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kingofsummer93 · 10 months

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Plant a Jasmine in the Night

Summary:

On her first ever assignment as Night Court emissary to the human lands, Elain stumbles onto something she shouldn't have seen.

What was meant to be her chance to have a taste of freedom might just end up pushing her towards the one person she's been avoiding all along.

Rating: E

Read it on Ao3

Inspired by an @sjmkinkmeme prompt. Elain's dream was inspired by this gorgeous comic by @artcraawl.

The dream started as it always did. It was night, and Elain was in her garden at the River House. The air was fragrant with late summer blooms, and something else- something that she couldn’t place at first, but that tugged at her heartstrings like a distant, fond memory.

A crisp wind sent goosebumps erupting along her skin. She rubbed her arms, teeth chattering with cold. The next moment a warm wind encircled her, a bubble of warmth wrapping itself around her like a cocoon. That distant scent became stronger- woodsmoke, crisp apples, and something else. Something like the scent of sun-warmed skin, musky and so inherently male that a small whine escaped her lips as she filled her lungs with it.

Elain closed her eyes and sighed. It was so pleasant, the warmth and that mouth-watering scent, that she could have stood there forever. She was aware of a presence behind her, but she didn’t mind. Not even as a familiar noise interrupted the silence around her- a steady, unfaltering thump, calling to her like a port in a storm.

It grew louder as he came closer, that golden thread of light coiling tight in her chest, buzzing in response to his closeness. His arms wrapped around her, those large hands settling on her stomach, and then his lips were near her ear, tickling her skin. Elain tipped her head back against his chest, melting into the solid warmth of him.

“I’ve missed you.”

Elain woke with a gasp. For a moment the scent and warmth lingered around her, and she clung to it even as it slipped away from her like sand through her fingers. And then it was gone.

She hadn’t had the dream in a long time. It was usually triggered by Lucien’s presence, and she hadn’t seen him in months. Not since Nesta and Cassian’s mating ceremony, where he’d avoided her like the plague.

The memory of that night made her burn with fresh embarrassment. He was always impeccably dressed, but he had looked particularly handsome that night, in a white shirt and emerald green vest trimmed with gold embroidery. His long hair had been unbound, with two little braids snaking around his ears, revealing their elegant, pointed tips. She had thought that perhaps Lucien might ask her to dance- and that even if they went back to their usual rhythm of avoidance, she might at least have that memory to cherish in secret.

Instead, she had looked on with growing jealousy as he asked every other female in attendance to dance, except for her. She could hardly blame him- no doubt he had expected her to say no, and had wanted to avoid a particularly public rejection. Still, it had felt like a rejection of its own.

I don’t want it, Graysen had told her, after she had offered him her heart.

Mistake, Azriel had told her, after she had offered him a kiss- and perhaps more, if he had wanted it.

And then silence and avoidance from her mate- her cauldron-blessed soul mate, bound to her forever. Whom she couldn’t even escape from in her dreams.

Lucien wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight. It was partly why she accepted the job in the first place. With her mate permanently stationed in the Spring Court to keep an eye on the situation with the Autumn Court border, he had less time on his hands to act as Night Court emissary to the human lands. Elain had volunteered for the job, eager to finally do something.

Feyre had been hesitant, at first, and more than a little surprised, but Elain had stood her ground. What was the point of all the freedom that her new life as fae offered her, if all she did with it was tend to her garden and help cook meals for her family? She was familiar with court politics of the human lands, and knew how to act around their nobility. The social season was a kind of court warfare of its own, after all. And besides, with Lucien spending most of time in Spring, she wouldn’t need to worry about running into him.

Or so she had thought, until she had done precisely that.

She had breathed a sigh of relief upon her arrival when it had become apparent that her mate was not around. Vassa had been cheerful and kind, and Jurian, though Elain was still uncertain how she felt about the man, had been polite, if a bit sarcastic. Given the fact that Vassa was only in her human form after sundown, the pair had graciously offered to host her for the night, and Elain had agreed. She’d even started to enjoy herself by the time they sat down for a late dinner, her nerves put at ease by Vassa’s relaxed irreverence, and Jurian’s witty remarks.

Until he had waltzed in, looking casually handsome in a breezy white linen shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. Elain had cursed herself for not noticing his arrival. Maybe her senses were somewhat dulled by the lack of magic in the air. The way he had frozen upon seeing her had been so comical that Elain would have laughed, if she hadn’t been so mortified.

After a painfully awkward dinner, during which she had studiously avoided his gaze, she had politely declined Vassa’s offer of a game of cards, and had retreated to her guest room like a scared mouse.

It was too much, seeing him like this, relaxed and joking with his friends. The only person he ever acted with this way was Feyre, and occasionally Varien and Cassian. It made him more real, somehow, and less like a vague, occasional visitor that she could pretend didn’t exist. She didn’t need any opportunity to start seeing him as someone that she might like. That was a dangerous road- one, she was keenly aware, that only ever led to being hurt.

If only she had the power to winnow, she might have written a note to Jurian and Vassa, thanking them for their hospitality, and disappeared into the night. But she couldn’t, which meant she was stuck here, under the same roof as him, until morning.

And now she couldn’t sleep.

Elain kicked off the covers in frustration. There was no use trying to go back to sleep now, not with the memory of that dream still rattling her nerves. She had once asked Madja for a sleeping tonic, thinking it would help, but she had learned the painful way that though the tonics indeed helped her sleep, they did not keep the dreams at bay.

She wrapped a robe around herself, thinking she’d slip down to the kitchens for a cup of tea. Perhaps with a splash of whiskey in it, if she could find some. Maybe then she’d be able to sleep.

She hesitated a moment before opening her door before checking the small clock on the bedside table. It was well past midnight- surely everyone was asleep by now? Lucien’s heart was a steady, even beat, a mockery of her own jangled nerves. Surely asleep, then.

The upstairs landing was quiet and dark, a single oil lamp at the top of the stairs confirming that her path was clear. The sight of that oil lamp was jarring, somehow. She’d grown so used to the sight of fae light that she had almost forgotten it didn't exist here.

The thick carpet absorbed the sound of her footsteps as she crept down the hall and towards the stairs. Maybe being back in the human lands was messing with her, she told herself. Maybe that was why she couldn’t sleep. Even the food at dinner had tasted wrong, though it had looked and smelled delicious. The fish, glazed and flaking under her fork, had tasted like the bottom of a river, and the wine, though she recognized the vintage as being a fine one, had burned all the way down her throat like a mouthful of vinegar.

Perhaps that was the problem. Not the dream, or him, but being here. The wrongness of being here only highlighted how used she had gotten to her new world, to the strangeness that now felt normal. Something about that made her feel sad.

She had almost reached the bottom of the stairs when a light from the foyer snapped her out of her reverie. The door to the sitting room was halfway closed, even though it had been thrown wide open during the evening. Maybe the others were still playing cards, and hadn’t wanted to disturb her sleep.

Elain hesitated. There would be no hope of sleeping if she went back upstairs now. The best she could hope for was a sleepless night spent tossing and turning. She’d simply have to sneak past the door and hope Lucien wasn’t there to sense her presence- or that he’d ignore her if he was.

She took another step, moving as quietly as she could- and then a noise made her freeze, her foot hovering over the stairs. A soft gasp, throaty and definitely feminine. Elain gripped the banister, holding her breath. Her heartbeat was so loud in her own ears that she was once again grateful that Lucien couldn’t hear it.

Had she imagined it? Maybe it was her mind playing tricks on her after that blasted dream…

Another noise drifted from the sitting room, one that she had definitely not imagined. A high-pitched whine, but muffled, as if whoever was emitting those sounds was trying hard to be quiet.

Elain might have been inexperienced, at least by fae standards, by she wasn’t clueless. Her face grew hot as she deduced what exactly was going on in the sitting room.

She wanted nothing more than to turn on her heels and bolt back up the stairs, but she was rooted to the spot. Lucien’s easy manner with Vassa at dinner flashed through her mind on a loop. White-hot jealousy hit her like a brick, so overpowering that it almost took her breath away. Surely…surely he wouldn’t, not while she was staying with them? Surely…

But then again, she reminded herself, that hadn’t bothered her on Solstice. Why should he hold himself to higher standards?

Her hand clenched tighter on the banister. An inexplicable mix of emotions was coursing through her veins, making her feel as though she was a second away from bursting out of her skin. She couldn’t move- her feet somehow didn’t belong to her anymore, and she could no more control them than she could alter the weather.

Elain had just managed to lift one foot from the stairs when Vassa moaned. Not a quiet whine or gasp like before, but a deep, low, dragged-out moan. The restraint was gone, as if she simply couldn’t hold herself back any longer.

That single moan was so erotic, so uninhibited, so unabashedly joyful that Elain froze again. Heat pooled low in her stomach as she felt herself flush even deeper.

This was wrong. It was wrong on so many levels, but still she couldn’t move. She just wanted to hear it one more time.

There was a low rumble of laughter, wicked and decidedly male, followed by the unmistakable sound of a slap. A gasp (delighted, by the sounds of it) and then more wicked laughter.

Elain tasted copper in her mouth, and she winced as she realized she’d been biting her lip so hard she had drawn blood.

“Yes,” Vassa gasped “yes, yes!”

Elain’s skin felt too tight, too restricting for the heat flowing through her veins. She felt like her blood had been set to boil, and soon she’d either melt or burst into flames, right here on the stairs.

Move, she urged her feet. Do something.

She took another step down, and then another, and it wasn’t until her feet hit the landing that she realized she had walked down the stairs instead of up. Vassa’s moans were quickening, her gasps becoming edged with desperation. What could Lucien be doing to her, she wondered, to elicit such sounds from her?

Her stomach clenched with a strange mix of jealousy and want. Lucien was meant to want her. Not Vassa. She had thought he did, at least in whatever primal, physical way the bond urged him to. But could she really blame him for seeking a willing companion, when all she ever did was reject him?

A new and horrible thought occurred to her. What if they were in love? Physical pleasure, she could understand, but being cast aside once again so thoroughly…

“Jurian! Yes, oh Gods…”

Jurian. Not Lucien. The relief she felt was nothing short of a tidal wave. And yet- why was it that she was somehow disappointed, to know that it hadn’t been her mate who made such wanton sounds come out of another female?

She was just curious, she told herself, even as she edged closer to the door to the sitting room. It was perfectly normal to be curious about these things, especially when her own experience was so limited…

A flash of movement caught her gaze. There was a large gilded mirror on the wall of the foyer, and from this angle she could perfectly see the reflection of the sitting room- and its occupants. Elain had to bite her lip to keep herself from gasping.

Vassa was kneeling on the ground, her thighs on either side of Jurian’s head as she rocked on his face with wild abandon. She was wearing nothing but a thin silky shift that had been yanked down to expose full, luscious breasts that bounced with every rock or her hips.

A rush of heat zapped through her, the faint ache between her legs growing to a thrumming pulse. She couldn’t look away as Vassa cried out, her body seizing uncontrollably from her pleasure.

Sex with Graysen hadn’t been anything like that. Elain had enjoyed the closeness, and the intimacy, but the act itself had been mostly uncomfortable and she’d been much too nervous to feel any pleasure.

This sort of pure physical lust, the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of it, fascinated her. She wanted to see what they would do next. The scent of their combined arousal was heavy in the air, salty and musky. She was glad neither of them had fae senses, or they’d surely be able to scent her own. It was wrong- she was a voyeur at best and a pervert at worst, but they didn’t have to know.

But then Vassa’s eyes snapped open, and caught her gaze.

Elain inhaled sharply, and then stopped breathing altogether. She was frozen, a marble statue with nothing but a thundering, racing heartbeat to betray her.

Move, she urged her traitorous feet. Make some excuse and run. She’d never more wished that she had the ability to winnow than at that moment.

She opened her mouth–to say what, precisely, she had no idea–but no sound came out.

If it had been her getting caught like this she would have yelped, and stumbled to cover herself, but Vassa did no such thing. Her arresting blue eyes widened in surprise for the briefest of moments, and Elain prepared to launch herself into a tirade of apologies and excuses.

But Vassa only grinned, and then she lifted a finger and beckoned to Elain. Something about the gesture jolted her out of her frozen stupor.

“Sorry!” she squeaked, whirling around so her back was to the sitting room. “Sorry, gods, I didn’t mean to-“

A low laugh, some whispered words, and then wicked, delighted chuckles. Elain bolted for the stairs.

“Wait!”

The voice was male, and laced with enough authority that Elain halted with her foot on the bottom stair. Oh gods this was mortifying, they’d tell Lucien about it and he would tell everyone and she’d never live it down…

“Where are you running off to?”

The voice behind her was Vassa’s, accompanied by the soft patter of bare feet. Elain didn’t dare turn around.

“Sorry!” she said again. “I didn’t mean, I was just going to the kitchen for tea and-“

Vassa tsked. “Poor thing, can’t sleep? We could help with that.”

Elain peered over her shoulder in surprise, and immediately blushed as her eyes landed on Vassa’s bare breasts. The woman seemed completely unperturbed by her nudity.

“What?”

“How long were you watching us?”

