he jerked himself forward and he groaned and grunted. He hammered into you relentlessly and incessantly, causing you to clench around him. The wetness made squelching noises as you could feel your impending orgasm approaching, forming a dam inside you that was ready to break any second now. He sped up and he screamed in pleasure as the coil inside you broke, you reached your peak at the same time and he buried himself deep inside you, spilling every drop that he had deep in your womb.

“Bet that British asshole doesn’t even make you cum, huh? And I know you always fake it to get him off you.” He sneered as he detached himself from you and got off the bed to clean himself off to the bathroom.

You laid there in the same position, feeling voidness creeping up your heart like you once were; unwanted and alone. Steve had stripped you of your pride, dignity and honour once and even after you managed to climb out of that pit, he found a way to drag you back down once more and locked you under.

And there was nothing else that you could do except accepting your fate as his perpetual prisoner, living under the corruption and unforgiving authority of Steve Rogers. You could only hope that once Nathan is grown enough, you could somehow sneak him out of this confinement to live a much better life and eschew himself from turning into the monster that his father is.

#steve rogers #steve rogers au #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers series #steve rogers smut #steve rogers angst #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #dark!steve rogers au #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve rogers series #dark!steve rogers x reader #chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans series #chris evans smut #chris evans angst

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martianbugsbunny · 2 years

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OUAT Thoughts Pt.37--Episodes 10-11

I have watched through S4E11; spoilers DNI. Also, spoiler warning for those further behind than I am.

—I feel terrible for Snow. She has to give up her baby again! At least this time she’s sending Neal off with someone she knows will take care of him.

—Anna being put on baby duty is amusing. She’s a lil spacey, but she’s fun, I bet kids love her.

—The Wishing Star is poetry. Anna went looking for it to save Elsa, and Elsa used to to save Anna. I love it.

—Still don’t like Kristoff, but it’s cool that he used an ice ax as a weapon.

—I think Rumple’s villainous stuff right now feels a bit like a regression. If I were writing him, at this point in his life I’d make him selfish with love, because that’s just how he is, but not a bad person. Being possessive of his loved ones works for him, and it’s also a consistent characterization because that has been the underlying theme for his entire arc thus far. Especially now that Bae is dead, it makes sense that he might lean a bit further in that direction. But why not play it different (better?) and have him extend his fierce, protective love to the woman his son loved? The mother of his grandson? I would love to see Rumple as brutal for the people he loves, but also extending his love a bit in honor of Bae. I would die for that Rumple even more than the one I’ve already got.

—I do understand why he wants to split himself from the dagger, but the quest for power doesn’t quite gel. Also, he swore to his dead son that he would try to be a better man, and since Baelfire was literally his Most Important Person™ going back on that promise doesn’t make sense. I can only hope this is like Storybrooke David at the beginning of the show, where he didn’t seem good enough for Snow, but it turned out that was for a deeper layer of character storytelling for him.

—I miss Mulan.

—Man, I don’t like Ingrid, but her death?…That sh*t hurted. The music was sad. She acknowledged her wrongdoings before she died. She died to undo her curse. And her version of heaven is running through a field with her little sisters. I just *can’t*.

—Do Anna and Kristoff ever get to actually get married? I’d love to see that, and since they’re already going back to Arendelle, it’s not even that big of a stretch.

—Snow going into a fit of motherly rage during her sword fight with Regina is awesome. Also, I’m pretty sure in a fair fight, Snow wouldn’t lose to Regina. Regina is too heavily reliant on her magic.

—I adore that the first thing Regina does when going under (or coming out of) a curse is to take stock of her outfit. And her Evil Queen dress was gorgeous. Big, rounded shoulders aren’t really my thing, but spiky shoulders rock.

—I didn’t expect to see Blackbeard again. I mean, he’s still not important, but I didn’t think he would even appear as a plot device. Worth it to see that bomb-ass red jacket tho. Pirates have got style.

—I love Anna. She’s so cute.

—Little weird that I’m supposed to feel sorry for Ingrid about the whole urn-imprisonment thing when she literally killed her own sister? I actually have two sisters, and if one of them killed the other I wouldn’t be like, ‘sounds about right, have a nice day.’ Her ass would be going in jail quick as anything.

—It’s also a little weird that Regina acts like only Henry and Robin believe in her, because it’s been established at this point that Snow believes in her, and mostly Emma too.

—Lol a dwarf with a crossbow.

—Actually the dwarves brawling in the streets was hilarious. Also I would not complain if Granny and Doc had a relationship, might be fun together.

—Will Scarlett is such a dumbass *amused*

—Feeling very upset about Hook. He doesn’t deserve to be heartless. And he’s gonna die, which is not a pleasant prospect.

—The Spell of Shattered Sight was so pretty and sparkly.

—Aw hold on, does Ingrid being dead mean Marian is unfrozen? Because I’m really invested in seeing Robin and Regina getting married eventually (and Henry getting a stepbrother!) and frankly I’d just as soon see Marian die.

—I adore when Hook and Will are in the same room and it’s mate *piratey* vs. mate *britishy*

#once upon a time #ouat #Snow White #prince David charming #snow queen Ingrid #queen elsa #princess Anna #the wishing star #kristoff #rumplestiltskin #baelfire #Will Scarlett #Robin Hood #regina mills #Captain Hook #marian hood #the spell of shattered sight #martianbugsbunny reviews

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kelyon · 3 years

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Golden Rings 16: A Confession

The Storybrooke sequel to Golden Cuffs

In which Rumple leaves the jail, but is not free

Read on AO3

He waits in the darkness. In this prison, his magic is useless and there is nothing to do but wait. Has he been here for weeks or for months? When his wife fretted over his future, did she worry about him being so bored?

His cell is at the end of a long tunnel. The only torches are at the mouth of the corridor, where the guards are stationed. His captors are quiet tonight, but sometimes he hears them talking to each other. They tell tales of him, warning each other against his power, his evil, his devious tricks. They speak as though they are in danger just by being in his presence.

They are not wrong.

If he wanted to, he could kill them with his bare hands. He wouldn’t need magic or a weapon. His own strength and viciousness would be enough to rip through their armor and tear out their throats with his teeth.

It is fortunate for the guards that he has no intention of harming them, or of escaping. He is exactly where he wants to be. This cell is insulated from magic, it is both a prison and a fortress. If there is any place in this world where the effects of the Queen’s curse might be mitigated, even a little, it is here. In this black hell, that faint spark of hope shines like the sun.

Movement.

At the end of the tunnel, lights grow brighter. Another torch has been added to their number. Footsteps echo in the stone cave. Alerted, he sits up. He pounces away from the wall. He crouches on the dank ground like an animal, claws raised, teeth bared.

“Come closer, dearie.” His words are sweet as treacle, but he laces them with poison. “How kind of you to visit me in my loneliness!”

There is a gasp at the end of the hallway, half-stifled. The visitor is afraid, but is trying not to show it. The footsteps hurry forward, soft and quick. The torchlight grows brighter as it comes closer.

It is a hooded figure, he cannot see its face. The body is small, and the cloak is patterned with green and yellow leaves.

He knows that cloak. He made it himself.

He cannot get his hopes up. He is imprisoned in the stronghold of his enemies. No illusion is beyond the grasp of the Evil Queen or the Blue Fairy. Either one of them could be trying to deceive him. Trying to exploit his weakness for their own gain.

Or madness could be taking over his mind. His own hope could be twisting around on itself, creating a vision of what he wants. The one thing he wants to see more than anything else in the world.

“Come closer, I said!” His voice is rough with disuse, with emotion. In this pit of despair, he does not dare hope. He doesn’t want to believe that it could be…

“You cannot order me about, Rumpelstiltskin. Not anymore.” The voice is clear and beautiful, like clean water in the middle of a drought. The light stops moving when it fills his vision. The figure sets a torch in a sconce. Finally, he can see her. Her face. Her furrowed brow, her shaky smile. “You must at least say please.”

“Please,” he breathes.

It is a short fall, to go from crouching to kneeling, but being near Belle again requires nothing less. He must get on his knees to her--his wife, his love, his dearest wish.

