#and not just 'but what if you want to pop out children????'

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 10: Poseidon, God Of The Sea]

A/N: Only 2 chapters left!!! 🥰💜

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: 7.2k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

It’s Friday, November 1st, and it begins like every day does: with you sneaking a birth control pill and swallowing it with a handful of cool water from the sink. Aemond is usually gone before you wake up—writing speeches, reading newspapers, strategizing with Otto and Criston and Sargent Shriver—but you always lock the bathroom door just in case he reappears. You’ve popped the tiny pink pills out of their circular packages and hidden them in hollowed-out tampons, each opening sealed with cotton balls. You don’t like taking the pills; you don’t fully understand how they work, and you don’t like feeling out of tune with your body’s own rhythms, but they are infinitely better than the alternative. You can’t imagine having to carry Aemond’s child now, sacrificing your comfort, your health, your future, your life for a man who doesn’t know the real you and doesn’t want to. You return the modified tampon to the box you keep in the linen closet, then begin to pin up your hair.

When you venture downstairs, you’ve thrown on a long flowing floral skirt and chunky black sweater, black flats, small unceremonious gold hoops in your ears. You’ll have to change before the journalists arrive to fawn over the children as they bake homemade apple pies this afternoon. You’ll have to wear whatever Aemond tells you to. But presently, it’s Aegon you’re looking for; you begin with the basement.

He isn’t sprawled across his futon, he isn’t lazing on the floor. He isn’t there at all. As you stand on the steps, you see only Eudoxia, muttering irritably in Greek and crawling around on her hands and knees as she picks globs of red out of the shag carpet.

“What is wrong with him?” she says when she glances at you. “Can you believe this? Melted candle wax everywhere. He is a pig. A pig! Someone should make bacon out of him. Then he could finally be useful. He’s just about fat enough. He could feed the whole family, and all the dogs too.”

You don’t know how to reply; you can’t apologize for helping to make the mess, you can’t agree that Aegon is a plague and nothing more. “Do you want help cleaning up?”

“If Aemond saw me putting you to work, I would be deported back to Tyrnavos.”

“No, Doxie. Asteria would fall into the sea without you.”

She peers up at you through fallen strands of her hair, dyed a palpably artificial pitch black. Then she grins, large doughy cheeks, crinkles around her eyes. “Go help Aemond win his election.”

“Yes ma’am,” you say dutifully, and head back upstairs.

In the living room, Aemond and Otto are hissing like snakes as they leaf through the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper reports that Nixon’s poll numbers are climbing in this crucial eleventh hour. They can’t decide if that’s true or if the Wall Street Journal, a Nixon-friendly publication, is trying to give him a little extra momentum as Election Day approaches. Criston nods at you from where he sits on the couch, looking exhausted, dark shadows around his eyes and shoulders slumped low; Aemond and Otto don’t notice you at all. You keep moving.

There is chatter and giggling and the clanging of bowls and pans in the kitchen. You peek inside from the doorway. Fosco, Helaena, and the nannies are making pancakes with the children. Butter sizzles, spatulas scrape, bubbles appear in wells of batter. Helaena is lifting Evangelos so he can pour a cupful of smooth, milky batter into one of the pans on the stovetop. Cosmo, drizzling maple syrup over an ambitiously tall stack of pancakes, waves at you. You smile and wave back. In the corner of the room, Ludwika is smoking one of her Camels and shooing away Aegon’s second-youngest son Thaddeus, whose fingers are covered with flour.

“Please take your paws elsewhere,” Ludwika says, flicking ashes into the kitchen sink. “This dress is Prada.”

Fosco spots you. “Would you like some pancakes?” he asks as he approaches, wiping his palms on the apron tied around his slim waist. Flour dusts his eyeglasses. “We have enough batter to make about 500. Although I cannot promise they will not be burnt. Our chefs are rather inexperienced.”

“Thanks, but I’m not really hungry.” You take one last look around the kitchen, wondering where Aegon could be.

Fosco understands. His voice drops low and discrete. “I have not seen him this morning.”

“He isn’t usually up yet.”

“He’s not, this is true.” Fosco taps his chin, leaving white dabs of flour there. “Maybe he’s sailing?”

“Maybe. I’ll check.”

“And I have no idea where you’re going or why,” Fosco says with a wink before returning to the stove.

Outside it’s grey, misty, only 50 degrees. It would be a bad day for sailing. The wind rips at your clothes and your hair like a man’s lustful hands; the waves are choppy and treacherous. You think of Icarus plummeting into the ocean, of Andromeda being offered as a sacrifice to assuage Poseidon’s wrath, of sirens beckoning doomed sailors. From where you’re standing in the backyard of the main house, shivering with your arms crossed over your chest, you can’t see Aegon’s boat Sunfyre bobbing in the rough surf. You turn left to investigate Helaena’s withered garden.

As you walk, the hem of your skirt dragging dead autumn leaves, you skim your fingertips over the evergreen emerald hedges, cool and damp. At the center of the garden—like a diamond in a wedding ring, like the sun surrounded by its planets—you don’t find Aegon smoking a joint or napping under Zeus’s shadow, only a silent stone circle of gods who watch you with unmoving, all-knowing eyes. You spin slowly, studying each of them, deities who loved and cheated and offered mercy and cursed and killed. From his gurgling fountain in the middle of the clearing, Zeus glares at you most fiercely, wielding his lightning bolts, aching to loose them. The wind rattles the leaves of the hedges; crows caw from somewhere out in the mist.

“Oh! You’re here, darling?” Alicent says from the arched doorway cut into the greenery. She’s pushing Viserys in his wheelchair. Sparse white spiderweb-strands of hair hang limply from his head, mottled with liver spots. His fingers are bony and clawlike. “In this awful weather?”

You scramble for an explanation. “I just, um, needed some quiet.”

“Yes, the children are very rambunctious this morning, aren’t they?”

“Children?” Viserys echoes, as if he is only just learning of them.

“Your grandchildren,” Alicent reminds him. “Aegon and Helaena’s kids. Orion, Spiro, Violeta, Thaddeus, Cosmo, Daphne, Evangelos, and…” Panic crosses her face. She realizes she’s forgotten one, but she doesn’t know who.

“Neaera,” you say.

“Of course. Such a sweet girl, gentle like a lamb.”

You weren’t blessed with that sort of disposition. Sometimes you wish you were. Life seems easier for women who don’t feel bitterness or forbidden ambition, who pain moves cleanly through like clear water. They have no thorns for it to snag on and grow roots into the bones, the soul. They are never at risk of becoming poisonous like Jupiter’s moon Io. “What brings you to the garden on a day this dreary?”

“I feel close to them here,” Viserys rasps.

You stare down at him, baffled. “Close to who, sir?” You rarely interact with the ailing patriarch of the Targaryen family. He is often confined to his bedroom, attended by Alicent and Eudoxia and his nurses, and even when he is physically present his mind is sluggish, alien, impenetrable. Now Alicent’s eyes are downcast, and she drifts away to inspect the statue of Poseidon, a formidable bearded man holding a trident and with dolphins and sea turtles emerging from the waves of white marble at his bare feet.

“I left them back in Greece,” Viserys says, his gaunt face vacant, distant, vaguely sad. He is bundled up in a thick wool robe that hides how skeletal he has become. “I thought about having them brought over to be interred at the mausoleum, but it felt wrong to disturb their bones. Now I cannot visit their graves. I can only hear them here, among the gods our ancestors worshiped.”

“Who…?”

“Aemma and Rhaenyra,” Alicent tells you from where she now stands by Aphrodite, gazing longingly at the goddess of love. You notice that she is clutching a komboskini in one hand; she must believe that what her husband is saying is blasphemy, but she doesn’t condemn him. “Viserys had a wife and daughter before he met me.”

You feel a sudden and overwhelming stab of grief for the old man; you are thinking of Ari. “What happened?”

“The sea took them,” Viserys explains. “A riptide off the coast of Euboea. We found their bodies three days later.”

“Oh God. I’m…I’m so sorry for your loss.” You don’t know what else to say; it’s too disastrous, too unspeakable.

“Aemma was pregnant. It was a boy. She delivered him in the water, a coffin birth.” And you know from his face, his voice, that Alicent and her children never stood a chance, that Viserys has only one true family, only one set of names carved into the scarlet chambers of his failing heart. You think of Aemond’s heart, claimed by Alys and her son; you think of your own.

“They’re at peace, Viserys,” Alicent says. “They are in heaven with my mother and Ari and Mimi.”

He continues, as if he hasn’t heard her: “I thought that if I made something of myself in America, if I helped contribute something incredible to the world, then they would not have died for nothing.” Viserys reaches out with trembling, gnarled hands, and when you realize he wants to hold yours you let him. His grasp is weak and cold. “Aemond will be president. He will save countless lives, he will save this nation’s soul. And you have made that possible.”

Where’s Aegon? Is he okay? Why is no one else ever looking for him? “Thank you, sir.”

Viserys begins hacking, doubling over in his wheelchair, and Alicent hurries to soothe him and provide a handkerchief that Helaena embroidered green spiders onto. When he has recovered, you leave them with the gods: Viserys to grieve his old life, Alicent to mourn the one she never had.

You plod through sand dunes out to the Atlantic Ocean, peering into the fog as you search for Aegon’s sailboat. Still, there is no sign of him. You glance back towards the main house as sea spray peppers your cheeks and your knuckles. You’re beginning to get nervous. Where the hell is he? Is he passed out somewhere, is he sick, is he hurt?

And then, at last, you see him: sitting at the bottom of a small bluff so he is invisible to anyone not at the water’s edge, arms linked around his bent knees, not smoking, not drinking, not gulping pills, just gazing out into the waves that thrash and rumble beneath a grey sky, his too-long blonde hair whipping in the wind. He wears one of Daeron’s army jackets over a white turtleneck sweater, ripped jeans, no shoes, a collection of other men’s dog tags slung around his neck.

“Hey,” you say as you join him, dropping down onto the cool, crumbling sand.

Aegon smiles. “Hey.”

“It’s strange to see you awake before noon.”

“Yeah…I didn’t really sleep.” No, he didn’t, you can tell: his eyes are bloodshot and his voice tired, husky. He is watching you, so hopeful but so afraid. “What are we gonna do?”

About us. About Aemond. “If he loses on Tuesday, I can leave him.”

“What if he wins?”

You don’t have a good answer. You shrug, avoiding Aegon’s eyes. “It’s not forever, you know? It would be four years, and then…”

“Four years?” Aegon says. “No, I can’t wait another four years. I’ve been waiting my whole life for something like this. And what if he gets a second term? Eight years? I’ll be almost fifty. We’ve already lost so much time, I can’t surrender another decade.”

“Aegon, first ladies don’t quit. It’s never happened before, not once since 1789. It’s a part of the democratic process. People aren’t just voting for Aemond, they’re voting for me too. You know that. You told me we were a package deal, and you were right. If they trust me and I walk away, it’s…it’s…it’s treason, it’s abandonment, it’s wrong. And Aemond needs to have the political credibility to get what he wants done.”

“Look,” Aegon says, like it pains him. “I get that my life is already half over, and I haven’t done anything worthwhile with the last forty years, but I want to be different. I want to be better. And I can do that, but I need you to give me a chance.”

“You think Aemond would let me leave? If I publicly humiliated and undermined him?”

“We don’t need Aemond, we could figure it out—”

“What do you think he and Otto would do to you, Aegon? They would ruin you anywhere you go, they would have you declared mentally unfit and take your children away.”

“They don’t own us!”

“They do,” you insist. “And if you try to fight them it will destroy you. You’ve never cared about strategy, and I love that you’re truthful, and I love that you’re real, but I need you to understand what you’re asking for right now.”

“But he breaks the rules,” Aegon says, and his eyes are glistening. “He has Alys. He has a kid out of wedlock.”

“Yes,” you agree softly.

“And what, I’m supposed to hope Aemond loses?” Aegon swipes tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Because that’s the only way I get to touch you? Nixon wins and more draftees get butchered in Vietnam, and Daeron doesn’t come home, and the white supremacists get to resegregate the beaches at Biloxi, Mississippi and wherever the hell else they want to, and civil rights protesters get attacked by police dogs, and teenagers get sentenced to decades in prison for marijuana possession?”

“I’m sorry.” You can’t tell him he’s mistaken about any of that. He isn’t.

“I’ve spent my whole fucking life in a cage, but I’ve never felt this powerless.”

“Aegon?”

“Yeah.”

“Am I…” It’s terrifying to ask. “Am I the same way Mimi was when she was younger? Is that why you like me?”

“No,” he says immediately. “No, you’re different than Mimi. Mimi was fun, and we could party together, and I cared about her, obviously, but…” He stares out at the ocean, shaking his head. “She wasn’t as strong as you. And she couldn’t really get to me. I feel like you could kill me if you wanted to, you could reach inside my chest any time it crossed your mind and crush me in your fist and I’d be gone.”

You stretch out your fingertips until they collide with his sweater, warm yielding flesh woven over his ribs. “Not so easy,” you say. And then Aegon smiles and he leans in to kiss you, the ocean roaring like an ancient beast, a titan, a maelstrom. The wind rakes through your hair and stings your eyes. You ask when he rests his forehead against yours, your hand on his face, your thumb stroking his cheek: “Do you wish you could go back to when you hated me?”

“Never. I’ve gotten used to not being alone.”

“The kids made pancakes. You should go have some.”

“Come with me.”

“You first. I’ll be five minutes behind you. We shouldn’t walk to the house together.”

“Why?” Aegon teases. “Because people might think we fucked in the basement last night?”

“I’ve already told them. Aemond is waiting for you in the kitchen with a bazooka.”

Aegon laughs and struggles to his bare feet, slipping on the sand. “Okay. See you soon.”

“See ya.” Once he’s gone, you recite the full length of Here’s To The State Of Mississippi in your head, then trek across the sand and through the backyard to rejoin the rest of the Targaryens.

When you open the sliding glass door, Otto is standing in the hallway. His icy blue eyes sweep from your simple black flats to your windswept hair, still pinned up but unacceptably tousled. “Why the hell aren’t you dressed for the reporters?”

“Because they won’t be here for another two hours. Surely you are well-acquainted with the itinerary that you yourself arranged.”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble, girl.”

“Remember when you used to defer to me about things? Were you stupid then, or are you stupid now?”

“Do you know what Joe Kennedy did when his daughter Rosemary threatened the family’s reputation?” Otto says, eyes glittering cruelly.

You really don’t know; you weren’t aware that JFK had a sister named Rosemary. “What?”

“He took her to a surgeon to be lobotomized. Now she’s hidden away in a little cottage in Wisconsin, can’t speak, can’t walk, with full-time nurses to wipe the drool off her face and change her diapers. How would you like that? Would your obscene little flirtation still be worth it? We could tell people that you were in a car accident or fell down the stairs. The doctors go in through the eye socket, you know. And you’re awake the whole time.”

“You can’t do that to me,” you say, shellshocked.

“Oh, if that’s what it takes, I’ll find the will somehow.”

There is shouting from the basement, and you and Otto both bolt for the staircase. At the bottom of the steps, Aegon and Eudoxia are embroiled in a ferocious confrontation, red faces, hands itching to slap and shove. Aegon roars, jabbing his index finger at her like a petulant teenager: “I told you to stay the fuck out of my room!”

“You are filthy, you leave crumbs everywhere! We will have mice!”

“Where’s the garbage?” Aegon demands. “Huh? Where’d you put it? Out by the curb?”

“It has already been picked up.”

“No, no way! That’s bullshit!”

“You’re too late!” Doxie says. “The truck went by 20 minutes ago. And why is this a problem? What precious heirloom did I steal from you? An empty rum bottle? A magazine full of naked women? Candy wrappers, cigarette ashes, melted candle wax? You live like a pig, you should not be so outraged when you are treated the same as one.”

“Aegon, what happened?” you ask. Otto is equally bewildered, surveying the markedly clean basement, his brow knitted into deep crevices.

Aegon doesn’t answer. He only glances at you—frustration, anger, but shame too—and then sighs in defeat and stomps up the stairs to the main floor of the house.

Eudoxia looks at Otto and shrugs nonchalantly. “At least there were not so many used condoms this time.”

Your gaze catches on the end table by the futon. The empty cups are gone, the ashtray is spotless…and there is no folded white corner of a receipt poking out from under it.

The math problem from Mount Sinai, you think, that relic, that talisman, that worthless scrap of paper that Aegon never wanted to talk about but kept so close to him, just like you cling to the card he gave you and Aemond cherishes his engraved Ouija board. It’s gone. It’s almost like it never happened.

~~~~~~~~~~

After the journalists arrive and the apple pies, so quintessentially all-American, are made—you help Cosmo with his job, layering strips of dough into lattice crusts that turn golden in the oven, glinting with sugar crystals like diamonds—Aemond’s retinue begins the last of their campaign stops by travelling via limousines to Philadelphia, just an hour and a half across the width of New Jersey and over the Delaware River. In your penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton, you soak in a bath opaque with bubbles, steam hot and dewy on your skin. Your hair is long and free. The Zenith radio out in the kitchenette is playing Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles.

Your hands have just slipped beneath the hot water—your skull full of Aegon, things he’s done, things he’s said—when you hear the bathroom door open behind you. You rest your arms on the spotless white rim of the tub, porcelain-enameled steel, and try not to look like you’ve been interrupted. Aemond’s footsteps cross the linoleum floor, then he kneels by the bathtub and wraps his arms around you, his long uncalloused fingers skating over your shoulder, collarbones, nipples, before linking like a long necklace. He likes you best like this, when your scar is hidden, something that might have been a nightmare or a sad story that happened to somebody else. He rests the mutilated left half of his face against the right side of yours; his eyepatch scratches against your temple. You shift uncomfortably, you can’t help it. You don’t want him touching you. His arms tighten around your ribs.

“You know, JFK’s mother went through a crisis of sorts as a young wife,” Aemond says calmly. “She realized her husband was a hopeless philanderer and tried to leave him and go back to her parents. But her father sat her down and explained that she had made a commitment. Marriage is for life, and you don’t abandon your vows when the circumstances prove difficult. So she went back to Joe. And if she hadn’t, there never would have been a John F. Kennedy, or a Bobby, or a Eunice or a Ted, or a million other things too.”

“I am so fucking sick of hearing about the Kennedys.”

“You used to love being compared to Jackie.”

“I’m not her. I’m never going to be her.”

“I’m giving up things too,” Aemond says. Now he’s combing his fingers through your hair, unraveling tiny knots, yanking at your scalp. “If I win, I won’t be able to see Alys and our son. It would be too risky, someone might catch me. For as long as I’m president, I’ll have to be apart from them. You don’t think that’s painful? But Alys understands. She knows it’s for the greater good.”

“Please stop touching me.”

“You’re mine to touch as much as I want to.”

You stare at the seafoam green wall and try to pretend you’re in another place, another year.

“I’ve been thinking,” Aemond says sympathetically, an appeasing sort of tone, like he’s trying to strike a bargain. “I’m a realist, I’m aware that I can’t keep you locked up in a basement or put you in a straightjacket for the next fifty years. That doesn’t serve either of us. If you are truly desperate to be rid of me, there’s nothing I can do to change your mind. And I require a partner who is fully committed to my cause, my legacy. Not a captive. I can’t fight Nixon and you too.”

You twist around in the tub to look at him, skeptical, amazed. Is there a way out? “So what are you offering?”

“I need you for as long as I’m president,” Aemond says. “If I win, I need you for at least four years, probably eight. And a short while after that to establish myself in retirement and fade from the headlines, another few years. But then…we could work out some arrangement that is mutually agreeable.”

The hope is so fragile, so fearful, splintering glass. “You would let me go?”

“We’d have to negotiate the details, particularly as far as our future children are concerned, but…yes. In some sense, at least.”

You can’t find any words. You don’t want to offend him, to shatter this moment. And yet the price is so steep. Four years, eight years, ten years. But then…but then…

Aemond smiles, his remaining blue eye bright and cunning. His fingertips trace the slope of your jaw. “I care so deeply for you. You are my Aphrodite, you have made my wildest ambitions possible. You will help me save this country. I am worshiped because of you, I am trusted, I am envied. No one has a wife as beloved as mine, and everybody knows it. So I feel…I’ve considered…” His hand moves down to your throat, drawing invisible chains of gold or silver. “If you’ve given me so much, I can extend some mercy in return.”

“You can’t harm Aegon,” you say. “Or take his children away, or do anything else to punish him.” And then you lie, a necessary fiction, an invention, a myth, Prometheus stealing fire to give it to humans, Zeus hiding Io from Hera. “He hasn’t betrayed you.” And he’s saved me over and over again.

“Of course I won’t harm Aegon. I need him too. This act he has now of the devoted, reformed, tragedy-besieged single father? People adore it. At this rate, I’ll be able to make him the attorney general for my second term if he uses the next four years to rack up some experience. And his children are gold mines for the photographers. They have filled the void left by our own son’s death.”

“Ari,” you say.

“What?”

“He had a name. He wasn’t just ‘a son’ or ‘our son.’ His name was Ari.”

“You’ll feel better once we’ve had others.” Aemond stands and holds out a hand to you. He’s wearing a black suit like he’s getting married, like he’s going to a funeral.

You gaze up at him, not wanting to leave the water. You belong to him, but when he touches you it feels like the earth dying when Persephone is stolen away by Hades each autumn, it feels like Eurydice’s spiderweb-fragile life evaporating when Orpheus dared to look back at her as he led her out of the Underworld. “What if I can’t get pregnant again?” you ask. “It took over a year the first time. And the surgery…what if there’s too much scar tissue, what if I’m just…just…broken?” There’s real pain in your voice that staves off any suspicion Aemond might have. You do want more children, you believe, you know; just not with him.

“Then it is God’s will. But we’ll keep trying.”

Aemond draws you out of the water like a fish from the sea, something to devour, skin and muscle, delicate bones sucked clean.

