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1968 [Chapter 7: Apollo, God Of Music]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 8.7k

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“My uncle, he is a doctor in Zabrze,” Ludwika says, red Yardley lips, Camel cigarette. No one cares if she smokes; she’s not campaigning to be the next first lady. Fosco is puffing on a cigar. Mimi sips drowsily at her Gimlet; you could use a few shots, but you’re making do with a Pink Squirrel, something sweet and feminine and without any bite. “So I go to him and he gives me a bottle of chlordiazepoxide.”

“Oh, Librium,” Mimi says, perking up.

Ludwika waves her hand dismissively; cigarette smoke wafts through the air. “Whatever. The next day I have my audition. A tiny man who thinks he’s God. And I give it a real shot, I try my best, I’m nice, I’m charming, but he doesn’t like me. He says my teeth are too big, like a mouse’s. This is very rude. I did not comment on his fidgety little rat hands. But okay, no problem, I have a plan. No one will stop me from getting out of Poland.”

“You drugged him?” you ask, incredulous, grinning.

“You are a criminal,” Fosco tells Ludwika. “I will call J. Edgar Hoover, you should not be so close to positions of power.”

“Listen, listen,” Ludwika insists. “Here is what I do. I thank him very much for his consideration, and then as I leave I drop my purse and things go everywhere. I filled it before I left my apartment, of course. Anything I could find, empty lipstick tubes and perfume bottles, old makeup compacts with broken mirrors, coins, hair pins, tissues, pens, gum, Krówki candies, it is an avalanche. And when he bends down to help me pick up the mess—I have to encourage him, ‘oh sir won’t you grab that, I am just a stupid girl in a very short dress,’ you understand—I put the pills in his tea.”

“How many pills?” you ask.

“I don’t know. You think I had time to count? Maybe seven.”

“Seven?!” Mimi exclaims, and you take this to mean it was a generous dose.

“What? He did not die,” Ludwika says. “I wait two days and then I go back to his office. And it is so strange, can you believe it, he does not remember my audition! So I remind him that he thought I would be perfect for the ad he is shooting in Paris. He keeps squinting at me and saying ‘are you sure, are you sure?!’ Of course I’m sure! A week later, I am standing under the Eiffel Tower with a bottle of Coca-Cola. And then I book a job in London, and then another in New York City, and one of my new model friends sets me up on a blind date with Otto. Lunch in Astoria at a horrible Greek restaurant. Who wants to eat pie made out of spinach?! Now I am here with you people, and the journalists love when I smile for them with my big mouse teeth.”

All four of you laugh at your table, an elite club, the ones who married in. It’s Alicent’s 60th birthday, and the ballroom of the Texas State Hotel in downtown Houston is raucous with clinking glasses and chatter and music and the shutter clicks of photographers. The DJ is playing Fun, Fun, Fun by the Beach Boys. Alicent is dancing with Helaena and the children, and it’s the happiest you can ever remember seeing her. Otto, Aemond, and Sargent Shriver are deep in conversation by the bar, furrowed brows and Old Fashioneds, today’s newspapers and tomorrow’s itinerary. Criston is standing with the men but watching Alicent, face wistful, silver streaks in his jet black hair, and it occurs to you that they must have grown up together: Alicent a 19-year-old bride and Criston her husband’s fledgling bodyguard, the person closest to her age in the household, near and trusted and forbidden, orbiting adolescent twins like Artemis and Apollo. You keep looking around for Aegon. No one else seems aware that he’s gone.

“Otto thought he died and went to heaven when he found you,” you tell Ludwika. “His Eastern Bloc defector princess.”

“He is going to bring my mother to the States. I would be anything he wanted me to be. I would be a model, or a housewife, or a nurse. I would be Bigfoot! But this…” Ludwika gestures broadly: to the ballroom, the city, the latest stop on the campaign trail. “It is not so bad. I never expected to serve the Polish people so far from home. You know how you stop communism? You show the world that capitalism can do more for them. There must be a path to a better life, wars must be ended, injustices must be dealt with. Aemond will do that.” She grins at you, exhaling smoke through her nostrils. “You will help him.”

You reply a bit wryly: “It’s an honor.”

“We are like four legs of a table,” Fosco observes. He points at Ludwika with his smoldering cigar. “You are a Slav fleeing the Russians. My family has ancient titles in Italy and yet no castles, no land, we are essentially homeless. Mimi’s father is a third-generation oil tycoon from Pennsylvania. And she was supposed to fix Aegon.”

“I don’t think I succeeded,” Mimi confesses.

“And then when it was time for Aemond to get married…” Fosco turns to Mimi. “Do you remember? What an ordeal. The discussions went on and on and on. She must be smart, she must be sinless, she should be from a self-made family, a real rags-to-riches story of the American Dream.”

“Right.” Mimi nods groggily, reminiscing. “And from the South.”

“Yes! But not the Deep South. No, no. Someplace Aemond could actually win. Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina. Or Florida, of course.” Now Fosco notices how you’re looking at him, because you’ve never heard this before. He quickly pivots. “But the weekend Aemond met you, it was settled. Nobody could compare.”

His tone is odd; it suggests backstories, history, mythology. Ludwika appears to be just as intrigued as you are, taking a drag off her Camel, her eyes narrowing until they are thin and catlike. You ask: “Who else was being considered?”

“No one,” Fosco answers—too quickly—and he and Mimi exchange an uneasy glance.

What did Aemond and I talk about the night we met? you think dizzily. In those first hours, minutes, thirty seconds? Where I’m from. What I was studying.

Fosco, a true Italian, then attempts to deflect by flirting. He makes emphatic, passionate motions with his hands. “You were just so captivating, so clever…”

“And young enough that Aemond could easily beat Aegon’s record of five children,” Mimi adds. Fosco clears his throat and glares at her. Mimi realizes what she’s said and gazes forlornly down into her Gimlet, mortified, groaning softly. You’ve had one c-section already, and no living son to show for it. At most, you might be able to give Aemond two or three more children; and you don’t even want them. You want Ari back. You want to touch him, to hold him, even if only for a moment, even if only once.

“It’s fine,” you try to reassure Mimi, but everyone can tell it’s not.

Ludwika breaks the tension. “You do not want twenty kids anyway. Your uterus will fall out onto the floor.” And you’re so caught off-guard that all you can do is smile at her from across the table, knowing, appreciative. It’s a strange thing to be grateful for.

“She’s right,” Mimi says mournfully. “They had to sew mine back in.”

Fosco pleads: “Stop, stop, I will need a lobotomy.”

Mimi slurps on her Gimlet. “It’s sad. I used to love sex.”

“Mimi, please,” Fosco says, wincing, holding up his palms. “You are like my sister. I prefer to think you are the Virgin Mary.”

Ludwika sighs dramatically and looks to where Otto stands on the other side of the ballroom. “I used to love sex too.”

Now you’re all howling again, rocking back in your chairs. The DJ is playing Go Where You Wanna Go by the Mamas and the Papas. Cass Elliot is the real talent in that group and everybody knows it, but of course any mention of her must be dutifully accompanied by: If only she was more beautiful. If only she could lose weight and find a husband.

“I think you like it, yes?” Ludwika says to you like a dare, puffing on a fresh Camel, red lipstick staining the white paper, blood on sheets. She combs her manicured fingernails though her voluminous blonde hair. “I could tell when I met you. You dress like Jackie Kennedy, but you are not such a statue. She belongs in a museum. I can imagine you at the Summer of Love.”

Fosco and Mimi shift uncomfortably. It’s not the sort of thing they would ever ask you. It’s too personal, too easily a segue into criticizing Aemond. It’s a usurpation of the natural order. Mimi guzzles her Gimlet and flags down a waiter to get another. Fosco takes off his glasses and cleans them with his skinny black necktie.

Sex. You think back to before you began to dread it. This is difficult, like trying to remember Greek words or British manners, which fork to use with each course. Memories from another lifetime come back in flashes: tangled up with your first boyfriend in his tiny dorm room bed, Aemond peeling off your still-dripping swimsuit on the floor of your hotel room during your honeymoon in Hawaii. You shrug and give Ludwika a nod, a brisk, ungenerous answer in the affirmative. “I always feel like I could keep going.”

Paradoxically, this does not end the conversation. Ludwika, Fosco, and Mimi study you with the same bewildered, gear-spinning curiosity. After a moment Ludwika says: “Not after you’ve finished, surely. I am half dead by the end if it’s good.”

“Finished?” you ask, puzzled. All three of them gawk at you, then at each other.

Aegon breezes into the ballroom wearing the Gibson guitar he bought in Manhattan, blue like the Caribbean or the Mediterranean or the crystalline waves off the coast of Hawaii, dotted with fish and sea turtles. Your eyes go to him immediately and stay there; you can feel the swirling warmth of blood in your cheeks. As Aegon passes the table, he squeezes your shoulder—brief, familiar, welcome—and Fosco raises his thick eyebrows. Mimi is too busy gulping down her Gimlet to notice. Ludwika chuckles, low and wicked, then slides a makeup compact out of her Prada purse to check her lipstick. Aegon goes to the DJ and yells something over the music. He’s fucked up already, you can tell, pills or booze or both.

Fosco stops a passing waiter. “Signore, did you hear who won the United Nations Handicap?”

The waiter stares blankly back at him. “What?”

“The turf race at Monmouth Park. I have $200 on Dr. Fager.”

The DJ abruptly cuts off the music. Aegon gives his guitar a few practice strums to make sure it’s in tune. He stumbles when he walks, he lurches and sways. His blonde hair sticks to the sweat on his forehead. He is woefully underdressed. His white shirt is half-unbuttoned, his denim shorts tattered; on his feet he wears black moccasins. There is a small gold hoop in each of his ears. Otto keeps telling Aegon to take them out, and every time Aegon ignores him.

“Happy birthday, Mom,” you hear him say to Alicent, and she presses a palm to her heart, her dark eyes wide and shining. “When I first heard this, it made me think of you.”

Otto and Sargent Shriver—the aspiring vice president—are glowering at Aegon. Aemond smirks as he nips at an Old Fashioned, amused; but he makes sharp, intentional eye contact with each of the three journalists. You will tell the right version of this story, he means. You will not print anything we wouldn’t want written, or my family will be your enemies for life.

As soon as Aegon plucks the first few chords, you recognize the song. “Oh, that’s really funny.”

“What?” Fosco asks.

“It’s Mama Tried.” You stand and begin clapping, then motion for the rest of the table to do the same. They obey without protest, though Mimi can’t seem to keep track of the beat. Aegon is beaming as he sings.

“The first thing I remember knowin’

Was a lonesome whistle blowin’

And a youngin’s dream of growin’ up to ride

On a freight train leavin’ town

Not knowin’ where I'm bound

And no one could change my mind but Mama tried.”

Cosmo sprints over from where he had been dancing with Alicent. He grabs your hand and tugs you towards the center of the floor. “Let’s go, let’s go!” he shouts impatiently.

“Call the FBI, I’m being kidnapped,” you say to Fosco and Ludwika as you let Cosmo drag you away.

“One and only rebel child

From a family meek and mild

My Mama seemed to know what lay in store

Despite all my Sunday learnin’

Towards the bad I kept on turnin’

‘Til Mama couldn’t hold me anymore.”

At the heart of the ballroom, Criston has swooped in to dance with Alicent, slow chaste circling. Helaena has floated off to the bar to chat with Otto, who keeps all his smiles for her. The children—Targaryens and Shrivers alike—are stomping and cheering and alternating between various moves: the Mashed Potato, the Twist, the Swim, the Loco-Motion, the Watusi, the Pony in pairs. Aemond whistles to a photographer and then nods to where you are holding onto one of Cosmo’s tiny hands as he spins around at lawless, breakneck speed. Of course this would make for a good image: you being maternal, you promising the American people that they will one day have not only a first lady but a first family.

“And I turned 21 in prison doin’ life without parole

No one could steer me right but Mama tried, Mama tried

Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading I denied

That leaves only me to blame ‘cause Mama tried.”

Cameras flash and the crowd keeps clapping. Cosmo giggles wildly each time he almost falls and you pull him back to his feet. There is a hand skimming around your waist, a listless powder blue dress your husband chose for you. Aemond replaces Cosmo as your dance partner. Aegon’s 10-year-old daughter Violeta spirits Cosmo away; Aemond reels you in close, one palm pressed into the small of your back, his left hand gripping your right. When you steal a glimpse of Aegon—still strumming, still singing—he doesn’t look so triumphant anymore. His grin is frozen and artificial. His drunk muddy eyes go steely.

“I need you to do something for me,” Aemond begins.

Of course, you once would have said. Anything. “What is it?”

“I want you to cut your hair like Jackie.”

You’re so stunned your feet stop moving. Aemond coaxes you back into the steps. “No.”

“Think about how much more versatile it would be. Jackie is an icon, she’s sophisticated, she’s mature.”

“If you wanted a wife in her thirties, you could have easily found one.”

“Honey—”

“I do everything you ask,” you say, barely more than a whisper. “Everything. I wear what you want me to. I go where you want me to. I spend ten hours a week getting my hair fixed. I keep it up, I keep it presentable. But I’m not chopping it off.”

“You’re never going to be able to wear it down anyway,” Aemond counters, so calm, so rational, like your skull is nothing but incendiary feminine mania. “If I win, you’ll be surrounded by staff and journalists for years. You can’t be photographed with it down, you look about eighteen. And like you live on a park bench in Haight-Ashbury.”

“It’s my hair. I’m keeping it.”

Aemond leans in and says, cold and severe: “You’re my wife, and everything that’s yours belongs to me.” Then he kisses your cheek as cameras click and strobe. “Think about it. Now smile.”

You force yourself to. The crowd applauds as Aegon finishes singing and flees the dancefloor. The DJ puts on Light My Fire by The Doors. You and Aemond leave in opposite directions: he goes to talk to Eunice Kennedy, who is hugging her 3-year-old son Anthony to her chest; you return to your table to drain the last of your Pink Squirrel. You need something stronger. You need to be alone so you can collect yourself.

Now Aegon has shed his guitar and is standing with his back to the wall, smoking a Lucky Strike and talking to some campaign staffer—she looks like a girl, but she’s probably your age—who is gazing up at him worshipfully. She says something that makes him laugh, his head thrown back, his eyes sparkling, and you feel like you’re waking up from your c-section all over again, your belly split open and rearranged, aching, stabbing, nauseous.

“Are you okay?” Ludwika asks, scrutinizing you.

“I’m perfect. I’ll be right back.”

You hurry out of the ballroom, the music fading behind you. You slip into one of the elevators in the lobby and hit the button for the top floor, where Aemond’s entourage has booked every suite. As the door is closing—as only a foot of space remains—Aegon shoves his way into the elevator, startling you. The door shuts behind him and you begin the ascent. Aegon slams the red emergency stop button, and the elevator jolts to a halt.

“What the hell are you doing—?!”

“What pissed you off, huh?” Aegon taunts, stepping closer. You back away from him until you run out of room; not because you want the distance, but because you’re afraid of what you’ll do if it’s gone.

“Nothing. I’m so great, I’ve never been better, can’t you tell?”

He’s so close you can feel the heat rising off his flushed skin, you can see the miles-deep murky blue of his irises, open water, shipwrecks and drowning. “You want all this to be over? You want the women with their big, adoring eyes and their short skirts to disappear? Grow up. Stop acting like a kid. Ask for it.”

“Ask for what?”

“You know.”

If you touch him now, you won’t be able to stop. There’s nowhere for us to go. There’s no way out of this family, this year, this world. “I don’t. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Aegon barks out a sardonic, cutting laugh. “Yeah, you’re definitely 23.”

“I thought you loved girls young enough to be your daughters. Isn’t that what gets you hard?”

“You’re a fucking coward.”

“You’re sweating on me, you pig.”

“You want it so bad,” Aegon whispers as he presses himself against you, his ribs and thighs and hips, and you clutch for the walls of the elevator so you don’t reach for him instead. His left hand is tearing your hair out of its clips and pins so it falls free like you used to wear it; the right is all over your face, your jaw, your chin, your cheeks, touching you ceaselessly, ravenously, a blind man reading chronicles of braille. You’re trying to turn away from him, but he keeps pulling you back in. You’re breathing his rum and nicotine, you’re gasping in low, starved moans. It might be more intimate than kissing, than sex. He’s already felt your body. What he asks for now is your soul. His words are warm and aching as he murmurs through loosed strands of your hair: “Tell me you want it, please, just tell me, just tell me, tell me and it’s yours.”

Your palms land on his bare, damp chest, and Aegon starts unfastening the last buttons of his shirt. Instead, you push him away. Aegon lets you. He surrenders. “I can’t,” you choke out. You hit the red button, and the elevator resumes its rise to the top floor of the hotel.

“I’m really fucked up right now,” he says with sudden realization, swaying, staring down at his feet like he fears he’ll lose track of them.

“I’m aware.”

“I’m sorry. I think…I think I wanted that to happen differently.”

“I can’t trust you when you’re like this,” you say. I feel like I can’t trust anyone. Aegon looks up at you, his glassy eyes large and wounded. When the elevator door opens, you step out and he stays in, riding it back to the lobby.

In the suite you share with Aemond, you turn on the radio and spin the dial until you find a Loretta Lynn song. You go to the minibar cabinet and down two tiny glass bottles of vodka, something that won’t make you smell like too much of a drunk. You’ll have to fix your hair before you go back to the ballroom; you’ll have to change your dress. You’re painted with Aegon’s sweat and smoke. You can’t risk your husband noticing. You slide open the top drawer of the nightstand on your side of the bed and take out the card you keep there, the one that travels with you to each stop on the campaign trail. Loretta Lynn croons from the radio, wronged and wrathful.

“If you don’t wanna go to Fist City

You’d better detour around my town

‘Cause I’ll grab you by the hair of your head

And I’ll lift you off of the ground

I'm not a-sayin’ my baby is a saint, ‘cause he ain’t

And that he won’t cat around with a kitty

I’m here to tell you, gal, to lay off of my man

If you don’t wanna go to Fist City.”