Trembling, he reaches through the pointed bars of his cell. Without hesitation, her hand clutches around his. She is on her knees as well. Her flesh is warm and soft.

“You’re real.” This is no trick. He knows it as surely as he knows anything. “You’re alive.”

She bites her lip as she looks at him. He must be filthy, haggard, even more hideous than usual. But she is not repulsed. Only full of pity.

“What have they done to you?” she whispers.

“Nothing I didn’t deserve.” He cannot think of his own troubles, not while she is in front of him. “How did you come to be here, my darling?”

“The guard tonight is a dwarf called Sleepy.” She puts on a brave face, tries to make a joke. “He lives up to his name.”

He cannot tear his eyes from her. “And you have made yourself at home in this castle?”

She nods. “Our plan worked. The Prince ‘rescued’ me. And the side of goodness proclaimed me as one of their own.”

“You are,” he sighs. He has never seen a sight more beautiful than the woman who loves him. “You are goodness, my love. The royals should count themselves lucky that they get to be on your side, let alone that you want to be on theirs.”

Her hand clenches around his. “I’m on your side,” she promises. “We are working together, even when we are apart.”

“Yes.” He holds her hand in both of his and brings it to his lips. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“And I miss you.”

She reaches into his cage. She grasps at his clothes, pulling him closer. Their mouths meet between the iron bars. Her kiss is honey and sunshine and the breath of life. It is meat and blood and peace. He cannot get enough of her. He will never have enough of her. Not until they are truly together, when all the curses are broken and they can live the rest of their lives without fear.

They break apart at the same time, both of them gasping for breath.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispers. “If they find you with me, they will lock you up as well. They will think you are evil. They will try to purify you with scourges and flaying.”

“I know,” she agrees. “But I couldn’t stay away. If only I could be with you always. I would stay with you, even in this terrible place.”

“I know.” He rests his forehead against hers. They breathe together, an act of unity just as important as a kiss.

After a moment, he steps back. There is space between their bodies now, though their hands still touch against the bars. He rubs his thumb over the smooth gold of her wedding ring.

“How are they, up in the outside world?”

“Everyone is panicking over Regina’s curse. They’re trying to stop it, but they don’t know how.”

“If only they had the most powerful user of dark magic in the world trapped somewhere nearby with nothing to do but offer advice to anyone who asks.”

Belle’s pink lips quirk into a half-grin. “Perhaps they need a reminder of that fact.”

“And how is Snow White bearing her firstborn?”

“I haven’t spoken to her much. But I’ve heard that she is often brought low with melancholy. The Prince insists that there is a way to fight the curse, but she is losing hope.”

“Is she desperate?”

“She will be.”

“Good.”

The Dark One trades in desperation. Much of his power comes from fear--not only the fear that people have of him, but of the things they fear so much that they are willing to pay him whatever he asks for.

“The child,” he whispers. “Have they given it a name yet?”

Belle shakes her head. “In this land a prince or princess is not named until after it is born. There is a grand ceremony when the name is spoken for the first time and proclaimed to the whole kingdom.”

“We won’t have time for that,” he snarls. “The curse is coming! The name of the Savior has power. I must know what it is!”

“You will.” She soothes him. She presses her palm against his own. Their scars match up, at the place where they mingled their blood on their wedding day. “I believe in you. We will find a way.”

His breathing slows as her nearness cools his rage. “Together,” he agrees.

His wife looks over her shoulder. “They will change the guard soon.” She bites her lip. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back.”

“You shouldn’t come back.” He forces the words out. “You shouldn’t be here now.”

“Well you can take me over your knee when we see each other again.”

He snorts his surprise and amusement. She is too good, too perfect.

She looks over her shoulder again. “Before I go,” she says, “I have something to ask of you.”

“Anything, my love. Though I have little to give as I am now.”

“It is something from your mind. Something to occupy your thoughts until we meet again.”

“What is it?”

“I want you to think of a name for our baby.”

His eyes widen. He blinks, several times.

“Something you want to tell me, sweetheart?”

She smiles. “No, my love. Only that there is a future for us. Snow White is not the only person who can have an important child. We will be together again. And when we are, we will be a family. All of us.”

He nods. Already his mind is racing with every name he can think of. Names have power. The name of Belle’s child must be perfect. Meaningful. The enormity of the task is enough to fell him. What a brilliant woman his wife is! What a wonderful gift she has given him!

“Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you for reminding me that all of this is temporary.”

Her face breaks, but she keeps herself from weeping. “I love you so much, Rumple.”

She presses in to kiss him again. It lasts for an eternity. It is over too soon.

Before she leaves, she offers him one last assurance: “I will see you again.”

****

Rumpelstiltskin spent the better part of a day in the jail cell of the Storybrooke sheriff station. Apparently Sheriff Swan was the only officer with the authority to release detainees, and her presence was required outside the station until later in the afternoon.

She sent her heartfelt regrets.

He didn’t mind much. The Dark One had learned long ago that there was power in appearing to be at the mercy of his enemies. Captivity in particular had its advantages. No distractions, for one thing. There was nothing he could do now except think, and plan.

Another advantage was that people would have to come to him. Someone had taken the cup that had belonged to Belle. Someone knew what that cup was, and what it meant to him. Someone had tried to draw him out. And someone would be thinking that their scheme had worked.

So someone would be stopping by to gloat.

There was no doubt that the culprit knew what had happened by now. Even if Mrs. Gold’s drunken outburst hadn’t drawn a crowd, news spread fast in a small town. Enough people had heard her shout at him in Granny’s. And enough people had seen Emma helping Mrs. Gold walk to the station. And by mid-morning enough people had noticed him in the holding cell.

For a few hours, Rumpelstiltskin entertained himself by imagining how wild and salacious the rumors could get. Any fool would know that Gold and his wife had participated in a public shouting match, but what else could they think of? That he had used violence? That Mrs. Gold had fought back using her high heeled shoes as a weapon? That her father had rushed in to defend her and Gold had beaten him bloody with his cane? Gold’s reputation was as the most feared man in Storybrooke. Nothing was too outrageous to believe.

That reputation had saved Rumpelstiltskin a lot of trouble in his dealings with the people of Storybrooke. Even now, at the piddling mercy of uniformed police officers, a glare and a sneer were enough to keep them away from him. Every one of them paid rent to him, or owed him something, and they were all keenly aware of it. He was in a cage, but they were the ones who were terrified.

So they made themselves scarce. The station was practically empty by the time Emma waltzed in with a bag from Granny’s. Walking along the central office area, she pulled wrapped sandwiches out of the paper bag and set them on all the desks. Presumably, she knew her workers well enough to know what each would want for lunch. And she cared enough to get it for them, an act that would certainly endear herself to her subordinates.

Emma pulled out the last sandwich from the bag and held it out as she walked over to the cell. “I figured you for a pastrami guy.”

Rumpelstiltskin let himself reach out and take the food. He held the oil-soaked paper bundle in both hands and didn’t open it. “Corned beef, actually.”

“I’ll remember that for next time you’re in here.” It was a joke, but it was also a threat. Emma leaned against one of the desks in front of the cell, facing him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“I believe you mean the first time I actually commit a crime,” he countered. Getting her to put him in jail had been nothing but a bit of theater, a convenient way to keep Mrs. Gold from the same fate. They both knew he wasn’t being charged.

“The next time I catch you trying to get a drunk woman to go home with you against her will.”

“Ah, well.” He shrugged, playing his part. “Given Mrs. Gold’s impulse control, I can’t make many promises on that topic.”

“If you’re trying to convince me that any part of this is her fault, that is not going to happen.”

He let her have that one without further argument. Emma Swan was smarter than most people in this town. She had the rare gift of First Sight--the ability to see things as they really were, and not how everyone knew they were supposed to be. Outside Storybrooke, it had probably been an advantageous skill. But here, in a place where reality itself was subject to the most powerful curse ever made, she was wrong even when she was right.

