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#they can be blind to the truth for all i care
twoyara · 2 days
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Men's phrase, "the worst thing she'll do is say no," proves in how much different worlds we live and how much they don't care about our comfort (no they're not blind, they just don't care).
Because it's the truth, isn't it? What else is there to do? Even me as a rabid man-hater and sapphic woman who has been Thai boxing for years, I wouldn't beat and maim them. Why would I do that? First of all, as a woman, a human being, unlike men, I don't see any point in violence.
Even so we rarely say no. Most often it's some stupid excuse like "Oh, I already have a boyfriend/husband". Because men never take "no" as an answer. The only thing that stops them is knowing that you, as a thing, already have another owner. Although that doesn't stop some men. There's a famous phrase: he won't know. Fucking idiots.
And it's kind of dangerous for women to say no. You don't know how these animals will react to rejection. A lot of women after this got stalkers who literally watch their every move. Sometimes refusal can be accompanied by beating, rape, threats and even death.
We live in different worlds. Where for others the worst outcome is "no", for others it's death.
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dixons-sunshine · 3 days
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hi I just wanted to start with I really love your writing its just so good. I do have a request and if your not interested its okay it is angst but with a possible happy ending.
so its a daryl x reader where before the apocalypse r and daryl were together and they ended things right before everything went to shit and then when the group gets to Alexandria r is there and she has kid/s (maybe twins?? boy and girl??) so turns out r found out she was pregnant right when everything started happening so daryl didn't know and idk he like puts two and two together yk? and if you're okay with it can she be hispanic/ latin (maybe that can be one of the reasons they broke up bc yk merl is an ass to POC)
anyways sorry if that was a lot or didn't make sense
anyways have a good day/night much love <3
Two Plus Two Makes Four | Daryl Dixon x Hispanic!Fem!Reader
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Summary: A week before the apocalypse, Daryl was forced to break up with you by Merle, leaving you heartbroken, but not alone—soon after he left, you found out you were pregnant. Now, two years later, you come face to face again with the man that broke your heart, and he finds out something shocking.
Genre: Angst, some fluff towards the end.
Era: Alexandria, pre Saviour arc.
Warnings: Swearing, mentions of pregnancy and childbirth.
Word count: 1.3k
A/n: Sorry this took so long to finish. I hope this is good enough to make up for the wait! Please note that I used Google translate for this, so the translations may be incorrect or awkward! Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistakes! (Translations will be at the bottom.)
“Kids?! Ya were pregnant and ya didn't fuckin' tell me?!” Daryl bellowed angrily, grabbing your arm to halt you from walking away from him.
You ripped your hand from his grip. “¡No me toques!” You spun around, furiously pointing a finger in your ex boyfriend's direction. “Don't you even dare put this on me, Dixon! You left. You walked out because you cared more about your brother's opinion than you did me! I'm sorry I wasn't gonna baby trap a man who didn't wanna be with me!”
“I deserved to know! I missed two years of their lives 'cause ya didn't tell me! I could of been there fer 'em, for ya, but ya chose to keep it from me!” Daryl exclaimed angrily, following you as you walked into your kitchen. “How could ya keep tha' from me?!”
“You chose to run to your brother the first chance you got! Four years down the drain in an instant for that racist asshole. I didn't owe you anything after that, maldito idiota!”
Daryl stopped in his tracks, instantly regretting starting up this particular argument. You spoke nothing but the truth. You didn't owe him anything. After all, it was him who walked out on you. He chose to let Merle's judgement get to him and influence his relationship. Hell, if it weren't for Merle, he would have proposed to you. He already had a ring picked out and everything back then, but he let Merle ruin everything. It was his own stupidity that cost him two years of his children's lives.
“Mama?”
At the sound of a small, timid voice coming from behind you, both you and Daryl turned and came face to face with your kids, your two year old twins. Your son, Luka, was nervously looking up at you and Daryl while your daughter, Camilla, was standing behind him, holding his hand.
Daryl was struck by the similarities both children shared with him. They both had his eyes, and his hair colour. They were spitting images of him. There was no doubt in his mind that these two children were his. He wasn't blind. He could see they were.
“Everything's fine, amores. I'm just having a conversation with Mr Dixon.”
Camilla stepped forward, her eyes lighting up with wonder. She looked up at Daryl, a smile spreading across her chubby cheeks. “Dixon?” she asked, pointing up at him. “Papa?”
Daryl was surprised. He looked up at you in confusion, silently asking for an explanation. You sent him a strained smile, forcing a relaxed look in front of your children.
“I always talk about you. They deserve to know who their father is. Well, who he was before he left me,” you explained, looking back down at Camilla and Luka.
“Papa?” Luka asked as he stepped forward, his blue eyes that reflected Daryl's sparkling with wonder. “Our papa?”
Daryl looked at you for permission, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. You nodded, silently giving him permission. He was their dad, after all, and he had just as much right to have a relationship with them as you, even if he did leave you. However, that was between him and you, and your children didn't deserve to be denied a relationship with their dad because of it.
The archer bent down, looking between Luka and Camilla as they stared at him in wonder. “Yeah, m'yer papa. M'sorry I wasn't here before, but m'here now. I ain't goin' nowhere.”
Daryl wasn't sure how much of his speech they understood, if they understood anything at all, but it didn't matter. The speech was mainly meant for you. It was to let you know that he wanted to be a part of their lives, and there was just about nothing that could stop him from that.
Camilla and Luka, as if having some sort of twin power, both simultaneously rushed forward and into his arms. Daryl wasted no time in hugging them back, somehow managing to pick them both up and rest them comfortably in his arms. It was relatively late, nearly eight at night and well past their bed times, so they rested their heads on his shoulders, making Daryl's heart swell with fondness. They didn't even know him, only having heard of him through the stories you told them, but they already trusted him. And even though he just found out he had kids, he would kill for them.
“We need to talk, sunshine. This ain't somethin' we can just sweep under the rug,” he told you, allowing you to take Luka from his arms to lighten the load. He adjusted his hold on Camilla, letting out a fond chuckle when he heard her yawn and nuzzle her face deeper into his shoulder.
You let out a sigh and nodded. “I know. But let's get these dormilones to bed first.”
Approximately half an hour later, the twins were tucked into bed and asleep. You and Daryl were back in the kitchen, both having a glass of wine in your hands—liquid courage for the conversation you were about to have.
“M'sorry fer leavin' ya,” Daryl broke the silence first, nervously sloshing the liquid around in his glass. “I dun' even know why I did. Merle's opinions should've never influenced our relationship. I loved ya. I still do. I regret leavin' ya more than anythin' else in my life.”
You inhaled deeply, willing the tears away. For two years you had wanted an explanation, and now you were finally getting one. However, hearing him admit that he still loved you, that you weren't stupid for still loving the man who broke your heart, was both relieving and hurtful.
“You hurt me, Daryl,” you whispered, feeling a lump form in your throat. “I get that Merle was your brother, but you should've never let him influence you like that. I had to go through everything alone. Do you know how hard it was being pregnant and fighting for my life against the dead out there? Do you know how terrified I was? I was lucky enough to find Alexandria a couple of days before I gave birth. If I didn't, I would've given birth out there with the walkers. I probably would've died. Camilla and Luka too.”
Daryl felt the guilt gnawing at his insides. He really hated himself at that moment. “M'sorry, sweetheart. I really fuckin' am. I promise I won't leave again. I dun' expect you to give me a second chance. God knows I dun' deserve it, but I promise I'll be here fer ya and the lil ones. I ain't ever gon' let ya down again, I promise.”
You gave him a small smile, reaching over to take his hand in yours. You rubbed your thumb over his knuckles, something you always did whenever the two of you had a serious talk. “Give me some time, Daryl. I still love you, but I need some time to adjust to the idea of 'us' again. It's been just me and the twins for two years. As far as I knew before today, I thought I wouldn't see you ever again. Just focus on the kids for now, okay? They deserve to know their daddy.”
Daryl's lips twitched up into a smile, and he nodded. “I'll wait as long as ya need me to. I ain't ever gon' let anyone influence us ever again, I can assure ya of tha'. And I ain't ever gon' leave ya to raise 'em alone, never.”
➳༻❀✿❀༺➳
¡No me toques!: Don't touch me!
Translations (May be incorrect! Please feel free to correct me if they are!):
maldito idiota!: fucking idiot!
amores: loves.
dormilones: sleepyheads.
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enjoyerofsoup · 3 days
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listening to ep 100 of riptide and thinking about the parallels of the encounters with jay’s dad
in their first encounter, at the block, jayson ferin (grizzly, man, i’m sorry but why does it have to be spelled that way) knows exactly what to say to intimidate jay. he ridicules her choice to become a pirate, insults her friends. but he also shames her for having left featherbrook island. for “leaving her mother all by her lonesome.” jay’s response is that her mother can handle herself, though her father continues on, speaking at her rather than to her.
the majority of the conversation, jay pleads more than argues. she doesn’t need to prove him wrong. she just needs to convince him to let her friends live. she doesn’t move to attack or defend, just walks up to her dad, head down, and puts her fist on his chest. she immediately surrenders. says she’ll return home, do what he says, begging him to let the others go.
this doesn’t pan out of course. gillion acts, fights against jayson for the sake of his friend, for her freedom. but jay’s internal conflict, the secret she’s spent all this time lying about, her genuine care for her friends but her want to somehow appease her father, to find out what happened to ava. there’s uncertainty. and jayson sees this, and uses it to punish them. by forcing her to punish them. there’s nothing else she can do.
she shoots gillion in the chest.
in episode 100, as the crew has just left zero, they’re ambushed by the navy. as jay’s father lands on their ship to arrest them, something is different. jay has committed to her choice, to her co-captains and her crew. jay speaks against him.
“you shouldn’t be here.”
jayson ferin doesn’t know his wife is sick, that her magic is leaving her. jay herself has only just found out, but it makes sense that she hasn’t been able to return home as a wanted pirate. jayson doesn’t have that same excuse, yet he’s been absent for years. he doesn’t visit home often, not even before jay left to be a pirate.
when her father asks why, jay says “of course you wouldn’t know. always blind to everything around you, especially your family.”
he speaks as if he’s looking past her, trying to separate the person he sees from the daughter he raised. trying not to think about how much she looks like ava.
“my family would never forsake their duty on some immature whim of emotion. i see no family-“
jay interrupts him. “yeah? and what about mom? you ever once think to look over her? check in on her maybe?”
and jayson’s response is what really stands out to me.
“my wife can take care of herself. how dare you use her to provoke me. is this how far you have fallen?”
he’s contradicting his words in the block. not that he really meant what he said, as he didn’t truly care about jay leaving her mother. he cared about controlling the situation, and his wife was an easy card to play to make jay feel guilty.
as jay challenges her father, he assumes she’s trying to play the same game. weaponize their remaining family to gain control. she isn’t.
“when was the last time you saw her?”
jayson ferin is silent.
“i saw her a week ago. she’s very sick, dad.”
he doesn’t seem to even consider that she’s telling the truth. skirting around the subject to insult jay’s character before addressing it.
“try to trick me all you want. but it will not be me who dies a fool. and do not dare use my wife to bargain.”
“that’s just like you, dad. just like you to think i’d use mom as a bargaining chip and not tell you out of pure concern for her. i would’ve stayed and helped. but, y’know, you have so much navy on the island no i couldn’t even do that for mom.”
there’s such a contrast in how jay holds her self during the block and now. her father never allowed her to be her own person, wouldn’t have acknowledged it even if she’d tried to do so. and she knew that in the block, knew it long before she left featherbrook. it may have been easier had she gone back home with jayson after the block, but it would have been a betrayal. not just to her crew, but herself. she knows better now. knows what she wants and what she’s worth.
“so you know what? you continue to do your thing. be a bad husband, be a bad father, i don’t care. right now? i’m gonna get you off my ship.”
and she shoots at him.
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lovelykhaleesiii · 21 hours
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hello my lovelies,
I hope everyone is well & life is treating you kindly. I know the fandom space has been quite tense these past few days/week, with all the truth and revelations coming out about certain creators/writers that we thought we’d known for some time now…
it truly saddens me deeply, as many of us knew these writers, were avid readers of their works and even considered them a close mutual. I think most of us can say we’ve felt blind sided and that sometimes we may not always get along with people and that’s okay… we need to be mindful of our actions. a huge learning lesson.
I hope now we can all be a bit more aware of how significant our actions are, especially online. dealing with strangers frankly, we can never truly know the full picture of someone’s life nor their honest intentions. please be careful.
I’ve not always been perfect either, so I do apologise if I’ve ever hurt anyone or made them feel neglected or any less. and if I’m being honest, I haven’t had a positive experience either with some other creators so hopefully, they take some accountability in all this & re-inform their interactions with others and how it can impact people…
with that being said, I know a lot of people are currently turned off by the fandom which is quite fair to be honest, but truly I think we can all collectively get past this. s2 is coming up and we should try to rebuild this fandom to a safer, more joyful and understanding space. especially for any newcomers that may wish to join!
I’ve recently, been part of a wholesome discord server for all things HOTD (with the bonus of other fandom channels) if anyone would be daring to join now (or whenever you’re comfortable). it’s been revamped with new admin (myself included) so please feel free to reach out to me with any questions, and I’m more than happy to share the invite link ❤️
you guys can even sus it out for yourselves and leave if you so choose to. no lock in contract 🤭
I hate to see so many lovely creators leave because of all this, however I support whatever makes you feel comfortable.
my blog will always be a safe space, and I hope I can provide that for you guys 🤍🙏🏻 dm’s are always open too.
- love always, Hel 💓
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qu1cks1lversb1tch · 2 days
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Aw those best friend hcs were fun! Can you do everyone else at the hotel? Especially Vaggie?
A/N: I absolutely can! I'll make a part 3 or edit this one if I somehow forget someone (it could happen). This is quite the little grouping 🤣 I hope you like it!
Having them as best friend's part two:
Includes: Vaggie, Sir Pentious, Niffty, and Cherri Bomb.
Part One
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Vaggie
Her deal is tough love.
As her best friend, you're used to being called an idiot half a dozen times a day.
You'll just be chilling after making some decision or saying something and she'll be like: "Not only are you blind, you're fucking stupid too!" But it wouldn't hold any malice
She's never really been one for gossip, but you can bet that she'll listen to how your day was.
Definitely the friend who would interrogate anyone you show interest in.
If someone says something out of line about you, she's putting them in their place before you can open your mouth to defend yourself.
Vaggie isn't very touchy, but she'll hug you sometimes. Especially if it was something like after the battle and she was just happy you were alive.
She's almost always there to ward off the bad.
Sleepovers! They're never her idea, but she can't say no when you give her those puppy dog eyes.
Really, she's always there for you, but with a sibling dynamic that makes some question if the two of you really tolerate each other at all. You do, but barely lmao.
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Sir Pentious
He's a drama king. Sweet, but definitely dramatic.
100% the friend to hold your drink at a party. . . Because he's HOLDING EVERYONE'S DRINK!
If you had to go anywhere, he's sending the Egg Bois with you. They call you 'not master' and it's the cutest thing ever.
Sleepovers would be his idea, no doubt. An offer that couldn't be refused.
He calmly interrogates any potential suitors of yours, and if they seem fine, he might let them go on a date with you.
Will literally cry if you call someone else your best friend. Friend's are okay. But if you called Angel Dust or Charlie your best friend? Immediate tears. "But. . . I thought I wasss your besssst friend." Apologize, right now.
Gives you some new weaponized invention and your favorite Hellish sweet treat every year on your 'death day'. He takes it very seriously.
He's all for the tea, but only if there's 100% truth behind it. Like you witnessed the HOTTEST tea of the month and just went 'Sir P NEEDS to know'.
Everyone mistakes the calmness and caring nature of Sir Pentious as having feelings for you. Common misconception. That's just your slithery best friend.
Y'all take naps together at random because you can. And naps are life.
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Niffty
You're almost as chaotic as she is, but you're better at hiding it. Sorry not sorry.
Because of her, everything you own is cleaner than when you got it and you found it disturbing at first, but eventually got used to it.
She climbs you like a tree and uses you to see better in large crowds.
She talks so fast half the time you could barely understand her until it clicked and you could reply.
She's very knife happy. Someone breaks your heart? "STAB! STAB! STAB!" Followed by maniacal giggles and her footsteps down the hall.
She tries new recipes and uses you as the taste tester to see if the others would enjoy it. The answer is usually yes.
Niffty is super blunt. She won't hold back a single thought, even if it could potentially hurt your feelings.
She rarely takes breaks, but when she does, her small frame is usually beside you, watching TV or relaying the latest drama she heard on the streets.
She's a good listener, but once again, she's also blunt.
Every picture of the two of you, she has that same far away look in her eye. Every. Single. One.
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Cherri Bomb
She's a bad influence, that much is certain, but no amount of peer pressure could get you to do something you didn't want to do. That's why you're best friends.
She loves partying and dragging you out, but most nights, you stay in, which then in a way, forces her to stay in too.
"[Y/N/N], you bitch, why aren't you dressed? I thought we were going out tonight!" No. No you weren't.
She encourages you to step out of your comfort zone 24/7, because you're in Hell and it could only get so much worse.
She listens, but doesn't really pay attention all that much. There's almost always something else on her mind, but she makes it up to you somehow.
She'd probably push you down the stairs for fun if she felt like it.
Most likely to sing karaoke with you, absolutely plastered in a bar somewhere on the outskirts of the Pride Ring.
If you handed your cup to her to go to the bathroom, she'd probably misunderstand and drink it.
Glares at anyone who looks in your direction, purely because she doesn't trust very many at all.
Would reluctantly agree to a sleepover if you asked, just because you're her main bitch.
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Text
Don't Go Blindly Into the Dark
Summary:
To hide that he can't read, Jan Van Eck has been forcing his son to pretend he's blind since he was eight years old. Wylan is now attending Ketterdam University, and meeting Jesper Fahey may very well be about to change his life. But is he safe to tell Jesper the truth? And what will Jesper say if he does?
Jesper is struggling to weigh up his life in the Barrel and his life at the University of Ketterdam, and there's a good chance that his growing debt is about to make the decision for him. He hasn't attended class consecutively for months, but maybe that will change when his newest project includes partnering up with Wylan Van Eck. But can he really leave the Barrel behind him? And how long can he keep up the pretence of who he thinks Wylan wants him to be?
Content warnings for this chapter: implied gambling addiction, weapons, implied violence
AO3 link: Don't Go Blindly Into the Dark (2275 words) by She_posts_nerdy_stuff
Chapter One - Jesper
Jesper was late. Again.