You lie on the floor and peer up at the card in your hands: jubilant cartoon cow, festive party hat. You know exactly what’s written on the inside; it’s etched into your memory like myths passed down through millennia. Nevertheless, you read it again. The original message is still crossed out, and there’s an addendum below it in hasty black ink: I thought this was blank…congrats on the new calf!

You graze your thumbprint across Aegon’s scrawled signature. It’s smudged now. You do this a lot. One day his name might disappear altogether from the stark white parchment, from memory.

You close the card and hug it to your chest like a mother holds a living child.

~~~~~~~~~~

“What’s going on between you and Aegon?”

Alarmed, you meet Aemond’s gaze, two reflections in the vanity mirror. It’s the next morning, and you’re finishing up your makeup. Your dress and jacket are striped with black and white, your jewelry is silver, chains on your wrists and small tasteful hoops in your ears. “Nothing.” There is a lull you have to fill before it becomes suspicious. “He’s been helpful, he’s been…you know. Ever since Mount Sinai.”

Aemond adjusts his cerulean blue tie, studying himself in the mirror. He’s still wearing his leather eyepatch. Putting in his glass eye is the last thing he does before leaving the suite each day. “He was a comfort to you.”

“Well, he was there.”

“Because I told him to be,” Aemond says, resting his hands on the back of your chair. “Someone had to stay at Asteria to keep tabs on things, to let me know what you were up to. Aegon was the most expendable. Mimi and the kids make for good photos, but Aegon…he’s not especially endearing to the public. Those few years as the mayor of Trenton just about ruined him. I’d love to make him the attorney general if I win, but I don’t think the people would stomach it. Maybe if he behaves himself he can have the job for my second term.”

Eight years, you think, unable to fathom it. Eight years in a fishbowl. Eight years lying under Aemond as he tries to get me pregnant with children neither of us can love.

Aemond leans down to touch his lips to the side of your throat. “I’m glad you’re finally friends,” he says. “Aegon’s not all bad. But don’t let him get you in trouble.”

“I wouldn’t.” What did you and Aemond talk about before Ari died? What was this marriage built on? The senate, the presidency, civil rights, poverty, the Space Race, Vietnam, Greek mythology. Everything but each other. Dreams and ideals that would dwarf any mortal, would render them invisible.

“And watch out for any reporters from the Wall Street Journal. They’d kill for Nixon. If they can twist your words, they will.” He gets something from inside his own nightstand: the bloodstained komboskini from when he was shot in Palm Beach. He places it in your right hand, all 100 knots. “Give this to someone today. You know how to do it, you’ve always understood this part. Pick the right person, the right moment. Make sure there are plenty of cameras around.”

“Where am I going? Lunch with the mayor’s wife, that’s this afternoon, isn’t it?”

Aemond nods. “And a few other stops. Then we’re going to the Alamo in San Antonio tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

He recoils, reaches for the left half of his face, kneads the scar tissue there as nerve pain radiates through his flesh all the way down to the bone. Once you felt such agonizing pity for him; now all you can think about is the matching scar you wear on your belly, hidden and shameful and a badge of your inadequacies: your body too weak to protect Ari, your mind too pliable to resist being ensnared by the crushing gravity of this man, this family, this life.

“How can I help?” you ask Aemond, because it’s the right thing to do. And randomly, you find yourself remembering the statue of Apollo in Helaena’s garden back at Asteria, the god of music, healing, truth, prophesy.

“You can’t.” Aemond goes to the bathroom to force his glass eye into its socket. You depart for the hotel lobby where Ludwika and Mimi, your companions for the day, are already waiting. Ludwika is wearing a rose pink Chanel skirt suit. Mimi—relatively functional, as she hasn’t been awake long enough to ruin herself yet—is dressed in delicate dove grey.

Alicent, Helaena, and the children are scheduled to tour a local high school and library; Criston, unsurprisingly, is going with them. Aemond, accompanied by Otto, has a series of meetings with local business leaders and politicians. Aegon and Fosco are headed to the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center to promise maimed soldiers that Aemond will end the war that carved out bits of them and filled the voids with screaming nightmares. The limousine you share with Ludwika and Mimi ferries you first to the NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center. Mimi is entranced by the reflective surface of the helmets, coated with gold to divert blinding sunbeams; in turn, the astronauts are entranced by Ludwika, who leaves lipstick smudges on their cheeks when she kisses them. Next is a tea party hosted by Iola Faye Cure Welch, the mayoress of Houston since 1964 and the mother of five children. And as you nibble daintily at triangle-shaped sandwiches and trudge through small talk about flowers and furniture, you can’t stop smiling. You can’t stop thinking about how ridiculous Aegon would think this is if he was here.

The driver mentions one last stop, then coasts through midafternoon traffic towards the city center. You spend the ride touching up your hair and makeup. Ludwika offers to let you borrow her seduction-red lipstick; you politely decline. You step out of the limo and shield your eyes from the glare of the Texas sun. It takes your vision a moment to adjust, and then you realize where you are. The sign above the main entranceway reads: Houston Methodist Hospital. The air snags in your throat, your lungs are empty. Your hands tremble violently. The earth rocks beneath your white high heels. Mount Sinai is the last hospital you walked into, and you left with your son in a casket so small it could have been mistaken for a shoebox.

“Alright, let’s go,” Ludwika says, linking an arm through yours. Mimi, badly in need of a drink, is looking deflated and edgy. “We are almost done. And I have been promised a medium-rare steak for dinner! Mushrooms and onions too! The Statue of Liberty did not lie. This country is a golden door.”

“I can’t.”

Ludwika stares at you. “What?”

“I can’t, I can’t go in there.”

“What is she talking about?” Ludwika asks Mimi, who shakes her head, mystified.

“I can’t,” you whimper.

They’ve never seen you like this. They don’t know what to do. They listen to you, that is the hierarchy; but it’s too late to change course now. Journalists are approaching in a swarm. Nurses and doctors are gathering by the front door to welcome you.

He knew, you think, suddenly furious. Aemond knew, and he didn’t tell me.

“It will be okay,” Ludwika says, patting your back awkwardly. “We are here with you. Nothing bad will happen.”

“Oh,” Mimi breathes, understanding. She looks at you with sympathy that shimmers on the surface of the opaque, polluted lake of her mind. Then she catches Ludwika’s eye and skims a hand down her own slim midsection. Ari, she mouths, and Ludwika’s face falls.

The doctors and nurses are whistling and applauding; the journalists are snapping photos and scrounging for quotes. You feel your conditioning over the past two years taking over: straight posture, gentle smile, hands clasped demurely together. But you are locked away somewhere underneath.

“Do not worry,” Ludwika tells you softly. “We will talk, we will make it easier for you.” Then she and Mimi begin boisterously shaking hands and thanking people for coming as you make your way through the crowd of journalists and towards the main entrance of the hospital.

People are saying things to you, but you don’t really hear them. You reply with words you won’t remember afterwards. You nod frequently and go wherever you are led. Doctors are explaining new research into placenta previa and c-sections. Nurses are showing you a state-of-the-art NICU for premature infants. Someone is placing a baby in your arms, and you can’t do anything but accept it numbly. You can’t look down at it, you can’t allow yourself to feel the weight of some other woman’s child. You wear your smile like armor and let the photographers capture their snapshots, painting a frame around you, deciding where you live.

Then you are introduced to the parents, women in hospital beds and men perched in chairs beside them, just like the one where Aegon slept at Mount Sinai. They take your hands when you offer them and tell you about their small children, sick children, dying children. One patient just delivered twins. The first did not survive beyond a few hours, but the second is in an incubator and gaining strength. You recall the komboskini stained with Aemond’s blood and take it out of your purse, give it to the suffering mother, watch faith rise in her face like dawn over the Atlantic. But you won’t remember her. You cannot allow yourself to.

Outside as you, Ludwika, and Mimi are headed back to the limousine, the journalists make one last attempt to poach a headline-worthy quote. “Mrs. Targaryen! Mrs. Targaryen!” a young man shouts, clambering to the front of the horde and jabbing a microphone in your face. “I’m from the Houston Chronicle. Can you tell me how the senator feels about the failure of the most recent phase of the Tet Offensive?”

You are in a fog; you don’t feel real, this moment and this city don’t feel real, and so you cannot remember what Aemond would want you to say. “The Vietnam War has claimed too many lives already. We should have never sent our men there to die. But since that is done, the best thing we can do now is end the draft immediately and then withdrawal from the region as soon as the South Vietnamese are able to defend their own territory, which is their responsibility.” The journalist already considers this effort fruitful and begins to retreat, but you have one last point to make. Ludwika and Mimi watch you anxiously. “I lost someone in Vietnam. I met him when I was in college. He had a good heart, and he joined because he thought it was wrong for poor men to have to fight while rich kids got exemptions, and he was killed in action in October of 1965.”

“This was a friend?” the journalist asks, eyes glowing hungrily. Then he adds as an afterthought: “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

“A boyfriend. Corporal Cameron Marino from Schenectady, New York. People called him Cam.”

A solemn murmur ripples through the crowd. Hats are removed, hands held to chests. “Rest in peace, Cam,” someone says. Maybe they have somebody they care about in Vietnam, a friend or a lover or a brother. You wave goodbye and climb into the limousine. The outpouring swells as you vanish: We love you, Mrs. Targaryen! God bless you, Mrs. Targaryen!

In the lobby of the Texas State Hotel, you tell Ludwika and Mimi not to follow you. They have to listen. After some hesitation, Mimi heads for the bar in the ballroom; Ludwika asks the staff at the front desk if she’ll be able to make a call to Poland with the phone in her room. You take the elevator to the top floor. Fosco is in the hallway, on his way back from one of the vending machines with a Fresca. When he sees your face, his jaw drops.

“Dio mio, what happened?”

“Nothing,” you say, tears biting in your eyes. You pass him, digging your key out of your purse.

“Are you sure—?”

“Fosco, please. I don’t want to talk.”

“Okay,” he says doubtfully. Then he seems to get an idea and strides away with great purpose. You take shelter in your suite, silent and dim; Aemond isn’t back yet. You brace yourself against the locked door and sob into empty, trembling hands, at last hidden away where no one can see you, where no one can be disturbed or disappointed. You know now that none of it was healed—not the loss, not the revelations—but only buried, and now it’s all been unearthed again and the pain shrieks like exposed nerves.

It’s not fair. Ari deserved better, I deserved better.

There’s nothing you can do. Your hands ache to hold someone that no longer exists. You can’t unlearn the truth of what your marriage is.

There are two knocks, quick and rough. “Hey, it’s me.” And there’s such pure intimacy in those words. You know my voice. You know why I’m here. “Open the door.”

“I’m okay, just, just, just leave me alone—”

“Open the door,” Aegon says again. “Or I’ll get security up here to do it for you.”

Swiping the tears from your face, you let him in. He’s dressed in baggy black shorts, nothing on his feet, an unbuttoned stolen green army jacket. You once thought he wore those to play the part of a revolutionary from the comfort of his East Coast seaside mansion. Now you understand it’s because he misses Daeron, because he believes he should have gone to Vietnam instead. There are several dog tags strung around his neck; some of the veterans at the medical center he visited must have gifted them to him.

“What’s wrong?” Aegon’s eyes sweep over you, seeking, horrified. “What did he do?”

You can’t answer, you can’t breathe. You back away from him as more tears spill down your cheeks.

“Hey, hey, hey, let me help you. Please don’t be upset. Did he say something, did he hurt you?” Aegon reaches out, and as soon as he touches you your knees buckle and you’re on the floor, trying not to wail, trying not to scream, and Aegon is pulling you against his chest—bare skin, borrowed metal—and his hands are on your face and in your hair, and his lips are against your forehead as he murmurs: “Shh, shh, don’t cry. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not.”

“Whatever it is, I can help.”

“I had to go to a hospital and hold babies and I, I, I never even got to touch him, not once, not ever, and I can’t now because he’s gone. He’s locked in some fucking vault, he’s just bones, but he was supposed to be a person, and those other babies are going to get to grow up but he isn’t, and it’s not fair.”

“You’re right,” Aegon agrees softly, still holding you.

“No one else knew him.”

“I did. I was there the whole time.”

“Only because Aemond made you stay.”

“No,” Aegon swears. “I was supposed to spy on you. He never told me to do any of the rest of it. I stayed because I wanted to.”

“You did,” you say, very quietly, weakly, conceding.

“And I’m still here now.”

Your lungs aren’t burning quite so much. Your tears are slowing. You unravel yourself from Aegon, averting your eyes. Now you’re ashamed; you aren’t in the habit of revealing to people how much you’re splintering like cracked glass, fresh fractures every time you think to check the damage. “I’m, um, I’m really sorry.”

“Look, I don’t mean to bring up unpleasant memories, but this is definitely not the most embarrassing thing I’ve seen you do.”

You laugh, only for a few seconds, and Aegon smiles as he mops the tears from your face with the sleeve of his army jacket. Then he turns serious again.

“Can I ask you something? It’s very personal. It’s offensive, honestly. But I have to know.”

“You can ask.”

“Do you want more children?”

More children. Because Ari was real. “Not now. Not with Aemond.”

Aegon nods, suspicions confirmed. “Can you do that sponge thing you told me about?”

“No. I think he’d be able to feel it, he’s…” You gesture vaguely. It’s difficult to say. “He’s big.”

Aegon didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to have to think about it. He flinches, just enough that you notice. But as much as he’d like to, he doesn’t change the subject. “What about the pill?”

“No doctor is going to write me a prescription without my husband’s permission. Especially considering who my husband is.”

“I hate this fucking country,” Aegon hisses. “Puritanical goddamn hellscape. Old Testament bullshit.” He drags his fingers through his hair a few times, then pats your cheek like he did before: twice, gently, playfully. “Come on. Let’s go smoke.”

“I can’t do it on the balcony. Someone might get a picture.”

“Okay. No big deal. We’ll go to the roof.”

You stare at him. “The roof?”

“You really think I haven’t already been up there?” He stands and offers you his hand. “You’ll love it. The view is fantastic.”

The view is good, but the grass is better. You know that it makes some people useless, others paranoid, but for you it’s always painted the world a color that is softer, kinder, lighter, more bearable. You and Aegon lie next to each other, smoking and watching twilight fall over Houston like a spell. You’ll have to shower and gulp some Listerine before Aemond gets anywhere near you. It’s interesting; each day you seem to acquire new secrets to keep from him.

Aegon asks: “Where would you be right now if you weren’t Mrs. Targaryen?”

“Probably married to someone worse.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Okay, but let’s say you weren’t. Let’s say you can do whatever you want.” He points up at the lavender sky and acts like he’s moving the emerging glimmers of stars around with his fingertip. “There, I’ve changed your fate. Who would you be?”

You ponder this. “I want to teach math to kids and then spend every summer break getting baked on some beach.”

Aegon cackles. “Hell, sign me up.” He lights a third joint for himself with his tiny chrome Zippo. “Those are the people doing the real work. Teachers, nurses, farmers electricians, plumbers, welders, firemen, therapists, janitors, public defenders. The normal, unglamorous types.”

“You don’t think presidents and senators make a difference?”

“Sure they do. But only like 5% of the job is actually helping people. The rest of it is schmoozing and tea parties and making speeches, because looking and sounding good is better than doing good. They’re addicted to vapid pretenses that make them feel important. You live like that and you forget how to be a human. I mean, look at Nixon. The man was raised as a Quaker, one of the most peaceful religions on earth, and now he’s planning to throw ten or twenty thousand more boys into the great Vietnamese meatgrinder and probably napalm the hell out of Cambodia and Laos while he’s at it to get the communists’ supply lines. The man’s got no idea who he is anymore. I’d feel sorry for him if I wasn’t so terrified he’s gonna start World War III.”

I wonder who Aemond was a few decades ago. “What makes you feel important?”

“Nothing,” Aegon says. “I’m not under any delusions that I matter.”

“I think you matter, old man.”

“Really?”

“A little bit. About this much.” You hold your hand up to show him the infinitesimal space between your thumb and index finger, and Aegon chuckles, his eyes glazed and bloodshot.

“Let’s do it,” he says with sudden, forceful conviction. “If Nixon wins in November, we’ll get out of here. I’ll go back to Yuma to teach on the reservation and you can come with me. You get a math class, I take English, or Music, or both, whatever. We’ll buy a bungalow out in the desert and make s’mores every night and look up at the stars. I’ll show you how to play guitar if you give me algebra lessons.”

You peek over at him, intrigued. “Is that all we’re going to do?”

“Well we’ll fuck, obviously.”

“Oh, obviously.” You giggle; it’s ridiculous, it’s paradisical, it’s insane how good it sounds. But surely that’s only because you’re high. “I don’t know how Mimi would feel about that.”

“She won’t care. She doesn’t want me anymore, hasn’t in years. Sometimes she just forgets that when she’s wasted. Mimi can go to Arizona too. We’ll load up the kids in a van and strap her to the roof.”

Now your voice is somber. “She was supposed to fix you.”

“Yeah,” Aegon says: slow, meditative, guilty. “I think Mimi and I have a few too many of the same demons.”

You roll over, push yourself up on your palms, and crawl to the edge of the rooftop. You prop your elbows on the ledge and gaze out into the city lights, the sky turning from violet to indigo to primordial darkness. Aegon joins you, staring down at the distant aquamarine rectangle of the hotel pool.

He asks: “You think I could make that?”

“No.”

“Should I try?”

“You definitely shouldn’t.”

“A few months ago, you would have pushed me off this roof.”

You shrug. “You’ve proved yourself useful.”

“That’s why you like me now? Because I’m useful?”

“Who said I like you?” you tease, smiling.

“You like me,” Aegon says, grinning and smug, radiant in the silver moonlight and urban incandescence. “You like me so much it scares you. But there’s no need to panic. It’s okay. I know the feeling.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You want to touch him, you want him to touch you, you want to study every arc and angle of him like he’s a marble statue in a garden: too beautiful to be mortal, too fragile to be divine.

~~~~~~~~~~

Three nights later in Nebraska, there is a knock on the door of your hotel suite. The nannies have herded the children off to bed; the adults are unwinding downstairs in the courtyard of the Sheraton Omaha, designed to resemble an Italian garden. There’s a brand new Jacuzzi that you’re looking forward to taking a dip in. You finish pulling on your swimsuit, white and patterned with sunflowers, a one-piece with a flared skirt.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Richard Nixon,” Aegon says through the door. “Naked. Horny. Please love me.”