“I wasn’t- I didn't mean to-“

“I like to watch too,” Vassa whispered. She stepped closer, until her peaked nipples pressed against the thin fabric of Elain’s robe. “I could watch while you have a turn with Jurian. He knows how to use that tongue for more than mouthing off.”

Elain flushed with a strange combination of mortification and heat. An image flitted through her mind for just a moment- her nightgown ruched up to her waist, fingers gripping her tightly by the hips as she moved. Except it wasn’t Jurian beneath her, but someone with long, silky red hair, and two-toned eyes that shone with fire and mischief.

“Oh! Um.” She had to get out of here. There was no way she’d ever be ever to continue her role as emissary, that was abundantly clear. “That’s, um-”

She went to take a step but froze as Vassa’s fingers landed at the nape of her neck, brushing her hair aside. Her fingers felt deliciously cool and yet sinful against her heated skin.

“Or we could have him watch us. He’d love that.”

A low chuckle from just inside the sitting room. “Indeed.”

What was she doing? “No thank you!”

She didn’t turn around again before sprinting up the stairs, half expecting Vassa to chase after her. When she reached the top landing she pressed her forehead against the wall, letting her racing heart slow down. With her fae hearing she could hear the muffled sounds of quiet laughter from downstairs, but thankfully no footsteps on the stairs.

Elain couldn’t decide what was more mortifying- that she had been caught, or that she had enjoyed watching. There was no way she’d be able to face either of them ever again. She’d just lock herself in her room and wait for Rhysand to come bring her home in the morning, and that would be that. So much for taking advantage of her freedom.

Her pulse slowed enough that her blood was no longer pounding in her ears, and that’s when she heard it. Another heartbeat, one that did not belong to her, reminding her of who else was currently in this manor. What had she been doing? She’d never be able to face him now, either.

She turned towards her room, and stopped short as she realized she wasn’t alone. There he was, leaning against the open doorway to his room. Her mate.

He was wearing nothing but low slung pants that looked to have been hauled on carelessly. His hair was unbound, dripping over his shoulder like a river of dripping embers. Elain’s gaze caught on the expanse of muscled chest and rippled abs on display, down to the carved hip muscles and the trail of auburn hair that led into his waistband.

She felt herself blush, but caught herself before her eyes could trail further south, snapping her gaze back up to his face- and to the positively devilish grin on his face.

“Everything all right?” he asked, eyebrows lifting in feigned ignorance. That gesture told her everything she needed to know about what he had overheard.

“Fine,” she replied, too quickly, too breathlessly. She cleared her throat. “Just…I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to get some tea, and-“

“And you walked in on Jurian and Vassa fucking?”

Elain winced at the crude language, but mostly at the fact that she had. As if to emphasize the fact, a loud groan sounded from downstairs.

“Don’t they know that doors close?” She had been aiming to sound stern and annoyed, but it fell more than a bit short.

Lucien’s grin widened. He took a slow, almost feline step towards her. Elain instinctively backed away from him, but there was nowhere to go.

“They like having people watch.”

“So Vassa said.”

She wanted nothing more than to end this mortifying conversation and lock herself in her room, but Lucien was barring her path.

“Are you well, my lady?” Lucien continued, taking another step towards her. He was close enough now that she could see as his nostrils flared slightly, his russet eye growing dark as he registered her scent. “You look flushed.”

Damn him. Damn the fae and their senses, and damn the humans downstairs–definitely still entangled, by the sounds of it–and damn him most of all, and-

“I’m not your lady,” she snapped. The words shocked her even as they came out of her mouth.

Lucien blinked in surprise, and then his shock slowly melted into a delighted smirk.

“Maybe not. But you are my mate.” Elain shivered at the word, and then gritted her teeth as she saw Lucien track the motion. “Can’t fault me for wondering why you’re looking so feverish when you were perfectly healthy earlier.”

His grin was so smug that she felt like clawing it off his face. He knew. He knew and he found it hilarious.

“I’m just…a little warm, that’s all.”

She was struggling to look anywhere but his face. It was proving to be more and more difficult as he prowled so close to her that she was finally forced to crane her neck to look up at him.

Immediately she wished she hadn’t. The low light of the torch burning at the top of the stairs cast the sharp panes of his face in stark relief, his long hair practically alive with flame where it flowed over his shoulders. She could feel the heat emanating from his bare skin, and it was an effort not to reach out and touch it, to see if she could feel the flame that everyone said ran through his veins. Elain would have melted in embarrassment at the impropriety of it all, if she hadn’t been so desperately attracted to him.

Mate, she reminded herself. He’s your mate that you don’t want, don’t need, didn’t ask for-

His gaze dipped, slowly trailing down her body until it snagged on her bare legs. He swallowed thickly, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides as if he longed to touch her but didn’t dare.

Elain wished he would. The thought was at once shocking and yet blatantly obvious. Maybe just this once, to satisfy a curiosity that was clearly two sided. And then they could go back to avoiding each other. She’d never be able to face him after tonight, anyway.

“Pity,” he murmured. “Here I thought you liked what you saw.”

Her breathing quickened as he slowly reached out and ran the silken belt of her robe between his long fingers. There was something sensual in the gesture that made her stomach clench in anticipation.

“Maybe I did.”

A sharp tug, and the knot holding her robe closed fell apart like a wisp of smoke. Lucien’s eyes dipped again, and when they slowly dragged back up to her face a flame had kindled to life in his russet eye. An actual, dancing flame, as real as the flame fueling the lamp on the wall. Her breath hitched at the sight of it.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, grinning so wickedly that she knew he was well aware of what he’d done. “Afraid of a little flame?”

Elain backed away another step, until her back hit the wall. “I’m not afraid of you,” she snapped.

She wasn’t, but this- this game they were playing, whatever it was, it scared her as much as it aroused her. The temptation to run away was as strong as the desire to touch him, smell him, kiss him. To mark him as hers.

He stepped closer until he was hovering over her, one arm braced above her head, the other still innocently hanging at his side. She wanted him to actually do something, if only so she would be forced to decide what to do about it.

“Good.” He dipped his head towards her neck, until his breath tickled her skin. It was so like her dream that she had to dig her nails into her palm to remind herself this was real. “Did they ask you to join them?”

Elain almost choked. She was blushing so aggressively that she felt a bead of sweat run down her back, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Judging from Lucien’s delighted grin the answer must have been written all over her face.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, as casually as if they were talking about the weather.

She did choke this time, on a combination of half-hearted affront and shock. “Wh-what?” As if she hadn’t entertained the idea, at least for a moment. As if she couldn’t still feel Vassa’s cool touch on the heated nape of her neck.

“They like that too,” he continued, unperturbed. “They asked me to join, once.”

That shouldn’t have surprised her, and yet it did. She blamed her conservative upbringing, but somehow the idea of a threesome between two men and one woman seemed even more debauched.

She forced herself to breathe, to relax. “And did you?” she asked, lifting her chin brazenly.

She wasn’t sure what sorts of mechanics that would even involve, but her imagination ran away from her, filling her mind with all sorts of lurid thoughts. Jurian’s large calloused hands caressing Lucien’s golden skin, Vassa’s full breasts bouncing as she-

“Yes,” he replied simply.

Elain’s mouth dropped open at the admission. She wished she hadn’t asked, and yet she desperately wanted to know more, even as jealousy tore through her, so violently that her blood roared in her ears. She might have been trembling, from want or from anger, she wasn’t sure.

“Oh,” was all she managed to say.

Lucien laughed. She wasn’t sure whether it was at her expense or not, but it made her burn all the same. Was this who he really was, beneath the veneer of manners and careful, hesitant longing he usually put up around her?

“Tell me,” he continued. “What were they doing?”

Elain gulped, remembering Vassa’s bouncing breasts as she gyrated on Jurian’s face. A rush of heat settled like a weight between her legs. A small noise came out of Lucien, as he no doubt scented her every emotion. His own scent was so strong with him this close to her that she was having trouble thinking logically. It was so heady and warm, tinged salty from what she knew was his own arousal.

“Nothing I care to say out loud,” she said as primly as she could.

Lucien laughed. “Right. I forgot you were so uptight.”

“I am not-“

“I forgot, you see, seeing as you’re standing here with your panties soaked.”

Elain sputtered indignantly, her cheeks growing even more hot than they already were. “How dare you, I am not…” It seemed to be the only words she was capable of saying.

“You’re not?” Lucien asked, tilting his head as if they were making simple conversation. “So if I reached between your legs I wouldn’t be able to prove that you’re a little liar?”

Elain pressed her legs together, but in reality it was more to feel some kind of friction than in shock at his words.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Is that an invitation?” When he spoke his lips grazed against her ear, and Elain shivered. She clamped her lips shut, curious what he would do next. This side of him was thrilling, and intoxicating. She felt drunk on the novelty of what giving in to the pull of the bond would entail. It didn’t have to mean anything. The fae didn’t have any qualms about these things, after all, as Nesta loved to remind her.

Slowly, so slowly, Lucien’s fingers inched towards her leg. His touch was feather-light, and yet she felt it like a brand on her skin. He grazed his fingers up her thigh, pushing the hem of her nightgown up along the way. His heart rate was quickening along with her own, an echo of her raging pulse.

He paused then, as if giving her a chance to say no. And then his fingers dipped between her legs, right over the–as he had assumed, soaked–fabric of her underwear. Elain gasped, both in surprise that he had actually done it and at the current of heat that small touch sent fizzing through her veins.

Lucien groaned weakly, as if that touch had shocked him just as much as her. “Thought so.”

He started rubbing slow, tight circles through the wet silk of her underwear, and Elain’s knees nearly buckled.

“Tell me what you saw,” he murmured.

For a moment she didn’t remember what he was talking about, too focused on the fingers rubbing at the ache between her legs. It hadn’t been like this with Graysen. They had kissed, and he had fondled her breasts a bit, but he had certainly not touched her like this. She could only imagine what else Lucien could do, if this was how he made her feel with her underwear still on.

But then he pulled his fingers away, and Elain nearly whined in protest. “What are you-“

“Tell me,” he urged. “And you’ll get a reward.”

She wanted him to keep touching her. She needed him to keep touching her, or she’d combust.

“Vassa was…” She didn’t quite have the vocabulary for what she’d seen. Of course she knew the mechanics but Graysen certainly hadn’t done it. The men in Nesta’s smutty books always did, though, and claimed to enjoy doing it. She wondered if Lucien would.

“Yes?”

“She was…sitting on Jurian’s face.” That seemed the only way to describe it, but her face heated all the same as she said it.

Lucien chuckled so low and deep that Elain had to bite her lip to keep a sound from escaping her throat. “Is that so? Lucky him.”

Elain felt a hot pang of absurd jealousy at that. For a moment the memory shifted, and it was Lucien’s hands gripping Vassa’s thighs, his long hair spread out beneath him as he lay on his back.

Mine, that ancient, primal thing roared in her chest. He is mine, and I am his.

Lucien’s mouth dropped to her neck as he left a series of soft, warm kisses up her throat. “I told you good girls get rewards. Tell me what you want.”

Elain squirmed, or as much as she could do so standing up. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted, other than for him to keep touching her, keep talking to her. Keep calling her a good girl.

She wanted him to kiss her until she lost herself, but for some reason she thought she might have to earn that particular privilege first.

One of his hands trailed down her neck, knuckles first, and then lower still, over her peaked nipple. Elain arched into the touch. This, she wanted to say. This and so much more.

A hard pinch on her nipple made her gasp.

“Tell me what you want,” Lucien repeated. His hand drifted to her neck, tilting it up so she was forced to look into his blazing gaze. It felt dangerous, like if she looked too long she might burn. “Or I can leave you alone with only your fingers for company.”

Elain wanted to growl in frustration. “I’d like to slap that cocky grin off your face, for starters.”

Again Lucien’s eyes flashed in surprise, and then melted into delight. “Much better.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is much better than that meek mouse act you usually put on around me.”

Her hand moved so fast that the sound of flesh hitting flesh rang out before she even consciously made the decision to slap him. His skin smarted immediately, into a vulgar imitation of a blush.

The world seemed to slow down as Elain held her breath. She’d never hit anyone before, much less a grown male, save for maybe some half-hearted shoves with her sisters when they were little. The act itself shocked her less than the thrill it gave her.

Lucien’s eyes flashed. Do that again, they seemed to taunt her. Elain raised her other hand, but before she could so much as lift it Lucien had grabbed both her wrists and pinned them above her head.

“I think you’ve forgotten who’s in control here,” he growled. The breathlessness of his voice betrayed the lack of threat behind his words. Elain knew in her bones that one word from her and Lucien would stop.

She desperately didn’t want him to.

His lips were still curved into a maddening smirk. They were so full and lush, made for whispering secret words, for flashing devilish smirks, for stolen kisses in dark hallways in the middle of the night.

“Kiss me,” she breathed. “That’s what I want.”

Lucien didn’t wait for further prompting. He crashed his mouth to hers, and as their lips met it was like a damn breaking after years of strain. There was no finesse to his kiss, no gentle touches. He kissed her like a drowning man drinking in his final breath, like there would never be enough of her to fill his lungs. It was all lips and teeth and tongue, not a slow exploration but a claiming, as if nothing else existed but this moment and everything depended on it. Lucien released her hands and she tangled them in his hair, pulling him down even closer.

