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repulsiveliquidation · 6 months

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“I don’t need you.”

“You don’t, but we do.”

Leah Williamson x Georgia Stanway x Reader

2.8k, I went overboard lol but this was fun to write. Enjoy!

Warnings: mentions of blood and knives. Euros 2022 Final where you’re hurt and the two of them struggle to keep you alive. It gets dark so read at your own risk!

Lionesses v. Germany, Euro 2022 Final. The changing room is tense, all the girls quiet and getting into game mode. You’re in your cubby, listening to a playlist Georgia insisted would get you into the right headspace before a game. Leah sits across from you, leg bouncing and face in a deep frown. Georgia is messing about with Alessia, giggling about some video they saw on Instagram. Everyone has their own way of getting into their headspaces and you find yourself making eye contact with the best captain in the world. Your headphones come off and you walk up to her, eyes softening when you see the fear in her eyes that she so desperately tries to get rid of.

“Come with me for a minute.” You tell her, reaching for her arm.

“I can’t, the game starts in 20 minutes!” Leah loudly whispers but follows you, being dragged into the showers for a little chat.

Georgia had been watching this interaction, excusing herself and following behind Leah quietly. She knew that Leah would be stressed and knew that only you could calm her. She was met with a Leah that was almost in tears and you cradling her head against your chest in the furthest shower stall there was. She sighed softly, heart breaking for Leah. She quietly came towards you, hands wrapping around you both with kisses to both of your foreheads.

“How we doing, Lee?” Georgia asks quietly, hand slowly moving lower to rub her back as you kissed Leah softly and pushed her baby hairs out of her face.

“I feel like my hearts gonna give out. Fuck I can’t catch my breath. What if we lose? What if we just fucking throw this game away and fuck up and it’s all my fault? I really don’t know what Sarina was thinking, picking me as captain. Someone else deserves this arm band, I might just-“

She was cut off by half the team in the showers looking at her and hearing her ramble. She was so in her head that she didn’t notice that Georgia had taken your spot and you went and called the rest of the girls still in the changing rooms into the shower to comfort their captain. Tears stained her cheeks and Georgia did her best to wipe them away. You were beside her again, holding her hand and rubbing her forearm.

“No one would have been able to bring us this far, Lee. Everyone on this team knows you’re the only one who deserves to wear that arm band.” Lucy spoke up, all the girls nodding in agreement.

“You’re the best part of all of us, Leah. Come on, we’ve got a trophy to win alright? Save some of those tears for after will ya? Don’t waste them!” Ella yelled, all the girls cheering their captain on as she finally had a smile on her face. It was the most beautiful smile both you and Georgia had ever seen and you wanted to keep it on her face for as long as possible.

Kick-off

The game was going alright. Germany had maintained good defense over the first half, nearly scoring but Mary Earps was a force to be reckoned with. The second half saw Tooney thrust the Lionesses into the lead with a beautiful chip over the keeper. Germany doubled down and equalized ten minutes after, the wear and tear of the tournament finally showing as the Lionesses let that one slip. Of course, it had to be Chloe Kelly who sent in the winning goal, doing a well-earned shirtless celebration as the final whistle was blown two minutes later. You all piled on top of her, celebrations rampant as the Wembley stadium erupted with the same shouts of celebrations.

You didn’t see him coming. You didn’t see the glint of a 4-inch blade drawn from his back pocket. Security too busy holding out other fans from spilling onto the pitch. He made a beeline for you, eyes dark and angry. He grabbed you by the shoulder and before you knew it, the knife stabbed into the right side of your abdomen. The sheer shock of it all sent you to the ground hunched over, hand pressed to your side as he pulled the knife out and disappeared into the crowd.

Leah notices first. Her eyes looked all over for you till she heard yells from the crowd of your name. A little puddle of red alarmed her as she suddenly saw you laying on the grass in a pool of your own blood.

“Y/N!” she yelled. Crouching down beside you, holding your wound. “FUCKING CALL THE MEDICS!” was what registered next. Georgia suddenly appeared beside you; hand pressed over Leah’s as they both tried to stop the bleeding. The crowd was so silent you could hear a straw drop.

“You’re going to be okay, darling. I need you to stay awake for me, sweet. Keep looking at me baby, shh shh it’s okay. We’re getting you help.” Georgia spoke but she sounded so far away. Your eyes closed for a second before Leah slapped your face gently and your eyes opened again. She was crying, Georgia was too. “Stay with me, love. I love you so much,” was the last thing you heard before you couldn’t fight the urge to sleep any longer.

That beeping noise was immensely irritating. Beep, beep, beep. Why were there so many tubes and shit tangled around me? It’s a little chilly in here, would it kill you to turn the heat on? I mean seriously, these tubes are a nightmare. Your thoughts are interrupted by a pair of blue eyes that would make anyone look twice. Leah’s eyes. You could pick them out in a crowd. So blue and so full of emotion you could read her like an open book. What was she doing here?

“Y/N/N, welcome back my darling.” Leah says, her voice still distant but clear.

“She’s awake? Don’t lie to me Leah, it’s not funny.” A second voice enters the room. It’s familiar too, accent thick with worry. Georgia’s dark brown eyes show themselves as they both hover over you. It’s nice, they’re doing you a favor by blocking out those pesky bright lights.

There are suddenly more people in the room than you’d like, poking and prodding at you. Hands that you do not want touching you thankfully do their work fast and efficiently. They switch out your oxygen mask for tubes and give you another pillow and your sad hospital lunch. They’ve left the room in 20 minutes, the two girls whom you want near you finally able to settle on either side of your bed away from prying eyes.

“You scared us half to death, Y/N.” Leah says with a sad voice you never want her to use again. Tears well up in Georgia’s eyes and they both hold your hand that is resting on your stomach.

