#Oh tell me your secrets blue bird | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

50cal-fullauto-astarion · 8 months

Text

to leave the blood stay in the veins

monster!könig x f!rcursed!reader (no use of 'y/n') 6.6k words NSFW!

DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT‼️CW: extremely NSFW, descriptions of gore, implied consumption of human flesh by a non-human monster, mention of necrotic curse, monsterfucking, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, knotting (no omegaverse), outdoor sex, ambiguous ending, pre-established relationship, 0% proofread, könig and reader are both fucking unhinged.

Day 01 of the Haunted Hoedown Challenge by @/inklore

taboo au (monsterfucking) + "i'll be your dirty little secret, if that's what you're into." + oh no i'm dating the town serial killer

There is a beast in the woods, and it leaves so little meat on the bone that not even carrion birds find value in the corpses it leaves behind.

It’s a strange town in the foothills of the Austrian Alps, full of little sicknesses hiding in the corners, and you learned them well when you moved here. No one goes past the treeline at night. Hardly anyone is outside of home if they can help it. Tourists are the beast’s fodder.

Your boyfriend thinks it’s funny.

König, under his ever-present hood–a not altogether uncommon sight in your town, people come here when they have something to hide, something they are uncomfortable with or find hideous in themselves, and he has given an unimaginable amount for you out of love–laughs, sharp in the tooth.

“Anyone dumb enough to head into the trees is dumb enough to die,” he teases, but there is an arrogance and a contempt swimming deep in his bloodshot blue eyes.

“That’s coldblooded, but not wrong,” you tell him, from behind your own mask. Plain thing, blank in expression, modeled from the one from Eyes Without A Face. It covers the ravages of a curse, numb necrosis slowly spreading up your face through the years. “I still want you to get me a gun.”

“What’s a gun going to do against a thing like that?” he asks, tilting his head, the hood bagging off the curled horns that start at his temples and sweep back over his ears. “Something like that, you need silver. I’ll get you a knife. Big one. Nice and fucking sharp, Schatzi.”

The knife isn’t a comfort when the beast begins to hunt in town. It stalks from house to house, preying on people in their beds, their living rooms, their bathtubs–there is no rhyme or reason, not a whit of discernable pattern.

Only teeth-gouged bones and viscera ground into wall, tile, and carpet alike. Your neighbor falls victim, and you watch the police from your window, flinching when a veteran officer stumbles out into the fall-frosted grass to vomit, sobbing and pulling his hair.

“It got Emil,” you say, still watching through your sheer curtains.

König nearly cackles from your bed, lounging as he visits. “Good. Emil was a piece of shit. Depperte Fut.”

You glance at him from the corner of your eye, over your shoulder, before returning back to the circus in the yard next door. “‘Stupid cunt’ is a pretty strong insult. He was an asshole, but I don’t think he deserved to die like that,” you mumble.

“You don’t know all that much about your neighbors, Schatzi.”

You begin to rock side-to-side on your hips, the enormous silver blade König gifted you turning over and over in your hands, the point digging lightly into your palm.

It’s insane, the way you begin to tell yourself that you’ve seen König’s face nearly everyday for the last two years—you can see it right now. He lies on your bed, pointed teeth gleaming under his split philtrum in the soft yellow light of the bedside lamp and the red-blue flash of the cruisers. You know there is a man under the hood, however odd and satyr-seeming.

And yet. And yet.

The blade digs a little too deep, drawing a curse-blackened bead of blood. König’s eyes burn into the back of your neck, and you can only guess his horizontal pupils dilate into black holes.

Just quit your job. I’ll take care of you.

It’s a simple enough promise, and one you know König will keep, but not one you’re willing to make. You have few shreds of independence, hard-bought through years of fighting back against misfortunes and setbacks, and, no matter the depths with which you love him, you’re not willing to trade your shit wage on faith for love of a man. It doesn’t matter how helplessly besotted he is.

It’s this molar-cracking grit that delivers you right to the beast. Because you were forced to pick up an extra half shift at the hotel to fold towels behind the front desk, because you needed the money, because you wanted to pay back your beautiful, bloodthirsty boyfriend for the ridiculous blade he begat you.

The god forsaken thing lumbers down a deserted street, blocks from your little rental, and something fucking horrendous seizes you. It’s enormous, walking on cloven hooves and back-bent legs. Its arms are too fucking long, clawed, jagged. And worst is the skull, bleached white and glowing like a beacon in the dark, an enormous rack of brutally sharp horns dripping trinkets of bone and gold that glints in the street lamp it approaches.

A horrible fact hits you. It’s not lumbering, it’s wandering. Putting a massive, craggy hand on fences and peering into houses, taking its time, evaluating. You swear you can almost hear it humming.

You don’t know when your hand found the handle of the silver blade strapped to your belt under your coat, but the leather on the grip bites your palm with the force of your grip, a nauseous, cold sweat terror tearing apart your ability to think.

It’s a primal fear, one that makes you want to protect your soft, vulnerable neck, even if the blood that warms it runs venomous.

It’s a bad choice, but there are no good ones. When the beast lifts its head and scents the air, skull snapping your direction and shaking its grisly trophies, you run. You snap the huge blade off your hip and drop into a dead sprint, cutting between yards, trying to escape the horrendous bellow that reverberates through the bony chambers of the monster’s skull.

Choosing to run instead of freezing maybe bought you a few extra minutes before death decided it was time to seize your pulse in reclamation, and it hurts. The physical exertion it takes to bomb through the last stretches of suburbia before the forest closes in feels like you are breaking every bit of your body by forced choice, listening to that awful fucking thing chase after you.

Your blade makes a slicing sound cutting through the air at your side, the monster’s hooves pound the dirt as it digs in and chases after you, but, good god, it doesn’t sound like it’s even trying.

You don’t dare look back, pushing your body past agony, your lungs shredding in your chest. You’ve never moved this fast, you’ve never run this hard for this long. Your body is TV static—hissing, popping, distant—and, insanely, the urge to cry drills into your eye sockets.

You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to fucking die, stupidly and dumbly and pointlessly, because you wanted to pay your boyfriend a stupid sum of fucking money, for a stupid fucking knife that he bought you on a stupid fucking joke.

Two meters from the second worst decision of your life, the monster snaps out, rough hand between your shoulder blades, crashing you into the goddamned dirt. Your eyebrow splits on a tree root, your eyes roll in the back of your head, your hand stays manically tight on the blade, slicing your other arm.

“Schaaaatzi,” the miserable fucking thing hisses, pressing that same hand between your shoulder blades, pinning you into the freezing dirt.

Oh, god, no, it has König’s voice. It’s—it’s not him, but it has his voice, thin and washed out as low-hung fog, but you would know that voice. In hell, in high water, in the dirt with a massive, bark-rough hand grinding your skin raw through your coat—you - know - his - voice.

Furiously, you slash the blade over your head, behind your back, screaming and digging your feet in the dirt. For a brief second, as you hack at the wood of the monster’s hand and wrist, you’re even able to push yourself off the ground by mere inches. The beast growls and shoves you back down twice as hard, knocking the wind out of you, spasming your hand open. The knife drops, and you begin to blindly try digging and dragging yourself away.

“Stop…hurting…me,” the beast lows, still in your boyfriend’s voice, and you imagine a bathtub full of gnawed bones, a living room with scattered body parts, your kitchen smeared with blood like cave wall art, and you start to scream as loud as your lungs will allow, your mask filling with dirt in your horrendous and futile bid to escape. Bloody murder bellows, filled with rage, wanting to kill and consume and conflagrate.

If König is dead, you will take your pound of flesh. You will either die fighting, or win, and you will hack apart this freak-fuck’s corpse to burn in your woodstove to warm your home. You’ll mount its fucking skull on your front door, so anything else in these woods will know you won’t hesitate to make trophies of them either.

Bone, warm to the touch, presses against the back of your head. When it breathes, the air is as hot as exhaust, almost scalding your back. “Schatzi,” it bids you slowly once again.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” it rips your throat raw to shriek it, reaching back and almost dislocating your arms to rip at anything you can. Your hands fall on the dressings attached to its horns, you tear off a vertebra, and a gold wedding band, and a bracelet of rave kandi in plastic beads. “IF YOU HURT HIM, I’LL YOU FUCKING KILL YOU!”

The head presses harder, driving your face into the dirt. There is something desperate in the pressure. It spits all at once, grating and wide in a voice you know better than your own, “You pissed off a fucking witch, because you ran out of riddles to tell her, when she was ransoming you to your arshloch grandmother. She never paid. That’s why you were cursed—no one gave a fuck. But I gave her my face for you, to stop it halfway, better than fucking nothing.”

Your rage freezes immediately, your chest heaving under the weight it presses down on you.

No one knows that. Only König. He’s the only person who would know about his lonely and quiet climb up to the Scottish highlands. Besides you, and the witch, König is the only one who would know why his human face was distorted, malformed, made animalistic.

“Lee?” you pant, unleashing part of his first name, the only one he ever tolerates. And, fuck, instantly the pressure pulls away, the skull rubbing against your back to soothe it.

“It’s me, Schatzi,” the slow voice promises, nuzzling you. There’s rustling above you that you don’t dare turn to see. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

A tinkling piece of jewelry lowers in front of your eyes, and you can see that it dangles from an enormous, ligneous finger. You’re being shown a sterling silver charm bracelet. You’re being shown your bracelet, the one you thought you had lost months ago.

Your hand shoots out, wrapping around the finger, the peeling bark shearing off under your grip. You find instantly that you can pull yourself up on your hip, sitting, caged and protected under the beast’s massive body—under König’s massive body.

He shifts back onto his digitagrade haunches, holding himself over you, still offering your bracelet. He shudders at your touch on his hand, and you imagine that he may’ve never been handled with kindness in this shape. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Because he fucking kills and eats people.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snap, staring dead into the hollow sockets of his eyes. He shifts uncomfortably, turning his head. “Why—you have me so fucked up—what have you been thinking—?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, do you have to—”

“Yes, I have to, fucker.” It’s impossible to wrap your head around the magnitude of what a simple secret and a silver bracelet has done to your understanding of the world. A complete unraveling—upheaval, utterly.

You take the bracelet from his finger, on which it fits like a ring, and push it into your wrist, sitting up on your knees and grabbing him by the underside of his jaw. Though it puts you in his blind spot, staring dead center at the sinus dimples between his eyes, it feels like you have a mote of power over him.

(If he were asked, he would say the power you hold over him could corrupt, absolutely. He would badly like you to ask someday.)

“Why are you—what are you? Have you always been like this? Or was this new, with the fucking witch? Are—Jesus Christ—why are—the monster isn’t supposed to come into town, why are you in TOWN?” you run off at the mouth, words stalling and crashing and fusing together as your thoughts overwhelm just how quickly you can speak.

And up from that impossibly deep throat–simultaneously from the center of your brain, and from all around you all at once–crawls König’s pitchy hyena-laugh, edged, always, with cruelty. He butts the jagged end of his nasal cavities into your stomach, catching on the threads of your sweater.

“Leshy, Schatzi, say it for me.”

Your hands pull his jaw closer, digging the bone into your stomach, wondering if he can feel the pressure of your deep breathing. Oh, fuck, you could crack. This is your König. You start to wonder how many of his perverse buttons you can hit, the part of you that felt shame for your attraction to what the world discarded as ‘ugly’ long ago removed from your emotional bank.

“Leshy,” you say, really leaning into the word, saying it deep in your chest. One of your hands travels the long length to the hinge of his jaw, gripping tight, directing his head to turn so you can meet one of his empty eyes. “Answer my fucking questions.”

The laugh doesn’t come this time. In its place is a near-violent whole-body shudder that wracks through you.

“Old! Alwaaays been this way,” and even in the strange disconnect of his voice from his physical form, you can tell his arousal is eating away at him in big bites–clipping his speech, broiling his brain with body heat, “can’t remember ever being young, haa-haa. And why do you think I’m hunting in town?”

Another trap, a stupid pop quiz, wanting to test your knowledge of him, or a gotcha! to check your observations and what you had missed.

Your hands get tighter, and you pull his jaw open, marveling at the sharp grooves ground into his teeth, like nightmarish, ivory rook pieces, tall and straight in the dry sockets. His chest begins to heave, his breath fogging into steaming clouds over your hands, and, remarkably, it smells like nothing at all apart from pin needles and snow.

You’d thought you’d smell decaying flesh or rotten blood. The only blood you can smell comes from your own busted brow and sliced arm, crusting black on your skin and in the fabric of your sweater as it coagulates.

“If I was working on a hunter’s instincts, I would say that Schladming has become too good at keeping people out of the forests. Even during daylight hours. It cuts down on prey,” you say, ice cold and clean as a slit throat. Your eyes flick back up to the socket, surrounded by the feeling that those glass-blue eyes of his humanoid form are drilling into you. He’s waiting for you to hit the hook. “But I’m working on your logic.”

“Oh, yeeaah,” he drawls, his hips shifting, and you feel as if he would bite his lips in anticipation now, if he could.

“Oh, yeeaah,” you echo him, “the logic of a fucking crazy asshole.” He feels like a huge grin, hands on his muscular, bunched, and flexing thighs. That detail is not lost on you. “You’re hunting in town because you’re pissed off. You reached a limit, and you got tired of sitting on your fucking reaction.”

You swear to god he moans a little. Just softly. It could be a breath, but you know him too well to dismiss it out of hand.

“That’s good, Schatzi. I like that. I like that you figured that out,” he says, definitely panting in rhythm now, his fogging breath giving away the rhythm secondary. “People are looking at you too much. I don’t fucking like it when they look at you too much.”

That’s a sudden thought that had not occurred to you, and you lash yourself silently because it hadn’t. König has always been possessive of you. Jealous. Protective. And he held grudges in ways that could spark blood feuds and successive generations of death.

Like a curse.

It’s a testament to how fucking cracked and perfectly matched the two of you are that you start laughing, stroking his orbital bones in big, pleased pats, kissing the bridge of his nose.

“Schatzi, please,” he groans, pressing into you insistently. “Promise you won’t tell. Promise me.”

“Why the fuck would I tell?” you laugh, losing track of your faculties, your very sense. What does it matter? What does it all even mean? You’ve found a man that loves you so deeply and truly and twistedly that he slaughters those who desire or deign you. You’ve found, and fallen in love with a man that would sell his face to save as much of yours as he could. “Who the fuck would I tell?”

The slope of his shoulders relaxes, and he moves closer to you, once again shielding you with the massive bulk of his body, warming you in the cold air. Tucked under his chin, you can study the soft suede-like material of his body, how the bark covering his arms gives way to a ruff of dense, double-layered fur around his shoulders and his long, muscular neck.

The rest of the muscle on him is horrendously hard, flexed like steel cabling under a layer of fat. There is something about this body that reminds you of the shape of the human one so well–long legs, a nipped waist, and flat hips built to strut and rock, all of it buttressing a broad set of shoulders.

You press your face into the ruff, pushing your fingers into it. Dear god, your hand goes deeper and deeper, and it just never seems to stop. His scent is–it’s almost familiar. He’s in there, somewhere–his musk, the metallic tang of blood seemingly sunken into his skin–but there’s so much more to it. Green, and earthy, almost like soil and moss.

A sound comes from his body, like a house settling. A deep, broad creak. The trophies on his horns rattle together, clinking like dull wind chimes. “More,” he says simply, leaving you to figure it out. Simple enough.

Your hand drops from the ruff, tracing over his convex chest, down to his stomach. Another shudder, and he pulls those big arms around your entire body, a fuller, more protective hug than you’ve ever felt.

“Schatzi–would you let me…” he breathes, a heaving sigh.

Another laugh cracks out of you, hysterical, constricted by your mask. Why not? Why shouldn’t you? You’ve always been a woman that loves monsters. You, yourself, are one. You can’t find a reason to halt your hands, nor your body, nor his desire.

In an odd show of tip-to-tail, you push the mask off your face, and kick off your boots, going for your zipper. “Yeah. Yeah, honey, come on. Show me,” you urge him, pawing at his massive waist as you struggle out of your jeans.