Nothing Mrs. Gold’s life was her fault, that was true. But it wasn’t Rumpelstiltskin’s fault either. Gold had preyed upon a young woman. Regina had cursed them all. Emma was the only one who could fix everything, but not in the way she thought. Not in any way even someone as smart as her could imagine.

He held up the sandwich. “Thanks for picking up lunch,” he said. “Do my tax dollars include dessert?”

Emma stood up straight, arms swinging with deliberate casualness. “You sit tight, Gold. I’ve gotta go find some paperwork before I can release you.”

She went out into the hallway, and Rumpelstiltskin knew he was in for at least another two hours of incarceration.

It didn’t matter. Emma thought she was punishing Gold, but really she was keeping Rumpelstiltskin free for a little while longer.

He didn’t want to face Mrs. Gold. Interacting with her was torturous under regular circumstances. After last night--and the night before that, and the day in between--living with her would be nearly impossible.

It had finally broken apart. The facade of a marriage that he had spent five months hiding behind had cracked and shattered. She had heard him call out to Belle. She accused him of infidelity. Even Mrs. Gold’s unwavering obedience to her husband had finally bent under the strain of Rumpelstiltskin’s neglect.

Part of him was relieved. It was one thing to wear a mask in front of his enemies, but it was something altogether different to constantly deflect the attentions of a woman who only ever wanted to please him. She lived in his house, she was with him all the time. Until last night, they had slept in the same bed. It had worn on him, to have Belle’s body so near, so willing--and have to reject her again and again. Perhaps now Mrs. Gold would get it into her head to reject him.

Would she leave him?

Long ago in their cursed life, Mrs. Gold had burned bridges with everyone she had known before her marriage. She had no support structure, no money of her own. Her job skills would be enough to get her part-time work at minimum wage--if anyone wanted to hire her. The woman’s reputation around town would scare away most respectable employers. Without Gold, she would have to go begging back to her already impoverished family. Or she could try to ingratiate herself with some other wealthy man in Storybrooke. Gold had often insulted his wife by calling her a whore, but what other option had he given her?

If nothing else, Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t allow that to happen. He wouldn’t let Mrs. Gold make any more reckless decisions with Belle’s body. Though the illusion of the marriage had dissolved, he would have to maintain control over Mrs. Gold somehow.

Probably through money, or comfort. At her core, Mrs. Gold was a practical woman. She knew that her relationship with Gold was a simple deal. If Rumpelstiltskin altered the deal, perhaps she wouldn’t make a fuss.

An image from the night before floated through Rumpelstiltskin’s memory: Mrs. Gold, drunk and heartbroken, fighting against Emma in her need to lash out at him. “You’re supposed to love me, you bastard!”

Where had she gotten that idea? Gold had never allowed his wife to entertain notions of love between them. How could the way Rumpelstiltskin had been treating her possibly lead her to that conclusion? Mrs. Gold had said she loved him, when he had been dreaming of Belle. Had she been dreaming as well?

Had Mrs. Gold been dreaming of her husband? Or had Belle been dreaming of Rumpelstiltskin? What was happening to the curse?

Emma came back with a manila file folder in her hand. She strode purposefully through the station, perfectly comfortable wielding her authority. She was truly the combination of her parents--a born princess and a seasoned war leader. She was the Savior, the curse-breaker. All he had to do was hold on until she started saving everyone.

There was a clear line of sight between the Sheriff’s office and the holding cell. Rumpelstiltskin watched as Emma put the folder she had just brought in at the bottom of a stack of similar files. He took that to be all the paperwork she would have to get through before she would deign to release him.

****

After twenty minutes of industrious silence, the sound of running feet broke through the hallway outside. To Rumpelstiltskin’s ear, the running sounded happy, excited, young. A child with boundless energy, finally free to burst toward something they want.

Following the running was the methodical click of high heeled shoes. For a moment, Rumpelstiltskin thought that Mrs. Gold had come to the station. But no, these footsteps were more authoritative, businesslike.

He wasn’t surprised at all to see Henry Mills come bounding in to the station and make a beeline for Emma’s office. And of course Regina would be slinking right behind him.

“Sheriff Swan, I’m going to permit you half an hour with my son.” Regina announced this piddling allowance of time like it was a gift. “Take him out for ice cream.”

Rumpelstiltskin watched Emma’s eyes flit from Regina, to Henry, to the empty station, to himself, and then back to Regina. “You’re expecting me to leave you alone with a prisoner?”

Regina lifted her chin and looked straight ahead at the cell. “Twenty-nine minutes.”

This time, Emma’s look went only from Henry to Rumpelstiltskin. “Are you okay with this?”

He shrugged. “Bring me back a cone?”

Emma nodded to him, then spoke to Regina. “We will be right back.”

“Yes, you’ll have to be,” the Queen said smoothly. She stood still as Emma and Henry bustled around her, jabbering excitedly as they left. It really was remarkable how much both mother and son lit up when they were together.

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t move. He stayed seated on the cell bench and let Regina come to him. She perched on the arm of the sofa in front of the holding cell. She had a large, black leather purse slung over one shoulder.

“Madame Mayor,” he said in tones low with menace. “To what do I owe this visit?”

“Mr. Gold, I think we might be able to help each other.”

The audacity of this woman. Under any other circumstance, she would have nothing to offer him. And yet…

“When two people each have something the other wants, a deal can always be struck.”

She gave him a tight smile. “I hoped you’d see it that way.”

“But do you have something I want?”

Instead of answering, Regina crossed her legs and pushed back the blazer of her smart business suit. “You know, all day I’ve been hearing the most terrible rumors about you and Mrs. Gold. I do hope everything is alright between you two.”

“My wife,” he said slowly, “has not been herself lately.”

“Or is it you who haven’t been yourself, Mr. Gold?”

He looked at her, impassive. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

“I’m sure you do.” The Queen took her purse off her shoulder and set it on her knees.

Rumpelstiltskin tried not to stare at the bag. He looked instead at Regina’s face. “Why are you here?”

“Like I said, to help you. And to receive some help in return.”

“What do you have to offer me, dearie?”

“Not much,” she smirked. Without looking down, Regina reached into her purse and pulled it out. The chipped cup. “Just a… sentimental little keepsake.”

It took all of Rumpelstiltskin’s resolve not to leap to his feet and demand the cup. He wanted to break these steel bars and rip the cup from Regina’s hands--and rip her hands from her arms if she wouldn’t surrender it. That was Belle’s cup. This witch had no right to touch it!

Instead, he stayed still. All his energy, all his rage, focused on the cup. He focused on Regina, who dangled it by the handle.

“How?” he rasped. How had she known about the cup? How had he let his cover slip? How had she broken into Gold’s house?

“Flimsy locks,” she quipped. Then the Queen turned more serious. “I have power in this world, more power than you know.”

“But not enough,” he hissed. “You will never have enough power to beat me.”

She shook her head. A faint chuckle entered her voice. “I already have. I know what your weakness is.”

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed and made himself shrug. “It’s just a cup.”

“But you want it,” Regina purred. “And you’ll give me what I want in order to get it back.”

“What is it that you want, dearie?”

“I want you to answer one question. And answer it simply.” She squared her shoulders before she asked: “What is your name?”

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t hesitate. “It’s Mr. Gold.”

The Queen glowered at him. “Your real name.”

“Every moment I’ve spent in this world, that has been my name.”

Regina leaned forward, closer to the bars. “What about moments spent elsewhere?”

He locked his eyes on hers. “What are you asking me?”

“I think you know.” Clearly her patience was running thin. “Tell me your name.”

And with a sly grin, he confessed: “Rumpelstiltskin.”

The deal done, he took the cup from Regina’s unresisting hands and cradled it in his own. He looked it over, making sure there was only one chip. Belle’s cup. Their cup. It was safe.

When he looked at Regina, she was fairly glowing with triumph.

“What gave me away?”

“Belle did,” Regina said smugly. “I’ve been watching Mr. and Mrs. Gold for, well, a very long time now. I could see that something was wrong with her. But you seemed perfectly normal. Suspiciously normal.”