He ran out the door of the Slat, jacket half-pulled over his creased shirt and the second sleeve obstinately hiding from him as he rushed into the street. The staves were quiet enough at this time for his hurry to be noticeable, but he didn't have time to care about the strangers glancing at him. He glanced at his watch as he ran, almost tripping over the cobbles. Nine bells. What time had he fallen asleep? He didn’t remember getting back to the Slat, but judging by the exhaustion clinging to his bones it couldn’t have been all that long ago. Dammit, Jesper. He knew he shouldn’t have gone out last night; he knew it would only end up with him being late this morning. But here he was, once again, trying desperately to pass as someone with reasonable respectability as he flew into the university district.
He was more than out of breath by the time he reached the dean’s office, trying to straighten his jacket and smooth his hands over his shirt. It was a deeply boring outfit; a once-white button down and a brown jacket, but Jesper had to forgo his usual Barrel flash on the occasional visits he bothered to make to the university. That didn’t mean he didn’t add his own little flares, of course, but he’d been in too much of a rush this morning to concern himself with that.
“I should have a meeting scheduled,” he said, “Jesper Fahey?”
The receptionist looked him up and down disapprovingly, then opened the almost comically oversized diary sitting on her desk.
“You’re late,”
You don’t think I know that?
“Sorry,”
“He had to start the meeting after yours. Should be another five minutes, but then he has a space open. You can wait over there,”
“Thanks,” 
She made a non-committal ‘mm’ sound, turning back to her other papers. 
Jesper sat opposite the receptionist’s desk, fidgeting, eyes on the door. Why had the dean called him to this meeting? The note had been frustratingly vague, and he’d only seen it because he was coincidentally back at his term-address to collect some fresh clothes when it arrived. There were three more on the table that he’d already missed, so he decided he’d better make it to this one. Maybe they were kicking him out - he wouldn’t be surprised. At least then the decision would be made for him. But if he was expelled, would they somehow inform his father? Jesper shuffled unhappily in his uncomfortable chair.
Another minute passed before the door clicked open and two people emerged through it - the dean, a tall Kerch man in his late forties trying to hide the fact that he was clearly going bald, holding the door for a boy Jesper recognised from one of his classes. A mercher kid, someone had told him on their first day, as they watched the boy walk in and take a seat, something Van Eck. Had some sorta accident when he was a kid, been blind ever since. He looked much younger than Jesper, though he knew they must be about the same age, with soft features and angelic, ruddy curls floating around his head like gravity had taken a liking to him and given them a free pass. Jesper had to admit, he found the kid intriguing. Even in the lessons he’d shown up to, he had several times caught himself studying the boy from across the room and had to force himself to look away. Even if whatever-his-name-was didn’t know he was staring, it still felt rude.
“Thank you, sir,” he was saying to the dean as he slipped through the door, slender cane tapping the ground in front of him.
It was almost rhythmic, like a beat that was waiting for someone to add a melody. The dean had noticed Jesper, he could tell, but waited until the Van Eck kid had left the room before he said:
“Mr Fahey. You came,”
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, and then when a brief pause added: “And that I missed the previous meetings you scheduled. I, er, had a problem receiving mail,”
“I see,” he said, a little coolly, eyes flicking over Jesper, “Well, come in,”
Jesper sat in front of the desk, drumming his fingers in his chair, waiting to be told that he was expelled. But the dean just droned on and on, without the final hit ever seeming to come.
“The only class you’ve attended in the last month is Economic Principles for Business and Markets - and even for that you’ve only attended three lessons,” he was saying, when Jesper suddenly remembered he was supposed to be listening and quickly tuned in, “Perhaps we could change your course load to classes more similar to this one, see if that helps motivate you. Do you enjoy Economics?”
Jesper did not. He shrugged.
“Not particularly,”
“Then may I ask why it’s the only class you’ve consistently attended? - even if you do have twelve late marks in it across the year,”
It hadn’t really been a conscious decision. It was an afternoon class, twice a week, easy to get to at least one of them if he got himself together enough - late enough that he’d probably be awake, early enough that he probably wasn’t on a job or in a gambling den. 
“I have a partner project in that class,” he said, truthfully, “I don’t want to let anyone down,”
“Perhaps you should consider not letting yourself down, Mr Fahey,”
Saints, he didn’t hold anything back did he? Jesper shuffled.
“Who’s your partner for this project?”
“Helena Dentte,”
The dean nodded.
“I’m going to switch who you’re working with,”
Jesper wasn’t sure what good that was supposed to do, but he didn’t argue. Helena was nice enough, but she was infuriatingly motivated and it drove him slightly mad when she suggested they meet to study after almost every class - and she probably hated his guts for the curse he was to be partnered with.
“What about the rest of your course?” he glanced through the papers on his desk, “You haven’t attended Comparative Literature - Kerch and Zemeni Poetry since going once last month, your other classes longer,”
Jesper just shrugged again. He was sinking slowly but surely deeper into his chair.
“Not for me,”
“We should look at changing your classes around then. Stick with the business class, whatever’s keeping you there I want to preserve it. But think about what else you’d like to study. If not economics or literature, Mr Fahey, what are you interested in?”
Unwelcome answers offered themselves up in Jesper’s head. He shuffled.
“I don’t know,”
The dean wasn’t particularly impressed. He told Jesper to come back in a week, with at least an idea of what else he might like to study. Sure, Jesper thought, that’s gonna happen.
“I’m very glad you came to this meeting, Mr Fahey. It’s the first step in making a change, and I am only here to help you,”
Jesper mumbled something of a thanks by way of reply as he slipped out the door and slouched away down the corridor.
“Jesper,”
A girl melted from the shadows and appeared at his shoulder, making Jesper jump out of his skin. His hand flinched reflexively towards the revolver hidden in his jacket, but got no further because it only took half a second to see who was talking to him.
“Saints - Inej, you scared the life out of me,”
Inej said nothing for a moment. They walked down the corridor together, would have been shoulder to shoulder if it weren’t for the fact that Inej’s head only just reached Jesper’s shoulder. He’d known Inej Ghafa only a short while, since she’d joined the Dregs a few months ago, but he already doubted he was ever going to get used to the way she appeared and disappeared so quickly, so completely. Never mind any other spiders crawling around in the Barrel, Jesper hadn’t met anyone who could do what Inej could do - to simply erase herself like that, to only be seen when she wanted you to notice her. She was also probably the toughest person he knew - except maybe Kaz, though honestly he might be more scared of getting on Inej’s bad side. Then again, if this was Kaz’s good side maybe he shouldn’t push his luck.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, as they turned the corner.
“Take a wild guess,”
She watched him for a brief moment.
“You’re a student?”
She sounded surprised. That was probably fair.
“Supposed to be. Anyway, I might ask you the same question,”
“Kaz is angry,”
“Kaz is always angry,”
“Kaz is angry with you,”
Jesper shrugged.
“That’s hardly news, Inej. He send you here to get his money? I’ll have it by tomorrow,”
“We both know that’s not true, Jes. And he didn’t send me,” said Inej, frowning, “I came to talk to you, to say you should steer clear of him for a couple of days,”
Really? That bad? Jesper frowned. What had he done to piss off Kaz Brekker this time? 
Inej was studying him, her dark eyes roving slowly over him, her frown remaining intact. She wasn’t exactly what Jesper had expected when Kaz told him a girl from the Menagerie was going to be moving into the Slat, but he wasn’t really sure what he’d been expecting. A broken wisp of a girl, he supposed. Inej wasn’t broken, though she’d clearly taken damage, and she could hardly be described as a wisp. Jesper had seen her fight more than enough times to trust that. 
Inej also had a particular skill for the disapproving look she could get to glitter in her eyes on command - or maybe Jesper just brought it out in her. She touched two fingers to one of the knives slung through her belt, murmuring something in Suli.
“Should you really be carrying those in here?” he asked.
Jesper wasn’t actually sure how many knives Inej had, but there must have been at least five on her person at any given moment. She shrugged.
“You have a revolver in your coat,”
“Yeah, in my coat,” he shook his head, “Not on show,”
Inej shrugged.
“Maybe I’m an arts student,”
“Why would an arts student be carrying a thousand knives?”
“Art, obviously,”
Jesper snorted.
“Obviously,”
They were almost outside.
“Just, you know, don’t get arrested,”
Inej smiled.
“I think you’re giving the stadwatch a little too much credit there,” her voice suddenly moved to Jesper’s other shoulder and he turned to try and see her, “Who could possibly arrest a Wraith?”
She was gone. It was broad daylight in a wide courtyard, and Inej Ghafa was gone. Jesper shook his head. Unbelievable. 
*
Jesper didn’t know exactly what he’d done to get on Kaz Brekker’s final nerve, but he wasn’t about to go and find out. He sifted through the piles of stuff stacked unhappily in his university dorm, trying to make enough space for the room to actually be liveable. When had he last slept on campus? Not recently. Maybe it was a good thing Kaz was mad at him, if it was going to keep him out of the Barrel for a few days. Maybe he could even look through the course catalogue, to keep the dean happy, and find out whoever else he was going to partner him up with for Business and Markets. Helena would probably be glad of the change. She could take her thousand and one notebooks to someone who might actually be able to contribute something. 
But why lie? Jesper was itching for a hand of cards. He lay on his back on top of the mattress, studying the ceiling and twisting one of his rings round and round his finger. Unless he snapped and ended up running into a den and just facing Kaz’s wrath, the rings he’d slept in last night were apparently the only flash he was going to enjoy for the next few days. What other clothes did he even have here? He didn’t remember seeing much else in the wardrobe when he came to grab these the other day. He should probably check. He’d do it in a minute.
The next thing Jesper remembered was waking up, jolting upright and almost whacking into the headboard. Damn, he really must have been exhausted. How long had he slept for? He was momentarily disorientated, fumbling for his watch and discovering that it was nearing twelve bells. The curtains were still open and the midday sun streamed through them, highlighting the dust floating through the air. Jepser sighed - just his luck, the single sunny day of the year Ketterdam would bother to grace them all with, and he had slept through most of the morning. He’d needed it though. 
Almost twelve bells. He could make it to his one o’clock class - what was it? Poetry, or something - if he got himself together. Or he could just lie here a little longer, watching the world go by outside his window. 
No. No, if he was here then he should go. He should at least try. 
It was his poetry class today - he checked the timetable shoved in the desk drawer - and it proved to be just as irredeemably boring as he remembered it. But he went. He took a notebook and the fountain pen his Da had given him when he got into university. He didn’t make any notes, but he took them with him. It was something. Sort of. 
He counted it, even if only to make himself feel slightly better.
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tallymonster · 19 hours
Text
Memories of Us
Chapter 18 : Remember Me
AO3 || Master list
A/N: so this is my longest chapter...it's around 6.7k words lol and there's a lot of lore drops going on soooo yeah enjoy lol.
Thanks to @cheesy-cryptid for their blessing on each chapter. Your support means the world to me.
Super special thanks as always to @micropoe10 because this girl has literally been here from day 1 supporting, uplifting, pushing, and helping me with this story. She even wrote the last few bits to save me from myself and I can never thank her enough. Love you so so much Rue.
Tags: @justporo @satanicspinosaurus @sleepy-timaeus @tragedybunny @davenswitcher @wayward-hel @hereliesblackdragon @misscrissfemmefatale
Astarion had begun to realize how much he enjoyed Octavia’s company. She was the eternal sunshine behind the clouds and each bit of affection from her broke them apart and allowed the light to come through.
The thought of someone caring about him was a lost concept, that someone could see something inside him other than what he saw himself.
Octavia was utterly infatuated with Astarion, she wondered if there was more to this routine the two of them found themselves in. The feeling of their bond becoming stronger, drop by drop of her delicious blood.
She was desperate to unearth more of his secrets, all while still hiding her own. Octavia was blinded by her own hypocrisy, the irony of her wanting to dig into his past while denying her own started to eat away at her. As she stared at herself in the mirror by the front door, she felt something tugging at her to be truthful with him.
There was a knock on the door, she took a deep breath as she finished fixing her hair.
You need to be honest with him. He was with you. It's the least you can do.
Astarion waited outside Octavia’s house, she had suggested going to a night market in Rivington she heard of. A friend of hers apparently told her it was a great place to go on a date.
He was somewhat nervous to be out in the open so publicly with someone. It had been so long since he let himself do it, not feeling the same as when he and Tav would walk hand in hand on the same streets.
Astarion leans on the rails of her front steps, he stares up into the starry sky. The stars sparkled as if they were there just for them. He smiles to himself, hearing the door open.
“Hello beautiful. I was afraid you were leaving me to go to the market all by mys-” He turns and the words are taken out of his mind as he takes in Octavia’s appearance.
She was in a mid-thigh length mustard colored pinafore dress, with a black short sleeved shirt, and some black tights with black leather ankle boots. A woven bag hung from her shoulder. This was one of the few times that Octavia could swear he was rendered speechless.
Octavia giggles and gives Astarion a kiss on the cheek, “Oh come on, you've seen me naked, I’m not dressed that seductively right now.” she walks past him and turns to wait for him at the end of her steps. “Ready to go?”
He nods with a grin and follows behind. As he steps down to the sidewalk, he holds his hand out, testing how she will react to his small gesture.
Octavia blushes, her heart fluttering slightly. She swings her shoulders back and forth, in a giddy wiggle. She smiles, biting her lip and takes his hand in hers. It felt cold, but so safe. She felt his fingers slip between hers in a comfortable lattice.
They walk through the street, silent at first. After they cross the road, Astarion wraps his arm around her waist and speaks. “You look wonderful by the way. I know you said you didn't look enticing, but I beg to differ. I think you look absolutely appetizing.” He squeezes her hip, Octavia’s cheeks are flushed a light reddish tone.
Astarion pulls Octavia close, hugging her in a playful embrace. She laughs as he bends down to kiss her. “You're being awfully affectionate. Are you feeling okay?” Octavia asks Astarion.
He lovingly cups her chin with his hand and pulls her in for another kiss. “I’ve just been really happy these last few weeks. I just figured that since we are on a date, I would act like it.” Astarion shrugs, giving Octavia another kiss before releasing her from his arms.
Octavia leads Astarion down the road to where the market was being held and becoming more populated. It had been so long since Astarion came to the street markets. He hated the crowds, the noise, all the different smells of foods he can't enjoy, but with her by his side it's all just background noise.
Astarion looks down at Octavia, a smile creeps into his face as he watches her eyes light up with excitement. Perhaps he could suffer for a bit longer, she did seem pretty eager to go out like this. Who would he be to deny her such simple pleasures?
Octavia can't decide where to go first. To her left was a stall with handmade leather bound books, to the right some flower stands, and not to mention all the food! She took Astarion’s hand and began to walk towards the flower stand. He smirks letting her lead him to wherever she wants.
“I love flowers. My mom and I had a garden at my childhood home where we grew so many. I tried maintaining it after she died, but it was just so hard to keep it up by myself. My dad was never one for being outside in the dirt even though he grew up near the Druid Grove.”
Octavia confesses with a laugh, she turns to Astarion and her smile drops a bit.
“I'm actually going to visit him soon. He's moving back to the Grove and he asked me to come help him empty out the house…feels weird to go back to basically throw away all the memories we made there.”
Astarion notices the change in her smile, the drop of her shoulders, and the way her hands come together. Her fingers twiddled at the variety of flowers carefully laid out with a far off stare. He takes one of her hands and holds it gently.
Octavia turns to him with faint tears on the corner of her eyes. She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “It's been a long time coming. My mom's been gone about 16 years at this point, so why do I feel so sad?”
Astarion’s grip tightens on her hand. He knows this feeling too well. The feeling of moving on and allowing the grief to come and go as it pleases. Astarion takes in their surroundings. The last time he allowed himself to be in this type of market was the last time he saw Tav.
“You feel sad because you miss her, love. I've been there myself. In this very market no less.” Astarion finishes his sentence with a soft breath.
Octavia looks at him, recognizing the same sadness behind his eyes. The grief of losing someone you love. She remembers one of the things that makes her feel better is to talk about her mom, so maybe he can tell her about his loved one? “What were they like? The person you lost?”
Astarion glances back at Octavia, he hadn't thought about telling Octavia about Tav just yet, or at all. He pays for a bouquet of wildflowers that Octavia’s eyes locked onto. They turn and begin to walk away from the stall.
He hesitates before giving her a sad smile. “I’m not sure if this is the right time for that, I mean, I'd rather focus on you tonight, if you don't mind.” They sit on a bench near the edge of the market. Astarion looks down at the bouquet, taking a small pink rose and placing it in Octavia’s hair.
His hand lingers on her cheek, he leans down and kisses the corner of her eye. As he pulls away, he catches the smile that forms from her lips. He hands her the bouquet, as she leans on his shoulder, perfectly distracted away from her questions.
“No matter how long it is. Know that you will always carry a piece of her with you. As long as you remember her and the love you had, you'll never be without her.” Astarion comforts Octavia as they hold hands.
Astarion's good at the little words that everyone likes. The pleasant platitudes to soothe a broken heart. Meanwhile, he continues to push his own feelings of grief deeper down.
He could still see Tav standing at the opposite side of the market, the bag she carried full of contents hung from her shoulder. He stood about 8 stalls away from her. Her sweet scent hit his nostrils as he traded meat for bottles of blood.
Astarion had turned his head towards the scent, nearly dropping the glass bottle in his hand. He couldn't believe she was still in Baldur’s Gate after 30 years. He didn't know how long he was staring, until the merchant cleared their throat.
Astarion thanks them and turns back towards Tav. She's staring into a mirror that sat on top of the stall. She seems as if she's looking for something inside of it, a dreamy far off look behind her eyes. He hesitates wondering if she would be happy to see in or if she’d punch him. He’s frantically running scenarios in his head when he notices her head lift up.
Astarion shields his face with his cowl, only his bright red eyes shining through. He slings his bag over his shoulder and hesitates to walk closer to her. Tav fully turns to face him, her face the same kind loving light he saw in his trances. She smiles, beaming towards him, a look of recognition and love.
He swallows, the world seems to be closing in.
Instantly, though, that same world comes crashing down when he hears a small voice calling out. “Mama!! There you are! We’ve been looking all over for you!” A little girl runs past him, straight into Tav’s arms. Soon after a man comes up to them both and wraps an arm around Tav's waist.
He watches as the man kisses Tav and leads her away.
The rest of that day the way she looked past him burned in his mind. Could she have already forgotten about him? How long did it take for her to move on?
There's no point in dwelling on it now, he's got a lot of other things to worry about of course.
“Astarion? Are you okay? I didn't mean to pry again, I’m sorry.” Astarion is broken away from his thoughts by Octavia’s soft apology, her hand resting in his. He looks down at their hands intertwined. The flowers sit on the bench between them.
“The last time I saw her, she was standing at a stall like the one we were just at. I'm pretty sure she forgot who I was…or she had this look on her face like she did. I’ll never forget the way she looked into that mirror…This glossed over sort of blank empty look to her eyes. It was so strange, like she didn't remember where she was for a second.