He groans and this obscene trill escapes his body–a low, rattling moan that travels miles through every cell of your body, his legs spreading wider. You laugh in delight and mania, watching rapt as his cock slides out of a sheath you hadn’t even caught sight of, his monstrous body a foreign land you hadn’t traveled yet, but, fuck, do you want to learn the lands well enough to call them home.

It’s heavy in your hands, a little slick, and, childishly, you almost giggle (holy shit, that is a sound that has never left your mouth in your living memory, and yet, here you are). It’s hot, hotter than you expected, and a vulnerable shade of pale, like a plant slip. Oh, and it’s elegant, almost spiraling. He huffs as you stroke the length of it, pushing your fingertips into his sheath at the base.

“I don’t think this is gonna fit,” you warn him, and it somehow feels as if you’re challenging yourself with the statement.

He takes it as a challenge for himself, though, and an aspiration to hold for you, “You are going to take all of it. I’m going to make sure.”

His massive hand comes to the back of your waist, finding your fulcrum without needing to search, pulling you off your knees to hold to beneath him. “You naked yet, or still fucking around?” he asks, breathing heavily, and you shove your jeans off the rest of the way.

“You’re being a little bitch,” you snipe, a dumb swipe at reclaiming dignity after you realize you’re so wet that it slicks your thighs, having darkened the crotch of your freshly abandoned jeans pathetically.

He throws another coarse laugh, haa-haa, shifting his massive body long, pulling you into place.

It’s on you, then, to figure out the logistics. Somehow, it just works, even through layers of physical translation. Under your hands, he reads König, loud and clear.

There’s a brief, flighty moment of terror as you rub the head of his cock between the lips of your cunt, rolling your hips to stimulate your clit against it. It is just fucking enormous, almost half again the size of his human cock. But then you grit your teeth, tipping your weight back so your shoulders rest against the dirt, bleak and unyielding ruthlessness seizing your mind.

You do not back down, you have never done it once in your life, and tonight is no different.

His head lifts, bottom jaw dropping, and he bays as you push yourself down on his length. The sound crashes into you, rocking your entire body, and the stretch burns, but you buckle down. What are the people in the houses just at the edge of suburbia thinking? Has the fucking abberation that has been slowly killing its way through their number taken to a different form of punishment? Has someone unlucky fallen to its new tastes?

It cuts your mouth into a horrid grin. If they only knew that you were no victim at all, if only they had an inkling of the fact that you are a victor. That you are the hand holding this nightmare’s collar, and he attacks for the sake of you.

Inch by inch, a slow journey, he fills you, pressing completely against your walls, body shaking with the effort it takes not to thrust fully into you. Oh, what destruction that would result in, what a wreckage that would make of your body, what lengths he would go to not ruin you in such a fashion.

“Fuck–fuck–Liebes,” he mutters, just for you, the moment he is as deep in you as he can go, most of his length still outside of what your body can handle, pleading, “I can’t–I. I have to move. Please, meine Liebes.”

“Go. Go-go-go,” you answer back, almost frantic, too full and occupied, needing motion or you might split apart into atoms. The way he answers is instant, undeniable, desperate, rocking into you as if testing waters, going faster as if he finds them warm and welcoming.

You lose yourselves to it, and your eyes threaten to roll back into your head, gripping onto the elbow of the arm suspending you, blood rushing to your head in an ache from the way you hang off him, forcing you lightheaded. Sap-like blood from where you’d hacked at him in rage drips down your arm, your waist, clinging to your skin in a way that feels permanent.

He tenses all around you, panting, clouds of steam fogging the air over your head from his pants. Words escape him, leaving nothing but animalistic grunts, the grinding of his dry, exposed teeth as your desperate pussy sucks him deeper and tighter.

You’d taught him as a human to find your g-spot, to destroy your brain with a steady climb, and he doesn’t even need to search now, every movement pressing every inch of his cock into it, and unrelenting onslaught that makes you shake and nearly drool, being fucked like a sacrifice.

König raps his other fist above your head and pulls out without warning, shaking his head and breathing roughly.

You imagine brutally grabbing him by the scruff and biting his ear–what kind of punishment would that even be, no worse than a bug bite to him, more likely than anything else–for the loss of his cock. Mostly just an impulsive fantasy, too barbaric and stupid to actually act upon, but you were thoroughly enjoying yourself, and it feels like hell to be split open against him with nothing inside you.

Breathless–and naked, sweating, and trembling in the woods–you start to sit up on your elbows, cunt throbbing. "What is it? Are you okay?" you ask, your love for him–your fear for him–overwhelming even your damnation-worthy starvation.

König, massive and so dark he's almost indistinguishable from the night apart from his skull, shakes his head again and puts up a clawed hand. Fine, the gesture says, and you’re realizing he’s beyond words now, but trying his best to communicate. Then he curls it into a loose fist and pantomimes masturbating and finishing.

"Christ!" But you’re laughing, tugging at a tuft of fur on his chest, spun out in your giddiness. It’s still him, you’ve already known, but to see it. To find him through this–this utterly new reality. "They teach you that signal in the forces?"

In his hollow sockets, twisting his body to watch you closely, he looks pleased with himself, ducking forward, bracing on his free hand to one side of your head as he nuzzles into your neck and breathes deeply.

He huffs, rough fingers running over your back, claws trailing the parts of your spine he can reach as he holds you, before he taps the side of your thigh with his other hand. At your eye level, he turns his finger in a slow loop. Roll over, maybe? It's worth a shot.

"Okay. Alright," you sigh, relieved. When you try to roll in his palm, he shakes his head and sets you down, pressing down against your body, pushing his arm under your ribs. With his other hand, he gestures a flat line on the ground. You ask, "On my stomach?"

Two knocks against the ground next to your head. Yes.

You stretch out flat over the frost-crisp grass, too hot to even register the chill against your bare skin, and König lowers with you, sliding the arm under you down to your diaphragm. With his knuckles, he taps your outer-thighs until they're drawn back together, and your breathing hitches when you understand what he intends.

With his legs on the outside of yours, he uses his free hand to run his cock up the length of your seam to tease your pussy, but he takes his sweet time with it. Impatient, you slide onto your knees with near-perfect timing, driving your entrance against his head, snarling with indignation when he bows away. "Fucker!"

He rumbles something almost humanoid, between a laugh and a gruff, trilling ‘rrrr’ you recognize as cousin to a sharp, challenging hum he makes when faced with an idiot comment in his human shape.

"Stop teasing me. I can't stand it," you try instead, turning to give him big eyes over your shoulder because you know that it works well on him.

He bends down and barely-barely nips the top of your ear, a startling move that leaves you perfectly inflamed all over again again. Greedy brat, it says to you, so pleased in the fact he is so desperately wanted.

The feeling of him inside you is extraordinary. He lubricates in this state, but you hardly need it with the nearly absurd way you’re wet, slick down your thighs. You wonder if your cunt is glimmering under the dim moon and streetlamps, because he'd said that to you once. Heilige sheiße, you have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever fucking seen, could just stare at how wet you get for me forever, he'd laughed during one delirious, marathon session of staying sunken between your legs.

He begins to rock his hips, growling quietly and pleased at the wet sounds of your of cunt squelching around him–another sound he enjoys, a marker of pride, how wet can I make my girl get–settling onto his forearm and pressing a little weight against your back.

He rests his head across your shoulders, burying his snout in your hair, breathing in hard-bought bursts of restraint.

"Yes, honey," you almost seethe, loosening your body, giving up a little of your own iron will to become just a little lost in the feeling of him. You relax your walls in a bid to take more of him, breathing tight, voice pitching up into a plea, "Yes, baby, that's perfect. That's so perfect, keep going. Just like that."

He rocks a little faster, thrusts a little deeper, breathes a little harder. The hand around your waist shifts up to your breast, but isn't dexterous enough to do more than give it an encompassing squeeze.

With your thighs pressed together, you feel as if your body can't stretch properly to take as much of him as you want (and you want all of him, every burning hot inch, fucking him so well that he cannot disappear into one of his miseries where he will not let you follow, because they all live in his head).

He ratchets back his speed, tries a new motion with his hips. He rolls instead of thrusting, a more fluid movement, brushing your insides in new ways that leave your swollen clit screaming for attention and your eyes watering. You breathe in ragged pants, fingers digging into the turf over your head, trying not to rip it with the force of your grip by the fistful.

You might cum. You might cum. You want to cum, and you might, and he's so much deeper now, panting hot as fire against your shoulders. You can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench and dance, his horns cutting the air in swipes of agitation above you, and he is so much this way. König: bigger, sometimes bloodier, but always so, so amplified.

"Honey, honey, honey," you whine in a chant under your breath, trying to ground yourself, trying to encourage him. You squeeze your thighs together for the extra stimulation, but you know you’re going to orgasm from him alone, no extra assistance needed. You’re just greedy, you just want it all, but you want him the worst.

When he pulls out this time, you snarl loud and gnash your teeth, digging your dirt-packed nails into his unyielding skin. You were full to the brim and on the wire-edge of climax, and he is so suddenly fucking gone it's almost as abrupt as violence.

"KÖNIG!" you shout, his callsign cutting from between your teeth like the desire to slit a throat, shattering the quiet around you both, reeling to find him with your burning eyes.

He collapses onto his side, cock jumping and leaking, and he whines deep in his throat, pulling at you with the flat of his hand. Your thigh, then his hip, your chest, then his–more hand signals, a story-told like a man with a sucking chest wound needing saving. He snakes his arm under you again, whining growing deeper, and you understand.

You roll, throwing your thigh over his hip, tucking tight against his chest. You give yourself one second of feeling cool air against your overheated pussy before you take him in hand and direct him home, and his deep, slick slide into you knocks the air out of your lungs like a punch to the solar plexus.

You’re only seconds away, and he can't be much farther, driving his head under yours to give you something to rest on that isn't the ground.

You don't utilize his offering, craning your neck as if you'll somehow get a glimpse of your connection from this angle–flat against him from belly to breast, resting your cheek and forehead against his heaving chest. His whine turns into a series of small, strangled howls and gasps as your voice crawls from whimpering to keening.

You’ve known you were going to cum, but you’re still somehow surprised with yourself at how quickly it's raced up, and how overwhelming it feels like it's going to be. You feel like you’re going insane.

His other arm wraps your ribs, too, squeezing you to him like you’re the only thing in the world worth keeping close, and damn him for it. You don't know why, but damn him.

"Cum, baby, cum," you instruct, gasping when you aren't clenching your teeth. You curl close to him, as close as your body will allow, spreading your legs as wide as you can. You drive back down into his thrusts, giving as much of yourself as you can, taking as much of him as you’re able.

You want it all–everything–every little bit of blood and bone that's built him into a home he offers only to you. "Cum in me. I'm ready, I want you to cum," you demand, finding it truer than true, finding yourself right on the razor-edge.

The command is all it takes. Three hard thrusts, and he's buried in you to the base, punching the wind out of your lungs, and filling you to the point of what feels like impossibility with his spend. It forces you to finish as well, lighting you up like a lightning storm, swallowing him deeper as you cum and cum like you'll never be able to stop, soaking the both of you.

You gasp a raw-throated howl, tears pricking the corners of your eyes, and you praise him as his cock kicks and kicks, emptying everything he's got to give into you.

A pressure builds inside you, beginning nearly unpleasant, until something just gives and his knot anchoring him to you feels right.

It feels special and dazzlingly intimate, and you’re boggled, again, with the knowledge you’re the only person in the world that he's ever shown himself to this way. It’s just a thing you know in your marrow, an immutable truth, like the sun setting in the west, or the cruelty of witches without their wants.

You wind down, sweating and panting and filthy in each other's arms, and you rock against him, holding him inside, clenching around him what little you can. You feel so wonderfully safe, so immaculately powerful, so stupidly, crazily, fantastically in love.

When your combined breathing evens, and the knot between you retreats, you groan when König shifts back into his human form, but only for the resituating you both have to endure.

The body against yours is familiar again, and you’re dreadfully sleepy, though you want to clean yourself and eat. You crave something raw, something bloody. You hunger the way an animal hungers after a hard fuck. His spend drips out of you now that his cock's returned to normal, and it forms a trail of cooling wet down the crease where your thigh meets your ass.

You feel lovely.

König laughs, rough and spent, tucking hair out of your face and kissing your closed eyelids. "Holy fucking shit, Schatzi," he marvels, looking at you like you are the only god that has ever mattered.

Your smile cuts sharp, and your fingers find his pulse point, tracing it thoughtfully. “You hungry? I bet you're fucking starved,” is all you say in return, eyes trailing the way his hand finds the charm bracelet newly returned to your wrist, touching it like a token.

It’s late and dark when you both manage to stumble your way back to your rental. He stays close, needy and soft, his hand on your hip, tugging you into his body when he can, careful of not knocking into the big, silver knife you’d placed back in the scabbard on your belt.

The hood is back on his head, rolled up to his nose, and his split mouth kisses against your neck and behind your ear, his eyes closed like he endures a waking dream. You, in your own filthied mask again, allow it, craning your neck to give him more room, anchoring him with an arm around his waist in return.

It is late now, and the neighborhood is silent. Again, you wonder what the quiet lives inside must be thinking–whether they think the crimes have increased into a new field of brutality, if they are fearing and wondering what body parts they will find at the treeline come dawn.

You know they will not leave the safety of their homes to investigate. They would be stupid to do something like that.

“That shower is going to feel so goddamned good,” you mutter, unlocking your door, and he nods against your skin.

“Oh, yeeaah,” he says, and the familiarity of the phrase makes you hum a laugh, shutting your eyes as you push through the threshold. "Get that blood off your skin before it stains. Your poor face, your poor arm. Poor Schatzi."

He splits off from you with a facsimile of a kiss–your masks pressing together at the mouth–and he pinches your ass before he takes off to the kitchen, his stomach growling, not even bothering to take off his boots.

You, however, kick off your shoes, and pull together clean clothes, heading toward the bathroom in the hall, the one with the big shower, in case he decides to join you.

Sleepy and content, you listen to his boots move heavily over the kitchen tile, the sound of the fridge door hissing snickt as he pulls it open, and shoves things around in his search for food. You nearly sway up to the closed door–why is it closed, you barely manage to wonder–your eyelids lead-weighted.

It takes only one thing to make them snap open wide, your back going ramrod straight. A dark smear, curling around the knob, around the edge of the door where it seams to the jamb.

Cold grips your lungs, sending your heart galloping painfully in the cage of your ribs, wondering if it really is copper you smell, or if it is a trick of your mind. The hall is too dark to tell if the swipe on the white door is red or black–if it is blood, if it is König’s or yours.

There is a presence at your back, and enormous hands on the door on either side of your head, so fast you cannot tell if you were even able to blink before you saw his wide, scarred, and knuckle-broken limbs spreading wide across the wood.

Your hand finds the grip of the knife, looking at the brutal gouges you had hacked into his forearm earlier in the night, and you are thinking faster and harder than you ever have in your life, realizing in a terrible microsecond that you will have to make a decision–that you will have to choose what reality you are willing to live with, or that you are simply mistaken.

Either way, you are moments from learning.

“Something wrong, Schatzi?” your boyfriend’s familiar voice asks, low and raspy, hot against the nape of your neck.

The laugh in his tone is cruel, and you can’t tell whether it belongs to König, or something pretending to be him.

tag-list: @alittleposhtoad @bitchoftoji @dotcie @kastlequill @miyabilicious @moths569 @parttimeprophet @pssytrux <3

#hauntedhoedown #konig #könig #call of duty #cod mw2 #mw2 #konig mw2 #konig call of duty #konig x reader #konig smut #my work

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bradshawsbaby · 1 month

Note

“please don’t scare me like that again. i can take a lot of things, but not losing you” with bob? boyfriend on board with be so Emotional if you said this to him🥺😭

I feel like this is the perfect prompt for a little post-bird strike scene!

Nothing could have prepared you for the terror you felt when you picked up the phone one sunny afternoon, the stoic voice of Vice Admiral Simpson reporting that your fiancé had been involved in a training accident and was being held in the infirmary for observation.