His own caution--his own commitment to playing the role of Gold--that was what had exposed him. Still holding the cup in both hands, Rumpelstiltskin sat back against the wall. “So,” he said, “as long as we’re being honest with each other, let’s remember how things used to be.”

“We used to work together,” Regina said, incorrectly. “You used to help me without so much… hostility.”

“That was before you ever came after what was mine, Your Majesty.” He shook his head and tutted. “You really should be more careful about who you make your enemy.”

“You mean my victim,” she sneered.

“And how much longer do you think that will last? Haven’t you noticed the curse getting weaker?”

“But I am just as strong as ever!” The Queen rose to her feet. She looked down on him with regal disdain. “You’re the one who’s letting your biggest weakness galavant all over town!”

Clutching the bars of the cell, Rumpelstiltskin pulled himself up to stand “For your sake, I hope that isn’t a threat.”

“Of course not.” Regina closed her purse and began to leave. “I’ve barely spoken to Mrs. Gold. I’m certainly not the one who brought her so much pain she got drunk in public and started crying in the street.”

With a satisfied smirk, Regina turned on her heel and left.

****

Darkness had fallen by the time Emma officially let him out. Winter nights came early in Maine. If the sheriff noticed the teacup in his hands, she didn’t mention it.

His first thought was to walk back to Granny’s where he had parked Gold’s car the night before. But then he remembered that he had given the keys to Mrs. Gold so she could take herself home. So he would have to walk to the house.

He only hoped that she would still be there when he arrived.

The house was dark and the door was unlocked. Gold’s heavy ring of keys hung in plain sight on the first hook by the door. Rumpelstiltskin took the keys and put them in his pocket. Flimsy locks, Regina had said. She had broken into his house and stolen one of the things he valued most in the world--and he hadn’t noticed until it was too late. The cup could have been missing for days before he went into Gold’s study and saw that it wasn’t where he’d left it.

Would she attack his home again? Should he arrange to put double bolts on all the doors? Or was she just trying to toy with him? This was a world the Queen had made. It shouldn’t surprise him that she had her own ways to take anything she wanted from anyone.

Noise came from one of the inner rooms. It took Rumpelstiltskin a moment to recognize the sound of the television in the living room. Gold had never cared much for the “idiot box,” so it had been an easy device for Rumpelstiltskin to ignore.

He went toward the noise, turning on lights as he went through the house. In the living room off the kitchen, the only light came from the flashing bluish glare of the television. Mrs. Gold was sitting on the couch, curled in on herself under a blanket. She was staring vacantly at the screen, letting the sounds and images wash over her.

Was it just the blue light, or was she paler than normal? The shadows of this dark room brought out the hollows in her cheeks and under her eyes. He could see the sheen of tear tracks on her skin. Unwashed hair hung limply around her face. Her lower lip was dark and swollen from where she had been biting it.

For a moment, Rumpelstiltskin didn’t move or speak. Mrs. Gold hadn’t noticed his arrival. Briefly, he wondered if she was drunk again. If she was trying to deaden the pain of her existence by deadening every other sense. But no, there were no bottles anywhere nearby. Mrs. Gold’s pain by itself was enough to deaden her senses.

He turned on a lamp and let a soft golden glow invade the harsh blue. Mrs. Gold jumped out of her daze. Unlike other times when Rumpelstiltskin had surprised Mrs. Gold, she didn’t hop to attention like a trained animal. She didn’t stand up and present her body for his approval, she didn’t kneel before him like a slave. Instead, Mrs. Gold sank back into the corner of the couch. She wrapped the blanket tightly around herself. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him in silence.

She was afraid.

When she had looked at him like this before, Mrs. Gold had been afraid of what she knew was coming. She knew how cruel her husband was, what the consequences were of displeasing him. But now it seemed she was afraid of the unknown. She had said it herself: All that matters is that I don’t know who you are. Whether she knew it or not, Mrs. Gold was afraid of Rumpelstiltskin.

“Hi,” he said softly. He tried not to alarm her any further.

“Hi,” she answered, still staring at him. She didn’t let her guard down. She muted the television and turned to face him.

“I… I didn’t know if you would still be here.”

Mrs. Gold shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She broke their eye contact and looked down. “I didn’t know if yo u would let me come back if I left.”

Rumpelstiltskin clenched his fist around his cane. Was her uncertainty a reflection of Gold, or of himself? Gold had done so much to hurt his wife, but Rumpelstiltskin was the one who had hurt her most recently. He was the one who had made her like this.

“Mrs. Gold,” he said. “Please, I know things are… confusing right now. But please know that this is always your home, and I will always provide for you.”

“Why?” The word was a whisper in a silent house, but it carried all the weight of the world. “You’re not fucking me. You don’t even like me. Why do you bother with me?”

The chipped cup was still in his hand. He set it down on an end table and moved to sit in one of the high-backed chairs across from the couch. Rumpelstiltskin leaned forward, his arms on his knees as he spoke to Mrs. Gold.

“Because I have a duty to you,” he answered. “I have a responsibility to care for you.”

She snorted and shook her head.

“To take care of you,” Rumpelstiltskin amended. “I owe you that much, Mrs. Gold. It is the absolute least I can do.”

“How nice of you.” Her voice shook with bitterness. “How super fucking charitable! How long will that last, do you think? How long until you get tired of doing the least you can do?”

Mrs. Gold’s hands twisted in the blanket. Her face screwed up into the picture of unspoken agony. She let her hair hang over her face and took a few ragged, sobbing breaths.

He wanted to go to her. He wanted to comfort her. Belle or not, she was a woman in pain and he knew that he could soothe her. That was the least he could do.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

He stayed in the chair, shoulders slumped, and waited for her to calm herself.

“Mrs. Gold,” he tried, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t be the man you married.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Is that it?” On the couch, Mrs. Gold was shaking. “Are we… Is it over? Us? Our marriage?”

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin spoke before he could think. “No, I want you with me, dear. I don’t… I don’t want us to be separated.”

“But you don’t want us to be together.” She wiped her cheek with the palm of her hand. “Not like we were before.”

“I know it’s complicated,” he said. “I wish I could tell you more. Truly I do. But right now let’s just say that I have enemies and you are better off under my protection. All I’m asking is for you to trust me.”

She let out a shaking breath that could have been a laugh or a sob. “Does Belle trust you?”

It was a strange thing to hear Mrs. Gold say. Belle’s voice, saying her own name with so much suspicion and loathing.

“Yes,” he answered. “Belle trusts me with her life, though I’m not always worthy of it.”

For a long time, Mrs. Gold didn’t say anything. She shook her head, rocking slightly on the couch as tears streamed silently down her face.

And Rumpelstiltskin sat there. Doing nothing.

When Mrs. Gold was able to speak, she asked him: “Why aren’t you with her now?”

“With Belle?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “I mean, you’re still a man who can get whatever he wants. If she’s so important to you, why aren’t the two of you together?”

Rumpelstiltskin sighed, trying to think of something plausible to say. “We want to be,” he started. “But, well, Belle is very far away from me right now.”

“What, does she live in fucking Australia or something? Or is she married too?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said in a tone he knew would make Mrs. Gold drop the topic. “What matters is that I have a responsibility to you, and I’m not going to shirk that just because I’m in love with someone else.”

Mrs. Gold winced, but then it turned into a grim smile. “Never thought I’d hear you say that you loved anyone, Mr. Gold. That’s why I never took it personally that you didn’t love me.” Abruptly, she stood up. “I’ll move my clothes over to the guest bedroom.”

“You can have the master--”

“No,” she cut him off. She seemed to have run out of emotions, and was now running on brutal practicality. “You need the bathroom in the master suite because of your leg. I won’t have as hard a time with the tub in the hall bathroom.”

“That’s… very thoughtful of you.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think.” She sighed and turned off the muted television. Now her half of the room was in darkness. “Believe it or not, this isn’t the worst deal you could have offered me.”

“What deal?” Rumpelstiltskin asked. He had been trying to be honest with her. He wasn’t aware that they had been negotiating.

“A loveless marriage for a life of comfort.” She kept herself busy by folding her blanket and putting it away in a cedar chest. She didn’t look at him. “It is mostly the same as what we had before.”

