Alright!! Here's the end of the first act of the Medieval AU, in which I hit poor reader with a stick multiple times and Knight!Ghost makes it better.
TW: this handles some stuff around sexual assault/sexual trauma, virginity politics, and period typical misogyny
You’ve always thought of sex as something that will be forced on you. Dreading your marriage night has become the norm for you. Even before Ghost came into your life. Though after his entrance it came to mean so much more than just an unpleasant night. It’s losing Ghost, losing the spare hope that somehow you could be his. Because you think if it was with him it might be nice. The way he touches you, the way he takes care of you, he’s kind, terribly so. He’s good to you, he’d be good to you.
Ghost presses his lips against yours, gentle pressure you instantly crave more of. He turns your head to kiss your cheek, your jaw, to press his nose against your pulse and breathe you in. His fingers in your hair direct you as he likes, and you’re more than willing to let him. Your eyes are heavy, everything wonderfully soft and ever so slightly out of focus. You run your hands over his bare shoulders, feel the firm muscle, trail them up to feel his jaw as he kisses your neck.
“You’re beautiful,” He whispers to you, his voice low in your ear. Your stomach clenches, your skin prickling with heat. Ghost’s hands are so gentle with you, exploratory as they run down your sides and up your stomach. His lips follow them over your chest, making you squirm and press into his touch.
“My lady,” He presses his words into your skin. His, you think, just his for as long as he’ll have you. No one matters like him, no one holds you like him, keeps you like him. You want him to keep you. You want to be his, greedily, you want him to be yours too. It’s not a quality you’re supposed to have. You aren’t supposed to want like this.
You aren’t supposed to dig your fingers into his shoulders, not supposed to let your legs fall open when he nudges his knee between them. “Just like that Princess,” He tells you, his voice raspy in a way that makes heat bloom over your cheeks, “spread your legs so everyone can see what a selfish little whore you are.”
Your head is jerked to look at the crowd of shadows gathered around you, their eyes so wide and watchful you don’t know how you didn’t feel them raking over your exposed skin before. You feel panic well in your chest, grabbing the sheets quickly to try and cover yourself. You scramble away from Ghost and he lets you, hardly bothered by your rapid breaths or the tears quickly gathering in your eyes.
“They already think you’re ruined,” He doesn’t sound like Ghost, voice cruel and taunting, “All because you value a knight over the only thing you’re good for.” His eyes aren’t Ghost’s, the shifting and changing shape and color, his face flickering through your previous suitors. “He won’t want you anyway once you’re sold, he doesn’t even want you now,” His hand grabs your cheeks between rough fingers and you push at his face- their many faces- you don’t like this, you don’t like this, you don’t- “Are you really so stupid as to think he’d protect you from your husband. This is your duty princess, and his is not to interfere.” Their hands push between your legs.
Your sobs shake you awake, heaving, trembling things. You scorn propriety and wail. Let the whole castle hear you, you don’t care. You’re a horrible princess, a terrible, selfish, greedy thing that hardly deserves the title. You know all of this, and yet you still sob because you want Ghost. You want your knight, you want the man that’s slowly leading you to ruin. The man that’s planted an altar of thorns around your heart and laid his kindness upon it like a lamb to slaughter. You want him to hold you and tell you it was all lies. That he wants you like you want him.
You sob, feel the fat tears roll down your cheeks and fall on your blankets. You sob, feel it scratch your throat raw, your chest barely expanding enough to compensate for the despair that rattles out of you. One of your nightly guards comes into the room to check on you and you scream at him. Force the sound out of you like a banshee until it rips your vocal cords. You hope it shreds them.
What a picture you’d make then.
What a picture you must make now.
The guard leaves in a hurry, apparently having deemed you safe from external threats, but mad enough not to stick around. It feels good to scream. You do it again, and again, curling in on yourself as you clutch your pain to your chest. The world can fall away like this, leave you to your self infliction. Who cares. It’s all bullshit anyway.