You laugh and let him in. He’s leaning against the doorframe in Hawaiian swim trunks and nothing else, pink sunburn glowing on his soft chest. He holds up a brown paper bag and shakes it.

“For you.”

“What is it, heroin?” Instead, you open the bag to find small, circular packs of pills. “No way. You did not.”

“That’s enough for six months,” Aegon says, smirking, proud of himself. “I’ll be back again in February. Guess that makes me your dealer, babe. I don’t accept cash, checks, or cards, only sexual favors. You want to get down on your knees, or should I?”

“How did you get these?”

“I told a doctor they’re for one of my whores.”

“Maybe they are.”

You’ve surprised him, you’ve got him thinking about it now. His face flushes a splotchy, charming pink. “So, uh, you coming down to the courtyard?”

“Yeah. Right now. Just let me hide these first. Are there instructions in here…?”

“Mm hmm,” Aegon says, still distracted, studying the entirely unremarkable carpet. You stow the paper bag of birth control pills in the bottom of your bras and panties drawer, then walk with Aegon to take the elevator down to the ground floor. You both notice the bright red emergency stop button and share a glance, smirking, taunting.

In the courtyard, Alicent is struggling to pay attention as Helaena identifies each and every species of plant and explains where in the world it is native to. Fosco is simultaneously teaching Criston how to yo-yo and berating him for not believing the Cubs will end up in the World Series. Fosco has apparently bet $500 on them. Ludwika is stretched out on a lounge chair like a cat and reading a copy of Cosmopolitan. Aemond, wearing his eyepatch and a blue pair of swim trunks, appears to be arguing with Otto over the contents of a newspaper article. Mimi is alone in the Jacuzzi, bubbles rumbling all around her as she slumps against the rim, a frosty Gimlet clutched in one hand.

“Mimi, get out of the Jacuzzi,” you order.

“I’m fine!” she slurs, and you groan, knowing you’re going to have to drag her out.

Aemond is approaching; no, not approaching, raging. “What the hell is wrong with you? What the fuck is this?” He hurls the newspaper at you, the Houston Chronicle. The headline reads: To Mrs. Targaryen, ending the Vietnam War is personal. “Why would you tell somebody that? Other papers are going to start reporting this. You gave them his full name. They’ve found his school, his friends, his gravesite in motherfucking Arlington National Cemetery—”

“You set me up,” you say. “You didn’t tell me about the hospital.”

Aegon takes the newspaper from you and frantically skims the article. “Hey, man,” he tells Aemond as he pieces it together, attempting to deescalate. It’s not a skill you knew he possessed. “She was rattled, she wasn’t thinking clearly. And there’s nothing bad in this article. It makes her sound invested and sympathetic, not…um…whatever you’re thinking.”

“You don’t get it,” Aemond seethes. “Journalists are going to start hounding his friends, his classmates, people who lived in his dorm building. Nixon’s newspapers will publish any gossip they can dig up about what she did when she was in school. Things people saw, things people overheard—”

“What, the fact that she had one boyfriend before she met you? That’s worthy of a nuclear meltdown?! Better prepare for Armageddon, a woman got laid, launch the goddamn warheads!”

“She doesn’t get to have a past! She should understand that, she signed up for this, she knew exactly what was expected of her!”

“And what about your past?” Aegon says, low and searing, and Aemond goes quiet. Their eyes are locked on each other: Aegon defiant, Aemond unnerved. You try to remember if you’ve ever seen that expression on his face before. You don’t think you have. Not even when he was shot and half-blinded. Not even when Ari died.

“What does that mean?” you ask your husband. Still staring at Aegon—tangled in a thorny, silent battle of wills—he doesn’t reply.

There are swift, thudding footsteps. Otto grabs Aegon by his hair, hooks a finger through the small gold hoop in his right ear, and tears it straight through the earlobe. Aegon screams as blood streams down his face, feeling the ravaged fringes of his flesh.

“I told you to take those out,” Otto says. “Now remove the other one before I rip it free, and go get yourself stitched up.”

You do something you’ve never done before, never even thought of. You strike out with both hands and shove Otto so hard he goes staggering backwards, his arms wheeling. The others are yelling and rushing over. Aemond is trying to yank you to him, but he can’t get a grip on your swimsuit. “I will kill you!” you roar at Otto. “I will push you down a staircase, I will slit your fucking throat, don’t you ever touch him!”

Alicent is weeping, appalled, trying to get a look at Aegon’s damaged ear. Criston is helping her, moving Aegon’s bloodied hair out of the way. Fosco links his arms around your waist and drags you out of Aemond’s reach just as he’s getting his fingers beneath a strap of your swimsuit. Helaena is covering her face with her hands and wailing. Ludwika is shrieking at Otto: “What did you do? Don’t give me that, what did you do?!”

You are engulfed with rage, red and irresistible. You’re trying to bolt out of Fosco’s grasp. You want to claw Otto’s eyes out; you want to put a bullet in him. As you struggle, you catch a glimpse of the Jacuzzi. You don’t see Mimi anymore.

“Wait,” you plead, but nobody hears you over the noise. You look desperately at Fosco. “Where’s Mimi?!”

Once he figures out what you’re trying to say, he whirls towards the Jacuzzi. “No!” he bellows, releasing you, and careens across the courtyard. You dash after him. Now the others understand, and they come running too. You see it just before Fosco dives in: there is a shadow at the bottom of the Jacuzzi. When he bursts up though the roiling water, he is carrying Mimi, limp and unconscious and blue.

Everyone is shouting at once. Fosco lays Mimi down on the cobblestones of the courtyard. Criston sends Ludwika to call an ambulance, kneels beside Mimi, checks for a pulse. Then he begins CPR. When he breathes air into her flooded lungs, there is no response, no resurrection.

“No, no, no, she has to be alright!” Aemond says, and everyone knows why. If she’s not, this will consume the headlines for days: no victorious campaigning, no speeches or photos, just a drowned alcoholic with a damning autopsy report.

“Oh my god,” Otto moans, pacing. “This can’t be happening, not this year, not now…”

Alicent seizes your hand and squeezes it until you think it will break. She is reciting prayers in Greek. Helaena is curled up under a butterfly bush, sobbing hysterically. When he realizes this, Otto hurries to comfort her.

“Don’t watch, Helaena. Let’s go inside, I’ll walk with you, there’s nothing more we can do here.”

“Mimi?!” Aegon commands, slapping her hard across the face. “Mimi, come on, wake up! Mimi? Mimi!” She’s still motionless, she’s still blue. Aegon turns to you, blood smeared all over the right side of his face. He’s petrified, he’s in shock. “I think she’s…she’s…”

“She’s gone,” Criston says; and he lifts his palms from her hollow body. The silent sky above is a labyrinth of bad stars.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii x you #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii x reader #aegon ii fic #aegon targaryen x you #aegon targaryen ii x you

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Text

A song of Ice & Shadow

Part 2

You can read part one here.

Summary: To Y/n's dismay, the Illyrians keep coming to their home, and despite her initial reluctance to engage in war talks, she becomes entangled in the political world of the fae. This ends with her worst nightmare becoming a reality.

Word count: 2.9K

Y/n paced around the living room, holding a scientific book amidst a clutter of research papers scattered about. Deeply immersed in her work, she was oblivious to the initial knocks at the door. Eventually, the persistent knocking caught her attention, prompting her to reluctantly abandon her studies.Upon opening the door, however, she found no one present “Are you kidding me?” she exhaled, as she went back to the living room. Just as she got back to reading, Cassian’s voice interrupted her concentration “Hello, y/n. Nice to see you again”.

“For fuck’s sake” she instinctively threw the book in his direction, a reflex action to the sudden intrusion, which he effortlessly evaded. Cassian’s amusement at the gesture was evident as he remarked “A book, really?”.

“Well, when someone is startled by an unexpected visitor, instinct tends to take over” she retorted, her tone a mixture of irritation and explanation.

“I did knock” he reminded, to which she replied “and I did open the door”.

“Wait, you didn’t know I was cloaked?”.

“How would I know? Do I look like some fae expert to you?”.

“Clearly not”.

“Do you enjoy pissing people off?” she asked with a serious tone.

“Sometimes” he replied, his tone tinged with smugness.

“Get a new hobby. People have more important things to do”.

“We’re trying to save everyone, so I’d say that is important”.

“Whatever! I’m not dealing with you. Talk to Nesta. Do you know where her room is or do I have to guide you?”.

“I’ll do just fine on my own”.

“Great, then off you go” she pushed him out of the living room and closed the door.

—

“You wouldn’t believe who I just met at the Bakery, Nes-” Y/n began speaking as she entered the house, unaware of the company they had. Her smile faded when she noticed the two Illyrian males, replaced by a cold, stern expression.“to what do we owe this displeasure?” she inquired, crossing her arms.

Cassian's response mirrored her sentiment, expressing his own reluctance to be there. Before any further exchange could unfold, Azriel interjected with a low, cold voice, revealing the reason for their visit “We received word from the queens”.

“They’ve been sent here to gather information about the house for the queens. They want to know where everything is, in the smallest details” Nesta explained.

Y/n directed her question at her sister “And you believe providing all this information is a good idea?”.

Azriel interjected, 'It's the only way to secure their cooperation”, Nesta nodded.

Y/n stole a glance at the male before returning her gaze on her sister “you do know this puts us in real danger?”.

"Nothing will happen to you or your sisters. Cassian and I will keep watch on the house”.

Despite assurances from Azriel about their safety, Y/n remained unconvinced, her concern evident in her demeanor. Y/n seemed to want to say something but decided against it. As she turned to leave, she was halted by Azriel's words “Feyre expects you to be here tomorrow”. After a brief pause, Y/n tilted her head to the side “Tell her to lower her expectations” she replied before walking out.

—

“Perhaps you should attend, even if just for a little while” Nesta suggested.

“Why? Are two sisters not enough? I don’t wish to be involved in human-fae relations” Y/n clarified.

“I know. I hate this as much as you do, but Feyre is now one of them, so do it for her” Nesta urged.

“Not out of her own free will…I- I don’t know, I’ll think about it” she sighed.

“Not to pressure you or anything but you do know, they’ll be here in a couple of hours” Nesta reminded.

“I know” she shrugged.

“Where is she? They’re gonna be here any minute now” Feyre scanned the room anxiously, looking for Y/n.

“I don’t know. She said she’ll think about it” Nesta told her.

“Think about it? She does realize that this is important, not one of her games” Feyre’s frustration became evident.

“Do you want me to send Az or Cassian to fetch her?” Rhys offered.

“No, that would only make things worse” Feyre dismissed the suggestion.

Dressed in a midnight blue tulle gown that revealed her back and arms, her skin so pale one would think she’s frozen. The fabric flowed around her body like a cloud, complementing her features. She emanated an aura of grace and elegance that would captivate any male who laid eyes on her. Y/n walked into the room, head held high. Her presence seemed to illuminate the room, and much to Azriel’s dismay, his eyes were drawn to her. Something stirred inside of him, something unfamiliar; even his shadows peaked from behind him to study her. He was betrayed by a momentary lapse in composure before pushing his thoughts aside, focusing on the task at hand.

“She’d fit right in at the Night Court” Rhys whispered to Feyre.

“Is that why it took you so long?” Feyre asked her sister.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Y/n tried to hide her smile.

Just as Cassian was about to comment, the queens appeared.

Rhys and Feyre started the conversation with the queens, introducing everyone present in the room. Elain curtseyed, while Nesta and Y/n stayed straight-backed with their heads high. They wasted no time and got to the reason why they were there; to discuss the war looming on their doorstep. -”This territory is a slip of land compared to the vastness of the continent. It is not in our interests to defend it. It would be a waste of resources” one of the queens said, to which Rhys replied “surely the loss of even one innocent life would be abhorrent”.

“Yes. to lose one life is always a horror. But war is war. If we must sacrifice this tiny territory to save the majority, then we shall do it”.

“And here I thought fae kind was the worst. It seems there’s even worse. You’re shameless. As queens, you have a responsibility towards your people. You’re supposed to protect them, all of them. The war hasn’t even started and you’re already doing a bad job of it” Y/n blurted.

“Excuse me?” the queen was taken aback, but so was everyone sitting there.

“Y/n!” Feyre warned.

“What? Is it not your duty to defend your people?” Y/n didn’t back down.

“What my sister is trying to say is that there are good people here” Feyre spoke, before things escalated.

The queens suggested that the fae defend this little territory, but there were counter arguments to that, until the queens mentioned that it was their job since the threat is caused by their own kind and their blood should be the one to spill, to which Y/n didn’t disagree. But then the queens continued to be insensitive, stubborn, selfish creatures, refusing to listen to reason. This made Y/n feel rage; knowing her temper, she excused herself before she screwed up whatever chance of peace they had. “Where do you think you are going?” one of the queens asked.

“Away from here. I am afraid if I stayed, I’d hurt your ego and you’d leave without considering peace, so I am removing myself, respectfully” she bowed mockingly, and a soft smile graced Azriel’s face.

—

Satisfied with the research she had done, Y/n was able to take a day to relax when a knock interrupted her solitude. She waited a few minutes before reaching the door, silently hoping that someone else would answer it for once “You’d think with many people living in this house, someone else would get the door for once” she sighed as she opened the door, only to find no one there “Ah, I suppose you’re glamoured again. The servants are here today and Nesta isn’t, so unfortunately, we have to go to a more private place. Follow me” she muttered to herself, pausing briefly before shutting the door and retreating upstairs to her room, closing the door behind her “what can I help with today, general?” she turned around to face Cassian, whom by now his cloaking would’ve vanished, but she was met with the other illyrian. Taken aback, she took a step back “you’re not the general”.

“No, I’m not. Nice to see you again” Azriel hid a chuckle.

“I’m sure” Y/n managed to force a polite smile, unaware she was holding her breath.

Noticing her sudden reaction at the sight of him, Azriel inquired “Are you alright?”.

“I’m fine. So, what can I do for you?” She wasted no time asking, not wanting to be distracted by those beautiful hazel eyes.

“I’m here to check if you’ve received a response from the queens”.

“Aren’t you the court’s spymaster? Wouldn’t you know if we had received a letter?” Y/n questioned.

“My spies are positioned in courts, not among mere humans. Besides, I didn’t think you’d appreciate being spied upon. But, I do have other methods to obtain information”.

“Like torture?” she crossed her arms.

“That too”.

“Are you threatening me?” she took a step towards him, but he stood his ground.

“I don’t know how you came to that conclusion. I simply answered your question. Violence is not always the solution” he replied, frustration evident in his tone.

“But it’s often the most effective, wouldn’t you agree?” she smirked, meeting his gaze as his shadows appeared behind her.

“It depends” he held her gaze. For a moment they stood in silence before she finally spoke “to answer your question, no, they did not send word back. I suppose that concludes our meeting”.

“Are you kicking me out” he snorted.

“No, I’m simply stating the fact that you’ve gotten what you came here for, hence, there’s nothing left for you here anymore, or am I mistaken?” she shrugged.

He contemplated for a moment “no, you are absolutely right. I’ll be on my way. Have a nice day” he said, striding towards the window.

“What-? You’re leaving through the window?” she was taken by surprise.

“I have wings, it’s faster” he explained.

“Right, then. Goodbye” she muttered to herself as he left, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding “What the hell was that?” she thought to herself.

The next time they came to meet with the queens, Azriel surveyed the house, but Y/n was nowhere to be seen “your sister won’t be joining us?” he asked Elain.

“No, she went to her other home. Something happened at work” Elain replied.

“And even if she were here, she wouldn’t want to see those self-absorbed queens” Nesta added.

“Oh, I see” Azriel nodded, unsure if he was disappointed or relieved she wasn’t there.

The meeting did not go as well as they had hoped, but it was not a complete disaster either. Rhys offered Nesta and Elain to come live with them in Velaris, but Elain refused, as she was engaged to a fae-hating prick. So, Rhys sent his soldiers to look after them, with one waiting in the room they frequented everyday at noon and midnight in case they changed their minds.

—

Elain and Azriel were talking, when Y/n entered the living room. By now, she had grown somewhat accustomed to the presence of fae in their house, but she still resented it, especially now with fae soldiers guarding them. When Y/n returned, Nesta informed her of everything that happened while she was gone, which naturally annoyed her.

“You’re back” that was her way of greeting Azriel.

“I could say the same to you” he replied, and she narrowed her eyes in confusion. Noticing her expression, Azriel proceeded “you were missed at the meeting with the queens”.

“I doubt ‘missed’ is the word anyone would use, but I’m actually glad I wasn’t there. I don’t think I would’ve been able to hold back. Why are you here, spymaster?” she asked, swallowing hard.

“Y/n” Elain interjected at her sister’s ‘rudeness’.

“Same reason as last time” he answered.

“Did you not get the information yet?” Y/n avoided meeting his eyes.

“I did-”.

“We were having a civil conversation. You should try it some time” Elain muttered.

“No, thank you. I think I’ll stick to my ‘uncivil’ ways” Y/n said, ignoring Azriel once again as she walked out of the room.

“Forgive my sister. She can be rude sometimes, not that she notices often. But she has a kind heart, I promise” Elain tried to defend her sister’s actions.

“Don’t worry about it” he gave Elain a soft smile.

—

The next time Y/n was in the same room as Azriel was when they were face to face with the king of Hybern. She and her sisters were dragged and forced to kneel before the king. Nesta and Elain were in their nightgowns, while Y/n was in a teal dress. Her clothes were torn and covered in blood. Bruises painted her skin in shades of blue and purple, her lips swollen and cut, which oozed blood, same with the cut on her forehead. Her hair tousled, strands escaping from a once-neat bun. Despite her injuries, she stood tall, her posture defiant and unyielding, with a determined glint in her eyes; her spirit remained unbroken. She did not let them take her or her sisters without a fight, one where she fought with all her might until she couldn’t anymore.