~~~~~~~~~~

The sunlight is cloudless and glaring. Leaves swirl in the brisk wind in jewel tones: gold, ruby, fire opal, honey calcite, tiger’s eye, red jasper. Aemond has just finished a speech at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park, standing in a stone gazebo that you can’t help but think resembles a Greek temple, tall columns that house deities of love and death, oceans and fire. Alicent and Helaena have taken the children to attend the opening of a new public library on the other side of the city. The rest of Aemond’s entourage—you, Criston, Otto, Ludwika, Fosco, Aegon—are arranged in a semicircle around him on the stage. Only 50 yards away, there is a small parking lot full of police and press vehicles. Philadelphia residents have walked miles to hear Aemond speak, to glimpse him, to cheer for him, to take leaves he’s stepped on or loose threads from his navy blue suit as relics like the bones of a saint. You match him, as you always must: navy blue dress, high heels, hair neat, makeup mature and understated, gold jewelry gleaming on your ears, throat, wrist. Ravens flap their wings from the skeletal limbs of bare trees. A car radio is blaring Break On Through by The Doors.

“Senator Targaryen,” a reporter calls as flashbulbs strobe dizzyingly. “What do you think about Tommie Smith and John Carlos getting death threats for raising their fists in the Black Power salute at the Olympics in Mexico City?”

There is a split-second lull; it is a difficult question. Aemond must remain the savior of the hippies and college kids and civil rights activists, yet he must not let the old-money urban elite or suburban families mistake him for a discord-sowing radical. You and Aegon exchange a glance; Otto placed him on the opposite side of the gazebo, and this is not a coincidence. Then Aemond decides what to say. “Peaceful protests—even those that can make us confused, defensive, fearful—are not a threat to democracy,” he speaks into the microphone steadily, deliberately, commandingly. The crowd leans forward as they listen, enraptured. Journalists’ pens fly across the pages of their notebooks. “They are not the harbingers of some doomed descent into anarchy. They are a manifestation of the fact that we have already failed. Our nation has failed, our laws and our leaders have failed, and this is our chance to address those dire inadequacies. I urge every single American to listen to what Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos have actually said about their concerns and their hopes, to be empathetic, to be honest when reflecting on what our country has achieved and yet so desperately still needs to improve upon. These men are not enemies of the United States. They are the United States. They are a part of us, and we are a part of them, and we must not allow prejudiced, ignorant voices”—he means Wallace, he means Nixon—“to draw divides between us. The harassment that Mr. Smith, Mr. Carlos, and their families have experienced is a travesty. It is something that we should expect from a fascist or communist regime, not from a democracy. And to do my small part to show my admiration for them and atone for the mistakes of this nation that I so fervently hope to make better, I would like to personally fund private security services for the households of Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos for the foreseeable future.”

The crowd erupts into applause, cheers shouted, signs held aloft. Your eyes snag on one, clutched by a middle-aged woman bundled up against the cold; only her eyes—grey, tearful, shining like quarters—are visible above the red plaid of her thick wool scarf. On her sign is a large photograph of a young man in uniform, maybe nineteen, maybe twenty. Below the photo in red marker is written: Ryan Farrelly, my youngest son, burned to death in Phan Thiet on September 21st. Bring Daeron home! Bring them ALL home!

The woman waves at you. You raise your hand wave back. And then there is a sound that comes from everywhere, a boom of thunder, an explosion, bullets like the one that demolished Aemond’s left eye in Palm Beach back in May, a lifetime ago, a truth that has become mythology. There is something hot and sticky splattered across your face, and you can’t see; when you wipe it away with your sleeve and open your eyes, there is a hole in your palm that you can look through like a window.

Where else?

But when you check your chest, your belly, you are whole. It is only a hand would, and that won’t kill you. It doesn’t even hurt yet, though the blood runs in torrents down your arm. You peer frantically around to see if anyone else is hurt.

Aegon, Fosco, Ludwika, Criston??

People are rushing the stage to shield Aemond and his family from bullets. Police are tackling somebody in the audience and beating him bloody with their batons. Aegon is screaming and shoving through the chaos as he fights his way towards you. Otto slams him against one of the columns of the gazebo and holds him there, because Aegon is not the one who’s supposed to get to you first. Now Aemond’s arms are around you, and he is ushering you down the stone steps towards the parking lot, and Criston is running alongside him and telling Aemond that the closest hospital is Jefferson Methodist, but UPenn is better and only two miles farther.

“Who else?” you ask as you cradle your hand against your chest, blood turning your dress from navy to black. Now it hurts plenty, like waking up from your c-section, like a crimson wave that is scalding and crushing and dragging you under to be drowned. “Is anyone else—?”

“No, just you,” Criston says, a reassuring grip on your shoulder. “Don’t worry. Nobody else is hurt.”

“Senator Targaryen, this way!” a police officer is yelling, and he leads the three of you to his black and white car. Criston leaps into the passenger seat; Aemond pulls you into the back with him and slams the door. The sirens shriek and the police officer careens out of the parking lot, Criston giving directions, Aemond yanking off his suit jacket to wrap around your hemorrhaging hand.

“I’m not going to lose it, am I?” you ask dazedly. None of this seems real. You wish Aegon was here. “I need my hands.”

“No, honey. I don’t think they’ll have to amputate.” Then Aemond stares down at the blood on his palms, warm scarlet ruin, water and oxygen and iron that once pulsed in your arteries and veins and now stains him. He frowns, then wipes his hands on his white shirt until almost all the blood is gone from his skin. He is cleaning you off of him. He is readying himself for the cameras that will undoubtedly be waiting at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Inside the glass doors of the building, dust motes circle in aisles of sunlight; you watch them as doctors and nurses push you towards the operating room on a stretcher.

“We’re going to take excellent care of you, Mrs. Targaryen,” a doctor says as he ties a sterile white mask over his nose and mouth.

Don’t let Ari die, you almost murmur in response; and then you remember that’s already happened.

There are needles gliding into your veins, bright lights, pain vanishing like the memory of a dream dissolving when you wake.

~~~~~~~~~~

Four hours later, you are propped up in bed on a mountain of pillows, your hand surgically repaired and bandaged, morphine in your IV drip. The doctors think you shouldn’t lose much function—the bullet was from a pistol, blessedly small in size and missing most of your major tendons and nerves—but you won’t know for sure until it’s healed. Ludwika is here with you, lounging in the chair beside your bed and flipping through a copy of Cosmopolitan with her Louis Vuitton stilettos propped up on the ottoman. She is content to be here, but this is technically a job; she has been tasked with supervising you while Aemond and Otto meet with the Philadelphia police who are investigating the attack. The rest of the family—everyone except Aegon, who you suspect has been forbidden to enter the premises—has already been here to fret over you and ask if you need anything. But you aren’t in the mood for visitors. You are stunned, and aching, and you hate hospitals. You keep thinking of tiny babies in incubators, priests in black robes.

Your room is already filling up with flower bouquets. Every few minutes, the phone rings and Ludwika has to answer it. Each time she announces who it is—“Oh, hello Lady Bird, so nice of you to offer your well-wishes!” and then looks to see if you nod, agreeing to take it. The current first lady says that you are already as beloved as Jackie Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt. Pat Nixon calls you a gladiator.

There is a mint green Zenith radio on your nightstand, the volume turned way down low, and a television mounted on the wall. NBC news is on, but you’ve muted it to attend to the barrage of phone calls. There is a knock on the doorframe. Aegon stands there in his khaki pants and ill-fitting viridian button-up shirt and tan moccasins, wide searching murky blue eyes, carrying a white Dairy Queen cup.

Ludwika observes him as she puffs on a Camel cigarette. “I am suddenly struck by the inspiration to spend Otto’s money at the gift shop. I hope they take American Express.” She rolls up her magazine, shoves it into her oversized Gucci purse, and clicks in her heels out of the room and down the hallway.

Aegon commandeers the chair and drags it closer to your bed so he can feel your cheeks and your forehead, so he can get a good look at you. “Hey, little Io. You hurt your hoof, huh?”

“It’s not that bad. The caliber of the bullet was really small. Who shot me? One of Wallace’s Klansmen?”

“No, just some insane guy who thinks Aemond is a Russian double agent trying to overthrow capitalism here and put us all in gulags. I heard you could see right through the wound.”

“Yeah, I had a hole in my palm.”

“Just like Jesus.”

“I guess they fixed it.”

“Messiah status revoked.” Aegon sets the Dairy Queen cup on your nightstand. “I brought you a lemon-lime Mr. Misty.”

“I need to get out of here.”

“They gotta make sure you’re okay, babe. You could spike a fever or something.”

“Aegon,” you say seriously. “I can’t be in a hospital. I need to leave.”

He understands; his voice is gentle. “I might be able to get you out tonight, okay? I’ll try. I’ll talk to the doctors.”

“Okay,” you whimper.

Aegon turns up the Zenith radio, Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl. He sings along, snapping his fingers and shimmying his shoulders, his hair shagging over his eyes:

“Hey, where did we go?

Days when the rains came

Down in the hollow

Playin’ a new game…”

Reluctantly, you give him a smile. And you think very clearly, though you don’t say it: I love you.

Aegon leans across the bed to rest his head on your lap. He says softly as you run your fingers through his hair with your good hand: “Maybe Aemond will lose.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

On the muted television, Nixon is giving a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina to a euphoric crowd. You can’t hear the people gathered there, but you know their applause are thunderous. Nixon is flashing peace signs with both hands and beaming radiantly, this man who was once so poor, tragic, ordinary, unwanted, unloved. He has learned what it feels like to be a god.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Sunday, November 3rd, and your hand hurts like hell. You swallow your pills, smiling a little. Now Aegon is getting clean and I’m the one swimming in a haze of narcotics. Who could have predicted that? Still in your robe and bare feet, you swish to the hotel bathroom to wash your face, brush your teeth, rebandage your hand and make sure it isn’t growing dark insidious vines of blood poisoning.

When you venture out to the kitchenette, Aemond is in a sapphire blue suit and seated at the table, reading the Wall Street Journal, his face hidden by columns of black ink and interspersed photographs. This is unusual; he should be scheming with Otto and Sargent Shriver by now.

“Everything okay?” you ask with only vague interest as you go to the refrigerator to get yourself a leftover slice of apple pie, meticulously wrapped and packed in a cooler by Eudoxia before your departure from Asteria. Aemond doesn’t answer. You plop a piece of apple pie onto a plate, return the rest to the refrigerator, and then turn to your husband. And only now do you register the newspaper’s front-page story.

The photographs, all three of them, are of you and Aegon. They are blurry, taken from a distance, but you recognize the moment immediately. You can feel it again: ocean wind in your hair, his lips on yours, your hand on his face as you willed him to be closer, healed, permanent. You are sitting at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, turbulent and perilous. The journalists must have been north of you, shrouded in mist, their camera shutters clicking feverishly. The headline reads: A Family Affair?

And you remember what Aemond said on your 23rd birthday before he left for the Washington State Convention in Tacoma, how he scolded Aegon when he saw him lighting a joint in the backyard at Asteria: You know journalists will sneak around trying to get photos. You know we’re never truly alone out here.

You can’t speak, you can’t breathe. Aemond knows. The whole world knows.

Slowly, Aemond lowers the newspaper so you can see his face, scarred and hateful and horrifying, lethal like the volcanic hellscape of Jupiter’s most cursed moon.

~~~~~~~~~~

What are my earliest memories? Aegon getting drunk on his futon in the basement while I played with toy soldiers on the green shag carpet, Aemond with his poems and his myths, Helaena letting a praying mantis creep across her knuckles, Criston teaching me how to swim and sail, my mother cleaning sand from my face and hands and giving me water to wash the grit out of my teeth, my father wandering through the doorways of Asteria like a ghost, always on the periphery of my vision, and I had the sense that if I reached out to touch him my hands would pass resistlessly through his skin and sinew like a stone through water.

These are the things I think of here in the rain-dripping darkness, bruises down to my bones, eyes swollen almost completely shut, teeth broken and throbbing like blows from a hammer, fingernails ripped out. I know Tessarion is here because I can hear her, soft sympathetic squeaks, the padding of her tiny feet. I know John McCain is still alive because sometimes he taps back through the cracked concrete wall. I have run out of folklore, so now I tell him the truth. I tell him that I am afraid each beating will kill me as my body becomes a stranger, someone weak and brittle and helpless. I tell him that all my life I wanted to run as far as I could from home, but now I would crawl back to them through razor wire, I would fall into their arms in a shredded bloodstained heap and I’d be happy to do it. Isn’t that funny? I mean, I don’t laugh much these days. But maybe you can appreciate the irony.

Has the election happened yet? Has Aemond won? I’ve lost track of the days, but it has to be getting close to November 5th. What happens if he can’t get me out? What happens if Nixon wins?

I don’t want to be a hero anymore. I don’t want to have adventures like Heracles, Achilles, Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Orpheus, Ajax. I just want to go home. Please let me go home.

I can hear keys jangling against the lock on my cell door. My heart jolts into a breakneck, pounding rhythm; I think that sound will terrify me all my life. Some things you just can’t forget, you know? Some things dig down deep and build a home in the marrow of your bones, a rust-red cave of immutable memory. I know exactly what the communists want from me. They’ve been asking since they dragged me out of the Loach four months ago.

Everyone has a breaking point. This is mine.

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

[gabessquishytum]

Modern arranged marriage AU. (CW death threats)

Dream is a prince. Not the heir, but he's the prince of THE royal family, and with so many scandals tied to his name, he's got an ultimatum. Either he marries and settles down in privacy somewhere far, far away, or they send him far, far away on a "mission" to "help", and if he happens to die out there, well, the family can be publicly very sad about it.

Hob has joined the army as soon as he possibly could, while he was practically still a boy, due to being an orphan and wanting somewhere to fit in. He's been whisked from one modern war to another for years. He retired from the army at one point when his wife, also from the army, was expecting their second, but we all know what happened to Hob's family. Alone once more, he shamefully returned to the army.

When Hob finally earns a high enough rank and enough medals and rewards to retire for good (it's not like he ever LIKED the army), he earns himself one last medal, given to him by queen Night herself. Night sees a great opportunity in this still quite young (going on his 40's) retiring soldier. She asks him to marry her son and offers a large sum of money and a mansion as a competition. While Hob thinks it's fucked up, he's still a protector and hero at heart and accepts the offer just so the prince doesn't have to marry someone not as kind as him.

You know what? I'm making this omegaverse because I want to. Turns out they are true mates. They find out at the wedding ceremony - Dream goes crazy for Hob's scent (he's been a soldier for so long that he smells like gunpowder, sand, and protection) and Hob almost pops a boner at his own wedding ceremony when he smells Dream (old books, dust, softness). Dream has one last scandal when they pounce on each other in the car right after the ceremony and don't arrive to the reception, but then they are allowed to live in privacy happily ever after.

- 🚒

I do love a true mates story, and this is really absolutely adorable - I love the idea of older, slightly grizzled and world weary alpha!Hob stepping up to protect the younger omega prince.

When Dream was informed that he'd basically been sold off to some old war hero, he despaired - he was imagining some horrid old creep like Lord Burgess. So he's pleasantly surprised at the sight of Hob, who stands nervously in his old ceremonial uniform. He's got lovely brown sun-drenched skin, greying hair, and kindly eyes. Dream’s heart softens even before he catches Hob’s scent - that's when he goes a bit weak at the knees. Dream has had many lovers of all kinds (that's why he's being married off) but he's never felt such an urge building within his body. He might actually be in love, and he hasn't even made eye contact with the man yet.

During the ceremony they touch hands, and Dream has sneakily removed his gloves so that he gets to touch Hob skin-to-skin. He almost moans. Hob’s hands are big and warm and rough, and Dream actually has to hang on tight just in case his legs do actually give out. Hob winks at him cheekily, and squeezes his hand when they walk together back down the aisle.

They do pounce on each other in the car, but not before Dream feels the need to hurriedly come clean about all his shortcomings - how he's not a virgin, he's not sure if he wants children, he's prone to terrible mood swings - of course Hob just smiles and kisses him very softly. He wouldn't mind if Dream was the devil. They're true mates, and Hob is hardly perfect either. He just wants a chance to be happy.

The sex in the car is very good, as demonstrated by the way the vehicle rocks alarmingly back and forth while all the windows steam up. The video clips circulate for days, and honestly? The public are pretty damn thrilled to see Prince Dream and his dilf husband getting their fairytale ending <333

#🚒 anon #the sandman #dreamling #nsft #cw omegaverse

[peachsukii]

I wanted to continue off of last week’s Softie Sunday story about the Bakugo family bookstore. 🥰 I know it’s a liiiittle late but I finally got around to writing this out today.

『 ♡ bookstore owner!bakugo x fem!reader 』

content ; no quirks, mentions of children (two daughters: 16 and 10), Bakugo & reader are married

“So…there’s somethin’ I wanna tell ya,” your eldest daughter starts, pausing to await your reactions. Katsuki quirks an eyebrow at her and glances your way, signaling for you to take the reins.

“Sure honey. What is it?” You ask, placing your utensils on the table and folding your hands over one another, devoting your attention to her. It wasn’t uncommon for important conversations to happen over dinner in the Bakugo household, it’s where you all could come together to connect every night.

“I decided what I wanna do. Y’know, as a career…at least I think I do.”

Katsuki tilts his head in curiosity while taking another bite of his dinner. “Yeah? An’ what’s that?”

She takes a deep breath before smiling confidently.

“I wanna be an author, just like Aunt Momo!”

Katsuki’s eyes twinkle under the dining room lights, beaming over his daughter’s aspirations. She was always the kid with the wildest imagination, constantly drawing cute children’s stories throughout school and acing all her creative writing projects. You and Katsuki assumed she’d want to be writer or illustrator when she was older, but never wanted to push her on it. It’s a hobby she loved and you didn’t want to pressure her into turning it into a career.

“That’s fantastic, sweetie!” You praise, reaching across the table to touch her hand. She turns to Katsuki, putting her free hand on his shoulder.

“Plus, someone’s gotta be book smart like Pops to run our store. I wanna continue the family legacy.”

He’s stunned, speechless. The room remains quiet until the silence is broken with your youngest throwing her fists in the air, victoriously shouting, “See sis? I knew he’d cry!”

Katsuki bursts into laughter, wiping the stray tears away with the backs of his hands. “That predictable, huh? M’proud of you, peach. Your Ma and I love and support whatever you wanna do.”

Your eldest crinkles her nose before grinning widely, just like her father does.

“Why don’t we call Aunt Momo after dinner, see if she has time to take you to lunch to talk about it?” You offer, squeezing her hand assuringly. “I’m sure she’d love to talk your ear off about writing.” She nods excitedly, her smile lighting up the room.

“I’ve got an idea for ya,” Katsuki says, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. “How ‘bout we let you do a reading at the shop? Compile some of your stories in an anthology of sorts and read ‘em to customers, get yourself out there. We’ve got the space.”

“Really?!” She gasps, eyes wide with excitement.

He smiles, leaning his elbows back onto the table. “It’s our store and I’m the boss. We can figure it out after your talk with Aunt Ponytail.”

She jumps up from her seat, feet padding down the hallway to her room while exclaiming, “I’m gonna call her now!”

“There she goes, reminds me of someone I know,” you tease, winking in Katsuki’s direction. He shakes his head with a chuckle. In the distance, you can faintly hear “Auntie Momo! How are you?! I want to…” coming from her room.

It’s hard to believe how much a little local bookstore has helped shape your family into what it is today, but you wouldn’t trade it for the world.

#reis softie sundays #katsuki bakugo #bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugo fluff #bakugou fluff #soft bakugou #soft Bakugo #my hero academia #my hero academia fluff

[stillxnunpxidintern]

A little Ace x Fem Reader Thing

I had this little Ace x Reader thought the other night.

So you and Ace are dating and every time you stop at an island, Ace always plays with the kids and it makes you smile when you see it.

At some point you ask him what his thoughts are on having his own children and he tells you that he doesn't want any of his own, which strikes you as odd with how well he is with kids and when you ask why and he says he just doesn't and so you left it at.

At some point you ended up pregnant and knowing how Ace felt about having his own children, you choose not tell him and started to make a plan to leave. You spoke to Pops and why you didn't give the real reason, you felt like he had an idea and tried to get you stay but eventually let you leave, telling you that there was always a place for you.

Why it was cowardice of you, you left Ace a letter next to him as he slept, omitting the reason why you were leaving and taking your piece of vivre paper so he couldn't follow after you, as you slipped away in the middle of the of the night, heading to the closest island and then island hopped till you found the you settled down on.

The town in which you settled in was very welcoming and treated you as one as your as they helped you out the further along you. When your child was finally born it was baby girl that you named Rouge. As she grew she took after her father in most everyway apart from her eye colour that she got from you and her hair was beautiful golden blonde.

It was just before her 2nd birthday when your heard voices you didn't expect to hear again. You did your best to not draw attention to yourself and picked up Rouge, to head home and away from them. Rouge was happily "talking" away as she waved at everyone over your shoulder.

That when you were sure you heard a audio gasp but you didn't want to know so kept on walking and didn't stop till you were inside your little home with the door locked, not that it would do much if they wanted in, but you just hoped they would leave you be but like that would happen.