Bird strike. Ejection. Burn in. They were nothing but words, disjointed phrases floating around in your muddled brain like alphabet soup as you slid to the floor, phone pressed tightly to your ear even as you struggled to make sense of what the man on the other end of the line was saying.

You knew that what your future husband did for a living was dangerous. Heck, it was one of the most dangerous professions out there. And you had known as well as he that when he got called back to TOPGUN for a top secret training mission, there was a chance you would never see him again.

But now that that chance had nearly become a reality, you found that you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force any of the words you wanted to get out past your lips.

“Is he—is he going to be alright?” you finally managed to say after a shaky breath. There was a chance you’d cut off Vice Admiral Simpson, but you couldn’t be sure.

There was a pause for half a heartbeat, then he said, “Yes. He should be. He’s resting now, but I’ll leave a message for him to call you as soon as he’s able.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, the tears starting to flow once you hung up.

You sat vigil by your phone for the next two hours, until it finally began buzzing with a FaceTime call.

“Bob!” you sobbed out as soon as his precious face filled your screen.

“Hiya, sweetheart,” he greeted you, attempting a lighthearted tone despite the fact that his face was battered and bruised and his voice rasped with exhaustion.

“Are you okay?” you demanded, trying to keep your voice down and stop yourself from overwhelming him. “Vice Admiral Simpson called and I was so worried! What’s happening? Should I fly out there? Are you—”

“Hey, hey,” Bob cooed gently, holding his hand up to the camera as if he could touch your face through the screen. “I’m alright. I promise. A little banged up, to be expected, but the doctors said I’ll be discharged tomorrow.”

“Oh, Bob,” you gasped, weeping in relief. “Please don’t scare me like that again,” you begged him. “I can take a lot of things, but not losing you. I’d never survive that.”

You could tell, even through the phone, that your words had made him emotional. His throat was bobbing as he fought back tears, his blue eyes welling up as he looked at you.

“Oh, sweetheart, I never want to put you through that,” he whispered. “I’m going to come home to you. I promise.”

Sniffling softly, you curled up on the couch, holding your phone close to your face. “Can you stay for a little while? I just want to look at you.”

Bob smiled, nodding as he brought his own phone a bit closer to his face. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

soft(ish) angst prompts

#bob floyd #bob floyd x reader #top gun: maverick #bob drabble #lewis pullman

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wondersinwaynemanor · 4 months

Text

Wally meeting Dick's brothers.

Jason

Dick enters the Teen Titans Tower's game room with a boy a few inches shorter than him, wearing a Wonder Woman shirt.

Dick: Kid Flasheroo!!! I'd like you to meet Little Wing, my brother, Jason.

Wally: OH MY GOSH, DICK!!!!! *drops the game console* YOU HAVE A BROTHER? AND YOU CALL HIM LITTLE WING????? That's so adorable!! That makes you Big Wing then?

Dick proudly smiles and brings Jason closer to him.

Wally: Aww. Hi, young man. I'm Wally, Dick's best friend. *he offers his hand and young Jason takes it*

Jason: Hi, Wally. *young Jason smiles brightly and Dick and Wally coo at him* Dick said you have a cool power. What is it?

Wally:*shows his powers by quickly (that doesn't even describe it) buying some pizzas* I got two kinds of pizzas cus I didn't know what you wanted, Little Wing.

Jason: *repeatedly blinks* WOAAAH. Sweet! Thank you, Wally.

Dick: Hey.... *playfully nudges Wally* I get to call him Little Wing. Hmmpf. *he points at his chest* Only. Me.

Wally: *salutes* Aye, aye, Captain. Of course, Robin-O. Your wish is my command. I need my spot in Teen Titans.

Dick: *rolls his eyes, smiling* I don't know what I'm gonna do without you in the group.

Dick and Wally don't even realize that Jason has started eating the pizzas.

Wally: WOAH. The kid is fast.

Dick: Watch out, Kid Flash. Little Wing is after your job.

after the three boys enjoy their pizzas, Wally cradles Dick on his arms while Dick cradles young Jason on his as they speed to the store to get some ice cream. and they go back to the Tower to play some games and read some books.

Tim

Wally: Genuis, hey! I know you're a genuis and all, but all you have to do is call me so I can let you in. *munches on some chips as he lays on the couch of his apartment* Don't do that Batman shit on me.

Dick: Guess what? I'm not the genuis one anymore. *smiling widely*

Wally: What you talking about? *about to stand up to get another bag of chips in the kitchen*

Dick: Presenting... *somersaults for dramatic effect* Tim, my brother.

A young boy with similar features with Dick and Jason, dark hair and blue eyes, enters the apartment.

Dick: Mostly known as Baby Bird. He figured out the code of your apartment and I didn't even tell him. How awesome, huh?

Wally is already beside Tim in less than a second.

Tim: Hi, Wally. *young Tim waves shyly* I know you. You're... *whispering* Kid Flash.

Dick: He figured mine and B's identities. Figured he knows yours too. *proudly says as he gently pats the top of Tim's hair*

Wally: MEGA AWESOME!!!! *he shakes Tim's hand* You're the new Genuis, huh. Can you tell me more secrets? Like what's Dick's favorite... No, wait. Second, no.. Hmmm. Sixth? *he counts with his fingers* Twelfth favorite place to visit? I've been trying to figure it out so I can take him there this year.

Tim: *looks at Dick* Hmm. I'm sure I'll figure it out with a few clues.

Wally: That's my man!! *he offers a high five and Tim tiptoes to hit Wally's palm*

Dick: *laughs* Hey, I'm right here.

they sit on Wally's couch as they enjoy some documentaries cus of course, Tim suggests it. Dick and Wally go along for the ride. Wally pleads for Dick to give a clue on his 12th favorite place in the entire world to visit.

Damian

Wally: Your cookies are still the very best I've had, Alfred. *says in between as he drowns his mouth for more cookies*

Alfred: *smiles as he cleans the kitchen at the Manor* Thank you, Mister West.

Ahem.

Damian: Excuse me. Aren't you supposed to be the new Flash?

Wally: OH MY GOSH!!! *he nearly jumps back from his seat and looks down at the small figure of a boy with a cat on his arms* Hi, little man. Yes, I am. I'm Wally. You are?

Damian: Tt. I thought you'd be able to quickly notice my approach. But when the stomach has a goal, you don't really pay much attention to your surroundings.

Wally: *opens his mouth and looks down at his stomach* Well, I'm always hungry.

Alfred: *warns from the kitchen* Master Damian.

Wally: Wait.. Damian?.... Aren't you Bruce's kid-

Dick: Dami! DAMI! *enters the kitchen and blinks at Wally then at Damian and then vice versa again* There you are, Dami. *approaches the two* Hey, Wally. Sorry to keep you waiting.

Wally: Hey, don't sweat on it, Dick. I can wait. Besides, I'm all comfortable here. *shoves another cookie on his mouth which earns a smile from Dick and a look of disgust from Damian*

Dick: Looks like you two have met already. Wally, this is Damian, my littlest brother. Dami, this is Wally, the Flash -

Damian: I know who he is. And don't use the word little on me, Grayson. *Dick and Wally watches Damian as he puts down the cat and grabs two cookies for himself* It's nice to meet you, West.

Wally: *looks at Damian's tiny hand and he thinks how much he wants to pinch his cheeks* Nice to meet you, Damian.

After Wally thanks Alfred for the cookies and pinches Damian's cheek gently, which earns a tt from the boy, he walks with Dick to his car parked outside of the Manor.

Wally: He has a few of Bruce's features. He's so cute!

Dick: Well, I'm lucky to have the cutest brothers.

Meanwhile in the kitchen.

Damian: Does Father know?

Alfred: About what, Master Damian?

Damian: About Grayson and West.

Alfred: He's a detective. I'm sure he knows.

Damian: I doubt it. *eats another cookie*

#this was so fun to write???#first time to write wally OMG he's amazing #incorrect batfamily quotes #incorrect dc quotes #batman #batfamily #batbros #birdflash #dick grayson #wally west #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #alfred is the goat #teen titans mentioned #dc incorrect quotes #batfamily incorrect quotes #dc universe

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dreamwritesimagines · 1 year

Text

Garden of Secrets [17] - Moonflower

A.N: Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback and support my loves, it made my whole week, you’re amazing!❤ I hope you’ll like this chapter as well, and please don’t forget to tell me what you think, thank you! ❤

Thanks so much to @theskytraveler for helping me with the chapter!

Summary: Some nights are full of surprises.

Warnings: Regency era society and social rules, some gender specific language and terms, mentions of sex, mentions of explicit scenes, slow burn.

Word Count: 7500

Series Masterlist

The very first thing you noticed through the fuzzy fog of sleep was warmth.

Warmth and perfect comfort.

The sound of the birds chirping outside the window was like a soft melody in your ears, the sunlight spilling through the curtains falling on your skin making you feel all snug. You heaved a mellow sigh, shifting a little in bed but—

Oh.

You weren’t alone in the bed.

The memory of last night where you had come to Benedict’s room to sleep shot through your mind, making your eyes open. You were quite certain you had put multiple pillows between the two of you -most of which were thrown to the floor sometime at night, as you could see- and you waited for the discomfort to hit you especially considering the position you were in, but somehow it did not.

Benedict’s arm was curled around your stomach, keeping you safe from falling off the very edge of the bed you had apparently curled up on in your sleep. You two still had a pillow between you and the cover he had pushed off of him was bunched up between you two but as it turned out, even that wasn’t enough for him to roll to the other side. His nose was buried into your hair, his calm breathing moving his hard chest you were leaning your back against, his pleasant scent all over you, tickling your nostrils.

This wasn’t uncomfortable at all.

You shifted a little so that you could subtly get closer to him but as soon as you did, the cover bunched up between you and him moved a bit and you heard him inhale behind you. You instantly closed your eyes, pretending to have moved in your sleep and his arm around you tightened while he nuzzled his nose into your hair. You could almost feel him slowly waking up and for a couple of seconds he did nothing, but then you felt his body tense up behind you. A soft cuss left his lips in a whisper and he gently pulled back from you before getting up from the bed then you heard him walk out of the room, making you open your eyes and sit up in bed. You bit inside your cheek, perking your ears up for any noise of him coming back but there seemed to be none.

“Alright then…” you muttered and made your way to your own room to get ready for the day, trying to ignore how fast your heart was still beating.

By the time you heard Benedict coming back to his room, your maid was almost finished with helping you get dressed and was tying up the laces of your dress. The knock on the door connecting your room to Benedict’s made you turn your head as your maid finished tying up the laces and pulled back.

“You may leave Paula, thank you,” you said and she curtsied, then walked out of the room. You made your way to the connecting door and opened it.

Oh God damn it.

He was still half naked, the sunlight falling over his chest that made him look like he was pulled out of your very specific dreams. You swallowed thickly, forcing yourself to keep your eyes on his handsome face but that wasn’t exactly helping either.

“Good morning,” he gave you a lopsided grin and you smiled back.

“Hello.”

“I thought you’d be…” he motioned back at his room and you shook your head.

“Oh you weren’t there when I woke up and I was already awake so I figured I could just get ready.”

He paused for a moment.

“Yeah I—” he paused, a faint pinkness appearing on his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “I thought you’d sleep a bit more.”

You shrugged your shoulders quietly and his blue eyes searched your face.

“And are you alright?” he asked. “Nightmares last night?”

“I didn’t have them after going to sleep again,” you said, purposely leaving out the part about sleeping in his bed. “And um…thank you. You know.”

He shook his head vigorously. “You don’t need to thank me at all, really.”

“No I do, and I don’t know what got into me last night but I can assure you I won’t make it a habit or anything.”

He gulped down and stared at you for a moment before taking a deep breath.

“I wouldn’t mind it,” he said, his voice soft. “If it became a habit.”

Your heart skipped a beat and you tilted your head to the side, pulling your brows together.

“Not the nightmares, obviously!” he added in a haste. “Just afterwards. Whenever—whenever you want.”

Your eyes snapped up to his, that warmth spreading through your system again but before you could say anything, you heard the butler approach so you turned your head.

“Sir,” he said as he handed Benedict an envelope, “This came for you. And ma’am, Miss Harlowe is here.”

Benedict looked up from the envelope. “Charlie?”

“Oh I’ll go and welcome her,” you said while Benedict pulled out a card from the envelope that looked like an invitation of the sort, then looked over his shoulder into his room.

“I’ll be right there,” he said and you walked past the butler to make your way downstairs, then approached the drawing room.

“Lottie,” you said, a smile curling your lips as soon as you saw her and she let out a giggle before coming to hug you.

“I know it is quite early but I simply couldn’t wait any longer,” she said. “I missed you and Benny! I’m aware it’s your honeymoon but—”

“Oh don’t be silly,” you said. “I am very glad you’re here. I was going to invite you to the park today if you didn’t.”

“Perhaps after you give me a tour?” she asked and bounced on the balls of her feet. “It looks so beautiful here! And the garden, absolutely gorgeous!”

Your stomach did a small flip.

“Our gardener is amazing.”

“Have you had the chance to work on it as well?”

“The garden?” you asked and shook your head. “I um…haven’t got the time.”

She snapped her fingers. “Of course. My mama said you’d be quite busy while you’re on your honeymoon.”

Great, now even Charlotte’s mother was making assumptions about you and Benedict’s nightly activities.

“Right,” you said. “Maybe later I might. Did you have breakfast yet?”

“I did but I could get some tea,” she said. “In the garden? I saw the gazebo, we must simply enjoy it!”

“Sounds like a wonderful idea.”

“And then the house tour, then the park.”

“Hello Charlie,” you heard Benedict’s voice and Charlotte’s whole face lit up and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he went to hug her, lifting her off the floor as he did, making her squeal. For a moment you wondered how on earth the ton thought they were courting before your wedding, because they were close yes but even the tiniest gestures had no sign of romance in them.

It was the comfort of a friend, not a lover.

“Did we make plans today?” he asked her as he put her down and you crossed your arms.

“She’s here to see me.”

Benedict tilted his head like a confused puppy. “But she’s my best friend.”

“No, she’s my best friend. Your best friend is Anthony.”

“Anthony is my brother.”

“That sounds like your issue, not mine,” you deadpanned, biting down a smile and Charlotte giggled.

“I brought you work I’m afraid,” she said and grabbed the paper stack neatly bound in a leather case off the table, then handed it to Benedict. “I’m here to have tea with your beloved, then go to the park with her.”

Benedict clutched at his heart dramatically, making you grin.

“Told you,” you said. “What work?”

“Oh I can tell you later on,” Charlotte said as she pulled you by the hand to the door. “Come on! Let’s go to the garden!”

* * *

After taking your tea in the gazebo and a house tour, you and Charlotte decided you could go outside for the afternoon. You had sent Josie a short letter so that she, Bess and Andrew could join you at the part if they wanted and about half an hour after getting there, Josie and Bess joined you at the park, while Andrew apparently was already outside with his friends.

“I didn’t know you were a writer!” Bess told Charlotte and you nodded.

“Me neither!”

Charlotte let out a laugh.

“Oh I’m not a writer,” she said. “I just write some stories to entertain my little siblings. I’m trying to have my own collection, and Benny is doing the illustrations for me.”

“Will you publish your stories?” you asked and Charlotte thought for a moment.

“Benny encourages me that I should,” she said. “So does Tony but…I don’t know. Perhaps one day in the future.”

“Can I read them before they are published?” you asked. “I’d love to read them to Teddy, he loves stories.”

“Of course!” Charlotte said. “I can bring you the completed ones the next time. There’s one with a dragon, I think Teddy would like it.”

“Speaking of him,” Josie said. “Did I tell you Andrew bought a pony for him? An actual pony!”

“Auntie told me,” you said with a laugh. “He’s delighted I’m sure. I wish I were there to see it.”

“At least he doesn’t pout for not being able to see you everyday anymore,” Bess said. “It was making me sad.”

Charlotte heaved a sigh. “Was he very upset?”

You could feel your own heart breaking as you cleared your throat.

“He’s just not used to me being anywhere else,” you said. “It’s always been the two of us—well three of us,” you motioned at Josie who shook her head.

“I was just there when he was a baby,” she said. “It’s been only you and him for a while.”