“What happened? I-I can’t remember it that well, it’s all so hazy.” You say with a sore throat. Georgia is quick to give you some water, holding the straw for you to sip. You drink for a while, thankful for the cold liquid soothing your parched throat.

Leah’s eyes are uncertain, doubtful if she wants to make you relive yesterday morning. The stabbing had sent you into a deep sleep, thankfully only for a day. The ambulance that brought you here was at the pitch within two minutes of the call to 999. The two girls never left your side, Georgia following you into the ambulance as Leah was driven right behind the ambulance by Alessia and the rest of the girls. The win was forgotten, every single one of them only had you on their minds. Leah was a mess in the car, shaking like a leaf as Alessia sped after the ambulance. Tooney and Lucy held her, keeping her calm and reassuring her that you’d be alright. She believed them, telling herself over and over on the quick ride to the hospital that you’d be okay.

Georgia kept it together in the ambulance, one of the loves of her life holding on as much as she could. It was so hard to look at you in the stretcher, beautiful face pale and sickly. Her hands and shirt were covered in your blood, the paramedics managing to stuff your wound with gauze and the bleeding was controlled. She knew you’d be okay, her heart hoping Leah knew that too. She held onto your hand tightly, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as you fell in and out of consciousness. She recognized the white Mercedes weaving through traffic, hazards on and following the speeding ambulance. She told you that the girls were right behind us and that Leah was right there with them. She told you to hold on, she told you they didn’t know if they’d be able to live without you. You heard her, wanting so much to hold her and tell her that you loved her and that you would be okay but, everything hurt and you were too numb to move.

The doctors worked swiftly on your wounds, the knife barely missing your diaphragm and nicking your large intestine. You had lost too much blood and flatlined once, the doctors quick to pounce on your chest and resuscitate you. You were fighting, you knew people relied on you too much for you to give in. The five-hour surgery was a success and soon you were being wheeled into a private room as the doctors told the entire team occupying the waiting room the relieving news. There wasn’t a dry face anywhere, tears of joys pouring out at the news of you making it through the hardest part of this long journey. Leah and Georgia rushed to the room they now knew you were in, the rest of the girls hanging back knowing you only needed them.

The sight of all those annoying tubes broke their hearts. You looked so tired and used, fresh tears falling down their faces. Both girls silently moved to one side each, hands reaching for your cold ones as you slept peacefully. Soon the repetitive beeps of the machines lulled them to sleep, thankful that you were alive and here with them.

Lucy walked in with Alessia and Kiera. They smiled softly at the sight of the three of you sleeping. They gently woke Leah and Georgia, having brought food and a change of clothes for them. The doctors updated them on your condition, Kiera shooting a quick text to the group chat to ease their worries. Leah shot up, eyes red with fatigue and a stiff neck. She reached for Kiera, hugging her tight and thanking her for the food and clothes. Alessia gently helped Georgia wake up, guiding both of them to the table in your room to have some food. They found it hard to swallow anything but tried, knowing they needed to. Alessia and Lucy watched over you as they ate, Less softly brushing your hair out of your face as Lucy rubbed your forearm softly.

Kiera had to force the pair out of the room to change, dragging them away to the showers to force them to take one, their hands still slightly caked with your blood. They showered together, helping one another to clean up which made them feel better to have familiar hands do the work. They couldn’t do it for themselves but they’d be damned if they didn’t take care of the other before themselves. Leah held Georgia’s face in her hands and Georgia stared at her as her hands held her wrists, gaze holding the same tear-filled eyes she had despite standing under the rain shower. They kissed hard, kisses full of too many emotions for them to express any other way. “She’ll be okay, Gee. She’s a fighter, she is.” Leah said softly, willing her heart to believe her own words. Georgia could only nod, muttering a soft “I know,” before leaning in to kiss Leah again. They held each other under the warm water, Kiera having left to give them both a minute.

They walk back into your room looking fresher than before. Hair both damp and wearing clean clothes. They both needed that shower and intimate time with each other, it soothed worries that they did not know how to voice; so glad that their relationship was strong and deep enough that they did not need to use words to express their feelings. “Any changes?” Georgia asks, moving to the couch to snuggle with Alessia as Leah returned to your side. “No Gee, she’s still asleep.” Lucy told her, hand lacing into Leah’s as they both sat with you. Kiera walked in 10 minutes later with steaming cups of coffee and a few more Lionesses. They all hung around, speaking to each other and taking turns watching you. You made noises a few times, shifting in your deep drug-induced sleep which made Leah and Georgia’s hearts leap out of their chests as you merely went back under.

“I’m sorry I scared you girls.” You say after listening to Leah and Georgia fill you in. “I’m okay now, you two look exhausted.”

“Don’t be sorry darling, nothing compared to the day you’ve had, love. They say you can go home tomorrow now that you’re awake, hm?” Leah tells you, eyes happier than you’ve seen in the past two days. Georgia begins to open up your lunch, gently pushing the table over to you to eat. “The girls went over to the house and set up the guest room for us. That way you don’t need to worry about the stairs. Lotte’s got Marlo too so he isn’t a bother for a bit. I think Less and Tooney drove my car over too so we can go home tomorrow, how’s that sound?” Georgia tells you, grimacing at the sickly-looking hospital food.

“Better than that looks, that’s for sure.” You quip, a look of disgust on your face.

This makes Leah laugh, leaning forward and kissing your forehead then whispering “There’s my girl.”