Seeing Feyre and her companions, blood drained from Azriel’s face as he bled all over the floor, with an arrow penetrating his chest, her heart ached and she knew the worst was yet to come. They had failed. Feyre gave her an apologetic look, Rhys held Feyre’s hand in a comforting effort, while Cassian’s eyes were on Nesta and Azriel trying but failing to lift his head as Mor held him. Y/n noticed two other males present, from their physical description, she speculated who they were; the one who held Feyre captive and his friend; Tamlin and Lucien.

Feyre threatened the king, but he warned her to be careful, as he held her sisters’ lives in his hands. He was discussing what he’d do to the sisters with the mortal queens, Feyre and the others tried fighting him but his power was too strong, and with the cauldron he was undefeatable. They had all exhausted their powers and if they tried one more thing, Azriel was going to die, with all that poison coursing through his veins.

As Elain was dragged towards the cauldron, Y/n broke loose from the men that held her, quickly grabbing the sword from one of their sides, lunging it at the one holding Elain, who fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Before Y/n could reach her sister, the king struck her with his powers, sending her flying across the room “Ah, we have a spirited one here. Throw this one in last.. I want her to watch it all” the king gave his orders.

That blow broke some of Y/n’s bones, but even as she winced in pain she managed to sit up. “NO-” but it was too late, he had given the orders and Elain was thrown into the cauldron, her screams echoing in the room. Then there was silence, and never has Y/n hated silence as she did that moment. She wished for any sound, any cry, scream from her sister, but nothing, she was met with nothing but complete silence. A moment later, Elain was dumped out of the cauldron, alive. She was alive, but her ears, her ears were different, they were pointed, she was fae now.

A tear slipped down Y/n’s face as Nesta was about to be thrown in, knowing there was nothing she or anyone could do about it. Nesta fought all the way, until her head was shoved underwater. Silence fell again, before the cauldron spat her out. Like Elain, she had changed, but unlike Elain, she was full of rage. She walked over to Elain and pushed Lucien away, holding her as he claimed she was his mate.

“Bring the spirited one, let’s see if she’ll survive… My money is on you” he told Y/n.

“I will kill you, I promise you that” she threatened while being dragged. She tried fighting the men off, but with many of her bones broken, there was only so much she could do. Stil,l she did not make it easy for them to shove her in. The cauldron bubbled but went still after a moment. Nothing could be seen or heard. A worried look took over Feyre’s face.

“I guess she wasn’t strong-willed after all” the king stated. Just seconds later, Y/n emerged from the water and grabbed the edge as she climbed out of the cauldron. She fell to her knees from all the pain and glared at the king.

Suddenly, Feyre was begging the king to break her bond with Rhys and let them all go. The king agreed and both were on the floor screaming from pain. When the king was done, Mor grabbed the sisters and Rhys grabbed Cassian and Azriel and winnowed out.

The males arrived at the Town House, while the females were dropped off at the House of Wind. They would all need time to heal, physically and mentally.

Taglist: @st4r-girl-official @judig92 @5onedirection5 @nayaniasworld @blackgirlmagicforever

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yesihaveaobsession · 2 days

Text

That Boy is a Monster

Human!Alastor x female reader

Summary: After attending a fancy party, one thing leads to another.

WARNINGS❗️❗️: Stabbing, kissing

A/N- sorry if this sucks, I barely reread it because I've been busy :( love all of y'all btw

You had been invited to a fancy party since you're related to rich somebody. You had been sitting at the bar most of the time when you spotted a tall, slender man. You two had accidentally made eye contact, and he made his way over to you to introduce himself “Hello, dear. I'm Alastor, and who might you be?”

"Y/N." You replied, taking in his tall appearance, he took a notice to this, and his smile got bigger. “Hm-mmm, what a wonderful name for a such a beautiful lady.” He complimented. You weren't sure if you were blushing or not. The confidence this man wore had your heart swooning "Thank you."

"So, do you happen to know who is hosting this party?” He had asked politely looking around at everyone who was in suits and dresses.

"Um some guy named Charles." You drawled out, not remembering the last name. Alastor's smile only got bigger as he took you in, your small petite form was no match for his tall slender one. “Oh, Charles Slug worth? I’ve heard he is a rather wealthy man and is somewhat powerful in this town.”

Letting out a hum as you sipped your drink. You can tell he’s charming by the way he talks and holds a conversation. There was a slight look of something more sinister in his eyes, but it seems like he was trying to get to know you. As you continued to take in his appearance you recognized him from somewhere. "Wait I know you."

"Hm?" He tried playing it off. "Aren't you that radio host that everyone talks about?" You asked with a cute head tilt, and he also noticed the wheels turning in your head. In response he nodded a bit, "Yes, yes. That would be me, dear.”

"It's a great show." You smiled back as you leant on the bar. "Thank you." Is what he had said as he smiled widely. "“I try to keep my listeners up to date, and I also try to entertain them with my musical selections.” He sounded proud of what he did for sure. As he should. He the most popular radio- show hosts in all throughout New Orleans.

“You're quite the pretty young lady, if I do say so myself…” Alastor sipped his drink.

"Thank you." Is all you said and all you could say because he kept on showering you with compliments, you smiled at him. Your smile faded when the man had asked you "“So, do you have a man in your life?” He saw your sudden change and how you became somewhat shy. "It's complicated."

He raised an eyebrow intrigued. "Complicated?"

"Yes."

"Care to elaborate, my dear?"

"It's a long story." His brown eyes lit up as you said this, and he smiled showing his white teeth. “I’ve got time, though. Why don’t you come with me outside? And you can tell me a little of that long story, hm?”

You hesitated for a moment but wanting to hear more compliments and get it know him better you agreed. "Okay." He walks over to a small patio, leading you with a hand “Here we are. Go on, tell me your story.”

So that's what you did, you went on about a current situationship and he had no idea what that meant so you had to tell him, this conversation went on for a while. he listened very attentively, smiling as you told the story. You could see his smile slightly widen every now and then, as if he was amused by it. You couldn’t tell by his expression whether or not it was a positive or negative amusement. He seemed to enjoy it though

"And yes, so it's complicated." You said witha sigh. He nodded. "“Hm. You definitely have gone through a lot, haven’t you? Quite the complicated story.”

“You have no idea... You mumble and sips her drink and looks at the stars. "You know… life can be very unfair. It seems like you’ve been on quite the emotional rollercoaster, haven’t you?” He smiled at you again then looking at the stars that was above you two.

"You know… life can be very unfair. It seems like you’ve been on quite the emotional rollercoaster, haven’t you?” You nodded. He sounded like he had experience, no? He also sounded very wise in a way.

“Do you want to know what I think?”

"Sure." You replied. He stepped a little close to you, smiling as usual. "I think that you deserve the world." Your heart did flips for sure. You just looked at him His smile becomes wider, yet a little more sinister as he looked back at you. "Thank you." You said as your eyes searched his. "You’re welcome.” Alastor said and taking a step closer to you. He then tilted his head to side slightly. "May I ask you something?"

"Yes."

His face is just inches from yours. "“Would it be rude of me. if. I stole just one little kiss?” You looked down and saw he was bent down at the waist before returning back to his hooded gaze. "Of course not."

He leans in and plants a very soft kiss on your lips also his large hand holding your face. You obviously kissed back. He deepens the kiss for a few seconds before pulling away. He looked at you with slight lust in his eyes, still with a sinister smile. "You're very handsome." You said out of the ordinary it's almost like he had you under a spell.

“Heh-heh. Why, thank you, my dear… but you… your beauty is absolutely breathtaking…” He leans in and plants another kiss on your lips. You smiled into the kiss. Alastor pulls away again. “How… How is a woman like you still single?”

"Oh stop."

He lets out a little chuckle. “I’m being serious. A woman as pretty as you, surely many men have been after you.” His hand lands on your hip, you pull away.

"I appreciate you, but I should go."

“Aww, why? You and I could spend all night, talking about you, maybe making out a little more.” He knew what he was doing, he knew he was getting to you. But you were still in your little trance that made it hard to actually pull away from this man.

“I find myself quite fond of you.” There he was again leaning in close, so close that you felt his breath on your neck. You eyed him.

"How about we go back to my place then?"

The slender man's face lit up. “Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.”

You two leave the party and go back to your place. He stood behind you with his arms behind his back as he watched you fumble for your keys; he was waiting patiently with a sinner smile as he looked at you. Finally, you opened the door and the two of you walked in. As he walked in after you, he closed the door behind him.

"Here we are." You sigh with a smile. “Do you mind if I borrow your restroom? I need to use it real quick.” he asked, and you smiled. "Down the hall on the right." He gives you a quick nod and then heads down the hall to the restroom. He was in there for some time, so this gave you the chance to take out some whiskey glasses. He eventually walks out of the restroom. Upon looking at you, he smiles widely “Ah, you’d didn’t have to get the drinks ready. I-I would’ve done that.”

"It's okay." You smiled at him and watched as he got closer. "You know, I’m quite a romantic man… But. you… you bring something different out of me.” Alastor smiled and purred. You blushed. "My, you have such a way with words."

Alastor chuckled. "My way with words are much like the radio show. A little bit of information here, a little bit of entertainment there. But it’s you… it’s you that makes me want to write poetry.”

"I must say you are quite charming." You say and he chuckled again. It brough your joy, really. He took you by the hand and leading you into your living room.“Would you mind if I turn on some music? Just to set up the mood, ya know?”

" Go ahead. "he turns on some jazz music, as he leads you to the couch and sits down. He pulls you down to the couch next to him. You looked at him with such lust. Smiling, you noticed that this man smiled a lot, and you were curious as to why. "Am I making you excited?" He whispers and you just stared into his eyes. He had you right where he wanted you. He moved his hand up your arm, and took you chin with his hand. He pulled you closer to him, looking straight into your eyes before leaning in and kissing you. Once again, he deepened the kiss for a few seconds. You then couldn't help putting let out a moan as you kissed back. He held the back of your head, pulling you even closer. He kept the kiss going for few more seconds, before leaning back “May I take toy to the bedroom?" He whispers in your ear.

"Please." You whispered back. Alastor got up from the couch and taking your head and leading you up the stairs. You soon got to your bedroom. He pushed the door closed with his foot. You turned to face him. Alastor smiled as he wrapped his arms around your body and pulled you in closer, kissing your neck. He kept going as he reached behind and slowly pulls the knife he had from his back pocket, but still keeping it behind him for now. You two kept kissing. You couldn't see the knife because he pressed you against the door.

“Are you enjoying yourself, my dear?” He asked as he gripped the knife from behind his back. He whispers in a sinister voice “You seem tense. Let me help you relax.” He knives into your stomach then you gasped for air. He smiles sadistically. "Aw, my dear." He purred. You looked at your hand that was covered in crimson.

“Now, now. We wouldn’t want that blood to get everywhere now would we.” Your eyes fluttered as you kept gasping trying to get air into your lungs. He smirked, you know, you remind of a woman from many years ago.” You the passed out onto your bedroom floor. He sighed as he checked your pulse making sure you were still breathing, luckily you were. He smiled and stood up, pulling a small rag out of his pocket as he started cleaning up any of the blood from his knife

After he made sure that all of the blood was gone from the knife, he sheathed the knife and put it back into his pocket. He then left your bedroom and left your house.

#alastor #hazbin hotel #alastor x you #alastor imagine #alastor x reader #hazbin alastor #i have an obsession #the radio demon

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study-diaries · 2 days

Text

How to avoid drama in your life. (School/Work/Family)

Hate to say this but i don't really think some people can just live their life without poking into other's business and causing unnecessary turmoil so, here's a guide to avoid all types of unnecessary drama in your life.

A full communication circle.

Communication is the main cause for most fights so, here's the thing. When there is something that needs to be done, inform all necessary people about it in advance. Here's a mistake most do, they just tell one person and ask them to put forward the message to the others but tell them directly. Literally, it is the safest option for you, like no one can blame you that you didn't tell them. No one can hold it against you. So tell them directly. And from time to time get repeated reminders so they remember.

Don't involve yourself in unnecessary talks

This is serious. If you are sitting and your friends are complaining about someone, you just listen to them. Don't add on to the things and hype up them. If you know that person isn't like that, defend them subtly. Involving in gossip is the worst. When someone says something about another person or even you then just reply with "I don't really care, they are/ I am free to do whatever they/I want." Or "I don't have the energy for this." Or "It's really none of my business/concern".

If you demand respect, you need to give respect.

Be nice to everyone, I am serious about this. Even if you're not friendly with the person or you don't like them, just be nice. It won't hurt you or them. Even if they do something to hurt you, just let it go with a "Meh it's fine but i would appreciate it if you won't do it again". This may even work people up a bit, handle yourself with care. Make it seem that their presence doesn't actually threaten you.

Calm composure.

Keep yourself calm and composed whenever you're faced with a difficult situation, do not react immediately, take a breath. I usually just frown but more than that, I won't react to anything. It takes some practice but eventually, this is useful. The reason for you to maintain a calm composure is because if the person who hurt you is looking for a dramatic reaction, don't give them the satisfaction.

Better articulation

Especially if it's important instructions! When someone accuses you of something, don't immediately raise your voice, think for a moment, let them wait and then reply with what had actually happened in your point of view.

Apologize. Even if it isn't your fault.

Sometimes, people are just shitty and they won't understand even if you explain it a hundred or a million times. In those case, just say the magic two letter word -> "I'm sorry" or "I apologise". Your worth doesn't come down just because you apologised, on the other hand, you just became a better person than the other one.

It's simply not your damn business.

When someone directly tells you about their life etc etc. You lend a compassionate ear to them. If it's a story going around the whole place, it's simply not your business. And you can say this directly to the person passing the gossip, if they argue then that means you now actualy are aware of another gossip machine.

Don't EVER share your opinions on important matters with a person higher than you! Especially not in front of other people!

I'm damn serious, you don't know who will have it against you so, be careful around who you're saying things to. Other important matters include opinions about the specific person, politics, nationality, culture etc etc. Be sensitive.

Break the chain

When you hear something bad is going around and it reaches you, keep it to your damn self. Don't go adding the fuel to the fire like the rest!

Do not assume!

Don't assume about a situation or a person. Clarify. Always clarify. You may not know what the other person was going through, you don't know everything. Just don't think something, clarify it. No body is going to get mad at you for clarifying.

Make excuses.

When you hear someone talking bad about someone else. Defend them. Make excuses. I don't mean lie to them, I mean saying things like, "It's alright. You don't know what they were going through." Or "Maybe something happened that you don't know about." Personally, I always use the second one because I feel like, sometimes, people aren't bad guys. Situations make them act like that. Povs differ. So be mindful.

Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument.

If there is an argument. Do the classic Harvey Specter thing. You improve arguments with a neutral tone. Don't sound mocking or cocky, sound like you're just explaining to them. This won't escalate the scenario. (The quote was actually given by Desmond Tutu)

Hope this helps! :)

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luizd3ad · 3 days

Text

Lover Of Mine | Regulus Black x Reader

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 ࣪˖⤷ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ ࣪ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 ˖ ⤷

Pairing: Regulus Black x GN!Reader

WC: 1,200

TW: talks of break up, swearing, use of Y/N, its pretty fluffy with a little angst

Author's Note: I didn’t think anyone would want a part two to Amnesia so I couldn’t decide if I should do a happy or sad ending so I did both, this is the happy ending.

Summary: you just needed to see regulus one more time. You could see him without pass feelings coming up. Right?

Pt1 Amnesia

★☆⋆☆★☆⋆☆★☆⋆☆★☆⋆☆★

Why were you doing this? Why did you come here? Why did you think asking Barty if Regulus still lived here was a good idea?

Before you could think you knocked. Before you could run the door opened.

There he was, the man you planned on spending your life with. He was still as beautiful as when you left but he was a mess.

You could tell he wasn't taking care of himself. His hair was longer than you'd ever seen it, he had stubble, bags so dark under his eyes that it reminded you of a time before he left Grimmauld place, paler than before and he was skinnier. At that moment all you wanted to do was hug him, make sure he had something to eat and make sure he got enough sleep, like you used to.

But that wasn't your place anymore.

“Hi, Reg.”

It was the only thing you felt like you could say. You thought seeing him would be easier. That all the feelings you spent so long getting rid of would stay gone, apparently you were wrong.

You felt like you did in your first year when you saw him the first time, you got butterflies in your stomach and felt your heart skip a beat.

“Y/N.” Regulus whispered as if he was scared that if he spoke too loud that you would disappear.

“How are you Regulus?”

“Why are you here?” Regulus didn't mean for it to come out as harsh as it did but he couldn't help but be on edge. He was masking his emotions, not letting you know what he was feeling.

“Honestly? I don't know.” You could feel yourself getting more and more anxious. Maybe he didn't want you there. Did he move on already? Maybe he's seeing someone? No, there's no way Barty or Evan would have said something. You started picking at your fingers, it was a nervous habit that you pick back up after the break up. You didn't even realize you were doing it anymore.

Like no time had passed Regulus grabbed your hand stopping you from picking at your fingers. When he touched your hand it felt like a rush of electricity was sent through your body, and by the look of his face you weren't the only one who felt it.

“Do you want to come in?” His mask started to come off, you could tell he wanted you to come in but you couldn't help but worry that he only asked to be polite.

He still hadn't let your hand go, but you made no effort to get away either.

“I would love to, if you have time…”

“I will always have time for you.” Regulus said without a moment of hesitation.

You found yourself back on the couch in the flat you swore to yourself you'd never set foot in again. Looking around it was like you never left. The same pictures on the walls, the few books you left scattered around, things you forgot still remained almost exactly where you put them.

“How have you been, Reg?” you couldn't help but smile at him, it felt nice to be around him.

“I'm as fine as I can be. You?” His answer made your smile drop a bit. You were hoping that he would be happy at the very least he'd be okay.

“I've been okay.”

“You're lying.”

“What?”

“You're lying.”

“Why do you think that?”

“You're pulling on your necklace. You only do that when you're lying.”

You look down and sure enough, your fingers were wrapped around a necklace you were wearing,

“You remembered that?”

“Of course I do.”

Why did something as insignificant as knowing when you're lying make your heart skip a beat? You felt a small blush creep up your cheeks. You also caught the small smirk that Regulus was now wearing.