“And your mama and papa?” Charlotte asked, making you and Josie exchange glances. “I’m sure they miss Teddy and you both! I know they couldn’t come to the wedding, but…”

A shiver ran down your spine and you clicked your tongue.

“They cannot travel,” you ended up saying as Bess reached out to squeeze Josie’s hand as if trying to assure her that she was there. Charlotte thought for a moment.

“Will you and Benedict visit them then?”

Even the thought was enough to make your jaw clench but you reminded yourself to keep a calm façade and shrugged your shoulders.

“Maybe after the season ends,” you lied through your teeth. “I don’t wish to miss anything, this is my first season.”

Bess stole a look at Josie who looked way too tense and smiled, sitting up straighter.

“And how is marriage going for you, Y/N?” she asked. “Are you getting used to running your household?”

“I went to auntie with a list the other day,” you admitted, making them laugh. “No I’m serious. It’s a bit confusing but I think I’m starting to understand.”

“I can always help you,” Bess said and Charlotte grinned.

“So can I! I know I’m not married yet but I know some stuff about it, my mama taught me a lot.”

“I appreciate it, both of you.”

“In return, you can give me some clues about how to take care of plants.”

You pulled your brows together. “Bess, you have a gardener.”

“Well yes but I’m trying to grow this rose in a vase because I saw this journal talking about it,” Bess said. “In every window a red rose—anyway, I cannot exactly ask my gardener because I feel like killing five roses in two weeks is going to personally upset him.”

You blinked a couple of times. “That’s not even supposed to be possible.”

“Mm hm,” Josie said. “Ask her how often she waters the roses.”

“How often?”

Bess shrugged her shoulders. “Three times a day.”

“You’re doing what?” you exclaimed, making Josie let out a laugh.

“Yeah. Told you.”

“Why are you not stopping her?”

“She doesn’t listen to me!”

Bess flailed her hands. “I get hungry three times a day, it’s only fair.”

You let out a whine, burying your face into your palms and then lowered your hands.

“Bess,” you said. “I will visit your house today and write you a schedule just for that, how does that sound?”

“Perfect, thank you.” Bess said with her nose up in the air. “I’ve always thought we should leave the work to experts anyway.”

* * *

You had to admit, over the last week you had missed taking care of your garden so much that taking care of Bess’s roses felt like itching a scratch. After getting home around dinner time -because neither Bess nor Andrew were willing to let you go any time earlier- you had learned from the butler that Benedict was in his studio. Though you really wanted to see him, you decided otherwise and after a quick dinner, you went outside to the gazebo with an oil lamp and a book under your arm.

If you couldn’t take care of your garden and grow flowers, you were just going to read about them instead.

You were quite certain that this book was rather new, and you had a feeling Benedict had stacked up multiple shelves in the library with whatever book he could find on plants and flowers without telling you. The hardcover was so smooth that for a second you just ran your fingertips over the engraving over it, then made yourself comfortable by resting your feet on the other side of the bench, leaning your back to the arm of the bench. You placed the book on your legs, the peaceful sound of the water fountain in the evening surrounding you, making you heave a sigh. Your eyes stole a quick glance at the lit-up window of Benedict’s study but then you frowned and opened the book, ready to lose yourself in the illustrations and the information about flowers.

You were so engrossed by the book that after hours you still hadn’t even looked up once, and it was only when you heard someone clear their throat that your head shot up. Benedict shot you that crooked smile, crossing his arms and leaning sideways to the entrance of gazebo.

“Riveting read?”

“Quite so,” you said as you held up the book so that he could see the title, then motioned at the window of his study. “Have you already finished Charlotte’s illustrations?”

“Oh she told you?”

“Mm hm,” you said. “She even said I could read some of her completed stories.”

Benedict raised his brows. “She must really like you,” he said. “I had to beg her all those years ago just to read one of them.”

You shot him a grin. “Perhaps I’m stealing your best friend.”

“Looks like it,” he played along. “How was the park?”

You thought for a moment, Charlotte’s question about your parents echoing in your ears before you cleared your throat.

“It was fine,” you said. “Less so when I heard Bess is the Locusta of plants.”

“She poisons her plants?”

“In a way yes,” you said. “Apparently she watered her roses three times a day.”

“I’m guessing from the tone of your voice and the appalled look on your face that it’s the wrong thing to do?”

You shot him a lighthearted glare. “Good guess.”

Benedict chuckled and nodded in the direction of the house. “Are you coming or?”

You hesitated for a second, then shook your head.

“You go ahead,” you said. “I have a feeling that sleep will evade me tonight.”

“Why?”

You tried to ignore the shiver shooting through you upon remembering your nightmare, and after today’s conversation with Charlotte about your parents, you just knew you would not be getting a good night’s sleep tonight.

And it wasn’t as if you could just keep waking Benedict up, that had to be annoying for him you were sure.

“Just a feeling,” you shrugged your shoulders. “You should go to sleep though. I heard you barely left your studio the whole day, you must be exhausted.”

Benedict pulled his brows together. “Who told you that?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, then grinned.

“The housekeeper likes me better than she likes you I suppose.”

His jaw dropped. “Mrs. Alton…” he said with a shake of his head. “There I thought we had something special.”

You scoffed a laugh and his eyes searched your face, his smile slightly fading.

“Are you alright though?”

You bit inside your cheek and nodded.

“Sure,” you lied. “I’ll just um—I just need some distraction I guess. I mean here is peaceful but…” you trailed off. “Inside my head is not, sometimes.”

“I could tell,” he said softly and you took a deep breath.

“One of those nights,” you said. “I’ll be fine.”

He thought for a moment, his gaze on you as if he was trying to decide on something, then he cleared his throat.

“A distraction, you say?”

You nodded your head and he tilted his head, that mischievous smile curling his lips again.

“Do you want to go to a party?”

* * *

“This is insane,” you heard yourself say as Benedict led you through the crowd, his hand resting on the small of your back. “Is this…is this real?”

He shot you a wink, clearly pleased with your reaction and nodded at someone who shouted his name cheerfully while you tried to soak in the environment as much as you could.

This was beyond your wildest dreams.

The house itself was huge and if you had seen it any other time, you would have assumed it was just some other house that belonged to a yet another member of the ton but apparently, you would have been wrong. Though you had never been to a party before, you had heard about them, yet nothing you heard had described you this.

Everyone looked just…

Free.

There was music coming from one of the rooms in the hallway, some people drinking and smoking and your eyes caught the sight of a couple that were kissing by the corner, where people could see them. Even the mere thought was enough to send a fire through your cheeks but you forced yourself to look around the rest of the room so as not to stare, as difficult as it felt. As you and Benedict walked through the hallway, you could see a couple of closed doors, the chatter of the crowd and the laughter echoing through the walls. You walked past a room with multiple canvases and a couple of people sketching, and a room where someone seemed to be giving a talk about a book to a crowd, making you think that most of the people attending were artists and writers. The party seemed to be going on in multiple floors of the house and when you got closer to the main room where the music was coming from, Benedict stopped you.

“Y/N.”

You took a peek inside the room, already impatient to go in there and turned to him. “Hm?”

“I’d like to start by saying, this might not be like any party you’ve attended before.”

“I haven’t attended any parties before,” you pointed out and a look of realization dawned on his face as if he hadn’t thought about it before.

“Right,” he said. “So here’s the thing, you might see certain things that…”

“What?”

“That you might consider as scandalous, but I can assure you—”

“Oh no, something scandalous,” you deadpanned, then shot him a look. “What am I going to do, faint?”

He raised his brows. “I know you think you’re making a point but you did faint before.”

You pushed at his arm slightly, making him chuckle.

“Not because of a scandal!” you insisted and lowered your voice. “I would have fainted at our scandal if I were to do such a thing, that one ended up with us getting married!”

Benedict nodded his head. “True. But still, we’re only here to have fun, and we will go home whenever you want—”

“Are you jesting?” you asked. “I’m not going home! Come on, look at this place, I’ve never… I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Benedict smiled softly.

“Alright,” he said. “As you wish.”

You narrowed your eyes at him and let out a giddy giggle, then stepped into the room. There was a crowd but Benedict seemed to know almost everyone, greeting people while you made your way through the room and Benedict grabbed two glasses of drinks, then gave one to you as you sat down on one of the sofas.

“Is this where Lady Whistledown said you were going all this time?” you asked, looking up at him, still in a daze and he shrugged his shoulders.

“I doubt Lady Whistledown knows of this.”

“But was it?”

“Mm hm.”

“How do people—” you paused. “How does no one know about here?”

“Well, parties take place in different places, it’s not just one house,” he said. “Some of them even downtown.”

“I’ve never been downtown before,” you said quickly, your head almost buzzing with the promise of a new world and Benedict smiled at your enthusiasm.

“We can go there the next time.”

“Wait, seriously?” you asked and he nodded.

“Of course. If you want to—”

“I do want to,” you cut him off. “But my aunt would always say it’s incredibly dangerous.”

“If you were going by yourself yes,” he said. “But you’ll be with me so no. Not dangerous.”

You smiled brightly, watching the people in the room while Benedict kept his gaze on you, a soft smile warming his face. You saw a lady sipping her drink and looked down at your glass, then took a sip but as soon as the liquid burned your throat you coughed.

“Wow,” you cleared your throat. “What is this?”

“It’s called Warm Heart,” he said. “Lemon, rum, brandy, wine and sugar. Go easy on that one alright?”

You nodded and took another sip.

“Benedict, how come no one knows?” you asked. “I read about it on Whistledown or hear about it from multiple people if someone so much as breathes wrong and in here…”

He clicked his tongue. “No one will spread the word because everyone you see here are likeminded individuals.”

“Artists?”

“Artists, writers, sculptors… And some just admirers. Essentially just people who see the stifling expectations and rules of the ton as they are; complete nonsense.”

You let out a breath, trying to wrap your mind around it. “You’re all friends then? You seem to know everyone.”

He gave you a smirk. “It’s a small circle.”

You swirled the drink in the glass and looked around again, curiosity and excitement making your heart beat faster. To be in a place where one could do whatever they wanted was such an unfamiliar thing that it made your mind fuzzy, your ears muffled because of the blood rushing through them.

You could even kiss Benedict right here in front of all these people and no one would say anything.

…Not that-

Not that you would do that, ever. But it was a lovely thought to even imagine.

“Well I know who you are,” a voice snapped you out of your daze and you lifted your head to see someone clasping Benedict by the shoulder, making him chuckle. “But I have no idea who this exquisite vision is supposed to be.”

The man was older than you and Benedict, seemed to be absolutely delighted to see Benedict and there was a playful glimmer in his eyes as his gaze fell on you. You smiled at him.

“Hello.”

“Sir Henry Granville,” Benedict introduced him, making you raise your brows. “My wife, Y/N.”

Your heart skipped a beat upon him calling you such. You knew you two were married but you were beginning to think you would never get used to your new title, and how it filled you with giddiness though you tried to not let it show on your expression.

“The painter?” you asked as you forced yourself to focus and he bowed.

“Proudly so,” he said. “And I gather you’re the infamous beauty that made our handsome and bright artist change his ways.”

You let out a small laugh. “You’re very kind, Sir Granville.”

“Trust me, I am merely sincere,” he said. “My apologies for not being able to attend your wedding breakfast by the way. I have…” he motioned with his hand. “Complicated feelings about weddings.”

“Don’t we all?” you asked back and he chuckled.

“I must introduce you to my wife Lucy, she will love you. Perhaps a house tour hm?”

Benedict cleared his throat and reached out to hold your hand.

“That’s not going to happen Henry,” he said, making you frown slightly and look between them as he squeezed at your hand. “We’re just here to drink, nothing more. Ever.”

Well, that was a very definite stance against a house tour.

Sir Granville’s smile widened and he held up his hands.

“Understood,” he said. “Love. It makes one quite possessive, I would know.”

Alright, you were getting quite confused now but before you could ask what he meant, he had already clapped his hands together.

“Your wife might be here to drink but you my friend, are not,” he said. “I have some friends I must introduce you to. I may have shown them a sketch of yours and now they don’t shut up about your talent.”

Benedict tilted his head. “What sketch?”

“The one from the last party.”

Benedict groaned. “Henry, I was half drunk—”

“Well they loved it anyway, so come on!” he slapped his arm. “Come with me, promising artist. They are quite excited to meet you.”

Benedict turned to look at you and you shook your head fervently.

“Oh you go ahead,” you said. “I will stay. It sounds like an artists only environment and I’d rather enjoy my drink here.”

“I don’t think…” Benedict trailed off and you tilted your head.

“Go!” you said with a laugh. “I survive balls with members of the ton nightly, I think I can handle being left alone for a while in a crowd.”

“She will be fine Ben,” Sir Granville said. “Come on.”

Benedict heaved a sigh and stood up. “Y/N just don’t go anywhere, alright?”

“Mm hm.”

“And if somebody wants to take you somewhere—”

“I will just ignore you if you stay here any longer,” you said and sipped your drink, “Besides, you know I can take care of myself. Or did you forget about your own gift?”

His eyes lingered down to your cleavage before snapping up to your face again and you shot him a bright smile.

“Have fun!” you said and Sir Granville bowed, then they both walked out of the room.

Wow.

This was more freedom than you had gotten ever since you had arrived in London—or your whole life, really. The fact that Benedict trusted you enough to actually leave you be in such an environment made a smile pull at your lips, then you sipped your drink, leaning back.

You hadn’t even read about such gatherings before, which you assumed wasn’t so surprising. The high society of London did not even let unmarried ladies smell certain flowers, let alone knowing about such parties. Every unmarried lady had to be perfect in the eyes of the ton and her suitors, and it didn’t really change when it came to being married, just with more responsibilities. You were quite certain that if you had married anyone else but Benedict -even the thought made your stomach churn- you would have never known about the existence of such events; you would be left in the dark because of this nonsense belief that you were to be sheltered and coddled, even if it was the last thing you wanted.

That was simply condescending.

By the time you finished your drink, you were already itching to see more of the house. You shifted a little in your spot, biting at your nail and casted a glance at the door before leaning back again.

No.

You had said you would stay put.

But wasn’t that against the whole point of tonight? Everyone did whatever they wanted with no one to judge them, and surely a quick look around wasn’t going to hurt anyone. You were sure Benedict wouldn’t even be back by the time you saw the rest of the house and returned here.

You nibbled on your lip and took a deep breath, then pushed yourself off the sofa and walked out of the room before you could change your mind.

The house was absolutely enormous. Whoever planned the party must have made sure there was some sort of entertainment in each part of the house even though some hallways were definitely less crowded than others. You walked away from the chatter and the crowd and looked up at the stairs before you quickly climbed them only to find yourself in another hallway. There were considerably fewer people in here and the music was only faint, coming from downstairs where you had just left so you tilted your head, then turned the corner to take a look at the paintings all over the walls.

Paintings of flowers.

You smiled to yourself as you walked deeper into the hallway, looking up at the dimly lit paintings by the oil lamps mounted on the walls, but a faint moan made you turn your head. You pulled your brows together and looked around, then stepped closer to the half closed door, taking a peek into the room through the crack.

And as soon as you did, your breath got caught in your throat.

Inside the room there were three people, one man and two women. The man had his shirt off, one of the women running her fingertips down his muscles while he kissed her and then he pulled back to help the other woman out of her corset, nimbly pulling at the laces. Her corset slipped off and she smirked before pulling him into a kiss as well while the other lady’s hand slipped lower until—

You gasped and pulled back from the door, your heart pacing against your ribcage. Your head was spinning so much and you took a step back, then rushed out of the hallway as if someone was chasing you.

How did that—

How did that even work?

You were under the impression that you knew everything that took place in marital bed so to speak, -though you were more than aware that people did not exactly stay loyal to their spouses or wait for marriage- and as far as you knew, it was just…

It was simple. Josie’s married friends had explained the act and it was unpleasant and simple, husband and wife joining…down there and then it was to be over.

Three people?

That was impossible, surely. In terms of physical means, though you had never seen a man naked, you had heard the whispers and saw the sketches that Josie’s friends had found in a book, giggling the whole time.