Rumpelstiltskin stared at her as she walked out of the living room.

“Good night, Mr. Gold,” she said formally. “I’m glad you found your teacup.”

By the time he gathered himself enough to speak, she was already upstairs. A door slammed, and Rumpelstiltskin hung his head.

So this was the future he was going to have with his wife.

#golden rings #rumbelle #rumbelle fic #rumbelle angst

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liketolaugh-writes · 3 years

Text

Kintsugi

I posted a oneshot with some associated smut a while back, but honestly I'm, if anything, far more pleased with the main story concept. This is a Kuroshitsuji/BOTW crossover where Link works for the Phantomhive family post-canon, using a base verse Crow and I call 'speedrun Link', where he does his journey start to finish in six months, does them in the order Naboris-Medoh-Rudania-Ruta, and takes a bad head injury less than halfway through.

------

Even when he stopped lashing out, disorientation and mistrust had Link skittering away from the two foreigners like an injured wolf, his fingers twitching on the hilt of his sword. Oddly enough, they kept their distance, though the taller and older of the two was examining his burnt and bloodied hands with clear interest.

Link was tempted to run again, but that hadn’t worked the first time, and the awful combination of his foggy, spinning head and the caustic burn of his body kept him from planning something better. It took all he had just to keep his hands from shaking, a two-handed grip on a one-handed sword.

“Are you quite finished?” the younger called out, sounding bored.

Link took a step back, swallowing thickly and ears twitching at the jarring sound that shattered the soothing silence of the forest. No one was supposed to be able to follow him into the Lost Woods. No one was supposed to be able to find him in the Lost Woods. What sort of magic did these two have?

It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to go. He’d done his damn duty, and he didn’t owe anyone anything anymore.

He took one hand off his sword and pointed out of the Lost Woods, bravado all that kept him in place. His meaning was silent but clear. Leave.

The taller one, the one that had held off Link’s sword with his bare hands and ripped his shield off of his arm, smirked at him, tugging on a new pair of gloves like nothing had happened. “Oh, I think not. We still have business here, after all.”

Too loud. Too loud. Was that a flash of fang in the man’s mouth?

The younger tilted his head and studied Link, one blue eye just visible through the dim light of the enchanted forest. “Heel, Sebastian. We did come to his… territory without invitation. The least we can do is offer him a meal in exchange for his information.”

Information. Just information? Link dearly wished he had the means to ask.

“Yes, my lord,” Sebastian said agreeably, and then, from his coat, he produced a blanket of all things, spreading it out across the ground quickly and gracefully. “I apologize for the fact that I cannot set up better accommodations on such short notice, but I did not think you would object to a picnic this once, young master.”

Goddess, Link wished it weren’t so damned hard to think. If he tightened his hood, would it soften the sharp edges of their voices?

“Fine,” the young boy said dismissively, sitting primly on the edge when Sebastian straightened up. He raised an eyebrow at Link. “Well? Are you going to join us?”

Link looked from the boy, seeming only mildly impatient, to the taller man, beginning to produce more things from his coat – bread that Link could smell as soon as he produced it, deep lidded containers of steamy soup, soft butter. Link actually took a short step back as the scent hit him, even as his eyes locked unwillingly onto it. His heart skipped a beat, the signals for hope and harm too mixed up and confused.

There was plenty of food in the Lost Woods, but it had been a long time since Link had eaten something that wasn’t raw or wriggling. Much longer than the month since he’d completed his journey.

Slowly, holding onto his sword more like a stuffed toy than a weapon, Link knelt just outside the very far edge of the blanket, off of the pristine cloth and on the more familiar grass. The boy sighed.

“Close enough, I suppose,” he said dismissively, demanding a container of the soup with a flick of his hand. Sebastian gave it to him, along with a small plate with a bread roll, and then gave the same again to Link, who hesitated only a moment before taking it. The boy even watched until Link took a bite, dipping the bread into the broth – there was no way he could handle a spoon – before he spoke. “I am Earl Ciel Phantomhive, and this is my butler Sebastian.”

Link let himself relish the taste of the bread and soup – better spiced than anything he’d ever had before – and then nodded, wary eyes on Ciel and his free hand still on his sword.

Ciel ate a few spoonfuls of soup himself, neat and perfect, and then a bite of bread, giving Link time to eat a little more himself before he continued, seeming to pay more mind to his meal than his words.

“Given recent changes to the political environment in Hyrule, certain interested parties are attempting to anticipate the future situation before any problems can arise,” Ciel explained, and though he wasn’t speaking quickly, Link’s head spun worse just trying to untangle that into something that made sense. “We’ve already spoken with Lady Impa and Queen Zelda.” He paused, and when Link didn’t reply, added, “What are you planning on doing when you emerge from the forest?”

Link had to shut his eyes at that point, and even after months, it hadn’t become any less humiliating that thinking too hard could make him feel physically ill. He swallowed twice, thick and wet, before he shakily set the bread down on his lap and at least tried to answer.

It didn’t work, of course. Between his trembling hands and his muddled brain, he hadn’t been able to sign properly since the Windblight had thrown him into Vah Medoh’s main terminal.

I don’t want to come out, he tried to say.

I’m never fighting for Zelda again, he tried next.

I just want to be left alone, he attempted.

None of them came out right and he gave up, dropping his hand back to his sword and looking away, blinking the sting of tears away from his eyes. He wasn’t hungry anymore. His cheek and neck throbbed where the Fireblight had seared the skin away into a blistered and bubbling mess.

“What’s the matter with you?” Ciel asked, the mild exasperation in his voice grating at Link’s ears almost as bad as the noise itself.

“The hero of the goddess is famously mute, young master,” Sebastian explained to the boy, and then paused, lingering and conspicuous, and added more slowly, “And… pardon me, Master Link, but might you also have a head injury?”

Link nodded miserably and wondered if that would be enough to make them leave.

“Hm,” Ciel said thoughtfully, and then, “You’re meant to be eating. Eat.”

Link ate.

“Alright,” Ciel said, several minutes later, pushing away his mostly-empty container of soup and his pristine plate. “Do you still serve the Queen of Hyrule?” Relieved by the easy question, Link shook his head. “Are you interested in political gain?” Shook his head again. “Will you be aiding Hyrule’s military?” Once more, Link’s head starting to pound from the motion and noise. “Taking an apprentice?”

In answer to that last, Link just gestured to himself – dirty and rumpled, clothes he hadn’t washed in over a month, hair tangled and loose around his shoulders from where he hadn’t been able to do it properly in far too long, huddled in on himself against the abrasive brush of air on his skin.

Ciel raised an eyebrow at him, like he actually believed Link could teach someone in this state, and finally Link just shook his head again. Even if he could, he wouldn’t. He was too bitter and sick with betrayal. He didn’t want friends anymore.

He hoped that was enough to satisfy them. Everything hurt, and he wanted them to leave.

“It sounds as if he’s no particular threat to England,” Ciel said idly to Sebastian, watching the man start to clean up. “Queen Zelda is perhaps another matter, depending on the extent of her power and charisma, but it remains to be seen. At the moment she seemed more overwhelmed with her task than anything.”

“Quite right,” Sebastian agreed, and then, to Link, just as he started to stand, “It would be entirely too rude to let your meal go to waste, don’t you agree? Besides, we have one more order of business to attend to.” Back to Ciel, “It’s entirely likely that if Hyrule does become a threat again, it won’t be for, at minimum, another few generations.”

Link hesitated, and Ciel glanced up at him long enough for Sebastian to look as well. The man gave him a beatific smile and produced a small bottle, holding it out.

“This is laudanum,” Sebastian informed him. “It’s a popular painkiller in England, quite effective. Since you smell so strongly of pain I can detect almost nothing else, I thought it might be of interest to you. Are you willing to lend an ear now?”

Link wavered, trying to figure out if Sebastian was sincere, and when he didn’t pull away, he took the small bottle and sat back down.

The two humans across from him exchanged an unreadable look, and then Ciel nodded at Sebastian. Sebastian turned to Link, kneeling politely on the edge of the blanket, and Link cocked his head warily.