He kissed her until her legs threatened to give out. She felt drunk on him, on this.

And then a loud moan echoed up the stairs from the sitting room, and Lucien laughed against her mouth. Elain had been so lost in him she’d almost forgotten about them.

“What do you think they’re doing?” he murmured.

She knew the drill by now. An answer for a reward. She saw it reflected in Lucien’s gaze, the gleam there like a challenge and a question at once.

Another moan, male this time, followed by the unmistakable sound of skin hitting skin.

“They’re probably…” She trailed off, embarrassed, even now, to say the word. Making love didn’t seem right for what she’d seen, and what she was hearing. “Fucking.”

“You’re learning,” Lucien whispered. “What a good student you are.”

He pressed his hips against her, and Elain inhaled sharply at the hardness pressed against her stomach. She couldn't help but glance down, and the sight of the bulge straining the front of his trousers made her mouth go dry. The room had been dark when she had lost her maidenhead to Graysen, and besides, she had been much too nervous to really look. But she wanted to look at Lucien- look, and touch, and lick every inch of him.

“You’ll have to earn that,” he said, as if reading her mind.

“I answered your question. That means I get a reward.” She hoped her voice sounded less desperate than she felt.

The grin he shot her was nothing short of devilish. “Indeed. Tell me.”

She felt absurd saying it, as if one wrong word and Lucien would laugh and declare that this had all been a game. A tease. A joke.

A mistake.

“Touch me,” she demanded, with as much authority as she could muster.

Lucien groaned, his hips thrusting into her as if he couldn’t help it. She was beginning to think that he might like it when she was irritated.

Another moan trickled up the stairs, and it occurred to Elain how thoroughly exposed they were. Jurian and Vassa could walk up the stairs at any time- although, from the sounds of it, that didn’t seem likely.

Any thoughts of getting caught disappeared from her mind as Lucien’s hand drifted back to her thigh, inching up much slower than she would have liked. When he reached the waistband of her underwear she held her breath, expecting him to slide them down. Instead, his fingers kept going up, over her stomach, up her ribs, until her breast was cradled in his palm.

“Like this?” he asked, squeezing softly. He tweaked her nipple between two fingers and Elain sucked in a breath at the mixture of pleasure and pain.

“Yes,” she said, though it wasn’t enough.

“Yes,” Vassa echoed from downstairs, her moans quickly dissolving into screams.

“She’s a loud one,” Lucien needlessly informed her as he switched his ministrations to her other breast.

Elain wondered how much of it was real and how much was an act. It seemed almost impossible for it to be a genuine reaction. “Why?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. She clamped her mouth shut, feeling idiotic.

Lucien grinned broadly. The gesture made his cheeks crinkle and somehow made him even more handsome. He was so beautiful when he smiled it was almost painful to look at. It made that golden coil tighten even more inside her chest, flooding her with longing and an almost melancholy want for something she had never had, and perhaps never would. She almost wished he would stop.

“Because Jurian knows how to fuck.” He kept his eyes fixed on hers as he said it, as though he expected her to be shocked by his language.

“You seem to have a lot of knowledge on that topic.”

“On what?” he teased. “Jurian? Or fucking?”

He was messing with her. Elain huffed in frustration, but before she could say anything he cut her off.

“Touch yourself.”

She blinked up at him, her pulse increasing. “I answered one of your questions,” he continued with a wicked grin, “now I get a reward.”

Elain squirmed. For some reason she couldn’t explain, touching herself in front of him was so much more embarrassing than letting him touch her.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, little mouse.”

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped.

She was starting to take back what she’d thought about liking this side of him. He was insufferable. Insufferable and cocky and-

“Then prove that’s not what you are. Unless you don’t want to keep playing…” He started backing away from her, and panic made her heart skip a beat. She’d never be able to look him in the eyes after this, so she’d be damned if she didn’t get him to at least touch her before he ran away and disposed of her.

Elain made sure his eyes were locked on hers as she shoved her hand into her underwear. She was so aroused that her fingers glided easily through her slick folds, and a sigh escaped her lips. Lucien’s gaze turned almost predatory.

In a movement too quick for her to follow he yanked her hand out of her underwear and stuck her fingers coated in her arousal into his mouth. The flame in his russet eye intensified, and Elain found she couldn’t quite breathe.

A low groan rumbled deep in his throat. “Gods, Elain.”

He dropped to his knees in front of her as he said it, making her name sound like a plea, or worship.

Elain kept her gaze locked on his as his hands slid up her legs, leaving her skin burning in their wake. When he reached her underwear he locked his fingers around the waistband and then stopped. She wriggled her hips slightly, thinking he was waiting for permission, but still he didn’t move.

“What position do you think they’re in?”

The noises from downstairs were growing louder, the moans breathier, the wet sound of skin against skin echoing sharply in the quiet. Several scenarios flashed through Elain’s mind, but it was difficult to think clearly with Lucien’s mouth so close to her throbbing center. Her knowledge was once again lacking for the question he was asking, but judging from the way Lucien’s fingers were shaking slightly she had a feeling any answer would have been acceptable.

“They were on the floor earlier,” she said lamely, trying to think of something clever to say.

Lucien dragged her underwear down an inch. “Oh?” he prompted.

Elain remembered the ugly pink couch she’d been shown to when she had arrived earlier. A giggle threatened to escape her, despite Lucien kneeling before her and her racing pulse.

“I think she’s on that ugly pink couch,” she said, as confidently as she could.

Her underwear slid down her legs in a cool brush of silk. Elain gulped as Lucien’s eyes snagged in between her legs. The urge to snap her legs shut was almost overwhelming, but then he looked up at her and licked his lips. Her core went molten.

“Tell me more,” he urged, gently pressing her legs apart.

“Um.”

Lucien pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, his gaze never leaving hers. Her knees were shaking with a mixture of overwhelming lust and nervous anticipation, and if it wasn’t for Lucien’s hands on her she might have slid to the floor.

Lucien kissed her other leg, higher this time. If he went any higher he would surely feel the evidence of her arousal, no doubt dripping down her leg. Elain couldn’t remember ever feeling anything even close to this. Lucien’s teeth grazed the soft skin of her thigh, reminding her that she still hadn’t answered him.

“I think she’s kneeling on the couch, holding on the back. And Jurian’s…”

She didn’t have time to finish before Lucien leaned forward and licked a single stripe clean up her center. Elain gasped at the sensation, all other thoughts melting out of her head along with any lingering hesitation.

“Good girl,” Lucien murmured, and then his mouth was on her again.

She didn’t have anything to compare it to, but it was clear Lucien knew exactly what he was doing. He attacked her with his mouth the same way he had kissed her earlier- hungrily, savagely, like there was no time for finesse. She had expected it to feel wet but somehow every broad lick of his tongue felt like a wave of fire spreading through her.

Every cell in her body felt alive, like she was seconds away from bursting. Nothing had ever felt this good, and she didn’t care who heard the wanton noises coming out of her, as long as he never stopped.

He drew her clit between his lips and sucked, and Elain’s knees buckled. Lucien laughed against her, the vibration ripping a low groan from her throat. He hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and she gasped at the new angle. Pleasure was coiling tight in her belly, so hot and fast that she thought it might tear her apart.

“Lucien…” It was her turn to say his name like a prayer- or in this case, a desperate plea to not stop.

“That’s right,” he growled. He reached up and kneaded her breast gently, and Elain’s head thumped back against the wall. Her fingers were gripping his hair so tightly she knew it must be painful, but if Lucien cared he certainly didn’t let on.

He slid a finger inside her, and then another, thrusting in and out slowly as he continued to devour her with his mouth. And then his fingers curled inside her, hitting a spot that had her gasping for breath.

“Lucien!” Do that again, is what she meant, but he knew without being told.

He thrust inside her again and again, his tongue keeping time with his fingers as they hit that spot that had her seeing stars. She was going to come undone right here in the hallway, and fought against it, not wanting it to be over.

“That’s it,” he murmured, his lips grazing her sensitive flesh. “Be a good girl and come for me.”

He clamped his mouth around her and sucked, and she let go. Pleasure tore through her in a hot wave, a ragged cry falling from her lips as her vision exploded in stars. Lucien didn’t let up, groaning against her as he licked and sucked her through her orgasm.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, Elain.” He sounded as lost as she felt, like she was lost at sea and he was the raft keeping her alive.

Her legs were trembling so hard that she started sliding down the wall, but then Lucien’s arms were around her, hauling her to the floor as he stretched out on his back.

“Take that off,” he growled, pushing her nightgown up her body.

Elain slipped the offending garment over her head without a second thought. Lucien’s eyes burned her skin like a brand, melting away any embarrassment she might have felt at her nudity.

“Gods, Elain, you’re so…” He trailed off, his throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly.

Elain wanted to lean down and lick his throat, kiss every inch of it like he had hers. She wanted to leave little marks to physically mark him as hers.

Hers.

“Tell me,” Lucien urged. There was a note of urgency to his voice that made her feel wild. “Tell me what you want, and you can have it.”

One final question in their game, then. His hands drifted towards her breasts and she slid her fingers through his and held his hands there.

What did she want? She wasn’t sure what she would want tomorrow, but tonight-

“You.” Elain forced herself to meet his gaze. It was somehow easier to do so when he was being wicked than when he was soft like this. She wasn’t sure which side of him she liked more, but she suspected she might like all of him, which was more terrifying than anything that had happened tonight.

“I just…”

He didn’t tease her, didn’t prompt her. He just kept staring at her with that mismatched gaze, a soft flame still dancing in his russet eye. On impulse she reached forward and lightly traced his scar, all the way from his brow almost to his jaw. Lucien shivered, his eyes shutting tight as his forehead creased with some emotion she couldn’t read.

She wanted to be able to read it- to know him well enough that she could tell right away what he was thinking. But that would require her to open up just as much, and that was a cliff side she wasn’t ready to step off from. Not until she’d figured out how far she might fall.

Vassa and Jurian’s moans were reaching a final crescendo downstairs. Elain held Lucien’s gaze until their cries faded, resisting the urge to grind against his cock to relieve the ache still burning between her legs. She still felt desperate for him, even though her body was still tingling from the orgasm he’d given her.

“I want you to make me scream that loudly.”

Lucien smirked. “And here I thought you’d be more of a gentle love making type.”

Elain hummed. “I like that too.”

There must have been something written all over her face, or else Lucien was better at reading her than she was him. “But?” he asked.

“But it’s easier to get your heart broken that way.”

Lucien’s mouth fell open in surprise. Elain held her breath, bracing herself for a dismissal or a taunt. He’d say something lurid about fucking having nothing to do with hearts. Whatever seed of madness had started to grow inside her would be trampled, and her heart would be safe.

“Oh, Elain.” He loosed a breath, something about the wicked gleam in his eye making her squirm. “You have no idea how wrong you are about that.”

Before she could react he had stood up and hauled her to her feet in one swift motion. He spun her around, planting hot, wet kisses down her throat as he guided her towards the railing at the top of the stairs. She was putty in his hands, bending forward to lean on the banister as he nudged her legs apart.

There was a soft woosh of fabric as he kicked his pants off, and then his fingers were on her, swirling tight circles around her clit. Elain bit back her moan, thrusting back into his hand to increase the friction. Nothing he did was ever enough. It felt like her own blood was alive with the flame she’d seen dancing in his eye, and his every touch only made her burn hotter.

“Tell me you want me.”

His fingers suddenly stopped, replaced by the feel of his hard, thick cock teasing her entrance. Elain looked over her shoulder at him and nearly whined. Nobody had ever looked as beautiful as he did right then, with his golden skin glowing in the lamp light and his vibrant hair mussed from her ministrations.

“I want you.”

“Good girl.”

With that he slid into her with one long, slow thrust. Elain gasped at the feel of him stretching her, filling her so completely that it seemed their bodies had been made for this.

“Fuck, Elain.” He sounded on the edge of losing that maddening control of his. She wriggled her hips, urging him to move.

“Impatient, are you?”

Elain started to growl in frustration, but it turned into a ragged gasp as Lucien slowly pulled out and then slammed back in. She grabbed onto the banister tighter as he set a wicked pace, thrusting into her to the hilt only to pull out maddeningly slowly. Every pound of his cock inside her had her seeing stars, moans falling from her lips with every thrust.

“They’re probably listening, you know.”

Elain’s eyes fixed on the partially closed door to the sitting room, the occupants of which were suspiciously quiet. It should have bothered her, but she found she couldn’t quite care.

“Good thing I asked you to make me scream.”

Lucien groaned, bringing his hand to her ass in a hard slap. Elain gasped at the sting, and then moaned as Lucien started pounding into her.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, his voice ragged.

“Yes.”

“Louder.”

“YES!”

Her voice echoed embarrassingly loudly down the stairs, but Elain couldn’t have cared less. That delicious pressure was building inside her again, and she chased the feeling, dropping her forehead against her arms gripping the banister.

“Elain…”

From the strain in his voice she could tell he was on the verge of release himself. His fingers were gripping her hips so tightly she knew there’d be fingertip-shaped bruises there in the morning. She pictured Lucien kissing them gently, his hair mused from sleep, and eyes glazed with affection as he looked up at her.

That was all it took to push her over the edge.