Besides, she had a child and a husband? Partner? I don't know. I didn't hang around too long to ask, and I didn't want to cause any issues so I just stayed out of it.” Astarion confides, his voice mournful and far away.
Octavia feels the grip holding her hand tighten a bit, perhaps she's edging too close to his boundaries again? She rubs her hand on the top of Astarion’s arm. The motion soothes him and replaces the icy shards of sadness that pricked behind his eyes.
Somehow though, as he looks into her dazzling green eyes, he feels that lovely warmth in his chest. That feeling of comfort he’s longed for over a century.
They lock into each other, taking in their collective grief. Their sadness was the thing bringing them closer together. “You know, I’ve never told anyone about her.” Astarion confesses, “It's the first time that I've felt comfortable to feel this grief with someone who can relate. Thank you for giving me that opportunity to share a little with you.” He leans down and kisses her sweetly.
Octavia smiles reluctantly, a small shy blush grows on her cheeks. She must have something on her mind. “Is everything alright, my dear? You seem lost in thought.” Astarion asks.
She nods slowly, turning to look out to the market. “I was hoping that I wouldn't bring up anything sad, but I guess I couldn't make it through one date without ruining the moment.” Octavia huffs in a soft awkward laugh. “Gods, for once I wish I could stop being so melancholic and just enjoy the good things my life has given me lately. Like you.”
Astarion sits up a bit, he could feel a slight warmth at the tip of his ears, was he blushing? He clears his throat and asks, “Really? What about me?”
She smiles and plays with his fingers in her hand. “Where to start? You're kind, well…to me,” a soft giggle follows “you're smart, incredibly handsome. I feel pretty fortunate to have someone like you on my side, you understand me. Whoever let you go is foolish to have done so, but they opened up that path to you for me. So maybe they weren't so foolish after all.” Octavia lifts her hand, kissing the top of his hand.
“She didn't leave me. I left her. I left because I was scared. Scared that I couldn't take care of her how she wanted. Scared that she would figure that out on her own. That she would wake up one day and realize that I ruined her life. So I ran. I didn't even say goodbye. I just picked up my bag and left in the middle of the night. Like a coward.” Astarion spits out, the shame and regret dripping from his lips. His lips purse as he bites the inside of them.
Octavia frowns, she takes the flowers and places them on her lap. She plucks one out and begins to softly spin the flower, opening the petals. “You're not a coward.” She brings the flower up to his ear, tucking it behind.
“I don't think you're a coward for trying to keep someone you loved safe.” Her hand lingers on his cheek, caressing his face. “‘The things we do for love’, as my mom used to say.”
Astarion melts into the warmth of her hand. His heart felt the grief it was used to, but with her here it didn't seem so devastating. To allow himself to be vulnerable with someone felt strange, as most things involving Octavia do.
They sit in silence for a few seconds, before Octavia speaks “Not to change the subject or anything because I feel awkward,” she laughs a bit, “but I've noticed that you haven't been wearing your glasses lately? Did something change?”
Astarion bristles a bit, having to think on his feet. He was a bit hesitant to admit that he was not feeling the need to keep hiding behind the magical lenses any longer. In reality, he began to feel more comfortable to be himself around her.
But instead of giving her that openness, he lies again. “Oh, I…felt like I'd be calling more attention to myself if I were to have them on right now. Besides, wasn't it you that asked me why I wore them indoors right as Gale introduced you to me? I feel like this is the opposite of that.” Astarion ends with a soft tilted giggle.
“Imagine if someone stopped us to ask why I'm wearing sunglasses in the evening? As you so tactfully had that first night? That would have definitely ruined the date. Either way, you didn't do anything wrong. You’re perfect.” Astarion pulls Octavia close, releasing his hand on hers, and drapes his arm on her shoulder.
Octavia melts into his embrace, a bittersweet feeling hung over them. She brings her hand up to her shoulder and interlocks her fingers into his again. Astarion felt her relax a bit.
“How long will you be away?” “Do you want to come with me?” They speak at the same time, interrupting each other. Astarion clears his throat and Octavia laughs quietly. She turns her head to ask again, “Do you want to come with me to Wyvern Hills? I'll be gone for around six days?”
Astarion thinks it over, the idea of meeting her father was intimidating, even more so because he would probably have to explain his particular affliction. “I don't think so, darling. You deserve a break, and I don't think Gale can handle everything by himself again. I had him do that once and he nearly quit. It's too much for one person to handle. It would be unfair to him.”
Octavia feels Astarion’s other hand start to run up and down her arm. It's as if he was soothing her, or himself, maybe both? He was beginning to recognize the same comfort of sitting in silence with a loved one. The reminiscences of a quiet evening under the stars.
The sounds of nature envelop them, an intimate orchestra for two lost souls floating in an everlasting ocean of grief. In the vast darkness, they find the light and come together.
Octavia had lost herself to these feelings like so many times before. Astarion was born in it, used to the push and pull of it. Having lost the will to swim against it and let the waves crash over him, caught in its current thrashed around, but this was different.
To Astarion, Octavia feels like the safety net pulling him from the depths. The warmth of her affections was melting away his fears. His heart wanted to tell her how he felt. To confirm that after all these years, he finally felt the warmth of loving someone again.
“I lo-” Astarion almost confesses when he catches himself and continues, "I'll miss you. A lot. I just realized that we haven't been apart since we met. It'll be strange not having you around.” He leans down and kisses her cheek. “Come back to me, okay?”
Octavia felt her cheeks flush and her heart flutter.
Was he..? No…I’m probably just projecting.
Octavia couldn't deny her feelings for Astarion. The little flashes of lightning whenever he held her, made her laugh, or kissed her were exhilarating.
She couldn't deny that she loved him.
Octavia was terrified to tell him so after hearing him talk about his lost love. Who would she be if she heard all his pain and immediately said “Well, guess what? I love you!”? Her face felt hot, how long had they been sitting here?
She turns to Astarion and kisses him, she lets her feelings pour into their kiss. Octavia could feel tears gathering behind her eyes, “I’ll miss you too.” She smiles and kisses him again, feeling him lean into her, his arms wrapping around her.
Octavia pulls away a bit, “I should go home now, I told my dad I would try to be there as early as I could.” Astarion responds with a whine, Octavia giggles as he plants small kisses all over her cheeks, nose and lips.
“Don't miss me too much, Star.”
“Is that a challenge, darling?”
They laugh as Astarion unwraps himself from her, he stands and holds his hand out. Octavia takes it and they walk off into the night.
They leave the flowers on the bench.
--------------------------
Octavia walks up to the cobblestone cottage she grew up in. The patch of wildflowers she used to run in have turned into a full meadow, their blooms alert and open as if welcoming her back.
She walks up the gravel path to the doorway, noticing a small hummingbird on the hibiscus bush her mom lovingly tended. She smiles watching it flit away. Her trip would be over soon. A ping of sadness runs through her, saying goodbye to the place is going to be hard.
Suddenly the door swings open. Her father, Ralomaer, stands at the doorway with a giant grin on his face. He has a red flannel shirt on with some white powder on the bottom and some dark pants.“Hey kid! Have a nice walk? Are ya hungry? Got some breakfast made up for you!”
“Did you make waffles by any chance?” Octavia asks, with a laugh. Her dad tilts his head, his brows furrowed and he shakes his head, “Yeah, how’d you know??” Octavia laughs harder and points at his shirt. “You're covered in powdered sugar, Dad.”
Ralomaer laughs and waves his hand over the fabric, cleaning it up. Octavia walks up to him and remarks, “That must come in handy, you always used to hate doing laundry.”
Her dad laughs, “Well when you live alone, it's kind of pointless to wash one thing at a time. This is faster and better for the environment. Anyway, go eat. I'll meet you upstairs when you're done, it's attic day!” He waves his hands in a flourish, as Octavia walks past him and into the kitchen. Her dad climbs up the stairs.
Later that morning, Octavia sits cross-legged on the floor of the attic. Her father sits across from her on an old wooden chair. Between them sat an open wooden crate full of letters, drawings, photos, and many memories from her childhood.
“Okay, now I understand why you wanted me to come by and have this visit with you so urgently. This is really nice to go through with you, Dad.” Octavia chirps excitedly.
“Well don't thank me, thank your Auntie Taeladra! She insisted I clean the attic since she bought the house from me. Kept telling me something about ‘Preserving family history’ and ‘can you tell Octavia to come instead, isn't this pretty much her job.’” Ralomear holds up his hands, making finger quotes.
“Gods, she sounds like my coworker, Gale.” Octavia and her father laugh, as she rifles through the crate. Finding medals, trophies, countless books, letters, and pictures.
“You know, I think you’d like Gale. He's pretty funny. He's smart, witty, and so quick! He's been a great mentor, and an amazing friend. I'm really lucky to have him.” Octavia smiles warmly as she keeps rifling through the crate.
Her father stares at her, a puzzled look on his face. “What? What's that look for??” Octavia asks playfully.
“Are you dating this Gale? That was a lot of complimentary language for someone who is just a friend, my darling.” Ralomear gently teased.
“Dad! No! He's not my type! Besides, I'm way too busy with all the research and work and just…everything.” Octavia laughs, hiding her face behind her hair. She quickly looks away, hoping that her answer would squash this conversation.
“Oh my little bookworm! Don't keep your head in the books too long, you'll miss out on writing your own story.” Ralomear pinches Octavia’s cheek adoringly.
She smiles at her father, a little embarrassed laugh leaves her lips. A feeling of dread grows, she knows that her visit might end with her having to possibly define whatever she's got going on with Astarion. A small seed of insecurity plants itself in her stomach. How could she ever find a way to ease her father’s worries when it came to her love life?
“I’m gonna see what else is back there.” Octavia gets up and starts looking through the rest of the crates that occupied the attic. They were all stacked neatly in the corner of the little room. She walks up to the circular window next to the stack and opens the thin curtain.
Small dust spores kick up as she swings the window open, allowing the fresh air and sunlight to flood in. When she turns she notices a dusty tarp in the darkened corner of the attic. Some canvas frames sat on top of the tarp, it was staged as if it was trying to conceal something.
Octavia comes up to the items, carefully moving them aside. What she finds is an old wooden crate. “What the..?” She runs her hand on the edge of it, easily sliding it open. “Woah…hey Dad? I found something?”
Ralomaer looks up quizzically and wanders over. He stands with a hand on his hip, the other scratches at his beard. “Well would you look at that! Didn't even know that old crate was in here! No wonder your auntie wanted you to come through here, you and your museum skills are great for finding old junk!” he laughs.
Octavia began digging through the crate. Inside were old spell scrolls, tomes, stacks of handwritten letters from her great grandmother, the other adventures she traveled with, even highly detailed hand drawn maps!
Octavia could not believe the amazing treasure trove she had just unearthed in her own home. How long has this been here waiting for her to find it?
She finds a book full of sketches of various plants, animals, and locations all over Faerun. Octavia fixates on a fully illustrated image of the inside of what looks like an Illithid colony! She continues to flip through it, mesmerized by the way everything is drawn.
Octavia turns the page and is struck with drawings of eyes that look relatively close to Astarion’s own. She feels a strange sort of recognition from looking at the drawings.
The blood colored irises that were lovingly depicted in charcoal and ink, have a haunting familiarity to them. She knows Astarion is old, but she never asked exactly how old…
Her father pulls her out of her suspicions, “Lookie here, Tavvy! I found a rather interesting letter!” Ralomear recalls as he unfolds the antique parchment, handing it to Octavia. She reads the letter, her mind a little frazzled by yet another strange coincidence.
Darling Tav,
Laurent tells me you've been having nightmares again. It's been about 20 years since everything happened, are you still being plagued by the memories of it all, or just one particular, specific person? I still have some of my contacts from the House of Grief from my days as a Sharran. If you're serious about taking the risk, I could put you in contact with them. Let me know when you two get settled into your cottage. Lae and I can be over as soon as a tenday.
You're always in my thoughts, my dear friend.
Love always,
Shadowheart
“House of Grief? That sounds ominous.” Octavia remarks, remembering the extreme rituals Sharrans would take in order to release painful memories. Octavia could hardly imagine the suffering of those who felt it necessary to forget something, to now know that her own grandmother endured that shakes Octavia to her core.
“Sharrans eh? Good thing you did that whole exhibit on them! Maybe your friend Gale can help you out with this stuff?” Ralomear remarks.
“Yeah…maybe… Do you think Grammy had some PTSD from the whole Netherbrain thing?” Octavia asks quietly, the seriousness weighing heavy on her heart.
“I’m not sure, baby. Your mom always avoided the subject with me. Something about not wanting to dwell on the past and enjoying the time you had in the now. It was the one thing I never understood about your mom. How I wish you could ask her now.” Ralomear solemnly muses. He looks at Octavia, smiling mournfully.
They stay in the silence for a moment, before Octavia breaks. “I miss her. I could really use her brain right now.” She runs her finger along the outside of the crate.
“I miss her too. You definitely took after her, your brilliance is obviously her doing, my heart.” Ralomear takes Octavia’s hand in hers, squeezing it lovingly.
“I am so proud of you, I know your mom would be too. Now, let's keep digging through her stuff!” Ralomear smiles warmly and releases her hand.
Octavia shuffles through a stack of books, most of them run of the mill books, nothing too noteworthy. Until she notices a blue-gray fabric bound book. In silver letters across the front it read ‘Warming the Melancholy Heart’. She cards through it, until a small hand written letter falls out.
Octavia opens it, scanning the page. She gasos and begins to read the letter to her father.
Laurent,
The Unburdening your wife chose to follow through with should have fully set in by now. I have sent you some recommended reading should you have any questions about the procedure. Your wife has all my gratitude for all she did for me and the others. To give her this blessed relief in this trying time is the least I could do.
As per her concern, she may have some fleeting memories, but those should fade in time. Should she have any aftereffects or complications, do not hesitate to contact me again.
Shar’s blessings be upon you,
Nocturne
“Unburden? What does that mean?” Ralomear asks Octavia, handing her the letter.
Octavia reads through the thin book, the words describing the taking of memories sound as if they're trying to lessen the serious action being taken.
The remedy may seem non-existent, but it is not so. No heart that beats is a stranger to that which gives it joy - you must seek it out however you can.
Octavia flips through the book, most of it is filled with testimonials from people who went through the process. Lines of affirmation for what has been done to forget. Her eyes linger on one of the pages describing the aftereffects, symptoms ticked in red ink, tally marks keeping track of each in black.
✓ Forgetfulness ///
✓ Melancholy ////
✓ Face blindness //
✓ Staring at nothing //
✓ Nightmares of past memories /////////
These shall subside as time passes, you will need to guide your loved one through the process moving past their burdens. Should they seem different, another session may be required.
You may notice your loved one have an empty, far off look to their eyes, that will lift as their healing progresses. If you find they are forgetting more than intended, return to the House of Grief.
Be aware of them looking into mirrors for a long period of time.
"Mirror??? What?” Octavia gasps, covering her mouth quickly after. “Tavvy? Everything alright? Your face looks really sweaty all of a sudden…” Her dad reaches out and places the back of his hand on her forehead. “Oh yeah, you're feeling a little warm, why don't you go lie down? We're almost done for today, so I can finish up and bring some tea to your room?” he gives her a soft pat on the shoulder.
Octavia nods, “Sure, thanks Dad.” she can't wrap her mind around everything she just read and saw. She grabs the sketchbook and the book on Unburdening and walks out of the room. She descends the thin ladder leading up to the attic, then walks into her room, closing the door.
Octavia presses her back against the door, sliding down until she's sitting on the floor. The sketchbook closely held to her chest.
She opens the book back up to the images of the eyes. There's no doubt in her mind that she's looking into the same eyes that she had back on the bench outside the market.
Suddenly, Octavia remembers that she had the enchanted journal at the bottom of her bag. She crawls over to her bag at the foot of the bed, and flips furiously through it.
One entry immediately catches her attention.
Gods, it's been incredibly hard trying to keep these entries as neutral as I can. There's no telling what else could come for A. About two tenday ago, we went through that freaky meadow, A and I ran into a Gur hunter named Gandrel. Said he was looking for a vampire spawn, I noticed A’s whole attitude immediately change. His face looked as if he had been slapped. Those eyes that keep staring at me, turned so fox-like and angular. As soon as we heard A’s name come from the hunter’s lips, it was over. I have never seen him move like that. He swears it’s Cazador, but what would Cazador need him for?
Octavia presses her knees up to her chest. She closes her eyes and tries to push the notion of this being Astarion whom her ancestor is referring to out of her mind. It can't be him, could it?
She reaches over to the foot of her bed and rips through her bag, shaking out its contents, until finding a black velvet bag. She slips the ribbon off, taking out the red leather bound book that Astarion had given her.
She flips through, reading the first few lines. It speaks of people who had been captured, the various ways in which they were beaten, tortured, abused, and finally, bled try and turned.
Each one had an entire 20 page section dedicated to their specific treatment. Near the bottom of one page, she notices a name.
According to Aurelia, the Gur sent someone to find him. I sent Dalarya and Petras to stalk the Gur encampment in Rivington. They are to kill whoever does not give up information.
The boy will be found, I need him to ascend. The Ritual of Profane Ascension will be completed.
I WILL BECOME THE VAMPIRE ASCENDANT.
Ritual of Profane Ascension…where had she seen that phrase before? Octavia goes back to Tav’s journal, flipping through until she sees those words again.
Today, I got a better look at his back.
He's got a circular scar with Infernal written all around. When I saw it the morning after the party with the tieflings, he said it was poetry, but he didn't know that I know Infernal. I was hesitant to tell him what it really was, but something told me to keep being honest.
When I asked him where he got it, he told me it was a gift from his old master, Cazador. I explained to him that I believed it was a binding glyph, Cazador was planning something and whatever it is, it seems he needs the missing piece that I have in my party.
My suspicions were proven correct when we met up with the devil after finishing the Gauntlet of Shar and killing the Orthon.
He told us about this Rite of Profane Ascension. How Cazador needs 7 of his spawn to sacrifice along with many others to make himself into some kind of super vampire that can walk in the sun, go into homes without being invited, all those things that go along with being a vampire….
I'm not so sure about it though. Raphael explained that the soul of the Ascendant would be lost, and he would be a shell of his former self.
I don't know if I could go through with it. Killing all those people? It seems like such a big decision to make, so permanent and serious. We had a group meeting after everyone cleaned up and had dinner. Karlach and Wyll were adamantly against it. They can't justify all that loss for one person to benefit.
Gale and Shadow had more rational arguments, they both had ambitions to be greater than they were through their own rites. A seemed to listen to Shadow over Gale, but ultimately it was Lae’zel that convinced him otherwise.