“Since you have absolutely no interest in continuing to serve as the knight of Hylia,” Sebastian said, slow and unconcerned, his eyes never breaking contact with Link’s. “Perhaps you would instead consider working for the Phantomhive family.” Link tensed, because he didn’t recognize the name, but if Sebastian thought- if either of them thought- “You would be offered a fair wage for your efforts, of course, as well as room and board. Training in any of the relevant skills that you may lack. Days off, medical leave, and, naturally, regular access to a doctor.”

Link wasn’t expecting the way that that last offer made his throat close up like he was being choked, and swallowing did nothing to dislodge the lump.

Seven months he’d been awake now, that whole time in a body that screamed when it rained and scorched his nerves when he reached too high and seemed to fester and worsen with every passing week. The shaking hands from the Thunderblight and the head injury from Vah Medoh, every new burn on Death Mountain and the days he spent crying on Vah Ruta because he couldn’t solve a damn puzzle to save his life-

And in all that time, all he’d ever heard was hurry, hurry, hurry, you’ve taken too long already, and so any care that he couldn’t get inside of an hour, he put off.

“He ought not to start work right away,” Ciel said to Sebastian, disinterested and uncaring. “If it’s truly as bad as you say, we should wait for a doctor to clear him. Humans can’t work well under that much pain.”

“As you say, my lord,” Sebastian said, oddly smug, and Link turned wide eyes on both of them, unsure if he could even trust it. Sebastian glanced at Link and cocked an eyebrow. “I could put it into writing if that would be easier to understand.”

Link was nodding before he could think twice, still clutching the little bottle of laudanum protectively against his chest.

-----

One Year Later

-----

Link woke up where he’d gone to sleep, in the little hedged-in patch of grass hidden on the outskirts of the garden. He mumbled drowsily against the ground his cheek ws pressed against, the opium he’d taken earlier coaxing him to drift back off. His whole body was still heavy and relaxed, the pain in his skin softened to the dullest ache.

A moment later, though, his eyes popped open. The guest.

He rolled over and arched to check the sun in the sky, and then swore internally, stumbling to his feet. Link was a mess, not dressed for the little master’s company at all: his uniform jacket was half-undone and askew, his trousers wrinkled, his hair down around his shoulders and tangled from where he hadn’t even brushed it that morning. His gloves were grass-stained and dirty, and his undershirt twisted around from laying prone in the garden.

His earmuffs had fallen off too, and he tugged those back on first, covering his ears and muffling the too-harsh noises around him. Then Link pushed through the corner of the hedge and darted towards the manor house, hoping Sebastian wouldn’t be too annoyed.

He caught up to Sebastian at the base of the front stairwell, flushing a little at his raised eyebrow. After a heartbeat, Sebastian just sighed at him, turning to face him better and look him up and down with a faint frown.

“I see,” Sebastian said resignedly, and then reached forward.

Link let him, closing his eyes and trying to ignore the way his cheeks wanted to heat up with embarrassment. In a few quick minutes, he felt Sebastian’s fingers run through his hair, combing out the leaves and twigs, smoothing it down, and then pulling it into Link’s usual ponytail. Then he straightened out Link’s jacket and shirt, refastened them, smoothed the cloth down, and pulled his gloves off of his hands.

“Here,” Sebastian said at last, and when Link opened his eyes again he was holding out a fresh pair of gloves. Link beamed at him and put them on.

Thank you, he signed cheerfully, smile turning bashful when Sebastian’s exasperation didn’t ease. Sebastian tutted at him.

“Please endeavor to at least not make too much of a mess of yourself when we are expecting guests,” Sebastian chided. “The others are assembled in the entrance hall, please go and join them.”

Yes, Link agreed quickly, turning and bolting up the steps. Sebastian followed at a more sedate pace, casting a lingering gaze down the road.

The others were lined up just as Sebastian had said, idling in various states of anticipation and excitement. Link looked back and forth between them – Tanaka and Mey-rin in one line, Finny and Bard in the other – until Sebastian moved past him to speak to Mey-rin.

“Mey-rin, please keep an eye on Link this evening, he’s likely to be a touch disoriented. Baldroy, you as well, please.”

Link rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed, and then Sebastian joined Finny and Bard in their line, directing Link to the other with a flick of his fingers. Link relaxed, placed himself beside Mey-rin, and turned his attention to the door to wait for Ciel’s guest.

“Almost late, you are!” Mey-rin scolded gently, and Link shrugged, rocking on his heels as he watched Ciel go out to greet the man. Already, his adrenaline had worn off and he was tempted to yawn again, sticky with sleep.

Pain rest, he explained, then reached up to rub at his eyes. Sebastian and Ciel were pretty generous with his worse days, and when he’d woken up this morning it had taken him the better part of an hour just to shuffle into his loosest and most permissive clothing.

As long as he protected the manor when he needed to, he was doing his job. And they all knew he could push through much worse than a bad day when it came down to the wire.

Mey-rin clucked sympathetically, and then there was no more time to talk; Sebastian hushed them with a gesture, and the next moment, Ciel and his guest came through the door.

Link bowed with the rest, graceful and practiced after a year at the manor, and let his head stay low as they passed: not something he’d been asked to do, but a courtesy he usually paid Ciel’s guests anyway. He lifted it as soon as they passed, and didn’t realize until Bard grabbed his sleeve that the others were leaving too. Link hurried along after them.

Event? he asked Bard, dropping down behind the bush that he and Finny were hidden behind.

“This is what you get for hiding out all day,” Bard scolded without heat, reaching out to tweak Link’s nose fondly. Then he started to explain, and Link, not really following along with the fast-paced explanation, settled in to listen anyway.

He wasn’t too worried about it. Sebastian would take care of it; he always did.

“Did you get all that?” Finny asked earnestly, as soon as Bard was done. Link shook his head, folded his arms over his knees, and set his chin down to watch anyway. “Bard! You explained too fast again!”

“Well, we ain’t got time to explain slow!” Bard complained, shaking his fist in a way Link had already internalized as playful. Link yawned.

Mey-rin break, he pointed out idly, watching Mey-rin spill wine across the table. The other two forgot all about the explanation, panicking loudly, and Link snorted, too sleepy to laugh properly.

Instead of Mey-rin or the guest, Link watched Sebastian; the flash of crimson in his eyes visible even from here, the tension that rippled through his body, the shift of weight before he acted. No matter what it was that powered him – to this day Link still had no idea – he was a beautiful man to watch in action.

The other two cheered, and Link rubbed the palm of his hand along his itchy scarred cheek, blinking slowly. He reached out to tap Bard’s shoulder for his attention.

Fetch Mey-rin, he suggested, watching the little maid sway. Bard swore and dragged Finny out along with him to spirit her back, and when they returned, Link patted her. Sebastian pretty.

“Yeah,” she sighed, soft and dreamy, and then turned pink.

Link yawned again, wincing as the high started to wear off, bringing the throb of his scarring back in increments. Sebastian come.

Sebastian had indeed finished presenting the food to the two lords, and was returning with an exasperated expression that clearly stated he’d spotted them hiding in the bushes. Bard and Finny both yelped, and Link grimaced as he and Mey-rin were dragged along to pretend as if they were back in the kitchen the whole time.

He wondered if Sebastian would let them have some of whatever dessert he was making. All the food Sebastian made was good, but the sweets were a rare treat to the four of them.

Well, one of the others would probably ask.

#kuroshitsuji #botw #crossover #sebastian michaelis #link #ciel phantomhive #fanfiction #my writing #drug use tw

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frenemies-to-lovers · 4 years

Text

A Tether, A Bond | A Jude/Cardan Conversation The Morning After QoN

Tags: Canon-Compliant, Post-QoN, Rating: T+, maybe verging on M? I don’t know, Heat Level: Medium | Word count: 3646

Wherein they discuss the benefits of not having to rule alone and try to work through what it means to be married. Also a small argument because it's just who they are as people. Also things get a little spicy. Because honestly, WHY DIDN’T WE GET A FULL DEBRIEFING CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM?!