She cried out as pleasure exploded through her again, her body seizing with wave after wave of ecstasy. A moment later Lucien gave a choked groan as he spilled himself inside her.

Her vision had barely returned to normal before he turned her around again and gathered her up in his arms. She was too exhausted and too thrilled at the feel of being in his arms to protest about where he was taking her.

He carried her to his room and kicked the door shut before gently placing her on the bed. His scent wrapped around her in a cloud, and she couldn't stop herself from pressing her nose to his pillow and inhaling deeply. Gods, it should be illegal to smell this good.

Lucien chuckled above her. Had she said that out loud? She supposed it wasn’t the most embarrassing admission she’d made tonight.

“Look at me.”

Elain turned back to face him as he hovered over her, bracing himself with one arm as he gently brushed loose tendrils of hair from her face. The gesture was so tender that it made her heart ache.

“Can you promise me something?” he asked.

Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness of his room, and she couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes. “That depends.”

“Promise you won’t just disappear in the morning.”

There was a raw edge to his voice that felt like a gut punch. Or else, like a gentle shove, edging her closer to that ledge she had so far managed to stay away from.

“It would be impressive if I did, considering I’m in your bed.”

Lucien chuckled. “Bold of you to assume you’re sleeping here tonight.”

“And here I thought you were the chivalrous type. But if you’d rather I go…” Elain made to roll out from under him, laughing darkly when he blocked her path.

“Not so fast.”

“Oh?”

“I have a few more questions for you, you see.”

Elain bit her lip as her blood started heating once more. She had a feeling that in the end she’d be getting very little sleep tonight, and found she didn’t mind at all.

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added/removed!): @areyoudreaminof @separatist-apologist @tuzna-pesma-snova @labellefleur-sauvage @corcracrow @autumndreaming7 @octobers-veryown @velidewrites @sunshinebingo @vulpes-fennec @asnowfern @hallway5

#elucien #elucien fanfic #elucien fanfiction #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #the band of exiles #boe #jassa #what happens at the boe manor stays at the boe manor

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profoundbondfanfic · 4 months

Note

Hey, I was wondering if you had any reverse fics, with Dean as an angel and Cas as the hunter ?

(also, you are doing God's work and I love your blog so so much ❤️❤️)

Hello there, thank you so much! And here are a few fics we've enjoyed:

Calming the Weather by seidenapfel [Explicit, 35k words]

Rescued from the Empty, Cas is fully human, and miserable. So, rather than acknowledge what happened in the dungeon, Dean searches for a way to change that. He finds it in a simple spell. The spell gives ordinary humans a limited dose of angelic powers. Too afraid it might harm Cas, Dean tests it on himself. But it backfires. Thanks to a piece of Grace bound to his soul, Dean wakes up fully powered, wings and all. With their roles reversed, it is up to Castiel to teach Dean how to wield angelic powers, and for Dean to share the peaks and lows of humanity with Castiel. Misconceptions come to light as they learn from each other. Meanwhile, a storm is brewing. In order to stop it, Dean not only has to get a hold on his emotions, but he must face a revelation about himself, one he had repressed all his life.

Castiel's Angel by Valinde (Valyria) [Explicit, 5k words]

The angel took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. He was fidgeting Cas noticed. Usually he was so bizarrely at ease in his human form, lounging around and tossing winks and smirks at anyone with a pulse. That more than anything had Cas straightening on his stool and wishing he was a little less tipsy. “Ineedyoutogroommywings,” Dean muttered in one long, almost unintelligible, string. He was blushing.

Grace the Gun by chevrolangels [Explicit, 169k words]

He’s got a shotgun in his hand and his mother’s broken rosary around his neck. His eye is cut open and dripping, and he’s got forty years of Hell fresh in his mind. Do not. Fuck with him. It's been four months since he died, when Castiel wakes up, six feet below the ground, alive. Alive without an explanation, with a mysterious itch under his skin and rumors of a whisper, a whisper of something so powerful, that demons themselves are running scared. Then he meets the thing that pulled him out—a spitfire angel named Dean, who turns out to be nothing to run from. With his sister Anna at his side, Gabriel at his back, and three angels in their corner, they're gonna take the fight to them. And they're gonna show God just exactly how they feel about his plan for fate and destiny.

Hunting for Faith by perunamuusa, riseofthefallenone [Explicit, 270k words]

It starts a few days earlier. Castiel first notices it in the middle of the night when the dreams of fire and screams have kept him awake. He’s kneeling before the altar, praying, when the glass in the windows start to shake, the very air vibrating around him. Castiel is on his feet and reaching for the gun tucked into the back of his pants as the shutters over the windows start to rattle.

My Roots Take Flight by KismetJeska [Mature, 125k words]

After forty years in Hell, Dean’s more than willing to accept the offer: become a guardian angel and earn his freedom. But his new ward seems destined to hunt alongside Sam, and there are secrets in Heaven that the angels don’t want found out. Dean’s going to have to choose between his duty and the people he loves- and to work out just where Castiel fits in.

Obey His Word by K_K_TiBal [Teen and Up, 33k words]

When Castiel was ten years old, he was cursed to always be obedient. Now he’s a hunter—not the best one at his job, admittedly, since he’s always forced to comply with the monsters that beg for their life. Everything changes on one such hunt, when an angel named Dean saves his life, and tells Castiel that he’s searching for his missing brother, Sam. His naive callousness about humans and give-em-Hell attitude is off-putting, but Dean ends up being exactly what Castiel didn’t know he needed. As he grows closer to Dean, he tries to keep the secret of the curse close to his chest—but the past always has a way of exposing the truth. Curses are hard—but trust is harder.

the rapture of distress by ozonecologne [Mature, 16k words]

Castiel swung his legs around the edge of the bed and leaned forward, setting the eggs aside. He briefly entertained the notion of patting Dean’s knee, so close to his own now, before deciding against it. Holding hands in your sleep is weird enough. "Whatever it is, I'm sure it isn't the end of the world," he consoled, wiping some grease from his mouth. Dean looked up then, and he remained guiltily silent. Castiel’s eyebrows shot up, up, up, along with his heart rate. His breakfast stuck like glue in his throat. "The end of the world?" Dean winced. "I'm working on it." A reverse!verse AU in which Castiel is a hunter and he’s visited by an angel.

To Hold In Your Hands by saltnhalo [Teen and Up, 6k words]

Castiel has never wanted an angel. He does just fine on his own, has for a long time—since he was old enough to hold a shotgun and make a salt circle. He’s proud of what he’s been able to achieve without angelic help, and the longer he can keep hunting solo, the better. But judging by the summons he’s just received to the Men of Letters’ bunker, his time is up. He can’t avoid his future angel partner any longer. (aka. five times that Dean saves Castiel's life, and five times that Castiel slowly learns angels aren't as bad as he'd thought)

#asks #reverse verse

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watercolorfreckles · 1 year

Text

The Girl Called Sparrow

This is a tad different from my usual style--I did my best to make this snippet sound like a fable! I spent like 3.5 hours just writing it so the editing I did was pretty light. Pardon any mistakes or sloppiness! :)

When she was born, her mother gave her no name.

There is power in a name, her mother had always said. The fae collected names like plucked flowers. They wielded them like weapons; the humans under their sway, like branded cattle.

Thus, throughout her life, she had been called many things. Little One. Child. Rascal. She preferred it when her mother called her things like Free Spirit, or Smile, or My Heart.

The words were always warm on her mother's lips. She did not mind not having a name when her mother called on her so kindly. To be given a great many names, though really not one at all, made her feel as though she could be anything and still be her.

Others were not always so kind. Village children gave her names that would scar. Adults who did not understand her would christen her Odd. Strange. Some called her Girl--as if that was all she was.

After her mother passed, she knew she was no one to anyone. Without a name, her soul felt untethered. Peeled from her back and kept at an arm's length like the shadow at her heels.

Who could she be if not Daughter? She did not want to be No One. She did not want to be Alone.

She had felt the fae's eyes on her her whole life. She knew they could sense what she was lacking. Every breeze that swirled the leaves around her, every tinkering of bells or heady scent of wine, reminded her that they were always close by.

Perhaps they were drawn to her, the girl whose name they could not steal. She liked to hope that maybe they followed her because she made them feel something less than monstrous with a possessive need to control.

Though her mother had taught her to fear the fae, the daughter revered them. She began to leave them fresh berries and jars of honey between the sprawling roots of the great oak tree. It was the oldest thing around, so she felt it was an appropriate place to dedicate to an immortal being. She told them softly of her day and tied ribbons on the tree's branches.

The leaves danced, rustling with a gentle melody that filled her insides like warm tea. It wasn’t long until she was overwhelmed with an unmistakable instinct: A fae was there, listening. Watching.

She lowered herself to her knees, bowing against the moss. "Hello," she said, banishing any quiver from her voice. The fae hated weakness. "I am terribly lonely. Perhaps we may share in one another's company." Her fingers curled against the spongy earth. "I know it is unwise to make dealings with the fae. But perhaps, we may come to an...arrangement. I know that your kind follow me. Fae are curious creatures. I will continue to bring you gifts if you indulge me by staying here with me for a time."

She waited.

The tree began to creak and groan.

Hesitantly, the girl lifted her gaze.

A section of the tree parted from the rest, wood splitting and shifting like the rattling of unsettled floorboards. The faerie's glamor melted away. He stepped out from the deep scar of the trunk as if it were a portal to another world.

The sight of him stole her breath. His russet brown skin, deep as the tree he emerged from, reminded her of how that very tree looked beneath a bleeding sun. Fissures and cracks sculpted the skin beneath his chest--bark, she realized--in an intricate pattern.

Her gaze traveled upward, to the wavy foliage of his hair. Leaves wove between the strands and down the slim line of his arms. His lips were dark as tilled soil, eyes bottle-green.

When he spoke, it was the rush of a summer breeze. "You come to me and speak of your pain. I am bound to this tree, I cannot leave its shadow. Yet you are free as the sparrows that nest in my branches. You are bound to none, not even a name."

The human closed her eyes. "What use is freedom with no home to come back to? No one to share it with? Please. I have spent my life as a million pieces, but never one whole. Give me a true name and you may use it however you wish."

She could feel the fae's attention on her face. It seemed to fill the very cracks of her skin.

A tear slipped free.

The girl's eyes jolted open at the rough brush of bark beneath her chin. The fae was close. She hadn't even heard him move.

Fingers calloused with the skin of an oak tree, he brushed the tear away. "You do not know what you are offering me. It is of my nature to take advantage of you. To secure a deal with you and squish you beneath it." His voice was gentle. Like a rock skipping across a pond. "Go from this place. Only ask me when you are certain this is what you wish. To be bound to a fae with no freedom is to clip your own wings."

She did as the fae had asked, though she continued to return every day, offering him gifts and reading books aloud with her back against the oak tree's trunk. He did not show himself, though she knew he was listening in the way that the forest held its breath when the story became tense, or the way the leaves shifted to shield her face when the sun scorched too harshly.

Summer bled into autumn. Gold and red flooded the great oak's leaves a little more each day. She wondered whether the fae's hair changed to match it.

She met a man in the village. He called her Mine.

She liked the way the title sounded on the swell of his lips. It was a name none had given her yet. A new thrill to greet the changing season.

Never before had she caught the eye of a bachelor. Giving pieces of herself to him felt only natural.

When his grip on her turned bruising, it filled her with regret. The day he finally hit her, his names for her turned ugly.

She ran to the oak tree and wept. The wood creaked. Though she could not see him, the fae's hand warmed her back.

The more days she spent there, the more she realized she much preferred the world beneath the oak tree to the one beyond it, with cruel men and a community heavy with judgment.

It was an unseasonably cool day when the human fell asleep beneath the oak tree, only waking to the kiss of leaves against her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered open, a smile spreading her face. A bed of moss and leaves draped over her like a blanket.

Sitting up, she yawned, gazing up at the tree. Tall, Tall, Tall. Her cheeks warmed at the thought of the fae collecting materials within his tree's shadows, gently spreading them over her sleeping form.

"Kind Oak? May I see you again? I am ready to make our deal."

With the groan of shifting wood once more, the faerie soon appeared. His hair, now, was a deep scarlet, just as she had suspected.

"Are you certain?" His voice was the crackle of dry leaves, a gentle sound that settled in her bones.

The human didn't shy away from reaching out to touch him, this time. "I should rather belong to you than any other. Please. Give me my name. I will be devoted to you for the rest of my days. I just want my own name."

The Oak Faerie's hands brushed the tawny-brown hair back from her face. He studied her face with rapt interest before meeting her gaze. "Your name is Sparrow. For your free nature. For your willingness to perch among my branches and to depart when it pleases you. I will not clip your wings, Fair One. You shall belong to me only for as long as you wish to."

Sparrow.

The name rolled over her, coating every inch. It was as though she were hearing the word for the very first time. Something shifted within her, like a final puzzle piece clicking into place.

She had a name. A true name. It belonged to her and she to it.

Sparrow didn't realize she was crying until the fae cupped her cheeks once more. His brows furrowed at the sudden display of human emotion. Something that often perplexed creatures such as he.

"Sparrow? What is wrong?"

She surged forward and her lips were on his. The fae tasted like autumn air and the earth and a dizzying sweetness that swooped her stomach.