She told him how all she wanted was to serve her Queen, but after seeing everything we have, she realized that she can't keep chasing the shadow of a lie. Sometimes, we have things we want, and we find that to achieve them, we would lose all of ourselves. If that was the case, what was he chasing after? If he wanted freedom, he's already free.
I think that was what finally opened Star’s eyes.
Star??
“Fuck me.” Octavia can feel the color drain out of her face. She looks around the floor at all the books that were surrounding her. She picks up the sketchbook and keeps looking through.
She noticed that every so often, there are pages ripped out. As if someone tore them up in a fit of rage. When she reaches the page with the eyes, she sees a little doodle of a star beside each one.
Octavia can't help the trembling in her hands, there's been this creeping suspicion inside her for a few weeks now.
The enchantment Gale broke, the log book Astarion gave her, the way he described his lost love seeming like they had been Unburdened and now all this? The clues are becoming glaringly obvious to her, but, it can't be….can it?
Her heart is thundering inside her chest as she keeps going through the pages of the sketchbook, more torn pages, drawings of flowers, and finally near the end of the book, two full pages of the binding glyph that Tav had described.
Three circles, almost like a bullseye, surrounded by Infernal symbols. The scarring looked deep and painful. Octavia’s mind races remembering how Astarion winced and seemed to not want her to touch him there.
Octavia’s eyes survey the page and her breath is ripped out from her lungs when she sees a profile drawing of Astarion looking her right back in the face. She can feel the tears well up behind her eyes, her entire life she had been told about this grand adventure, this amazing thing that her great grandmother had done for the city she loved.
There's almost double the amount of writings speaking all about a seventh spawn. It used a code for their abuses and names but I was one set of entries that surpassed all others in her eyes.
Octavia swallows, she grabs the red leather book one more time, she opens the book towards the end, as soon as she sees his name, it all comes crashing down on her.
I have dispatched the brood. They will find him and bring him home. And when they do, I will make him scream for this.
Their tale was fanciful, but they believe it to be true. Astarion, standing in the sun’s light? Willing and able to disobey me? Inconceivable.
My spawns fail me. Astarion eludes me. I WILL HAVE MY DUE.
Octavia’s blood runs cold.
There it was, hidden in plain sight this whole time. Astarion is everything that she has been searching for. He's the one who was there, the one who was in the paintings, the one who Tav forgot. All the evidence was clear, and now seeing his name in this journal that she barely bothered to look at back home…
Home.
Oh gods, how was she going to be able to look Astarion in the face now?
The only thing that made her doubt all of this was his back. She hadn’t seen it yet. She dreaded having to ask to see it, what would she say? How would he react? She presses her head up against the footboard of her bed, closing her eyes tightly.
Octavia's heart shattered as she sat clutching her knees tightly to her chest. The room grew smaller and the air around her was stifling and thick. Between the sobs, she tried to catch her breath, trying to stop the room from spinning, holding on to her legs, anything to ground her.
But what was left to stand on? Everything she knew up to this moment had been a giant mystery until now, shrouded in a decades-long secret. Locked away behind paintings and books, the things that once gave her comfort, that now sat scattered about her felt tainted.
She shoved them away, call it anger, frustration, fear, it all blurred together now. The floor felt like shifting sand, like it would give way at any moment sucking her down. Hiding her, like the other 7000, like his siblings like him...HIM.
Did he know? Did he know about her relationship to Tav? She had so many questions now and everything felt more and more uncertain. He loved Tav, and she had loved him that was for certain. Was he still in mourning, did he regret leaving Tav? Was she Tav's replacement?
Oh gods the room was spinning as Octavia lay down on the floor curled in on herself. She couldn't think that way, but she couldn't help it anymore. She no longer was thinking with a clear and rational head, instead, she let her emotions control her.
Binding her to the belief that Astarion once upon a time loved a woman so intimately, that she would never be able to fill that void. As sleep took her the last thought that plagued the visions within her mind was one that had read in the journal, something that Tav had penned so long ago.
Would Astarion ever leave Octavia like he had left her? And if he didn't would she ever be good enough for him to convince him to stay?
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sillymercury · 1 month
Text
“What Are You Doing?”
“I… Was Told There Was an Emergency...”
AzrielxReader
<3
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Warnings: none other than the lack of proof reading :p
Word count: 5.5k
(meant to be a blurb lol ig idk how to do that)
Summary: Azriel’s shadows have decided that they found someone far more interesting to listen to.
Thank you @kayjayjwrites for this ask, I’ve had a lot of fun writing it. Sorry it came a little later than I said it would but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
<3
A yawn escaped Azriel as he stared down the papers on his desk. He was behind, three missions he put off documenting. He honestly wouldn’t have done it if Rhys wasn’t hounding him saying he wasn’t getting another job until he was caught up.
He didn’t hate his job, he didn’t particularly love it but he took pride in what he did for his court. What he did hate was the bureaucratic end of things, logging his missions in excruciating detail so they can be stored away on the off chance it might need revisited.
He had caught himself nodding off multiple times. The words would blur and his blinks would get slower and slower until his head hit the desk. His shadows, the pestering presence they were, were quick to wake him up.
Finish, finish this,
Keep working,
Sleep after.
At this point it was sheer frustration keeping him awake, weren’t his shadows meant to bend towards his will? The thought of snuffing out the fae light and climbing into bed with his hands over his ears was becoming more and more enticing as the night droned on. Azriels eyes began to close for the umpteenth time and just when he thought his shadows would give up they began swirling around him frantically. He almost groaned at their dramatics until their whispering bordered screaming.
Get up,
Quickly,
Y/n needs you,
Hurry, hurry.
The shadows all spoke over each other and their urgency had Azriel standing up so quick his chair hit the floor. His heart moved as frantically as his shadows at the thought of you. The thought of you hurt, the thought of you in danger, the thought of you scared and alone and needing him.
His feet matched the frenzy as they carried him to the shelf that held the truth teller, his shaking hands sheathed it. Azriel was a composed man, only cracking under severity; and you… you were severe. You had a way of moving him out of his dark safe corner and into the blinding light of day.
Your eyes could move him to tears, your body would make his hands shake, your laugh kicked open every door he used to keep others out. You were a parasite; infecting every part of him and making it your own.
Azriel was ready to punch a hole through his wall and fly around Prythian raining hellfire until he found you and made you safe again. Where? He thought, where is she?
Her house, his shadows answered dutifully before enveloping him and carrying him there. He was ready, ready to fight off whoever-whatever- was hurting you. Whether the demons were mental or corporeal, he would fight to his last breath. You were everything, everything he wanted, needed, everything he prayed for. You just didn’t know it yet, it hadn’t snapped for you. He didn’t care though, he would spend the next 500 years proving his devotion even if you never felt it.
Within seconds his shadows had carried him through space, into your living room. The scent of you was everywhere, gentle overtaking his olfactory sense and filling him with fierce determination.
“Y/n!” The called out as he surveyed the room, everything looked normal, well, for you. Granted things were strewn about, out of order, and placed haphazardly; but not in a way that was alarming.
“Y/n,” he called again and was met with silence, he moved through your house swiftly and silently. He kept his eyes peeled for any sign of you.
Bedroom, his shadows told him. At the end of the hall he pushed open the lightly cracked door and slipped into your room. The room held no sight of you, just thick with your scent. The only noise was light shuffling from your adjourned bathroom. He took a silent step towards the door and in that moment you came out. He froze.
You were fine, you were more than fine. His wide eyes met yours and he tried his best to keep them there but they seemed to have a mind of their own. They trailed to your wet hair that was dripping onto your shoulders. His pesky eyes followed the water from your bare shoulder, to the contour of your breast, to your exposed tummy, around its pretty jewelry, down your hips, before disappearing behind your thighs. Your shocked expression matched his as you stood in only a bra and underwear, clearly fresh out of the shower. He felt the heat climb his face, he wanted to run, hide, avoid any implications. But for some unholy reason he stood, petrified, staring at you half naked-absolutely divine- body.
“What are you doing?” You asked once you finally got over the initial shock of seeing him in your room. Anyone else would’ve gotten a more visceral reaction but this was Az, the only one you wanted to see you like this. You also didn’t mind the way his eyes tracked every curve and dip of your body. You bit your lip to hide your smirk and that snapped his eyes back to your face.
“I… was told there was an emergency…” he shifted on his feet as his eyes darted back and forth from your body to your face.
You bit back your laugh, the feared shadowsinger, spymaster of the night was red faced and nervous. Definitely a sight to behold. “Who told you that?” You crossed your arms under your chest, lightly pushing up the twins. Something he didn’t miss, and you didn’t miss the deeper red his face took. His mouth opened and closed like a fish and he seemed to have lost whatever small grip was keeping his shadows in place. They slithered across the floor before circling up your legs, over your bum, around your hips and waist. You giggled at the sensation, seemingly exciting by the shadows as they made their way up, examining the lace that covered your breast. Their boldness elicited a gasp, one that snapped Azriel out of his trance.
“I am so sorry- I don’t- I should go,” his words were quick as he fumbled over himself. He dragged the shadows away and before you could speak, tell him to stay, he was gone and so were his shadows.
You couldn’t help but laugh, a full belly laugh as you walked towards your bed with a little extra pep. The only proof of the encounter being the goosebumps on your skin and the light smell of his arousal in your room.
Azriel materialized in his room and stood there for- he doesn’t know how long he stood there. Trying to come to terms with what he saw, what you saw he saw, and how horrible his shadows had behaved. “What… was that?” He whispered into the darkness of his room, still frozen in place. He was horrified, completely embarrassed, and confused. His shadows said you needed him, led him there for seemingly no reason. His shadows hadn’t defied him since he was a child, scared of his own power.
The shadows didn’t answer him, just danced around seemingly pleased with themselves. He wanted to go back and apologize but he was too mortified, convinced he wouldn’t be able to face you for a hundred years. He crawled under his covers and cursed his shadows, not even brave enough to deal with the tightness that grew in his pants.
-
It was hot, Velaris was seemingly boiling. That didn’t slow down the Illyrians, rain or shine they would train. Azriel had taken off his shirt and the sweat flowed through the contours of his muscles, covering his body in a sticky dew. He had just finished sparring with Cass and was wiping the sweat from his brow when his shadows spoke.
Emergency,
Something’s wrong at the south pond,
Get there quickly,
“Cass!” He hollered to his brother, as he grabbed a two swords. He threw one to Cass who caught it coolly. “We’re needed,”. Was all he offered before taking to the skies. Cass followed closely behind as they swooped from the house of wind towards the small forest that was on the south side of Velaris. The boys were already warmed up, ready to face whatever emergency faced them. They circled the sky around the pond and didn’t see any immediate threat, it just looked like some fae had met up for a swim.
Cass landed first and Azriel was right behind him. They surveyed the scene and just as they saw in the sky; nothing was wrong. The only thing they saw were females, everywhere.
“Alright brother,” Cass clapped Azriel on the back with a shit-eating grin. “Not what I expected but you’re right, they do need us.” He tossed his sword on the ground and started making his way to the bank, at least three females came to greet him; he engaged happily.
Azriel wasn’t yet convinced. Still dragging his eyes all across the domain, trying to spot what called his shadows here. His keen eyes took in everything, every person, until they landed on you.
Walking out of the water you looked like a fae from those raunchy magazines Cass used to steal as a boy. An all too small bikini clung to your wet body as you made your way out of the water, toward him. Three tiny pink triangles covered the important parts but the rest was just string, leaving nearly your whole body one display. He watched your hips sway, your wet hair clinging to your face and shoulders, the glittering belly ring, and the small smirk on your face as you too looked him up and down.
“You’re not going to use that are you?” You stopped in front of him, referencing to the sword he gripped with all his strength. He watched as you flipped your hair to one side and began ringing it out. The urge to kiss the sensitive spot between your neck was so intense his lips were quivering.
“No I…” he once again was at a loss for words, “I just brought it.” Lame. He was so lame he wanted to die.
You just giggled, the sound like a cool wave over his hot body. You reached over and gently wrapped your hands around his, pulling it from his hands and discarding it with Cassian’s. His eyes were trained on your face the entire time, you weren’t put off by his scars. Your face wasn’t marred with disgust or pity, just blissful normalcy.
You smiled up at him, “Are you going to join us?” He just nodded, not even considering no as an option. Cass already discarded his pants and boots and was loudly entertaining most of the ladies. But Azriels eyes were trained on your back… side, as he followed you to the water like a puppy. It wasn’t until his shoes were sopping wet at the bank that he realized he should probably strip as well.
When he was down to only his boxers and he tossed his pants and boots back to safety. The way you shamelessly admired him gave him his confidence back.
The two of you spent hours, swimming circles around each other, splashing, pushing the other under. He would lift you high out of the water so you could do flips back in. He would put you on his shoulders so you could take turns playing chicken with whatever female climbed onto his brother; he was proud to say you won every time. He followed you all the way to the deep end and despite his distaste for swimming he didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world as you clung to him, telling stories of your childhood in this exact watering hole. He could’ve stayed in the water forever, content to grow wrinkles all over if it meant you would stay close to him.
When the sun had threatened to leave the sky was when you had decided to get out. Your friends were going to a diner to finish of the night with milkshakes and gossip, you offered and invitation and despite being willing to follow you wherever you asked he had to decline. Rhys had tried to contact him multiple times, all of which he ignored. Based on the aggravated tone, Cass was doing the same. He knew staying away any longer would only cause an angry high lord scaling the streets in search of them.
Cass begrudgingly followed his lead, after kissing more than an appropriate amount of females on the cheek, bidding them all goodnight with the promise of seeing them again.
The boys flew home, landing in front of the town house. Before facing the wrath of their in the dark brother Cassian stopped in front of Azriel and grabbed both of his shoulders. With a wide smile he leaned in and placed a sloppy kiss on his cheek, before he could react Cass had kissed the other one.
“I love you brother,” he said with so much sincerity Az rolled his eyes. “I’ll handle business with you any day,” Cass pulled him into a bone crushing hug that Azriel had to use all of his force to get out of. He wiped the wet spots on his cheeks before shaking his head. He pushed past his babbling brother and made his way to the front door. Cass walked in with an arrogant swagger, one that stayed with him for the next week and a half.
-
The frustration didn’t show on Azriels face, nothing showed on Azriels face, as he trailed diligently behind Mor. Yet another shopping spree he was dragged into with the role of being ‘designated bag carrier.’ He never complained even though he’d rather be doing anything else right now, he didn’t show it. Even though he knew Mor knew that, and even though Mor knew that he knew that she knew that.
“Thank you again Azriel, I swear I’m almost done.” He nodded along, knowing that she was almost done 2 hours ago.
It seemed everyone in the city was out shopping, the streets of the retail sector were jam packed. It was likely that most people were, with a new season approaching all of the soon to be out-of-season styles were on sale. Something that motivated Mor, giving her a much needed excuse for retail therapy.
Azriel kept his wings tucked in tight as he shimmied through bodies crowding the cobble stone. “Okay so we’ll stop at Loraine’s, she has the best Jewelry. Then we’ll have to hit up that new little boutique, hopefully all of the good shoes aren’t gone already. Oh! And we absolutely have to visit Anderson on the end of the block, he’ll kill me if I don’t come check out his sun dresses. He always holds the red ones back for me. Honestly my closet…” Mor continued to ramble on about each and every store that demanded she visit but Azriel tuned it out. Leaving behind the notion of soon as the math of how long he would be out continued to produce a higher and higher number.
Without trying to think about it, he followed Mor into the little jewelry shop that she just spoke about. The shelves were covered in glittering jewels that sat on display behind glass. Nothing caught his interest, he didn’t care for flashy add ons, so he just made his way to one of the plush chairs in the corner. He set the plethora of bags down as he slunk back, enjoying a moment of rest as he knew Mor would be taking her time. His eyes closed but his reaction was short lived when his shadows began of informing him of a situation.
Across the street,
Someone’s not supposed to be here,
Go quickly.
He cracked an eye open and glanced out the window. The streets looked normal enough and he couldn’t hear any commotion over the bustling. Someone’s not supposed to be here? He would have been notified earlier if anyone got through the Velarian wards. He should’ve been notified earlier. He stood up slowly, assessing the street. Just because everything looked normal doesn’t mean it was.
He abandoned Mor’s bags and moved towards the door, when he pushed it open he never stepped out. Instead a shadow slipped across the ground, going unnoticed on the busy street.
He slid under the crack of the door and after clocking his surroundings he determined he was in a woman’s nightwear store. There were night gowns and matching pj’s covering mannequins and racks in the front.
Back,
Behind the curtain.
His shadows informed him of the intruders location and he slid in the corner where the wall met the floor, making his way to the back. The store was relatively empty, only a few patrons; a couple, an older fae, and a young male that looked at the stock like a critic.
Slipping behind the curtain that separated the front from the back he was faced with three small dressing rooms. He materialized and placed his hand on the truth teller that rested on his upper thigh. It was quiet back here, the only shuffling came from one of the dressing rooms. He heard a click and a voice; your voice.
“Mav!” You called out as you stepped out of one of the rooms. He moved, trying to run, trying to get out of there. Realization of the stunt his shadows had once again pulled, dawned on him but it was too late.
“Az?” You questioned. The nickname had him stopping before he could escape sight. His heart beat like a war dum against his chest and he felt his hand dampen on the curtain he was holding. For a moment he contemplated winnowing away, saving the embarrassment for another day.
His turn was slow and painful, when his back was against the curtain he looked down and regretted not running. You were clad in a lace nightgown that barley covered the curve of your bottom. The top was push up, covered in shined lace while the bottom was layers of baby pink sheer material. If he looked closely he could see the diamond jewelry on your belly button and your matching shiney underwear shining through. He attempted to swallow the lump that was sitting in the middle of his throat but it didn’t budge so all he managed was a straggled gasp.
A devilish smirk, the one that tempted his knees, took control of your lips. You leaned against the stall, popping your hip out with a hand resting lazily on top. You tilted your head and looked him up and down, “Don’t tell me there’s another emergency.”
His eyes almost jumped out of his head and pink brushed from his neck, to his ears, and all across his face. You knew, of course you knew, you were the one he was barging in on. He tried to speak but that was impossible, seeing you in something so intimate, something he’d only dreamed of seeing you in, he could only shake his head back and forth.
“Okay so I also found that in this pretty blue-oh!” The young male from earlier had pushed through the curtain and was standing rigid as he looked between you and Az. He was only stuck for a few seconds before a smile that matched yours in mischief graced his face. “What do you think shadowsinger?”
His sultry voice took Azriel back, and the heat in his face doubled, “I- it’s,” he cleared his throat as he looked at the tiny blue dress. Cobalt blue, it was the same hue of his siphons. The thought of seeing you in that…
“It’s beautiful,” you finished for him. You pushed off the stall and moseyed over, closer to Az’s still frozen stature. “I absolutely love this color!” You took the thin fabric in delicate hands, feeling the material. “I’ll put it on,” you took the small thing from your friend before looking Az directly in the eye. You just smiled before walking back into the changing closet.