“I guess some things never change, huh?”

Regulus said with an eyebrow raised. You couldn't help but laugh a little. You and Regulus started to laugh and talk like no time had passed at all. You were reminiscing about your time at hogwarts. The time spent with Pandora, Barty, Dorcas and Evan. The stupid pranks Sirius and his friends would pull.

“No, because you would instigate Sirius all the time! You're going to sit here and tell that when they flooded the Slytherin common room it wasn't because you told him his hair was as greasy as Snaps?”

You all but yelled while laughing.

“Okay maybe some of the pranks were my fault.” Regulus said with a smile on his face. He felt like it was his first real smile in so long. But that was the effect you had on him, you made everything better, you brightened up his life.

“We had some good times didn't we?” you sat there remembering all the good times you had together before everything went downhill. It broke you that you two didn't last.

Regulus let out a little sigh and looked down. “Yeah we did… Can I ask you a question?”

You nod. “Of course.”

“Barty said you started seeing someone. Said you seemed happy. If you're happy… why are you here?”

“I was. Seeing someone I mean, and they were great. But I kept finding myself comparing them to… you and that wasn't fair to them. So I ended it.”

You admitted looking down and picking at your fingers once again, and then there was Regulus like clock work grabbing your hands once again to stop you.

“Do you remember when we would dance everywhere? It didn't matter where we were, if there was even music on, we would just dance.”

You keep your eyes on your hands that fit so perfectly in his, while his words brought up so many amazing memories together.

“How could I forget?” you chuckled slightly, your heart feeling full at just the thought of dancing with him again.

Regulus lets go of your hands and stands up doing a slight bow while holding his hand out with a cheeky little smile on his face. “May I have this dance?”

You couldn't help but laugh but you nodded anyway with a smile on your face grabbing his hand. You two danced around the living room smiling and laughing, getting lost in each other. There was no music, there was no one else, there was nothing else, just the two of you. It felt so normal to be close to him to be in his arms once more.

“When I look at my life and think about everything I’ve done, all the mistakes, fucked up things I’ve done or said I reget all of it, but you? Having you in my life was the only thing I did right. To know that there's a possibility that my name will never fall off your lips again seems like such a shame. So I don't know if I can give you away again, I've already made that mistake once.”

Looking into Regulus' eyes you can see he meant every word. You could feel your heart speed up and you could feel butterflies in your stomach.

“You don't have to Reg. I'm here.”

★☆⋆☆★☆⋆☆★☆⋆☆★☆⋆☆★

Lie to me (Alt Sad Ending)

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kangnina · 1 day

Text

MDNI - Rich!Jungwon 5

Jungwon Masterlist

“Girl! I will take back every evil thing I ever said about you for not inviting me to your wedding— if you introduce me to Mr. Muscles in the suit,” your classmate Sunoo says, shamelessly eye fucking your guard Franklin. You knew Sunoo had already completed his entry for the art exhibit. He suddenly offered to help you with yours. Now you know why.

“His name is Franklin. I've never heard you say anything evil about me,” you frown as you add more paint to your canvas. You can hear the rain beating down on the roof of the building. Lightning flashing through windows of the studio, lighting up the dark gray sky.

“No. But was I definitely thinking it… Has he ever picked you up and carried you like a princess? If I pretend to faint, will Franklin pick me up?” Sunoo asks.

“DO NOT DO THAT. If anything weird happens, he’ll alert Jungwon’s team of guards and a fleet will show up. Don’t even get me started about when I fell down the stairs last week. I only scraped my knee but you would think I had a massive heart attack the way Franklin broke every traffic law transporting me to the hospital. It was crazy.” Sunoo inches a little closer to Franklin, who politely nods at him. Sunoo giggles, tucking his dyed blond hair behind his ear.

“Hi, Franklin. I’m Sunoo but you can call me Sunshine. Baby Fox. Yours...” Franklin raises an eyebrow and clears his throat, trying not to laugh at the little sassy man going for it.

“Hey! Get back over here! You said you were gonna help me. Focus!” you scold Sunoo. “I really want to finish this for the exhibit next week. I can assure you Franklin will be there too. Sheesh!” Sunoo pouts cutely, walking back over to you. He picks up his paintbrush and palette, mixing paints together. The lights flicker. You and Sunoo both look at each other then at Franklin. Franklin whispers into the com on his lapel. Thunder claps and the lights go out completely for a moment before the emergency lights kick on. Franklin swiftly approaches you.

“Ma’am, let’s get you home,” Franklin says.

“I don’t think we should go out in that shit storm,” Sunoo says.

“It’s okay Sunnie. We can’t get any more work done in the darkness anyway.” You take off your apron and toss it on the table, grabbing your bag. Sunoo also takes off his apron and grabs his backpack. He follows you and Franklin out of the studio and down the hall.

“The elevators won’t work, we have to take the stairs,” Franklin leads the way down three flights, to the main entrance to the building. A black car pulls up in front as the rain continues to pour. Lightening creeps across the sky. Franklin holds an umbrella over you and Sunoo. The right back passenger door opens. Just before Sunoo climbs in, a loud bang sounds. Your ears are ringing and Franklin falls back, grabbing his right shoulder. He reaches for his gun but the car has already pulled off. You scream trying to stop the blood pouring out of his shoulder as he yells into his com. “Code Red. Shots fired. I've been hit. Tigerlily unharmed but the vehicle has been compromised. Send back up immediately!" You and Sunoo help Franklin to his feet and back into the building. Sunoo’s slippery hands try to pull his phone out of his pocket to call for help. “No cops.” Franklin says hoarsely, swatting at Sunoo’s phone. Sunoo quickly ends the call and looks at you, eyes wide with fear. Within minutes, black vehicles pull up and a dozen suited guards storm into the building.

-------------

“Talk to me Jagiya,” Jungwon says, holding you tightly as you both lay in bed. Your nerves are still rattled. You haven’t said much since you came home. He can feel the tension in your body as you lay against his chest.

“Franklin,” is all you can say, tears in your eyes.

“He’s okay. It just hit his shoulder,” Jungwon says before sighing deeply. “I know you are not going to like what I’m about to say but I need you to listen carefully.” You turn over to look at Jungwon, tears on your cheeks. “You can’t go back to school until we know who is behind this. It’s not safe. We can try to figure out a way for you to still get your work done because I know it means a lot to you. But you mean everything to me. I cannot bear the thought of losing you. So I need you to stay home until I get this sorted out. Okay? Do you understand?” He wipes your tears. You nod your head. He’s absolutely right. You could’ve died today. You can’t go to class tomorrow, pretending that nothing happened. You need answers too. Jungwon kisses your forehead. “Get some sleep. It’s been a long day. I know you’re tired,” he says, turning off the lamp and pulling you into his arms. Easier said than done. Just one answer may help you actually sleep tonight.

“Franklin said ‘No cops’. Why would he say that?” you ask.

“Rest, Jagiya. I’ll take care of everything.”

---------

@nyfwyeonjun @maymarrylhs @nyxtwixx @ilabjungwon @enha-ism @belowbun @emi-en @mydearestwonnie @woniesprincess04 @snoopypupp @moonlightndaydreams @daydreams-after-dark @wildflowermooon

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loloslaystheday · 2 days

Text

Hush-Hush

pairing: keigo takami(hawks) x reader

prompt: a knight and a princess. what can go wrong?

warning/s: lil bit of spiciness like a lil HAH if you squint js a lil bit. oh, there’s age gaps and ages up characters too(shoto and reader are 18 and 19 in that order)

notes: I HATE THE WORD PANTIES THATS WHY I SAID DRAWS OR UNDERWEAR THAT WORD IS SO UGHHHH

anyways idk i was feeling the need to write and didn’t wanna work on my other works and then i snapped my fingers and said ‘yes’ when i thought of this. so enjoy.

never did you think you’d be betraying your father like this.

but his captivating golden eyes and charming smile always caught your attention from across the room. you’re sure you could even spy him from across the kingdom with his peculiar red cape.

maybe he wants to look fancier? better overall?

well, in your opinion, he always looked good. especially right now.

his head cocked to the side like a curious bird and his sharp gaze burning into yours.

“quiet, princess.”

the way he seethes the title has you shuddering and squeezing your plush thighs together as he leans in closer to whisper in your ear.

“i’m not above teaching you a lesson your father never could.” he grumbled, voice low and rumbling. you could feel it pulsing through you and send another sharp shiver up your spine before he pushes off the wall and walks away.

“princess.” a polite voice greets. a contrast to keigo.

you’re forced to tear your eyes away from your noble knight to see who’s called to you.

“the prince is ready to see you.”

you raised an eyebrow. right. the prince.

what an inconvenience.

but you followed anyway. you could defy your father in private, but in front of the entire kingdom? you’d surely be beheaded, forget being his only daughter.

“the princess has arrived.”

you immediately set your eyes on the king. he was towering, icy blue eyes glaring at you as soon as you stepped into the room like he already thought you weren’t good enough.

but you held your head high and walked with grace.

when you reached the table, he eventually looked away instead to look at the door as it opened and shut.

“ah, yes.” your father stood up immediately. you swallowed. “the best knight in our kingdom.”

“father, why must he be here?” you asked through clenched teeth.

“princesses don’t talk like that.” your mother said with a stern glare. “speak clearly.”

“well, what’s so wrong with having a guest? i thought you liked him.” your father said. he raised a brow at your reaction and glanced at your mother.

“is that right?” keigo smiled at you, an innocent little grin from the outside looking in. from your perspective, it looked so much different.

“my son.” sir todoroki gestured across the table to a boy who looked sort of similar. the left side of his hair was red and his eye was the same icy blue. “shoto.”

“oh, yes, this is our daughter.” your father gestured to you proudly. “she’s a catch, isn’t she?”

“sure.”

“shoto.”

he glared at sir. todoroki from across the table before turning right back to your father.

“yes, i would fuck your daughter.”

“excuse us.” sir. todoroki stood up immediately, his chair scratching against the floor at the speed in which he got up.

he waved shoto to follow and he did so without hesitation.

“i.. assume they’ll be a while.” your mother mumbled. she glanced at your father and nodded off to another room. “we have to go chat, too. be good.”

you nodded obediently. they walked away and out of the dining hall within the next minute which left you and keigo alone.

“so, you like me, huh?” he asked.

“i haven’t a clue what you’re on about.” you said pompously.

“now, why would the king lie?” your eyes flickered over to him as he inched ever closer. “unless it’s not him that’s lying.” keigo gripped your jaw and turned your head to face him. “are you lying, princess?”

there were many possibilities depending on the answer you decided to reply with. which would be worse? if you said ‘yes’ or ‘no’?maybe he’d suffice with an ‘i don’t know’.

“well?”

“no.” you tore your gaze away from him and whipped your head around to the right. “princesses do not lie.”

“you must be a shitty princess.” he muttered. you immediately turned to glare at him.

“excuse me?”

“i mean, you do a lot of stuff you’re not supposed to.”

“and i suppose you’re the perfect knight.” you eyed him up and down and scoffed. “ridiculous.”

truthfully, you didn’t have to listen to this. you didn’t have to let him talk to you that way.

but you liked it. you liked how he looked at you while he spoke, and the stupidly attractive grin he always wore.

“everyone’s gone.” he says. you can feel his breath fanning your ear as he places a soft kiss on the right side of your neck. “you can drop the act.”

he doesn’t have to say another word.

you’re already at your feed before you can stop yourself, head jerked to the side as you drag him into a heated kiss.

and it’s your first, but you feel like it’s all worth it.

his hands find your waist in an instant and he’s lifting you up to crash back down on the red oak dining table.

he flips your skirt out of the way and thanks the heavens you’re not wearing a corset or a petticoat. he puts his hands on your hips, tugging you into his own and deepening the kiss.

it’s the moment you’ve craved for the longest, and now it’s finally happening. in the least romantic setting, but the passion is most definitely there.

he pulls away to stare into your eyes and presses his forehead to yours.

“tell me how much you want me.” you say breathlessly. he smirks, hand finding purchase on your thigh and inching upward.

“i’m no good with words. how ‘bout i show you?”

he cocks his head to the side like a curious child. in your eyes, you’re in no position to deny, even though realistically you are.

but as if you would.

with the way he kissed your neck and chest, his free hand reaching back to untie your dress as the other hooked around the hem of your underwear to tug them down to your ankles.

your hands hooked around his neck, not having much to do with him having most if not all of the control over the situation. your moans and quiet whimpers were enough for him to keep focused.

“so pretty.” he mumbled against your shoulder. he pulled back just to look into your eyes. “but you’re so bad.”

“i’m not bad. i’m difficult.” you corrected sarcastically. he shook his head.

“looks like you needa be taught how to behave.”

#mha hawks #bnha hawks #hawks #hawks x reader #kiego takami #keigo takami #mha takami keigo #bnha keigo #keigo x reader #keigo x you #bnha x reader #mha #spicy content #princess reader #kingdom au #poc reader #plus size reader

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uchihaharlot · 2 days

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Hello there, i really love your headcanons tbh maybe the realest ones here

Since I'm here its obvious im in Uchiha hell so,

Could I politely ask for uchihas turn ons and turn offs? I swear to god when i think about them horny it brings a tear to my eye from blissfulness

The realest ones? Nonny, you honor me to the highest degree and I am forever grateful you feel this way. ❤️🥹

I think a better question would be what doesn’t turn these men off (I also think I answered this differently than you might have wanted, I hope not though). 😮‍💨😌 Though none of these men are shallow individuals, so rest assured, anyone would be their type.

Semi-NSFW; just some things that make an Uchiha melt inside

Madara:

All natural women. I’m gonna be honest here; in Madara’s time, the more rounded a woman. The better (for breeding). But in all honesty, he appreciates all shapes and sizes.

His turn off is weakness, she needs to be confident. Which sounds callous, but if she’s not at minimum as much a firecracker as he is. The chemistry is off. Madara needs someone who is going to keep him on his feet with excitement, not someone who will make him second guess their intentions. The more outgoing and confident. The better.

If Madara’s laying her in his bed, she’s going to have to be a very patient woman. This man can go for hours, and a woman who can appreciate his stamina without complaint is high on his priority list, possibly good for breeding. Madara needs to fuck her this way, ok? A test drive so to speak. It’s just how he does it, raw and unadulterated lust. He also won’t tolerate a quickie like some men.

Obito:

Its no secret that Obi, bless his soul, is the black sheep Uchiha. The quiet ones are easier for him to talk to, not because they’re touch starved or anything. But because they are legitimately sweet and soulful. A woman who is confident won’t really make him feel nervous. But what he really wants is to kinda be taken care of, tenderly.

He definitely doesn’t like loud noises or sudden changes, so the more ground and constant, the better. So a woman who has a temper, is not for him. He might get riled with a little spice, but Obito definitely doesn't and won't be a push over, even he has his limits. Obito thrives in a static environment where he can make mistakes without being treated like a child, even better if she babies him a little. I'm sure there is a mommy kink somewhere to explore.

And in bed, he’s a total mess for her, does whatever she wants. If she wants to be treated like a pillow princess and owned, he'll be man enough for it. If she wants to make him beg underneath her, that too.

Shisui:

Shisui 🥹🔥 he’s so fiery!! Definitely is turned on by a woman who is into self care. Bonus points if she agrees to partner stretch with him, it's so hot being able to feel her this way and not sexually...yet. Someone who eats well, the occasional bad food here or there isn’t a problem, but damn if she’s into good diet and exercise, sign him up and don't forget, sparring is like foreplay for him. So, if she ends up pinning him down (like he planned all along), he’s gonna be so desperate for her. And she has to be loyal; to him, to the village and morality.

As for in bed? Their chemistry is so far off the charts, neither one can keep from switching positions. I really think Shisui is one of those men, like most Uchiha but on a different level even to his family, that can go for hours. Just because he can and because he likes to see her all fucked out, it's different from her usual mouthy self, which reminds me. She needs to be just as spunky and spontaneous as he, maybe not on the same level, but a woman who is down for whatever is the best kind of medicine. Especially for a man with the whole village on his shoulders.

Itachi:

I love him, he's such an old soul. They say opposites an attract and while I think he would like someone like himself, I also feel like someone who could keep him on his toes a little. If she's a scholar, this is perfect. Itachi would really enjoy someone who he can discuss world politics with. Not too in-depth, but casually. That level of self awareness the sharingan gifts them with can often leave many Uchiha feeling mismatched, but someone who has wits to his is a godsend.

As for in the sheets, Itachi is someone who is very reserved when it comes to matters of the flesh. Trust and sex go hand in hand, he's not like Shisui who can stick it anywhere, pretty quickly too, (he once told Itachi he used a spaghetti squash as a fleshlight). Trust is earned, gained and has to be absolute. Once this is accomplished, he's so damn tender. The softest moaner, but he does it right in your ear. Hearing and seeing you enjoy sex with him is what ends up getting him going harder. Even better if you speak your desires as he rearranges your insides. As time goes on, you learn what a closeted freak he really is and end up in the false atmosphere of his Tsukuyomi.

#uchiha clan #uchiha family #uchiha headcanons #shisui uchiha #shisui headcanons #itachi uchiha #itachi headcanons #obito uchiha #obito headcanons #madara uchiha #madara headcanons

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bookshelf-in-progress · 2 days

Text

Honors From the King: A Short Story

The sword felt strange in Mia's hand. It fit perfectly in her grasp, but it still seemed impossible that it was hers. A few days ago it had made her into a hero, but in the confusion of the battle, she barely remembered making the lucky blow that felled the giant who had terrorized the Southern Forest for ten years.

Now she, an ordinary eleven-year-old from Iowa, was the hero of a fantastical realm, waiting to receive honors from the king himself.

Elbera bustled around Mia in the antechamber-turned-dressing room of the village hall. The elf woman—barely taller than Mia—had served almost as a mother to her since the strange wind had left her in the elfin village. "Now, my dear, as you're being honored for valor in battle, it's right for you to carry the sword, but you must never put the point toward the king. If you're nervous about it, you'd best sheathe it."

Mia sheathed the sword before Elbera finished the sentence.