The fae paused, still as a tree, before his hands slid down to her waist and his mouth moved--gently, never greedily--against hers.

The moon was high in the sky when the faerie finally returned to his tree. Sparrow's eyes drooped with tiredness and she returned to her mother's cottage for the night.

When she returned the next day, the sight froze her step. The great oak tree–her fae's home and cag–had been chopped down.

Sparrow dropped to her knees like a stone. Her sobs and screams filled the air. Her despair was a living thing.

Footsteps crunched behind her, drawing her attention.

Her former courtier stood with a posse of other men, axes in their hands. "It is not the place of humans to fall in love with faeries."

"You-" Sparrow croaked, "You followed me?"

The look on his face was sure with quiet fury. "I assumed you left me for another. I had not anticipated... this development. No matter now. It is for the best. You will learn, now, that your place is with me. You are Mine."

"No!" She screamed, standing. "I am Me! I am... I am Sparrow."

Dissolving into sobs, Sparrow sunk to her knees again.

"Come home when you're finished. I'll be waiting."

She listened to the men's footsteps retreat.

When she had no tears left, she rose unsteadily to her feet again. She took a step. Something rolled beneath her foot.

Glancing down, she spotted an acorn—an acorn from Oak's great tree.

Sparrow smiled, and laughed.

She would run away. Plant the seed. She would have her fae again. Sparrow would have her love. And her love would have her.

Part 2

Thank you @thepenultimateword and @valiantlytransparentwhispers for proofreading and giving feedback <3 Lemme know if the tags work, they're being kiinda sus

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#my writing #fable #tumblr fables #fae #fae x human #faerie #fae folk #writeblr #writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #hero x villain community #tw abuse mention #hero x villain #sry #its totally not hero x villain but #ill get more reads if i use that tag lollll #Oak and Sparrow #watercolorfreckles #not a prompt

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tiredfoxtf · 4 months

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Animal instincts

A battle of ferocity and humanity.

Like humans take pride in their humanity, the animals take pride in their ferity. From a house cat to a great lion, they all like one take their animal pride in their untamed nature. Every animal fiercely believes that they are wild, that they cannot be bound by humans and their measly humanity. Their fur shines for the sun, not for people and their claws and fangs are sharp and strong, will tear through anyone who’ll dare to attempt to chain them to a wall of predictability, their weight will crush the bones of anyone who thinks they can force them into forgetting the taste and smell of fresh blood, to exchange the thrill of the hunt for a boring stability of nothing days behind the bars of cages humans live in.

Joel was this wild animal. Alone or in the group - didn’t matter, he saw his prey and he wasn’t stopping until he’s done with it. And people were afraid of him. As they should, Joel was the force of nature - unstable, unpredictable, strong and fierce. He was no different from a hurricane or a tsunami, well, only if you are convinced that those natural disasters are actively chasing you down with desire to spill your blood by tearing in your neck. And like every animal he didn’t need humanity, it disgusted him. He was a tiger of this jungle, he was strong and that put others in fearful paralysis or made their soul go into their feet to run and get away from the eyes of the hunter. He preferred them to run, it’s so much more fun to chase his poor little deer to exhaustion before merciless killing. Like every animal he had his ferocious pride.

Only truly stupid or arrogant attempts at taming something that was made to tear layers of skin and meat with their teeth, they will be dead before they know it. Etho is not them. He is human and like all humans he takes pride in his humanity. But he is not afraid and does not attempt to tame the wildfire of an animal that is Joel. He stares into the big wild eyes of the animal in front of him feeling nothing. Until Joel starts hunting him.

Joel hunts him, chases him down, leaps and attacks and attacks and attacks. His claws like razors cutting through the air, Etho’s clothes and skin, leaving marks on his body, the smell of fresh blood only fuels the animal's haze. Etho didn’t feel anything until Joel started this feral dance of claws and blades. Now he feels something and it’s not fear, no, it’s excitement. Etho took pride in his humanity like any other human, but he also saw the beauty of animal savageness. And he felt in Joel’s every gaze, every growl, he felt it in every claw mark, every bite Joel managed to get on him. Joel’s bestiality was mesmerizing to Etho from the raw power in his every move to the way his fangs were shaped. They danced in this wild jungle tango of exchanging blows until they were both out of breath and getting cold from losing blood. Like every animal, Joel took pride in his ferity.

They collapse on the ground together, Joel still fighting the fatigue from the battle, but unable so much as move his head, he was still eyeing Etho’s mismatched relaxed eyes when he passed out.

But the truth is. Joel is not an animal. Yet, he is convinced that he is and he never thought to question it. Joel woke up with his wounds cleaned and taken care of. Etho retreated faster than his wounds would like.

Every animal believes that they are untameable and they will bite the head off every human who thought they could ever force them into humanity. Joel remembers precisely how Etho’s blood smells like. He also remembers the way his eyes glittered in the sun and heat of the battle. He finds Etho’s trail and follows it. Every animal can be tamed only when it wants to be.

Joel thought that it sucked that he had to pass out when Etho tended his wounds.

#> tired writes #smalletho #trafficshipping #now #it's very my style of weird and abstract writing #a very short thing

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galebrainrot2024 · 3 months

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Gale Seeking Godhood Part V/5 PATH 1

Oh boy. Well. I wanted to release all three paths simultaneously but that may take some time so I'll release the paths as they are completed. This will be the only part for Path 1.

Paths 2 & 3 may be 1-2 parts depending on my brain.

Summary: Continuation of Gale seeking the crown post elder brain, final chapter for Path 1.

Editing to say that I do tweak and edit as I read and re-read these pieces and this makes my heart ache every time I reach the end. Anyway, I'm not crying. Just some dust.

Path 1

You approach Shadowheart with a warm smile and embrace her - “Gods, it’s been to long,” you breathe out as she hugs you. She smells nice - fresh and you can’t help but to inhale the rosewater and lavender from her skin when you embrace.

“Did you just sniff me?”

“Sorry,” you blush, caught. “I guess I’m not used to everyone being so… clean? It’s nice, for the record,” You rub the back of your neck and feel redness simmer beneath your cheeks.

Her melodic laugh echos in your ears as she says, “I suppose I should take the compliment. Although, sometimes I miss the smell of fresh mud on my skin,” she muses.

“Don’t tell me you miss sleeping in the dirt too?” You raise your eyebrows and smile.

She takes your hands in hers, “You know, I actually have found a spot that I frequent when I’m feeling nostalgic.” Giving your hand a gentle squeeze she says, “I’ve missed you. Now tell me, what have you been up to!”

You feel the looming dread fill your belly and Shadowheart recognizes the look, graciously stepping in, “You don’t have to share, if you don’t want. I can’t imagine it has been easy… I can’t say I’m entirely surprised, although I had my hopes. Do you think…” her unfinished question lingers in the air between the two of you.

Do you think he will come?

You aren’t sure. You had tried not to think about it leading up to the party, anxiety twisting your stomach into knots when you received the invitation - from Wither’s, of all people - or unpeople?

Shadowheart reads the look in your eyes and wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you against her as she leads you towards the rest of your companions. The air is full of merriment, music, and laughter - sounds that your soul has been desperately aching for. “I’ll let you wallow more later - for now, it’s time to celebrate, everyone has been expecting you.” And as she ushers you towards your companions you are filled with the sounds of their ‘whoops’ and ‘there they are!’ and fond slaps on the back, hugs, and the like. Astarion hands you a glass of something strong.

“Here, you’ll need it - in case, well, you know.” He gives you a wink and brushes his shoulders off giving a little bow. “I am surprised - I thought out of any one of us I’d be the one most likely to go off the rails not - ugh - Gale.” Your cheeks burn and Astarion gestures as if to say ‘be serious’, “Oh come now. What use is being a 200 year old Vampire Spawn if I can’t have a bit of fun at others’ expense?”

You glower at him and his eyes twinkle playfully as he pulls you into a hug. “Oh! I have missed you, you know. Maybe you’ll let me have a nibble later? I do miss that taste.. like a strong, bittersweet brandy..” You see his mouth begin to water and you shimmy from his grasp.

“We’ll see,” You smirk and he pouts as if hurt and goes to mingle elsewhere.

“Hey you!” Karlach comes bounding over and gestures wildly, “I can’t believe the bastard did it! I’m here!”

“It wouldn’t be a party without our liveliest companion!” Minsc bellows and shakes you by your shoulders from behind. “Good to see you, my friend.”

Everyone’s attention shifts as soon as you hear a familiar and warm voice.

He’s here.

***

You feel trapped in the amber of the moment when you see him descend into the party. The familiar, tell-tale marking of the orb is no longer etched into his skin and his eyes dart around nervously as he brushes at his clothes. Tara moseys beside him.

You step behind Minsc a bit as if to hide and try to distract yourself with the countless treats spread before you although you are anything but hungry. The moment you look up you see his eyes locked on you. You forget yourself as the rush of feeling seizes you, each emotion convoluted and overwhelming.

Two months. It was two months since you told him you never wanted to see him again. Now, as he stood not fifty feet looking ashamed and remorseful, you feel your heart wrench. He cautiously makes his way over to you, his hands mussing nervously in his hair.

“Hi.“ Gale says breathlessly. “Can I - Can we talk?” He shifts uncomfortably on his feet and gazes at you expectantly.

“Lead the way,” you gesture and you feel your companions' watchful gaze as you and Gale begin to walk towards the water.

***

As you sit on the embankment the sounds of the water lapping against the shore fills the cool night air. It smells like fresh grass and rain, the stars littering the sky with their wonder.

“Thank you,” Gale begins, breaking the charged silence. “For taking the time to speak with me, I mean. I wasn’t sure if… well, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted nothing to do with me at all. I don’t deserve your kindness, nor your ear, and I am grateful for it all the same.”

You sit silently and watch him. You feel a heaviness that stirs in your belly, the unconditional love you once felt melded into something else, it made your heart sick. As his brown eyes meet yours you can see the infinite possibilities of what could have been. You do not owe him this, not your time nor energy, but you give it generously. A part of you still longs for him. Gale reaches his hand out as if to brush your hair and recoils his hand, looking towards the water.

“What happened?” You ask timidly. “That’s why you came, is it not?”

“Well…” he pauses to look at you, “I needed to see you. I - I know that it’s selfish, especially after what you said.” He sighs and brushes his bottom lip with his thumb. You feel your heart pang, the nervous habit one you find endearing. “Where to begin?” He asks this sincerely and you see his the wheels of his mind churn as he struggles to find the words.

“I suppose it came down to this: when you left, Tara took her leave shortly after.” He inhales and his voice trembles, “The loneliness… I could hardly bear it. I poured all my time, energy into deciphering the last words of the Netherese text in my isolation. At least that would give me purpose, I thought. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. Godhood was… it was everything. Time seemed to hardly pass at all. Once I cracked the cipher to ascend I - ” he stops and rubs his temples with one hand.

You and he sit in a stilled quiet for a moment before he is able to continue. The sounds of the party filter through the air to you as you wait with bated breath.

“I met Mystra in the Astral Plane. I knew I could still surrender the crown to her, to rid the world of this wickedness. To at last be cured of the orb. I was so close…” The way Gale says this is almost regretful, as if a part of him still wishes he became a God. “I became the inheritor of Karsus’ power at last. When Mystra asked my intentions I was fully prepared to take the Weave from her. And then,“ He looks at you, his eyes pleading and he covers one of your hands with his. You shudder, surprised by how his touch still ignites you. “And then I thought of you. Of Tara. My mother. Of all I’d given up in pursuit of my own blind ambition, of everyone I had hurt in the process. I realized I was no better than Mystra, treating those around me like amusements to be eventually discarded. Oh… I was so ashamed. I still am.” Gale brings your hand to his lips and brushes the back of it. You feel heat spread through you, although it is tainted by sadness. “Mystra granted me renewed life - to become her chosen once more, to remove the blight in my chest. My life my own again at last.”

He turns fully to face you, on his knees, taking both of your hands. “I’m so sorry, for everything. For what I put you through… I doubt I’ll ever forgive myself for it and know it is selfish to ask for yours. I am not deserving of it and I will not claim otherwise. Although it may be beyond a shadow of a hope - is there - would you ever consider us again?” His eyes flash with terror and anticipation. “I know I am hardly worthy of your love..” His last words hang in the air and you consider them thoughtfully.

When you break the silence, you feel your hands become cold and sweaty within his, your heart thrumming wildly before you speak. “You were already worthy of it, Gale. You were worthy until you decided to put your ambition over the ones you claimed to love.” Your voice is somber and you avert your gaze as his eyes seem to sear into you. You feel Gale’s hands stiffen and you see his expression fall. You look at him then, the bittersweetness of your voice wrapping Gale in a cocoon. “Gods, I wish it were different. Sometimes… I like to imagine that it is, in a different space, in another time, where we end up happily, spending our mornings lazily and exploring one another… where you chose me.” You see the tears form in his eyes, unaware of the ones that begin to roll down your cheeks until you taste their saltiness on your lips. “But that life is not meant for us here. Not now. Not after everything.”

“I see,” his voice quakes and you brush your fingers against Gale’s cheeks and turn his face to look at you.