"How long has she been like this?" The voice is furious, unfamiliar. You’ve never heard anyone that mad in your life. You can barely hear the reply over your hiccuping sobs. You don’t want people in your room, you don’t want them to see you like this. Not when you feel like a child throwing a tantrum. Some part of you is still clinging to decorum even now. How well trained you are.
“Get out!” You shout, reach behind you to grab a pillow to throw blindly at the intruder.
Big warm hands grab you and pull you from your misery, wild brown eyes dart over you searching for injury. Ghost pushes your hair from your face, and you scream at him the same as you screamed at your night guard.
He’s not wearing his mask, in the back of your mind you wonder if he came here like that. He pulls you against his chest, presses your face to his shoulder to stifle your screaming. His frame curls over you, shielding you from the world you were trying to drown out. You can feel the rapid expanding and contracting of his chest, his breath quick, as he drops his head to your shoulder. You wonder if he ran here.
“I’m sorry I was late,” He tells you, and you fall apart again.
The way you shake and curl up in his arms, guarding yourself against whatever hurts you, breaks his heart. His poor love. Ghost wraps his arm more tightly around your shoulders, holds the back of your head as he turns to kiss your temple. “You’re alright,” He whispers, “I have you, you’re safe.” Your sobs feel like a full body effort. Each one wracks your chest and forces the air from your lungs. He can feel your tears soaking through his shirt. God, you- you’re safe. You’re safe.
He repeats it to himself, presses his lips to your cheek, your shoulder, keeps you held as tightly as he dares. He’d seen the maids running from your room for the court physician, and assumed the worst. Assumed you’d been screaming due to some grave injury, that he’d find you bloody, and- But these were just tears, anyone should have been able to help you through your tears. How long had you been screaming alone? How long had you been left to deal with your pain while others whispered about sedation?
Ghost feels his anger bubbling again, feels the hot licks of fury against his ribs as your sobs settle into gentle hiccups. You don’t need his anger right now, but it will come. Later. Now he does his best to keep his voice from shaking, to keep it gentle for you.
“Tell me what happened.” So that he can take his revenge on whatever hurt you.
Your breath shudders. “You let them touch me,” you sob, your hands desperate where they hold onto his shirt. Ghost’s heart stops, he feels his grip on you tighten more than wills it.
“Never,” He growls, forcing himself to look at the remaining staff in your room, “No one is coming near you.” It’s a threat, he means it as a threat. He’s never felt more dangerous than he does in this moment. Never felt more sure of his own deadly precision. At least your court lady is smart enough to usher the rest of the nervous onlookers out of the room. “Who touched you?” He watches the door shut tight, tries to keep the anger out of his voice. Who the fuck would be stupid enough to touch what was his?
“I-” You hesitate as Ghost slides his thumb against your tear stained cheek, “I want to be selfish.” Your poor hoarse voice, he’s almost willing to let you change the subject when you sound like that. Screamed yourself raw, and they all let you.
“Who touched you princess?” He asks again.
“No one,” Your voice raises and breaks without your willing it to.
“No one,” Ghost repeats, feeling his shoulders drop with relief.
“What would you do if they did?” You ask him, and he knows exactly what he’d do, “Nothing.” Ghost stills. “You’ll throw me to my wedding night the same as the rest. Give me up as is your duty and ask me to forget every time you’ve touched me. How can you ask me to forget that, when every time I touch you I ache for the next time you’ll let me close? How can you hold me like this before you throw me to the wolves?”
Blood rushes in Ghost’s ears, his breaths short as he listens to you swallow your heart. No. He’s not so noble as to give you up like that. He imagines it, how chivalrous he’ll be letting you go. But he knows. He’s not a noble man, not kind, not half as honorable as he pretends to be. He can’t leave you in anyone else’s hands. No one else can have you, no one deserves you. Not when they’ll let you scream yourself hoarse. Not when their first thought is to sedate you in your grief. No. He knows.
He’d kill your husband before he ever reached your wedding bed.
He tips your head back and kisses you. You all but melt against him, your soft lips wet with your tears, sweet and salty. And warm. You’re so warm. How could he ever delude himself into thinking he could give you up? You’re right. You slide your lips against his with a sigh, and all he can do is ache for the next gentle kiss you give him.
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