Elbera continued, "Since you've slain a well-known terror, it's customary for the king to offer a boon. If he offers up to half his kingdom, don't take it—it's only a polite phrase. Best to ask for something useful—perhaps a sum of gold to rebuild the bridge outside the village."

From what Mia had heard of the king, he'd do that anyway. No, if Mia was to get a boon, she would ask for only one thing.

She wanted to go home.

For nine long months, she'd been stuck in Athelor. The cheerful, dainty elves had been kind to her—sheltering, feeding and teaching her without complaint—but they weren't her family. Her parents had to be frantic about her. And her six siblings—what had they done when that strange summer wind took her away from them? An entire school year would be gone by now. If she stayed away much longer, she'd be so far behind, and it would be harder and harder to fit back into ordinary life.

The elves had been unable to provide any suggestions about how to get back home; they only told Mia to wait for the wind. But the elves had sung praises of King Edonniel's library, spoke with awe of his scholarly works about Athelor's history. If anyone knew how to get her home, the king would.

The door to the chamber opened, and a palace guard escorted Mia into sunlit wooden expanse of the main hall.

At the room's far end, the king stood among his guard. Though over fifty, he was tall and fit, with a reddish-gold beard and a noble bearing, resplendent in royal armor. He was like the good king in every fairy tale Mia had ever read, like her father, and she forgot to be afraid of him. The king was a great man—warrior, poet, scholar, diplomat—but Mia knew in an instant that he was kind enough to help a lost girl.

The assembled crowd—all the elves and talking beasts from the village—cheered as Mia approached the king. Mia tried to ignore them, instead focusing on the king’s kind face.

The king stared at her. He stood frozen for several moments, then stepped toward her. “Mia?”

Mia stumbled to a stop. "Yes?" This seemed an informal greeting from a great king.

In a blink, Mia found herself in the king's arms, crushed in a warm embrace.

"I can't believe it." The king's deep voice sounded right next to her ear. "I thought I'd never see any of you again, not here."

Mia tried to push him away. King or not, this was too weird to put up with. "Any of who? What are you doing?"

The king pulled away and looked into her face, drinking her in. "I'm sorry. Of course you don't know me. Mia, I’m Danny. Your brother."

In the privacy of Elbera’s good parlor, Mia sat alone with the king. Her brother. Her ten-year-old brother. Who she never in a million years would have connected with the great scholar, warrior, and king the elves, in their musical accents, called Edonniel.

She couldn’t doubt that he was Danny. He remembered their parents, their farm, all their family, even the dinosaur village she and he had created two summers ago. With only a year and a day between their ages, they had often been mistaken for twins, but Mia had always reveled in her superior age. Until now.

Danny seemed so dignified; he made Elbera’s soft chair look like a throne. His eyes had wrinkles around them. His red-gold beard hung down to his chest. He sat so steady, so still, gazing at her like she was his long-lost child—instead of the sister whose hair he pulled when she beat him at Mario Kart.

As Mia sat across from him on Elbera's other chair, the only thing she could think to say was, “You’re older than me.”

The king guffawed. “I’m older than Dad. But you—you don’t look a day older than when I last saw you. How long have you been here?”

“Nine months.”

“It’s been forty-eight years for me.”

Mia’s head spun at the idea. “How?”

“The wind that carried us into a different world carried us into different times. I landed on the shores of the Beryl Sea forty-eight years ago. Ever since I became king, I’ve made a study of Athelorian history, trying to find the rest of us.”

“Us?” Mia had been with her siblings when the wind had taken her, but she’d assumed they were back home in Iowa. “How many of us are in Athelor?”

“All of us,” Danny said with surprise. “Didn’t you know?”

Mia shook her head. “I couldn’t see much.”

“And when you landed here alone, you had no reason to guess that we weren’t all safely at home,” he said, understanding.

“Is anyone else here?” Mia asked, half-hoping another brother or sister would pop out from behind the furniture.

“I crossed paths with Thomas not long after I arrived, but you’re the only one I’ve met in person since. Everyone else, I’ve had to track down in history and legend.”

“You met Thomas?”

“He landed among the trolls of the northern mountains,” Danny explained. “Became a master smith—the greatest in Athelorian history. He forged that sword you carry. I have no idea how it got into the elves’ hands; I’ll bet there’s a story there.”

Danny never could stick to the point of a story. “Where is he?” Mia asked in frustration.

“He was a very old man when I met him,” Danny said. “A hundred and twenty-seven, by some counts. Some say his life was extended by working with the stones from the heart of the world.”

Was? Her little brother had been only six years old when she’d last seen him. He couldn’t be—

Mia sank back into her chair, stricken.

Danny, caught up in his story, didn’t seem to notice. “Jane lived among the centaurs and elves of the Skyveil Plains seven-hundred years ago. Became a legendary warrior and explorer, defender of the weak. Beloved by all the beasts. First to step foot on the Daybreak Isles and meet the talking mice.”

Seven-hundred years?

“Now Ben,” Danny said with a laugh, “has popped up all through history. Rarely seen for more than a day or two, but he always has some dramatic effect. Some scholars speculate he’s extraordinarily long-lived, but my theory is that time is playing with him in a different way than the rest of us.”

He said it all so calmly!

“Nora?” Mia dared to ask about their oldest sister.

Danny’s gaze turned dreamy, his voice hushed and reverent. “The legendary Queen Eleanor, present at the waking of the world.”

Danny was talking about Nora—bossy Nora!—like he was in awe of her.

Her sister—all her siblings—had become legends. They weren’t waiting for her at home. They were long dead, had been dead ever since she’d arrived, which meant they were gone forever, and there was no way home—

Mia burst into tears.

Danny reacted about like how she’d have expected him to react. He sprang up from his seat and hovered awkwardly over her chair. “Mia? What’s wrong?”

Through tears, despair, and frustration, Mia blubbered something that included the words, “They’re all dead!”

“Dead?” Danny asked. “Who said they were dead?”

Mia wiped her tears on her sleeve and glared up at him. “You did! You said Thomas was ancient, and Jane lived seven-hundred years ago, and Nora’s as old as the entire world!”

“That doesn’t mean they’re dead.”

“I’m not stupid! No one can live that long, not even here!”

Danny crouched down next to her chair. He placed both hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “Mia, look at me. I’m telling you: they’re not dead.”

Before his fatherly gaze—even with the beard, he looked a lot like Dad—Mia’s sobs became mere sniffles. “Then where are they?”

“They’re home. Safe. I promise. The same wind that brought us here brought them back home after their adventures were over.”

Just like the elves had said. But when Mia had thought she’d have to wait to go home, she’d thought it would be a few years at most, not—

“You said Thomas was more than a hundred years old.”

Danny said, “I’ve done a lot of reading about people like us. We’re not the only people who’ve come here from Earth—or gone home. The stories all say the same thing. No matter how long we spend here, the wind takes us back home to a time only minutes after we left, and we’ll be just the same age we were then. Reunited from across history, as young we ever were. A foretaste of heaven.”

His voice had gone dreamy again. The elves had said he was a poet.

Mia dried her face and sat up straight. “We’ll all be together? At our normal ages? Like we never left?”

“Exactly.”

“You and me and Thomas and Ben and Nora and—“ Mia realized something. “You never said where Claire was.”

“She’s the only one I haven’t found in history yet. That means her story’s probably still in the future. Maybe we’ll run into her someday.”

That did sound exciting, but Mia didn’t like the idea of waiting decades like Daniel had.

“How long do you think it will be? Before we go home?”

Danny stood and walked toward his chair. “I can’t say. Whenever the wind blow lately, I get the strangest feeling that I won’t be here long—maybe five years.”

Five years—half her life—not long?

“For you,” Danny continued as he sat down, “I can’t say. But I have a feeling that your adventures are just beginning.”

“I don’t want more adventures,” Mia said, as another tear dripped. “I want to go home.”

“I know,” Danny said, his voice husky with sympathy. “The first year is the hardest, and you’re so young.”

The idea of Danny—Danny!—treating her like a little kid! “I’m older than you!” Looking into his very-much-not-a-kid face, she amended, “Well, I should be.”

“You will be again, one day. But until then...“ Danny leaned forward, his hands on his knees, and suddenly sounded more like an American kid than he had all day. “This sounds so weird, but if you like, I can adopt you. You can live in the palace under my protection, and I can show you everything about Athelor. Maybe name you my heir if you like the whole royalty thing.”

He was planning a whole life for her. Plotting out a future. Here. Even without the weirdness of Danny acting like her dad, it was too much.

Danny noticed her hesitation. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I know we’re all called here for different purposes, and I don’t want to keep you from your intended mission.”

“I thought the giant was my mission.” Mia had constructed such a tidy tale—and now it was unraveling. “I came here, I slayed the giant. The story should be over. I should get to go home.”

“It will always be waiting for you. Until then, you have Athelor.”

“Athelor isn’t home!”

“It can be,” Danny said. “It’s been a good home to me. It can be a better one, now that you’re here.”

Mia suddenly realized how old her little brother was. How long he’d been waiting, searching for his family through books. And now she was here, after all this time.

Maybe that was her mission. To help this great king while he was here caring for the people of Athelor.

“I guess I can try,” Mia said. Even if she had to stay a long time—well, Danny had managed to do some amazing things, and she couldn’t let her little brother outshine her. “When we do get back home, I don’t want you to have a better story than me.”

Danny grinned—and for just a second, he looked a little like the kid she remembered. “Mia,” he said, “I think you’re going to be fit for legend.”

#the bookshelf progresses #portal fantasy #this is my long-winded way of saying that the narnia pastiches are sleeping on the time travel potential inherent in the premise #this feels like some half-baked bare-bones thing that should never leave my hard drive #just sit in my writing folder for whenever i feel like reading some silly unfinished idea #but i have a prompt to fill so here it is #also after writing poetry all month writing fiction is hard #believe it or not: writing something that's about 50 words of one voice speaking is much easier #than writing something about 20 times as long involving characters moving and interacting

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celticcrossanon · 3 days

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Hi Celta,

I honestly don’t know where you stand on reading the Harkles. But reading the Commonwealth and Charles might be ok?? I only ask because Lady C’s theory was that the Harkles are going to Nigeria to show the Commonwealth countries that they are the only option when Charles passes, and William is King. She said the ‘court’ I assume royal court, is divided about how to handle that hot potato. Personally I think Charles is a big factor is blocking any action against his feeble minded son.

This raised all sorts of alarm bells for me. I get to thinking there may be an insider who’s facilitating the invitation from the Nigerian government. It’s come out they are paying for the Harkles to visit.

It’s alarming too because we know they are not above using the dead and buried race card to suit their own ends. Is it your intuition that Lady C’s onto something here? I know I demonize Charles a lot. But he’s the Head of the Commonwealth and this is happening under his watch. He begged and begged his mother for this role, and as soon as he was diagnosed, Harry came running, was it to ensure it was going to be passed onto him? I know the member countries have to vote, and the Harkles are good at causing chaos and trouble.

If indeed he’s not involved, Charles will soon find out when he visits Australia how his commonwealth subjects there feels about him. I wonder if the Harkles will pull the colonial themed complaints against him that they used on the Wales in the Caribbean tour. Time will tell but it’s very troubling.

Hi Anonymous Retired,

King Charles's energy has felt a bit shaky lately, so I want to give him a rest for a week or so before I try to read on him again. I think he's been pushing himself too much with this return to face to face work and his engagement has taken more out of him than he expected. :)

I can read on the tours in general - how will Nigeria go, how will Australia go etc - and I can do one reading on Harry and one reading on Meghan, and then I will see how I am feeling before I do any more on them.

I do think that Harry and Meghan may be trying to become Head of the Commonwealth, but I don't see why. They won't get the position until King Charles dies, and if he does step down them all the heads of the Commonwealth Nations have to vote for the new Head of the Commonwealth, and I can't see them voting for Harry and/or Meghan. The position has no salary and no housing, so they won't get any money like that. Are they thinking of using it to funnel funds into their own pockets> If so, how? Do they want the prestige? What will it get them? Bribes to make things go a certain way? Their duties will be to attend CHOGM every 2 years, attend the Commonwealth Games every 4 years, and do a speech and an Abbey service on Commonwealth Day. OK, that sounds like their level of work, and they would be updated on developments in the Commonwealth on a regular basis, but I can't see what they would get out of it that makes it so desirable to them.

I am probably over thinking this, or not thinking down on their level enough. It also sounds like it might be part of some murky political stuff, and I don't do politics if I can avoid it.

I will read on what they want from the Nigeria tour and see what comes up. That will be a good starting point.

I will finish by saying that although King Charles is the Head of the Commonwealth, that gives him no constitutional power in any of the Commonwealth Nations, and if a nation of which he is not head of state, like Nigeria, choses to bring the Harkles over for a visit and (presumably) treat them like royalty, then there is little to nothing that King Charles can do about it outside of normal diplomatic channels, and I don't know what he could do inside diplomatic channels due to my ignorance in that area. I am not surprised that the court is divided over how to handle this, as taking any actions against the Harkles feeds into their victim narrative, while ignoring them can be taken as silent approval of their actions. Something that emphasises that the Harkles are private citizens would be the best to my mind, but I don't know how that could be accomplished.

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badassomens · 1 day

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Well, judging by the likes on the last post, you still don't mind reading what I came up with. Let's try this. Untitled yet.

Warnings: Alcohol, smoking, in the future, possibly sex, but that's not for sure.

And also, the main character has a name, because it's easier for me. You can substitute your own for convenience❤️ I also apologize for any mistakes and stuff like that. English is not my first language

Part 1

"Why do you hate me so much, Meg?"

You're looking at a friend who came to you with a statement that you need to leave the house more often, otherwise, I quote, <<One day I'll come to you, and you'll be covered in mold. >>

"Don't exaggerate. I go out for a walk sometimes…"

"Margo, walking to the store to buy cigarettes is not the same as walking."

You just roll your eyes and click your tongue indignantly.

"Come on, Margot, let's go. It's going to be fun, really. You and I haven't been out for a long time." Meg keeps trying to get you to go to the party with her.

You absolutely did not like events of this kind. Too many people. Too loud. Just too much. Just the thought of this made you ready to howl, but at the same time you wanted to spend the evening with your friend outside the walls of your home. “Okay, you persuaded me,” you give up and your friend happily hugs you, “but only on the condition that I leave there whenever I want.” - Of course, of course, of course. - The friend quickly nods her head and looks like a dummy. And just like that, your head will fly off. You laugh good-naturedly at her reaction and go to bring yourself into human form.

***

As it turned out, the party was at your mutual friend’s place. At the thought that there would be other faces familiar to you, besides Meg, you felt a little better. And yet you felt uneasy. After an hour of being in this crowd, you wanted to climb the wall. You decided to find a secluded place on the street to be alone for a little while and smoke in peace. You leave the house into the backyard and go to the farthest corner, as far away from the crowd as possible. Finding yourself alone, you relax and take out a pack of cigarettes from your purse. You take out a cigarette, light it and finally calm down.

Unfortunately for you, the calm did not last long. A guy approaches you asking for a cigarette. It’s dark in the yard and you can’t see his face. You carefully take out a nicotine stick and hand it to the guy. He strikes the lighter wheel and in the light of the fire you recognize Noah

“Thank you,” he takes a drag and releases gray puffs of smoke, “it feels like no one smokes in this house.” Or he’s just a miser. You smile lightly at his remark and also take a drag. You met last year at one of the same parties, when you still loved them and tried not to miss a single opportunity to have fun. You had almost no contact with Noah before. You saw each other a couple of times after meeting, you could say hello to each other, but purely out of politeness..

"How did you like your evening?" the guy looks at you, waiting for an answer.

"Well... It's nice here. Like."

“Then why are you hiding here?” He smiles and turns towards the house.

"What? I am not hiding. Why do you think so?"

“I saw you in the house,” the guy turned to you again, “you could tell by your face that you were forced to come here.” You didn’t know what to answer and silence fell between you. You take out another cigarette from the pack, and then a second one, and hand it to the guy.

"You disappeared from the house so abruptly," Noah breaks the silence first, "to be honest, I was looking for you.

"So you're saying you've been following me?" — you turn to the guy in surprise.

" I wasn't watching. Just... watching

" You do realize that this is very suspicious, right?

The guy was thinking, and then you heard his quiet laugh.

"God, I turned it over in my head and realized that it was really very creepy" He's looking at you again. "I'm sorry, please, I didn't mean to scare you. I just didn't know how to approach you, and then you disappeared and I was a little upset. Seriously, I didn't mean anything bad. You just looked so lost."

" I just don't like parties. There are too many strangers, it's too noisy. Apologies accepted, by the way."

"I remember seeing you at parties a lot last year," Noah frowns a little, "you were more active. I'm sorry if I'm prying into my business, but... is something wrong with you?"

You look at Noah and your eyes, accustomed to the darkness, allow you to distinguish his worried look. You turn away from the guy and shake your head negatively.

" No, it's okay. It's just that tastes have changed."

He sees that you don't want to talk about this topic and decides not to bother with his questions, but simply translates the topic.

" Listen, since you don't like parties with a crowd of people, maybe you'd like to meet me in a more relaxed atmosphere? Next Thursday, if you're free? In some cafe or bar?"

It's like you've been doused with ice water. Seriously? Has he decided to ask you out on a date? You've heard a lot of rumors about Noah turning down all the girls who try to hit on him.

"And this… Like a date?"

" More like just a friendly meeting, okay?"

" Hmm... if so, then maybe I agree."

" Well, then I'll wait for Thursday."

The guy pushed off from the wall where you were standing and was about to leave, but turned around, looked at you and said:

" By the way, you look just fine today."

He winked at you, turned around and walked back to the house. You pulled another cigarette out of the pack, nervously lighting it.

After another 30 minutes, you return to the house and find Meg telling her about a strange conversation with a guy.

" Margot, are you kidding now?"

" What the hell kind of jokes?!" you scream nervously and your friend realizes that this is really not a joke.

" So Noah asked you out on a date" you cast a nervous glance at your friend. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, for a "friendly meeting" and you agreed?"

" Well, it turns out that way."

" You're lucky!" Meg hugs you happily." Can you imagine how many girls are hanging on him? And he refuses everyone. There are already rumors that he is gay. But somehow I can't believe it. Rather, the girls just decided to find an excuse for his refusals."