----

Preview: "I fear that I also have not found ruling alone to be to my taste,” Cardan says.

I am a little overwhelmed by that. By how sincere that admission feels.

“Lucky for both of us that we don’t have to,” I say with a wry smile.

“How fortunate, indeed, that we are bound to each other for at least as long as we reign,” he says quietly, turning his face to press a kiss to the rounded top of my ear.

Read on AO3 or below the cut.

I find myself waking with difficulty from a very deep sleep. I feel as though I’ve slept for a hundred years, but the stiffness through my body also makes me want to sleep for a hundred more. I open my eyes slowly, reaching out a hand toward the other side of the bed. . . only to find it empty.

Empty.

My chest lurches in panic as I throw off the covers and launch myself out of bed, all thoughts of soreness forgotten.

“Jude?” Cardan says softly as I whirl around. I put a hand over my thundering heart, relieved to see him sitting in a chair by the fire, a dressing gown draped around him. There is a tray of food and tea things on a low table beside him, and a mug steaming in his elegant hands.

My knees nearly buckle at the sight and I plop ungracefully onto the edge of the bed, still grasping at the front of my night shirt. His shirt. That I wore to sleep in.

“Are you alright?” he asks, giving me a concerned look, and I wonder if he can hear my heartbeat.

“Yeah, I just…” I resist the impulse to deflect, or to lie and say it was a nightmare. We’ve been through too much for me to be embarrassed by the truth, or to feel like he’ll somehow hold this vulnerability against me. He already knows how I feel. “I thought for a second that maybe yesterday hadn’t happened at all. That I had dreamed it all up, and you were still cursed.”

“I really am pleased that you prefer me alive, despite the unbridled power you would have if I were otherwise,” he says, giving me a sly smile.

I roll my eyes. “We’ve already had this conversation. I much prefer you both alive and not as a giant snake. And besides, ruling alone was awful.”

“Is that so?” he asks. His black eyes lock on mine, one eyebrow quirked up. He looks beautiful with his face bare and his hair rumpled from sleep. “I had thought that you would like being fully in charge, not having to share your power with me or worry about whatever nonsense I might be up to that wasn’t in line with your schemes. I am surprised that it wasn’t to your taste.”

He looks equal parts sincere and bemused, and I’m not quite sure what to make of him right now. I am unsure if I will ever fully get used to the idea that we are working together. That we are . . what? A team?

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m not exactly practiced in the art of diplomacy. You’re much better than I am at charming the folk and putting them at ease. Not to mention that I’m widely known to be a liar. And a murderer.”

As I’m speaking, Cardan crosses the floor and sits down next to me, close enough for the length of his thigh to press gently against mine. He rests a hand on the bed behind me, casually leaning in. His warmth beside me, this close, feels comforting in a way I am unaccustomed to. I wonder if he is as aware of every point where our bodies are touching as I am.

“I think those are both strengths for a mortal queen,” he says.

“Perhaps. But I’m afraid I don’t quite have the skillset for ruling alone -- murderous, mortal queen that I am,” I return.

That elicits a soft laugh from him. “Perhaps now you understand some of what I felt when you were prisoner of the Undersea. Only I was foolish enough that I had not considered, even for a moment, that I would truly make a poor king without you running the kingdom for me.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Of course you hadn’t.”

“Truly, I had not realized how much easier my job as High King was with you making all of the decisions and whispering them in my ear. I learned much about ruling while you were prisoner of the Undersea, and more still while you were in the mortal world. Even so, I fear that I also have not found ruling alone to be to my taste.”

I am a little overwhelmed by that. By how sincere that admission feels.

“Lucky for both of us that we don’t have to,” I say with a wry smile.

“How fortunate, indeed, that we are bound to each other for at least as long as we reign,” he says quietly, turning his face to press a kiss to the rounded top of my ear. The brush of his lips and the tickle of his breath on my skin makes me shiver.

I feel his mouth hovering so close to me, feel it pulling me like gravity, and I turn my head to bring my lips to his. He kisses me back — gently and slowly at first, then more deeply and thoroughly. He pushes my hair out of my face and threads his fingers in it, cupping the back of my head. I bring one of my hands to his neck, trailing my fingers down his chest as our mouths continue sliding together, again and again. I want to grab him tighter, or maybe push him down on the bed.

I pull away for a moment, assessing, and Cardan smiles with some satisfaction at the flush on my face. I pivot onto his lap, straddling him and bringing his mouth back to mine greedily as I tangle my fingers into his curls. I expect him to grab me with equal force, but he runs his hands over my back gently. I try to kiss him with more urgency, to tell him what I want, but he remains gentle, slow.

“There’s no need to rush, Jude,” he whispers, pulling his mouth away and resting his forehead against mine. He traces a finger down the mostly open collar of my shirt. The touch down my chest, all the way to my sternum, makes my breath catch. He rests his palm gently over my thundering heart. “I like seeing you in my clothes. In my bed.”

My cheeks heat and I keep my eyes closed, unsure if I can bear whatever is on his face as he watches the effect his words have on me. I am overwhelmed by his touch, as he brushes a hand gently down the length of my spine then trails the outside of my thigh. As he crosses from touching fabric to touching bare skin, I feel a sharp spike of heat through my core. I am completely unaware of what my own hands are doing, only that they are on him. He begins tracing slow circles on my leg, the touch of his fingertips feeling charged with electricity.

I can hear my breathing grow ragged and audible, but I no longer have control of it. I can feel myself clenching my thighs around him, can feel myself arching into him and my head drifting back as he presses a gentle kiss to the hollow of my throat. I have slid into a sense of unreality many times with Cardan, but this feels particularly intoxicating. I am not sure I know how to surrender to this. To his lazy, gentle touches. To the idea that we have all the time in the world.

“This is weird, right?” I say breathlessly, unable to hold it in, to give myself over to the feeling.

“I believe you started it,” he murmurs, and I can feel him grinning into the skin of my neck. My breath hitches as his hand flattens up my thigh, his fingertips sneaking under the hem of my shirt.

“Not this.” I dig the nails of one hand into the fabric of his dressing gown with a squeeze. “Just. Being on the same side, not fighting, and not in any immediate danger.”

“You realize that’s exactly what I am trying to enjoy right now, right?” His mouth is still at my throat, and each gentle touch of his lips as he speaks sends a shock through my whole body. My hand in his hair clenches into a fist, the tension beginning to overtake me.

“We can find something to fight about, if that would make you feel more comfortable,” he says, the tip of his nose dragging with deliberate, agonizing slowness from my collarbone to my ear.

“That’s not. . .” I begin, but he interrupts me.

“We’ve already discussed your exile at length, but you’re welcome to yell at me again. I haven’t brought up your killing Balekin, against my wishes, because I think perhaps your anger at the exile far outweighed my own.”

His words wash over me like a bucket of ice water, snuffing out that heat that had been building, and I suddenly do want to fight. I pull away far enough to cross my arms in front of my chest and stare him in the face. Does he really think that Balekin gave me any other choice?

“Balekin poisoned you,” I say sharply. “He would have kept trying to kill you. And he was going to kill me if I didn’t kill him first. And it settled our debt with the Court of Termites.”

I expect him to rise to the bait, to argue back, but he just gives me a steady look. Both of his hands now rest on my bare knees, my legs still bracketing his body. “Did you enjoy it?” He asks, a little coldness creeping into his voice.

I withdraw myself from his lap and take a step back, staring down at him with as much indignation as I can muster while wearing nothing but his ridiculous shirt. I am very nearly furious, but his eyes seem sincere. As though this is something he’s wondered for a long time.

“He deserved to die, you know. And not just for poisoning you,” I say defensively.

He is still looking at me, assessing. I take a steadying breath, trying to tamp down my anger. Trying to sort out how I actually feel about killing Balekin, without wearing that defensiveness as my armor. This -- learning to be unguarded with him -- is going to take practice.

“I wasn’t sorry to see him dead, but I didn’t relish the killing,” I add, my voice a little steadier.

We stare each other down for a long, tense moment.