The first week back home was unlike anything you have experienced before. The pain was unbearable and the nightmares were something you didn’t wish on your worst enemy. You couldn’t remember your attackers face, but the news refreshed your memory when he was caught just four days after the attack. Cameras from the stadium managed to pick him up leaving the stadium after and they found his car abandoned before he was arrested and convicted. The three of you felt relief wash over you, knowing he was gone from your lives for a long time. You naively thought the nightmares would stop since you were really just worrying about him finding you but they somehow got worse. Leah and Georgia could barely keep you asleep for an hour before you had another one, shaking and sweating with shouts of their names. It frustrated you and broke their hearts into a billion pieces each. Both of them wanted to take your pain away and it physically hurt them to see you suffering.

One night you had another nightmare but somehow didn’t stir the two girls sleeping on either side of you. You carefully crawled out of bed, grabbing a fluffy blanket around your shoulders and walking out to the living room. You sat on the couch, mind racing faster than you liked. You began to rock back and forth, knees pulled to your chest. You couldn’t catch your breath, head spinning as the memories flash before your eyes.

Strong arms suddenly wrap around you, another pair grabbing your crying face. “Y/N, look at me!” Leah said loudly. A wave of anger came over you, pushing both of them away and standing; hot, frustrated tears flowing down your cheeks. “Leave me alone! Why the fuck are you always meddling? I don’t need you to coddle me! I am capable of taking care of myself! I’m not fucking helpless like you think! Just because you don’t have pain or just because you can fucking sleep doesn’t mean you need to pretend to want to help me! I DON’T NEED YOU!” you yell, voice hoarse by the fourth statement you make. You’ve fallen to your knees, Georgia catching you just in time before you crumple to the ground. They both hold you, your frustration let out in huge waves. You cried for half an hour, hearing both of them repeating the same thought you had in the operating room that kept you fighting “You may think you don’t need us baby but we do. We were both a mess when you got hurt, I don’t think either of us would have survived if it wasn’t for you. You hold us together baby, we love you to bits for it, you’re our special girl.”

It made you cry more, their words sinking into your head. You were wrong, you did need them. You needed them more than ever and they weren’t going anywhere.

#woso soccer #woso imagine #lionesses #leahwilliamson x reader #georgia stanway x reader #leah williamson #georgia stanway #georgia stanway imagine #leah williamson imagine #euros2022 #angst #woso x reader #woso fanfics

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icallhimjoey · 1 month

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Reinvent Love

♥ ♥ Joseph Quinn x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Joe are treading new waters. You’re no longer flatmates, but still close. More than friends, but nothing defined. Nothing labeled. Determined to not lose what you have, though. But, can you?

CW / disclaimer: rpf, fem!reader, language, adult themes, fluff, season 3 of my flatmate!joe

Author’s note: uh-oh here we GO! the girls voted and the girls won, so here we are! the no-longer-flatmates-flatmate fic - you don’t need to have read define close or explain us, but it’ll obviously give you backstory, which might help!

Wordcount: 3.2K

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five There was something living inside Joe’s chest.

It was only small, but definitely there. Ugly. Green. Growing. With potential to do real harm. It crawled around and scoped him out, exploring his heart from all different angles, carefully tasting it.

It hadn’t bitten him yet, but Joe knew if he lost sight of it – if he stopped trying to control it – that eventually, it would. And it would hurt. It didn’t exactly feel great now, but once it’d sink its teeth in, Joe knew he’d be done for.

He remembered when it still good. Still nice. Warm. And soft. And joyous, all full of love.

It used to be kind and sweet and would make him smile until his cheeks were quite literally cramping.

But it’d changed. It’d turned bad.

He wished he could’ve seen it coming.

It was a good thing that he found he was able to easily control it with rational thought. Problem was that rational thought had the habit of abandoning him once it got dark outside and he was alone in his flat.

His new flat.

Where everything was his.

Where everything got put in places that he chose. All his things were where he wanted them, all catering towards his routine. Which was why a basket of underwear made it into a bathroom cupboard, and why a shelf got put up near the balcony door, so he had a place to keep his cigarettes and a lighter. Gone were the days of rummaging through coat pockets ‘til he found what he was looking for.

It was sort of great, Joe wasn’t going to lie, living on his own.

It didn’t look quite as nice, not quite as homey, but Joe was sure he’d soon learn what the place was missing. He didn’t worry about it. There were more important things to worry about. Like, how quick dust built up into bunnies underneath the sofa and how every time he’d open his front door, it’d waft out from underneath, only to settle in the middle of the room for everyone to see. Or how somehow he panicked so much about keeping his plants alive that he was systematically overwatering all of them.

Idiot.

It was fine.

Rational thinking.

It was all fine.

Things were different now.

Good different.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have!” Joe joked as he let you in, pointing out the large bouquet of flowers in your hands.

His place already smellt amazing. Joe made a good roast, and had one going now, things in the oven, bubbling and simmering away.

“If I never did things I shouldn’t do, life would be very boring,” you said, laying the colourful bunch down on his island.

“Did... wait, did you actually get those for me?”

“Have you got a vase?” you were already opening cabinet doors. “You don’t, do you?”

When you didn’t get a reply, you turned to see Joe stare at the flowers. He looked a little dumbfounded.

“Joe?”

“Hmm?” he looked up at you and blinked a few times. “Oh, um...” he squeezed his eyes shut a second, trying to gather his thoughts.

Took too long, you thought.

“A vase?” you repeated, trying very hard to keep a straight face, to not let the smallest inkling of a smile slip through.

“Sorry, I don’t... I don’t think I’ve got a vase.”

Why the fuck would he own a vase, Joe thought.

“I’ll get you one as a housewarming gift,” you found a pitcher. “This’ll do for now.”

There was evidence on the counter of what Joe had been in the middle of, cutting veggies, preparing the gravy. But as you filled the pitcher with water, Joe still kind of hovered in the same spot in silence. Looked at the flowers that you’d brought in and felt silly for how those made him feel.