“I will always love you, even if we are not together. Sometimes, though, when something is lost, despite our best intentions… that chapter must close indefinitely.”

Gale closes his eyes and brings your hands to his lips again, knowing this will be the last time he will taste your skin and experience the feeling of your bodies intimate in this way. You feel him try to drink every part of you in, committing this moment to memory. You sigh, relishing in the moment although your heart feels shattered and ruined beyond mending. His final words float through the chambers of your mind as you gaze into his eyes, “If I cannot spend eternity with you.. I’ll settle for this evening.”

You allow the silence to settle over you then, enjoying Gale’s company for one last time.

#gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #bg3 gale #bg3 brainrot #baldurs gate 3 #gale #god gale #bg3 art #gale x tav #gale romance #baulders gate 3 #baulders gate gale #baulders gate rp #baulders gate tav #god gale bg3 #I broke my own heart with this path stg

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cuckoo-on-a-string · 1 year

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Hello, Mr. Monster: The Nightmare's Interlude

Hello, Mr. Monster master list

Summary: Eros and Psyche inspired Soulmate!AU, Morpheus x female OC/reader (18+)

So, as some of you know, I've been very sick for a while. Everything's behind schedule, but then this struck me, so I thought I'd share. The Jeff fan club rides again! The next proper chapter will be out... soon? Not doing the tag list thingy for this, but that will return with the next, proper chapter, and I'll give ya'll a heads up about this blurb in case you missed it then. <3

The nightmare was older than the beds beneath which it lurked. It had slipped a cold, hard grasp around dreamer’s ankles before there were words for either. From the dawn of sleeping things, it startled creatures from fantasies and reminded all of the unseen dangers lurking in dark places. Snakes, spiders, and wicked things with tooth and talon. Worse threats, even: strangers and ghosts, murderers and curious thieves.

When the Nightmare King vanished, the thing from under the bed went looking. It was one of many, in the beginning, but others grew distracted, lost hope, or found fresh inspiration in the delights of the waking world. It did not give up its quest. Traveling from shadows under a bed to those under a low table on the other side of the planet, it searched. It saw without eyes and heard without eats. It listened from under chairs and lurked under parked cars. But the waking world was vast, and after nearly a century of hunting, it began to despair.

The Endless were not gods. And the Nightmare King did not take up his mantle with a light heart. Perhaps he’d left, abandoned his creations to wither and fade.

Was that a kinder end than simply unmaking the Dreaming in one, fell stroke?

Perhaps Dream of the Endless was captured. Or ill. Or enchanted by some fell demon. Perhaps he wasn’t in the waking world at all, and he’d been bound in the deepest circles of Hell, or drugged into bliss beyond the gates of Tir na NÒg. Without word, every possibility was as realistic as the last. The nightmare only knew its lord wasn’t dead. If he’d fallen, another aspect would’ve been given his function, and the Dreaming would not stand in ruins.

So, the nightmare kept searching, obsessed with a new purpose, a new reason for existing, and it decided not to return before its lord.

It found all kinds of things. Lost treasures. Creatures hiding from worse monsters than the dark. Other dreams and nightmares seeking refuge from their increasingly-unstable home. Bottles, buttons, and dust bunnies. Never a hint of its lord.

And then – something.

A thread of power reaching out through a sleeping mind, the glitter of sand and ancient power.

The nightmare rushed through the shadows, following the trace like a bloodhound. It would get there first. It would rescue their lord. They would return to the Dreaming and set all right. A quest fulfilled.

But when it finally chased down the source, it didn’t find Lord Morpheus. It reached up to clutch a very small, very human ankle.

The girl-child jerked awake at its touch, hiccupping on tears, and the nightmare wondered which of its brothers it had interrupted. It did not wonder long, though. It was too busy feeling a new sensation, one it was meant to inspire rather than suffer.

Horror.

This child had been… mangled. Deep within. Her mortality hung in tatters, like curtains in the windows of a haunted house, framing what should have been a miracle. His master’s name. The dream of dreams. But whatever had irreparably damaged the child’s natural place in the flow of life and death had carved over the name.

And there was the sand. In her soul. In her blood.

It must pull her deep into dreams, the poor thing.

She was fortunate to wake at all.

A strong child.

Little fingers brushed over nightmarish crusts and ooze, gentle with papery skin, and the little girl said, “Hello.”

The nightmare had never had a conversation with a human child before, and after a moment’s thought, it gave her ankle a slight, answering squeeze. Nothing to hurt her, but enough to acknowledge and return her greeting.

“Are…” Her voice quavered and died, but she tried again, determined. The nightmare hung on her every breath, waiting.

“Are you here to hurt me, too?”

It released her. Instantly. The shadows swallowed it back under the little princess bed, and it recoiled into the inky black as that new feeling – horror – brought goosebumps to its hairless flesh.

This was its lord’s soulmate. It had seen many come and go from Lord Morpheus’ embrace, but this – well. This was different. This was unique. Something that would not come again, even in another dozen millennia. The little human was precious, even if its master was not there to appreciate and protect the one creature whose wyrd twined so intimately with his.

“Don’t go!” A little face appeared, upside-down over the side of the bed, trying to see in spaces too deep for mortal eyes. Even eyes, the nightmare realized, as clever as hers. Oh, the trouble this child must find.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Are you… a nice… monster?”

The nightmare returned to the light slowly, ensuring it wouldn’t scare her, and she smiled, reaching down to shake its hand.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Monster.”

The nightmare did not realize it at the time, but it was already lost. Lost to the hope in terrified eyes and the smile that invited it into the daylight for tea parties. Lost to slow conversations through knocks and a hand-drawn copy of a Ouija board the girl “saw on tv.”

It explained it was a nightmare, and she explained her name meant “dream,” too. When it said it didn’t have a name in the way she did, she gasped, told it that was terrible, and offered him one.

Jeff.

He became Jeff, and without meaning to, he found a new kind of quest. Even if his lord should never return, Jeff would guard his lady. The little dreamer marked for death with terrible power because she’d first been marked for love.

Protector. Guard. Confidante. Friend, even. He’d never been such things, but he took up the role gladly as the child told him about her parents, who knew something had happened to their child, but couldn’t believe her story about the fairy under the bridge. Jeff believed her, and Jeff remembered.

She explained why her favorite foods were the best, why it was important to have a favorite color, and why swings were her favorite part of the playground.

One day she came in with a little bottle, giggling, and called him out. He stretched into the yellow sun, the tips of his fingers brushing the hem of her lavender dress.

“Mommy made my nails pretty, so now I’m gonna paint yours and make you pretty, too, kay?”

She painted his broken, half-peeled fingernails with glittery purple polish, and they made her so happy he kept them that way a whole week. Jeff would do many things to keep her smiling, because sometimes the terror carved into her young mind swelled until she became sick with it. The fear stole the breath from her lungs and the thoughts from her mind. It came most often in the dark, when she felt most alone, and Jeff held her little foot to assure himself she hadn’t shaken apart into broken pieces, and to let her know he was there.

And then came the night he failed her, the night the child lost her family and stared into the eyeless maw of her soulmate’s favorite creation. Jeff tried. He warned her not to go out, and when she didn’t listen, he pulled her under the bed.

But too late. Not enough.

The Corinthian pulled her out of the shadows and sent her running into the woods. Truly alone, where Jeff couldn’t so easily follow.

The child fled, pursued by hungry things in the night, the Not Deer among them.

The Corinthian returned to the room and smiled down at Jeff, wiping the parents’ blood off his knife.

“Nice girl you had there. Real peach.” The greater nightmare crouched low, taking off his sunglasses. “Not ripe yet, of course. It’s better this way, don’t you think? If she can’t survive a few of us, how could she survive our maker?”

He called, and summoned, and reached for every dream and nightmare he knew walked the waking world without malice. Some of them came. Jeff rallied Polyphemus, the shepherd who once carried the smallest dreamers away from the deeper shoals of Nightmare, into gentler dreams.

Enough came. Enough heard. They did what Jeff could not and snatched the plucked the girl out of reach of her pursuers. Polyphemus, and the nightmare Gault, and Fiddler’s Green – who wore a strange shape and a new name.

When that awful, terrible night had ended, when the child – Aisling – was safe enough in the hands of human authorities, Jeff began leaving for longer and longer periods, hunting ardently for his lord. The girl was not safe. She would never be safe until Dream of the Endless returned.

The fear became worse, paralyzing attacks that interrupted her waking hours.

She struggled in even the most welcoming foster homes, trying to navigate a pitying world that saw her as half-mad at best. And when Jeff reached out to comfort her, the other children screamed and ran to tell adults about the monster under the bed.

Other nightmares came to visit, and Aisling made her roommate cry after she asked to leave the closet door open “so the boogeyman can breathe.”

She did not smile so much.

She did not paint his nails, and she stopped drawing Ouija boards after one foster family subjected her to an exorcism.

Jeff listened to many would-be families plead with her to be good or demand to know why tormented the other children. They wanted her, if only she could behave. If only she’d stop lying. If only she’d stop playing sick pranks on the little ones. If, if, if. They only wanted her if. Jeff had seen her face horrors that could break the human mind and still smile after. He did not know how to help, so he held her ankle as she slept, and her hand when she was grounded.

He went with her to therapy sessions, learning beside her as she developed coping mechanisms to manage the fear. Panic attacks, the therapist called them. But the therapist also pushed her to tell a more palatable truth, to accept a human killed her parents, not a nightmare with mouths for eyes. The therapist wanted Aisling to stop talking to shadows and to make a best friend who wasn’t a monster under the bed.

The child, who was a little less a child every day, refused.

In the silvery glow of a full moon, she looked across the bedroom she – for once – had to herself, and told Jeff, “I won’t let any of them tell me what to be.”

The new families did not accept her, and she did not accept them. She wasn’t cruel, but she wasn’t right or normal, so it never mattered if she was kind (though Jeff knew she was). Rather than waiting for age to liberate her, she demanded the mortal courts recognize her as an adult two years too early. She finished her schooling, found a job near the house her parents left for her, and won her independence.

Then she began collecting folk of the Dreaming. The house where the Corinthian killed her parents was remote, far from the city where she’d been hurt. It was a good place for things too delicate, too big, or too strange for the waking world. Polyphemus came and herded them all, keeping the refugees of the Dreaming safe from the greed of the waking, and keeping the folk of the waking safe from the power of the dreamfolk.

The child who was now a woman had adventures. She traveled and developed her intuition into proper magical skill. The dreams and nightmares were her life, and Jeff continued shifting between the child and his eternal search for his master, determined to fail neither one a second time.

He could not have guessed that the child would complete his first quest without his help.

#fic: hello mr. monster #morpheus x reader #morpheus x oc #sandman x reader #dream of the endless x reader #jeff the nightmare

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quotergirl19 · 9 months

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Today I keep wondering if this season one Colin line was foreshadowing for season three.

Imagine Penelope’s chosen a beautiful and flattering dress for the first ball of the season because she finally spoke up and convinced her mother to let her control her own wardrobe, and bitchy bully Cressida finds a way to tear the dress and humiliate Penelope who’s rescued by Colin (despite the fact that she’d been avoiding him all night).

Colin sees what Cressida’s done and how upset Penelope is and insists on escorting her home since she’s not quite herself. Her confidence has clearly been crushed and she’s convinced she will end up a spinster after word spreads about her incident.

Colin is desperate to lift Penelope’s spirits the way she did for him when he was at his lowest last season but she won’t listen to him, insisting he’s only pretending to be her friend out of pity. She tells him she knows he’s ashamed of their friendship because she heard the way he spoke about her when she wasn’t around at Featherington Ball.

Colin doesn’t know what to say, he’s horrified that he’d been so careless with his comments, especially because his dearest friend thinks he is ashamed of her. He insists he was only trying to silence those men because they knew he’d sworn off women since Marina and were teasing him because clearly he hadn’t sworn off Penelope that season since they’d been seen together at the races, multiple events and parties and also danced together.

Penelope is apprehensive but after the way Colin swooped in to help her escape the Cressida incident with as few members of the ton noticing her damaged dress as possible (and the fact that she still adores him despite her best efforts to forget her unrequited love), she forgives him but is still very worried that she’s bound for spinsterhood because she’s only ever been criticized by her mother and sisters for her many flaws and she had hoped that night could be a fresh start for her, that she might be able to change the way society sees her, so a nice man among the ton would think her a desirable wife but now she’d probably die alone, never having even been kissed.

When Colin insists hope is not lost, not realizing that Penelope is in a full negativity spiral and she snaps back at him with a thoughtlessly blurted out, “Do you intend to kiss me, Mr. Bridgerton? Oh wait, of course not. You would never dream of kissing me, not even in another man’s wildest fantasy, you would rather die.”

In that moment, standing before him in that shimmering gown with her hair down in the moonlight, her skin glowed and her blue eyes twinkled and she was so beautiful Colin couldn’t help himself. His eyes locked on Penelope’s full, kissable lips and without thinking he leaned in and took her in his arms, shocked by the immediate and intense passion between them when she kissed him back.

In an instant, they pulled apart, Colin stunned that he’d just taken such a liberty with Penelope, immediately proposes and Penelope, equally shocked by what just happened, dismissively, thanks him for seeing her home safely, tells him they will never speak of what happened and she goes inside leaving Colin wondering why the girl who always looked at him like he hung the moon, and who clearly wanted a husband wouldn’t want to marry him.