Azriel let out a low breath before bringing his hands up to drag the course of his face. This had to stop happening.
A snicker came from next to him and he looked over to, Mav, who had his arms crossed over his chest and a knowing glint in his eye. Az briefly wondered if you had told your friend about his little appearing act. The way Mav was looking at him, he’s sure you did. “You gonna stay for the final result?”
Yes, yes, yes! His shadows chanted in his ear and he shook his head roughly to keep them out of his ear.
“No, I gotta- busy!” He practically ripped the curtain with the force he pulled it open. He cleared the store in a few long strides before pushing himself free. In his daze he ended up colliding with a smaller frame.
“Az!” Mor yelled, straightening the dress he rumpled. “What are you-“ he eyes narrowed before glancing behind him, Jaim’s Nightwear was painted in delicate cursive on the windows. “What the hell were you doing?”
Az glanced once back at the shop before at Mor, “Embarrassing myself apparently.”
Mor clocked his flush demeanor before looking back at the window. She squinted her eyes again, tilting her head. She pondered doing some shopping at Jaim’s and Azriel’s speedy ‘no!’ only intrigued her more. She moved to step around him but Azriel’s hands clapped on her shoulder, turning her around and directing her back to the jewelry store across the street.
-
A low hum left the shadowsinger as he climbed up the ramp of the library. He scanned the isles looking for ‘Fiction- Rac.’
He had attended Nesta’s monthly book club with the priestesses, a guilty pleasure only the attendees knew of. He had offered to carry the books back to their rightful spot, an offer he was now regretting. The isle that held the thick fiction books had evaded him, and he had been walking back and forth for a half an hour now. A few priestesses had offered their help but he insisted they return to their work, that he could do it himself.
He decided to try the ‘Rab’ isle, keeping his wings tucked as his presence filled the narrow space. He almost cursed, debating throwing the books on a rack and letting someone else deal with it. His eye had just caught the beginning of ‘Rac’ when his attention was diverted.
You are needed,
Go now,
He ignored the shadows, pushing on towards his destination. He wasn’t about to fall into their trap again, he didn’t think he could handle another awkward encounter.
She needs help,
She needs you.
They insisted but Az just shook his head, looking for the correct author. “I’m not doing this again,” he whispered back. His luck she’d probably be in that little blue get-up and she’d have to clean up the puddle he’d melt into.
Go now!
Or regret it!
She will get hurt!
He groaned as he leaned his forehead against the cool self. The thought of you being hurt, even though he doubted you were, trumped his need to protect his ego. With his shadows whispering in his ear he had to see you were safe, and when you inevitably were he would come back and finish his job.
“Fine, but if she’s in her underwear again-“ the shadows cut him of chanting go, go, go! “Okay,” he was defeated, a slave to the torture his shadows were hell bent on putting him through. “Where is she?”
Home,
Her house.
“Good gods- I’m winnowing outside and if she’s half naked I swear I’m never listening to-“ he was cut off again by his shadows. This time it wasn’t a whisper, the seemed to bellow, angry at his reluctance.
Now!
With the urgency from his shadows he dropped the books on the floor, leaving them for whichever poor priestess found them first. After moving through space in the blink of an eye he landed on your front porch. He lifted his hand to knock, he wasn’t going to barge in and show up in the middle of your room uninvited- again.
Before his fist could connect with the door the sound of you screaming had him stumbling back. “Get out!” Followed by breaking glass. Your voice was shrill and panicked and it lit a protective fire inside of him.
He blinked again and he was inside your living room. Shadows were let loose across the space, crawling from his body to every corner of the room. You were there and so was a clearly unwanted presence. You were pressed against your mantle, gripping a vase like a weapon while the male staggered a few feet in front of you. He didn’t need his shadows to inform him about the alcohol that reeked from the man. His blood boiled and metaphorical claws were bared, he was going to kill the male that intruded on your space.
“Crazy bitch! Where’d you go?” The man slurred out as he waved his hands wildly in front of him; desperate to clear the opaque mist and find his target.
The name you didn’t deserve to be called had snapped Azriel into action, like a tensed spring he shot in front of the man. “I’m right here,” he whispered, mere inches from the drunk. The man made a shocked sound, startled by the new voice and its proximity. The man threw a pathetic punch, a low chuckle left Az’s lips as he caught the fist.
With a skilled spin he was behind the man, pressing his wrist between his shoulder blades in an uncomfortable contortion.
A straggled scream left his throat and Azriel cleared his shadows, wanting a proper look at who he was dealing with. The male was nothing special, skinny and pale with dull brown hair. His blue eyes looked hollow and glassy and the stench of alcohol absolutely assaulted Azriel’s senses at the proximity.
“You’d be wise not to try that again,” Azriel’s dark voice met the shell of the man’s ear. His eyes flickered up to you, wide eyed watching the scene play out. “What are you doing here?”
“Let me go! I just want to talk to her!” Azriel pressed his wrist higher and the male made a noice between a grunt and a scream. “Please!”
Tightening the grip on his wrist Azriel let out a low growl, this male was already too close, Azriel was never going to give him a chance to get closer. “I don’t think she wants to speak to you,” his low voice was eerily calm, steady as he leaned down to speak in the stranger’s ear. “Do you, Y/n?” His eyes moved back to you and watched as you viciously shook your head back and forth. “Well,” the grin in his voice was audible, “that settles that.”
Azriel gave the man a hard shove to which his shadows caught him, they carried him off to somewhere Azriel could deal him later. His eyes scanned the room once more, checking for any lingering danger, any hint of another threat. His shadows scowered the rest of the house, closing and locking any window that could be used as an entry point.
“Az,” you breathed before dropping the vase. The tough glass didn’t shatter, instead it rolled away while you ran. Within seconds your arms were around his neck with your face buried in his chest. He relished in your closeness, arms circling your waist with his nose finding your shoulder. A greedy breath reminded him you were safe, in his arms where no bastard would touch or even talk to you unwarranted. “I’m so glad that worked, I was worried that it wouldn’t, that I pushed to hard with it when you took awhile to get here but-“
“Wait what? What’re you talking about?” He pulled back to look down at you. Confusion had knitted his brows together and pushed his head onto an axis.
“Oh- I well… nothing,” you pulled back and turned away, red dusting your cheeks as your eyes fought to hide from him. Usually he was the flustered one, looking like boy whose hand had been caught in a cookie jar. But the roles were now reversed, you looked like you were dodging trouble of your own creation.
Azriel grabbed your wrist, delicately, turning you around to face him. He caught your chin in his other hand and angled your head to face him, “What did you want to work?”
You turned your eyes down but he just lifted your chin higher, your pink cheeks turned positively rosey and you shook your head. “Fine,” you breathed before pulling away from him completely. He watched as you moved around the glass you had previously thrown and made your way to the couch. “Well,” you started, drawing lines in your the cushion to keep from looking at him, “remember when we met? At that monster exchange?”
He nodded, “Of course.” He would never forget, catching a dove in an underground tavern full of monsters and the beats they aimed to sell. He had been tracking the traveling convention all across the night court, attempting to find who was running the trade. It was a highly illegal exchange and when he’d found you, you had begged to not be arrested, claiming curiosity brought you there. He let you go, told you to run while he dealt with the others.
“Well when I got home I noticed I had a little friend,” she held her hand out and to Azriel’s surprise, a shadow fell into her hand. It had danced out of its hiding spot in your hair and looped around your fingers, stuck to you like it was your own to wield. He just stared, mouth agape, to caught in his own shock to respond. “I started talking to it, they’re great listeners.” A giggle fell from your lips as you wiggled your fingers and the shadow weaved and bobbed through your digits. “And for some reason whenever I spoke of you, of wanting to see you, you would show up.”
You looked up tentatively, worried to see an angry Azriel. Instead you were faced with pure shock, he looked so lost so you felt the need to go on.
“I didn’t know it would tell you to come, not originally. Then after that first night, your shadows told you it was an emergency and I started taking advantage of that. Telling it to fetch you so I could see you again.” You looked back down, clearly ashamed of your admission. You couldn’t see the smirk that was growing on Azriel’s lips. “I know you’re busy, and-and it’s unfair to pull you away from your work like that. I shouldn’t have used your own shadow against you- gods- I’m so sorry. I’ll never-“
Your words were caught off by a laugh, a loud belly laugh. Azriel was practically doubled over. The realization had his face crinkled and his hands gripping his stomach as he gasped for air. You laughed nervously, adding him, “Your not mad?”
He stood up, still laughing but controlling it. His dimples were on full display and you melted a little, feeling ease wash over you.
“No, no I’m not mad,” he moved for the couch, “I’m glad I finally found out why my shadows are so willing to lie to me. It’s because they’re in kahoots with you.” He sat down and took your hand, your full smile matched his, “Never apologize for wanting to see me, I’ll come whenever you call.”
You blushed and nodded, laughing some more yourself. You stuck out the hand that held his shadow, “Here. You can have this back.”
He just shook his head with a smile, pushing your hand back. “Keep it, you can use it to get ahold of me.”
You looked back to him, the look on his face was one of pure ease, happiness and bliss, you loved to see it. You two sat there smiling at each other like idiots when you felt a tug on your heart. The tug got stronger and stronger until it snapped. With a gasp you threw your hand over your heart, as if the bond was tangible, something you could grab with your hands.
“It’s you,” you whisper leaning in slightly.
“And it’s you,” he whispered back after following you in.
You felt a tug on the bond, like he was pulling you towards him, you tugged back with a smile. You had always wanted to find your mate and you wouldn’t admit it just yet but you had wanted it to be Azriel since you met him underground.
You threw your head back, it was your turn to belly laugh. “Good gods! No wonder you always came running!”
He narrowed his eyes and let out a playful growl before pulling you into his arms. You giggled and wrapped your arms around him, looking at him in his eyes. “I’m glad it’s you,” was all you said before offering him a peck on the lips.
He beamed back, “I’m also glad it’s you.” He pulled you down for another kiss which you returned passionately.
“Soo..” you drawled pulling back, “Would you like to see that little blue number?” He responded with a low growl and nip at your ear. You laughed at his answer before jumping off the couch, you grabbed his hand and he happily let you drag him to your room.
A/N: My first request🥰🥰🥰 this was so fun, literally send more I live live live for them. I rlly hope my requester enjoyed this 🥲
Also I’m still working on ‘I’m Not Crazy, She is!’ Pt. 2 but it’s gonna be a long one so give me some time with that🙏🏽
As always if you made it this far I LOVE YOUUU<3<3 thank you so much for reading yall I love doing these.
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Tag list: @gorlillaglue25
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bubblebbg · 5 months
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can i ask for a jealous mizu from blue eye samurai feeling a little overprotective and jealous when taigen spars with reader bc they are a swordmaster as well? Mizu doesn’t like it how taigen always gets you to laugh or how he injures you when sparring
why yes, anon. you may. Only warning is violence, but like, not really? Not proofread. Also, Mizu's pronouns change per perspective. I may as well shamelessly plug my other Mizu fic right here ;))
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❝𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝❞
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Mizu has no one to blame but herself when she's forced to bite back her envy and watch you with Taigen. If you two spar one more time, she might throw up in her mouth. It's about time she takes matters into her own hands.
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The clinking of metal on metal, the air sliced through with a swish; all sounds Mizu has become accustomed to. Nonetheless, her eyebrow twitches in irritation, eyes following the movements in front of her. She thinks to herself that she never wanted to be this accustomed to those sounds, especially not when accompanied with Taigen's stupid remarks.
She watches you double back after having knocked him down yet again in the midst of your spars. She hates the way the both of you giggle.
"Please," Mizu rolls her eyes, "It can't be that funny the eighth time."
Taigen collects his sword and stands, sheathing it before dusting himself off. "Like you could do any better. Sure, you're good, but you're no master." He looks to you as he says this, smiling as if the praise was at all inconspicuous. She scoffs a bit when you smile back, crossing her arms and looking to the side.
The irony of her jealousy is that it's of her own making. You've asked Mizu to train with you before, and every time it's been a no. Because she cares about you, she at least does you the decency of making up excuses. "I'm tired, maybe tomorrow" or "I'm busy" - poor excuses, she knows, but she's trying here - and you've learned to stop asking. The truth is, she doesn't trust herself to not give away what she tries to keep hidden. Her heart already beats hard enough around you. The consequence? Watching you spar with a man who's clearly inferior to you, all while he makes pathetic advances and jokes. She's not sure if she hates him or herself more right now.
"But that's right," Taigen remarks, a snarky look on his face, "You're too scared, aren't you?"
The look in your eyes is cautionary as you nudge him. "Stop it," you mutter. And Mizu knows she shouldn't be so childish as to take the bait, but this isn't about you; it's a direct challenge from Taigen on her (sort of) manlihood.
"I am not scared."
"Then prove it. Duel. Right now."
"That's enough, Taigen," you reply, always the mediator, "If Mizu doesn't want to spar, then he -"
"I'll do it," she stands, approaching you both and stopping in front of Taigen with a searing look, "And you'll see that you're not even half the swordsman I am."
𓆩… . … . … . … . … . … . … . … . … . … . … . … . …𓆪
Inhale. Exhale. You stand face to face, a few meters apart, each a hand on their sword. The cold bites, snow falling between the two of you. When you look into her eyes, you see blazing fire, a spirit like tempered steel. When she looks into yours, there's something more unnerving; calm, like the surface of water undisturbed. Her heart pounds.
Inhale, she wills herself. Exhale. She draws and lunges, and you're quick to block it. Another swing, and another, and another, all quick and strong. Sharp eyes, she thinks. Each attack of hers is stopped as soon as it begins. Your eyes, watching as if not only to prevent, but to predict.
Inhale. She steps back, assessing. You're like a fortress - impenetrable defense. Your lips curl in the slightest smile and there goes her damn heart's pounding again.
Exhale. She drops to a crouch and swipes snow at you in an attempt to blind you, to throw off your analysis. She lunges through the spray with a decisive blow, a duel-ending strike.
Nothing. Her blade hits nothing.
Instead there's a blade at her throat, with you behind her. "How the hell did you -"
She reddens at the feeling of your warm chuckle at her ear. "You're breathing gives you away," you whisper, "Every time, without fail." You sheath your blade and Mizu whips around to look at you. She can't help but share the smile you give her. "Dirty bastard," she replies, and your laughter fills the air, the only sound she'll never tire of.
"Hah! I knew it, you're no match either, Mizu!"
Mizu's about to reply when you beat her to it.
"Whatever Taigen, he lasted longer than you ever will."
And it's Mizu's turn to laugh.
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Text
TENDER CARE. 18+
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pairing. bucky barnes x fem!reader
summary. you’ve been feeling insecure lately and your boyfriend, bucky knows just the way to make you feel pretty
word count. 2847
warnings. 18+ only!! hurt/comfort, reader feeling insecure, lots of hand kissing bc that shit makes me weak, kissing in general, praise, body worshiping, oral (f receiving) little bit of titty stuff, unprotected pinv sex, bucky being the best bf. minors dni
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It was late, the evening quiet - the winter moon, a bright slither of silver amongst the dark blue sky. 
As you lay in your bed, admiring her -the moon’s- beauty through the condensation of your window, your mind begins to drift, irrationality throwing hurdles at you. Your brain darting back and forth to those same thoughts you've been having more of lately - ones where doubt and insecurity flood any sense of logicality. 
You knew you had no reason to feel this way. Your boyfriend always went to grave lengths to ensure you felt loved and appreciated, showing you nothing but tender care. Though, there was just something in your brain, that little green gremlin instilling distrust within you - no fault to him.
You felt isolated with your sense of humility, often feeling as though you didn't have someone to confide in, someone to talk to. It wasn't an easy topic to bring up, and although you felt comfortable enough with Bucky to share your mind freely, this was something that you just could not stomach. 
Not only were you thinking about yourself, you were thinking of Bucky. The thought of admitting to him you felt insecure in your relationship felt like the highest form of betrayal. To confess to the man who's been torn apart and stitched together more times than one can count - that you felt unlovable, was something you couldn't bear. 
The amount of hurt you would cause him simply by sharing was enough to deter you. So, for that reason alone, you kept it hidden. Letting yourself wallow in the crappy feeling unaided. 
Your phone vibrates on your nightstand beside you, the screen obnoxiously bright - the white almost blinding you within your dim bedroom. Teary-eyed, you peek over at the caller ID, your boyfriend's name displayed beside his picture. 
You wanted to talk to him - to hear his voice, but you knew your wavering tone would give away your dismal state. So, you let his call go to voicemail, like all his others from this evening. 
Feeling guilt-ridden for declining his calls, you pick up your phone, deciding to send him a text instead. But when you unlock your phone, you see a pile of missed messages from Bucky, each text growing more and more worried at your sudden disappearance - his last one reading, 'I'll be over in 10' which was nearly ten minutes ago. 
You exhale in frustration, cursing yourself as you wipe your eyes - carefully blotting the sensitive skin with one hand, the other typing a response. You decided on a small, white lie, replying, 'sorry, I was sleeping.'
The second your thumb presses send, you hear a frantic string of taps on your door - the repeated sound of knuckles knocking. You take a moment to situate yourself before making your way to your front entrance, socked feet paddling over to answer. 
You peek through the peephole, your boyfriend on the other side - visibly distressed as he rakes through the front strands of his hair. You reach for the handle, unlocking the door with an expression you were sure to be disgrace. "I'm so sorry. I was in—" you start.
"Are you okay? You didn't answer. I got worried— I thought something happened," Bucky cuts you off, walking past you and stepping into your apartment.
You close the door behind him, turning to meet his frazzled features. "I know, I know. I'm really sorry. My phone was on silent, and I was in bed. I didn't see anything til just now," you confess, sharing parts of the truth.
He deeply exhales, gaze softening as he looks over you. He pauses, seeming like he's analysing you, eyes honing in on your evading ones. "What's wrong?" 
You knew your gag would be up sooner or later, but you didn't expect it to be this soon. Sometimes, it was like your boyfriend knew things about you before you even did yourself - as though you failed to remember who you were talking to.
"Nothing," you smile, kissing his cheek as you step past him. "Just tired— didn't sleep properly."
"Yeah?" he hums, not quite believing your half-truths. He kicks off his boots and follows you into your room, soft footsteps behind you like a shadow. "How was your day?" he asks, talking like he's scoping you out.
You sit on the foot of your bed, shrugging at him dismissingly. "Same old. How was yours?"
He steps towards you, eyes darting around your room before focusing on you - everything becoming more apparent. "Fine. Good," he nods, softly groaning as he takes a crouch in front of you, kneeling on the floor between your legs so he's level with you. "What's wrong? What's going on?" he asks, eyes following you with the movement of his head, brows narrowing.