Giving you didn't have an angry fire logia banging at your door at some point that evening, you were able to breath a little easier and hoped that Ace was off sailing somewhere else like he liked to do. The next few days were so tense as you kept expecting Ace or one of the commanders banging on your door.

So by the 4th day of no one banging your door, you felt it was safe to head outside and with Rouge starting to get cranky at not being allow to go outside, you took her and some toys down to the beach that was secluded and only the locally really used, so seeing any of the crew was low.

And the first couple of the hours at the beach were peaceful as Rouge dug holes and filled the bucket up before tipping it out on your feet and giggling before running away to fill it up again.

A shadow soon fell over you as your name was said and you tried not to react but your body stiffen upon hearing that voice after nearly 3 years as there was an edge to it but you kept your eyes on Rouge as she played in the sand. You did your best to ignore him as you watched your daughter fall over and hit either a rock or shell, as tears welled up and she cried.

You stood up from your spot and went over to her, picking her up and rocked her gently, calming her down and knew nap time soon, so packed the toys away, while still holding her as she refused let go of you if you tried to put her down.

The whole time you could feel the cold glare at your back but till Rouge was home and down for her nap, you weren't going to focus on him.

When you had gotten Rouge down for her nap, you knew there was no delaying it anymore and went to face the angry fire logia, that was standing in your living-room. Stepping back into the room you came face an angry Ace, as he locked eyes with you and was quickly standing in front of you.

You went to step backward to give some space between the two of you but he grabbed your wrist stopping you from moving as he stared down at you rage in his eyes.

Ace soon started to demand why you left and didn't tell him that you were pregnant with his child, asking what the hell you were thinking. When you didn't answer quick enough he gripped your wrist tighter and raised his voice demanding you answer him.

You quickly tell him lower his voice, as your daughter was sleep and hearing that set Ace off as fire rippled across his shoulders as he anger seeped into every word he spoke to you while keeping his voice low.

Asking how you could keep his child from him, how you could be this much a heartless woman when you supposedly loved him, that he had missed so many of her first because you were selfish wench. Being called selfish had you nearly shouting at him as you told him, that he said he never wanted a child of own and you did what you thought was best, by not telling him so you wouldn't get your heart broken, when he said he didn't want anything to you or the child when he found out.

That had Ace almost growling at you, saying that you didn't even give him a choice in the matter and took all other choices from him. As he went on saying how much you denied him the hotter his hand on your wrist got, till you cried out his name while trying to pull your hand free.

That was enough for him to released his grip and instantly started apologising as you cradled your wrist. You stepped backwards from him, as you never thought he would every hurt you, even when angry, but you croaked out that you wanted him to leave and he tried to say something but the look on your face had him leaving and was still apologising.

Once he was gone you sunk to the ground, tearing spilling from your eyes as you looked at your wrist to see the burn hand print that was on it. You kept your sobs down as you didn't want to wake up Rouge from her nap, so you gathered yourself up and went to run your wrist under cold water for a good while before putting a bandage over it.

It was just after dinner and you were getting Rouge ready for bed when there was knock on the front door. Holding your daughter close, you went and opened the door to see the First Mate of the Whitebeard standing in front there. You invited Marco before telling him to sit and you would be back soon.

Once Rouge was down and sleeping, you headed back to Marco and it was quiet between the two of you before he spoke, saying that Ace had asked him to come and check upon you, after explaining what he had done. Marco held his hand out and you placed your brunt wrist in his open hand and began to take the bandage off.

He called Ace an idiot under his breath as he looked at the burn before covering it with his other hand and used his phoenix flame to heal most of it. When he was finished there was still a hand mark there but said it should fade in a week or two.

You quietly thanked him before asking if he hated you as well as you looked at the floor. There was a sigh and you were pulled in his arms as he told you that no he didn't hate, no one did not even Ace regardless of how he act that afternoon, those he did think you had a momentary lapse of judgement for leaving and said you were idiot for that.

While he held you, you let all your tears out that you kept locked away since leaving the crew, your family. You apologised through sobs and he just shushed, reminding you why Marco was your favourite brother. Once the sobs had subside you pulled yourself up and wiped your eyes, giving the smallest smile and asked he if wanted something to drink, what he accepted and said anything was fine.

The rest if the evening was the two of you talking, mainly you telling him how it had been since you left the Moby and what it was like be raising Rouge. He in turn told you how it was when first left and what has been happening on crew. He told you that Ace had been completely devastated when you just left with nothing but letter that still didn't explain anything and when he found out you had taken your piece of vivre paper back so he wouldn't be able find you, that shatter him and was a shell for a weeks.

Hearing that broke you, as tears fell again and sobbed in your hands as you felt like worst person ever, saying cause as you tried to save yourself from heartbreak and rejection, you had just caused that to Ace instead without thinking much what it would do him.

Marco held you again till you were finished and then wiped your tears away, before saying that you weren't worst person ever, you did what you thought you had do and needed to have a heart to heart with Ace, without the heighten emotions this time. Once he was sure you had calm down, he pressed a kiss to your forehead and said he happy to his have little sister back and left you, to go back to the Moby.

The following day you just went through the motions of your daily routine as your thoughts were all over place, you couldn't help but look at the front door every half hour, not sure if you wanted there to be knock or not.

You were playing with Rouge when there was knock on the door and you froze, you had no idea if you wanted to open the door even though you knew should. So picking up Rouge you held her in your arms and took a deep breathe in to calm your mind as you went to the open the door.

Opening the door you were met with the biggest bouquet of flowers you had ever seen before looking to Ace and could see Marco behind him. You allowed both men in your home as Rouge looked at the flowers in fascination at all the different colours that was in it.

Ace froze in place as he looked at his daughter for the first time and saw she was his spitting image minus the hair and eye colour. Marco had to take the flowers from and placed them in your kitchen, as Ace tried to form words as he just kept staring at her.

Sucking up you courage you introduced them to each other and upon hearing that she had his mother name, there was wet shine to his eyes as he took a breath in and said hi to her, to which she smiled back and waved at him. You told Rouge that this was her Daddy as Ace reached out to hold her and you handed her to him.

He was so amazed that this was his daughter and held her as she babbled away to him which Ace took his in stride as if he had always been there and suddenly you felt like the shittest person again for not telling him or allow him to experience it till now. A hand squeezed your shoulder letting you know it was okay.

After some time Marco claimed his niece and said he would be back with her later, as he placed her on his shoulder as he left with her. You knew that Marco wouldn't let anything happen to her so felt fine with him leaving with her.

That left both you and Ace to speak to each other, without any interruption, to air out everything between you both. You apologised for all the pain you caused him when you left, but you thought it was best course of actions as he said he never wanted his own children so was saving yourself from heartbreak and reject without thinking what it may of done to him.

By the time you finished talking you were sobbing in your hands again. Not wanting to see you cry anymore he pulled you into his arms and held you, as he explained how much of mess he was when you left and wondered what he did to make you leave him and to stop loving him without even speaking to him first.

Over the couple of hours it was just you two, there was more tears from the both you, mainly you, and so many apologises between the two of you, so by the time that Marco had returned, most things had been air out between the two of you.

As soon Rouge was deposited on your lap, she started to babbling about what she did and then pointed at Marco before saying bird before flapping her arms like a bird. She said a few other words and Marco said that she called a few of the commanders, Thatch had been called pom cause he mention his hair pompadour when she looked and touched it, Izou was prety and Pops was Ganpa, of cause Pops would make sure she called him grandpa.

Eventually the couple of hours with crew had caught up and Rouge fell asleep in between both you and Ace. So now she was asleep both men asked if you would join the crew again now.

You looked down at your daughter and thought about, it was a thought you've had a few times since leaving the crew but with Rouge being at a young age it would be more beneficial for her to stay on shore till she older, so she interact with children her ages.

So you told them at this point in time, that no joining the crew again was not in the cards, as Rouge staying on land would be better for her any being on a ship at least till she older but you weren't planning on moving any where else, so the two of you will be here when they feel like visiting again.

Marco gave a hum at that answer before saying he was going to head back to the Moby and gives Pops your decision to stay here for the time being.

Once it was just you and Ace again, with Rouge still sleeping he asked why you named her that and told to him that you were honouring his mother, as he spoke before how much he loved mother even though he never got met her and what she went through to keep him safe.

He then began asking all different questions about her, wanting to know as much as he possible could and you answered them all, giving him all the information. When Rouge woke up from her nap the two of them played together, and as you tidy the house up she introduced him to all her soft toys.

Why you were unsure of what would happen with you and Ace now, cause you still loved this man but no idea if he felt same and wanted more or nothing, so would leave it up for him but you were glad your little girl would have her father, grandfather and so many uncles and aunties in her life now.

After having feed both father and daughter and Rouge was put down for the evening, Ace said he should be getting back to the ship but would be back in morning, though he did asked to have a piece of your vivre paper again.

You agreed to that and teared a piece off the sheet and handed it to him before walking to him door and as you bid him a good night, he kissed your cheek and said goodnight before heading off back to the Moby.

Somehow Ace could still make your heart flutter by doing the simplest little action.

And with that you headed off to bed, feeling hopefully of what the future might bring.

#one piece #portgas d ace #reader #marco the phoenix #Ace x Reader #portgas d Ace x Reader #Ace #whitebeard pirates #whitebeard #One piece ace #Op ace #fire fist ace

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 5/28/2024

we are rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of my ill-fated cross country move. i have changed from having a bad time in massachusetts to having a bad time in texas, but this time with my best friend's shoulder to cry on in real life. so an improvement i suppose

listening

i can't fucking believe this wasn't already in my driving playlist. thanks autogenerated spotify dance playlist

-

reading

the maltese falcon by dashiell hammett. i didn't really appreciate philip marlowe the-human-detective-not-my-cat's bisexual eye for interior design and outfits until i started reading this book. this passage really threw me with regards to shoes before pants in what i assume is a fairly normal suit and not a specific type of formalwear? i have a very specific blind fashion blind spot and that's pre-wwii menswear

this led to an absolutely VICIOUS argument with my bestie bc our grandfathers were from very different eras and held themselves to very different levels of formality. hers was a fancy white collar bastard and mine wasn't. i never saw mine in a suit outside a funeral.

anyway i KNOW that the fashion in the latter half of the twenties up to WWII was for a very wide legged pant (the oxford bag) and i GUESS you could certainly shove your whole goddamn shoe down that leg but like. it threw me. socks before pants, certainly. especially if you have to fuck with sock garters. but shoving your whole shoe down a pant leg seems. well it just seems. there's an order of operations i thought was sacred for most things. was the seat truly so tight in an oxford bag. are suspenders really that awful to bend over in. so much womens formalwear is uncomfy on purpose so i feel like i have a skewed view of acceptable pain for an outfit to cause you

why am i reading this? can you think of a more on-brand book for me to read? please let me know if you do and i'll add it to The Pile

-

watching

the tremendously charming soviet childrens film The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967, Ptushko). court intrigue! a swan princess! giants marching out of the sea! a slightly unsettling squirrel puppet shelling gold and emerald walnuts! a lot of sight gags, some lovely ballet sequences, and there are so many little moving parts to look at in each scene. at its densest it's like howl's bedroom in howl's moving castle

this was on my library's streaming platform Kanopy and i had credits to use up.

-

playing

two things in genshin that took absolutely forever to accomplish:

i finally maxed out the overall XP system (not the character XP system) so the game's just been chucking in-game currency at me instead, which has been helpful!

and i finally caught two thousand fish! very nice to clear like forty fishing spot markers i put down on my map, in advance of the forty billion markers i'll want to put down to mark stuff in the next big release at the end of the summer.

i forgot that i can use my desktop for things that aren't genshin and applying to jobs, so i reinstalled steam and fired up powerwash simulator. they popped out one new DLC in the year since i touched it, a santa's workshop level last winter. a good hour well spent. i spent a LOT of time with this game right before my move last year and it did genuinely help my anxiety.

-

making

not a fallow week but a pictureless week. ended up painting most of my best friend's bedroom bc we didn't have anything better to do on a saturday night. i think this was the hardest i've ever raw-dogged a painting project bc we had no tarps or painters tape or paint trays or rollers wider than 3". just a bucket of paint and a need to make the half-painted bedroom wall look nicer for her new job zoom training. we have to do a lot of things like move the bed and paint that wall, and paint the ceiling, and do all the trim + doors, but it does look much nicer on zoom now!

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep3 Musings - Loumand

Last post, I promise; I needed another nap; this ep's a freaking rollercoaster. And these two queens nearly gave me a stress ulcer!

DEBATABLE, Louis. I can think of FAR worse vamps than you, love.

Why're y'all having this whole conversation where anyone can hear?

They got Sartre's wall-eyes down; good makeup this season, team! 👌

DreamStat's a Loumand bed-death truther, jfc. 😭

I wanna know EXACTLY what Armand sees--or "feels"--whenever DreamStat pops up in Lou's head. Cuz he clearly knows precisely where Les is; he looks right in his direction. But does he HEAR Les too? (God I hope not, this song would've had me SEETHING--Back to Hell with you! 😅)

"Oh dear" indeed; I was HOLLERING.

SAM WAS DEVOURING THIS SCENE HOLY GOD GO AWAY DEMON

Armand looked PISSED, I was scared for Louis' life! And he DOES know, actually, yes Lou. I can almost GUARANTEE that he knows PRECISELY where Lestat is AT THIS VERY MOMENT, yes Lou.

If only you knew.... 😬

Claudia's suffered more than Christ. And nice cut to Daniel sneaking around with Raglan James as Armand talks about Furies punishing "human wrongdoing." It's really interesting that Armand told the lawyer that LOUIS is the owner of the paintings. Is he the owner of the penthouse too? HOW MANY DEEDS DOES HE HAVE, ROLIN?

I wonder what AMC might be saying about Loumand's art collection, not just wrt what we know about art heist!Armand (which we'll likely see a nod to in Ep4 at the Louvre); but also wrt what we know about Dubai's godawful neocapitalist hellscape economy, and Loumand's "moralizing" about Parisian black markets in S01E02.

I wonder if that's the excuse Armand'll give the coven when Louis shows up for dinner in Ep4--very much NOT dead; and rips out Santiago's tongue.

WILD voice-over, cuz you KNOW that's what Santiago was thinking, too, LOL. (You wish, Francis.) But yes: Louis' finna end your whole career. XD

Another TERRIFYING jumpscare from the coven, like in Ep2 with Annika. Louis, I am shocked & appalled--can you not HEAR all these vamps planning your bloody murder around you? CLAUDIA! WTF!?

But this is how you know Armand's true personality--he hates getting his hands dirty. He kills all the time, but he makes his victims' deaths pretty. He'd rather sit back & let Lestat/Louis come in and wreck his whole coven, even though he has the power to just light those mofos up all on his own! I wish AMC emphasized a bit more that Armand not only writes/directs the plays--he's an ACTOR, too. And istg he's an expert at PRETENDING to be helpless, meanwhile he's the strongest vamp that's NOT one of the Children of the Millennia (thanks to how well Marius made him).

Armand, that is LOW; waiting until Claudia's stuck under the oaths b4 you tell her she's guilty of breaking Great Laws she doesn't even know about yet. WTF?

How TF you gon' hold Louis accountable for following the Laws when he wasn't even allowed to be in the effing room when they were read!? He's not even a member! WTF! (I get it--any rogue vampires are subject to death, yadayada; we know it's a stupid policy.)

I love how he plans to leave by himself here--it had nothing to do with picking "another one" over Claudia. He just didn't want to hold her back anymore. And his presence was causing problems. 😭 It's so cute that Louis' stipulation about London was that if it's "too large" he'd leave and go to Ireland (?!?)--he's become agoraphobic or something? He just wants to be alone in his hermit hole--MOOD. 😭

Good to get confirmation that the Fire Gift here is Armand and blessedly NOT Santiago--so why's he zooming around in the sewers?

Look, sometimes folks make terrible first impressions--Lestat was being hella racist, Louis' always playing defense, Armand was finna kill Louis in a gay public park. It happens.

Foreshadowing like crazy, as usual.

WILD thing to say. I'm gonna cry, please stop.

(What kinda hypocrisy is that, when you were made young your dang self!?) She's already 30+ years old--maybe she'll last a little longer if y'all (read: sexist, racist, ageist, ableist, etc society) don't eff around tryna make her life even harder! But AMC's deliberately cutting Claudia's life in half, compared to the books, cuz misogynoir's real and Claudia gets NOTHING out of vampirism, not even a fair chance. And y'all let her into the coven KNOWING how much she loves y'all, and KNOWING y'all were gonna kill her. EFF THIS WHOLE COVEN, ARMAND INCLUDED. (Lemme calm down--this kind of betrayal is exactly how Lestat must've felt in S01E07; I get it; they're getting a taste of their own medicine. But LESTAT EFFING HAD IT COMING. The coven should've just told them: y'all got til sunrise to GTFO our territory, you're not welcome here. This whole bit's unnecessary.)

THE PARALLELS ARE PARALLELING

SKILL ISSUE. Cuz Louis' got the least power, and he's finna clear that whole bish out in just a couple episodes. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Louis, love, ARMAND DON'T GIVE A EFF ABOUT RAISING SOME OTHER MAN'S OFFSPRING. This is the call of the wild, as Alphas KILL the children their stolen Omega brides had for other Alphas/Betas, so he can restart the gene pool with HIS DNA instead. I know y'all had National Geographic back then already--READ A BOOK, Louis, it's what you're best at.

Incredible. After all of that Louis said Lestat never broke him. BENT BUT NEVER BROKEN, that's right! 💪😤

Boy, we're not talking about some little (unrequited) CRUSH over a man you only knew for a few months (which you've CLEARLY not gotten over yet). Louis was MARRIED to the man for 30 YEARS. This is his MAKER. Lestat knew his whole family; went to the Black cookouts and everything! They literally built a home AND business together! They raised a child together! WHATCHU KNOW ABOUT THAT!?

And that's LESTAT'S DAUGHTER TOO--how much can you possibly love EITHER of them while planning to knock her off!? I can't listen to too much more of this. *hands Louis the torch and scythe*

Beautiful end of this STACKED episode. Incredible work, AMC! Jacob acted his PANTS off; he excels at the trembling voice, agonized facial expressions, and utter mental breakdowns. He's pulling DEEP within him, holy god; it's so raw, it's almost hard to watch. EMMY WHEN?!

#interview with the vampire #loumand #the vampire armand #iwtv tvc metas #must see tv #the hype is real #the feels #THE FEELS I TELL YOU

[gifti3]

why do the worst people be having kids

#i feel like a lot of people geniuenly dont like children #but they keep popping them out!! #like....whats wrong with you?? #i really hate yall and wish ur reproductive organs would stop working omg #sorry im watching this video and its making my so mad oml #and u know what makes this all worse #when the child acts out because theyre being abused #theres no accountability to be found #its only ever the kids fault #theyre just bad #has nothing to do with them at all #gifti3 rants #gif rants #ik theres a lot of social pressure and i hope it lessens with time #not having children is always an option #dont be tricked into something u dont want to do

[lith-myathar]

.

#i joke about it and all but like. i cannot emphasize enough what an impact it had on me to be uhhhhhb #micro-institutionalized in the way that i was for the first 14 years if my life #and i am honestly going to count the time i soent in ''elementary'' school bc it wasn't a normal school. it was a charter school #that began as a parent organized alternative and swiftly devolved into an authoritarian nightmare #a bunch of people who were simply not ready to educate children let alone ''problem'' children #of which there were MANY because that school got all the kids who had been turned out of public school for behavioral issues #there were hardline rules about literally everything. normal childhood behavior was pathologized and punished and as a kid #you had no way to understand WHY #and so many of your peers were having problems because ofc those ''problem'' kids were typically severely traumatized #or were actively being abused #so even if it wasn't happening TO you you were being exposed to it in a hundred little ways every day #so i was confused and miserable all the time AND was struggling academically bc i had undiagnosed adhd #(or possibly just trauma?? i honestly neither know nor care which came first at this point) #so my mom pulled me and my brother out. him at 11 and me at 6 and said ''i'll just do it myself'' and #raised us in a way that wasn't religious but resembled evangelical or lds stuff #i couldn't watch commercial tv or listen to popular music bc my parents didn't want me exposed to what they considered inappropriate #and while i still had extracurriculars i was always the odd one out bc i had no exposure to pop culture or normal socialization #for my age group #it resulted in me always feeling alone and like i didn't belong. and since most of my social life was my parents and their friends #that was the perfect soup for adultification #i was fine with adults. put me with my peers and i was a mess #it made the transition to high school incredibly difficult but i DID make it #but that was only 4 years still in an institution. everything began to unravel once i tried to move into anything resembling ''real life'' #and then my dad's suicide which was a major trauma in early adulthood which only made my mom's grip on us tighten #i did get to START life until 26. not really. and it's just been a game of catch up for the last 5 years #and im so *angry* at the unfairness of it all. at the time and experience and milestones that were taken from me. at how i blamed myself #for it for so many years and the problems i developed because of it all. dissociation and substance abuse and suicidality #the fear that still has a death grip on me #the courage required to just exist #it's *exhausting*

[bat-the-misfit]

my cousin was showing this really crazy girl's vlog going to a concert of one my cousin's favorite bands bc i wanted to run away of my aunt's questions

this girl was so excited and rambled so much i joked "wow she's like Tadeu as a modern-day girl fangirling over her favorite boyband"

and my mind exploded right after i said that

that's how i realized how i wanted his daughter to be like and now i wish i could have my fucking computer and start writing her profile but i'm stuck with stupid family members and i'm freaking out

WHY IS IT THAT EVERYTIME I FEEL LIKE WRITING I CAN'T FUCKING WRITE??? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

#IT'S CANON GUYS TALITA IS A FANGIRL #knowing Tadeu he'd join her t1k t0k videos trying to dance the choreographies with her #Camila my beloved thank you you just gave me a great idea #and Talita doesn't even appear in my book (Tadeu is 17/18 in the book so duh) #but i just wanted to really figure out the main characters' present day lives and that includes their children #i have no idea what the girl said in the video but she was so excited it was funny to watch #the way she talked about the boys of the group lmao she was like AAAAHFISHDHWHDHWUSHS all the video #also Camila saved me for awkward questions lmao i randomly popped on her side like #“PLS SHOW ME WHATEVER YOU'RE WATCHING I BEG YOU” and she let me like “OFC I WILL [aunt's name] IS CRAZY C'MERE” #well aNYWAY #yay i'm so excited i love when i get an idea after being stuck for a long time #tio morcego tá doidão #tio morcego tá tagarela

[saltytyrus]

....