You were so confused and lost in your thoughts that you didn’t even notice someone calling out, not that you would have paid attention to the unfamiliar voice through the chatter of the crowd. You turned another corner, your feet leading you what you hoped was the stairs but before you could take another step, someone grabbed you by the wrist.

It was like a bucket of cold water. Your body reacted before your mind had any chance to even think it through as you snapped out of your chaos of thoughts and turned to grab the person by the neck to slam them against the wall, your other hand quickly pulling your pocket knife from your cleavage in the process so that you could rest the blade against his neck.

“Sorry! Sorry, that was very rude I know—”

“Do not touch me,” your voice came out as a growl and the man nodded fervently.

“Yeah! Yeah absolutely, no I know! I apologize, I normally introduce myself to people before grabbing at them—not that I grab at people!” he added in a haste. “I don’t grab at people but you…I swear I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m not making the same promise,” you said and he swallowed thickly.

“God, you have a terrifying glare.”

“It’s been said.”

“Yes and— please calm down.”

“I’m calm.”

“No I’m talking to myself,” he said, his voice coming out breathless. “It was addressed to me because I am not calm at all right now.”

You narrowed your eyes, tilting your head to actually pay attention to him. He had to be around your age and he looked rather cute with his curly hair and light brown eyes. He wasn’t as tall as Benedict but still taller than you and he took another trembling breath, making you look up at him.

“That’s a very sharp knife,” he said. “Where—where did you get it?”

“My husband gave it to me.”

A small whine escaped from his lips and he cleared his throat.

“You have a—of course you have a husband,” he said. “How about we start from the beginning? I’m Felix.”

“What am I supposed to do with that information?” you asked, your voice completely deadpan and his eyes searched yours.

“What’s your name?”

You raised your brows, still glaring at him and he licked his lips.

“Alright so even though I may have given off the wrong impression, I’m not…my intention is not to seduce you.”

You tried to repress the laugh bubbling at your throat as you scoffed.

“Seduce me?” you repeated and he nodded.

“I saw you walk by and I thought—my interest in you is completely artistic,” he stammered. “I promise. It’s just that, I’m a painter and you are very beautiful and I thought you were a figment of my drunk state, I didn’t even think about it and tried to stop you before you left forever so that I could…so that I could paint you from mind later on.”

Your eyes searched his face as you tried to see whether he was lying or not, but he looked completely genuine, albeit a bit intimidated. You rolled your eyes and pulled back from him, tucking the knife back into your cleavage.

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered and he let out a breath.

“So may I know your name?” he asked and you eyed him up and down.

“Y/N Bridgerton.”

His head shot up. “Bridgerton as in Benedict Bridgerton?”

“Yes.”

“Benedict is your husband? I know Benedict!” he said, suddenly cheerful. “We’re frie—wait a moment. You’re Y/N Bridgerton?”

“That’s what I said.”

“The Venus Flytrap?” he asked. “The diamond in the rough? The Ice Queen?”

You rolled your eyes and turned around without so much as another look at him, then started walking down the hallway but he quickly caught up.

“I’ve heard people talk about you.”

“Shocking,” you said as you turned another corner and started going downstairs with Felix who seemed rather excited judging by the happy glimmer in his eyes.

“Can you really intimidate any lord with a glare?”

“If only,” you said curtly and entered the room you had left earlier. Your spot was still empty so you grabbed a glass from the tray and made your way there, Felix following you.

“As I said, I merely wish to paint you so if you would—”

“That is not going to happen,” you said, shaking your head and Felix opened his mouth but then got distracted when another man entered the room. He walked to the crowd by the corner and you tilted your head, looking between Felix who looked almost dazed and the man who stole a look at him, making Felix avert his eyes and clear his throat.

Oh.

You were quite familiar with that look, you had seen it in Andrew’s eyes a couple of times.

As it turned out, Felix was indeed only interested in you artistically.

You smiled slightly and raised your brows at Felix, then nodded at the armchair across from yours. He fixed his hair and sat down immediately.

“Ignore him,” you said with a nod of your head. “It tends to work.”

Felix blinked a couple of times. “Oh I don’t know what you mean—”

“Yes you do.”

He offered you a small smile, getting a glass of drink as well and you leaned back.

“So you’re an artist?”

“Trying to be one, actually,” he said. “But I do not know if I have the talent for it. I hope I do.”

“Well, all the actually talented artists that I’ve met have that terrible self-doubt so I have a feeling you probably do have the talent for it,” you pointed out and he sat up straighter.

“Thank you,” he said. “So you’re married to Benedict?”

“Mm hm.”

“Is it true you were rude and cold to all your suitors until Benedict?”

You made a face. “That is not true at all,” you said. “I was also rude and cold to Benedict.”

He stared at you and let out a laugh. “Really?”

“Yes. Why are you surprised?”

“Well, ladies are always sweet with him whenever he so much as looks at them,” he said, waving a hand in the air. “Handsome and talented and all that.”

Jealousy spread through your throat but you managed to shrug your shoulders. “I’m well aware of that.”

“Not to mention, everyone keeps saying he will be a great artist,” Felix said and that was when it dawned on you.

This right there was exactly why Benedict had that self-doubt. This was why he was so hesitant on accepting any genuine compliments, if everyone thought and expected that of him, of course he was his own worst critic.

That had to have put some pressure on him.

“I’m sure he will be,” you said, barely aware of the proud tone of your voice and Felix nodded.

“Exactly.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Do you think you will be a great artist?” you asked Felix and he gave you a happy grin.

“If only,” he said, his eyes glimmering with hope. “I dream of being one. Is that not the ultimate goal?”

“To be an artist?”

“To be immortal.”

You scrunched up your nose, then shook your head. “Not for me, no.”

“You wouldn’t want to be immortal?” he asked. “All the fame and glory?”

You thought for a moment, then shook your head again.

“Not at all.”

He gawked at you. “What is it that you want then?” he asked. “Your greatest desire? If you could have anything in the world.”

You took a sip of your drink and looked down at it, deep in thought. The image of your greatest desire used to be just you as a widow but apparently somewhere along the way that image had changed. For some reason, now that you were imagining yourself happy and having everything you wanted, you had a simple picture in your mind.

And this time, to your surprise, you weren’t alone.

You took a deep breath and frowned at the drink in your hand, then raised your head to look at Felix better.

“I want…” you trailed off. “I want a beautiful garden of my own and I want to be happy.”

Felix looked at you as if he was waiting for you to continue but when you didn’t, he pulled his brows together.

“Is that all?” he asked. “Surely there must be something else?”

“No,” you said. “That is all I want actually.”

“That simple?”

You let out a laugh and nodded.

“That simple,” you repeated. “Some of us don’t want fame and glory. That’s what we have the artists for.”

He looked at you as if he was waiting for you to say you were jesting but before he could say anything, you were already distracted. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Benedict walk into the room and he directly made his way to you, a smile curling your lips without you even noticing it.

“Benedict, your wife does not like the idea of becoming immortal.”

“My wife doesn’t like a lot of things Felix,” Benedict said with a warm smile and pressed a kiss on top of your head, making your heart skip a beat. You knew it was to sell the idea of you two being completely in love even here because though it was a private party, you could never be too careful. “Hello darling.”

You could swear your heart was melting inside your chest and you looked up at him, still smiling.

“Hello.”

“Are you alright?”

“Mm hm,” you nodded as he sat beside you and put his drink on the table. “I’m having fun. Look, I even made a friend.”

Felix gave Benedict a proud grin and Benedict chuckled.

“Is that right?”

“Right after she threatened me, yes.”

“Threatened?” Benedict asked and you waved a hand in the air, trying your hardest to keep the thought of what exactly you had seen before that out of your mind.

“A misunderstanding,” you said and Felix looked from Benedict to you, a smile pulling at his lips, then cleared his throat.

“Well, I’d better excuse myself and leave the lovers to their peace,” he said and stood up. “Benedict.”

“Felix.”

“Mrs. Bridgerton.”

“Y/N,” you corrected him. “That’s the least I could do after accidentally threatening you.”

Felix let out a laugh, then shifted his weight. “But are you sure—”

“I am,” you answered before he could ask whether he could paint you. “I appreciate it though.”

Felix bowed and downed his drink, then walked away from you while Benedict turned to look at you better.

“What was that about?”

“Oh nothing,” you said. “We were just discussing something before you arrived. So how was your talk with Sir Granville’s friends?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and licked his lips.

“It was alright,” he said. “They were all very nice. All of them say I should apply for the Academy this season and not the next like I planned.”

Your eyes searched his handsome face and you took another sip of your drink, then sat up straighter.

“I am going to ask you something.”

He nodded. “You can ask me anything, you know that.”

“And you will answer truthfully?”

“Always.”

“Does it bother you when I say…” you paused for a moment and looked up at the ceiling, trying to find the right words. “Hearing it all the time ought to make you feel sort of pressured, no? When everyone says you’ll be a great artist?”

He thought for a moment, reaching out to grab his glass on the table to swirl the drink inside the glass before he took a big sip, and cleared his throat.

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But with you it’s different.”

“How?”

Benedict swallowed thickly and took a deep breath.

“It gives me peace when you say it,” the confession left his lips in such a soft whisper that if you weren’t sitting close to him, you wouldn’t have been able to hear. You felt your stomach do a happy flip and smiled slightly.

“Good, because I do believe it.” You paused for a moment, your eyes snapping up to his. “Wholeheartedly.”

That soft light glimmered in his eyes again and you found yourself admiring his beautiful face before you cleared your throat and pointed back with your thumb.

“And also I just turned down another artist’s offer to paint me, so…”

He let out a chuckle. “Felix?”

“Mm hm.”

“I knew it,” he said, shaking his head. “I had a feeling—wait, is that why you threatened him?”

“Not directly but sort of,” you said as you downed your drink, then glanced around but there was no sign of any footmen carrying a tray. Benedict took a look around the room as well and turned to you.

“Do you want another?”

You tilted your head. “One would assume you’re a bad influence, Mr. Bridgerton.”

He had the audacity to look quite offended.

“Me? A bad influence?” he asked, feigning surprise. “I have no idea what you mean, Mrs. Bridgerton. I’m simply asking if my wife would like another glass.”

You shot him a grin, that warmth spreading through your veins. “Yes please.”

He got up from the sofa and bowed his head in an exaggerated manner, making you giggle before he walked to the other side of the room to find you another glass. You kept your eyes on him, barely aware of the giddy smile on your face and you bit on your lip then leaned back on the sofa, heaving a sigh.

Chapter 18

#benedict bridgerton #benedict bridgerton x reader #bridgerton #bridgerton x reader #regency fic

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studentinpursuitofclouds · 2 months

Note

Here's a silly idea if you wanna try it, no pressure!

How do you think the bachelor's/bachelorette's world react to the Farmer casually mentioning a blue man who leaves notes for them around town as challenges who also keeps cameras around town to watch them?

They do not elaborate, the Farmer just moves on like they talked about the birds lmaooo

Oh, man. I found the idea itself so funny that inspiration immediately kicked my ass 🤣 There's already been more than one mention for Qi and about his weird obsession with Farmer, strange quests and, God forgive me, about "snake milk"... Sheesh 😅

Thank you so much for the ask! ☺️ (hope I translated this correctly. Or feel free to ask again!)

SDV bachelors/ettes react to Farmer, who casually mentioned Mr. Qi:

_________________________________________

"You gotta drink less so you don't see shit." It's unusual to hear Shane say that, but even he doesn't remember drinking so much that he saw some hallucinations like "blue men". He'd let Farmer's words pass his ears and now was beginning to wonder if he should let his dear niece near that weirdo. Challenges, cameras everywhere... yeah sure.

The doctor's instincts hit right away and Harvey will run after Farmer to see if they have a fever. Cameras in the whole Stardew Valley? Dangerous quests in Calico Dessert? Sorry Farmer, but Harvey won't believe it and will insist they go to the clinic for a check up, or at least rest at home. You can’t ignore rest, you know, because it affects both physical and mental health...

"So I'm not the only one who noticed it." Wait, what? How does Sebastian know? "Found a weird note with your name on it when I was in the mines." Hold on, what was a local emo doing in the mines? And why is his arm in bandages? "Hm, let't change the subject, we were talking about blue stranger, weren't we?" Wait a minute, Seb!

Alex probably won't even listen to what the Farmer is saying. "Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you say, weirdo." The athlete may not be a genius, but even he can realize that there's no benefit to anyone putting cameras in Pelican Town for, like, what? Fun or whatever? To keep tabs on Farmer? That's stupid. Don't be stupid, Farmer.

"Wait, seriously? Yo, no kidding." With a lifestyle like Farmer's, Sam immediately believed in their words even without the details. However, the interest and desire to organize a quest with his friends to find the "secrets of the Valley" quickly faded away as the skateboarder's stomach rumbled. He would just forget the whole thing later.

Honestly, Elliott is completely confused. How should he react to what his friend Farmer has just said? The writer thinks it's complete nonsense, but because of his manners and his unwillingness to be confrontational or rude, Elliott will simply try to change the subject.

"Absurd", Abigail thought, but somehow the Farmer's words stuck in her mind. Considering that the purple-haired girl was just looking for an excuse to procrastinate duties, her ass began her own adventure of finding cameras. And she found one right away! And a strange note from someone named "Qi"! Wtf, hey Farmer, tell again about that weird blue dude!

"Ok, let's think: why would someone follow you around 24/7 and give you weird tasks?" For some reason, Maru was very much interested in Farmer's casually thrown words, trying to make sense of them. It's unclear, really, where this interest comes from, but maybe the young inventor wants to spend more time with Farmer. Even if the conversation is kinda strange.

Penny did her best to keep her smile from looking too forced. Wishing to remain polite and not to be rude, the red-haired teacher simply thanked Farmer for the conversation and went about her business, trying not to think too much about their words.

"The blue man? Oh, has Clint been drinking that Joja soda again?" No, Emily, that wasn't Clint, and he only turned blue once (and that was probably from worry, not from Joja cola). She would have forgotten about Farmer's words, but she also could swear that Sandy had once mentioned a similar person paying the rent in Oasis. Hmm, maybe Emily should ask again...

When Farmer told Haley about the strange blue man and other oddities, the blonde paused and wondered: if she should really have even listened to the words of a person who just a couple days ago had been rummaging through trash cans and eating raw seaweed? The answer was obvious, and Haley forgot about it as a misunderstanding.

Leah only shakes her head. "Whatever you say, Farmer." She doesn't want to be rude to them, but all this talk of cameras, dangerous quests, and a mysterious man hasn't impressed her one bit. If Farmer keeps this up - they'll always be considered a weirdo.

#stardew valley #sdv #thanks for the ask!#sdv sebastian #sdv harvey #sdv sam #sdv shane #sdv elliott #sdv alex #sdv penny #sdv emily #sdv haley #sdv abigail #sdv maru #sdv leah #sdv headcanons

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luimagines · 1 year

Note

Just soft scenarios for the boys being just great partners for reader? Like just cuddles

Oh cute cute cute!!!! You got it! I’m taking this as an opportunity to just make this tooth rottingly sweet.

Masterlist

Part one will include Warrior, Four and Sky.

Content under the cut!

Warrior

“I wish we had more moments like this.” Warrior whispers quietly tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. He pulls back, running the back of his hand down your cheek before rests his hand on the grass below.

“I agree.” You sigh.

Silence follows. What else is there to say?

The day was warm and bright. The sun draped the earth beneath you pleasantly. A gentle breeze cooled down your exposed skin making it the perfect way to both cool down and warm up in a single spot. The temperature was perfect.

Birds sang in the distance and the leaves whispered their secrets from the trees around you. You couldn’t understand their words and lullabies, but it was enough to lull you into a calm. It was hard to keep your eyes open.

To sweeten the pot, you and Warrior managed to get away for a little while. You’re not sure how he swung it but one moment you were taking stock of the supplies to last the remaining leg of the journey before you hit a town (which is a headache all on its own), and the next, Warrior was dragging you by the hand, away from your chore and giggling like a love struck fool.

It was endearing to say the least and when he led you this quiet spot away from the hustle and bustle of the hero’s natural born chaos. It was bliss.