" God, Meg, calm down, it's just a friendly meeting.…"

" Yeah, I believe you." grinning, the friend raises both hands, as if giving up, to which you roll your eyes, but stops the argument.

" You know, I'm going home. I've had enough fun for today."

You hug Meg and go out into the yard. Passing by the pool, you notice Noah on the opposite side. He stands surrounded by girls, but, as if sensing your gaze, raises his head and looks at you. You wave at him and the corners of his lips lift in a slight smile. Smiling back, you leave the yard and call a taxi, which will soon take you home.

#noah sebastian #noah sebastian davis #noah sebastian x reader #bad omens band #bad omens cult #concrete jungle #the death of peace of mind #bad omens fanfiction #bad omens fic

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lanawinterscigarettes · 2 days

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What if Wilson accidentally consumed an aphrodisiac, how do you think his partner would deal with him lol?

I see the Wilson lovers are starting off strong here with their requests lmao

James Wilson accidentally consuming an aphrodisiac

Warnings: nsfwish content given the obviously suggestive subject matter

Honestly given how often House drugs/has drugged Wilson canonically in the show I wouldn't put it past him to do something like slip a substance containing some type of aphrodisiac into his coffee when he's not looking just for the hell of it

Regardless of how or why it occurred, I imagine Wilson wouldn't notice anything was wrong until it just sort of hit him all at once

Incredibly flustered, he'd excuse himself from whatever sort of interaction he was having, whether that be with a patient or another doctor, and lock himself in his office with hope that the feeling would soon pass

Once it became clear that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, he was stuck with the alternative option: paging you in hopes you could provide him some much needed, ahem, relief

(How you got into his office is entirely up to you. It's most likely he opened the door for you himself but if you want to imagine hopping over the divider between his and House's balconies for a more comical effect go for it)

He's so pathetic when you finally get a good look at him. He has an obvious bulge in his pants and looks even more like a kicked puppy than usual

Typically he's not one to ask for sexual favors at work, but it's clear an exception needs to be made before he combusts from all the pent up sexual frustration

He's torn between politely declining any help and begging for assistance until he sees you sink to the floor in front of him

At that point all the blood that was being used to form any sort of thought went rushing somewhere else if you know what I mean

Knowing Wilson he probably needed to be gagged (most likely with his own tie, as you didn't have anything else immediately on hand) so no one would hear his desperate moans while you sucked him off/gave him a handjob

Depending on how strong the aphrodisiac was would determine just how long you spent with him in his office. If it was weaker, then thirty minutes to an hour would suffice. Anything stronger than that and the two of you wouldn't be seen for the rest of the day

If you were to ask him about it afterwards, he'd admit it was a lot more enjoyable than he thought it would be given the fact you were both at work during the day

Still, he'd prefer if the next time he took an aphrodisiac it was in a less public area with him having knowledge of it beforehand

Likes < reblogs | comments are greatly appreciated | requests are currently open

Main masterlist | House MD masterlist | wanna be added to my taglist?

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#house md #house md imagine #house md x reader #house md headcanons #house md smut #james wilson #james wilson imagine #james wilson x reader #james wilson headcanons #james wilson smut #gender neutral reader #gn reader #x gender neutral reader #male reader #x male reader #fem reader #x fem reader

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lokisprettygirl · 2 hours

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Rain to his Fire (Modern! Daemon Targaryen x Female Reader) (Non Canon 80s Au) (18+)

Read chapter 1 here

Chapter 2

Summary: Dr. Vis gives you the responsibility of the patient in room 393.

Warning: 18+, discussion of mental health (it's a fic based in a mental health facility), the fic would contain several mentions of several disorders like mpd, did etc, if something triggers you don't read, smoking.

Note : This fic is a bit of a slow burn so don't expect overly heated smut in the second chapter itself.

Species dysphoria, that's what they called it, a feeling of displacement or non-belonging in one's own species and feeling as if you belong to another. Your mother used to talk about one of her patients who felt this way and believed he was a crow - he would make crow sounds, walk and act like one, and even attempted to fly like a crow, which led to him breaking most of his bones.

Upon learning about Daemon's condition, you recognized the similarity to the patient who thought he was a crow, but you also recognized that Daemon was not constantly pretending to be a dragon, he just said that he was one, not just a dragon but a hybrid instead. As you had woken up this morning Mona had informed you that Dr. Vis wanted to meet you which had immediately made you all nervous.

“Good morning Dr. Vis” you mumbled politely so he gestured to you to sit down. He was an intimidating man with brown hair and few wrinkles that came with age of course, eyes always hidden behind those thick glasses, and you had never seen him in anything but the professional suit he would wear and of course the doctor's coat. As the silence made you uncomfortable you began to pick on your nails nervously like you always did in anxious situations.

“The new patient in 393 is not allowed to leave his room for two days, I want you to make sure his meals and medicines are taken care of” he passed you a piece of paper as he spoke so you nodded. The paper contained a breakdown of the patient's diet plan and a list of medications.

“Anything else sir?” You asked him so he gave you a smile,

“Don't be fooled by his charm, he's insane but very sharp minded, he can read weaknesses and he will try to manipulate you”

You felt slightly offended at his words, just because he was a semi good looking man that didn't mean you were going to salivate after him like Shyla and others.

“Don't worry sir, I don't get overly involved with patients”

He gave you another smile but it only made you more uncomfortable.

“That's why I'm giving you this responsibility, get going now”

You got up and proceeded to step out of his office, there was always a shortage of staff in the center, the main reasons being that it was located right in between the dense woods where it wasn't really possible for everyone to spend hours commuting back and forth everyday, and not everyone was willing to stay here 24/7, only single people and those desperate for a job did so. People like you.

During Lunch time you grabbed the plate for Daemon and placed it on a tray as you made your way to room 393, you knocked on his door twice before you entered yourself.

It was dark in there as the blinds were off so you placed the cart on the side and were about to open the blinds when you heard his distinct voice.

“Don't do it” his voice came out all groggy so you hummed in response and turned on the bedside lamp instead to not irritate him further.

“You need to eat before your medication” you mumbled softly as you neared the bed, he was laying on his front with his head squished into the pillow, as usual he didn't have a shirt on. You couldn't help but stare at the large, diagonal scars that stretched across his back, which looked like they'd been inflicted by a large object. Despite the urge to touch them, you refrained but you wondered how he had gotten them.

“Daemon?” You called out his name again so he rose from the bed and stepped towards the bathroom, letting out a low moan of discomfort. You had to turn around quickly because as the sheets dropped his naked sculpted behind came into your view. His room was also freezing cold so you wondered how Dr. Vis had allowed him this privilege in this cold weather.

As Daemon stepped out of the bathroom he smirked as he saw you standing with your back against the bathroom. You had your usual work uniform on, a light brown colored dress with a cardigan on top.

“Never seen a man naked before?” He asked as he pulled his pants up you so you rolled your eyes, that was none of his business even if you hadn't.

“Don't speak to me like that, I'm not your servant” you warned him as you turned around hoping that you'd not see him naked again.

“Mmmmmhhhmmm of course you're the doctor's servant aren't you? That is why you are here, attempting to impress him with a job well done so perhaps he'd pity fuck you finally and you'd get a promotion?” He spoke with that annoying smirk on his face but his eyes softened as you teared up, you had never been spoken to this way, people mostly respected you here, patients and staff alike.

“Finish your food, I'll be back in half an hour” you told him sternly as you walked past him but your breath hitched as he grabbed your upper arm.

“Stay, I'm sorry, I don't want to be alone” the tone of his voice had changed suddenly so you sighed,

“Will you behave?” You asked him sternly so he nodded before he sat down on the bed so you passed him the plate of food you had brought for him.

“I'm not your enemy alright, i have been assigned to take care of you-” before you could even finish your sentence he cut you off and looked you in the eye,

“Take care of me? Pretty girl you have no clue what you'd have to do for me if you really want to take care of me” he mumbled as he shoved a piece of steak into his mouth. You never had an urge to slap a patient until now.

“You're doing it again”

“I'm jesting..I'm bored senseless,”

“Well you must have pissed them off to deserve the confinement, otherwise you'd have been out there doing fun activities with other patients” you retorted so he opened his mouth and smirked again,

“Does the fun involve orgies?”

Taking a deep sigh you didn't respond this time as you didn't want to encourage him. When he was done eating you made sure he had ingested his medicines before you left him alone for good.

After two days of isolation, Dr. Vis had granted Daemon the brief privilege to take a walk outside. You were entrusted with accompanying him throughout the premises. Despite the fact that he was handcuffed, you couldn't help but feel nervous about being alone with him, given his unpredictable nature.

As the two of you reached the conclusion of the walking path, Daemon chose to settle on a grassy patch, he seemed calm for once so you didn't want to disturb him.

“Sit with me y/n” he mumbled softly so you nodded and sat down next to him to offer him some company. Isolation wasn't pleasant.

“What's a lady like you doing around here? Does the constant exposure to such madness not drive you mad as well?” he asked you with a touch of curiosity so you turned to look at him.

“First of all What do you mean a lady like me?” You asked him so he made eye contact with you before he smiled like a cheshire cat.

“You're too pretty to be cleaning up after crazies” your face felt warm as he said that, you didn't appreciate him calling the fellow patients crazy but his compliment almost sounded genuine and you weren't used to being complimented this way, it also sucked that he was kind of sort of beautiful, you couldn't help but stare at his sharp features, perhaps those strange features contributed into making him believe that he was an otherworldly creature that don't even exist..

“What's wrong with helping people? Besides they're not crazy…most of them are just sick and traumatized from their past, there's a reason behind every ailment” you emphasized so he let out the sort of smile that you could hear.

“How old are you?” He asked you so you shrugged in response.

“30..close to 31” you mumbled softly and you could tell he was surprised by the knowledge.

“You don't look a day older than twenty five darling”

“Well there's not much difference between 25 and 30.. how old are you?”

“Why would you want to know?”

He asked you and you almost felt embarrassed, now you could see what Dr. Vis meant when he said that Daemon was a charming man.

“I'm just countering your questions buddy”

He chuckled as you said that.

“I'm thirty four sweetheart”

“Mhhhm and since when you feel that you're a uhhh…a dragon?”

The look on his face changed as you brought it up , he turned his whole body towards you and scooted closer as he looked at you intently.

“Don't mock me frail little thing, it would do you no good” he hissed his words, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate you but he was handcuffed. What's the worst he could do? And why did you want to figure it out so badly?

“I was just asking you a genuine question”

“Did Vis ask you to shove your nose into my personal business?” he questioned so you shook your head immediately.

“Noo i am curious”

“Ohhh I know you're curious”

He tilted his head and pressed his nose against your neck to sniff you again, this time in broad daylight, if someone was to see you like this it wouldn't go down well.

“You didn't answer my question”

You mumbled gently so he dragged his nose over the vein on your neck before he stepped away, that's when you were able to let out the breath you had been holding in.

“For as long as I could remember, I knew what I was”

His voice was deep as he whispered, pupils dilated now as if he was drunk or high on something all of a sudden.

“Why do you sniff me like this?” you asked him, curiosity apparent in your tone.

“To read, to assess, to judge”

“What are you assessing?”

“Assessing whether you are as sweet on the inside as you smell and look”

“Alright…umm we need to get back now” you stood up suddenly so he snickered as if he was proud of himself.

You knew you had to maintain some professional distance from him if he was going to sniff you out of nowhere.

And you knew you had to deny the fact that it made you feel so warm and tingly sudden whenever he was so close to you.

Perhaps you had an ailment of your own because you had never really felt a genuine sexual attraction towards a man all your life, the only crush towards the opposite sex you remember having as a child was on this actor from the movies, Paul Newman. Men didn't attract you, nor did women, you loved the idea of romance and love but you had never experienced it, you never found yourself thinking or dreaming about anyone constantly. It made you yearn for that sort of connection but you were never able to find it in a man. You had learned to accept it as it was.

But something changed that night, as you laid down on your bed you found yourself thinking about him, his hazel eyes that you could have sworn were glowing under the sunlight, his silver hair longing to be touched.

“Fucking stop it..he's sick ..he's sick…he's a patient, you're responsible for him in a way so stop indulging him” you mumbled in your head over and over again until you were drifted into sleep.

But the sleep didn't bring you any relief, it worsened it instead. You saw him in your dream, you saw yourself laying on the same patch of grass and he was on top of you all naked, as you pressed your head up you realized you didn't have any clothes on either, your legs were secured around his slender waist, his hair falling on your face so you tucked them behind his ear, that's when he lifted his head up to look at you.

He licked your lips with his tongue, before he kissed you and it was as if you could feel his touch all over you, he was burning like a fire but you didn't feel uncomfortable, it calmed you instead. The wet grass beneath your flesh, the warmth of his body all around you, the smell of the forest, everything intoxicated you.

He then let out a growl as his hips moved slowly against yours,

“Daemon–” you couldn't help but moan his name, your fingers clutched onto the strands of grass so he grabbed your hands and placed them over your head,

“You're mine you know that right? I have got my eyes on you and I'm not leaving without you, the moment I saw you i knew you belonged to me, a part of my soul that I have been missing”

He mumbled between his staggering breaths and all you could do was whine and whimper in response, your arms wrapped around his upper back and then you felt something.

Something protruding out of his back, wings, you felt the wings….

That's when you were awakened by the loud sound of your alarm, drenched in your own sweat, breathing was faster as if you had raced away from something, and worst of all your panties were soaked.

“What the fuck…the fuck” you groaned as you got out of the bed.

The dream, it was so vivid, it felt so real. It felt like a memory you have never lived.

That afternoon you were asked to grab his meal and leave it outside of his room but that bothered you. Why wasn't he present in the cafeteria with other patients? Had he done something to warrant confinement again?

As his plate was made you placed it on a cart along with a glass of water and made way to his room..

You were instructed to leave the food outside his room with a knock but you felt restless. Why weren't you allowed to see him?

After wrestling with your thoughts for a moment you decided to enter instead, there was no one around the hallway and if you were caught you'd simply tell them that you only went inside to check up on him because he hadn't come out for his food in a while.

As you stepped inside his room you found him on the floor instead of the bed so you quickly closed the door behind you,

“Daemon.. hey” you crouched down to check up on him as he wasn't conscious and immediately checked his pulse for signs of life. Upon confirming that he was indeed breathing, you proceeded to look around for signs of injury or drug overdose, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Desperate to awaken him, you snatched the glass of water and sprinkled the droplets over his face.

And it worked, you saw him moving his eyes before he opened them up slowly,

“Heyyyy ..oh thank God, are you okay” you asked him worriedly so he sat up slowly. He was still in his uniform as he had returned from his therapy session with Dr. Vis.

“What happened?” He asked you so you looked at him worriedly.

“You were unconscious..I don't know for how long” he placed his hand over his head and that's when he cursed loudly.

“The bastard zapped me”

“What?” You asked him confused so he groaned as he tried to stand up on his own but his body felt weak so you offered your support and that's when it clicked what he had meant.

“He used a stun gun on you?” You asked him as you helped him sit down on the bed.

“Leave me alone” he mumbled as he placed his head down into his palms so you sighed and got up,

“Will you eat?” You asked him and perhaps it was the gentle tone of your voice but as he looked up at you, his eyes were teary

“Don't go…don't leave me alone”

The sad murmur of his voice made you feel really awful for him, the constant mood swings, the way he seemed so broken bothered you alot.

“I can't stay, I was asked to leave your food outside, I'm already breaking my code”

You said to him so he grabbed your hand, his thumb ran over your fingernails, they were red and flamed from the recent biting and picking and you felt a little embarrassed by them, not to mention his touch was making you feel weak at the same time.

“Why did he use a stun gun?” You asked as you crouched down on your knees and placed your palm on his shoulder to comfort him.

“So I'd accept that I'm not a dragon, that I'm just an ordinary man like him.. like all of them”

He mumbled somberly, his words were broken in pieces and it made your own eyes tear up “I am not crazy y/n”

“I know, you just need help-”

“I don't need help, I need to be understood”

“I..” you were at a loss for words as he said that, you wanted to comfort him but you didn't want to lie to him.

“Understood?”

“I know what I am..I'm not delusional or whatever they're trying to make me believe”

“Okay..then why did you agree to come here?”

He went quiet as you questioned him. This wasn't an asylum where people were forced against their will, it was a wellness center. If he didn't want to get better then why did he come here?

“I made a mistake out there .. I didn't know.. couldn't control my powers–they come and go in waves..i have no control..no–” the moment he saw the perplexed look on your face he stopped his rambling, he was saying too much too soon, you weren't going to believe him, nobody believed him “Just go ..I'm done talking”

You nodded as he said that as you didn't want him to get upset or mad again but before leaving you made sure that he was fed.

You felt conflicted about him, he didn't seem dangerous, sure he had his moments of aggression but so did several other patients, why was he being treated so harshly by Dr. Vis?

You couldn't stop thinking about him even when your shift had ended. Sick people were capable of convincing you that they were not sick at all, it wasn't their fault, that's just how their brain operated but Daemon seemed different, you couldn't put your finger on it but he seemed different from the rest of the patients.

That week you didn't see much of him because you weren't really allowed to, Dr. Lisa had informed all the members of the staff that Dr. Vis didn't want anyone interacting with Daemon due to his aggressive and unstable temperament.

Such restrictions only made you want to seek him out further, your mother always told you that patients flourished when they were allowed to be free and form human connections with their caregivers and fellow mates so why was Daemon being treated so differently? That night on the way to the terrace you knocked on his door twice before you climbed the stairs, as you reached up there you didn't lock the door this time from the inside,

“And here I was thinking you were a stickler about this job”

You heard his voice so you smiled and turned around, you had your coat on and your arms crossed together due to the cold but he was without a shirt again. Why didn't he feel cold? Or was he good at pretending he wasn't affected in the slightest?

“I am not going to offer you a cigarette if that's why you came here” you told him so he walked closer to you.

“Tchhh that's a bummer but this ain't too bad either”

He mumbled as he walked past you and leaned against the ledge to look at you intently. What was he thinking you thought, perhaps the fact that you had invited him upstairs when you had no obligation or rights to do so.