#failed to pee quick enough again for my drug test TWICE with the SAME LADY 😭 #shes a bitch on top of that #constantly venting about her patients in the waiting room while im getting ready #i asked if i could try again later bec i read that this happens to people and u can wait like 3 hours to see if there's any luck later #but she was like 'i cant keep waiting on u' #which okay fineeee this is annoying for both of us but fuck you #and she said to try again Monday...BUT SHES THERE AGAIN MONDAY #i cant do it again with her 😭😂 even my mom said she was a bitch #bec while i was trying to go she popped her head out and was yelling at the waiting room people #a guy even walked out #the same guy she was just complaining about to me beforehand bec she said he didn't sign in twice #but I'm pretty sure he speaks another language or was confused #i brought that point up and all she did was say the machine has other language options #anywaysss to make it worse (or funnier) i asked my mom to call and see if i can switch to a blood drug test #so she called the school.. two people transferred us over before saying they'll connect us with the cna coordinator....... #THE CNA COORDINATOR WAS MY TEACHER!!! 😭😭😭😭 so my teacher has a voicemail on her phone from a mother about her student #WHO IS PEE SHY 😭😭 #i just want a blood test 🥹 or hair follicle test idc but the pee is not happening #if i have to try peeing again it'll be attempt number 4 💀 #update: #...my teacher was not happy that my mom left the voicemail for me 💀 #my mom said she could tell she wanted to yell as soon as she answered the phone but my mom played it nice-nasty so it toned my teacher down #by the end #yet again she barely answered our question - at least not with a professional yes or no #but a 'i have introvert children too but she needs to learn how to advocate for herself' 🙄no shit but im tiredddd & you're a massive bitch #overall no blood test for me 😭 i have to go back for a third time to embarrass myself by the same tired lady #but seriously im so tired of my teacher always yelling or answering a question with a lecture thats 99% not about what i asked #my mom hit her with the 'i understand and agree that she needs to learn how to advocate for herself etc BUT i keep #telling her that theres no harm in asking questions' 💀 as my teacher was trying to bitch my mom out right off the bat #there's obviously much harm 🥴 i cant imagine the email id get back if i asked

[chaos-bringer-13]

Vlad, Dan and Dani move across dimensions to Gotham because of some bad stuff happening in their own dimension. Vlad has a lot of his money with him in cash, and they quickly get themselves fake id's as father and his two children. Vlad's plan is to keep low profile, wait it out and then return. Dan and Dani don't care about Vlad's plan.

Vlad is shady, Dan and Dani are causing shenanigans, and a bunch of coincidences leads to people believing that they're some sort of mafia family.

Some idiots try to rob Dani and she blurts out "Do you know who my dad is?". Dan emerges from the shadows, sends Dani off and makes extremely specific and detailed threats of slow and painful death to the would-be robbers. He finishes the speech by adding that they would be wishing for him to do all of that if his and Dani's father found out about the robbery.

Then Dan accidentally recruits a group of goons by beating up their boss and feeling kinda responsible for the henchmen.

Then Dani steals the talons.

Dan has a fight over territory with one of the smaller rogues.

Dani steals Scarecrow's chemicals.

All the while they keep convincing people that this is all a part of some bigger plan of Masters family. First it's just a misunderstanding, then they keep doing it to annoy Vlad. Some people think that Masters is just a surname, some think that Master is a rogue's name. After a while everyone knows that there's an up-and-coming crime family.

Vlad is entirely oblivious. He doesn't know shit. He ends up making a small organisation (restaurant? car repair shop?) to hire people who keep coming to him. He's not sure why his children tell all these people that he can help but they are in trouble, so he helps. And then helps again, and again. All the places he opens look like crime fronts.

Vlad is still unaware that he's a mob boss.

Maybe at some point Dan and Dani think that Vlad figured this out (because its obvious) but doesn't say anything because the police has bugged their house or because he wants plausible deniability.

Obviously all of this ends with the Bats deciding to confront Masters. It's also the perfect moment for Danny to enter.

Here, have a shitty meme showing the moment.

Danny: I left you here fOR ONE MONTH

Vlad: It's not my fault!

Danny: I figured. Dani, if I give you a candy, will you tell me what the hell you've done?

Dani: What kind of candy?

Danny, handing out a Yellow Lantern ring: A Ring Pop.

Dani, snatching it: We accidentally started a mob family :D

#prompt #actually this is like a whole fanfic plot #this got away from me #the initial idea was “Dan and Dani live with Vlad and accidentally convince everyone that they're a crime family” #dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #redeemed!Dan #redeemed!Vlad #Dan and Dani are Vlad's kids #they're also chaos gremlins

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP fan fic Idea: Danny Fenton's Ex

Danny wants to know that he did not go looking for a fight. He merely wanted to have some of the best hot dogs this side of the USA, in Tucker's words. The human world had changed a lot across differnt timelines but his best friend had assure him, this one was particually tasty.

He planned to pop in, hunt down the street cart filled with buns and meat, then pop out of Gotham. He was meant to visit for less than an hour at most.

He just happened to be at the wrong place and time. It really wasn't his fault! Danny had been minding his own business, using a paper map on the edge of a tall building (his phone had broken in the last ghost fight. Not that it would do any good since it wasn't connected to any living towers), squinting at the streets below, hoping to figure out where he was. The next thing he knew, an angry child leaped out at him with a sword.

Of course, he defended himself! The kid was doing some insane slashes in the air, and Danny had fought enough samurai ghosts to know not to underestimate how powerful a katana indeed was. He had been able to beat the child, encasing his arms in ecto-chains, after a full half hour of combat.

Danny had been dead tired- pun not intended- but just as he thought he was done, a second child had leaped out at him. This one carrying a bo-staff. It took another thirty minutes to beat this one, and just as he was gearing up for a lecture, a third child appeared.

She was wearing all purple and seemed to favor strong kicks. Danny had the bruise to prove it, but just as he could take her down—and stop the other two from escaping since they were attempting to do so—he was attacked by an actual shadow and her red bucket-head friend.

Now, those two were difficult to beat, especially when it was two vs. one. Shadow reacted as if she could predict all of his moves before he even made them, while Bucket Head made incredible shots with his guns covering her attacks.

Danny had already been expelled from his other two fights, so it was a miracle he was able to trick Shadow by allowing more of Phantom to bleed into his fighting style. She couldn't predict the dead!

He ended up on a roof with five children- okay, more like a child, two teenagers, and what could be the early twenties, but they were all young to him. Each was tied up securely with some of his own ecto-chains and glaring- he could feel the hate in their eyes even behind their masks- trying desperately to catch his breath.

"Oh boy, I'm not as young as I used to be. " He gasps between huffs. Maybe Sam was on to something when she lectured them for not having enough greens, normal exercise routines, or even taking vitamins. They really weren't teenagers anymore. "Ugh, I think I pulled something. I need to lie down..."

Just as Danny is allowing himself to slide to the floor, two more shadows jump at him. This time he's far too tired to dodge, and the blue one manages to land a drop kick to his chin. The force has Danny spinning in place, losing his balance, and slamming hard against the roof.

The tied-up children cheer, and if he wasn't a walking bruise right now, Danny would be half tempted to show them all a round two.

"Great Gatsby!" He cries out of reflex, rolling onto his back, ready to take a swing-

"Danny?" a new familiar voice cuts in. The sound is something Danny will never forget, even after all the years they have been apart. He used to fall asleep to that voice, muttering into his hair and warm arms wrapped around him, making promises never kept.

Danny whips his head around to see a man in a bat costume. He squits, studying the strong curve of a very familiar jaw and his voice-

"Wayne?" He blinks. Those lips- so familiar and different all in one- curve into a surprise, but please smile. Yes, that is definitely Bruce.

"Danny, I haven't seen you since-"

"You broke up with me through a letter on the hotel note-pad? A note-pad that I had to pay for since you touched it!?" Danny hisses, suddenly energized with pure, unadulterated rage. The man freezes.

"I, uh, see you're still upset about that." Wayne winces, shuffling on his feet- Bruce Wayne, the little human he found wandering the Infinite Realms, rescued, helped, trained, and had become human again to have the man dump him to "find himself."

Danny knew he found a lot of ladies on his self-discovery trip. He never forgave him. It has been embarrassing to have to return to the Realms to his friends' knowing eyes and his sister's sad shrug.

You knew a human could never understand or live with beings like us. We aren't like them anymore. She had told him. It was bond to end in disaster.

"What is happening?" The bow-staff kid asks

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Blue tells him.

Danny ignores them to glare at the man. "What the hell are you doing here, Wayne?"

Wayne frowns. "You used to call me Bruce."

"I used to do a lot of things, Wayne." Danny stands, gesturing to the group of people he has captured. "Can you kindly disappear again? I'm in the middle of something."

The man makes no move to leave. Instead, he tilts his head. "Those are my children."

"Of course they are." Danny rolls his eyes. "Tell them to not attack innocent tourists-"

"Are you here on vacation? Would you like me to give you a tour?"

The familiar words- the ones from their first date- make rage boil in his core. "Oh, go burn in the worst levels of hell!"

He doesn't stick around for a reply, twisting in a tight circle and ripping a hole into the Realms. He ignores Wayne's call of his name; it's too late- fifteen years too late- and shifts back into Phantom.

He prays he never sees that deadbeat again. Or the family his wife gave him. Not that Danny cares; it's been years, and he could care less what Bruce Wayne and his stupid kin got up to.

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

"Bruce, I say this with all my heart, what the fuck was that?"

"That was the one I let get away."

There is a moment of silence before Damian speaks up. "I demand to be taken out of my misery. Mercy, kill me now, Drake."

#dcxdpdabbles #dc x dp crossover #Danny Fenton's ex #Part 1 #spirit halloween #Bruce fumbled Danny #Ghost king who is more other then human #Danny was just vibing before the bat clan came swinging #Damian mistook him for a villian #his siblings were trying to save him #Danny is stronger but they gave him a good fight #Bruce misses Danny

[sluttywoozi]

This Is Devotion | csc x f!reader

You've spent your whole life taking care of yourself. Seungcheol thinks it's time someone else took over.

Rating: M (18+) | WC: ~4.0k | Pairing: csc x f!reader | Genre: smut

Warnings: alcohol mention (they meet at a bar), daddy kink, sugar daddy vibes but he’s a bf first, fingering, praise kink, v light choking, condomless piv sex, creampie, multiple orgasms, breeding kink and impreg kink but mainly at the end, wants to wife you up fr

Reader Notes: eldest daughter, on birth control, gets carried by cheol

Seungcheol didn’t really expect to meet the love of his life at a bar on a regular Friday night, but as soon as he saw you, he knew you were something special. And as soon as he spoke to you, got to know you, he knew he wanted to learn more. 

The way you carried yourself didn’t make you seem the most receptive - you were closed off, seemingly disinterested, but when he started to back away, intending to let you enjoy your night without him as you appeared to want, you got this look in your eye like he was doing exactly the opposite of what you desired. 

So he stuck around, asked if he could buy you a drink, keeping a respectful distance between your body and his even though he felt like you were a celestial being with your own gravity pulling him in. He learned a lot about you that night - what you do for work, what you do for fun, whether you’d be open to him taking you out - but he didn’t learn what it was that made you so standoffish when he first approached you. 

That didn’t come until later, until the fourth date and the family talk. Over a dinner he spent hours preparing, you told him that you were the eldest of three children, and that you’d practically raised your younger siblings yourself. Your parents worked hard, too hard to spend much time or energy on you, so you raised yourself too. 

You took on two jobs to pay for college because most of your family’s money was spent on your younger siblings' extracurriculars, and you graduated with honors but with no one to cheer for you, to celebrate you. They were all too busy, apparently, though Seungcheol didn’t know what could possibly be more important than you reaping the reward of all the effort and stress you had put into your schooling. 

He tried to tell you that you deserved better, but you were adamant that you were used to taking care of yourself, to being alone. You said that the friends you made along the way were your new family and that they treated you better than you deserved. 

Seungcheol could have talked until he was blue in the face about just what it was he thought you deserved. 

He knew you wouldn’t hear it though, so he took it upon himself to show you instead. 

It wasn’t long after that date that he asked if he could be your boyfriend, and as soon as you said yes, he vowed to himself that as long as you kept him around, you would know what it was to be taken care of. 

He started slow. First, it was making sure your car always had gas and your oil changes were always up to date. You used to drive it almost to empty, and he knew that was bad for both your fuel pump and your stress levels, so he would pop into your work every so often to bring you your favorite little treat and grab your keys to fill it up. You always gave him your credit card and he always took it, but never once did he make use of it. 

Once you grew accustomed to that, he moved on to being your driver for girl’s night out. You would always text him while you were in the uber so he knew you were safe, but after one too many sleazy guys flirted with you and your friends, he stepped in. You had already shared locations with each other (again, for safety reasons), so when you texted him that you were gearing up to go, he told you to cancel the ride and look for his car instead. 

He drove every one of your friends home and saw them up to their door before taking you back to your apartment, lovingly removing your makeup, and getting you into pajamas. He tried to tuck you in and leave, but you caught his hand and tugged him into bed with you, snuggling up under his arm before promptly knocking out. Knowing that you felt safe enough to fall asleep with him was his favorite form of payment. 

You had one, maybe two outings a month, and Seungcheol was happy to keep those nights clear of plans so he could make sure you and all your friends got home safely. It was just a bonus that every one of those nights turned into a sleepover with you wrapped up in his arms, warm and soft against him.  

It wasn’t until a few months in that he started spending more money on you. He loved to buy you snacks and milk teas and lip gloss but he knew there were things you wanted that were simply out of your budget. He also knew you would never let him pay your rent so you could buy those things, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t buy them for you. So he would take you out shopping under the pretense of needing something new himself, keeping an eye on what your eye lingered on and making note of it in his mind. 

The first purchase was a necklace you loved so much, the sight of it made you gasp. He was getting his watch repaired and you had wandered off to look around, and when he heard that gasp he knew instantly that whatever it was, it would be yours. It took him all of two minutes to flag an employee down, ask them to package up the item you loved, and add it to his total. 

When he presented it to you, you tried to say it was too much, that you couldn’t accept such a gift. He pouted until you sighed and moved your hair out of the way, allowing him to put the necklace on you and smiling a small, pleased smile as you felt at the delicate chain and pendant. 

After that came dresses and shoes and cookware and other things you would never let yourself splurge on but you also wouldn’t want to say no to. You worried for his finances but Seungcheol was a smart spender before you, and he earned and saved enough that every gift for you barely made a dent. It was money he was happy to spend, especially when he got to see you wearing or using the things he bought you. 

You would joke and say he wasn’t just your boyfriend but your sugar daddy, and he laughed, at first. 

Then, he thought about it more, thought about how he lived to take care of you, to show you what you deserved, to make sure you were happy and healthy and safe, and he realized that maybe he was your sugar daddy, in a way. 

Hearing you call him daddy for the first time still almost sends him to an early grave, though. 

It happens when he’s balls deep inside of you. Your thighs are hitched up high on his waist and your arms are wrapped around his neck, holding him close enough he has to brace himself on his forearms and fold his knees on either side of your hips. It’s not like that’s a hardship, not when he can press his forehead to yours and breathe your air, staring into your eyes as he fucks in and out of you, your pussy perfectly formed around his aching cock. 

He loves feeling close to you like this, and the closeness is the only reason he hears it. 

“Daddy,” you sigh, in the smallest voice he’s ever heard from you. 

He stills immediately, his dick throbbing and leaking inside of you as he tries to hold off his orgasm, his heart thumping so hard in his chest, he’s fearful it’ll jump out of his ribcage and straight into yours. 

“What did you say?” He asks, because he’s sure there’s no way you called him that, independent and self-reliant as you are. 

“Nothing,” you respond much too quickly, and he wants to press further, but your voice is nervous and your face is tense, and he doesn’t want to push you if you’re not ready. 

So he keeps going, fucks you until you cum and then fills you up, dragging you into the shower after so he can rinse you clean and get you into some warm pajamas.

Seungcheol wakes before you the next day, uses the time to stare at you and think everything through. 

You’ve always had to take care of yourself, always had to fill other cups before your own, until he came along. Over the year and a half that he’s spent with you, he’s made every effort to take the load off, to tend to you in ways that you’ve never experienced before. You’ve softened up over time, gotten used to him protecting and nurturing you, and you’ve rewarded him with your trust and your love. 

It makes sense that you would call him daddy, and it makes sense that he would fucking adore it. 

So when you start to stir, he tucks you closer to him, your back aligned with his front and his hardening cock pressed into the plush of your ass. One arm is draped over your waist, his hand covering your breast, and his other arm is stretched out beneath your neck, bent at the elbow to band over your chest and hold your shoulder. You’re completely wrapped up in him, and as soon as you hum and tilt your hips back into his, he kisses up your neck and murmurs, “Let me take care of you, baby. Let daddy do the work, huh?” 

You gasp and wriggle in his hold, but he hugs you tighter and says, “That’s what you called me last night, right? I don’t mind, sweetheart.” 

“Are you sure it’s not… weird?” You whisper quietly, and he can picture the anxious expression you must be wearing. He gently sinks his teeth into your neck before responding, “It’s not weird to me, baby. You know I love taking care of you.”

You relax muscle by muscle, and by the time his hand wraps around your thigh and pulls it up and out, you’re boneless against him. “Can you hold that leg up for me, honey? I’m gonna touch you.”

“Okay, daddy,” you sigh sweetly as you take over for him, his entire body lighting up at the sound of you saying that word with such ease. 

You’re drenched when he slides his fingers between your legs, pushing aside your pajama shorts to touch you bare and groaning at the feeling of your soaking heat. His fingertips glide as he drags them from your entrance up to your clit, soft little sounds escaping you when he presses circles around the sensitive bundle of nerves. 

He thinks this might be the wettest you’ve ever been for him, and he luxuriates in the feeling of having cracked your code, of knowing that you’ve never been more open or trusting with him before. It means he’ll have to treat you delicately, but Seungcheol is nothing if not devoted, dedicated, committed to being everything you could ever need.

He works you up just like this, with his fingertips soft on your clit and his lips gentle on your neck, mumbling little promises about how daddy will always make you feel good, always love you, always put you first. 

“I want you inside, daddy,” you cry, and he feels himself throb against you, leaking in his boxers and desiring you more than the air he breathes. 

“Cum for me first, baby, I know you can do it.”

To help you along, he slips two fingers inside of you, his thumb taking over on your clit, pressing insistently as his fingers curl, searching for the spot that always makes you gush. He finds it quickly, grinding with his fingertips as he wraps his other hand around the base of your neck, barely squeezing. A grin stretches his lips when you start to move with him, your walls clenching down on his digits as you get closer and closer to the edge. 

He knows you’re right there by the sounds escaping you, by the way your cunt is fluttering around his fingers, by the arousal seeping out with every dig into your sweet spot. It’s really just a matter of timing and luck that you break when he says, “You’re such a good girl for daddy, show me how good you are and cum.”

The whine you let out is enough to have him bucking into you, the sound so plaintive and vulnerable that he wants to wrap you up tight in his arms and never let you go. Your pussy weeps around his fingers, sucking them in deeper and squeezing in pulses, your walls gripping them strongly enough that he feels the phantom pressure around his cock. 

“So fucking perfect, so sweet and beautiful and wet for me, baby. Fuck, I love you,” Seungcheol pants into your throat, dotting the soft skin with kisses and little bites. 

“I love you. Will you fuck me now, daddy?” You try to turn your head to look at him and he breathes, “Yes, baby,” before freeing his fingers with a slick sound and sucking them into his mouth. He hums at the taste of you as he shifts away, giving you enough space to roll onto your back and kneeling between your legs when you spread them. 

He’s fucked you from behind before and he will again, but right now he wants to gaze into your eyes, watch your lips form around the word he didn’t know he’s been aching to hear. 

You’re too pretty for him to not look at you anyway, especially as he tugs one thigh up around his waist and pushes the other up to your belly. He loves getting you into position, loves the way you stare trustingly at him and let him move you, loves knowing that you believe he’ll never do anything but bring you pleasure. 

He tucks his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers and pushes them down, grinning bashfully and feeling his ears heat as your eyes immediately drop to his cock. He’s insanely hard for you, flushed and leaking and desperate, and he feels himself twitch when you whimper, “Daddy, please, I need you so bad.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’ll always give you what you need,” he promises, pushing your pajama shorts to the side again and taking hold of his dick to line himself up. 