"Nothing," you reply, speaking faintly. Responding minimally in case your voice were to break.
"No?" he questions, placing a delicate hand over your knee - the palm emitting warmth onto your skin through the fabric of your pyjamas.
You shake your head, bottom lip beginning to waver under his attention. 
"Then what's on your mind?" he asks gently, his tone warm and concerned.
"I told you," you avoid his eyes, looking down at your hands on your lap. "Didn't sleep well."
He sighs at your tenacity to push him away, head cocking to the side. He adjusts the stance on his knees, and your hands scramble for him - reaching out and holding onto him as if you were to stop him from leaving. Though only he wasn't leaving - he was just getting more comfortable. 
"I wasn't leaving," he murmurs, slipping his hands into yours, thumb brushing over the back of your hand assuringly. "Did you think I was going to leave you?" he asks, lips lining into a faint frown.
You notice his brows tug upwards in the middle, the tell-tell sign he was beginning to think too hard. "No, I was just— I... don't know."
"Well, I'm not," he responds shortly, speaking like he was being stern with you - tough love. "Now, what's going on with you?" he asks, his grip on your hand tightening with a reassuring squeeze, the silent act encouraging you. 
You inhale steadily, letting the air fill your lungs. "I haven't been feeling good."
He keeps his eyes on yours, following you. "Okay, why?" he questions shortly, wanting to get to the root of the problem as quickly as possible.
"I've been sad."
"Why?
You shrug. "I just have."
"I need more than that. Why have you been sad?"
"I don't know."
"Why?" he repeats, brows straightening.  
"Because I feel... ugly."
He hesitates, his shoulders slumping at your confession, visibly digesting your words. "Ugly?" he recites, the remark leaving a foul taste on his tongue. "Honey," he lingers, softly shaking his head.
Bucky stills, his forehead creasing with what you perceive to be pity. His mouth opens as though he's going to say something, only for it to snap back shut. He faintly sighs, bringing your hand to his lips. "You know that's not true, right?" he rhetorically asks, pressing a kiss into the back of your hand.
You don't say anything, the only reply being a short exhale and an awkward smile.
"Because I think you..." he pauses, kissing another patch into your hand. "Are the prettiest," a slow smile lining his lips - an expression that's now mirroring yours.
It was so simple. Everything Bucky did to reassure you - he did with ease. Just the tiny, loving act instantly melting the tension in your mind. His care for you pushing away any sense of self-doubt.
He peppers another kiss into your hand. And another - littering a short string of them over your wrist. "Don't listen to your brain, okay? She's not always right," he murmurs, expression softening like it was reassuring his words.
"I know," you nod, weakly smiling at him. "Just—"
"Hard. I know," Bucky finishes your sentence, nodding at you understandingly. 
He leans forward and places a soft kiss on the centre of your lips - his own brushing over yours sweetly, the action grounding and comforting. He pulls away first, eyes half-lidded as they glance over you, focusing on the almost pleading look on your face.
Your free hand reaches up to his face, palm enclosing his jaw as you bring him back in for a kiss - lips working over his more urgently than the time before. 
"Thank you," you mumble against his mouth, merely pulling away to show your appreciation. "You're so kind to me."
His grip loosens on your hand, now sliding both up to your face, cupping your cheeks as he deepens the kiss - tongue slipping into your mouth willingly. His lips leave yours, trailing a line of kisses along your jaw and down the side of your throat. 
"Always," he murmurs, the short word muffling into your skin. Whispering, "I want to show you just how pretty you are."
A soft whine-like hum vibrates in your throat, the noise accepting his words eagerly. Your hand trails into the short strands of hair at the back of his head, fingers grazing his scalp as you hold him to the crook of your neck. Neck tilting to the side, allowing him more access to you as you reach for his jacket, pushing the fabric off his broad shoulders. 
He presses a final kiss into a patch of your skin and pulls away, looking at your ever-softening features - eyes and brows growing pliant under his attention. His hands slowly roam down to the hem of your t-shirt, fingers hooking under the fabric as they lift, pulling it off your head in a steady, swift motion.
You sit in front of him, chest bare and on display in front of him, letting him take you in - not shying away like you did earlier.
Bucky remains quiet, his eyes fixed on the lewd sight before him, silently storing the image for safekeeping. He brings his hands up towards your tits, cupping under each - holding them in his palms. "So beautiful," he hums, leaning in to place a kiss on the swell below your nipple, giving his attention to each breast.
He rolls them in his strong hands, delicately playing and toying with them, thumbs skimming over your sensitive, hardening nipples, pressing kisses into the skin above. He looks up at you from between your tits, eyes full of love, full of warmth - looking up into your blissed ones with nothing adoration. 
He places a hand over your middle - fingers spread wide as he nudges you backwards, silently and carefully laying you down. Your bare back against the covers with him kneeling on the floor between your spread thighs. 
Barely leaning over you, he reaches up to kiss a trail over your abdomen, lips skimming along your jittering stomach as his fingers slip into the waistband of your underwear and pyjama bottoms. He pulls them down - light tugs as he drags them off your hips and down your thighs, grazing kisses over your now-exposed skin as he undresses your lower half. 
Pulling the fabric off your ankles, he sets it aside, replacing the material that just covered you with kisses - lips grazing up the length of your legs, chaste pecks over your skin like he was worshipping you. The kisses trail higher and higher, reaching up to the crease between your thigh and cunt where he continues the worship, tongue faintly swiping over the skin.
Your hands worm into the roots of his dark hair, fingers locking on the shorts as you hold him to where you want him, guiding him to the needy little spot between your thighs. Chest rising and falling, inner thighs twitching as the anticipation builds in your stomach.
He situates himself in front of your pussy, lips mere inches away as he softly breathes over it - teasing you, his eyes locked on your trembling stomach above. He places a peck on the bottom of your slit. And another. Lining a stripe of kisses up your cunt til he reaches your clit where he skates past the nub, tongue skimming over it.
Hands working over your thighs and to your hips, he adjusts you, placing your legs over his shoulders - letting them drape freely over his blades as he delves in deeper between your thighs, caressing your plushy folds with his lips and tongue. 
You murmur the first half of his name only to be cut off by a whine, the desperate noise catching in your throat when he nips at your clit, his lips wrapping around the mound - tongue skillfully flickering across. 
The noises he muffles are lewd and obscene - gruff, soft groans as he adulates your pussy, pushing his mouth in closer. Your fingers tug tighter on his roots at the consuming feeling, back lifting from the bed in an arch, mindlessly grinding your cunt into his face. 
Within minutes, you become a twitching, moaning pile of mush, coating his chin with your slick as you cum - thighs clamping around Bucky's head between.
He places a final kiss on your pubic bone before pulling away, standing up with a chubbed-up cock in his pants, the area tenting after tasting you. You hold his gaze, looking up at him with blissed eyes and a stir in your stomach - the sight of him making your cunt twitch. 
He wipes the wet from his chin on the back of his hand, briskly drying his stubble before undressing his lower half - tugging down on his combat pants and boxers, letting the material pool around his ankles as his cock springs free. Full length hard and ready, tip leaking precum. 
You scooch up your bed, resting flat with your head on the pillow, eagerly awaiting him. Your thighs instinctively spread as he crawls up the bed and between your legs, slotting his lower half between you - anchoring his weight on his hands either side of your head.
He leans in to kiss you, making you taste yourself on his tongue, the residual creamy slick transferring onto your own. Cock absentmindedly rubbing up against your pussy, the faint friction making you whimper into his mouth.
Your hands hook into the hem of his t-shirt, fingers gripping the bottom of the fabric as you guide it up his back, pulling it over his head as you break the kiss - his chest now bare and up against yours. 
Balancing on his left metal hand, he dips the other between you, reaching for his cock, wrapping his fingers around the base. He gives himself a few short strokes, guiding his head towards you - pushing his tip through the slick of your folds, coating his cock in your wetness before sinking into you.
You take him at your own pace, walls fluttering and loosening around his shaft as he eases more of himself into you - your pussy swallowing little bits of him at a time. Your hand paws at his wrist placed on your hip, fingers enveloping around the thickness, silently pleading and begging him to get closer.
He looks down at the lewd sight of you spread out in front of him: your brows knitted, eyes soft, lips bitten - natural, unadulterated beauty all desperate and malleable for him. He notices the bliss cloud in your eyes and gives your glistening, stuffed pussy a final once over before hovering back over you, chest lingering above yours. 
His lips skim over your jaw, trailing even more kisses down the side of your throat, giving you easing, reassuring pecks as he slips more of his cock into you - distracting you from the dull ache. 
"You are so beautiful," he whispers into your skin, sealing the compliment with a kiss. "You really are," he adds, pressing kisses into your shoulder. "I don't know how you don't see it."
You bend at the knee, holding it at his side - the new angle opening your hips wider, allowing that last bit of his cock to slide in, head hitting at the hilt. You keep him snug to you, arms lazily wrapped around his neck, your other leg entangling with his as your lips shadow each other. 
The moonlit room fills with soft, wet clicking - the sound of your pussy and sticky skin hitting cuts through the bliss-filled noises that slip past both of your lips, lewd noises surrounding you in the dark.
Bucky pulls his forehead from the crook of your neck to look down at you, eyes hinting at something - like his mind was temporarily elsewhere.
"Earlier," he starts, his voice hoarse as his hips wind into you, cock rubbing your walls so nicely. "When you said that thing," he adds, following your eyes when they bashfully divert away. "You tell me when you feel like that... I'd be happy to remind you just how pretty you are."
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a/n. I had an idea for myself, what?? and my first full fic in almost a year??
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misstycloud · 9 days
Text
Imagine yandere vampire hunter finding out he married one of the creatures he vowed to destroy. The very monster he dedicated his entire life to kill.
“…no..i-it can’t be..” his voice was barely a whisper, but you heard it loud and clear as if he was right next to you.
You stood still in the darkness, your face was a mask of indifference. If you hadn’t been blinking he would have mistook you for a statue. It appeared you’d been careless and let yourself be seen- by him no less. You could still feel the warmth of the blood dripping down you chin; a curtain of red fell down the front of your dress and stained it.
“Please tell me this isn’t real..” your husband let his eyes wander to the soon-lifeless body laying not far away. Small puffs of air was seen coming for the person, indicating they were not yet dead. The disgusting sound of gurgling in one’s own blood sent a shiver down his spine. His eyes met yours, searching for any sort of confirmation that everything was indeed a figment of his imagination.
“It is, I’m afraid.” You said.
He let out a devestatd choke, muttering ‘no’ over and over while shaking his head, clearly in denial.
You reminded yourself not to show any emotion and stepped forward. “I will not lie to you and therefor I will utter the clear truth in front of you. I am a vampire.”
“No, no you’re not.” He refused to believe it. If it had been his friend; he would prioritise duty before friendship. If it was his brother; he would do the same. Even if it was his own parents; he would die before letting insensible things such as emotions to come in the way of doing what is right. But this was different. It was you. It can’t be you. It could never be you.
But it was. Clearly. The evidence- the body- was right in front of him; unblinking and unmoving.
“You cannot look away from what is in front of you-“
“Stop saying that!” He suddenly shouted, surprising you with the sudden change in tone. “You can’t be one of….them.” He expressed in great repulsion.
Despite knowing how evil your kind is, you still though of yourself as quite good- well, as good as you can be when you’re a blood sucking, murderous creature of the night. So your husbands disdain awoke some sort of defensiveness in you.
“Well I am. And I have been for a while now.”
He seemed to think for a moment. Then he asked, “how long? How long have you been a…a vampire?” He furrowed his brow at the end, not believing he’d connect ‘you’ and the word ‘vampire’ in his life.
“36 years. Not as long as some others, but it should still count as something.”
“Oh god..”
It meant that you were one since the start- no before- your marriage. Was he truly that blind? Had love taken such hold of him that he could no longer do his job properly?
How many vampires had he killed during you union? All that while simultaneously being wed to one himself. While loving one, caring for one and even making passionate love to one. It was like some fucked-up punishment tailor-made for him.
He knew what he had to do.
The first tear fell down his cheek, betraying his stern expression and showcasing his endless sorrow. “You are evil,” he raised his crossbow, “and now you have to be judged for your crimes.” How ironic of him to talk about committing crimes of slaughter as if he wasn’t doing exactly the same. He wasn’t stupid; not all immortals were pure darkness, it wasn’t that simple. They do what they have to in order to survive. Only some killed more than they had to. Still, it didn’t change the fact that they all need to be destroyed.
Your eyes widened when he pointed the weapon straight at you. You expected this. Of course he would kill you. However, a part of you could not stop from hoping he wouldn’t think of you as a monster. That perhaps you’d finally find somewhere you can call home and be accepted for what you are. It was a naive dream. Weren’t you his wife before you were a monster? Apparently not, because an arrow shot at you at incredible speed. It hit you in the arm and you cried out in pain.
While you had physical advantages, it doesn’t mean you are immune to pain.
Ripping it out, you studied the black liquid staining it. Your husband swore and immediately prepared to launch another. You felt your fangs grow in length and you hissed at him. Throwing yourself at him the two of you rolled around on the floor, each trying to restrain the other. You managed to get ahold of his crossbow and threw it away form his reach.
Your husband quickly dug into his pockets to grab a dagger, and tried to stab you. Luckily you stopped him in time, fighting him with your vampiric strength. You had to give it to him, he was surprisingly strong for a human. Despite you having supernatural gifts, he was definitely a match and you had a hard time holding you down. If it was any other situation you would have been impressed and rather seduced by his sheer strength, unfortunately this was not a good situation for you.
You leaned down, planning to bite him, but his fast reflexes let him use his free arm to keep you at a distance. He was now on the floor with you straddling him and trying with all your might to end his life.
Your husband knocked your heads together which was the distraction he needed to kick you off of him. You clenched you forehead in pain and backed away. But there was no more time to dwell on that pain, because it was minor compared to what you felt next. Agony was in your side, accompanied by the dagger you had previously defended yourself against.
Your lover was close. Enough for you to feel his breath, and enough for you to see tears running down his regretful face.
“Why was it you?”
Whether he referred to you being a vampire or you being the one he married, you did not know. It hardly mattered anyway.
In a way, you did love your husband. It was probably not in the normal spousal way but it was there. Maybe if you weren’t a blood-sucker you two would have been truly happy together. Too bad fate had other plans. Even though it was true that you were probably evil, you wanted to live. And despite the one threatening your existence was none other than the man who’d show a you devotion and love you though t you’d never find again, this was not where you wanted it to end.
With a shriek, you used all your power to push him as hard as you could. He flew backwards into the wall. You supposed he’d fainted from the force since he wasn’t making any move to get up. You clutched your side and groaned. You had to get out of there; somewhere safe.
You stumbled to the window and put your foot on the ledge. The dagger he’d stabbed you with must be silver, otherwise it wouldn’t have made as much damage. The wound in your side burned and sizzled with pain. You had no idea if your body would be able to fully heal you in time for when you need blood again- or even at all.
“Ugh….”
You heard a cough from behind you. It was your dearest. He must be sturdier than he looks to have woken up so quickly. He had rolled over to lay on his stomach and had his arms pathetically stretched in your direction.
“D-don’t go.”
You scoffed at his audacity. “What, so you can finally finish me off?”
He whimpered, “ N-no, I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have done that- why did I do that?” The last part appeared to be a criticism on himself. Nevertheless he continued, “please, I won’t do it again. I was wrong, you’re not evil I know that, I don’t know why I said that. I’m so sorry, please..”
A frown adorned your face. “It’s okay. I’m not evil, but I know I’m far from good- I’m not that delusional.” Then you turned back to the view of the outside world.
“Wait, no-“
“I have to go. I really mean it when I say this, ‘thank you for all these years together, they have been the happiest days I am now able to remember’.
“My love, don’t-“
You ignored his pleas as you jumped from the window. You landed in the dirt outside. You looked back at the house which you’d just escaped from and as you prepared to run off to another town and build up a new life (until you’d eventually have to run again) you listened to the scream of the man who’d been your husband for six years.
What was he screaming? What else if not your name.
-
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storiumemporium · 6 months
Text
Astarion As a Father
Fem!Tav/Reader
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I FINALLY GOT A NEW KEYBOARD WITH FULLY FUNCTIONING KEYS LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I elected to write about something that's been giving me brainworms for ages, because I'd been talking about it with someone on here awhile ago and it just infested me. Astarion finding out you're pregnant and how he handles fatherhood. (Or, in this case, doesn't at first.) This isn't my best work but I blame it on the fact that I didn't intend for it to be THIS FUCKING LONG okay 😭
But without further ado, daddy Astarion:
Finding out:
When it comes to children, I think Astarion hasn't put much thought into it beyond 'me!? ABSOLUTELY NOT—'
He has no illusions about his state of mind and his faculties, you see. Astarion knows that he's fucked up, he knows that he's a problem, and he's only entirely too confident that any child unfortunately put under his care would likely end up just as damaged as he is, were they to miraculously make it to adulthood. He's just not equipped for it.
And, frankly, Astarion isn't even aware he can have children... That's just, not something he ever thought to question. He's undead, is he not? That should take care of the...fertility question.
Shouldn't it?
Truth be told, Cazador never told him of the possibilities because it was never meant to be a possibility. Astarion was too malnourished, his victims too short lived for anything to ever have come of it. He was supposed to die a sacrifice, not live to carry his own bloodline (hah) onward.
Were you to ever ask him about it, even jokingly over dinner one eve, he'd be very firm in the fact that it's a terrible idea and he'd be entirely unequipped. He would even go so far as to say he's the worst choice out of all of your past companions.
"Me? No. Absolutely not. I'm sure whatever little devil you managed to cook up would be the most charming child Baldur's Gate has ever seen... But even that magical explosive that fancied himself a God would be better suited to fatherhood, darling. I am built for luxury and adventure, nothing else." All bookended by typical Astarion preening.
So when the day comes and you inform him of the little life growing in your womb?
Nope. Not happening, not even a chance of happening.
The denial is strong with this one.
And when I say denial, I mean that Astarion well and truly blots out what you've said from his mind, as if it simply didn't happen at all. You never had the conversation, you never dropped the revelation, there is no child, he is not becoming a father.
It's not a lack of want— though he doesn't realize that yet— it's true, blinding terror. Before it was just a joke, just something for him to brush off with commentary about how terribly he'd do as a parent, better the uncle than anything else. But now it's a reality and to accept what you've said is to accept that he might well and truly destroy a child. But not just any, yours.
The traumas Astarion possesses heap onto his shoulders and slough off plentiful enough to make new oceans of it. Now, not only is he just beginning to regain his own autonomy, he's supposedly being given responsibility over a brand new life?