When you placed the pitcher in the middle of the island and reached for the bouquet, you broke his trance, and Joe softly laughed at himself.

“This is... my God, this is so sweet? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten flowers before.”

“Well,” you smiled back, about to throw stones into your own windows. “I didn’t get them for you.”

“Oh?” Joe immediately felt embarrassed. Mortified. Felt the skin of his neck flush with heat.

“I got them for your flat.”

Got him.

Joe let out the breath he was holding in defeat, dropping his head and smiling. Scoffed softly at himself because you were joking, and he was an idiot.

“You know, give it some colour. Give me something nice to look at when I’m here.” you plopped the flowers into the pitcher and didn’t get the chance to make it look nice, to arrange it a little, because before you could, you got picked up by the waist and shaken about. You shriek-laughed a loud, “No!”

“Something nice to look at?” Joe pressed his face into your cheek as you squealed through your giggles.

“Am I not nice to look at, huh?” Joe squeezed extra tight before he put you down, turning you in his arms and keeping you real close.

“You’re nice to look at,” you said sweetly, still grinning widely, nose nudging up at his. “If I could put you in a vase and arrange you all nice, I would.”

Joe snorted, and you felt it on your face.

“Hmm. You’re funny.”

You got kissed by soft lips that almost felt shy to kiss you.

“Don’t get me a vase.”

And then you got kissed a little harder. Bit more firm.

“I’ll get my own.”

“No,” you objected, speaking right into his mouth. “You’ll get a stupid one with like, frosted writing on, or something. Live, love, laugh.”

You felt Joe’s smile as he kissed you harder, both arms squeezing as they wrapped around your waist tighter. You sighed into Joe’s affection and took great comfort in the fact that you were alone. You were outside of your flat, which was still wild in your opinion, but at least you were alone.

Alone was good.

Joe’d gotten into the habit of showing affection when you were around others, around strangers, and you didn’t think you were ever going to get used to it.

The first time Joe reached to hold your hand, you’d nearly had a panic attack.

It wasn’t very cold, but the wind was cutting. Hurt your forehead as you walked and made you hunch as you pulled up your shoulders to shield yourself as best you could. Joe’s hand finding yours was a welcome warmth for your cold fingers, but it still made you fall silent as you tensed up.

Joe just held on for a few steps, and looked at you. You could see him stare from your peripheral, could feel the burn of it high up in your cheeks, and tried your best to ignore it.

“You can relax.” Joe humorously said, speaking softly and leaning in a little to make sure you could hear him.

“I am relaxed.” You immediately argued, because holding hands with Joe shouldn’t be weird. It should actually be normal. You tangled up with your full bodies more days than you didn’t when you shared a flat. If anything, Joe’s touches were exactly what turned you lax, all floppy and boneless.

“S’just cold.”

“Hmm,” Joe sounded unsure, very obviously not believing you, and squeezed your fingers a couple of times. When you didn’t smile, Joe let his own drop too, and asked if you were okay.

“Fine.” You reassured, growing a little defensive. If Joe could just stop talking about it, that’d be great.

“Should I– do you want me to let go?”

“No, it’s okay.” You said, sounding a little squeaky, but you doubled down with a squeeze of your own.

Joe took it, accepted it, albeit a little unsure if maybe he’d made the wrong move here. But you’d walked along, and you held hands, and when you fell into random conversation again, holding your hand became something Joe stopped thinking about. He absentmindedly rubbed his thumb along yours, and at one point used his grasp to pull you in front of him when you had to share a narrow bit of pavement with oncomers.

You weren’t like Joe.

Not for a single second had you been able to be as casual about it as Joe had been.

You focussed on your hand the whole while you walked, and couldn’t help but check to see if others were looking at it. If strangers that passed you looked down at your hands. To check if they could see. If they somehow knew that you’d never done this before.

You had.

But not like this. Not outside. Not in public.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to hold Joe’s hand, but there was something about this new phase you were in, where Joe walked over to yours to pick you up to go out for dinner together. Where he had to ring the doorbell and ask if he could quickly come up to use the toilet before you left. Where he pretended he didn’t know where the bathroom was and made you show him the way. Where he faked being anxious when you left your flat, saying that he hoped you liked the restaurant he booked a table at. Where he nervously asked if you liked Italian food, as if you hadn’t shared a million pizzas together.

Things were different now, and although you were close, would often do everything you could to dissolve into his skin, walking hand in hand through the streets of London felt insane. Like you were moving too fast, even though you understood how silly that sounded.

You’d spent that entire walk thinking of a natural reason to let go of his hand, and Joe had felt your fingers twitch. Felt how you seemed to change you mind about it every three seconds. But, you’d said he could hold onto you, so, he simply did.

It wasn’t until you reached the restaurant and used the heavy door as an excuse to wiggle your fingers from Joe’s hand, using both of yours to pull it open.

Baby steps, Joe thought as he smirked to himself, astonished that he’d gotten to hold your hand out in public for over ten minutes.

He was sure you’d slap him away the second he even attempted to intertwine your fingers together.

Which, coincidentally, was exactly what you did the first time Joe tried to lean in for a quick peck on the lips as you said goodbye to each other outside of his flat.

You’d been out, and were both in a bit of a rush to get home. You thought that the way you’d hugged his arm for a second was plenty goodbye. You’d pressed the side of your face to his bicep and said you’d see him later.

You’d reached the point where you wanted to go cross the street as Joe would walk the other way to get to his front door, and when you tried to step away, he yanked you right back by the elbow.

The way you recoiled away from him was so extreme, it startled Joe. You almost made it look like he was about to hit you.