He can’t resist gliding the head of his cock through your wet folds, grinding into your clit before sliding down and starting to sink inside. A groan escapes without his permission but he doesn’t try to swallow it, wants you to know what you do to him, how you make him feel. 

Being surrounded, enveloped by you is the best sensation in the world, the grip of your wet heat dizzying and comforting and more than enough to drive him crazy, no matter how many times he’s felt you before. 

Your cunt is heaven on earth, like nothing else he’s ever experienced, and he considers it his sacred duty to make sure you never forget that. 

“Perfect fucking pussy, baby, god,” he moans, barely halfway inside of you and already feeling the flames of pleasure licking at his spine. 

You flutter around him at his words, your arms rising to wrap around his neck and draw him in close, mirroring the exact position he had you in last night.

You must realize it too because your breath hitches before you tilt your head up and gently press your lips to his, mumbling, “Daddy,” into his mouth as he finally bottoms out. It makes him twitch inside of you, makes his hips roll into yours, makes his heart feel so full, it aches. 

He almost can’t bear to leave you but he knows he’ll have to if he wants to fuck you, so with only a little reluctance, he draws back, fighting a shiver when cold air hits the wetness on his cock. 

You dig your heel into his ass and urge him forward, your eyes needy and your gasp desperate as he bucks into you and fills you again. You used to need some time to adjust to him, but you take him often enough now that he can move within you smoothly, your generous arousal easing the way even as your walls cling to him. 

The rhythm he sets is slow, measured, but he slides in deep and hooks his hips up on the way out to drag over your sweet spot, your pussy just getting wetter and wetter around him. The sounds are obscene, the slap of his hips meeting your ass and the squelch of his cock reaching the end of you loud compared to the peaceful silence of the early morning. 

Every time he gets inside of you feels like the first but is somehow better than the last, and he knows that doesn’t make sense but he’s senseless when it comes to you anyway, his logic and reasoning replaced by tenderness and infatuation. It’s even worse now that there’s this added facet of caring, of responsibility, this knowledge that you’re entrusting him with a side of you he’s sure no one has ever seen before. 

“How is it, baby?” His voice is ragged, tight and rough with lust when he speaks, but his tone is as gentle and loving as his thrusts are. 

A minute passes before you can respond and he practically watches the words form in your head, his gaze heavy on you as you put them together letter by letter. 

“So good, daddy, you make me feel… whole,” you sigh blissfully, your fingers twirling the hair at the nape of his neck and your inner muscles clenching around him. 

He can’t hold back the shiver this time, not when your response floods him with greedy affection and a covetous sense of possession, one that goes both ways. He belongs to you as much as you belong to him, and he knows you belong together just like he knows that the sky is blue and the earth is round. 

It’s frightening, almost, to think that there’s nothing on this planet that he loves more than he loves you. But it’s worth the risk, worth the vulnerability, worth the fear to get to be the one who makes you feel whole. He can’t help but hope he’ll be the only one who does for the rest of your life. 

Which is a dangerous vein of thought considering the fact that he already has a 3 carat diamond ring hidden in his study, just waiting to be slid onto your left fourth finger. 

He’s inches from disentangling himself from you to go get it, but this is neither the time nor the place. 

Instead, he leans in and ardently locks his lips with yours, breathing into you all of his passion, all of his sincerity. You kiss him back like you can taste it, adjusting your leg around his waist so you can hold him closer, his movements in and out turning into a slow, dirty grind. 

“Love you so fucking much,” he murmurs into your mouth, his mouth stretching in a grin when you mumble back to him, “Love you more, Cheollie.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, baby,” he chuckles brokenly, pleasure starting to knot low in his belly, his cock growing harder and his balls tightening as he gets closer and closer. 

“Agree to disagree,” you laugh breathlessly, tugging his hair and gasping sharply when he snakes one hand between your bodies to rub at your swollen clit. 

You squeeze down around him, your pussy molding to his cock like he was made for you, made to fill you where you’re empty, and fuck, he’s sure he was. Every part of him was built for loving you, there’s no other explanation for how flawlessly you fit in his arms, his life, his heart. 

He can tell you’re nearing the edge, your walls spasming and your eyes glazing over, and he holds off his own release even as it spools in his stomach like molten twine. Breaking before you simply isn’t an option; breaking after you is, but he knows well that any nirvana he could reach is infinitely better when he reaches it with you. 

“You gonna cum for me, sweetheart? For daddy? I’ll fuck you full of my cum if you do,” he promises darkly, already envisioning himself spreading your legs and watching his seed seep out of your stretched pussy. 

“Yeah, daddy, I’m- I’m-” 

A weak cry cuts you off, your mouth stuck open as tears dampen your lashes and leak down your temples. Your cunt clamps down around him in pulses, so hot and wet and tight that it draws out his own orgasm, his heart pounding as his cock jerks and spurts cum deep inside of you, so deep he wonders if it’ll stick. You’re on birth control but he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t want to make you his wife then breed you full, get you pregnant, leave no room for doubt that he both loves you and fucks you like you deserve. 

The thought makes him hard enough to keep going, to grind into you and push his cum even deeper inside, his fingers still swirling circles around your sensitive clit. It’s not long before you’re digging your nails into his shoulders and keening for him, your thighs shaking and your back arching off the bed as you fall to pieces again. 

He slides his arm beneath your shoulders and hefts you up against him, burying his face in your neck and holding you close as he cums inside of you for the second time. This one leaves him a bit teary eyed too, thoughts and wishes and desires racing through his mind, visions of the life you could share making him swallow down a sob. 

You sense the shift in his emotions, your fingers carding through his hair and your voice soft as you tell him that you love him, that you always will, that you’ll spend all the rest of your life making sure he knows. 

Seungcheol feels like this is his job but the comfort you bring him is worth admitting that he can be just as needy as you. 

He stays tangled up with you for what feels like ages, long enough for the sweat on his back to dry and the arm underneath you to fall asleep, and when he emerges, he feels like a new man. 

A new man that still wants to lay between your thighs and watch his cum leak out of you. 

You’re not shy about it anymore, happy to let your legs fall open and drag your nails over his scalp as he rests his head on your soft inner thigh, his eyes locked on your glistening cunt. 

“Prettiest pussy in the whole wide world,” he mumbles dazedly before glancing up at your face and correcting himself, “Prettiest baby in the whole wide world.”

Minutes pass before you squirm in discomfort and he peels himself away, accepting that it’s time to get you in the bath. 

“C’mon, honey, up you go,” he says quietly, reaching for your hands and starting to pull you, his biceps tensing when you refuse to cooperate. 

“Carry me, Cheollie,” you beg rather adorably, and he doesn’t even have it in himself to roll his eyes as he leans in close enough for you to wrap your arms and legs around him before straightening up with you attached to his front. 

He hefts you up higher against his body, one arm around your back, the other under your ass, and says, “That’s daddy to you, baby,” as he lumbers to the bathroom, not so secretly pleased to be needed by you. 

AN: i didn't really ever see myself writing full blown daddy kink outside of kinktober but here we are and im not mad about it!!

inspired by discussions with my anons ily all i hope you like it

#svthub #k vanity #seungcheol fanfic #seungcheol x reader #seungcheol smut #seungcheol scenarios #seungcheol imagines #scoups x reader #scoups smut #scoups imagines #scoups x you #choi seungcheol x reader #choi seungcheol smut #choi seungcheol x you #choi seungcheol imagines #seventeen fic #seventeen smut #seventeen x reader #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #svt x reader #svt imagines #svt smut #svt fanfic #kpop oneshots #kpop scenarios #kpop smut #kpop fanfic #✨emily writes✨

[5sospenguinqueen]

Bedtime Stories | Daniel Ricciardo x Author! Reader

Summary: For the past six years, you've been dreaming of a future with Daniel. Until one silly little interview shatters every illusion.

Warnings: Swearing. Angst. Baby fever. End of a relationship. Daniel bashing.

Female reader with various faceclaims. Takes place in the 2022 season.

Main Masterlist

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User 2 no, it's not an announcement. her best friend is currently pregnant and she was gushing about looking forward to aunty duties

User 3 omg her and daniel would make the cutest babies though

→ User 4 i bet she can't wait until they have their own mini-me

User 5 imagine our rom-com queen going from writing the cutest but filthiest fiction imaginable to writing about why you should eat your carrots

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22•05•22

User 6 i can't believe this man was talking about being in the height of his career when he's been nothing but a flop since leaving red bull

User 7 the way he's been stringing this poor woman along for 6 years, knowing how badly she wants children, to then decide in a random interview that he's never going to have kids because they would be a 'distraction'

User 8 fans spotted y/n running from the pits once she saw that daniel was safely done with racing

User 9 i fear we may be witnessing the downfall of something we once held sacred

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16•06•22

fallontonight just posted

liked by YourUserName, kellypiquet and others

fallontonight did you know @ YourUser Name was once chased by a kangaroo? find out how in tonight's episode of The Tonight Show 📚🦘

4,477 comments

YourUserName thanks for having me! ✨

User 11 excuse me, ma’am, reassess what

User 12 daniel has been absent from her last 3 posts

→ User 1 not even in the likes or comments

→ User 2 and he didn't even congratulate her on the recent book launch

→ User 3 ya’ll are reaching. he's busy racing. she's busy doing book promo. they still follow each other

User 4 anyone notice she didn't look as happy as she usually does

→ User 5 yes! and i swear she got teary when talking about her life plans 🥺

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YourUserName just posted

liked by maxverstappen1, mclaren and others

YourUserName my happy place 🌊🐚🦀 Aug '22

4,990 comments

User 6 does this mean a new book is coming soon

→ User 7 girl, we’ve just had one. let the woman rest

→ YourUserName sorry, my lovelies but i don’t think i'm in the right headspace to being right a romance novel at this time

→ User 6 confirmation??!?!

→ User 7 we’re children of divorce

→ User 8 honestly fuck those two because i couldn’t have cared less about vroom vroom boys until mother started dating one and now i'm crying in class ‘cause they’re over

landonorris get that bread, queen 🍞

→ YourUserName who let you out of daycare

→ User 9 not y/n and lando interacting like she didn’t break his teammates heart

→ User 10 more like his teammate broke y/n’s heart. let's not make daniel out to be the victim here

kellypiquet p said get writing those children’s books so she can brag about aunty y/n to her friends

→ YourUserName my sweet girl. i saw the cutest dress the other day for her so I’ll pop round soon x

→ User 11 i love their friendship

→ User 12 get this woman a child. She’s too sweet to be stuck in cool aunt mode forever

User 13 anyone notice she didn't do her annual birthday post for daniel?

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04•09•22

User 14 no because the interviewer was so real for that. checo has a few children and he’s currently 2nd best. max is nowhere to be seen on the grid he's that far ahead and he makes sure p is his priority when she’s there so???

→ User 15 and the way he stormed out. i bet PR are sooo happy with him

User 16 nah because mclaren recently announced that they’re not extending his contract so he currently doesn't have his seat and doesn't have his y/n, all because he thought he was better than that

YourUserName posted a new story

danielricciardo posted a new story

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danielricciardo just posted

liked by landonorris, estebanocon and others

danielricciardo yesterday was something. p17 wasn't the result we were expecting, and the media were a challenge but it's always a delight to be in Suzuka. Moving on to the Americas

5,509 comments

User 1 maybe if y/n was there, you wouldn't have done so badly

User 2 maybe if he had a baby waiting in the paddock he would’ve had more incentive to do better

mclaren we’ll get them next time 💪

User 3 letting mclaren and lando down

→ User 4 the real reason he and y/n broke up is because he has no wins. she should move onto lando or something

→ User 5 he’s way too young for her

→ User 4 they'd make a good looking couple tho

(comments have been disabled for this post)

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19•10•22

YourUserName just posted

liked by charles_leclerc, bloomsburypublishing and others

YourUserName thirty, flirty and thriving. please enjoy a small snippet of my 30th birthday, organised by my favourite girl. these are the nice moments before she plies me full of cocktails and i become the sloppiest person in monaco tagged: kellypiquet

kellypiquet any chance to celebrate you 🤍🤍

→ kellypiquet and an even better chance to drink the entire bar and force max to carry us home

→ maxverstappen1 i'm just glad i was able to pull you both out of the sea before you drowned

landonorris can't believe you tried (and failed) to stop us from gatecrashing

→ YourUserName it was an exclusive event, we don't let randos in

→ landonorris i know you're joking but it still hurts my feelings

maxverstappen1 happy birthday, sloppy. you don't look a day over 40

→ YourUserName i'm gonna let that slide but only because i love the bag that kelly told you to buy

User 7 happy birthday to the best author

User 8 happy birthday queen

carlossainz55 happy birthday, y/n 💐

liked by YourUserName

danielricciardo happy birthday x

User 5 kelly and y/n look like the funnest people to hang out with

→ User 6 literally need to know how to become part of their duo

lewishamilton happy birthday, y/n. have a lovely night 💕

liked by YourUserName

mclaren happy birthday to papaya's favourite author (we're still waiting for a racing rom-com that is quite clearly about your favourite f1 team and their super sexy admin) 🥳🥳

liked by YourUserName

This is going to be part of a Baby Fever Angst series with the other drivers. So, multiple drivers are going to have an smau like this.

Max’s Version | Lando’s Version | Lance’s Version

Charles’ Version

I do have Part 2s planned if people want them but also happy to leave it like this :)

#baby fever angst #formula 1 #f1 #formula 1 smau #f1 smau #formula 1 social media au #f1 social media au #social media au imagine #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 headcanon #formula 1 one shot #formula 1 fluff #formula 1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 headcanon #f1 one shot #f1 fluff #f1 x reader #daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo drabble #daniel ricciardo headcanon #daniel ricciardo one shot #daniel ricciardo fluff #daniel ricciardo smau #daniel ricciardo x reader

[lesservillain]

alpha!steddie x omega!reader Part One. summary: after finding yourself in a pinch, an ad in the local paper for a paid surrogacy gig catches your attention. free food, housing, and all doctor visits covered, and all you have to do is pop a baby out for a a hot alpha couple? what could go wrong! cw: OMEGAVERSE. established steddie. smut, angst, m/m/f, anal (m receiving), daisy chain, free use kink, breeding kink, lots of unprotected piv, surrogacy, strangers to lovers, alpha x alpha relationships are considered taboo wc: 10.6k

A heavy ball of nerves filled your gut as you sat in the busy coffee shop. You sipped on your drink, eyes darting to the door every time it opened as you waited for them to show up. Them being the alpha couple that you contacted the day before. 

Looking for a way to make some money in this small town that you’d decided to settle in, an ad in the classifieds caught your attention. 

Wanted: Omega Surrogate for Male Alpha Couple.

It wasn’t something you’d expected to see in the Sunday paper. Hawkins came off as a more conservative town, and it was pretty common practice for people to look at male alpha and same sex beta couples a certain way. 

Of all the combinations of couples in this world, most of them could produce children except for two male alphas and same sex betas which made the coupling quite the taboo. It was pretty well known that most adoptive agencies and surrogacy clinics wouldn’t assist those kinds of couples, so an ad like that isn’t uncommon, just not something you would have bet money on finding.

The ad itself seemed very enticing. The couple lived in an allegedly nice neighborhood called Loch Nora, according to the barista you’d asked. It made sense considering the couple said they would pay for all your needs like food and doctors appointments. 

You were currently living in a motel while you searched for a place to live here. And the more time you spend searching, the more money you spend on food, the less you have to put down for a deposit. So the offer to have your food paid for for the next 9 months was something you weren’t about to pass up.

The bell on the coffee shop door rang again. Your eyes flicked to see two men walk in. They were both clearly alphas; tall, handsome, and their mixed scents were strong enough to reach your nose even over the strong coffee smell. They were quite the opposite of each other; the one looking like he belonged on a stage performing for a metal concert, and the other looked like he just came from a business casual style modeling gig. 

Their eyes began to scan the shop and it hit you that this might be the alpha couple that’s meeting you. Butterflied erupted in your stomach at the thought of the two of them together. The omegas in this town must have all collectively cried when these two got together.

The rock star guy’s eyes caught yours first. You gave him a small wave and he perked up and returned the gesture excitedly. He bumped the model guy and pointed you out to him, saying something in his ear before the two of them made their way to you. As they got closer, the knot in your stomach got tighter. How they hell were these guys so attractive?

The model guy approached you first, saying your name like a question, as if to confirm you’re who he talked to on the phone.

“Yep, that’s me,” you say as you stand to greet them. “You must be Steve. Your voice sounds familiar.” The model guy nods, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

“Yes, I’m Steve. And this is Eddie, my partner.” Eddie takes a step forward and extends his hand to you. You take it to shake, but as soon as your hand touches his, a shock of electricity shoots up your arm and all over your body. It was a feeling you’d never had before, and it made you pull away from him. You wondered if he felt it too by the way he looked at his hand and then to you.

“Everything okay?” Steve says, extending his hand out to you as well. 

“Y-yeah, it’s fine,” Eddie says, wringing his wrist in his other hand. You nod, not sure what to say as you grab Steve’s hand to shake. But the same thing happens when you touch him as well.

“Woah,” Steve says with a laugh, pulling his hand away. “There must be a lot of static in here or something.”

“Must be,” you say as you shake your head, sitting back down in your booth seat. 

The two men slide into the seats opposite of you, shoulder to shoulder like any other couple would. Steve opens the flap of his blazer, pulling out a stack of papers from it’s inner pocket and laying it on the table, attempting to flatten it with his…vary large hands.

“Okay, so,” Steve starts, running a hand through his hair. He takes a breath and looks to Eddie and then to you. Eddie’s fingers lace together on the table as his thumbs fidget nervously, is attention staying on the papers.

“This is kind of the guidelines we’ve come up with for what we’ve planned out.” Steve slides the paperwork across the table to you. “Like we said on the phone yesterday, we can negotiate some things to work better for you if you decide to go through with this. Just let us know what we might need to change and we can have our lawyer rewrite it.”

At that last sentence, you realized this was a contract. It made sense that they would want one. What if you had decided to keep the baby and run away? Not that you would. Your life was too much a mess right now to take care of a kid on your own. And you were relieved when you read that they wouldn’t abandon you with the child either.

When you went to flip the page, you could see Eddie physically shift from over the papers edge. There was a pink tint to his cheeks, his eyes downcast with…embarrassment?

“Um,” Steve clears his throat, “This next page…” He hesitates, mouth opening and closing like he can’t quite figure out what he wants to say. “We, uh, we asked for an omega specifically for a reason.”

Your eyes caught the title for the next section of the contract: 

Terms of Conception. 

“Terms?” You say as you begin to read on. Honestly, when they’d confirmed that they would pay for all of your doctors appointments, you’d just assumed that included the insemination appointments. They were a couple after all, one that had been together for more than 5 years now, so you’d figured there wouldn’t be any...intrusion on your part.

But that became abundantly clear that was not what they had in mind.

“We just figured it would be easier and less invasive on your end if we did things more naturally.” Steve’s tone was slightly distressed, worried that their proposal would run you off once you fully understood their terms.

‘The surrogate party agrees to stop all forms of suppressants and birth prevention measures. Heat cycles will be tracked and monitored by all parties for peak conception. Intercourse will be performed by all parties during the following days leading up to and during the peak fertility window. Due to the schedules of the donating party, said party requests that the surrogate party legally, physically, and emotionally consents to make themselves available at all times to the donating party. This includes at all hours of the day and night, as needed.’

“The consent part is really important to us, too.” Steve adds, pointing to the papers in your hands. “Obviously we want you to feel comfortable enough to tell us no, but sometimes with our jobs we don’t work set hours.” Eddie moves for the first time since you turned the page, nodding quickly in agreement to Steve’s words.

“I get it…” you say, pretending to keep reading even though you’re mind is reeling. “It’s like…free game, right?” You laugh nervously, and the two men both shift very differently where they sit. Eddie’s eyebrows go up, leaning into the table with interest in your phrasing, while Steve seems to tense up a bit, his ears turning red.

“That’s a good way to put it,” Eddie says with a nod, “We just want to make sure you’re willing to work with us. We—” Eddie looks to Steve with a smile, “We’ve been talking about this for at least a year now, and we’re really ready to take this next step.”

The way the two men look at each other in front of you makes you melt from how lovey they are. It becomes abundantly clear that, to them, this is just an obligatory step to expand their family. A means to an end for a couple that wouldn’t be able to get help any other way. 

“Oh!” Steve says as if he suddenly remembered something, “This isn’t in the contract yet, but Eddie and I were talking last night when you said you were still looking for a place to live. Well, we live in a fairly big house and we think that for the sake of…convenience, for lack of a better word, that we would like you to stay with us during this whole process. It would give you plenty of time to get a feel of the town, find a place to live.”

You looked at the two men with surprise. You’d be lying if you hadn’t thought about asking to live with them, but you didn’t think that they would be the one offering. And all of Steve’s points made sense to you so it didn’t take long to mull it over in your mind. 

“Well, I mean, as long as this isn’t some elaborate plan to murder me, then I don’t see why not.” 

Steve and Eddie visibly relax, both of them laughing at your joke.

“Nah, we wouldn’t put this much effort just to kill anyone,” Eddie says with a playful jab at Steve, who shakes his head at Eddie’s antics.

“So, does that mean you’re okay with our terms? We totally understand if it’s not something you are comfortably with, and we can give you a couple of days to think about it if you need to—”

Free food, free housing, free healthcare, and all you have to do is let these two hot guys cum in you until you give them a baby?

“I’ll do it.”