“You’re beautiful.” He says quietly as if afraid to break whatever spell has rested over the two of you. “Do I tell you that enough? You’re stunning. Gorgeous. I could look at you forever.”

“Why so I feel like you did something wrong?” You snort, blinking your eyes open to look at him again.

His eyes are impossibly soft as he looks at you. It’s enough to take your own breath away. Any teasing you would have spout is shut up and clamped down in the far regions of your throat. you can’t even think about what you were about to say.

“Is it so wrong to admit that I’m enamored with you?” Warrior reaches down, taking your hand in his and lacing your finger together without a second thought. He pulls your hand up to his lips to kiss your knuckles, rubbing his thumbs over the spot. “I’m feeling a way... don’t mind me...”

The tips of his ears turn pink and he focuses on your hand.

You smile and squeeze his hand, running your thumb along his own just the same. “Is something wrong?”

He looks at you then and moves toward you, taking you up in his arms and holding you close to his chest. Legs tangle together, arms move around to wrap around the other and breath begins to mingle as the space in between disappears.

Warrior lets out another breath, seemingly coming back to the present instead of getting lost in his thoughts again. “Not really. I’m just coming to grips with how much I love you. That’s all.”

The blunt honesty wasn’t something you were expecting. The soft look in his eyes only deepens and the blush from his ears travels to his cheeks. He keeps talking. “I didn’t think I would have been so blessed. I know I’m difficult. I know I’m damaged. It... scares me... the amount of love I didn’t know I could feel. Forgive me. I know this is out of the blue.”

Endeared and enamored as well, you kiss the tip of his nose and bring your hands up to entangle them in the back of his head. His hair would need to be brushed later. “...I love you too. And I’m glad you feel that way because I don’t plan on going anywhere else anytime soon. Thank you for stealing me away.”

An easy smile lights up your face. It propels Warrior to swoop in and steal a kiss before it dims again. “Promise?”

You giggle at the boyish pride on his face and kiss him again. You nod. “I promise.”

Four

Giggles tumble out of your lips before you could stop yourself. “Should I be concerned?”

“Your lack of faith in me is astounding lovely.” Four snorts from your side. His hand is in yours, pulling you along. His bandana was over your eyes, effectively blinding you.

“It’s not necessarily a lack of faith. It’s just there’s something telling me to be warry about whatever you have planned.” You try to defend yourself. “I know you put those beetles in Legend’s bed roll. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Whaaat?” Four has an audile grin on his face. “That was Wind.”

“Forgive me, but I noticed that my pouch was missing and filled with the same beetles. No one else touches my stuff but you.”

“He must have been more daring.”

“You’re so lucky I like you.”

“I am.” He replies cheekily, letting you bump against him softly so that you’d stop walking. “We’re here.”

“I’m scared.”

“No you’re not.” Four scoffs and reaches up. You bend down a bit when you feel his arm move to assist him and have to blink at the brightness when he takes the headband off of your face. “Tada!~”

You gasp.

The sight in front of you is nothing short of perfect. A blanket over soft and warmed sand. Picnic basket to the side with dimmed lantern lighting and a perfect view of the lake just ahead of you.

“Oh Link...” The name drops before you can pick it up. “...How did you even pull this off?”

Four winks and pulls you forward again, letting you sit down on the blanket with little fanfare. “I have my ways. Let’s just say those beetles came in handy later.”

Something tells you that you shouldn’t ask too much about it.

Four reaches into the basket and pulls out a glass bottle and two long and thin glasses to go with it. He’s quick to pop the cork and pour some out. He hands it over to you. “Here.”

“What is it?” You take it and take a whiff. It’s sweeter than you anticipated but with an underlying tone of a fruit you don’t recognize. You take a sip without thinking about it. It’s tangy and not as bitter as you were expecting.

“Sparkling munchkin fruit cocktail.” Four replies easily. “I personally have never heard of it. But I got to have a taste earlier and figured that you’d like it.”

You take another sip. It’s pretty good actually. “Thank you... This is really sweet of you Link.”

The boy in question begins to fluster as he reaches back into the picnic basket. “You think so? I thought this was subpar to be honest. I felt like I could have done a bit more.”

“You didn’t have to do anything at all.” You remind him. “I would have been fine with just holding you hand as we walked.”

You place the glass away where it would stand without risk of spilling over and reach for his hand. Four takes it without another thought, lacing your fingers together as he takes out a small plate with sandwiches cut into little triangles. You lean closer and smile brightly. He remembered which ones were your favorite.

“Do you think you’d be willing to hold my hand and watch the sun set?” Four asks timidly tilting his head just enough where his hair falls into his face.

You laugh, fixing it for him. “Always. The food and drink are a nice bonus though.”

“I’ll remember that for future reference.”

Sky

“Has your hair always been this soft?”

“Yes.” A laugh follows shortly after. “I promise I don’t do anything extraordinary to it.”

You huff. “So not fair.”

Sky was laying on your chest arms wrapped around you and relishing the way your hands felt in his hair. “For what it’s worth, you’re free to play with it anytime you’d like.”

You smile, teasing the locks through your fingers. “Really?” It’s said through a whisper. You can’t believe you got point blank permission. “That’s a lot of power you’ve just given me sir.”

“I trust you.” He replies just as easily, snuggling closer than he already is. “Besides, if it means that I can have more time with you than I’m all for it.”

“You’re such a sap.” You laugh, doing with his hair as you please.

Sky hums in approval and contentment. “And yet, here you are. Admit it, you love it.”

“I love you.” You shake your head. “I can handle the sap.”

It’s Sky’s turn to snort. “I wasn’t aware those were two different things.”

You nod, fully aware that his eyes are closed. Allowing the silence to fall over the two of you was something that made your skin itch. There was very little to fill it if you or Sky stopped talking. It made you nervous. It felt awkward.

Sky however could not appeared to be bothered in the slightest.

It didn’t seem fair.

You tried to keep your thought from going into the deep end, focusing more on paying with Sky’s hair in a way that both satisfied your brain’s need for stimulation and made him feel relaxed and cared for.

“I can hear you thinking.” Sky mutters, lifting his head to meet your eyes. “Something wrong, Beloved?”

You shake your head. “Thoughts. They won’t leave me alone.”

Sky hums and lets your words filter through. He pushes himself away from you and flips the script. He pulls you close taking the spot where you once more, placing your head on his chest. “Your turn then.”

The change in direction stuns you. Before you can even think of a way to speak your way through the record scratch, Sky cards his fingers through your hair silencing your thoughts again.

It feels nice. He knows what he’s doing.

You relax within seconds from his touch alone. You rest your head against him fully and take a deep breath. It’s hard to think. Your own mind is silenced. It’s a wonder in on itself.

Then you hear something. A dull thumping.

You zero in on it and let it fill your being with each passing beat. Vaguely in the deep waters of your mind, you recognize it as Sky’s heartbeat. It’s strong, steady and soothing.

Sky doesn’t stop playing with your hair.

Before you know it, you’ve let your eyes droop close and your breathing even out. You didn’t even realize that this period of silence has already stretched out further than the last.

You fall asleep. But that doesn’t stop Sky from giving the little attentions to your being. He’d keep whatever thought away even as you sleep. Let it be in peace.

You both deserve it.

Part 2

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #linked universe x reader #lu x reader

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dlartistanon · 7 months

Note

There's a Liz CG in chapter 13 and I'm both excited and scared at the same time... Please enlighten us on what happened when you've got the time (っ °Д °;)っ

Let me tell you that I nearly jumped out of my seat when I first saw that CG. And let me tell you that Liz's expression was the second thing that gave me concern. I absolutely had to know what was going on immediately.

So, below the cut, I'm going to recap the most pertinent parts regarding this scene. Afterwards, I will reblog with my thoughts and commentary, and some speculation.

Shiningale focus? In my main plot? IT'S MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK.

CHAPTER 13 SPOILERS AHEAD

First off, this scene involving Logos, Ascalon, and Salus:

Logos: How far have you tampered with your… "bloodline"? It’s unimaginable that you are blood relatives of the Follower Shining. Such an outstanding person must always repent for your filth. (This is after Ascalon stabbed Salus in the neck)

After that, there's a conversation between Kal'tsit and Shining:

Kal'tsit: What's Nightingale's status?

Shining: … Outside the window, Shining sees Nightingale sleeping, leaning against a tree. Shining: Not good. Though Liz's state has never been more stable, the levels of Originium content in her body are rising, most likely even affecting her pain nerves.

Kal'tsit: This would not be a normal infection.

Shining: Maybe it's the sorcery devices that Sarkaz have set up on the battlefield, or the whispers of dead souls… I don't know. I can't tell her "I empathize with your pain." I really don't. But she happily told me yesterday that she hasn't felt pain in her sleep for a long time…

Kal'tsit: You're hesitating. You've been hesitating ever since you came back from the Confessarii alone. Do you remember the reason you applied to come along to Londinium in the first place?

Shining: 'To cure Liz'. Dr. Kal'tsit, I have never hesitated, even for a moment, about that goal.

Kal'tsit: Even without knowing the exact state of her condition, we all know what "cure" means.

Shining: What needs to be done hasn't changed… I know.

Kal'tsit: I trust you. The eyes with which you view Nightingale are not only compassionate. You're not the only one who's taking care of her, she's treating your fears as well. Nightingale may be physically challenged, but she is a member of the Followers, your companion, not a delicate flower to be protected. The secrets of the Confessarii are truly stomach-churning. But perhaps it is only by confronting the deepest of abominations that we can unravel the truth.

Shining: …

Kal'tsit: I know you're a little upset, Shining. But as we said at the beginning of our partnership, Rhodes Island will help, if you need it.

Shining: --Thank you, Dr. Kal'tsit. The blue feathered beast lands on Shining's shoulder, chirping. It was Liz's usual way of greeting her. Shining: … Liz is awake, I'm going to get her.

Nightingale then recalls a dream (or a memory?) that's very peculiar. Basically it's her and Shining when they were younger, holding hands and walking along a river and watching a bird, but then something strange and horrifying happened to the bird.

Unfortunately the next thing that happens is that they're ambushed by Confessarius and Salus in an attempt to kidnap Nightingale. Kal'tsit summons Mon3tr but Salus--from her battle with Amiya--is able to restrain Mon3tr. Apparently she was able to do this by performing rituals on herself and finding a way to cannibalize the Arts of other bloodlines. She also dove into Amiya's memories (where it turns out that there's a part of Theresa's soul/consciousness that's protecting Amiya still).

Kal'tsit: Mon3tr!

Shining: Dr. Kal'tsit, you can't move yet. Shining: I told you--you and I will only meet on the battlefield.

Confessarius: Oh? Then why are you hiding your sword at this moment? When you left home, you swore an oath to sever your family's bloodline, and I have longed for you to return and fulfill that oath. I gave you time, and you let me down again and again. We should have given birth* to the next me. It would have been the most ethereal bloodline in nearly a hundred years. Then Liz uses her Arts.

Confessarius: … well. Sharp, but full of impurities. What happened to your soul? Do you still think you have hope while you are away from us?

Shining: … Liz! Come back!

Nightingale: …！I won't… at your mercy!

Confessarius: … oh? You are truly an unexpected piece of work, far beyond my expectations. Even though it's just a body, can it still touch "me"?

Nightingale: Shining, now! I… I can't hold on for long!

Shining: … A strange feeling came over Shining.

Nightingale took the initiative to resist Confessarius and restrained him. The ancient demon clan, which had never seen its true soul, was now more vulnerable than ever. Bloodline. The word bloodline was vague, but at this moment, a long bloody crack seemed to appear right in front of you.

Shining hesitated. How could it be so simple?

How can it be so simple?

Kal'tsit: Nightingale, stop! This is a trap, he's waiting for your Arts!

Nightingale: ——！ Time slowed down.

Confessarius: You and I both know where fate will lead us, but the only one who doesn't know is this poor caged self. Contempt of blood and resistance to destiny are doomed to be in vain. No one can deny the heavenly principles gifted by our bloodline. I will do for you what you hesitated to do, create a gap in the cage… Come into the cage with me, and I will set you on the right path. Think through your options… [ancient Sarkaz name].

On the stone platform covered with dead branches, the white sword pierced the heart.

Shining remembers the first time she cried, how amazing it was, giving birth to emotions that she didn't expect. A new soul is carved and shaped under the sword's edge.

???: I have seen… your pain… your… tears…

Confessarius: Accidents always bring surprises. You could have stopped experimenting right then, but you couldn't bear to destroy the ignorant consciousness in that empty shell. … So you sewed memories into the empty shell.

Shining: She is Liz. She shouldn't…

Confessarius: It is your freedom to name your populated consciousness "Liz".

"Liz" was afraid of the silence of those across the long table. They meet to sit here and have dinner at the same time every day.

But the white-horned Sarkaz holding the sword opposite her had stopped talking to her, taking only notes. "Liz" is always asking herself, 'did I do something wrong to make her angry?'

"Liz" misses the fond memories of their past…

Liz?: I repeat the same dream every day, dreaming about us walking hand in hand in the stream when we were children… Then I flew up, flying higher and higher, but you couldn't hold onto me. From the clouds, I saw you crying. Every time I want to come back to you, I wake up in pain. I ache from feeling your pain and I want to share the burden with you. As long as you tell me why you are suffering… Quesasina.

Shining: …

Confessarius: Quesasina, the name means "hope that does not allow separation", our destiny. She blames herself for your moment of kindness, and she thinks all the fault is her own, this poor "Liz."

Shining: I have abandoned that sinful name. I am now Shining and will only ever be Shining.

Confessarius: Really? Do you think you can resist your family's destiny for thousands of years? I'll wait and see.

"Liz" held the blue feathered beast she rescued from the river in her hands. Her indigo feathers trembled, and the cold river water made her shiver. She thought Quesasina would be angry, but the sad Sarkaz just knitted a brand new birdcage for "Liz".

"Put it in the cage, and it'll be safe from now on."

Liz?: Quesasina, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to risk walking into the river to save it… but I can't just watch it die like this. I fell in love with it when your family gave it to me as a gift. It likes to fly freely, but once it gets too far away from me, it seems to lose its energy and always falls into the river… You said the same thing happened yesterday… but I don't remember it at all. But I will listen to you and put it in a cage. I will protect it. Please don't be angry. I promise you, such a stupid thing will never happen again.

Confessarius: The more fragments and lies you fill her with, the more confusion and pain she will feel. I uncovered the dusty fragments for her. Her awakening is irreversible, and she will eventually painfully disintegrate her rootless consciousness.

Shining: I won't let that happen, Father. I will put an end to our sins with my own hands, and Liz will be cured.

Confessarius: Then what? Isn't her regaining the truth what you fear, dear sister? This is the source of your sad hesitation.

Shining: …

Confessarius: I tolerated you wandering around with this container, and I tolerated you continuing to strengthen this fragile cage… Because I trusted you to love it with all your heart, and you didn't disappoint. Eventually you will come back to me with your cage. And you did. See, she even tried to imprison me to create opportunities to defeat me. Your rebellious love for her and her struggles against fate have sadly become another catalyst.

Shining: You--even using the hope she found in herself?!

Liz?: Shining? Are you here?

Shining: ！

Liz?: I can feel your breath, but I can't see you…

Shining: I'm here, Liz!

Confessarius: She can't hear your voice, we walk within her broken consciousness—the interior of the cage.

Liz?: Shining… there is a burning name and vague question echoing in my mind, but I can't remember it… Maybe I'll remember it when we leave here. I found myself able to share the pain of others to slow the withering of their lives. You said we would go far away to find a cure for me, and maybe I could cure others in pain on our journey.

Shining: …

Confessarius: The disordered and broken memories are flooding her, and sooner or later she will get lost in them. Perhaps she'll go insane, or will kill herself before that happens. But you already know the solution I taught you, Quesasina.

Shining: …

Confessarius: Draw your sword and destroy the bodies of your blood relatives once and for all. Our souls will be reconnected with your sword as a bridge, and you—will give birth. Give birth to eternal authority. This is a fate you cannot escape. Become one with me and nourish her otherwise shattered consciousness with the remains of your blood family.