“Jesus,” he mumbled under his breath, and you immediately apologised. You stepped back closer to him, were about to accept a quick kiss as an apology, but let your eyes nervously dart around to see if there were other people. If there were witnesses.

Joe just looked at you, blinked a few times and then, instead of leaning in for a quick kiss, squeezed you in your side.

“Calm down. Call me when you get home.”

And you’d blushed at how Joe’d smiled at you before he turned to head inside. Your face had remained hot until you got home where you then had to take a moment to shake all the nervous jitters from your body.

It was such a weird spot to be in, Joe thought.

How he couldn’t get too close if there was the slightest chance of someone seeing, but to have you literally whine at him inbetween his sheets if he didn’t touch you in the right spot with the right pressure at the right speed.

But steps were being made in the right direction.

You each had you own place now, and Joe made a point to sometimes not see you for a few days. He kind of enjoyed getting to miss you. He liked how his stomach did flips when you’d ring his doorbell after not having been over for a few days. He liked how absence made his heart grow fonder, and how that felt healthy.

Joe assumed you felt the same way; maybe you didn’t like it as much as he did, but surely you also understood how this was at least more normal.

He never thought that what the two of you were before was toxic.

It was just... weird.

Good weird.

But this was better.

Still a little weird, he wasn’t going to lie. But better.

He got to tell you to call him when you got home now. He got to invite you over to his flat for Sunday roast now. And you would then come and bring him flowers now.

Joe had never received flowers before. Well, maybe he had. But not like this. Not from a girl who brought them just for him. Just because. He kind of loved it. Kind of loved you.

“God, you were right.” Joe said, eyes unblinking, comfortably staring.

Both satisfied and full after an early dinner, the two of you laid out on Joe’s sofa - the one that took six weeks and then two more to arrive - and both looked at the bouquet up on the kitchen island. You were tucked into his side, with one of his arms slung around your frame. You held one of his hands with both of yours and absentmindedly played with his fingers.

“I don’t know how this works but they kind of make the whole room look better.”

“They do.” You agreed, smiling, because you did that. You turned your head, tilting up to look at Joe’s face. “Please let me pick out a vase for you, though.”

Joe’s grin slowly grew as he said, “Absolutely not. Might just keep the pitcher for flowers only, I kind of like it.”

“Ugh,” you grimaced. “This is such a boy’s flat.”

“Well,” Joe started, raising his eyebrows, finally breaking eye-contact with the fresh bloom, tucking in his chin to look down at you. “I am a boy, so, that checks out.”

For a moment you just looked at each other, smiling, cuddled up into the corner like you always were cuddled up into the corner together. When you saw Joe flick his eyes down to your lips, you pulled the hand you were still holding closer to bite right into the skin between his index finger and thumb.

Joe pretended to flinch, but you were barely leaving marks as you smiled through the bite, big eyes looking up at him. Joe took a moment to just take you in. The way you looked at him had him biting his own lip before he tried to grab hold of one of your hands to pull into his mouth.

You were already scream-laughing and trying your best to pull your hand away before he even got close. It left you in a wrestling pile of limbs, Joe with his mouth open, growling and ready to bite at whatever got close enough. He ended up getting at bit of your sleeve in between his teeth, pinning you down into the soft seat-cushions and he felt drunk with joy.

He was so fucking happy.

Pretty girl in his flat, giggling away on his sofa, and she’d brought him flowers. It was kind of disgusting how he’d turned to goop on the inside.

Joe didn’t wait for your giggles to die out to get his lips on yours and kiss you silly.

There was something living inside Joe’s chest.

It was sticky and sugary sweet and Joe loved the taste it.

Loved how it bubbled over and leaked into his stomach.

Loved how it swirled into his limbs and made him reach for your hand to hold when you were walking outside.

Loved how it made him put his arm around your shoulders to pull you tightly into his side as you waited to get your coffees whilst the barista prepared them.

Loved how it grew as he took the lead on this new way of being together the way you had done before when you still lived together.

It made Joe want to introduce you to someone as his girlfriend, knowing full well that you hadn’t had that conversation yet, and that you’d likely have a melt down, but God.

It was just what he wanted to do, he couldn’t help it.

He wouldn’t.

There was a high probability that you’d actually murder him if he pulled a stunt like that.

The fact that you were kissing like this outside of your flat right now was already sort of stretching it, Joe knew.

You let Joe kiss you on his sofa for a minute. Let him slide his nose around yours with an open mouth that hovered over yours inbetween kisses. He made you work for it, having to lift up your head for more when he teased you for too long.

When you felt how Joe started readjusting his position on top of you, you knew you had to break it off.

“Hmm– Joe, no, I gotta–”

“Hm?”

“I gotta go, there’s– stop, there’s a potential flatmate coming over in a bit, I gotta– Joe!”

Joe finally broke away with an annoyed grumble leaving his throat as he did.

“Fine.”

“I can... I could always come back after?”

Joe shifted enough to let you escape the sofa.

“Hmm, you could, but I do have an early morning, so it’s probably not worth the trouble.” Joe sighed, lying back with an arm curled behind his head, watching you twist your clothes so it all sat right again.

“No?”

“I’ll probably be asleep by the time you make it back here.”

“Well,” you started, slinging your arms into your coat. “All depends on how long this is going to take. If it’s another 19-year-old trying to negotiate for a 30-70 rent split first thing, I’ll only be a second.”

“God, for your sake, I hope it’s not another student. But for my sake...” Joe made big eyes, giving you a suggestive look that broke into a smile when you laughed.

You gave Joe a last quick kiss as you bent over the sofa and told him you’d see him later, all casual.

Joe’s smile lingered as he watched you walk out.

“Call me when you get home!”

Yea... there was something living inside Joe’s chest.