It’s been two weeks since you’d moved in with Steve and Eddie. They took you to your hotel and gathered the little belongings you had and moved you in that same night into their spare bedroom on the second floor. It was directly across the hall from their bedroom, which made sense to you considering the nature of your arraignment. Why shove you all the way on the other side of the house if they were going to need easy access to you during your heat cycles?

After a bit of discussion, they told you that they didn’t want you to worry about getting a job right away. Something about it being too stressful while trying to get you pregnant? You didn’t argue, instead putting your focus on keeping the house put together for them. 

They weren’t exaggerating when they said their hours were a bit all over the place work wise. Eddie recently took over ownership of the local body shop and Steve was a regional manager for Family Video after working his way up in the company. With both of them having so much responsibility, a normal person would wonder how the two of them would ever find time to be with each other.

If someone were to ask you, though, you’d tell them that you are very much aware of how often they spend time together. And that answer would be almost every night.

It was baffling how after both of them working sometimes 10 hour shifts, the both of them still had enough energy to fuck each other almost every night. Loudly, you might add. You’re not sure if they think you can’t hear them or if they’re just so used to living alone that they didn’t think about you being there while they bash their headboard into the wall for hours.

You had mixed feelings about it. Part of you wan annoyed, because it was honestly hard to sleep some nights at first. Part of you was jealous because you hadn’t gotten any since you’d broken up with your ex, and part of your contract included you not having any other partners until after conception. And because of that, part of you was frustrated.

Sure, you were contractually obligated to have sex with them, but it was ultimately on their terms. They were still a couple, and you were just there to fulfill a service. You doubted that even when the time does come that there will be much intimacy between you and the two of them. 

You can take care of yourself, and there have been a couple nights where their sounds have helped you get yourself off fairly quickly. But you were getting to a point where you wish you had a toy or something to make things a little easier. You still had a little money that you didn’t spend before moving in. Maybe on a day they were both gone you could call a cab and see if this town has a sleazy sex shop that no one talks about.

“Good morning,” Eddie yawns, entering the kitchen. He was shirtless per usual, the loose plaid pajama pants slipping dangerously low on his hips as he stretched. 

“Morning,” Steve greeted, eyes still on some paperwork that he was looking over from work.

“Good afternoon, Eddie,” you say with knowing smile, placing a plate in front of him where he sat next to Steve at the island.

“Shit, is it afternoon already?” Steve looked up, his glasses sitting at the end of his nose as he squinted to see the time on the stove.

“Must be Sunday,” Eddie says with a mouth full of sandwich. “It’s feels like it’s been forever since I’ve gotten to sleep in.”

“You slept in last Sunday, babe,” Steve says with a pointed look.

“Maybe I’ll go back to sleep if you’re gonna have that attitude.”

Steve scoffs, rolling his eyes at his husband. Eddie laughs and plants a kiss on Steve’s cheek.

“Do you guys have any plans today?” You ask, cleaning up the mess from lunch. The two look at each other.

“No.”

“Nope, not today.”

“Oh, maybe you two could go on a date?”

Steve looked at Eddie excitedly, who gave him a toothy grin in return.

“That's not a bad idea,” Eddie says. “Been a while since we’ve gone out together.”

The two of them iron out the details of their spontaneous date. From the sounds of it, they’d probably be gone most of the afternoon and possibly into the night. It was a perfect opportunity to make a trip into town for your own plans.

Once the coast was clear, you took the opportunity to look through the phone book to see if any kind of shop was listed. You found a taxi company first, dog earring the page to go back to as you kept on with your search. 

As you sat there, you didn’t quite catch the way the temperature in your body started to rise. You pulled on the collar of your shirt to fan yourself as you turned the pages, which slowly became less and less clear to you as your vision began to go fuzzy. The mixed smells that you’d gotten used to all the sudden became very potent, filling your brain with the scent of alpha musk.

Before you even realized it, you were on your feet and up the stairs. Opening the door to the room across the hall from yours, you immediately find the hampers full of Steve’s and Eddie’s clothes that they kept in there. You thanked yourself for forgetting to start the laundry this morning as you dumped all the clothes onto the floor of their walk in closet. 

It was heavenly to be in there surrounded by all of their clothes, towels, and other materials that you found to be suffice for your nest. At some point you’d taken off your own clothes and replaced them with one of the boy’s shirts and another’s pair of sweats. You curled into yourself, surrounded by their scent as you slowly felt yourself drifting off to sleep.

You had no idea how long you laid there for. All you could focus on was the safe feeling of your nest and the throbbing between your legs that gradually became more prominent as time passed. It felt natural for you to want to call for your ex, even when you were surrounded by other alphas scents. Your body was just desperate for any relief.

“Shit, there you are.”

A light fills the closet, breaking you from your trance and you call your ex’s name again.

“Shhh, no, it’s Steve.” 

You feel your body being lifted from your nest. It almost puts you in a panic until you get a full whiff of Steve’s scent up close. You rub your face against the skin of his neck, whimpering as the pain between your legs becomes more of a strobing feeling.

“Is she okay?” Eddie’s scent breaches Steve’s take over of your nose. You can feel the heat of his body next to yours as he moves in close. A hand lays across your forehead for a moment, and naturally you lean into the touch before it’s pulled away.

“She’s burning up.” Eddie’s voice sounds slightly slurred, but you can’t tell if it’s him or if your hearing is being affected by your heat.

“I thought we had a couple more days,” Steve huffs. You can almost make out the distressed look on his face with how closely he’s holding you.

“I’ll take her,” Eddie says, his hands moving around you to take you from Steve. But Steve doesn’t budge. In fact, his grip on you tightens, pulling your body closer to his chest.

“N-no,” Steve stutters. There’s an aggressive tone in his voice as he speaks, and you feel him moving you away. It’s hard to tell, but it feels like he may be crawling across the bed with you in his grasp.

“Give her to me, Steve.” Eddie’s voice is demanding, and you feel the pressure in the room change. Steve takes a deep breath in before he lays you down on the bed, the cool feeling of their sheets hitting your warm skin and giving you the chills.

Your eyes open to see Steve stripping his clothes. As your vision comes into focus, you can see the way he looks down at you hungrily with lidded eyes. His mouth hangs open as his breathing picks up, his shirt long gone as he starts on his belt.

The bed dips and you see Eddie make his way over to you and Steve. He’d gotten down to his boxers, a prominent tent where he’s straining underneath the tight material.

“Move,” Eddie growls, pushing Steve over and sliding his way between your spread legs. His eyes are dark, locked on your exposed pussy like a predator about to go in for the kill. In a swift motion he pulls his boxers down to free his cock. It makes an audible smack against his stomach, the head almost purple with how hard he was.

The sight of his alpha cock pushes your body over the edge and a wave of arousal spills from you and onto the sheets below in preparation. Eddie strokes himself, his hand rubbing up and down his length before he moves to position himself at your entrance. Even just feeling the tip against you has you bucking your hips and whining for him. Eddie’s lips curl into a smile at your desperation, nudging you again to tease you more.

Just as Eddie’s about to push himself into you, Steve lunges at him, sending Eddie almost over the side of the bed. There’s a feral look in Steve’s eye as he moves in where Eddie was between your legs. 

Even in your delirious state, your eyes go wide when you see Steve’s alpha cock nudging between your legs. Your body is built to take alpha cocks, which are normally bigger than any other second gender when it comes to size. But you were still reeling as Steve’s cock began to push inside of you, questioning how your body was going to accommodate the whole thing as he began to split you open inch by inch. 

The loud moans that came from your chest filled the room the further he pushed in. Another wave of arousal pushes through you and out to coat Steve’s cock. His body rocked slowly to let you accommodate him, fully aware of how big he really was. Steve’s head rolls back, mouth hung open in pleasure with each thrust. 

“Damn it, Steve” you hear Eddie hiss from beside you. Your head lulls to the side as the bed dips again. Eddie starts to crawl towards you and Steve and you wonder if he’s going to try and push him out of you. Instead, Eddie grabs Steve by the back of his head and crashes his lips into his. You watched as the two alpha’s kissed, their tongues moving in a dance with each other and their teeth clashing with each movement of their lips.

With Steve distracted by his husbands lips on his, he forgets that he was trying to be gentle with you and begins to really thrust. All at once he’s fully seated inside you, barely pulling back before pushing himself all the way back in over and over. It’s so much all at once, overstimulating your body to the point where you cum hard on his cock. 

Steve gasps as you squeeze him over and over, pulling away from Eddie to look at your face. Your eyes roll back into your head and the noise you let out as you cum is choked and guttural. 

“She’s pretty when she cums, isn’t she, big boy?” Eddie’s looking at you with that same predatory expression, a devilish smile on his face as he watches you cum on his husbands cock. Steve nods dumbly, barely cognizant of anything other than the feeling of your tight cunt on his cock as he continues to rock into you.

“Wow, Stevie,” Eddie teases, “I figured you would have cum by now. Her pussy that good that you don’t wanna be out of it yet?” 

Another lazy nod. Steve is panting like a dog over you now, his body slowly slumping forward as he lays himself on top of you. He’s humping into you with no rhyme or rhythm, only chasing his own pleasure as he drools onto your skin.

“Hmmm, well, maybe I need to help you speed things up a bit.” 

From over Steve’s shoulder, you see Eddie’s hand rubbing down Steve’s ass to the small of his back and back up again. You see Steve’s brows jump up before his forehead lands in the crook of your neck. 

Eddie’s eyes meet yours, and you feel your heart skip a beat. He pauses for a moment before he leans over Steve’s body, his big, ringed hand moving in front of your face. He presents his thumb to you, and places it against your tongue. Instinctively, you take the digit in your mouth and suck, twirling your tongue around it inside of your mouth. Eddie hums in satisfaction,a deep chuckle rolling in his chest before pulling his thumb from between your lips. 

“Such a good girl,” he says with a wink. You feel yourself clench around Steve from Eddie’s praise, and he lets out a sharp breath against your neck.

You watch as Eddie’s hand lands back on Steve’s ass. The thumb that had been in your mouth sinks its way inside Steve and the effect is immediate. With only a few more sharp thrusts, you immediately feel yourself being filled with Steve’s thick, hot seed. His cock throbs inside of you as his release seems to be endless. 

The pain in your core dulled with every drop of cum that coats you inside. You feel like you could pass out from exhaustion, but the sudden tightening feeling inside of you has you gasping as Steve’s knot grows inside of you.

Eddie looks at you wish confusion, not expecting your pained expression. 

“What the—Steve, did you fucking knot her?”

Steve’s eyes shoot open, looking at you with more clarity than he ever has before. And in your close proximity, you were able to really look at him. The redness that dusted his freckles cheeks, his long eyelashes that framed his beautiful hazel eyes, the little moles that decorated his skin like constellations in the sky. 

Steve Harrington was beautiful.

“Steve!” Eddie called his name again. Steve looked down between the two of you and sighed.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I—I just didn’t pull out fast enough.”

Eddie sighed, shaking his head. In your contract, the three of you had agreed not that there wouldn’t be any knotting if the other person was waiting their turn with you. 

Sometimes it takes a while for a knot to go down if the knotting alpha knows that another alpha is trying to get to his omega. It’s just a biological thing as most alpha and omega dynamic don’t include two alphas sharing an omega. The whole point of the knot is to keep the alpha’s sperm in the omega for as long as possible and to prevent another alpha from impregnating the omega.

 “You better think of Mrs.Henderson in her underwear to get that to go down faster,” Eddie says with an accusatory tone and Steve grimaces. Eddie’s comment makes you laugh, and Steve looks at you wildly.

“Don’t-don’t laugh,” he hisses through his teeth, “It makes you squeeze me and that’s not going to help my shit go down.”

“Sorry.” You look away from him. If you weren’t still inflicted by your heat, you’d probably feel something along the lines of embarrassment or guilt for your current situation. Because you want to wrap your arms around Steve’s neck and pull him in for a kiss, like the one that him and Eddie had shared. 

You wanted that with Eddie, too, though.

You hadn’t even realized that you’d fallen asleep until you felt the pressure between your legs shift. Your eyes flutter open, and you watch as Steve sits up and moves to the edge of the bed. His knot had gone down but his cock was still as hard as it was before he had pushed himself inside of you.

But your view of Steve was obstructed as Eddie took his place between your legs. He leaned over you until he was as close to you as Steve was.

“Got it in you for more, princess?” Eddie asks sweetly, his hand caressing your face. His scent washed over you and you were immediately back into that fuzzy headspace. You nod up at him eagerly, pleading to him with big, glassy eyes.

Eddie gives you a toothy grin. He gives you a peck on your nose before he leans back on his haunches.

“Can I move you around?” He asks. You nod, and he wastes no time moving you onto your stomach. He maneuvers your body so that your ass is up in the air for him and you can hear him hum at the view.

“Look at you dripping, sweet thing,” he says mesmerized. “Can’t wait to add to the mess.” The head of his cock nudges at your sopping pussy, slipping inside with little resistance as your arousal and Steve’s cum acts as a lubricant. 

Even with the stretch of Steve’s cock, Eddie still felt like he was filling you up as he pushed himself all the way inside you. Eddie stilled against you when he was fully inside. His hands grip your sides as he breathes heavily in and out behind you.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Steve says in a mocking tone. “Pussy too good?”

“Shut up,” Eddie says in a clipped tone. His body starts to move, his thrusts picking up quickly and deeply.

“Oooooooh, my god,” you moan out, gripping the bed desperately to keep yourself grounded as Eddie drills into you. 

“Fuuuuuck, that feel good, sweetheart? Mmmmm you’re so fucking tight, shit.”

“Don’t wanna hear any lip from you when you knot her, too,” Steve pants, his voice sounding closer than it did before. You crane your neck to look over your shoulder and find that Steve is kissing along Eddie’s jaw, down his neck and onto his tattooed shoulders. Steve’s big hand interlaces with Eddie’s on your sides, gripping you enough to pull your ass back and bounce is against Eddie over and over again. Eddie stills his movements and lets Steve move your body instead, his cock twitching like crazy inside of you.

“Hmm, it’s kinda like your pussy toy that you love so much.” Eddie’s breath hitches at Steve’s words. “Except it’s better because it’s the real thing, huh?”

“Ye-yeah,” Eddie stutters. His brows are pinched and jaw slack as Steve continues to use your pussy to fuck his husband. You almost miss the subtle way Steve’s body moves behind Eddie, sure that he’s rubbing his still hard cock against Eddie’s backside as he watches his husbands dick move in and out of you. 

Watching the intimate display between two lovers going on behind you while you’re body is compared to nothing but a toy sends a wave of heat through you. It only takes a few more Steve assisted thrusts before you’re coming undone on Eddie’s cock, soaking him with a mixture of yours and Steve’s cum. 

“Jesus Christ!”

Eddie pushes against Steve’s grip, knocking them away to regain control. Eddie’s body shifts, and his cold rings sting against the hot skin of your shoulders as he grabs them, pulling you back until your body is steady. The momentum of his thrusts picks up tenfold as he begins to fuck you in a feral manner. Eddie’s grunting and hissing coupled with his lack of checking on your comfort puts you fully in a haze. Words fall from your lips with no thoughts behind them.

“Please cum. Please cum. Want your cum. Want your cum so bad.”

“Holy shit.”

All at once Steve lets out a long groan and Eddie’s thrusts suddenly become sloppy. His cum begins to fill you as he still moves shakily in and out of your abused pussy. The thrusts finally stop as Eddie falls forward and crushes you under his weight, his arms wrapping around you and holding you tightly as his knot expands within you.

“Mmmmmmmm.” He hums against your shoulder as he inhales your scent.

“Don’t kill her,” Steve jokes followed by the sound of a hand smacking skin. Eddie’s body jolts, his head turning to look back at Steve.

“I’m not killing her. Am I killing you?”

“Well…” It obvious that you’re struggling a bit to breathe under Eddie’s weight. A moment passes and al the sudden your being flipped, ack against Eddie’s chest and your legs spread as they drape over Eddie’s strong thighs. 

Steve is at the end of the bed, his eyes locked on where you and Eddie are connected. His large hand stroked his cock, chest jolting with a particular roll of his fist over his cock.

“Like what you see, big boy?” Eddie chuckles next to your ear, his cheek rubbing against the side of your head. “I think this one’s spent for now. But if you need to get off, I’m still here.” 

A smile tugs on Steve’s lips.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he says, shuffling towards the two of you until he’s between you once again. You watch in awe as Steve’s hand reaches out, his gentle touch landing on Eddie’s taught balls, rubbing them a few times before descending out of sight. Eddie gasps under you, letting in a sharp breath as Steve begins to work him open just out of sight. Curse the lack of movement that being knotted puts you in. 

“If you can make her cum again, I bet it’ll be enough that I can fuck you without the lube.”

You clench around Eddie’s cock at Steve’s lewd words. Eddie barks out a laugh, “I have a feeling that won’t take much.” One hand snakes up your chest to begin fondling your breasts, while the other makes it’s way towards your sensitive clit. Eddie rocks his still hard cock inside you the best he can, his knot is so big it feels like there shouldn't be any room left inside you at all.

“Here, let me help,” Steve says, pushing Eddie’s hand to the side before he can get started on your bud. With a bit of shifting, Steve’s face was suddenly kissing the insides of your thighs, intermittently moving down to place a few pecks on Eddie’s as he worked his way inward. He inches closer and closer until he was dead center between you. 

With heavy eyes, you watched his tongue start from the bottom of Eddie’s balls, gliding upward until his thick muscle finally met with your clit. It sent a wave of heat through you again, the arousal leaking from around Eddie’s knot. But it’s not enough.

Steve’s tongue masterfully flicks and swirls around your bud, occasionally taking it between his lips to suck on harshly. Both of Eddie’s hands twist and kneed at the flesh of your tits absentmindedly, his rocking becoming automatic as he watched Steve’s ministrations.

With all the touches and movements, it didn’t take long to get you back on the edge again with a heavy pressure building inside you. Your body began to shake as you were about to plummet over the edge, knuckles white as you gripped Eddie’s arms as if you’d float away if you let go.

 The sudden twitch of Eddie’s cock inside you as he came again was the final push you need. There was a sudden release as the pressure inside you as your body tensed. Eddie’s knot wasn’t even enough to keep your slick inside. You could feel it pouring out and drenching Eddie under you.

“Atta girl,” Steve praises, his hands rubbing your still shaking legs until the went limp. “You did so, so good.” 

“Fuck, yeah she did,” Eddie huffs, clearly exhausted himself.

“Hey, don’t tap out yet, Eds. I’m not done with you.” Steve rubs his cock on yours and Eddie’s skin, soaking himself with your slick until he was satisfied. 

“Sorry, hun, I’ll try and be easy since you can’t move,” Steve says to you with a sincere look. 

You think back to the noises that the two of them make at night when they’re alone together, always wondering f they were rough with each other. It makes sense, two alphas who naturally want to dominate their partner would probably be like a lion and a tiger fighting each other.

Your body suddenly shifts as Eddie’s back arches off the bed. You can feel Steve’s abdomen against you as he pushes himself fully inside of Eddie, filling him to the brim just the same as he is with you. Eddie’s whole body shudders and he cums for the third time inside you. 

But Steve doesn’t give him much time to recover before he starts moving. His arms scoop under Eddie’s legs by the knees, bending the both of you slightly as he begins to piston into Eddie. Both of your bodies move with Steve’s thrusts, including Eddie’s cock as he’s inside of you. It almost feels as if Steve is fucking the both of you. 

Eddie’s arms wrap around you tightly, pulling you as close to him as possible while you move in tandem with each other. Your so far gone that you barely even register the way his teeth graze against the skin of your neck. He lets out low growls against the skin that covers your scent gland, the pressure of his teeth teasing you as if taunting you with the possibility of him marking you.

Steve’s hand grazes against your cheek, the skin of his arm running against the round of your cheek. It happened so quickly. Your eyes shot open to find Steve leaning forward, a bewildered look on his face that bordered rage. He wasn’t looking at you, though, rather just past you at Eddie. Turning your head slowly, you see that Steve’s hand is completely covering Eddie’s mouth, his eyes wide with realization.

There was a long, silent, unmoving pause. The entire mood shifted in a second, the air thick with tension that made you afraid to even blink. You could feel Eddie’s chest rise and fall under you, your skin sticky from the sweat that had accumulated between the two of you. All you wanted was to crawl away and get in the shower, the very full feeling of being full of 4 or 5 loads of alpha cum was beginning to feel heavy inside of you.

Slowly, Steve removes his hand from Eddie’s mouth, the two of them looking at each other for a moment before Steve clears his throat.

“Sorry,” he says with a forced smile. “That was, um, a little to close for comfort for me. Didn’t mean to kill the mood.”

Eddie didn’t say anything.

The gradual shrinking of his knot made it to where you could slip yourself off of him. Without a word, you rolled off of him and ran into their closet on shaky legs. 

As soon as the door closed, you collapsed into the nest you had made and began to feel a wave of anxiety come over you. There’s muffled words being exchanged on the other side of the door, voiced raised just enough that you could tell it was an argument, but it didn’t seem to escalate much beyond that. 

This isn’t how you expected any of this to go. In the lucid state you were in you tried to remember all the terms that were discussed when it came to actually having sex. One at a time. Only enough interaction to get the job done. Minimal small talk. Knotting is okay considering the higher catch rate. 

But there was definitely not to be any bonding.

The whole thing was meant to be as sterile and clinical and professional as sex between two people could be. Even if they were both hot, there was no way you were going to come between them. You weren’t going to be the other woman.

A soft nudge on your shoulder woke you up from your sleep. The mixed smells overwhelmed you once again, the floaty feeling in your mind returning as your heat took over.