Shining: … Liz, forgive me.

Shining clenched the sword in her arms, her hand already on the scabbard.

Confessarius: Finally, Quesasina…

From the scabbard, morning and dusk are about to pour out. But at this moment, a hand held Shining's sleeve.

Nightingale: Shining, I like your current name a lot more.

Shining: Liz…

Nightingale: I seem to have slept for a long time, lost in countless fragments. But I heard your voice, and you guided me to a place buried among the debris. There, I dug up fragments of memories… I still haven't remembered them all. But I remembered the question that should have been answered long ago… I forgive you. I forgave you even before you cruelly sealed my memories away… That's why, I'm angry at you for making these decisions all by yourself.

Shining: …

Nightingale: "Liz", I've always loved the name you chose for me. Don't leave me and bear everything on your own. We made a promise to get through this together—

Shining saw Nightingale's eyes and Nightingale's smile.

When Shining came back to her senses, the hand had quietly slipped from her sleeve.

Confessarius: A tragedy, but the ending is always fixed. Either you kill me and become the breeding ground for the next bloodline, or you watch me take her away and then drown in your regret. It’s all the same, sister. Quesasina, the consciousness of the cage has awakened. If you continue to keep her by your side, she will only evaporate and die like dewdrops in the morning.

Shining: …

Confessarius: I will take her away, I will help you maintain it, I will help you make up for it—I will mold the cage into a crown. Then, you will be, we will be… the eternal devil.

In the end, Confessarius ended up kidnapping Liz.

Kal'tsit: Operator Nightingale is a member of Rhodes Island's Medical Department, and we will not allow her to be kidnapped or harmed. But any rash move may put her in greater danger. After all, the opponent we need to face… is an immortal "Demon King" who has coveted the crown for thousands of years. Quesatushta. He who knocks on the door is he who usurps the king. I was aware of the threat of the Confessarii, even during the Tower of Babel period, and several attempts were made in vain. Theresis concealed them so well that people thought they were only the regent's bodyguards.

Shining: … Please don't worry, I know what we have to do.

Ascalon: You are calmer than I thought. What are you planning?

Shining: Liz… made her own choice. It's a choice that even I would never dare to think of. It is bold and aggressive, but it is the most effective. It seems that I'm always the one who's afraid of failure and dying… What I want to do, ha. It is to catch up with her.

#dltext #anonymous #arknights #shining #nightingale #dl talks ak #IT'S ALL SO MUCH #MY BABIES ARE GETTING SO MUCH RELEVANCE #BUT AT WHAT COST #SHININGALE FANS WHERE YOU AT

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rubydubydoo122 · 16 days

Text

Jason gets de-aged because I've seen fics of Tim or Dick being de-aged, and Bruce losing his memory, but no one has realized the potential for angst if you de-age Jason.

Jason’s whole body ached. His skull felt like it was squishing his brain and his skin felt tight to a point where it was suffocating him. He couldn’t breathe.

No. Don’t panic. He doesn’t know what type of danger he could be in. Jason sat up, cautiously scanning his surroundings.

He was in an alley. The only thing near him was a giant blue community dumpster. He scooted so that his back was against one of the building’s walls, and pulled off what appeared to be a red helmet.

Ok, Breathe, Jason. What happened? How’d you get here? Are you hurt?

For one, everything hurts, but is anything fatal?

He wasn’t bleeding, but what in the hell was he wearing? The boots on his feet were at least four sizes too big, same with his clothes. The leather jacket basically dwarfed him, and the shirt underneath had a big red bird on it. Weird, because Bruce never lets them wear anything that could potentially compromise their secret identity. And Jason was certain that if he stood up, his pants would fall right off.

Was that a gun? There was no way Bruce would let that slide.

Ok, what happened?

Only problem was, he couldn’t remember. The last thing he could remember was reading a book in the library with Bruce and then falling asleep.

In 2 3 4, hold 2 3 4, out 2 3 4…

He buried his eyes in the palms of his hands and felt the domino mask dig into his face.

That meant he was a patrol. And if Jason couldn’t remember anything…

I must’ve hit my head pretty hard.

He didn’t notice his ears were ringing until it stopped.

“Hood? Red Hood, come in. Hood, what happened?” It sounded like… Barbra, but who’s Red Hood ?

“Goddammit, Jason, come in–”

“Code-codenames,” Jason's voice cracked, so he cleared his throat, “You know how huffy B gets, Batgirl.”

A beat, “...what?”

Jason moved to stand up, with a hand on the waistband of his pants so they wouldn’t slide, “I- uh, I think I hit my head? I don’t- I don’t remember–”

“Batgirl’s almost at your location.”

“Honestly Hood, I thought that big ugly helmet of yours stopped you from getting concussions.” It was a new voice. A girl. Maybe his age? Maybe older. Probably older.

Jason looked at the red helmet at his feet. Was he Hood? How much did he forget? “Wait… who are you?”

“I’m Batgirl.” It was said in the same gruff Batman voice that Bruce uses.

“Um…No you’re not?” because Jason was pretty sure Barbra Gordon was Batgirl.

“Yes I– oh shit.” Jason suppressed a jump because the voice was close. “He’s ten.”

“I’m fifteen!” Not-Batgirl was wearing Barbra’s suit, but she obviously wasn’t her because the imposter’s hair was blonde, not red, “Who are you?”.

Not-Batgirl took a step forward, “Hood, can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

“Sure, and I’ll give you my social security number while I’m at it.” He deadpanned “And why do you keep calling me that?”

She looked around like she was debating something but reached up to take off her cowl, “I’m Stephanie, but everyone calls me Steph.”

That answered Jason’s question. He could tell he was being victim talked . The way Stephanie was talking and acting was more or less the same way he’d seen Babs act if she came across a kid on the streets. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. Why are you wearing Batgirl’s suit?”

“Uh… Oracle?”

“Who’s–”

“Jason, it’s me, Babs.” She took in a shaky breath that could be heard through the coms, “I don’t know if you— I can’t be Batgirl anymore because of… health issues so I let Steph take over. Are you ok with her taking you back to the cave or do you want me to send Nightwing?”

“No, it’s fine. If you and Batman trust her, I do.” Health issues?

He shot her . The Joker.

What hurts more? A or B? Forehand or backhand?

It sent a jolt through Jason. A feeling of unease. A wave of fear . There was a purple hand waved in front of Jason’s face, “Earth to Jason…. Lets go. Or I’m leaving you here.”

#jason todd #batfam #dc comics #red hood #robin jason todd #barbara gordon #stephanie brown

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hailkingphantom · 2 years

Text

dp x dc

Damian's playboy brother

Damian's brother (and sister) found out something

Best say it, someone

Damian has a brother, an older brother. And he didn't tell them. They are fucking furious curious

They only discovered because he says:

"My brother is coming, behave."

With that the chaos started

Bruce choked with nothing, the table erupt in questions, screams and almost no one answer.

"BRAT, DO YOU HAVE OTHER BROTHER APART OF US?!" Tim yelled

"IS YOUR BIO BRO?!"

"Litle bird, why didn't tell us?" dick asks

"Yes, damian, why you never said it?" Bruce asks in a solemn tone, half angry half hurt

Damian looked away and said, "brother asks me to not, you should ask him the rest. He is coming to visit for a day, so, don't ruin it"

After that Bruce lock himself in the Batcave and didn't go out for all day

_________________________________________________

Tim wasn't nervous

He just was understandingly attentive

Damian's brother is coming, the brother of the brat who try to kill him before, he didn't try no more but still. You can't expect him to relax when someone who can probably try to kill you is coming.

"Timmy, chill. Damian says that his brother is a kind person, sure that he won't try to kill you as first impression"

"I never thought that a ten years old kid would try to kill me, but there is Damian" he can see how dick make a wince, then look like Jason was going to say something when-

"TUCK! I'm not that obvious!" Someone on the other side of the street scream

"Sorry Danny, but you are!" A teen respond this have black skin, glasses and dark brown hair. Opposite to his companny who had blue eyes, light skin and messy raven hair, he makes a pout and glare his friend(?). Then they talk a little more a 'Danny' give to other guy kiss in the cheek.

'A couple, huh..', nothing really relevant

_________________________________________________

Jason don't know what think

He was adopted by Batman slash Bruce wayne, became in robin, died, revive, became in Red hood, fight with Batmam, reconnect with Batman, get a new brat brother who is also Bruce bio son and then found out that they said brat have a brother. His life is a mess.

Dick dragged him and tim to a 'family reunion', more like the game of 'who can calm Tim'. Tim was nervous with reason, the brother of someone who try to kill you is not the best impression. It's not like he can talk though. His train of thought was cut off when someone collides with him.

"Oh-h, sorry man I didn't see you" It was the kid they saw before.

"No problem kiddo" The kid look like he was gonna say something before let it go and keep walking. He was with a girl now, a goth, short dark hair and purple eyes, they were holding hands.

'A plaboy' thought before keep walking

_________________________________________________

Dick doesn't know if feel happy or not

Damian has a brother, an older brother. By extension he has another brother of what he never knows about.

He never thought that Damian would keep something like this from him, he knows that everybody have secrets, more in his family but keep in secret that he have a brother

"ahh.." he sigh

They are in the manor now, Damian's brother text him and said that is on his way. Tim is tensed, Jason look curious and Bruce has a blank face.

Sometimes he forgets how hard can be read Bruce.

He was going to say something when a 'tok tok' sound from the door. Damian runs to the door and open it. His eyes lit up in a form that he has never seen before.

"Brother!" His voice sound happy and look like he was fighting a smile.

"Hi, Dami" Damian's brother said with a soft voice and warm smile before pull damian in a hug. He was going to take a picture when Jason yells.

"THE PLAYBOY OF BEFORE!!"

Damian turns his eyes to Jason and glare him

"What did you said about my brother" Damian says, Damian's brother looks confused.

"Jay, why do you think that-" he turn his eyes to Damian's brother "Danny" " okay, why do you think that Danny is a playboy?"

"We saw him kissing a guy and after wandering around with a girl holding hands" tim respond

Danny looks ashamed before said " those were my partners, we are in a poly" then put his hands on his face "how my first impression to Damian's family was that I'm a playboy" Danny mumbled

Damian snort " Look like you catch father's genes, brother"

"That's means that you'll be a playboy too" Tim says, clearly trying to annoy damian

" I'll end you drake" dick's family it's too funny

_________________________________________________

Bruce day was a roller coaster.

But seeing his sons happy, playing each other, he couldn't help to let out a smile.

He can deal with the fact of having another son of what he didn't know about later.

#dp x dc #danny phantom #damian wayne #bruce wayne #danyal al' ghul #jason todd #dick grayson #tim drake

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random-writing-panda · 10 months

Text

||•~Old Flames Part 2~•||

Jason Todd (Red Hood) x Reader

Warnings: language

Word count: 2.3k

Part 1, Part 3,

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You and Red Hood are working together to kill the Joker when he has a run in with Batman and Nightwing after which some big secrets are revealed. Will this change everything?

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You were sitting on a rooftop with Red Hood crouched next to you, you were both scanning the building and streets for anyone who would have information on the Jokers whereabouts, the two of you had been doing this for weeks, it was getting exhausting.

“How does no one know where he is! He’s a fucking maniacal, deranged man in clown makeup he should be this hard to find!” You huff, standing and turning away. The exhaustion was getting to you, constant days on little to no sleep then working 12-hour days to pay for your actual life was starting to hit you like a truck.

“If you need the night off, I can handle it myself.” Red Hood states and turns his head to look at you over his shoulder.

You spin around to face him even more frustrated now. How was he just fine? He had been doing the same thing as you how was he not exhausted and angry too?

“No! It’s fine! We said we would do this together,” You sigh, “So we will find him together…”

“Listen sweetheart if you’re exhausted, you’re a liability. I’m not getting killed saving your ass because you are tired. Go home.” He asserted in his usual teasing tone but something in his voice was stern, you could sense how serious he was.

You sigh and let your head tilt back, looking at the sky as you take a deep beath.

“Fine. I’ll go home. Don’t have too much fun without me Red.” You smirk at him before walking away.

“No promises.” You hear him chuckle as you jump off the roof.

∞∞

You collapse onto your bed and groan at the pain in your muscles you weren’t sure how Batman did it he was probably thirty years older than you, as much as you hated Bruce you had to admit you were impressed.

You were sleeping wrapped up in blankets resting comfortably when you heard loud knocking on your door. Your eyes snap open, you were ready to kill whoever was on the other side for interrupting your rest, you drag yourself to your door and slam it open.

“What!?” You look up annoyed, quickly you step back and gasp a little shocked that Red Hood was standing there, you quickly moved to cover you face, but he walked in anyway.

“You think I know where you live but don’t know who you are? Think a little.” He snarled at you.

“What the hell is with the hostility and waking me up at some ungodly hour! What is wrong with you!” You shout, still annoyed by the interruption of your sleep.

“Wrong with me? Wrong with me, no. what the fuck is wrong with you!”

“What the hell did I do?! I WAS asleep!”

He whipped around and faced you, taking fast strides towards you backing you against a wall, he had a finger pointed at you.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were all buddy, buddy, with Batman!”

Your face dropped into a glare, and you shoved him, which did nothing since he was 6 foot of pure muscle but it was the idea that you needed to get across.

“I am not ‘Buddy, Buddy’ with him I despise the man, we just have…history…” You trail off not wanting to reveal anything. “How did you find that out anyway what the hell happened, I leave you alone for 5 hours!”

“I had a run in with the bat and a blue bird.” He smirked. Obviously pleased with himself for some reason.

Your glare now turned into a confused frown; Dick was back in town? You thought he was done with Gotham and Batman for good when he moved.

“Nightwing is in Gotham? Why?” You ask curiously.

“Don’t know, don’t care. All I know is they told me to stay away from you…” He stepped closer, pinning you against the wall.

“Oh? And this is staying away?”

“No, but why would I listen to them?”

You laugh and he pushes himself away from the wall and you.

“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t trying to double cross me sweetheart.”

“The Bat and I don’t exactly see eye to eye on the whole murder thing. You and I do. I’m on your side Red. Now kindly get out the hell out so I can sleep?”

He nods his head opening your door and walking out, you lock it behind him. You knew Batman thought Red Hood was a threat but enough of one to ask Dick for help? You didn’t know what to make of that situation, your thoughts kept you up for the next few hours, you were still awake as the sun rose and your alarm blares at you, you sigh deeply, the action of dragging yourself out of bed just to spend hours at work was becoming more and more exhausting by the day.

∞∞

You were staring at the clock when you heard someone clear their throat.

“Oh! Hello! Sorry about that, how are you today?” You quickly snap out of your daze and put on your customer service smile.

You turn to face the person and lock eyes with, perhaps, the most handsome man you have ever seen, six foot, covered in muscle, black hair framed his chiselled face, his smoky green eyes locked with yours, they reminded you of someone but you couldn’t place who, you brushed the thoughts away.

“H-how can I help you today?” You cursed yourself for stammering and felt you face heat up slightly.

The man chuckles, “Its alright, just wanted a coffee?” He nods towards the expresso machine you were standing next to.

“Right! Ha… Sorry it’s been a long day.” That was true you had been here almost nine hours and it was almost the end of your day. You quickly jot down his order and start making it.

“So I haven’t seen you around before. You just trying out a new place or just moved around here?” You ask over the sounds of the coffee machine.

You watch him shift a little and run a hand through his hair. “I lived here when I was a kid, moved…abroad for a few years but have a bit of unfinished business in town.”

You giggled lightly, “’Unfinished business’ huh? That sounds ominous.”

“Oh haha no nothing bad just some family drama, we’ve all got some right?”

“That is very true.” You mutter, handing him his coffee. “Can I help you with anything else today sir?”

“No, no that’s all thank you very much…” He glances down at your name tag, “Y/n.” He pays for his drink and turns away before he walks out of the store he turns back and looks at you up and down taking you in. “I think you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.” He pauses, “Coffee’s delicious.” The ring of the bell sounds out through the shop as he leaves.