(It would only make sense for Astarion in retrospect, that the life you willingly sacrificed to nourish and nurture him would in turn allow him to grow a new life within you. The fool had just been too blind to consider it: The way, fresh off your blood, he could pull back from the delicate column of your throat and you would find his cheeks and ears and chest flushed with the loveliest shade of pink, eyes wide and soft and alive. The way his entire body would warm, going from corpse frigid to something just beneath normal. The way his once-still heart would slowly beat again.
He'd even asked you once- curled together on a familiar silken bed, foreheads touching and your hands clasped together between your chests- if you knew what it felt like to be so, so hungry that all you could even think about was about badly you wanted to eat? How food sounded so good that the desire became crossed and instead felt even more painful and nauseating? How it consumed your ability to make rational decisions, denied you the capacity to control your emotions?
He'd told you then, voice tender and timid and weak, that he'd felt like that every single day for two whole centuries, until the night you'd willingly laid down on that cot and put your life in his hands.
It was so simple really, of course you granted him the strength to create life. It was you.)
And of course it comes to a head before there is any chance at recovery. Your body begins to show the changes, you begin to swell, and Astarion only grows more avoidant and flighty. Because now he can't simply wipe the idea from his mind and continue on as if the child doesn't exist, the proof is there every single time he looks at you. He makes it very clear to you that he will not be returning to your side without a confrontation, a very potentially ugly one at that.
And ugly it is, explosive. Astarion hasn't truly had the time to recover from his life under Cazador, and all of those protective traits he grew remain sharp as ever, returning to the surface as if they'd never truly gone away to begin with. He sneers and hisses, tries his best to dig in and hurt you enough to stop poking his tender wounds. Enough to push you away so he can lick his wounds back open. He'll go so far as to accuse you of infidelity, though he regrets the words the moment they leave his lips, it's easier for him to imagine that you simply grew tired of him, that you were weary and longed for the daylight. That you wanted someone who could hold you beneath the sun, unlike him.
How you respond to this is entirely up to you, but just shy of throwing something truly despicable back into his face, such as Cazador, Astarion will apologize... eventually. If you remain stalwart and patient, if you have it in you to recognize that he doesn't mean his words, that he's barbing you with intent, Astarion will break down in that very same argument, his angry and accusatory rant will dissolve into an admission of deep insecurity and deeper terror.
But if you respond with anger? Justifiable, and Astarion knows that even in the moment as it's happening, but emotions rule him far more than he'd ever care to admit, and he will dig in and relish the reaction he's managed to draw from you. He will bristle and bite back until suspicion and bitterness fully claims his heart, and he aborts the conversation to hide in the shadows.
Astarion will wait until nightfall, until his freedom calls for him. The one thing that always manages to clear his head, even when you prove to be the cause of his muddying. It's a reminder, every time he steps into the cool and dark of Baldur's Gate, that Cazador is dead and he is a free man. That he can go where he chooses and when he chooses to, and not only that no one can stop him, but that you wouldn't even want to stop him.
And that truth is always what brings Astarion home.
Under the distant lonely stars and that cold moon, he has to remember that time and again you have let him. You have accepted him, you have not fought him on anything shy of a horrible mistake he wanted to make in a moment of weakness and hysteria. You have accepted all his deepest and ugliest wounds and kissed them like they were freckles to pour affection on. You fought Cazador for him, you defended him from your own friends. You even- at times- tested your own morals for him.
You wouldn't betray him, and Astarion knows he can't betray you.
Astarion would return to you late, curling into bed at your side, his eyes would not meet you, and his apology would come in the form of a simple confession. "I am... afraid. I am afraid."
Astarion wouldn't blame you if you don't forgive him immediately for his transgressions, he was cruel and you were vulnerable. But even then you'll find that your love doesn't abandon you again. He accepts- however frightened- that what you've said is true and is coming, and he must accept it. Mind you, it won't be perfect and it won't be romantic. Astarion doesn't know the intricacies of handling a pregnant woman, he's hardly tactful beyond his well honed and flirtatious lines. He genuinely loves you, but he's going to come pre-equipped as father material.
You need something? He'll get it with minimal complaint (but never none, you'd sooner get him to dye his hair black than cease complaining for the sake of it), he won't begrudge you your mood swings though he might be inclined to poke fun at you ever so often. And he will panic when you burst into tears for seemingly no reason, and no- time doesn't make him adjust, he will panic just as much the thousandth time as the first.
However, if it's any consolation. The moment your child enters the world, Astarion is a changed man.
When You Go Into Labor:
Astarion did the honors of informing all of your friends about your pregnancy, once he came to terms with it. And believe me when I say it is extravagant. The stationery and grandiose script that Astarion wields when informing everyone that you were expecting better fits a wedding invitation than it does... well. Very elegantly explaining that Astarion had accidentally knocked you up.
You can tell from the splotchy stains addressed to you from Wyll and Karlach that one of them had been crying when penning the message, Astarion has coin on Wyll, and you on Karlach. Lae'zel never responds to begin with and you know for a fact the Githyanki's response will likely come in the form of her simply showing up one of these days, unprompted. Jaheira personally and rather frequently visits as well, she becomes a sort of bastion as nerves take you over, confident and calm as she is. Halsin's "letter" arrives late, rather because alongside his letter is several little carved animals for the child's room, and mentions of a quilt he intends to bring along when next he visits. Shadowheart's letter, while congratulatory, contains an air of interrogation strung all about it, all aimed with pinpoint precision at the man responsible for your pregnancy and dripping with sarcasm.
Gale's letter is seven pages long, comes with a violet hued wax stamp, and multiple different inks in the most lavish hand he can manage. You daresay he's competing with Astarion. However, surprisingly, Gale's seems to be the most... helpful of them all? It wasn't your intent, you simply wanted your dear friend to join you in celebration, and yet Gale goes on to inform you that upon reading the letter he'd become a madman in pursuit of knowledge on pregnancy and giving birth. He admits that this wasn't a particularly fruitful endeavor, as he's rather confident that you're not a gnoll, troll, cambion, succubus, or any other variety of strange creature with strange metrics of procreation. Still, Gale directs the latter portion of his letter to Astarion quite pointedly, informing him of bookshops around Baldur's Gate where he might have more success.
Astarion scoffs, but you don't miss the way his fingers twitch and flex.
After the hilarity of this is resolved and you just begin to believe that peace might return to your soft little home in the city, the first of your companions begin to arrive.
This continues on for the next week or so, without you ever knowing that this had been planned- and without knowing that Astarion had been the one to plan it. It's a furthering of his apology, of his guilt over the way he'd treated you. Again, Astarion has no illusions of the kind of man he is, and the fact he's not nurturing in the sort of ways that you need- but he's not completely stupid and he knows you're scared. So... bring the cavalry, darling.
Eventually your entire home has become a crash pad for all of your dearest friends, your family, and you only grow suspicious of Astarion's hand in this chaos because he's surprisingly amicable to having his peace so thoroughly disturbed by 'everyone and their mother'. Truly, he manages to bite his tongue some of the time about them trampling his fine rugs and scratching the plates. He even seems... wistful about it. As nostalgic as you openly are at seeing all of these beloved people under one roof again.
Nights are filled with raucous laughter, clattering utensils, a table so thoroughly overcrowded that people are playfully shouldering each other out of the way for a chance to get at their own food. And Astarion stays faithful at your side, his hand perpetually clasped gently around yours, thumb rubbing over your knuckles. Days are never spent alone, no matter what it is you need to do, someone (if not everyone) is following you along. And though Astarion feels his heart ache that he can't join you, he'll be glad to know you're safe.
Besides, your companions are likely all taking turns tormenting, testing, and relentlessly teasing him about what is to come. He has his own hands full. He's starting to regret being such a generous lover.
And then your water breaks in the dead of night.
Remember how I said Astarion was far from perfect? This would be one of those moments that it really shines.
Not that he's particularly terrible, no. He's not actively cruel toward you, and certainly not dismissive, it's somewhat the opposite. Halsin and Jaheira end up the ones helping you, the only two with some iota of understanding on what was happening and what to do with and for you. The others, less experienced in "mundane" medical situations will take up the second most important role.
Prevent Astarion from catastrophizing any more than he already has been.
Karlach has been the sole force capable of keeping Astarion away from the wine, typically bear hugging him away from your cellar while Wyll tries his best to talk your lover down from a total nervous breakdown. Of which he nearly has, several times. It's not even the sight of you, specifically. He's okay with being at your side and holding your hand, in trying his best to provide comforting words that aren't laced with sarcasm for once. But the sounds you make, that's what breaks him. Astarion isn't good at hearing you scream from the pain, he isn't good at the choked sobs or your heavy breaths. The way you sound like you're struggling against death. It makes him want to crawl out of his own skin, fight assailants that aren't there.
And for a few hours there, in the midst of your labors and your exhausted, pained little cries, Astarion isn't sure how he can love the child causing you this much suffering. It's not as if Astarion was an altruistic man on his best days, as if he were particularly reasonable when it came to you. You've both come to a mutual understanding that were something to happen to you, no morals would be involved in the things Astarion would do to rectify it.
And now, here you are, suffering. Astarion isn't supposed to do a thing about it? He's supposed to be- what, overjoyed by it? It infuriates him, he's truly prepared to have a grudge match with an infant.
Until, as the sun is starting to creep up on a brand new day, it's no longer your screams that meet the air, but another's entirely. Tiny but powerful, high pitched little squeals of fury and distress. And your laughter, disbelieving, soft, adoring already.
Astarion has a daughter.
I go with the HC that Astarion had eyes like honey once, and that his daughter takes after that, along with the delicate points of his ears mirrored in her own. She's small, so small, but healthy and already feisty, wiggling as best as her tiny body can whilst still too heavy for her to lift and move.
You're the first to hold her of course, and Astarion will be at his knees beside the two of you. The expression he wears is something you've seen maybe two or three other times in the entire time you've known him- moments when you know he expected everything to fall apart, moments where he couldn't believe that the world was so good.
It's then that you can breathe for the first time, and know that both of your darlings will be just fine.
Once he does hold her, he's not inclined to let her go. Even once you ask to have her back, he'll simply move you into his lap, so that he can hold you both. It's better that way anyhow, having both of his girls in his arms. And Astarion will repeat again and again how stunned he is, he just can't believe it. Cannot fathom any of it. I think he's the type to say that he's speechless and then spend the next five minutes doing nothing but talking. It's nervous rambling, but still, speechless is not the term I would use to describe him here.
Astarion With Your Baby:
Once your little darling is actually in your lives, you get to see how hilariously unorthodox Astarion is with children. Especially his own. Astarion doesn't baby-talk like you or the rest of your companions, he speaks in the same exact tones as he would a grown woman. In fact, for the first few days you're adjusting to a child in your life, you sometimes mistake Astarion as speaking with an unexpected guest, only to round the corner and find him lightheartedly chastising his own daughter for her poor nappy conduct as he wrinkles his nose and changes her diaper.
He's disgusted by that, by the way. Absolutely hates it, complains loudly about having to do it. But if you so much as try to stand to help he'll force you back down onto your chair or the couch, something something not useless something something already up, darling. It's as if Astarion is simply allergic to admitting that while it makes him nauseous, he wants to care for his daughter. He wants you to rest.
And yes, Astarion is the type of father that thinks all other children are hideous little fecal beasts and his daughter is the only gorgeous little angel in the entire world. Perfect, can do no wrong. He tells her as such too, in the same deadpan voice he always uses, wiggling and stretching her legs.
"You know, darling. You should count your blessings, you're the only child I've ever seen that doesn't look like some sort of hideous, deformed bean. I can't be surprised though, with as gorgeous as your parents are." And though he rolls his eyes, he's unable to contain the grin that shows his teeth when she coos and squeaks at the sound of his voice.
And yes. Astarion dresses up with his child.
The older she gets the more he does it, little matching outfits and ribbons. Nothing that she would choke on, were she to get her mitts on it. (You had to be the one to tell him no, at first. He did throw a little fit about it, just a small one).
But it's not all lighthearted, good or bad.
There are times where Astarion won't touch your daughter, won't be alone with her in the same room. He fears it, he'll eventually tell you. His... affliction came with it's dangers, always. But he's always trusted that you could defend yourself, and you're big enough that he can't just kill you between one blink and the next. The same can't be said of your darling girl. She's so small and so fragile that, were he to lose even the slightest grip of himself around her, it could cost her her life. No doubt it would traumatize her for life, regardless.
You watch it, too. The way it pinches his brows and makes him wipe his palms against his pants as if he were sweating. Nervous habits creeping up his throat and causing him to pace about like a caged animal. It's during these times that you have to bring your daughter to him. Gently place her in his arms and remind him that he's loved her from the moment he saw her. And where once he held trepidation and queasiness at the prospect of fatherhood, you can see him care so much about this little bundle that he looks sick from it. A vulnerability he can't mask.
And of course, there are times he nearly weeps for other reasons.
Like when she takes her first steps, and immediately tries to run for him.
And Astarion knows he should let her tumble, that it's good to let her fall and get back up again, but the moment her unsteady feet cause her to careen she's safe in his arms. Little kisses peppered against her giggly face. And he'll tuck away against her to try and get his bearings back, but she'll pat his cheeks and tug his ears- and you'll have to distract her with a toy while he hiccups and sniffles down his need to cry. He wasn't ready for her to grow so fast, gone is the tiny bundle that could fit perfectly in one arm, now she's walking. How long before she's dating? Gods, should he be preparing for betrothal requests!?
"I want to be mortal." He whispers to you, one night. She's tucked between your bodies, sound asleep and wiggling from time to time. This is one of the rare moments you and your love can speak to each other uninterrupted, in the tranquility of the dark hugging around you.
It's strange that he brings this up now, you'd spoken about it several times since the Elder Brain had been taken down... But in the past few years since your daughter had been born, all of that had fallen to the wayside. "What brings this to mind, Starling?"
Your hand comes to cup his throat, as you watch and feel him work as if he were swallowing a stone. "I don't want to outlive this."
It's hard to blink the tears from your eyes, understanding the implications.
Were he actually two hundred years old, Astarion wouldn't survive well past the existence of his sweet little family.
He'd been more melancholy the past few weeks, after realizing that your daughter was beginning to function on her own. She was walking, grabbing things, talking in rudimentary sentences. She was even beginning to call him pa.
He'd cried, at that.
"I'll forget," his voice draws you out from that brief reverie. The distress is palpable, but runs low like the tide before a storm. "I'll forget all of this. I don't want to know what I'll become, then."
And when you run your hands up into his hair, to scratch lovingly along his scalp, he doesn't hide the shiver or the way his face presses against your palm, cold and smooth on your skin.
"We'll find a way, Astarion. I haven't given up yet... We just- she's too young."
It's both a strain and a relief, to know that. To be reminded that your daughter is still so small, that he won't be losing her- or you- any time soon. There's still time.
Astarion With Your Teen:
Arguably this is the best time between your daughter and him. It's simultaneously a surprise and yet- not at all? He's more like her confidante and best friend than strictly a father. He isn't one for harsh curfews and strict ways of dress- rather, he's the one she comes to when she's made some sort of mistake. Or when she's angry about something.
In general, Astarion withholds judgement of her, for better or worse. The unintended consequence is that you might become more of her enemy than Astarion, because he's less inclined to punish for questionable behaviors.
It's not that he's afraid of angering her or dealing with push back- rather that Astarion's frame of reference for what constitutes a mistake is ah... rather broken. Even in the beginnings of your relationship with Astarion, the mistakes that would anger him constituted dropping an entire building on his head or... risking being turned into a Mindflayer to help some old lady find her cat.
Not feeling up cute boys in alleyways.
As a result you'll likely need to have a few conversations with him about not being so lenient on her, because she needs to have structure in how to behave. Stealing things is in fact, not okay! And Astarion will listen, but he's always going to be a bit more of a friend than anything else.
A total gossip with her, too. You'll catch them huddled around the dinner table at night, both with a glass of wine (this was an argument that Astarion ended up winning, she's allowed one glass a week, but that's all!) in hand shittalking a storm together. Astarion has become the Baldur's Gate equivalent of a PTA mom, he shows up as stylishly as he can and beefs with the parents of whichever children have upset his daughter the most. And then when they get home they just toss it back and forth together.
But I want to stress, just because he doesn't punish her doesn't mean he isn't protective of her. Astarion is more protective than you are.
Once she begins dating you'll find yourself home alone semi-frequently, because Astarion will play the supportive, loving father part when she leaves- and immediately follow her out into the dark. He's had centuries to know what dangers lurk around every corner, and foggy memories of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time before his nightmare began. He won't allow that to happen with his girl.
And it's funny, because Astarion will talk mad shit to himself while he does it. Logically he knows that she's with some teenage boy or girl, but it doesn't stop the petty, emotional side of him from rolling his eyes and sneering at the cheap one-liners and the dumb tactics that this would-be charmer utilizes. Really, taking her into dark alleys to get her to tuck into you? Going to a totally secret spot that Astarion has known about for at least a hundred and sixty years? Get real, kid.
And you have to try valiantly not to laugh when he comes home, huffing and puffing about it. Because you will hear every single petty thought he had the entire time, and you will know that he looks like a petulant child. It's very cute.
All in all, I think Astarion is a reckless, chaotic, petty father. And one that loves his child so, so much. To the point of ruin, to the point where suddenly staying in one place doesn't seem so bad, just so she can have friends. Helping people isn't the worst, just so she can know there are heroes in the world. Suddenly he's learning to bandage scrapes and kiss bruises, and having tears and snot on his clothes mean nothing compared to the grief of the one shedding them. He loves her in ways he didn't anticipate he ever could. Enough to know all of her ticks and secrets, to know when she's lying through her teeth and when she's being devastatingly obvious.
Learning to cook even when he can't eat, listening to her spin a story with a straight face and then- as she's stepping out the door- telling her to be careful with that boy and listening to her groan loudly as the door slams shut, a mischievous smile on his face.
Holding you and dancing you around, cradling you close with all the tenderness he has in the whole of his body and soul. Kissing you, calling you the mother of his child, thanking you for giving him something he didn't even know he'd wanted. A family.
Small and odd, but his.
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gracieeegleegal · 2 months
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Omg please do an angsty imagine where we are the daughter of some god (maybe Zeus or hades) and find out about Luke’s betrayal and he tries to recruit us but it only ends in arguments
Betrayals embrace - Luke Castellan
pov - Luke Castellan was the lightning thief all along and you the clueless girlfriend who never knew better.
Pairing : Luke Castellan !femoc x Zeus daughter
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In the heart of Camp Half-Blood, under the watchful eyes of the gods, a storm brewed within the soul of y/n, daughter of Zeus. Her relationship with Luke Castellan, once filled with laughter and affection, now teetered on the edge of betrayal and heartbreak.
Y/n stood, tears in her eyes as she stared into the eyes of her lover, eyes that now held the truth of his actions and the haunting revelation that had shattered her world—Luke's treacherous plan to free Kronos and destroy the very gods they were supposed to honor and serve.