“Hey, are you okay?” Steve’s voice was gentle and laced with concern. His thumb rubbed circles into your skin as you roused more, turning slightly to look up at him. He was shirtless, only in a pair of gray boxers that you’re pretty sure he stole from your nest before you woke up in hopes that you wouldn’t notice.

“Mmhmm, just really tired,” you say, punctuating your statement with a yawn. Steve chuckled and knelled down next to you, his hand maintaining contact with your arm.

“I’m sorry, hun. We, uh…we went a little overboard with you, so I’m sure you’re exhausted.” You nod your head at his words, only able to keep one eye open on him as he talked. “Is it—Can—Can I—Can we help you get in the shower?” Steve stuttered as if he was asking you if you would scold him. Little did he know that the thought of hot water hitting your skin sounded amazing after all your body had been through.

“Yes, please,” you said breathlessly, arms stretching out towards him. Even in the low light you could see the tension leaving his body. Strong arms scoop you up and lead you into the bathroom. The light was low, water already running in the walk in shower as Eddie stood next to it, his hand inside of the curtain presumably checking the temperature.

“Hey,” he said once he noticed the two of you enter, his voice was stilted. He had an unreadable look on his face, his eyes looking anywhere but at you at Steve. “The water’s ready. You guys should be good to go…”

“You’re not taking a shower?” You ask, head tilting to the side.

Eddie looks at you, his eyebrows disappearing into his disheveled bangs as if he were surprised you were even talking to him. He looked up at Steve, mouth opening and closing as if lost for words.

“Do you—are you okay with him…also being in the shower?”

You look up at Steve, confused at the question.

“I don’t mind.” Your mind immediately goes back to your thoughts from earlier. You weren’t going to be the other woman. 

“Unless you mind. Actually, maybe I should just take a shower by myself.” You push against Steve’s body until he lowered you down onto your feet. You miss the way Steve and Eddie look at each other as you enter the shower without them.

You awoke the next day burning up.

After haphazardly moving your nest into your room while you showered, you spent a good hour rearranging the different articles of Steve and Eddie’s belongings on your bed before finally falling asleep.

Looking over at the clock on your nightstand, you were shocked to see that you’d slept for 16 hours. It wasn’t uncommon for you to sleep for 10 or 12 hours during a heat, but 16 was a new record for you. 

And your body was paying the price for it. The ache between your legs throbbed as your heat was reaching its day two peak. All you could think about was Eddie and Steve coming in to relieve you of the pain as you pulled their shirts over your face. Inhaling their scent, you let out a load moan that turned into a cry as the pain radiated down your legs. 

There was a knock on your bedroom door. You knew it was Eddie before his knuckles even hit the wood, his scent becoming extremely noticeable to you in the house. Steve must not be home, the lack of the mix of there scents making Eddie stand out much more in his absence.

“Come in,” your voice was strained and slightly muffled by the shirt over your face. The door creaked open, but Eddie didn’t say anything. His silence prompted you to uncover your face. Eddie stood in the doorway like a deer caught in headlights. He was so close, yet far enough way that it frustrated you. 

“What are you doing?” You sounded petulant, and if you were in the right state of mind you may even be embarrassed for using such a tone. But you were in so much pain, and the solution to your problem was dangling itself in front of you just out of reach.

“I, uh, I heard you cry out and I just…” His mouth closed as he swallowed, his lips smacking as if his throat had gone dry. You sat up slowly in the bed and Eddie’s eyes followed your every movement. 

“S-Steve had to go in to work today,” he suddenly blurted out, his blown out pupils meeting yours. “I was able to take the week off to, uh, to—to.”

“To fuck me?” The words came from a place of impatience and irritation. Eddie sucked in a sharp breath at your bluntness, giving a sharp nod. 

“But, I’m not supposed to until Steve gets home.” His head turns to the side, eyes suddenly very interested in a painting on the wall. 

“What? Why? I thought…The contract…”

“It’s because of, well, what happened last night. Steve wants us all to, uh, talk before we go any further.”

Tears begin to form on your lash line. The rational version of you would understand, but the only thing you were concerned about was getting the relief you desperately needed. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Eddie’s hands cupped your face, his rough thumbs wiping away the tears that started to fall down your cheeks. “He’ll be home soon though. He said he wasn’t going to stay out a minute longer than he had to—”

The sound of the front door suddenly opening had you sobbing with relief. It slammed shut, Steve’s rushed footsteps echoed up the stairs and down the hall until he appeared in the doorway. His hair was every which way and he was panting after sprinting to get to you.

“I didn’t do anything,” Eddie said, backing away from you, and you could feel the loss of his touch in your soul.

“I know,” Steve said as he rushed to take Eddie’s spot in front of you. “Hey whats wrong?”

You sniffled, looking up at him through your watery lashes. “Hurts, Steve. Please…” You reach out a hand for him and he hesitates. He grabs you by the wrist and pushes your hand back before you can reach him.

“Okay, I understand, sweet girl.” He nods, looking at Eddie briefly before looking you in the eyes. “But we need to talk first. Okay?”

You whine out, rubbing the tears from your eyes with your free hand.

“It’ll be quick, I promise.” Steve takes a deep breath in. The grip on his hand loosens as he takes your hand in his.

 “We…we want to make sure that you’re still okay. After last night, everything happened so quickly and things got carried away…We just don’t want to make you feel like that’s how it has to be.”

You blink up at him, trying to process all the words being spoken to you while pushing down the pain. 

“Because of the contract?” You ask, hoping that you’re asking the right question.

“Yes, exactly. We strayed quite a bit from the guidelines we set and we want to make sure you’re still okay with going forward.”

“Steve.” 

The seriousness in your tone has Steve tensing, his body as still as a statue.

“I know what I signed up for. If I don’t like something I promise I will tell you. But, until one of you knocks me up, you could fuck me on an overpass and I would not care. When I said free game, I meant it.”

Almost as soon as you said it, the room became heavy with Eddie’s scent. The weight has you collapsing on the bed, arousal pouring from you as your body preps itself. Steve looks over to Eddie, whose mask finally drops to reveal the feral intentions he was repressing. 

“Eddie—”

“Steve, I’ve been going crazy sitting in this house all day waiting for you to come home just to hear that I could have been in here taking care of her while she cried out for hours.”

Steve turns to face Eddie fully, gritting his teeth.

“You’re the whole reason I wanted to wait! If you were able to have better control of yourself, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

“Me? If I remember correctly, you’re the one who said he wasn’t sure he would be able to control himself if we brought an omega into this relationship.”

“I wasn’t sure if I would, but clearly you’re the one who has no self restraint. Trying to bond with her the first time you fuck her isn’t really a good look, Eddie!”

“I said I was sorry! I didn’t—Woah!”

While the two of them argued, you’d managed to slip off the bed and crawl over to where Eddie stood. The bulge in his jeans was too enticing to continue ignoring. You could tell Eddie would be easier to make fold if you made the first move. 

You rub your face against the material in his jeans, mouthing at him until he got the message. Forgetting his argument with Steve, Eddie quietly made quick work of his belt, hastily undoing the button and zipper as well. Your hands took over, pulling his pants and boxers down in one swift motion. You were so close to him that his cock hit your nose as it popped out of the confines of his clothes, eliciting a chuckle from Eddie. 

But you didn’t wait to hear what ever cleaver comment he had planned to say. Immediately you wrapped your lips around the leaking tip, wasting no time trying to take him as deep down your throat as you were able to manage. The sounds coming from above you sent little shivers down your spine.

“Okay, okay—” Eddie pulls himself from your mouth. There was pained look on his face as he pinched the head between his finger and thumb. 

“Sorry, was gonna bust too quick. And as good as you are at sucking dick, we don’t want anything to go to waste right?” You blink up at him, nodding dumbly as you lacked the words to respond to him. His hand came to rest against your cheek and you leaned into it, eyes fluttering shut at his touch. 

“Awe, is the little omega too far gone already? Need me to take all that pain away?” You nodded against his hand, almost falling over when he pulled it away. Before you could protest, you felt yourself being lifted once again, body landing with a plop on top of the bed.

When you looked up, you saw Eddie kicking his pants and boxers to the side, eyes on where you lay waiting for him. For a brief moment, you notice that Steve isn’t in the room anymore. A little voice in the back of your mind tries to break through your fog, but it quiets as Eddie leans over you with his imposing frame. 

Eddie swings his legs over yours until he had you straddling him. Leaning in close, his mouth hovers just next to your ear. “I promised Stevie that I wouldn’t fuck you from behind anymore. Don’t need the unnecessary temptation. Hope that’s okay.”

“O-okay.” It comes out as a whisper, only audible to Eddie with how close he was to you. The heat coming off of him only raised your body temperature more as he caged you under him. 

Suddenly, his hand lands on your hip. His hand slides down your side and over your hip, only stopping once his hand is fully cupping over your center. Two of his thick fingers tease your hole for a moment before he sinks them in. The welcomed intrusion has you gasping out in relief, even more so when his rough thumb toys with your clit. Your arm wraps around him and hold on for dear life as he picks up the pace, his fingers reaching deep inside you as he works you open.

Just as you feel yourself hurtling towards your climax, Eddie abruptly pulls his fingers from your pussy, much to your dismay. You look up at him in disbelief and watch as he coats his cock in your juices before pushing it inside of you. He looks at you once he’s in, an apologetic look on his face.

“Sorry,” he says as he pushes himself in to the hilt, “Wanted to feel you cum on my cock.”

And you did. With only a few sloppy pumps as he got his rhythm going you were spasming around him, legs shaking as he continued to fuck you through it. 

The bed creaks as his hips rock into you. Skin against skin, sweat dripping from his face down onto yours from your combined body heat filling the room. Eddie’s very vocal when he fucks, whether its grunts or groans or him reminding you how good you feel around him every time you cum.

“Fuck, I can’t wait to fill this omega pussy up,” he pants, his sloppy movements signaling to you that he’s reaching his end. “Feels so fucking good. Didn’t know what I’ve been missing all these years.”

His words ring in your ears, but you’re too fucked out to dissect them now. Instead, you lock them in your mind to explore at a later time.

“Hah, shit!”

Eddie grits his teeth, hips stilling as his fills you once again with his cum. Any remaining ache immediately dissipates once you feel his hot seed inside you, satiating your need for the time being. 

There’s a twitch at the base of Eddie’s cock and you brace yourself for his knot. But Eddie pulls out before he can fully knot you, his chest heaving as he sits back on his haunches. Instead, he grabs your legs and lifts you up until your butt rests against his legs, elevating your lower half.

“This is supposed to help I guess,” he huffs out, his hands still holding your legs by the ankles, his knotted cock twitching against your ass.

“Why…why did you—?”

“Not knot you?” You nod.

“No knotting if the other alpha is waiting their turn. It’s in the contract, remember?”

“Oh yeah…”

Eddie calls out for Steve, waiting for few moments for him to respond. When he got nothing, he called for Steve again. Still nothing.

With a huff, Eddie moved around the contents of your nest until you were elevated without his assistance. He hopped off of the bed and grabbing his boxers, sliding them on over his still hard cock.

“I’m gonna go find him. Just try and stay like that for the ten minutes.”

You waited patiently for the ten minutes, expecting Steve to come in and take his turn with you. But, he didn’t show. You waited another ten minutes just for good measure, but the need to pee took over and you had no choice but to move.

As you opened the bedroom door, you were met with Eddie once again, his fist raised as if he was about to knock.

“Oh, hi,” he said awkwardly. “Sorry that you had to wait.”

“It’s okay. I just have to pee and then I’ll be ready for Steve.”

“Oh, um, Steve’s…not in the mood. So, you’re good to shower or sleep—actually, you haven’t even eaten today. I’ll go make you something to eat real quick.”

Eddie doesn’t give you time to respond before he’s bounding down the stairs, leaving you in the doorway with your mouth hung open.

Five grueling days later, you wake up feeling…sore. Not in the same way as your heat made you feel sore, but rather in the exact way that you think you would feel after being fucked multiple times a day for 5 days straight. 

Waddling as you move, you pile all of the clothes that you’d stolen from the two men during your heat onto the center of your bed. Stripping the pillow cases and bed sheets, you drag everything down the stairs to start a load of laundry while. 

The house was quiet as you moved around it. A note left for you on the counter from Steve and Eddie said that the both of them went into work today to catch up on what they might have missed during the week. 

Yesterday you wanted to spend alone time in your nest, so you knew that it was your last day of your heat. You’d let the boys know that you’d likely not be cycling anymore so that you all could go back to your normal routine the next day.

Which is exactly how it felt.

You spent the day cleaning, doing laundry, prepping dinner for when Eddie and Steve would come home. Your went through the motions that you had gotten used to in the first two weeks of you being here.

But, you also had time to spend the whole day analyzing everything that had happened during the last week.

Thinking back, there wasn’t anything that came to mind that you could complain about on your end. You’d rationalized everything that happened in that first night; Eddie and Steve had both been a little tipsy. You didn’t notice the alcohol on their breath with the overwhelming smells of their pheromones all around you. But when you recalled the memory with a clear mind, you could definitely smell it on them any time they got close enough to your face.

Sure, the things that happened were off from what the terms of your contract outlined, but most of those terms were made with you in mind. And you didn’t really mind what had happened at all…

But, Steve clearly wasn’t happy. He still had sex with you during your heat, but it was more like how you had expected it to go in the beginning. It felt as clinical as sex could be. You were thankful that he had to cum inside of you, or else you might not have gotten the relief of the ache without it. He also left once he was done, usually sending Eddie in not long after to check on your. 

Sex with Steve felt like you were being used, but you couldn’t fault him for it.

Sex with Eddie was different. 

With Eddie’s talkative nature and inability to filter his thoughts when he was inside of you, you’ve come to the understanding that you might be the first omega that Eddie’s ever been with. You also think that Steve had been around the block a few times before getting with Eddie.

“Now I see what Steve’s talking about.”

“I get why Steve was worried about bringing an omega around.”

“Can’t believe Steve could ever give this up.”

And other things along those lines paint a picture of the relationship dynamic that these two might have when you’re not involved. 

Steve was hesitant from the get go because he knew what he was missing as an alpha being in a relationship with a non-omega. Eddie’s either never been with an omega, or he’s never been with anyone other than Steve.

After coming to these conclusions, your mind couldn’t help but think about them over and over. Was Steve’s reluctance to open up to you because he felt bad about your first time together, or was he putting up a barrier between you to keep any potential feelings at bay?

Eddie certainly didn’t seem to mind. There must have been a discussion between the two of them about making things even when it came to having sex with you. Because Eddie was always eager to jump you, his enthusiasm clear every time you were together. But, it was always either preceded or followed by a less enthused Steve.

As the hours ticked by, the more nervous you began to feel for the arrival of the men of the house. You didn’t want things to be different after everything that had happened. It’s not like any of this was spontaneous. Having sex with each other was the whole point, but you couldn’t get over the feeling that things weren’t going to be okay anymore.

It was a little after 5:30 when the front door opened for the first time. You didn’t hear it over the radio playing and the loud sizzling of the oil as you seared the steaks for dinner. Your singing along with Madona’s Like a Prayer turned into a loud shriek when you turned and saw Eddie leaning against the counter with an amused look on his face. Your hand flies to your chest as you collect yourself and Eddie almost keels over from laughter at your fright.

“Eddie, you asshole! You can’t scare me like that!” You hit him lightly on the arm with your hand towel.

“I didn’t do it on purpose! I was just enjoying the free concert that I didn’t know was going on in my kitchen.”

“Oh, please,” you say over your shoulder as you return to the steaks. “I didn’t take you as a Madonna guy.”

“I’m not. Only listen to her to appease Steve.” Eddie moves to lean against the counter next to you. You can feel his eyes on you as you flip the steaks around, checking on the twice baked mashed potatoes in the oven, reading over the instructions for the Stove Top.

“If you’re going to hover around me, then you can make yourself useful. Here,” you walk to the pantry and pull out a box of brownie mix, “Why don’t you make sure we have everything we need to make these?”

“We do,” Eddie says, taking the box from you with a smirk. “Everything…except the ingredient that makes them fun.”

It takes a moment for it to click. He laughs at you again as your eyes roll.

“Sounds like a good time in here!”

Steve peers into the kitchen as he pulls his coat off, placing it on the back of one of the island chairs. 

Steve’s presence suddenly makes you acutely aware of how close Eddie is standing to you currently.

“Hey there, handsome,” Eddie cooes as Steve makes his way over to him. Steve leans and kisses Eddie on the lips. It’s a purely innocent kiss between to lovers, but your brain immediately flashes to the other night. The way they kissed each other with so much passion, completely dismissing you in their own pursuit of pleasure.

“Hi, babe,” Steve says between a few more pecks. When he pulls away from Eddie’s lips, he sniffs the air around him dramatically before looking at you.

“Damn, it smells amazing in here. Are you cooking steaks?”

Steve talking to you like he had before alleviated at least 85% of your anxiety over the last week. You nod, smiling up at him proudly.

“Yep, picked them up on sale last time we went to the store. Everything is almost done, too. So I hope you boys worked up an appetite today.”

Dinner went without a hitch, the conversation flowing normally between the three of you. You expected there to not be any mention of the past week, but small things in passing were brought up without any hidden malice or passive aggression. Eddie even mentioned that his coworkers were ragging on him for taking his first week off in years just to get laid. 

After dinner, Eddie insisted on helping you make the brownies while Steve showered. Everything seemed normal as you read off the instructions. Eddie ran around the kitchen to grab you everything you needed.

“...and I’ll need a big bowl to mix everything in.” You were standing against the stove, back to Eddie as you set the oven to preheat. The box was still in your hand as you read it over one more time, not paying much attention to anything else as your head bounced to the low hum of a metal tape Eddie had put on. 

Suddenly, you were being squished against the stove. Eddie’s arm reached out above you, his whole body pressing into yours as he opened the cabinet and pulled out a large mixing bowl. And as if it wasn’t weird enough, he stayed pressed against you as he placed it in front of you. You didn’t know how long he would have stayed like that, only backing away after Steve’s footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. 

Eddie didn’t touch you like that for the rest of the night, and you didn’t bring it up. And as you laid in bed that night, you couldn’t decipher what exactly had happened. It already felt like how he pushed his body against you was wrong, but you could swear that you felt him…hard against your backside. 

Not wanting to dwell on it, you chalked it up to lingering hormones. It might take a couple days for Eddie to adjust back after sleeping together for the last 6 days. You pushed it into the back of your mind and ignored it until you dozed off for the night.

thank you for reading.

tagging a few people who might be interested:

@xxhellfirebunnyxx @take-everything-you-can @babygorewhore @myosotisa @munson-blurbs @bimbobaggins69 @chaoticharrington @lonelysatellites @blueywrites @reidsbtch

#steddie #steddie x reader #alpha!steddie #alpha!steddie x reader #alpha!steve harrington #alpha!eddie munson #omegaverse #eddie munson #steve harrington #eddie munson x reader #steve harrington x reader #alpha!steve harrington x omega!reader #alpha!eddie munson x omega!reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fic #steve harrington smut #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fic #a/b/o #omegaverse fic

[thelikesoffinn]

„Astarion ending as the Vampire Ascendant is the correct ending for him, because it is what he wants.”

That is a claim I’ve been seeing pop up more and more often these days. And I think it’s both a very bold and a very odd claim to make.

But first things first: Hello, I’m a licensed social worker! So far, I’ve worked with children, refugees and youths with behavioural issues stemming from bullying and or abuse.

Please be aware that I will be mentioning different kinds of abuse, coping mechanisms, and victim/abuser relationships. If any of this is difficult for you, don’t force yourself through it. My jabbering about a traumatised vampire is not worth your wellbeing, not ever.

I will, however try to stick to Astarion and not use other examples. If, in any case, I do use a non-Astarion example, I’ll add a warning beforehand so that you can skip the part. And I’ll make it clear what will be discussed in the next bit, so that you have a chance to skip it entirely.

This is an effort to make this as accessible as possible for everyone that wants to indulge on a mad woman’s rambling – and I know there’s a few people that like this sort of stuff!

And, uh, there's obviously spoilers for all three acts. Serious spoilers, even.

Before I can get into the whole ‘why Astarion didn’t really want to ascend,’ we need to understand him a little more. And to understand this pretty boy’s brain, we first need to understand the gist of what we’re talking about when we throw around the word ‘abuse.’

“Abuse” is when someone is treated with cruelty, violence, or neglect – often to bad effect – on a regular basis. Repetitively. Check’s out for Astarion, I’d say, but we all knew that already. I mean, if one thing was obvious, it was this.

1. Astarions Abuse

Next we need to look at what kind of abuse Astarion faced over his long years of torment, seeing as different types of abuse will have different effects on the victim.

Not that that is anything we have to worry about with him – Astarion won the abuse lottery, to put it bluntly. In a horrible game of fate, he got everything. He himself indirectly mentions all the types of abuse he faced, albeit never using the correct terms.

The first we properly notice – fitting, seeing as it is often the most obvious form of abuse – is the physical abuse. Astarions scars are probably the biggest tell Larian could shove down our throats, only underlined by Astarion’s tale about the night itself. About how Cazador ‘misspelled something’ every time he flinched or screamed and had to do ‘many corrections. On top of this, Cazador locked Astarion up for months on end and tortured him – or had him tortured – on a regular basis both as a rite and as a punishment.

Next up, we have the fact that Astarion was forced to basically prostitute himself repeatedly. This is what we call sexual exploitation.