And it was cuddly and fuzzy and comfortable and good...

For now.

---

The Taglisted

@ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @bylermaxmayfield, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson, @choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @djoseph-quinn, @dolcevit4, @eddies-puppet, @emma-munson, @emotionaldreamer, @everythinghasafacee, @figmentofquinn, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @hanahkatexo, @harringtonfan4, @hazelenys, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @keikoraven, @kennedy-brooke, @lovelyblueness, @manda-panda-monium, @mandyjo8719, @mexicanfolklore, @munson-mjstan, @nadixq, @nglharry, @notverywise, @pepperstories, @phyllosilicate-s, @royale1803, @sherrylyn628, @sidthedollface2, @solzi1420, @songforeddiemunson, @sweetberry47, @take-everything-you-can, @thebellenouvelle, @tlclick73, @werepartnersnow, @winterwakesthewolf, @witchwolflea, @yelyahcardella, @yunirgo

taglist currently full, sorry

#Joseph Quinn #Joe Quinn #Joseph Quinn x You #Joe Quinn x You #Joseph Quinn x Reader #Joe Quinn x Reader #Joe Quinn Fanfic #Joe Quinn fanfiction #Joseph Quinn Fanfic #Joseph Quinn Fanfiction #joe quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x y/n #icallhimjoey #define close #explain us #reinvent love

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damn-stark · 10 months

Text

Chapter 14 No time to die

Chapter 14 of Moonlight

A/N- Aemond’s trying to be like Daemon, but we all know who’s really like her uncle/step-dad.

Warning- Swearing, angst, some fluff, blood, death and violence, SPOILERS for future events of HOTD.

Pairing- Aemond Targaryen x Velaryon!fem-reader, Cregan Stark x Velaryon!fem-reader

Episode- After 1x09, events based off of Fire and Blood

(If you want to be tagged let me know)

————

Control your wife Aemond. That’s what they’re telling him now.

What she did is not lady like. It’s like living with a bunch of Septa’s now, everyone tells you how you should act, that you aren’t ladylike. But you are! Can’t ladies like being a part of battles and also like gowns and being kept all pretty all at the same? Your great great grandmother Queen Visenya was like that.

They want you to treat Astraea like some pet, rather than what she is, a dragon! They want you to be seated by a fire as if you’re not a warrior from both sides of your family!

Fuck them! Fuck their allies, you’ll end them all.

“How’s he doing?” You ask Vanessa as you lay your head back on the tub.

“Drunk on milk of the poppy,” she responds. “His face is getting puffier because of it…or so they say.” She walks to the tub and pours a sweet scented oil in the water so that sweat and blood smell washes off your body.

“Gods are cruel to keep him alive,” you grumble and sink further in the hot water. “I wish I could see him. See what karma has been doing to him.” But no, only a selected few can go see Aegon; his mother, Aemond, some maesters, and his mothers servants. Everyone else is forbidden from entering. And the only way you get information is because Vanessa is friends with one of the servants.

“Not enough,” Vanessa responds and walks away from the tub.

You giggle and close your eyes to try and find some peace while Aemond is getting his ear talked off about what happened earlier.

“Hey, I thought about it, I want to get rid of my braids,” you let Vanessa know. “Let my hair be loose. Perhaps it’s not the best with the babies coming in a few months, but I want to change my look.”

“That sounds good, I’ll undo your braids on the morrow,” Vanessa of course agrees with you. “I’ll go buy hair accessories so we can put it in your hair.”

You smile softly. “That will be marvelous. Before you go, remember to tell the girls to let the birds sing. It might not be affective, but words are words.”

Vanessa hums in agreement seconds before the door opens.

“Control your wife,” Aemond interjects exactly what you knew they’d say. “That’s what they’re telling me. They’re threatening to chain Astraea in the dragonpit.”

You slowly open your eyes and push yourself to sit up, noticing Vanessa slip away to leave Aemond and you alone.

“They can try, she won’t let them. And when they can't, do they want to lock me up too?” You ask him as he takes his long coat off. “Whip me for going against them? They attacked Astraea. I defended myself after almost getting killed.”

Aemond sighs and takes all his tops off to just be in his pants. When he takes his shoes off he finally makes his way to you. “They won’t hurt you,” he assures you as he sits by the tub. “They won’t touch you. I told them what happened. They deny it.”

Of course they deny that they demanded you get killed. No one would be stupid enough to admit that, nor are you pointing fingers. You’re simply complaining out of anger. You still need to be close to tear them down after all.

“Perhaps this gives you a reason to stay here?” He says as he takes his leather hair tie off, letting his long blond-sliver hair fall over his shoulders.

You want to smile, but due to his question you hold it back and lean towards him to scoff against him. “Uh, no. I have dragon blood, I’ll ride. And if I meet a dragonriders death then I know I have fought well.”

Aemond exhales in annoyance, but you see his little smile. “Has the maester come to check on you?” He asks as he grabs your hand and gently caresses it, not caring if he’s getting wet.

You offer him a sweet smile as you shake your head. “No, but I feel fine.”

“Y/N.”

“Aemond,” you cut him off. “I’m fine. I don’t feel any pain. No cramps, besides this bath is really helping. I’m okay. I’ll go get checked tomorrow if you’re really worried.”

Aemond holds your gaze for a moment as he thinks, but he soon sighs and gives in to your offer.

“Now,” you say sweetly. “Why don’t you come in with me?” You smirk at him. “You must be tired. I can give you a nice head massage. Relieve your stress.” You talk sweetly.

Aemond reaches for your cheek and caresses it. “How about I treat you tonight? You treated me well this morning.”