More tears pricked at her eyes as she recalled the countless moments they shared, the promises of a future together, now tainted by lies and deceit. She clenched her fists, feeling the crackle of electricity surging through her veins, a reminder of her divine heritage and the weight of responsibility that came with it.
She had trusted him, loved him dearly and all she got in return was the inexorable betrayal that had shattered her heart.
"Y/n," he whispered, his voice smooth like honey,a certain nervousness hanged in his tone. In the 10 minutes they had been in the forest, y/n stayed silent through it all. Not knowing what to say or do after Luke admitted to his actions.
That he tried to drag Percy into the pits of Tartarus. That he had lied about it all.
"Luke," she replied, her tone laced with bitterness and hurt.
Luke stepped forward, his eyes searching hers for any sign of wavering resolve. "I know this is difficult for you to understand, but we can change the world. We can free ourselves from the tyranny of the gods, create a new order where demigods are no longer pawns in their games. We can be free, you can kill your father after all the pain he’s caused."
Y/n shook her head, a humorless laugh escaping her lips. "And what of the innocent lives that will be lost in the wake of your ambition? Have you no conscience, Luke? Do you realize that if you go forward with this, you’ll lose your family here. You’ll lose me.”
His expression hardened, a flicker of anger betraying his calm facade. "You were always too soft, y/n. Too blinded by your loyalty to those who have treated you as nothing more than a pawn in their own schemes. Why do you defend him? After he killed your sister! After he killed Thalia. He could’ve stopped it.”
He reached out to her, his touch a cruel mockery of the affection they once shared. "Y/N, please understand. This is our chance to make things right, to rid ourselves of the gods who have only brought us pain and suffering."
But even as he spoke, the truth of his betrayal cut deeper than any blade. Y/N recoiled from his touch, her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed.
She backed up at his words, the sting of truth laced with venom. Memories of Zeus's indifference and neglect flooded her mind, a painful reminder of the fractured relationship she shared with her divine father. She was transported back in time when she had arrived at camp for the first time. A reminder of the sister she lost, the sister who sacrificed herself for her sisters.
A painful reminder that no matter what, the gods will never care enough to save their children. If they did, things would be a lot different.
But even in the face of betrayal, y/n couldn't bring herself to abandon her friends at Camp Half-Blood, the only family she had ever known.
"I may be the daughter of Zeus, but I am also a daughter of Camp Half-Blood," she declared, her voice trembling with emotion. "I will never betray them, Luke. I understand you better than anyone, I really do. But I can’t do that to them. I can’t, and you know that. "
Luke looked shattered, he would have thought that the girl would side with him. After all she was the one who understood him the most, understood his reason. “I didn’t wanna have to do this, y/n, I’m sorry. You have given me no choice.”
“We always have a choice.” Without warning, Luke lunged forward, his movements fueled by desperation and rage. Their clash was fierce and unrelenting, the crackle of lightning mingling with the clash of celestial bronze. Each blow exchanged was a testament to the shattered bonds of trust and love that once bound them together.
Luke’s attack got harder and harder, as their swords smacked together in the night. The fireworks covering the sound of the lovers fighting each other.
“Luke! You don’t have to do this!” Y/n struggled against his attacks. She didn’t want to hurt him, but Luke was so blinded by rage that he couldn’t seem to care that he was hurting her.
“Luke!” This time the screaming had come from another voice. Percy and Annabeth were running towards the scene.
In a moment of distraction when y/n turns her gaze towards the two teenagers, she feels pain in her abdomen. She glanced down, Luke’s sword had stabbed her in her stomach. She gasped softly, tears forming in her eyes as she held onto the sword that was still pierced in her flesh.
“Y/N!” Percy and annabeth screamed her name but her focus was stuck on the man that had betrayed her
Red was gushing from her wounds into her hands that were now touching Luke’s. The boys eyes widened. What had he done? The girl dropped to the ground, blood running everywhere. Her shirt was now tainted red, as well as her hands and her lovers hand.
In the end, it was y/n who lay battered and broken at his feet, her resolve unbroken even as her body screamed in protest. Through tear-stained eyes, she watched as Luke cradled her frame. Regret and sadness reflected in his eyes.
“Y/N..” he whispers softly, he gripped her body tighter. Not wanting to let go of the woman he loved. “I’m sorry. Im so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
Percy and Annabeth after standing still watching the scene with tears in their eyes finally approached the couple. Swords in their hands.
Luke glanced at the couple, then back to the bleeding girl. “I’m sorry.”
With a heavy heart, he turned away, leaving her broken and bleeding in his wake. Percy and Annabeth running to her aid.
As darkness threatened to claim her, y/n whispered her final words into the cold embrace of the night. "I love you, Luke."
---
When she awoke, it was to the sterile scent of antiseptic and the gentle touch of familiar hands. Percy Jackson and Annabeth stood at her bedside, their expression a mask of concern and sorrow.
"You're going to be okay, Y/N," Percy reassured her, his voice a soothing balm against the ache in her heart.
But the pain of loss was a wound that ran deep, one that no amount of time or healing could ever hope to mend. With a broken sob, Y/N buried her face in the boys shoulder, mourning the loss of the love she had once held so dear.
And as the tears fell like rain, she couldn't help but wonder if somewhere, amidst the echoes of betrayal, there was still a glimmer of the boy she had loved, lost, and ultimately, forgiven.
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jonphaedrus · 2 years
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some facts about my father, a perfectly ordinary human being:
got tenure in two years by getting two 2.5-million dollar grants from the government and he's now held that job for the longest time any faculty at his university has ever been tenured. literally almost longer than his entire school has existed.
he's won a fullbright...thrice.
speaks five languages (fluently: english, hebrew, russian; functionally: polish, dutch) and can get around in three others (german, japanese, and "pidgin arabic" whatever the fuck that means)
he was once locked inside the great pyramid at giza. on purpose.
one time i went to austin when he was out of town and when we got back to his house the only food in his fridge was 1) bulk family size cocktail shrimp from costco with all the shrimp eaten out of it and only the marinade left, 2) three boxes worth of frozen yoghurt bars, 3) two bags of frozen mini-wontons that expired two years earlier
has only one demand for his funeral and it's that while his casket is being lowered into the ground i make sure they play "whatever it is, i'm against it!" from the marx brothers film horse feathers
broke into (and out of) martial law poland in the early 80s and brought four hams in his back seat so he could spent six months living with his girlfriend, including a short period of time where he tried to drive from białystok to kraków in the middle of a blizzard, got lost, had no phone, no map, ran into the police, accidentally gave them his fake texas passport and almost got deported, bribed them with a ham, and then somehow ended up at his girlfriend's brother's apartment by complete happenstance and got blind drunk for a week
made friends with his assigned kgb agent in the 70s in russia
his car broke down in the middle of the sinai desert in the 70s and was saved from dying by a roaming passing band of bedouin car mechanics who took his entire car apart and put it back together and drove off without saying anything except "it works."
convinced me and one of my childhood best friends that he had found a way to time travel an hour into the future through the careful use of daylight savings, a radio station, a car clock, and the fact that he has never been on time for anything in his entire life
when he got his house renovated he decided that two attics and two cleverly hidden crawl spaces wasn't enough, so he added two more attics and another cleverly hidden crawl space, and i wish good luck to whatever poor schmuck (my cousin) has to sell his house someday.
broke his cherry-wood dining table under piles of papers...twice.
when in grad school, pretended to be a visiting russian statistics professor named "professor blowjob" (in russian) and somehow got away with this in order to teach a lecture on how s of x = f of n (sex is fun)
conned me into the belief that i had a magical color-changing guinea pig and kept this act up for literally a decade before admitting the truth
became a fellow on one of the yellow river restoration projects by making friends with an old man doing tai chi with a sword in a park in beijing. turned out that old man with a sword in a park in beijing was the head of the national environmental protection office at the time.
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theycalledhimastar · 2 months
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SIMON RILEY ICKS SIMON RILEY ICKS SIMON RILEY-
(Not really icks, just more weird stuff bcs this is funny)
☄. *.
Simon has like the worst acne ever around his eyebrows and nose you won't ever change my mind because I know for a fact he does little more than rinse his face with soap and water. Not even facial soap, man uses body wash or hand soap and thinks that's enough. Like he doesn't wear a nasty balaclava and eye black whenever he's out on mission.
Speaking of which, his mask stinks. Like really bad. Man is sweaty and dirty and gross and those things are not easy to clean when you're constantly busy, so they smell like sweat, dirt, and the worst kinds of bad breath. You have no clue how he wears these when they smell that rank.
Buys off-brand everything because he doesn't really care one way or another and that wouldn't be so bad, except it's literally everything. His toothpaste, shampoo, body wash, deodorant. Man literally doesn't consistently smell like any one thing because he just cannot be bothered.
Like he's loyal as hell to you, but not loyal to any kind of brand. So his smells clash and you swear that mask has made him scent blind.
Baby isn't lazy when it comes to hygiene, like he washes well, just with a new scent and brand literally every time he gets more shampoo.
He has more important things to worry about, okay? Like you.
He has really bad sense of privacy, and by that I mean he doesn't care. When it comes to you, he will literally piss with the door open and not care, even if you walk in. Or, you could be taking a shower and man will literally go in to use the toilet, brush his teeth, and then leave with the door wide open.
he doesn't see the problem, either. Like babes, we live together, may as well be comfortable, right? You're just showering, he's gonna see it all sooner or later.
not to say he doesn't respect your privacy if you tell him its important to you, he still has his private moments too, of course. Truth be told, he just likes being near you even when he's literally using the bathroom. The weirdo.
Looks like he isn't paying attention to the television when you put it on, but literally, he knows more about the show than you do and you don't even realize it. Like he doesn't miss a thing despite not even looking up at the screen.
silly goose, that's because his love language is learning absolutely everything about stuff you like so that he can talk about it with you. Except he accidentally becomes more fluent in it than you because he goes overkill. :3
*This isn't weird, but i know Simon gets grumpy when you call him cute lil nicknames (in moments that aren't serious, of course.). Like his face when you call him ridiculous nicknames (ironically), is so perfect. It's like he knows you love it. (He probably does.)
"Hey Pookie?"
... >:(
He's literally precious sometimes.
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abyssruler · 1 year
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plausible deniability
scaramouche x gn!reader
your boyfriend is nice, your boyfriend is sweet, but your boyfriend is also a serial killer. “relax, it’s just a dead body,” he tells you like he hadn’t just hit a man on the head with a brick hard enough to crack his skull. well, at least he did it to defend you? or — scaramouche kills people and you have the world’s biggest ‘i can fix him’ complex. (modern au)
crack, comedy, a few people die but who cares, scara is soft for one person and one person only and that’s you, “i would kill for you, in fact, i have killed for you.” “honey, did you take your meds today?” - scara and reader
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You were never a fan of true crime documentaries, or horror movies, or gory shows, or anything that involved excessive blood spraying and lightless eyes staring into the camera.
So, it would stand to reason that at the first sign of your boyfriend being more than into those kinds of things, you would’ve turned tail and ran as far away as you can, right?
Unfortunately, you’ve always been blind to the color red.
…Figurative red, that is, because the red seeping through your couch and the ones coated on your boyfriend’s hands are definitely visible to you, bright and dripping and most definitely staining your pristine white rugs that you just bought last week. Ah, how are you going to explain that to the laundry lady?
“Scara, honey, what did I say about killing other people?” you ask, voice visibly strained.
He sneers at the face of the dead guy sitting haphazardly on your couch. “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”
You sigh.
It wasn’t always like this, with the whole blood viscera happy-murder thing.
Your boyfriend, Scaramouche, had this odd habit of being so immersed in the news, a little smile lighting up his face (which you’d thought was cute at the time and, well, you still do) whenever the reporter gets to the local murders that used to have you shaking in fear on your bed.
He was charming though. A little possessive, but that was a trait you also thought was quite endearing—and, if you’re being honest, you still do. Scaramouche had a vast collection of sharp knives, some small and practically harmless (or as harmless as a knife can be) and others… not so harmless. You didn’t question it because he often cooked for you, your brain chalking it up to him using those knives for it.
It wasn’t until you were walking home alone from university that you discovered his little hobby of, well, killing people who inconvenienced you and him. Mostly people who inconvenienced you though, which was disturbing but also flattering in a crazy sort of way.
“Relax, it’s just a dead body,” he told you like he hadn’t just hit a man on the head with a brick hard enough to crack his skull.
You were cowering on the alley’s wall, eyes wide and knees shaking as you watched your supposedly nice and caring boyfriend wipe away the blood on his hand like it’s a normal occurrence. And when he grinned down at the body, something almost satisfied in his eyes, you realized that he was the cause for all the recent murders popping up in the city.
Now, the thing about this is that you should have run away screaming bloody murder, maybe call the cops or even do the sensible thing like break up with your boyfriend who’s apparently a psycho.
And you would have done it, if he just hadn’t been so… so…
He turned to you with concern shining in his eyes, stepping over the corpse of the man who’d pointed a pocket knife at you and tried to rob you. With hands still slicked with blood, he cradled your face and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “It’s a good thing you weren’t hurt.”
…sweet.
And as he pulled you away from the crime scene, dragging you home and running a hot bath for you both, asking you what you wanted for dinner like he hadn’t just murdered someone in front of you, you finally calmed down and saw the truth of the matter.
Yes, your boyfriend is quite possibly a serial killer, yes, you might just be making the worst decision of your life, and yes, you’re well aware this is because of all the wattpad bad boy stories you consumed when you were young, but you’ll be damned if you let Scaramouche go. He was kind (at least, to you he is), he was charming (when he wanted to be), he was a great cook, he was good with kids and the elderly, he was smart, and finally, he would never cheat on you.
So, while there might be the unfortunate addition of him being a little too happy with the idea of killing someone (have, in fact, killed someone, multiple someones at that), he was also the perfect boyfriend you could ask for. He just needs a little guidance, is all.
The next day, he proudly showed you the severed hand of a man who once made you cry because he groped you.
…Okay, a lot of guidance, but you can manage, you’ve read tons of bad boy turns good after falling in love type of stories. How difficult can it be to have your murderous boyfriend change his ways?
Quite difficult, as it turns out.
A quick google on why people become murderers brought up a lot of questions and concerns for you, and while you’re well aware that google isn’t exactly the most reliable place when it comes to looking for advice, it’s also the only place you can go to without getting arrested for assisted murder—even though you’ve never actually helped Scaramouche when he goes all ham crazy on the general populace.
You sit him down on your couch, which was now free of blood thanks to google’s advice and good ol’ handy-dandy hydrogen peroxide.
Like this, facing each other and holding his hands, it almost seems like an actual, legitimate therapy session, minus the whole licensed psychiatrist thing. But hey, you’ve read tons of articles on the internet, so while you may be lacking in some aspects (namely, the fact that you don’t have any idea what you’re doing and aren’t qualified at all to be your crazy boyfriend’s therapist), you’re confident you can just wing it.
“Baby,” you start. Calling him endearments was an advice you picked up from reddit. A kind user named ballz3000 said that referring to them sweetly using innocent pet names can make them softer and calm their homicidal tendencies. “You know I don’t like it when you bring home dead bodies.”
According to another user named yn-yournuts, being open and communicating your feelings is the first step to establishing a healthy relationship and, consequently, a better mental state.
“It would’ve been difficult hiding the body at daytime,” he grouches, but he still keeps a gentle hold on your hands, which is a good thing. Baby steps, you tell yourself, baby steps—even though those baby steps might as well be called snail steps, wait, snail slithers.
“Then you should’ve waited until it was dark or midnight to kill him,” comes your immediate response—wait, damn it! You’re supposed to encourage him to steer away from murder, not give him advice on how to do it better. Smiling, you attempt to salvage the situation, “But, of course, it would be better to not kill anyone at all.”
It’s too late. He’s already donning a contemplative look on his face that soon turns into a grin, leaning in and briefly slotting his lips against yours.
“Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll be more careful next time, love,” is all he says before getting up and abruptly ending your impromptu therapy session.
And admittedly, there must be something wrong with you too, because instead of being horrified at his words, you giggle to yourself.
This is the first time he called you love!
Alright, so operation therapy failed, it’s now time to charge in like a boar. Straightforwardness is always good according to that one article you found in google made by Hugh G. Bawles.
The two of you were in bed, the lights already turned off, when you took a deep breath and began preparing what you were going to say to him to prevent any more innocent people being killed.
Scara, I don’t like it when you kill people.
Baby, don’t show me anymore dead body parts.
Why did you become a murderer?
Sometimes, I feel like we’re a normal couple, but then you’ll suddenly go and casually bring me a bloody finger as a gift.
But instead of saying any of those, what comes out of your mouth is,
“Darling, I think you’re just confusing your constipation for homicidal urges.”
In hindsight, maybe attempting to start a heart to heart talk in the middle of the night just before a morning class was a bad idea.
You wait a few seconds, then minutes, and when he showed no signs of responding, you turn your head only to find him with his eyes closed and sound asleep.
Fine, you’ll just have to try again tomorrow.
You share exactly one class with Scaramouche and it’s philosophy. Unfortunately, it’s also the class with the worst professor known to mankind.
“Ah, I got a low grade…” you mutter to yourself, looking down at your essay forlornly.
Your boyfriend takes one peak at your paper and immediately scowls. “You spent an entire night writing that.” He turns a glare to the professor currently ignorant of the murderer sitting in his class. “That asshole should’ve given you a perfect score. Maybe I should give him a little visit.”
You calmly take his hand under the table and squeeze it, all too used to him casually alluding to killing other people. “Dear, we talked about this. What do we do when we’re having homicidal thoughts?”
He looks down the table, brows furrowed in a sulking manner. “Don’t do it.”
You beam, proud at him for remembering the one thing you keep reminding him whenever he brings a dead body back to your house.
The blonde twins seated in front of you turn their head in horror after overhearing your conversation.
“What are you looking at?” Scaramouche sneers at the same time you say, “We’re roleplaying.”
“Right…” the long haired twin you distinctly remember was named Aether mumbles before he ushers his sister to ignore the two of you.
Oh well, at least you managed to stop one person from dying today. User tojiscrustysock on twitter always says you should take whatever victories you can, so you’ll consider this a resounding success.
When you open the news next morning, the face of your professor is the first thing you see along with the words, found dead near his home.
You turn to your boyfriend sitting beside you, an innocent look on his face as you look at him with disappointment.
“My hand slipped,” is the flimsy excuse he settles for.
Sighing and utterly out of options, you’re forced to resort to the one thing you didn’t want to do. The worst possible option there is. If there’s going to a therapist and potentially getting arrested kind of worst, there’s this kind of worst—the absolute worst of the worst.
“Scara, I think we need to start doing yoga.”
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