“I spent two hundred years using my body to lure pretty things back for my Master.” – Act 2

Two hundred years is a long time, filled with great many people. Now, we don’t know how many of those people actually tapped into the sexual exploitation and how many he could just lure back with other means, but the fact that it happened a lot is undeniable.

Next we have a form of abuse that we often disregard in adults: Neglect. It sounds odd, I know, saying that a fully grown adult was neglected. They can care for themselves, can they not?

Well. Yes and no.

Adult neglect is proceeded by the condition that one adult has to lean on another adult to fulfil their needs for whatever reason. This could be anything, from disability to income-based issues.  

Seeing as Astarion had absolutely nothing, while Cazador had everything, we can assume this was the case. Cazador had the house, the money, the power. Astarion owns but one pair of clothes, assumedly, that he has fixes over and over again. Fair to say, that’s pretty neglectful. (And it’s one more reason to shower the guy in pretty armour and camp clothes. Go ham, people.)

Last we have the form of abuse we actually get to witness later in the game – emotional abuse.

Once again, it’s undeniable that this happened. Especially since we’re all seeing it in the flesh upon meeting Cazador in his crypt.

“Have you no respect for yourself?”

“I strove for perfection in all things. Even those as imperfect as you.”

“A pity you amounted to so little, despite my efforts.”

“A pathetic little boy who never amounted to anything.”

All Act 3, Crypt

Here we have just a few examples of things Cazador throws in his face. It’s like reading a textbook on emotional abuse, this one (and it’s definitely a reason to throw hands).

Blaming the victim, keeping their sense of self and their self-worth as tiny as possible to make them cower and flee. A true classic.

This pretty much shows that Astarion suffered all forms of abuse we commonly see and it is implied – once again by Astarion himself – that at least a few of those instances were ritualistic.

Now, what does that mean exactly? Well, I fear I need to use a real example here, so please skip the next paragraph.

Ritualistic doesn’t refer to a proper ritual – it can, but that’s mostly a thing for those in a cult. So, we’re not necessarily talking about a ‘Vampire Ascendent Ritual’. A husband, beating his wife every evening after his third bottle of beer is also called ritual abuse. It happens regularly. It is part of a routine. Both parties know what will happen.

I can’t find the exact quote, so I’m working of my memory here, but at one point he said that when Cazador invited him to eat and he said yes, he would be served a putrid rat. If he said no, he’d be beaten.

The way it was phrased made it clear that it happened more than once and that Astarion clearly knew what would happen. So, this can be classified as ritualistic abuse.

2. A Note on Conditioning and Compliance

By default, abuse victims are conditioned to behave a certain way or in a certain fashion. This is a natural response to avoid further abuse.

In Astarion, the thing we see most often is his inherent need to please. Not literally, he doesn’t mind being an arsehole. But he initially feels the need to follow Tav’s orders, even if they go against his own wishes.

This can be clearly seen in the conversation with Araj Oblodra. Astarion very clearly doesn’t want to bite her. He doesn’t. But he will do so, if Tav tells him to. This behaviour is not conscious – he doesn’t know why he does it, he just does – and it is to be expected. This is how he kept himself save for two centuries, so of course he will fall back into his usual pattern when the pressure is high.

This goes hand in hand with the fact that most abuse victims don’t fight. Maybe initially, but not after long term abuse. Especially not after two fucking centuries.

This is true in Astarion – offered by his ‘siblings’ during act 3 and unhappily acquiesced by the man himself. Astarion stopped fighting and, once again implied, cowered, and did as he was told in order to survive.

3. The Astarion we know and love

Obviously, all that abuse does have an impact on our vampire boyfriend. He shows various common signs of abuse and just like with the forms of abuse, Astarion raked every coping mechanism he could find. (Not really, but it feels like it.) It’s also important to note that nearly all of the following things happen inwardly. Astarion is not one of the victims, that tries to rationalise and minimise the actions of his abuser. Quite the opposite, actually.

I’ll note from the beginning, that rationalisation will not be covered in this bit, as most examples will be important later on. But he definitely does it.

One of his biggest skills is to hide every ounce of fear or hurt behind sarcasm and snarky theatrics. He doesn’t seem to hide his anger much, though, so that’s something! Our boy is cool with anger, not so much with being afraid.

“Ahahaha, now that you mention it….I might have done…that.” – Act 3, regarding the Gur children

“The thing that will decide my fate forever more? Yeees, it’s been on my miiiind. Why?” – Act 2, regarding the Ritual

And there’s many more instances that prove this. Honestly, half his dialogue is sarcasm, so it would really be too long to get into and we all know what I mean, right? We have alltalked to the guy before. It’s obvious that he’s sarcastic to a fault.

This goes hand in hand with his penchant for defensiveness. I would personally state that he’s simply not really good with guilt. When talking about fear, he usually just opts for sarcasm or avoids the topic completely, but guilt especially has his defences going up. This is also when he’s most likely to shove all the blame off to Cazador.

“Don’t look at me like that. Cazadors orders.” – Act 3, Crypt

“I just did what I had to!” – Act 3, Crypt

And don’t get me wrong, he does that anyway. And with good reason. Astarion didn’t have a choice for the most part, but he’s still easy to shove things off.

This kind of connects to his penchant for denial.

Astarion doesn’t really like to talk about most things. He firmly believes he is an ‘action’ sort of person that just does instead of plans, which invertedly just means he’s great at pushing the thinking stuff away. He also likes to get rid of stuff, so that he doesn’t need to face it ever again.

“I never want to see these little scraps of misery again. The world doesn’t need to know my shame.” – Act 3, about the children

And yes, this partly rings true. He’s probably ashamed and doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s done. But it’s also very clear that he himself simply doesn’t want to face his own actions, something that is just  underlined by his extreme willingness to red rid of the other spawn.

As mentioned by Astarion himself, he’s big on manipulation. I mean, I don’t think there is much explaining necessary. The guy is willing to do a whole lot in order to get what he desires – which mostly revolves around safety and survival, to be honest – and he’s not really shy about it either. And that’s despite the fact that he doesn’t really like intimacy – especially in form of sex.

It’s not a secret that Astarion is not big on sex and anything surrounding it. This goes far enough for people to consider him either ace or ace coded.

A claim that, personally, I’m not super in line with.

Now, it’s not entirely wrong and if this is your head cannon I’m surely not going to stand in your way – but on a larger spectrum, I think he’s more traumatised than ace. And while those go hand in hand sometimes, it’s a bit difficult for the ace community if you attach traumatised characters to them because it can fuel a whole lot of stigma that is honestly neither needed nor wanted. But I digress!

If it comes to his own behaviour, he’s great at minimising his mistakes. Honestly, he’s a master of minimisation. A very obvious and famous example would be:

“’Killed’ feels like a…strong word. Not many corpses have your vigour.” – Act 1, after killing Tav

Astarion. You literally sucked poor Tav dry and left them flopping around, cold, and dead. Killed is exactly the right word and we all know it.

“Quite the deviation from my usual routine. Capture, not lure. I didn’t bring them in with sweet rolls or anything.” – Act 3, Gur Children

This is another attempt at minimising what he did, if a bit less obvious because at this point there isn’t much he can say. But at least he didn’t sexualise the gur children, right? They’re still spawn but whoo, at least that didn’t happen.  

The next point would be dissociation, which is extremely common in abuse victims – of all forms of abuse.

Astarion himself mentioned certain moments that could be classified as dissociation over course of the story, which is probably the coping mechanism I personally expected the most.

The pale elf has a penchant for violence, but he’s not entirely shameless or abhorrently vile, which gets clearer the more the story progresses. So, two hundred years of forced prostitution, torture and doing whatever other horrible things? Yeah, I’d be more surprised if he didn’t dissociate.

Examples of that would be:

“A moment of disgust to push myself through and then I could’ve carried on, just like before.” – Act 2, after Araj

“I felt nothing the moment I handed them over.” – Act 3, Gur Children

“Did you enjoy it? It felt like you weren’t fully there.” – Act 1, Tav after Sex

The latter is generally more of an assumption than actual prove, but with context it does make sense.

The last common sign of abuse we find in our boyfriend would be his low self-worth. It’s a consistent trait that stays over the course of all three acts, noticeable in many different conversations.

We can see it in his reaction to wanting to break up before finishing his story. We can see it in his genuine surprise when Tav picks him over any of the other characters. We see it in his insecurity whenever Tav asks to sleep with another character. He’s fine with it, but he still worries their decision to sleep with someone else is based on something he did.

It eases up ever so slightly after Cazador is dead, but even then he’s still struggling which is once again perfectly illustrated if you try to break up with him.

“Oh shit. I- Did I do something wrong?”

That is the first thing he asks and I think it speaks for itself. He genuinely doesn’t believe he has much to offer and for Astarion, it’s likely that Astarion will always be the problem.

4. "Oh, I tried them all none of them answered.”

Another big thing that’s important to note, is that Astarion was never saved. No one came to save him from Cazador. There was no darling boy on a white steed riding into that castle to rescue him and princess carry him away. Not even the gods answered his desperate calls.

So, he never received any kindness or luck. To him, the world seems as cruel and horrid as before because he didn’t have the chance to experience goodness in two centuries.

But worse than that, he didn’t even get to save himself. Astarion didn’t stand up to Cazador, he didn’t run out of his own might.

He was beaten to near death and ‘saved’ by Cazador, who would become his abuser.

He tried to save someone and, in turn, was locked up and starved for an entire year.

He was abducted by mind flayers, i.e., saved from Cazador, only to end up tadpoled and on the cusp of getting a fancy, squiddy beard.

Anything that’s good, any kindness, any selfless action…it all came with a ginormous price tag.

5. Over the Course of the Story

Astarions behaviour changes a whole lot over the course of three acts – which is important once we talk about his quests climax – so let’s review what we’re working with!

Act 1 Astarion is guarded as fuck. The man has walls around him that are so high, even the gods can touch them.

A lot of his behaviour in act 1 revolves around staying save and staying liked. He lies, manipulates, and flutters his lashes in order to get what he wants and needs. Instead of asking, like Wyll, Karlach and Gale do, Astarion uses all he has to offer to get by. He is still very much in survival mode and tries to weasel his way through an unfamiliar situation with familiar methods.

On top of that, and most notably, he’s absolutely not fond of kindness or selflessness.

#I saved a child and now my boyfriend is mad

Here, we are most likely to gain disapproval for doing the decent thing – unless you sent him outside for a minute whenever you’re being a good person.

And I’d assume that this is because of two things.

First: The very traditional ‘Why not me?’

As I mentioned before, Astarion wasn’t saved. He hasn’t experienced kindness in a very long time so seeing that the world is literally filled with kind people is hurtful. Why didn’t anyone save him? Why was he left to his own devices for so long? Why should he care about others when it’s so clear that no one ever cared about him? No, dead to all of them. If he didn’t get it, neither will they.

“And what am I owed? What about the injustices I suffered? Am I not entitled to anything?” – Act 3, Crypt

“I was in the prime of my life when I was turned. Everything was taken from me too.” – Act 3, Crypt

And secondly is the fact that, as I mentioned, goodness always has a price. And it’s one most people won’t be willing to pay. That’s how his life has been, so why would theirs be different?

This is precisely why Astarion may disapprove of kind actions, but he mostly neither approves nor disapproves if Tav asks for payment. That’s just how the world works.

Once you venture out into act 2, after getting to know him a whole lot more, he starts to mellow a bit – if only towards Tav.

“He’s afraid, so afraid, of everyone but you, who she should fear the most.” – Sceleritas about Astarion

His approval is a lot easier to gain – or at least keep! – and he tends to approve of some more proper actions. He doesn’t throw a fit if you promise to find Mol, he approves of Tav being kind to His Majesty, of saving Aylin and he even approves of Durge apologising to Isobel after threatening to rip her to pieces.

He's slowly starting to open up, allowing Tav to see some parts of him he previously kept hidden. He accepts their offer to help, if hesitantly and, by god, the man starts experimenting with boundaries.

The social worker in me is shedding tears at this. It’s my favourite thing to see in my clients and it’s no different here. Yay to saying no!

Of course, it’s still a bit hit or miss. If Tav urges him to bite Araj, for example, he will only to later notice that he didn’t fucking have to. He recognises this on his own and he calls Tav out on it. Just like he calls them out on not helping him with his Orthon quest.

Good job, chap. Good fucking job.

And the growth-train won’t stop going even as we reach act 3.

In act 3, there’s not many things he disapproves as of right now – those he does, mostly have to do with how Tav treats him and not with anyone else. In fact, he’s more likely to approve good behaviour now, like giving Yenna food or money.

And yes, we need to consider that this could simply be because he gets used to Tav’s behaviour and just learns to roll with it. But it’s also highly likely that he notices that there’s truly good people around. At least one person. And that person is not only good, no, they’re in the process of helping him break free once and for all.

They’re helping him save himself.

By act 3, he has learned that he can absolutely say his piece where Tav is concerned and he’s more likely to disagree with them on certain things. It’s seen during a lot of small dialogue that he’s no longer terribly afraid to be honest with them, willing to listen and talk and he’ll ask for help if he needs it.

“I can do this. But I need your help.” – Act 3, Crypt

Something that can be viewed both positively and negatively is that he’s definitely loyal to a fault. He will stick by Tav’s side, no matter what.

“I really hoped we could avoid being pawns for a dark god, but here we are, I suppose. I’m with you, my dear, wherever this might lead.” – Act 3, After Jaheira confronts durge

As I said, this can be both positive and negative. On one count, it’s a recipe for disaster, seeing as he could be waltzing into a really bad situation for Tav alone.

But on the other side…this is a man who only cared about himself because that is the only person he could afford to care about. He needed to survive. He now has enough room to breathe and the capacity to care for someone else and I’d be inclined to count that as a good thing.

6. The Crypt

All the progress he made in act 2 and 3 is nearly tossed into the wind as soon as the crew enters Cazadors castle.

It’s not an immediate thing, of course.

At first, Astarion tries to stay light and simple and he hides behind flippant tones and relaxed faces. The way he recounts this is almost comically disinterested and the façade is actually quite good.

It’s start’s cracking after we meet Godie, one of the people who tortured him on more than one account, but he mostly manages to remain as upbeat as one can honestly expect for the first half of the journey.

All that, however, is done for the very moment we meet Sebastian. His mask not only slips, no, it full on shatters and there’s none of his apparent lightness left.

Which, of course it does.

The man is suddenly faced with years and years and years of victims. Innocent, unlucky people he lured back to his master over two centuries. People he liked, people he pitied.

“It’s sickening, seeing them again.”

It’s basically a room filled with guilt, exclusively for Astarion. And, as we mentioned before…Astarion is not great with guilt.

The guilt, however, is not where it ends.

No, he’s also faced with reflections of his own past. The spawn pose as reminders of what he did, sure, but also as reminders of what he was.

Weak, desperate, hungry.

There’s an abundance of images of his worst moments, reflected back at him in the thousands. It’s probably like staring into a funhouse mirror, but instead of seeing yourself in a funky way he just sees everything he so desperately doesn’t want to be.

“It should be [who I am]! I don’t want to be like them. They’re pathetic, horrible…”

He’s forcefully made aware of how darn weak he can be, which claws at all the wounds he’s barely had time to close. Something, he of course won’t admit if asked.

“THEY DO NOT [remind me of myself]. That weakness in me is dead, IT’S DEAD. I have a higher purpose.”

The high pressure of the moment brings out all of his act 1 traits in but a few moments. You can pretty much watch how he starts to shut down mid conversation, one of his old walls snapping back into place to remove himself from the situation.

Thing is though, walls usually become a bit brittle after disuse. Especially when talking to a person you don’t usually want to wall out.

Or, in his case, when talking to Tav.

After meeting Sebastian, Astarion shows extreme reactions to Tav nudging any of his weak spots. His reaction varies on whatever choice you make, but it ranges from aggression to defensiveness, to denial and even to downright begging Tav.

“Don’t hate me. I just did what I had to. I swear I did what I had to.”

This probably the most shocking out of all of them, since that is not something we got to witness before. The begging is likely a mixture of intense fear of losing Tav, his low self-esteem and pre-Tav behaviour, since we can assume that Cazador made him beg more than once.

Another old coat he puts back on would also be the least surprising of them all.

Manipulation.

He falls right back into it, using Tav’s affection to get what he want if we trigger the right action.

“If they die and I ascend, I won't have to rely on the parasite to walk in the sun. I'll be free. Truly completely free. Isn't that what you want?”

This, to me, was probably the biggest tell that Astarion was back in survival mode. He’s panicking, for fucks sake, and who can blame the guy? He’s back. He’s about to face down his abuser.

Of course he’s fucking panicking.

Panic leads to an increased craving for safety and, in his case, power. This is why he clings to Tav, why he begs them to love him still. And this is why he jumps head first into the rationalisation pool.

“I will need to sacrifice them all if I want to perform the ritual. - [You can save them.] – What’s the point? They're as good as dead! I thought they were dead. If they are unleashed, they will cause incredible carnage. […] They must die. Better they serve a purpose.”

Another textbook example.

They must die anyway. They’re basically dead. No need to save them now. They’re dangerous, I’m doing the right thing by sacrificing them. I already thought they were dead, so it’s not changing anything for me. They’re a lost cause and I deserve  all this power. I deserve it, because I suffered and nothing will change if they die.

So, seeing as we already spoke about his usual behaviour in act 3 – behaviour he showed after we allowed him to breathe and be himself for a while – I think we can fairly easily conclude he’s not thinking straight.

Astarion is right back in survival mode, where all that matters is he himself. If it weren’t for the seven thousand spawns, he might have moved through this more gracefully, but seeing those tipped the scales and Astarion is absolutely losing it.

Remember that for the last section, per favore.

7. The Ascension

“Astarion wants to ascend and Tav manipulates him into doing what they want.”

That is basically the essence of what people often claim and I can’t help but shake my head at such a blatant disregard of everything he has become. This is completely ignoring the change and growth he has gone through over the course of their journey.

Astarion wants to be free. He wants to be safe. That does not mean he wants to ascend.

And the claim that Tav manipulates him into doing anything is even more baffling. We are all aware that Tav is not manipulative by nature, yes? That is entirely on you. You decide who your Tav is.

And then let’s remember: Astarion is panicked. He’s afraid and he’s not thinking straight. His abuser is on his knees before him and he still feels so weak. And there’s seven thousand spawns that need handling.

Astarion is very much not okay right now.

In fact, reading his thoughts just proves this theory.

“You can see the fear in his eyes but also the hunger. The thick smell of blood in the air and the promise of power being so close is intoxicating to him. All he can see is the power of the ritual and the freedom that power brings. The freedom to do anything. To be anything.”

Tav, however, has none of those problems. They can actually see beyond the current situation and they are fully aware what the consequences are. Astarion is not. As we previously established, Astarion is a doer. Not a thinker. He didn’t think this through, not at all.

The only thing Tav is doing – the persuasion roll – is reminding him of the very real consequences he is facing. The consequences he hasn’t thought about before.

"I know you think this will set you free, but it won't. This power will trap you, just like it trapped Cazador."

And that is the kindest thing Tav could do in this situation. They’re not bodily dragging him away from Cazador. They’re not even telling him to not do it. They’re just offering him the truth. He can do with that information whatever he desires.

“Astarion cries when he doesn’t ascend, that just shows that it was the wrong choice.”

A hare-brained point that I thankfully have only seen once so far.

That crying? That is healthy crying.

That is him, crumbling under the stress that suddenly dissipates. That is him mourning two hundred years of torment. That’s him letting out feelings he hasn’t been able to for centuries.

And, for the love of god, try to put yourself in his shoes.

Two hundred years of torment, ended in but a moment.

Astarion was abused and tortured for so long, afraid for so long only to see his tormentor die just like that.

Cazador died within a moment and all Astarion needed was a darn blade. Of course he fucking cries.

Seeing how pathetic a being the very core of your life’s misery actually is hurts. It hurts like hell because not only are you finally free – free! – no, you’re faced with the fact that this pile of nothing, the thing that’s bleeding out right in front of you…this was what tortured for so long.

This thing hurt you so much. That guy took everything from you, everything you once were, and broke it again and again and again over years.

You were so scared of this thing.

And yet he has the gall and the gumption to die just like that.

It was so easy.

And yet you suffered for so long.

8. Evil Playthrough?

An evil playthrough is really a different setting altogether.

All of this, as you can probably tell, is really only applicable on a good playthrough. Realistically speaking. I’m not sure how the game mechanics handle it.

On an evil path, Astarion never really gets to experience kindness and goodness. Evil Tav will just prove him right in his believe that the world is a vile and cold place, meaning that he realistically would be more inclined to actually want to ascend.

9. Final Conclusion

I think all of this should be enough to make it clear that no, ascended Astarion is not the best ending for the guy. In fact, it is probably the worst. Because it’s just him, running away. He’s running into a lonely and cold state of being, where cruelty and power lord over everything else and he’s running because he’s terrified of being hurt again. He’s running despite desperately wanting to stop running.

“I'll spend the rest of my life running watching the shadows, never feeling safe…no, this has to happen. Here and now.”

And, the worst part is: Nothing about Astarion is left after he ascends. Even his tone of speaking gradually changes, his theatrics fading. He’s slowly losing himself, until there’s nothing but an evil caricature left.

So, in the end, ascension will have proven him right.

That version of him is dead.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate #baldurs gate #bg3 #astarion #the dark urge #tav #astarion romance #astarion ancunin #astarion and tav #bg3 act 1 #bg3 act 2 #bg3 act 3 #act 3 #act 2 #act 1 #araj oblodra