You don’t argue, you pull back and wait for him. Once he’s in the water he climbs behind you and pulls you back to rest against him. You don’t say anything for a while, you let him take care of you, and you most of all enjoy the silence because it lets you think.

“I’ve been thinking,” you interject as you fiddle with his fingers that he keeps on your knee. “With…Jacaerys gone,” you swallow thickly and try your best to avoid falling into your grief at this instant. “We should strike Daemon next. He doesn’t seem to be moving, nor has he asked for more support of the new dragonriders. With their forces split, and with only one dragon we can hit him hard and take him out of the board. He’s the Black's most important piece.”

Aemond sighs. “I thought you were supposed to be relaxing.”

You are, you’re just planting your seeds and keeping promises.

“I am,” you answer quietly and tilt your head to his shoulder to look up at his face. “This is mindless talk. I’m just sharing my thoughts. Unless you want to talk about how handsome you look right now, or how my seamstress is making the best gowns to prepare for when I get bigger.”

Aemond smirks as he brushes his fingers on your jaw and down your neck. “You’ll talk to me about them eventually. You always have.”

You grin. “Yeah well, my cousins were always far. Helaena never found much interest in that. And all the other highborn ladies my age never liked being my friend. You listened so I talked.”

Aemond hums. “Tell me then,” he says.

You smirk at the ceiling. “Well,” you go on and let him caress your body with his long and warm fingers. “Since winter is coming we’ve added long sleeves, but you know I find them very constricting so we’ve made some sheer, others have slits so they fall off my arms. Or we've added cloaks to go over the thinner dresses. I’ve decided that I want to wear more Velaryon colors, so those dresses are adorned with pearls and silver. The purple dresses also have silver, oh! And she’s embroidering dragons on them too!”

Without any complaints, without nodding to sleep, Aemond listens to every word, just like he would when you were kids. Sometimes, in some moments your relationship feels like it was before Lucerys death, and it’s nice and beautiful. Albeit that fact always lingers in the back of your head, never letting you forget.

“There’s this one dress that is two pieces, a darker sleeveless cloak over the lighter and silk lilac dress,” you continue. “And it’ll have dragonscales that sort of cascade down the skirt. It’s truly beautiful. And of course she’s made red gowns with gold. But oh! She made me this beautiful purple night gown.”

Out of excitement you get out of the water and rush to the rack to grab the nightgown and throw it on even if your body is still wet. “Look!” You exclaim and run back to him to show off the beautiful nightgown designed for you.

Aemond gets out of the bath and wraps the towel around his torso but his eyes never leave you. He smiles and his eyes soften. “You’re beautiful.”

The night gown was constructed of a light lilac silk that had slits that showed your bare legs. A shear cover connected to the top but as it flowed down it worked as a second skirt, a cover. Since you can’t sleep with any accessories on, there’s flame designs on the skirt.

“Can you imagine when I get bigger?” You ask and approach him. “Two babies. I probably won’t be able to walk.” You giggle and when you reach him you wrap your arms around his neck. “You’ll be with me though, right? I don’t want to do it alone. It’s two,” you whisper with concern.

Aemond holds your arms and gently caresses them. “I will,” he assures you. “Wherever I go, you’ll go. I won’t leave you alone. And nothing will happen to you. I’ll make sure of it.”

You offer him a nervous smile before you lay your head on his chest. Aemond embraces you tightly and makes sure to caresses the back of your head.

“You’ll make it. I swear,” he adds. “You’re strong. And that won’t take you away from me.”

You sigh and now grow worried about that too, it’s not just one babe, it’s two. There’s double the risk that you’ll meet your end that day, and that thought terrifies you. You don’t want to die that way.

If only you could have your mother with you when the twins come…

——

*A FEW MONTHS LATER*

Dear Jacaerys

Hm, last time I wrote a letter was for Lucerys, to manage my grief in the only way I could while I lived with the people who are guilty. Now I write to you…how tragic is that?

I wonder if mother ever thinks all this is worth it? I sometimes think it’s not, I mean we lost you already. We lost Viserys too that same day. We lost Visenya, Lucerys. Grandmother. That Iron Throne isn’t worth it.

But, then I grow angry. And when I'm angry I know that it has to be worth it. All the loss has to be worth something. That’s what keeps me fighting. That’s what keeps me trying to accomplish my promise to you, little brother.

Anyway, you must want to know what’s going on, well I’ll tell you. Daeron has joined the war. I forget he exists sometimes. Regardless, he’s helping the Hightower army and winning, so he hasn’t come to King's Landing. Other battles rage on but that’s not really important now.

What is important is the fact that what once was a seed, is now a blooming lively flower. Aemond took my idea, we march to Harrenhal tonight.

The council was against his plan—or mine that he took as his own. But he ignored them all, now he, me and Ser Criston are marching the entire army of four thousand strong to Harrenhal. I of course warned our mother a fortnight ago. Here’s what I wrote,

“Aemond, Ser Criston, and I will march with the entire army to Harrenhal in two weeks' time, on the day of the full moon. Warn your husband. And I ask one thing, please take care of Aerion, he will remain at King’s Landing with my handmaiden Vanessa, please take them under your care.

Other than that, come take your throne. And I hope you keep my ring safe, I will return to you to get it back.”

You know how much I dislike Daemon, but he’s mothers greatest asset, her happiness after losing so much. I can’t deny her what little she has of it. So I’m putting my grudge aside for now for her.

Will he heed my warning? Who knows, mother sent back dragon glass to tell me that she received my message, so let’s hope they do.

Anyway, yes, I am 8 months along, so what am I doing flying to a potential battle? Aemond doesn’t want to leave me behind, nor do I actually want to be apart from him. It’d be a mistake and I’m too scared with the babies coming so soon. Then again…if they’re Cregan’s perhaps I have made a grave mistake by going with Aemond….