Penelope is literally up all night thinking of that kiss before she knows it the sun has risen and she’s never even dressed for bed.

Colin spent the rest of that night grappling with why he was so moved by one kiss and so bothered by Penelope refusing him. He finds himself wanting her to want him because the kiss they shared was soul stirring and he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her again.

When they run into each other browsing merchant’s carts, neither of them speak of the kiss but it’s clear something has changed between them. Penelope is still determined to marry this season. Colin is eager to do anything he can to secure Penelope’s happiness, seemingly oblivious to the way he’s started following her around like a lovesick puppy, and every time their eyes meet, the unspoken secret of the one perfect kiss they shared is all either of them is thinking of.

#bridgerton #polin #penelope x colin #colin x penelope #penelope featherington #Colin Bridgerton #bridgerton season three #Quotergirl mini fic

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mythicamagic · 9 months

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Skin Hunger: a Xiaolumi oneshot

Summary: When immortals fall in love with each other, they have all the time in the world to explore their relationship; but first comes the insecurities.

Totally inspired by this - gorgeous fanart

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Warning: some angst. No smut despite the nudity.

Xiao had witnessed enough mortal dreams to somewhat understand their desires, no matter what shape they took. Mora, fame, greed…

This was no different when it came to pleasures of the flesh. Two mortal lovers alone, and naked as they were now- would probably rush to embrace and fornicate.

Things were never that simple when it came to himself and Lumine. He should've known by now not to judge her by human standards.

They'd been caught together in the middle of a downpour near Guili Plains. Lumine had grabbed his hand, making a mad dash through the pelting rain toward an inn in the distance.

He'd followed without a word, unable to remind her of his teleportation abilities when she squealed and laughed so elatedly.

They'd been received with a warm welcome by the innkeeper and provided with a fresh set of clothes each. Unfortunately, there was only a single room left available and no catering service since it was so late at night- but Lumine had accepted it without a second thought.

He could see her profile now, hidden behind a partition screen in their bedroom. The warm orange glow of the lamps backlit her silhouette as her back arched. She stripped out of her soaked dress with a soft sigh.

Xiao fell still. His heartbeat stumbled. The rain was a gentle, tinkling patter in his ears, like playful fingers drumming on the roof tiles.

Distant thunder boomed, signalling a storm's steady approach.

A good lover would have joined her by now. Lumine would be receptive. She wasn’t stupid: the show was meant to entice him.

Xiao remained where he was. Pale, damp skin gleamed in the moonlight as he shifted his weight. His soaked clothes lay in a heap at his feet. He should change now. The innkeeper was nice enough to provide a Changshan. Their kindness should not be squandered.

'You are a coward.’

'The little Adeptus is too frightened to touch his woman. Scared you'll cover her in your filth?'

'Heh- should set her free already. You're a burden to her and everyone who knows of your pathetic existence. Disgusting. Weak.'

'She claims to love you but she knows nothing. Poor girl. Remember the time you ripped open a girl with blonde hair just like her? Those soft locks fell through your fingers so sweetly-'

Old memories assaulted Xiao's mind. He hissed out a breath, bowing his head and gnashing sharpening teeth together. He tried to focus on something else. Block out the karmic influences with good memories; the feast among friends at Liyue Harbour, lively conversations, Lumine's smile.

All of it paled to the tidal wave of loathing that swept through him. Lumine's enticing silhouette looked so far away right then. The cosy room way as well have stretched for miles.

Xiao looked down at his hands, sweat beading on his brow. He so rarely took his gloves off. Callouses and scars stared back at him, old and new. He'd dug those hands into skulls and stomachs once upon a time- ripped dreams and souls asunder in equal measure. Weapons were twirled through those fingers before they'd plunged into hide or bone. He'd clawed into blood-streaked snow just to shove it into his mouth and eat something. Anything. His former master had purposely starved him so that even snow felt like a treat.

Xiao shook his head, trying to calm his breathing. That was a long time ago now.

'Yet it never stops running through your mind. There's more to consider too. You've waded waist-deep through the remains of Gods. You will never be clean.'

'You would inflict all that you are onto her? Infect her with your disease?”

“The selfish Yaksha who should be dead commits more sins, still. Your greed knows no bounds.'

The cool air settling on his nude form began to feel sickening. How could he ever think to touch another with a body as disgusting as his? He wasn’t even human. He was-

"Xiao."

A presence drew near. Xiao felt rather than saw how the air shifted. He sensed hands rising. Hands usually meant striking and clawing. Touch was for violence.

He sucked in a sharp breath, flinching as fingers lightly touched his collarbone. They brushed against the necklace around his neck that suddenly felt so very heavy.

Xiao pried his eyes open, only to meet glimmering gold.

Lumine was there, completely bare and standing in the darkness with him. Her eyes held him captive in the gloom. Twin pools of warmth beckoned with all the welcome reprieve of a hearth offering sanctuary from the storm.

"Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?" She hummed, tilting her head with a smile.

She always did say the most unfathomable things. Of course they hadn't. Only the foolish would call a bad omen beautiful.

The beads clinked in her hands as she lifted them overhead-

And everything in him held its breath. Xiao tensed up as the necklace was removed. He felt lost without it. Fumbling as if blind. He needed the necklace to aid him with exercising evil spirits.

But that kind touch returned quickly. First at his shoulder, giving a squeeze that grounded him. The second is a light drag up his spine, settling beneath his shoulder blade.

She knew. Of course she knew what heavy thoughts were holding him under. Perhaps that was why Lumine pressed herself against him of her own accord.

Her kiss shocked him completely awake to the world of the living. Kind, soft lips ghosted along his neck in a gentle trail. Their chests met snugly, stomachs bumping.

Xiao was wrapping his arms around her before he could even realize. It felt bizarre to be so close and vunerable. Strange on a whole other level.

But it was also right and warm and tender. Lumine wrapped her arms around his neck in turn, stroking his damp, feathery hair.

"It's alright now," she murmured. "You're alright. Whatever you were thinking about…you know it's not true. I’m here.”

His heart dithered and fluttered like a nervous bird. He expected to feel caged. Trapped. There is no such emotion to be found inside Lumine's arms. Xiao buried his face in the juncture between her shoulder and neck, inhaling. She smelled like petrichor and carried the scent of foreign flowers. He clutched her tighter if possible.

"Mn," his body wilted with the force of his sigh. "I know."

Lumine fell silent for a while, just holding him. Occasionally he felt kisses press to his neck, ear or shoulder- but it wasn’t a sign to hurry up and return her affection. The Traveller was always patient. Whatever she gave; she did so freely, without expectation he do the same. That was why their initial friendship had felt so…comfortable.

No one had ever wanted to be around Xiao without demanding something of him. For some reason, however, she’d kept reaching out- an enigmatic smile on her face. Initially, he’d thought her strange, then slightly bossy, before finally settling on mysterious the second she’d told him stories of her past; how she’d journeyed beyond distant stars and witnessing their end. As an enigma- she only grew all the more perplexing when asking him to date her all those months ago.

His hands finally moved, sliding down Lumine’s back and running over her shoulder blades contemplatively.

"That tickles," she giggled softly. Hot breath fanned over his ear, eliciting a shudder. "What's wrong? Are you looking for something?"

Xiao closed his eyes. She really had no idea of the effect she had on him. Was he allowed to be this happy? This content? It felt effortless with her, like breathing. Surely that wasn’t right. Nothing was ever this easy. "You said you had wings once. I was just wondering if you had any scarring…I'm sorry if that was presumptuous of me. "

"Don't be silly. And you don't need to be so formal, Xiao. Especially not when we're holding each other like this." A laugh was in her voice. It livened his heart to hear it.

"The wings were more like…crystalflies. They were thin and shimmered like gossamer. You won't find any lost remnants of them on my back but I miss them all the same."

This gave him pause. Lumine often gently encouraged him in many ways, especially with verbally expressing his desires. However, she herself rarely took her own advice. "You miss flying…"

"Yes,” she murmured, a rare moment of visible melancholy passing over her face- but her expression shuttered as she quickly moved on. “How about you? As an illuminated beast- and a bird at that- you must have wings. Pretty ones, I’d wager."

He scoffed. "Don't speak of these matters so simply. Adepti are not like regular birds."

Lumine bobbed her head seriously. "True. You're much better.”

"I didn’t mean it like- gn…" he trailed off, clenching his jaw as she pressed a smile against his neck. Damn her. His face grew warm. In retribution for her little tease, he tightened one arm around her waist and teased the curve of her ear with a much needed nibble- thrilled by her ensuing yelp.

The rain pelting the rooftop above their heads and crawling rumble of thunder felt muted in comparison to Lumine’s little noises. All he could see and feel was her, but he knew she’d done that on purpose. All of this; her embrace, kisses and conversation- were designed to put his mind elsewhere. Away from the smell of copper on snow.

Lithe fingers combed through his hair again as if on cue.

"Are you feeling okay now?"

"Yes," he rasped out quietly. "I always do, with you. It might take time, but eventually…when I feel you or hear your voice, it has a calming effect. To this day, I do not understand why."

She gave a soft laugh at that. “You’ll find the answer, one day.”

“Lumine.”

Xiao pulled away, gazing quietly at the woman in his arms. In truth, she could have almost anyone she wanted. The Traveller was not in want of suitors. Many offered to help her with commissions but she always took him along instead.

He lifted a hand and ghosted his thumb across her lip once, before pressing down a little firmer and swiping it back, watching with fascination how she parted her mouth. Her lips looked so glossy under his touch, soft and yielding. Her cheeks grew red as they sometimes did in his presence.

“I told you before that I was unfamiliar with the human concept of dating, or even taking a lover. As I am now…does it not frustrate you?”

Lumine sobered. She smiled and took his hand, shifting the palm to cradle her cheek as she leaned into it. “No. It never will. You’re worth the wait, Xiao- and we have more than enough time. Don’t rush things just because you think it would make me happy, that’s just a surefire way to make me sad,” she gave a wan smile, pressing kisses to his fingers. “You always put everyone else first, at the cost of yourself.”

Funny, he saw her the exact same way.

Xiao fell into a contemplative silence, busying himself with stroking the length of her spine and revelling in her warm body pressed up against his. Lumine’s heartbeat thundered strong and fast.

Perhaps the reality of their shared nudity had finally caught up to her. That heartbeat thudded a little quicker- before she pulled away a little in his arms. “Ah, now that I think about it- the room is getting pretty chilly. Let me grab a blanket for us-”

“Hold still a moment.”

Lumine quietly gasped as air rushed past her cheek. Something shot out around her, arching high overhead. Twin masses of dark feathers streaked with teal snapped open like regal fans, scooping her closer and threatening it sweep her feet out from under her.

Proof of many hard-won battles lay bare on his body, but it was also a canvas of past sins. This was most prevalent on Xiao’s wings. What had once arched upward with fine pride and full plumage now looked bedraggled. To even the most untrained eye, one could correctly surmise they’d been torn once upon a time and then struggled to heal.

Lumine beheld them with awe. She didn’t move from his embrace again, but reached out to stroke the cocoon of tattered feathers.

“Amazing,” escaped her lips. “I knew they’d be pretty.”

His stomach twisted. He could bear her compliments for most things, but not for this. He hadn’t unfolded his wings in what felt like a millennia.

“I only brought them out because you seemed cold. It was not for praise,” he muttered.

“That’s okay, they’re still worthy of it,” Lumine reached out, splaying her hands against the primaries and smoothing her touch down to the secondaries. Despite their bedraggled appearance, she seemed unfazed. “Do you not like them?”

His brows pulled down, complicated emotions flitting through his eyes even as his face remained largely passive. “You see the bright colour of my tattoo?” he nodded to his arm, waiting for her attention to return to him. “That was the original hue of my feathers,” Xiao uttered in a tight voice, avoiding her gaze. “So it was with my hair as well.”

Karma and other less-than-pleasant effects had seeped into him. His hair could pass for natural, but there was no hiding the effect of his deep-rooted filth when it came to his wings. If Xiao morphed forms completely and returned to his original state as a crane, the reflection he’d behold in the water would likely be a stranger.

Something bumped his lips once- and then again, longer. He blinked, becoming still as he focused on Lumine’s kiss. Before he could think to respond, she pulled away.

"I didn't know you before, so I can only go off what I know,” Lumine lay a hand over his tattoo, gazing into his eyes meaningfully as she gave it a squeeze. “I love how you look now- even if you've changed."

Xiao stared. His breath caught in the back of his throat. He didn't know what to say to that. His eyes stung- throat becoming tight. Her unending acceptance of him, no matter the flaws or danger, was hard to grasp sometimes. He'd be thinking about her words for weeks after she'd spoken them.

He wanted to make her as happy as she made him- but lacked the knowledge of how to.

The only thing he could think of was to replicate her kindness.

He took an unsteady breath. "I-it's the same for me."

"Hm?"

He gestured to her back, feeling heat warm his face. "With your lack of wings. I didn't know you then, so to me, you are not 'lacking' anything. "

Lumine blinked, lips pressing together as if fighting a big smile. "Hey don't steal my lines."