“I suppose I would have been even angrier at you for losing that duel than winning it,” he responds, with a softness in his voice that I have heard a few times before. A softness that I want more of. He reaches out a hand and I let him take my fingers in his, although I still stand and study his face.

“Wait … did you . . .?” I whisper, some knowledge shimmering just outside of my grasp, something I want to believe but can’t quite accept.

“Already love you? Yes.” How he knows precisely what I meant to ask, I have no idea. Perhaps he knows exactly what is written on his face as he looks at me now. “I knew when you were taken by the Undersea. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I was even more anxious than Madoc to secure your return. Imagine my surprise when I missed you. Not just you running the kingdom for me, but being near you. Arguing with you, provoking you, flirting with you, watching you. All of it.”

My heart stops, and I feel I owe him more. Not an apology, exactly, but as close as I can get to one without lying.

“I didn’t intend to kill Balekin when I left to meet him that night. I didn’t even have Nightfell with me. Or a sword at all, for that matter. I know you didn’t exactly have a great relationship, but I didn’t want to have to kill him. He was the person who raised you, after all. And the last living member of your family. Other than Oak, I suppose.”

He squeezes my hand at that, maybe relieved that I didn’t seek out his brother in cold blood. I can see how it would be easy to believe I had.

“You’re forgetting my mother,” he grins. I grimace. I am trying to forget his mother. “Although, as my wife, technically you are now my family.”

My heart stutters. Oh. Oh. I haven’t thought it through this way.

“Wait… that means Lady Asha is my mother in law. And Madoc, who tried to take the crown from you…”

“From both of us,” he corrects me, his face entirely lit with mischief. It is clear to me that he is enjoying witnessing me stumble upon this little revelation — something he has clearly already considered.

“... is your father in law,” I finish, feeling both indignant and somehow awed.

“Yes, I do believe that is how marriage works,” he says dryly. I want to wipe that stupid, mocking smile right off his beautiful face.

“But… Taryn and Vivi are your sisters. And Oak is your brother now, as well as your nephew.”

“Are you really just realizing this?” he teases, his face now full of mock innocence.

“Yes. Obviously,” I grumble.

“You haven’t thought of me once, this entire time, as your husband,” he says, voice soft, all teasing gone. It isn’t a question.

“I couldn’t think of you as my anything,” I snap, feeling suddenly defensive again. “I thought of you as the High King. And a jerk. And I thought of myself as the Queen. But not of you as…” I trail off. I’m the one who feels like a jerk.

“Say it, Jude,” he whispers. He tugs me back toward him, bringing me to stand between his legs as his hands go to my waist. I look down into his black eyes, suddenly feeling unable to speak. My mind is still whirling, rewriting everything I had thought I understood. I feel a little as though the earth is shifting beneath my feet as everything that has happened over the last days, weeks, and months reframes itself through his eyes.

He had told me that the letters he’d written were full of pleading for me to come back. I am so used to being tricked by the folk, that I hadn’t really considered that he had truly meant it, that he wasn’t still just toying with me. I had not thought of him willing me to come back not just to Elfhame, but to come back to him.

Each memory makes me feel as though I am being pummeled by waves, unable to regain my bearings before being knocked down by the next. The way he had spoken to me when I was pretending to be Taryn and he knew it was me. How he had tried to keep Madoc from taking me. The fact that he went to my sisters, to the mortal world, to find me. Vivi said he’d been desperate to find me, but I could not believe that his motives had anything to do with his feelings for me. He himself, Cardan, had come with the Roach to Madoc’s camp to get me out. He had shielded me and given me Mother Marrow’s cloak. He had nearly watched me die, and then let me bleed out onto his sheets for days.

And the whole time, he had loved me.

I feel both wholly unmoored and more steadily anchored than I have ever felt before.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says, scanning my face. I have no idea what he sees there.

I realize I have been frozen for a few moments and bring one hand up to cup his face, the other tracing the top of his pointed ear. He leans his cheek into my palm, and I feel my heart speed, feel as though there is not enough room inside my chest for what I am feeling. I still cannot speak.

“Please, Jude,” he whispers, his eyes still on mine.

“I am so used to being tricked by the folk that I didn’t consider you had meant it. That you had wanted anything more than just your freedom from your vow of obedience. And that you used my desire for power to get it in the only way you could,” I finally reply, the words coming out more softly than I intend.

His fingers dig into my waist, and he continues to look up into my face as he says, “Then let me say that I did trick you, but perhaps not in the way you thought. I had begun to fear what would happen when my vow of obedience was up and I was no longer useful to you. If you would depose me from the throne and not ever have need of me again. If you would not make me abdicate before my vow was up, if you would bide your time and join Madoc in finding another way to get Oak on the throne when he was older. I did use your desire for power. Not just to convince you to rescind your power over me, but also to convince you to tether yourself to me for longer than a year and a day. To rule beside me, and to grant me what I hoped would be enough time to win your trust. And perhaps, eventually, your heart as well.”

I lean down and kiss him then, soft and sweet. I know that nothing I say in return could possibly be an adequate response to what he just confessed. So I settle for a confession of my own.

“When I agreed to marry you, I had hoped that it meant I could stop being afraid to love you,” I say.

The way he kisses me in response makes me glad I told him. Although I don’t think either of us knows what to do with this much sincerity, this much trust. All of this is going to take some getting used to.

“I am certain we have many conflicts ahead of us, but I hope never to make you afraid to love me again. I am yours, Jude. I would like for you to think of me as such.”

“As my husband?” I ask, unable to stop the shy smile that is breaking across my face. It’s impossible not to be affected by his words, by the truth of them. “I guess after that little speech, I can do that.”

He pulls me to him and I oblige, ready to climb back onto his lap. But he moves until we are lying on the bed. One of his hands makes its way back into my hair as he brings his mouth to mine again, this time with some of the urgency I was looking for earlier. He is touching me gently, though, one of his hands tracing up the curve of my hip. I clutch him tightly, wanting to feel the press of his body against mine. It is simultaneously too much and not nearly enough, the way he is kissing me over and over again. The heat of him and the weight of him as he rolls me onto my back and settles his body between my legs.

I feel his warm palm drag up the side of my thigh and am dimly aware that the hem of my shirt has ridden up dangerously high. I slip one of my hands inside his dressing gown, which has fallen mostly open, and dig my fingernails into his back as he brings his mouth to my neck. I arch into him.

“Tell me again,” he whispers.

I am about to ask him what he means when I am hit with the memory of the first time his hands were on me like this.

“I hate you,” I say softly into his ear with a smirk. He nips my earlobe in a way that sends a shock of pleasure through my whole body.

“The truth this time, Jude. Please,” he says. But I see that he is smirking, too, as he pulls his face away to look at me. It still feels too intimate to say to him, this close, his gold-rimmed eyes burning with hope and desire. So I close my eyes and close the distance between us again, our mouths sliding together.

“I love you,” I breathe into his mouth between kisses. He stills for a moment, his fingers digging more firmly into my skin.

“I love you,” he returns with equal softness. Then he continues kissing me. My mouth, my ear, my throat. I feel like I am burning up, overcome with a heady combination of affection and desire. It is too much.

I try not to shy away from the feeling, try not to push it down. Instead, I think about how I can feel his heart beating with his body pressed on top of mine. I think about his mouth moving along my throat, my collarbone. I untie his robe and think about his warm skin under my callouses as I drag a hand down his chest, his abdomen, lower. I think about his sharp intake of breath, his low moan against my skin as I touch him.

I think about his hands and nothing else. One is still tangling in my hair. He sweeps the other underneath my clothes quickly, the shirt gathering around my ribs. He traces a slow burning trail down my throat, my chest, my stomach, making his way down, down, down.

I think about how much I have wanted this, and how much more it is than I even allowed myself to want. To be wanted. To be loved.

Then suddenly, blissfully, and without my notice, I am no longer thinking at all.

#tfota #tfota fanfic #jurdan #jude x cardan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #pov jude #just talking #fluff #and making out #other things implied #heavily implied #qon spoilers #qon #twk #tcp

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