“You're cold” he mumbled softly so you chuckled in response

“It's cold out here”

“Mmmhm come here” he tilted his head as he spoke and it made you nervous, the look on his face sent shivers down your spine. You had to remind yourself of your situations to snap back to reality.

“So they will be lifting the restrictions tomorrow..you must be doing well in the therapy” you switched the conversation so he rolled his eyes in response,

“I'm doing what he want me to do”

“And why is that?”

“I want my freedom” he mumbled so you nodded but what he said next made your heart skip a beat “and i miss a certain lady's presence in my room and her forcing me to fucking eat all the time”

You couldn't help but smile as he finished his words.

“Do you feel better?” you asked him in the hope that he won't notice the warmth his words had brought.

“I do now”

Was he flirting with you? You couldn't really tell, you had no idea what he was planning in his head.

“Okay we should go back now–” you mumbled softly so he followed you as you walked side by side, being as careful as you could be.

As his room arrived you whispered a soft good night so he grabbed your hand in his own, his eyes then raked over your fingernails before he looked at you intently

"Next time you're anxious you can use my flesh to pick on, don't ruin yourself"

And then he went in without causing a scene. You hadn't realized all day that you had been smiling constantly these days for some reason. Perhaps you had a crush on him, if this is what a crush on a real man felt like. It was wrong, completely wrong but a crush was just that, a crush. You'd get over it, you were confident about that.

However the next morning you were greeted with an unexpected turn of events as you arrived at the staff area. Mona informed you that Shyla was let go that morning so you'd have to take up double shifts for a few days until the new member was hired,

“Wait ..what happened?” You asked her worriedly so Mona's expression turned serious as she glanced around, ensuring no one was in earshot before stepping closer to you.

“She was caught fooling around with the dragon boy, such a stupid girl”

😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏

Taglist

@anukulee @ammo23 @littledark11 @stupidthoughtsinwriting

#daemon targaryen x female reader #daemon targaryen x reader fluff #daemon targaryen #daemon targaryen x reader smut #daemon targeryen x reader #daemon targaryen x reader angst #modern day au #non canon au #modern daemon targaryen

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rxgirlie · 1 day

Text

The Verdict- Chapter Nine

Pairing: Vincent Renzi x OFC

Warnings: familial trauma, abortion, medical procedures, medical terminology, discussions of birth control, protesting.

A/N: this chapter is extremely dark and heavy. if you have any trauma regarding abortion or subjects tied to it, please message me and i will give you a TLDR. i swore i would never, ever write anything like this but you guys asked for drama, and now you’re getting it. Also huge shoutout to @melancholicmelanin for being my beta. My elite employee.

Grumbling quietly in the back of the Uber, Leah, with all the politeness she could muster, requested the driver to keep driving. She recognized the neighborhood's landmarks, recalling specific apartments and details from her recent walks with Vincent to and from her current destination. The driver, growing increasingly impatient with Leah's distracted directions, muttered frustrations in French, navigating the streets aimlessly as Leah anxiously scanned her surroundings, hoping for a familiar sight.

"Stop!" Leah's sudden command made the driver slam on the brakes.

Quickly exiting the vehicle, Leah made sure to proceed towards her due diligence of tipping the poor man. Tapping away at her phone in a hurry, she overpaid the driver before giving a forced smile through gritted teeth.

"Thank you," she called out while crossing the street, "Uh, merci!"

Spotting a familiar figure smoking on the terrace above, beckoning her like an old friend, Leah hastened towards the door. Joan, draped in a silk robe, welcomed her inside with an understanding gaze.

"I had nowhere else to go," Leah confessed.

"Come inside," Joan ushered Leah through the foyer and into a cozy sitting room that Leah hadn't noticed during the party.

"What happened?" Joan asked, her concern evident. "Is Vincent okay? Are you okay?"

She sat down, gesturing for Leah to take a seat.

"Yeah," Leah shook her head, "No, I don't know?"

She sighed, "I, uh, left the restaurant in a rush after I saw, uh, well, Vincent and Sandra clearly having a moment. I left my bag with all its contents, and I didn't have anywhere else to go," she explained. "I'm sorry for ambushing you."

“A moment?,” Joan questioned, “What do you mean?”

Leah sighed heavily again. “He was holding her and caressing her,” Leah, visibly upset, said while wringing her hands, “And she touched his face, caressing his cheeks, and they just stared at one another.”

Leah’s voice cracked as she continued, “And I know that type of look,” Leah stopped long enough to wipe her tear stained cheeks, “I’ve been on the receiving end of that look.”

"I feared this would happen," Joan paused to grab a cigarette from the case on the coffee table and lit it. "History repeating itself."

Leah shrugged and sank back into the couch. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Joan nonchalantly flicked her ashes into a chic ashtray on the side table. "Do you want some tea?"

Confused by the sudden change of topic, Leah nodded.

"How do you take it?" Joan inquired.

Leah chuckled wryly. "I never drank tea until I came here, so however Vincent makes it is how I've been taking it."

“Black tea with honey and milk, I think?” Leah suggested, “That’s how he taught me.”

_______________________________________

An hour passed as Leah and Joan delved into discussions about what Leah should have done, could have done, and would do.

"You kept Vincent from his father, and yet, you're telling me that I should be honest with Vincent, disregarding everything I saw back at the restaurant," Leah sighed, closing her eyes. "Are you telling me to be honest with him because you have an emotional stake in this or because you think it's the right thing to do?"

"Vincent's father was a pickpocket by trade and a drunk by hobby," Joan explained. "I was twenty when I had Vincent, and I went back to Ireland to tell him about Vincent a year or so later, only to find out he'd knocked up the bartender at the local bar." Joan continued, "For months, we robbed, partied, and lived off Guinness until we were finally caught. I was arrested, deported, and found to be pregnant at the very last minute."

Joan lit a cigarette and pointed a finger at Leah. "So don't draw comparisons from me."

"But it's hard not to when you're telling me all these things," Leah said. "The only difference is I'm thirty-two, Vincent is forty-two, and I live on an entirely different continent," Leah stated, continuing, "We're old enough and established enough to have a child, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should."

"It's your right to choose," Joan said, “Even Vincent will tell you that.”

Joan lit another cigarette and pointed at Leah. "It's not my place to tell him about the child, nor is it my burden to bear," she continued. "But keep in mind that he is not some fly-by-night, piece of shit who's going to move on and pick up the pieces when you fly out of here." She ashed the cigarette, and Leah made a mental note that this is where Vincent must have inherited his chain-smoking gene. "He is going to be right where you left him, loving you all the same."

"See, the thing is," Joan inhaled sharply. "Sandra never loved Vincent back," she explained. "Maybe platonically, sure, but he fell hard, and I think he is now seeing what he lost but also what he has gained. You love him back. That’s the difference."

Leah shook her head, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. "But is that enough?"

Joan smiled sadly at her. "Is anything ever enough, lovely Leah?"

_________________________________________

For an hour, Vincent walked around Paris with an overpriced Prada bag in his grip. Leah had felt guilty the day she bought it, telling him about the people starving and the wars being fought around them. She expressed how selfish and materialistic she felt, but she didn't plan on being the richest person in the cemetery when she died. She intended to spend what she could while she still had a pulse. Vincent liked the way she rationalized the purchase and stood happily behind her with his hands clasped behind his back as the attendant took her on a guided trip through the store.

On this particular night, Vincent longed for the simplicity of those first few weeks they'd spent together. As he searched the streets of Paris as if she might jump out and surprise him around any corner, like the entire thing was one big joke, he wished he had never met her. Quickly banishing that thought from his mind, he realized it was a blatant lie. Convinced she had moved on in New York City, perhaps with the old flame she had mentioned weeks ago in a wine-fueled confession during one of their many midnight chats, he wondered why he continued to want her the way he did.

Then, as his phone vibrated and he squinted to read the brightened screen, a text from his mother read, "She's with me. Go home."

“Why is she there?” He texted back, walking aimlessly in the direction he had been going.

His phone vibrated again and he quickly opened the chat, “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

Vincent scoffed, forever humbled by his mother, and headed in the direction of her apartment.

_________________________________________

"Vincent, don't come in here to start an argument," his mother warned as she opened the door and gestured for him to enter. "And wipe that smirk off your face."

He complied silently, knowing well that his mother was not one to be swayed in an argument.

She closed the door behind him, tightening her robe around her before pointing a finger at his chest. "Do not wake her up."

He took a step back, raising his eyebrows. "She's at my mother's house."

Joan nodded firmly. "My house, my rules." With that, she turned and walked away, throwing a final warning over her shoulder. "You better not wake me or Tim."

He chuckled to himself, shaking his head in disbelief as his mother disappeared from view.

Taking a deep breath, he navigated through the dimly lit apartment, finally reaching the sitting room where Leah lay curled up on the couch. He let her bag slip out of his grip, the sound of it hitting the floor breaking the silence. Leah jolted awake, gasping, her eyes darting around the room in a panic as she struggled to orient herself.

"I thought I was supposed to be the one mad here," she remarked, sitting up and pulling a throw blanket around her shoulders.

"You chose to come here?" He inquired, a mix of confusion and frustration in his voice. "Why?"

Leah shrugged, a hint of defiance in her demeanor as she shook her head. "Where else was I supposed to go?" she retorted, her tone sharp.

"Leah, you should have gone home," He ran a flustered hand through his hair, turning to face her. "You shouldn't have run away from me," he chastised.

"Home is over three thousand miles away, Vincent," she retorted sharply. "What did you expect me to do?" Her voice cracked with emotion. "Stay and watch that? Put yourself in my shoes for once."

He shook his head, starting to pace. "What you witnessed was two people closing a chapter and moving on."

She scoffed, her tone laced with sarcasm. "Sure, call it that," she said, rolling her eyes as she locked eyes with him. "Maybe next week I'll walk into your apartment and find you fucking her, and we can label it as 'grief therapy.'"

He let out a heavy sigh, his gaze shifting to the ceiling. "What happened to you in New York?" He inquired once more.

She abruptly rose from the couch, pulling the throw tighter around her shoulders.

"I finally came to my senses," she declared, her eyes fixed on the Parisian street beyond the sliding glass door.

"Do you mind sharing, because I can't read your mind?" he asked, moving to stand beside her, both looking out onto the same street.

Leah met his gaze, tears welling up in her eyes. "That you're in love with her," she confessed, her voice trembling. "And I'm in love with you." Wiping away the tears hastily, she continued, "I came here to explore international law, to step out of my comfort zone, but I can't even tell you a single thing about French law because all I've been is a puppet on a string. I've played second fiddle to the ice queen of the Alps because you're so deeply in love with her, Vincent." A sob escaped her, and she quickly muffled it, torn between shame and fear of waking Vincent's mother.

"I don't even know you," she shook her head, a sense of resignation washing over her. "This should never have gone this far," she admitted, closing her eyes. "And I don't share. I refuse to play second fiddle to anyone," she declared.

Vincent chuckled incredulously. "There it is, that American brashness, always rearing its head when things don't go your way."

She let out a sarcastic laugh. "It seems to be a recurring theme, doesn't it? You never miss a chance to remind me of my Americanness." She tilted her head and met his gaze. "You'll eventually scold me for not learning French, one of us will jump out of a window, and history will repeat itself."

"What are you even talking about?" Vincent's face registered bewilderment as he spoke softly, mindful not to disturb his sleeping mother. "Have you thought this through? What's gotten into you?" he inquired.

"It's hard not to dwell on it after what I heard during the case," she sniffled, her voice tinged with distress. "That USB file is haunting me in the most unsettling ways."

"I may be many things," he reached out to touch Leah's shoulder, gently turning her to face him, "But I am not Samuel, and you are not Sandra," he reassured her. "You could speak an alien language, and I would still be in love with you just the same."

She nodded, resting her heavy head in the space between Vincent's shoulder and neck, surrendering, if only for one night.

_________________________________________

Leah had made up her mind before she had actually made up her mind. It was a familiar pattern, reminiscent of her second year of law school when she found herself with two different guys, rotating between them over a span of six months. She walked quietly into the Joan Malin Health Center, the same place that had been the center of protests the week before, causing chaos in the already bustling streets of Brooklyn. With Kate beside her, she completed the necessary paperwork, underwent an exam and ultrasound that they both averted their gazes from, and with a swift IV placement, she drifted off into unconsciousness. Sometime later, she awoke in a sterile, brightly lit room with Kate faithfully by her side. On the way home, Kate grabbed some pizza for both of them, a decision they both wholeheartedly agreed was the best choice, including the one Leah had made earlier in the day. Maybe it had been more emotionally charged that day, Leah couldn’t recall in the moment. Had it been that easy? Had she not felt anything?

It had been about eight years since that day, Leah estimated, as the Uber dropped her off in the sixth arrondissement, her former residence before moving in with Vincent. She pondered whether she would have even made the trip to Paris if she had become a mother back then. Would she have pursued a career in law? Pushing aside these thoughts, she relied on Google Maps to navigate the streets, drawing closer to the address provided by an associate of Le Planning Familial. The associate had promptly responded to her email late at night, providing her with a list of names and locations, allowing her the autonomy to choose where she wished to seek treatment.

Upon her arrival, she took a deep breath before entering the multilevel practice. After riding the elevator to the correct floor, she promptly checked in, grateful that the receptionist spoke English. She didn't want any additional challenges that morning, so she chose a seat far away from the other women waiting to be seen.

It seemed like hours had passed before her name was called, and she was ushered into what appeared to be a doctor's office. They meticulously reviewed her medical history, discussed the procedure, and outlined the pre- and post-procedure protocols. He recommended contraceptive devices to her, to which Leah declined for obvious reasons, not thinking of any sort of future outside of this building, this room. Adoption, she explained, wasn’t even an option to put on the table. Dr. Shah, as he introduced himself, noticed Leah's nervousness as he sighed and leaned on both elbows, studying her.

"It's not too late to change your mind," he offered sympathetically.

"It's not that," Leah shook her head. "I'm just trying not to vomit all over your desk." She placed her shaking hands under her thighs.

“Here,” he stood up and guided Leah out into the hallway, leading her to an exam room down the hall. Opening the door and flicking on the lights, Leah blinked a few times at their harshness.

“Get on the table and make yourself comfortable,” he requested.

Feeling cautious, Leah followed his instructions and settled onto the table, accepting the blanket he offered her.

As he exited the room, Leah took a moment to observe her surroundings. She glanced out the window, taking in the view of the city, and noticed the various pieces of art adorning the walls. Among them, she spotted delicate peonies painted to blend in with the earth-toned decor. If they were placed there for relaxation purposes, they most definitely were not working in Leah’s favor.

Leah picked up her phone and quickly FaceTimed Kate, whose blurred face came into focus after a few rings.

"Was I normal the day I had my abortion?" Leah asked without preamble.

"Leah," Kate began, looking around, "No warning at all?"

Looking past Leah, she asked, "Where are you?"

Leah sighed, "I'm at a clinic in France."

Leah watched as she walked into her office, sighing heavily as Kate sat at her desk, her numerous accolades and photos scattered on the shelves behind her. "What the fuck? I told you to come home, and we would take care of it."

"Was I normal that day?" Leah asked again.

"No," Kate shook her head. "You were shaking like a leaf the entire time, throwing up multiple times, and could barely sit still in that dirty waiting room."

"And those protesters," Kate rolled her eyes, "Their pamphlets were everywhere in the lobby."

Leah let out a shaky breath. "Why don't I remember any of that?"

"Because memory is tricky," Kate offered. "Come home, sissy cat, and we will take care of this."

A nurse knocked on the door and entered the room, carrying materials and a tablet. Leah motioned for Kate to wait, placing the phone beside her. The nurse offered Leah a kind smile, urging her to sit up as she tied a tourniquet around her arm. Nervously, Leah pulled back. "I'm not ready for the procedure, and I don't want general anesthesia. I have no one that can be here with me to take me home.”

"Not yet," the nurse comforted her. "I'm just going to start an IV filled with saline, give you some nausea medication, and medication for anxiety."

"I'll take it all," Leah relaxed and allowed the nurse to do her job. Within minutes, she felt calmer, a little lighter than she had in weeks. Following the nurse's instructions to undress from the waist down, a challenging task that Leah managed one-handed due to the IV placement.

"Are you okay?" Kate questioned as Leah picked up the phone again.

Leah shook her head. "Yes, no, maybe?" She closed her eyes. "I messed up big time, Kate."

"I gotta go, I can hear them discussing my case outside the door," Leah rushed out.

"I love you, sissy cat, and I'll love any little baby you have." Kate blew her a kiss and hung up the phone.

The doctor entered a few minutes later, wheeling an ultrasound cart in behind him. “Feeling better?” He asked, and Leah nodded. “As best as I can, given the situation.”

A few quiet moments passed between them as he set up the machine and had Leah lie back. The same song and dance as before: feet in the stirrups, the cold probe, warm gel, deep pressure. Leah wanted to make a joke about the French being prickly, about how kind and attentive they had been to her, but she quickly realized that was expected of people in their field.

"Once again, an IUD would be a great choice for you. I just want you to know all your options," Dr. Shah said, glancing up at Leah before turning back to the monitor.

"I know it looks like I'm a dumbass American who came to France for fun and got more than she bargained for," Leah sat up and locked eyes with the doctor, "but I took a Plan B and started birth control and still ended up in this situation."

The nurse placed a reassuring hand on Leah's shoulder. "We don't judge here."

“Mesure environ six semaines et cinq jours,” The doctor spoke to the nurse, who tapped on the tablet, nodding as he continued the exam.

And there it was: the steady beat of a drum, the galloping of horse hooves, the steady ticking of a wristwatch under a pillow. Leah thrummed her fingers along the exam table, keeping time with the rhythm, finding comfort in it as she closed her eyes, immersing herself in it.

The doctor looked up at her, his eyes on her dancing fingers, then back to her face. “Are you sure you want to proceed?”

Taglist:

@weakling-grace

@bibistatic

#maitre vincent renzi #vincent renzi fanfiction #vincent renzi x original female character #anatomy of a fall vincent #vincent renzi #the verdict

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