"Hm, too late," golden eyes glittered.

With a giggle, she sank right back into his arms, looping both arms around his neck and cuddling close. "Thank you all the same," came her muffled reply. Xiao’s teal lashes swept shut, breathing in her scent once more and curling his fingers into her hair. He pressed his forehead against the locks with all the reverence of a worshipper. For his kind; the act would be akin to the deepest form of affection, but she likely didn’t know that and he wouldn’t tell her- so as ever, his feelings remained unspoken.

At her suggestion, they finally moved to the bed and curled around one another for warmth. Cocooned in a nest of dark teal feathers and buttery blond hair, whispered immortal sentiments were exchanged, stories told and kisses traded- until Teyvats distant sun crested the hills once more.

End

#xiaolumi #genshin impact #xiao genshin impact #lumine #genshin impact fanfics #xiao x lumine

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bi-the-wei · 2 months

Text

A Stay of Execution

Prologue

Wei Wuxian had always thought that it should rain on the day he died. That the sky might see fit to open up and weep for him seemed the very least it could do. Instead the small breath of wind that trickled through the narrow slit in the stone that functioned as his only window brought with it the scent of warmth and sunlight. He imagined he could almost hear a bird chirping somewhere, trilling a merry tune. Honestly, it was almost insulting. Though, he supposed, if the sun had deigned to come and watch his final moments... Perhaps he truly was as rotten as they all said.

Either way, there was no longer a soul alive who would weep for him now.

In the end, he hadn't fought being captured. He'd gone rather quietly. In fact, he still hadn't said a single word. Not to anyone. He hadn't spoken as they stripped him down to brand his skin . He hadn't spoken when they'd sheered off his hair, sawing at fistfuls of dark locks with a dull blade that ripped more than it cut. Or when they bound his hands . When they spilled his meager rations on the floor. When they taunted him. Insulted him. Beat him. He didn't speak when they closed the door to the dank cupboard that would be his last home. When they told him that he would be executed for his crimes. Not a word. Not a sound.

Wei Wuxian stumbled a bit as he was dragged out of his cell. It had been months since he'd been able to fully extend his legs and torso at the same time, the chain that bound his arms to the floor too short for him to stand at his full height, and the room too narrow to extend them while sitting. The three guards assigned to take him to whatever fate awaited him laughed and tried to make him stumble again, spitting at his face when he didn't.

"This is more than you deserve," one of them grumbled bitterly. His voice was like a fuse and flint stone, clicking on hard consonants and hissing his S's. "A quick, clean death is more than you were willing to give." "I guess no one else is twisted enough to do what you did though," sneered the second guard. This one almost sounded like a whine, thin and nasally and pinched. "No one else could be as monstrous as you."

The third guard said nothing, but his boots still fell heavily on the stone floor. His grip on Wei Wuxian's arm was the most painful. ' That'll bruise by tomorrow' , Wei Wuxian thought dully. ' Well, it would have anyway .' As they began to climb up a narrow staircase, the cloth they had kept over his eyes slipped just enough that he could almost make out the color of his drab, rough robes, as well as the sinister design that adorned them. His foot caught on a rough stone, but he didn't stumble again.

~*~

In the end the guards had to half-drag Wei Wuxian for the final length of their journey. After months of abuse and disuse, his legs just couldn't carry him the entire way. They trembled to bear his weight, and it was a challenge just to keep them moving one in front of the other.

In the end this was fortunate, because if he had been in charge of supporting himself alone he may have collapsed the moment his face hit true sunlight.

The gentle warmth of the sun felt like a scalding brand on his cold skin. The light was blinding even through the cloth over his eyes. His first breath of fresh, clean air after months and months of smelling nothing but wet, rotten dirt and stone made him so dizzy he nearly retched. And the noise- oh the noise- so much noise.

He took in every overwhelming sensation with careful attention, cherishing the pain it brought him. It was as if knowing that his final breath was drawing near, he thought he could take in the rest of his natural life all at once if he tried hard enough. It was okay that it hurt. He welcomed the burn.

The wind scraped against his skin, his chopped hair, now grown back nearly past his shoulders, making his neck itch - a neck that he was lucky to still have.

All this in only a moment before he was pushed forward again - up uneven stairs and onto some sort of platform. The heavy chains that still bound his raw wrists were grabbed and yanked so violently he had no choice but to fall hard to his knees. When he tried to catch himself with his shackled limbs, the chain was wrenched again. He only just managed to keep his face from smashing against the ground and received a hard kick in reward, causing him to fall backwards instead. All his breath left him and he couldn't help but curl in on himself, coughing and rasping to get it back.

In the end it was the third guard who graciously helped him back up onto his knees. With a helpful hand grasping him by the hair, he was pulled unceremoniously upwards. With just as much care, his blindfold was ripped away. He cried out at last, flinching as the unfiltered light from the sun assaulted him again. He heard screams as he blinked out in the vague direction of a crowd. A crowd that shrank back away from him, terrified of him even now. Even in the state he was in.

"Have no fear!" called a familiar, booming voice next to him. "We took great care before bringing him here before you today. See the symbols on his robes! He has been bound and sealed. I have cut him off from his heretical magic. I have stopped his murderous ambitions and denied him the joys of his evil. His eyes can do you no more harm. He is contained and you are safe at last!" It was then that Wei Wuxian realized that some of the bright, flashing gold that blinded him was not just from the sun, but rather the illustrious gaudy robes of a tall man standing beside him. Of course, after what he had done to his son, it would only make sense for his long over-due sentence to be overseen by the great Jin Guangshan himself. Even Wei Wuxian had to admit that was only fair, even if it meant he had to listen to the man postulate his own magnificence and blather on and on and on.

In all honesty, he'd really rather they just get on with it. The showmanship seemed a bit redundant.

"This man. This devil. This Demon of Yiling. You all know of him. He haunts our children's stories; a tale of caution to those who seek power!" he expounded. Wei Wuxian stifled a scoff. "He who started as a servant, who used a terrible war to greedily climb rank and assert his will over the lives of innocents. A parasite who manipulated the very life force of the world to do his bidding so that he may claw his way into society. So that he may fool us into believing in his consequence. This evil creature who corrupted the dead with his black magics! Who stole the life energy of my only son! I bring him now before you so that you may know his crimes."

The silent guard gripped him again, yanking him up forcefully by the hair once more and bringing him closer to the crowd, where all could see him in his shame. His neck strained with the effort of supporting a body his legs still could not hold. "See him now, his hair shorn in his shame. His honor cast aside with it. See him now and judge him guilty!

I lay before you the record of his evil. Hear me now and know them."

Jin Guangshan preened under the attention he had commanded. He basked in the silent anticipation of his next words, pausing to let them sink in further before listing the numerous crimes in question.

Really the true list wasn't THAT long. Yes it was true that Wei Wuxian had found a new form of magic - one that manipulated life force instead of spirit. But he hadn't used any of the life force of another living human. He drew a firm line in the sand that he swore he would never cross. He could steal only the life forces of plants and trees. The last breath of a fallen soldier. Himself.

And he kept that code. He hadn't stolen life directly... not until... Until he'd been face to face with true evil - with Wen Ruohan himself. It was heady watching the light leave his eyes. Here was a man who used his wealth of spiritual power, cultivated with such care, who had hoped to use that power to obtain true immortality - who had thought that it gave him the right to force his will upon the world. To watch as all that power came to nothing, as all that power was not enough to stop Wei Wuxian from draining his life away. The surge of power that rushed through his meridians - the full life force of a living human... It would have overtaken a lesser man. Heady and instantly addictive. But he'd pushed through it. Pushed it back out and dispersed it into the air. What use did he have for such power? The war was done. He'd saved them all. He'd done it. They were free and now he could finally pursue his own desires. His own freedom. His own life. His own...

He had broken his code, yes, but surely this end justified those means? As long as he never did it again, it would mean that at his core he was still a good man. He wouldn't have said it felt good, but he could at least live with himself. He had fought harder than any other soldier. Protected more than any other soldier. He had won countless battles and finally, finally ended this pointless war.

Wei Wuxian and Wen Ruohan had fallen to the floor in tandem. It wasn't until he'd woken a week later and noticed how people flinched when they saw him, how they skirted away when they could avoid him entirely, that he realized he'd had an audience to his horrors. And even then, none of that could be called a criminal, despite the tale being twisted now. No, nothing he'd done in the war could be truly held against him... But what happened after...

"Unsatisfied with the killing, no longer able to slake his thirst for violence with a war, this monster sought out his next victims! The poor innocents, guilty only of a shared name, were hunted down like sport! He took their very souls simply to sate his own blood lust! "And when my Zixuan, my precious son... When he tried to stop this senseless slaughter - to try to reason with this deranged creature - to show him mercy and compassion! When he tried to put an end to the blood and death, this demon stole his soul as well! And now my grandson grows without a father. My daughter in law without a husband. My wife without a son." Again he paused, letting sympathy and anger stew in the crowd's hearts. "See now as we give him more than he would have given them; a trial! He may have decided to bring about his own twisted justice, but see now that we shall not! A demon he may be, but let none say that we judge him unjustly! "Speak, demon! And tell us of your guilt!"

Wei Wuxian's hair was tugged again, drawing the crowd's focus back to his gaunt form. His eyes, finally adjusting to the harsh daylight, searched through the mass of people. He wasn't sure what he was looking for. Sympathy? Familiarity? Sadness? Of course there would be none - he was guilty and had no intention of denying it.

"Did you or did you not create black magics, evil and heretical, and use this power to slaughter thousands?" "I did," Wei Wuxian said. His voice, rasping with dehydration and disuse, did not waver.

"Did you or did you not hunt down remnant factions of the Wens, men and women that should have been brought to trial, only to cut them down instead?

"I did."

"Did you or did you not, when my son tried to stop the violence, to plead with you to stop the fighting and lay down your wicked ways, steal away his precious life?!"

"I did."

"He admits it! You hear now from his very mouth - the plea of guilt! You hear now the sins against his soul! The evils of his actions!" There was no silence now. The roiling anger of the mob before him was like the agitated buzzing of a hundred angry wasps.

"For this crime, I would have his head!" Jin Guangshan bellowed. Wei Wuxian was once again forced to move. This time he was half dragged to a solid block of wood. Stained red and jagged from use, he was pulled forward until its sharp splinters dug into his neck. A mirror was angled carefully so that he could see the executioner take his position behind him. Ah, so that's why they let him keep his eyes.

"Tell me now, would any of you here speak against this judgment? Tell me now if anyone would speak against this justice? I stand before you in grief and anger and ask you now will anyone claim this man?"

Wei Wuxian had never known true silence before this moment. It was as if the world itself had decided to hold its breath. He watched as the executioner grasped his axe. He watched his muscles tense to pick it up. He watched as--

“I will speak for him."

The silence was cracked by a cold, even voice. Wei Wuxian tore his eyes away from the reflection of that sharp blade and searched desperately for who had spoken.

Lan Wangji.

His voice had been firm and matter of fact. His golden eyes hadn’t even flickered in Wei Wuxian's direction. The maddening silence took on an almost desperate tone now, all eyes passing between the two men.

He spoke again.

“I will offer my hand to save him from this sentence.”

Lan Wangji finally looked at him then, his expression as unreadable as it had always been. He seemed to be waiting for something

“Wh-What?” he wheezed. He didn't understand what was happening. This couldn't be real. Maybe this was just a delusion he'd conjured to comfort himself before the ax finally fell. Maybe it had already fallen.

"Lan Wangji, you speak for this man?"

"I do."

"Despite his crimes, which he himself admitted before your very eyes, you would spare him?" "I would."

"You would tie yourself to this monster?"

"Yes."

The crowd was anything but silent now. Cries of shock and outrage poured from every direction. The righteous Lan Wangji was sparing the Demon of Yiling? The man who knew only justice and virtue, the hero of the war, would take that evil man into his home? Marry him?

Somehow, through the clamorous noise, Jin Guangshan made himself heard once more. He spoke through gritted teeth, as if each word came at a great cost.

"Wei Wuxian, Demon of Yiling. This man has offered himself to you. Would you accept his hand? Or do you accept my ax?"

The pressure holding him against the block was released, letting him sit up to consider which fate he preferred: to bind himself in a loveless marriage, or to regain what little honor he had left in death. How kind.

Lan Wangji stood straight and firm and unyielding before him. Wei Wuxian had loved him for so long - since they were children. He had always dreamed of being wed to this man... But not like this.

Lan Wangji thought he owed Wei Wuxian a life debt. That's why he was doing this. Out of duty. Moral obligation. Not love. Wei Wuxian would be truly cruel indeed to accept this. To force Lan Wangji into a marriage with a man he couldn't stand....

"I, Wei Wuxian, accept your hand, Lan Wangji. I will marry you."

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #fanfic #Fantasy au #A Stay of Execution #asoe #I decided that I like posting the fic's chapters here as well as on Ao3 instead of just linking it.#I do HAVE the link to the fic on Ao3 though if anyone wants it.#Please tell me what you think #good or bad #I'm desperate for feedback #It sustains me #since it's harder for me to stay motivated for writing #but I do love this story #I've got the chapters all outlined and I think there should be 18 chapters total including prologue and epilogue #so wish me luck

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