∞∞

Stepping out of the shower you sigh deeply, it had been such a long day and you were ready for bed, but you knew you had to go meet Red Hood, the two of you were so close to finding Joker you couldn’t give up now- your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of your doorbell. If Red Hood was on the other side, you were going to push him off a rooftop tonight. You were getting sick of his interruptions. Quickly wrapping a robe around your body, you stalk over to the door and swing it open.

“You better have a damn good reason for interrupting me R-” The door swings open and you gasp shocked at who is standing in front of you. “Alfred?”

“Miss y/n it has been a long time. Are you well?”

“Yes…yes I’m fine. Alfred why are you here?”

“I have urgent news… Master Bruce and Master Grayson they have found some…disturbing information.”

“And what does that have to do with me? Alfred, you know I want nothing to do with that man. Thank you for dropping by but I don’t care about anything that Bruce has found.” You grip the door, closing it.

“Miss its about Jason!” Alfred grabs the door and yells at you. You freeze on the spot, a horrified look on your face.

“What did you say?”

“It’s about Jason Miss. Bruce, he fought with the Red Hood, and he knew Bruce’s identity so… master Bruce ran some test on Red Hoods blood…it was a match…with Jason.”

You take a step back involuntarily.

“No. Alfred no that isn’t possible. Jason is dead.” Your voice was shaking.

“That is no longer the case Miss…”

The world around you starts swirling, your vision blurring as you stumble to lean against something. How was that possible? You saw his body Jason was dead. Jason was gone. Jason was…Red Hood? You snap back to reality and lock eyes with Alfred who looked concerned. You finally process his words. Jason’s blood was a match for Red Hood. He had been with you every night for months, and he hadn’t told you. Jason was Red Hood. You best friend had been keeping this from you for months. You were furious.

“Alfred thank you for telling me. Thank you for stopping by. But I need you to leave now. It was good to see you.”

He nodded, “It was good to see you too Miss, you deserved to know.” He left before you closed the door.

You rush around your apartment getting dressed. Running out of your door you hastily race to yours and Red’s meeting place, landing on the roof you are both overjoyed and furious to see him already standing there waiting.

“Hey sweetheart finally decided to show up on time?” He chuckles.

You take long strides over to him remaining silent the whole time.

“Sweetheart?”

You walk until you are inches away from him and you look at him shoving a finger right into his chest. “How. Fucking. Dare. You.”

“Ow, it was just a joke darling calm down its not my fault you’re always late-”

“NOT THAT!” There are tears filling your eyes threatening to spill out. “How fucking dare you not tell me that you were alive.”

“Uh, figured it was obvious since I ya know.” He gestures with both hands up and down his body. You hated that he was playing dumb, you hated him in this moment.

“JASON! HOW FUCKING DARE YOU?” At this he steps back and sighs.

“Should have known Bruce would work it out. I thought you two were on the outs though so who blabbed? Dick? He always had a soft spot for you.” He turned away and looked out over the city.

“Really? That’s all you have to say right now? That is all you are going to say to me!?”

“What do you want me to say y/n?”

“I want you to explain why you didn’t tell me!”

“Because you didn’t need to know.” He snapped at you, the hurt on your face was impossible to hide, he looked away.

“I didn’t…need to know?”

“Yeah, you didn’t.”

You take a single step forward. “I didn’t need to know?!” The hurt was turning to anger, anger at Joker anger at Bruce anger at this goddam city it all combined into hatred for the man in front of you. “You came to me Red. You found me. You asked me to be your partner. You were the one searching for me and I didn’t need to know the man I spent every day with was my oldest friend? My best friend? A friend I thought was dead? How are you even alive? I saw your body Bruce showed me your body! You were dead!” The images of Jason’s battered body flashed through your head, and you tried not to start hyperventilating.

“Yeah well that’s because Bruce is an asshole.”

“No argument here! But that doesn’t answer anything!”

He stays silent.

“Take off the mask. If we are going to have this fight, I at least want to see your face.” You sneer.

“…No…”

You exhale almost a laugh, and the tears finally start dripping down your face. “So let me get this right. You aren’t going to tell me anything about how you are alive or why you didn’t tell me?”

He says nothing but nods.

“You watched me sit at your grave every single day and though I didn’t need to know you weren’t actually dead?”

Silence, it was deafening, you hated it you wished he would say something to you, anything, just wanting to hear his voice.

“Fine. Fine but this is it. I won’t be able to trust you after you kept this from me and if you don’t tell me anything, if you think I don’t need to know anything about how the hell you are standing in front of me right now, don’t ever talk to me again, don’t ever show up at my door again, don’t even look at me again. If you do this, I want nothing to do with you ever again. You didn’t have to lose me when you died but you will this time. You will have to live with the fact that I never want to see you again and it is your fault. So, I’m asking you, please take off the mask, or tell me something, anything. Help me understand why.” You plead desperately with him.

“…No.”

You close your eyes. “You know what the worst part is? We could have been friends again Jason. We could have been together again after all these years…all it would have taken was a few words… some kind of explanation… just you telling me who you were. Now you aren’t just losing me, you are making me lose you twice.” You walk to the edge of the rooftop before turning your head over your shoulder.

“You might as well be dead because my Jason never would have kept something like this from me... he never would have hurt me like this…”

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Hello people thank you very much for reading my fic I hope you enjoyed, quick little note yes, I am aware Jasons eyes are blue in most comic depictions but in the movie ‘under the red hood’ they are green and that is what this is heavily based on (and I personally like him with green eyes a little more). Anyway, let me know, what do you think Jason’s coffee order would be? I think long black or a latte.

Tag List~

@just-lost-inbetween-worlds

#batfam #batfam imagine #batman #batfam fic #batman fic #jason todd #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #red hood x you #red hood x y/n #red hood x reader #red hood

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assembletheimagines · 2 years

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Humor Me?

Summary: While dancing, you and Bucky reminisce.

As you catch Bucky’s gaze across the room, you can’t help but think about the day you two first met.

A smile forms on your lips at the memory and you notice that when Bucky sees you, the handsome man moves from leaning against the bar and makes confident strides to where you are.

“Humor me?” His simple words bring a light blush to your cheeks but you happily take his hand and let him lead you to the middle of the dance floor.

His right hand hand rests on the curve of your back as his gloved metal hand takes your other. And it starts off slow, the way Bucky leads, swaying the both of you in a slow circle. His touch is the only thing you can focus on, other than his eyes on you. And you smile again.

“When we first met,” you hum and grab Bucky’s attention. “You said you wanted to talk to me,” you think back to a conversation you’ve had with Bucky before. He had never gotten the chance to speak with you that night but had told you later on how when he first saw you he just had to know you. “What would have been your big move?”

Bucky’s brow raises in amusement as he holds you close, a smirk forming on his lips as you fluttered your eyelashes at him. “Are you asking me how I would have hit on you?” He hummed immediately knowing your unasked question and your smile grew. A flash of your first-time meeting Bucky crosses your mind once again.

And a small giggle falls from your lips as your cheeks heated a darker blush. “Indulge me,” you say and it’s like you know Bucky will always give you whatever you ask.

“Does crumbling to my feet before you count as a big move?” His words bring another laugh from your lips as you shake your head at the ex-soldier.

“Don’t play, Steve’s told me you were quite popular amongst the ladies.” You tease the handsome man before you and his blue eyes sparkle at your compliment. “I want to know the charm you have.”

Bucky laughs at your words and pulls you closer against his body as you two danced. “Well,” his voice is softer now, lower like he’s telling you a secret as he dips his head and brings his mouth closer to your ear.

You feel a jolt of electricity rush through your body and you shiver as his warm breath fans over the curve of your neck before he speaks. “It would have been something like this.” He starts and refers to the two of you dancing. “I would ask you to dance and pull you close.” He hums and tightens his grip on you and it makes you smile. “Tell you how beautiful I think you are.”

You’re mind makes up scenarios of the past as he continues to speak. Imagining how it would have played out. “Oh, really?” You muse and don’t have to look to know Bucky’s smiling big in the crook of your neck.

But before anything further could be said, a crackle in your ear sounded and Sam cleared his throat. “If you two love birds are quite finished,” his tone is playful as he speaks in the comm and the crowd of people you two were dancing amongst become clear. “We caught the target and Nat’s taking him back to the jet.”

“But don’t mind us,” Nat’s voice rings after Sam mentions her. “Please do continue, Barnes.”

You turn your head enough to see Bucky’s ears are pink from the teasing and you laugh.

But once the mission was finished, you knew you’d find your way back to Bucky to continue the conversation later.

#assembletheimagines #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky blurb #bucky barnes blurb #bucky barnes drabble #bucky drabble #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fluff

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letsquestjess · 9 months

Text

Books and Roses - Part 2 (Hunter x GN! Reader)

Summary: You and Hunter go on your beach date where your feelings are brought out into the open.

Word count: 1.5K

Warnings: Going to put an 18+ and MDNI on this one since it gets a bit heated towards the end.

Part 1

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“Tell me that isn’t the best caf you have ever had,” you said, strolling by Hunter’s side as you left the beachside cafe. As you both walked, occasional squeaks from above caught your attention, and you watched the tiny specks swoop and vault in the open blue.

“I’ve had fresh caf before, but that… how did they get it to taste so good?” Hunter replied.

“I know! Must be a secret of theirs.” Taking the lead, you navigated the twisting fences until you reached the stone steps and the beach at the bottom. The sand squished and moulded around your shoes until you found your stride.

“A secret that needs uncovering,” Hunter said with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “It would be quite the adventure.”

You let out a theatrical gasp and met his playfulness head on. “A new page for the folklore of Pabu,” you considered. “The Legend of the Fresh Caf. Will these two daring heroes find the secret of making the freshest cup of caf in the galaxy, or will they be consumed by their search, lost on a desolate planet?”

A smoky laugh shot from Hunter, enrapturing your senses. Your own beam slipped into an adoring smile, and all you knew was that you wanted to make him chuckle like that again. To hear that enchanting sound until you could play it on repeat in your head.

“As long as I was stuck with you, I wouldn’t mind,” he admitted.

“Is that so?” you replied.

Hunter nodded, and a surge of warmth rose from your cheeks to the tips of your ears. You turned away, grateful for the cooling touch of the coastal breeze.

The tide washed in to soak the edges of the beach before hurrying out again in churning rolls of foam, whispering and crashing against the late morning. The birds overhead observed the shifting sea intently. Their keen eyes trailed the ripples before they dropped below the surface at breakneck speed and emerged seconds later, fish in their beaks and saltwater droplets shivering from their dusky feathers.

“It’s so empty down here,” Hunter commented. “I thought it would have been busier.”

“It usually is in the afternoon, but there are certain times of the day when it’s quieter,” you said. “Evenings can be quite pleasant on this part of the island. I used to live close by, so when it was calm, I’d come here to read.”

He took in a lungful of air and the salty scent of seaweed filled his nostrils, mingling with the dry, woody aroma blowing from the hillside forest nearby. “I can’t believe I never asked you this before, but what’s your favourite folktale?”

“Oh, that’s a difficult one.” You clicked your tongue, ruminating on a story that had enthralled you until you were powerless to do anything but bask in it. You knew exactly which tale you wanted to recount, but a tinge of embarrassment crept into your resolve. “Okay, I will be totally honest with you about this, but you have to promise not to laugh because it’s really mushy.”

The clone placed his hand over his heart in solemn assurance and prompted you to continue.

Once you were convinced he’d keep his vow, you began your story. “When Pabu came into being, there was no light. Initially, the inhabitants thought little of it, confident in their ability to navigate the dark, but they soon discovered that it housed deadly creatures. These monsters waited for years, learning about the dwellers and building their strength before they unleashed their attack. They tore residents from their homes and left their bodies in the streets, taking some into the shadows where they were never heard of again.

“On the third day, the creatures chased two lovers up a mountainside. When the pair reached the top, they realised they were stuck. They could either wait to get eaten or jump. But instead of looking down into the gaping jaws of fate, they looked up into the nothingness above them and gave themselves up to the sky to become the sun and the moon. Their light killed the creatures and Pabu was saved.”

Hunter released the breath he’d been holding. The stars themselves could have fallen and cracked around you both, but he would have remained unaware. His eyes fixed on you, on your lips as you spoke, on the wistful glimmer on your features as you told your tale and he was lost. He didn’t even want to fight it anymore. Why push away the serenity that filled him, that kindly presented him with little pockets of respite from his troubled past? His brothers were free to tease him endlessly if they wished so long as he got to spend every day with you.

You stopped by the cliff base for some shade and handed him a bottle of water from your backpack, sipping on your own drink and completely oblivious to the crescendo of adoration growing within the man beside you. “That’s why there are so many lanterns on the island and why everybody turns on their lights as the sun is setting. It’s the island’s way of thanking the sun for protecting us during the day and to encourage the moon to shine and keep us safe during the night.”

A rush of the tide resonated and when Hunter offered nothing in response, you turned to face him. If all the love in the universe suddenly vanished, you found it in his eyes, looking right at you.

“That’s… that’s a very sweet story,” he managed to get out, his voice catching. He drank multiple mouthfuls of water, hoping it would soothe the dry rasp that grated in his throat.

You sat down on the cool, gritty sand and patted the space next to you, inviting him to join you.

He found a comfortable spot and settled himself down, focusing on the rhythm of the waves. “Omega would love this place, especially with all the coves for her to explore,” he said, pointing out a cave entrance he’d noticed along the rugged coastline. “And my brothers would probably enjoy the quiet. They’ve been asking to meet you.”

“They want to meet me?” you asked, intrigued. “Why?”

“Because they got curious about me spending so much time at the library, and Omega told them about you. Wrecker convinced the others to sneak up a few days ago.”

“And they saw us sat outside?”

“Yeah.”

An amused chuckle escaped your lips, and you quickly smothered it with the back of your hand.

“I will make sure they apologise to you,” he promised. “They shouldn’t have been spying and-”

“Hunter.”

“No, they should apologise. I-”

“Hunter,” you said, lighter, shuffling closer in a moment of confidence and silencing his concerns. “They don’t need to. No harm done. They were probably just worried about you.”

His face still held the irritated notion that his brothers had spied on you both in those tentative, vulnerable moments, but as you delicately traced his skull tattoo, every annoyed crease vanished.

“We’ve been dancing around this, haven’t we?” he said, encouraging you closer.

“Perhaps a bit,” you shrugged. “But that’s part of the fun, right?”

A brief hum tickled his throat as he nuzzled your nose and cradled your head. The scent of caf lingered on him, and lifting your chin, he whispered his lips over yours before he redoubled his efforts and deepened the kiss.

He drew back to admire every inch of you and the sprinkle of stubble on his cheeks gently grazed your face before he dived in again, hungry and impatient. He slowed for a second to tease you, to have you whimpering for more before he wrapped his arm around your waist to bring you flush against him.

Your body begged to venture that bit further, but your lungs screamed for air. You reluctantly separated from him and pressed your forehead to his. “Hunter…”

“I love hearing you say my name,” he whispered as he began planting delicate pecks down the side of your neck.

A delicious laugh broke through your parted lips and he delighted in the sound, peppering open-mouthed kisses along your skin to elicit the same response. He got to your shoulder, and you guided his head back up, admiring the flecks of muted grey in the brown of his eyes. Tucking the loose strands of hair behind his ear, you kissed the tip of his nose. “We still have a lot of the beach to cover and our picnic,” you said. “If you like, we can find somewhere the watch the sunset later, and afterwards…” A brief smirk lit up your features and Hunter arched an eyebrow.

“Afterwards?” he prompted.

“You could come back to my apartment. I may not make the freshest caf on Pabu, but it’s still pretty good.”

Hunter rose to his feet and helped you to yours, brushing the sand off you both. “How could I resist an offer like that?” he grinned, fingers lacing with yours as you stepped out of the shade and into the bright sunlight to continue your leisurely stroll.

As you pointed out landmarks and shared more stories, his mind overflowed with new date ideas. He realised, with serenity flooding his heart and a soothing sense of peace guiding him, that this was the beginning of the life he’d always wanted.

TAGLIST (Message if you’d like to be added, 18+ only)

@skellymom @freesia-writes @the-hexfiles @theeyesofasoldier

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