It’s a good thing the Hightowers have dark hair, and I do have some Baratheon blood in me from our grandmother Rhaenys, so if they come out with dark hair that’s my best excuse…Fuck. Let’s hope they both come out silver-haired.

I miss you, I love you.

Your sister, y/n.

It’s been 19 days since that letter was written, it’s been 19 days of flying over a long trail of soldiers frightened of a battle that might await them at Harrenhal. It’s been even longer since you wrote your mother that warning. No one has said anything about her taking King’s Landing since you all started your journey, so your nerves have been eating away at you.

If she has though you’ll know sooner rather than later considering you’re approaching the castle at Harrenhal, and Daemon hasn’t come out to give Aemond a ferocious meeting. In fact it’s quiet in the fact that metal doesn’t sing as it hits against each other, horse hooves don’t stomp on the ground like thunder in the sky, and cries don’t erupt from the ground.

Still Aemond is cautious, he lands first while he has you wait upon Astraea in the sky. He returns to you not so much longer and gives you the all clear with a nod.

So your mother heeded your warning?

Astraea lands outside the castle walls beside Vhagar, and 19 days of going up and down rope ladders with a huge fucking belly doesn’t get any easier.

Maybe staying home wasn’t such a terrible idea. Soaking in a bath sounds nice at this very moment…

Regardless, since you’re slow to dismount your dragon, Aemond is already waiting for you on the ground, he watches you carefully since he can’t reach you. And when you are in his arms length, he quickly grabs you and helps you down. He did the same thing for 19 days. If he could, he would climb all the way up and carry you down, but he can’t do such a thing.

“Come on, I’ll arrange our chambers so you can rest,” he whispers in your ear as he takes the helm off your head.

You grab his arm and wait a moment there to catch your breath. “Yes, just let me…” you trial off and exhale as you also grab onto your huge swollen belly.

Aemond’s gaze stays on your face, you can feel his stare as watches for any sort of discomfort you’ll express.

Besides your usual discomfort that you’ve felt since the twins grew bigger though, you’re fine.

“Okay,” you breathe out. “I'm better. It just doesn’t get easier. Especially with that stupid helm on my head,” you whine and stand up straight. “I can barely breathe as it is with the twins, and now that. I swear.”

Aemond scoffs. “It’s for your own good. People want to use you to spite me, or your mother. The Battle at the Gullet proved that. I don’t want to run any risks.” He hangs your metal helmet on his side and hooks your arm around his. “Come, it seems we’re celebrating tonight.”

Yes. We are.

Aemond leads you towards the entrance that now has Aegon’s green banners on the side of the grand gates. It stands out amongst all the scorched grass and black haunting walls. Once you’re past the gates, rather than being received by a devious man, you’re welcomed by The Hand, Ser Criston Cole, and some of his soldiers.

“My Prince,” Ser Criston Cole greets with a bow. “Princess. Welcome to Harrenhal.”

The others welcome Aemond and you, their Prince and Princess Regent with silence. Daemon and his soldiers aren’t here anymore, besides the people that lived here already the castle is left deserted.

He heeded your warning. Good.

How will Aemond react to this though? He came expecting a battle, now all that welcomes him is disappointment. So you watch him, you see him study the castle and all the soldiers that watch him for a sign of anger; because his anger is a fearsome thing, ever since he became Prince Regent you’ve seen him display an anger that’s strange to you. It’s kind of frightening.

“It seems Daemon and his River Scum,” Aemond breaks the silence and catches you off guard by how calm he is by this fact. “Rather flee than face my wrath!” He proclaims.

Sure. That’s what it is.

“Let it be known that Daemon Targaryen is a craven!” Aemond exclaims proudly, bringing excitement to the men who had done nothing but walk and be scared for 19 days.

“We celebrate tonight and tomorrow we plan,” he finishes and then surprises you by pressing a kiss on the side of your head.

The men’s clamoring grows louder, and as it does Aemond looks around the courtyard. “Wench!” He shouts and pulls you towards an older woman with brown and grey hair. “Bring out three of your best handmaidens, and have them come meet your princess. Have our chambers prepared and a warm bath ready for the Princess.”

The lady bows her head and quickly scurries off to do what she was told, leaving you alone with him by an entrance to the castle while the others gathered towards the center of the courtyard.

“<Aemond,” you interject in High Valyrian. “You seriously aren’t going to leave me alone. Let me come with you, I know you’ll meet with Ser Cristion and the others for a short discussion.>”

Aemond cups your cheeks since your arms are covered with black gleaming armor, and leans in. “<I won’t be gone long. I’ll go have dinner with you in our chambers. But you are to rest for tonight. You can join me tomorrow.>”

You widen your eyes to plead, but he just presses a soft kiss on your lips and then caresses your belly safely guarded under chain mail.

“<Go take that armor off its too heavy.>”

You scoff. “That’s not the only thing. I wish they’d come out already,” you whine.

Aemond snickers and presses his forehead against yours. “We’re close to meeting them.”

You can’t help your smile even though they’re currently a pain. However, you then grow sad over the child you left behind. He’s one now, he can walk, and he got all sad when you said goodbye. He had the saddest blue eyes that gleamed with tears. It broke your heart.

But hopefully he’ll feel better with your mother there with him. He did adore her before.

“And we’ll return home soon,” Aemond assures you without needing to be told what had made you so upset. “Now, go. They’re waiting.”

You look back at the door and see three women, they all have dark hair; one is short and plump with kind brown eyes and a nervous smile you know she’s just putting on out of courtesy. Another was average height and curvy, she didn’t smile, she didn't meet your gaze, she kept her head ducked. And the third woman is tall and slim, you can’t tell if she’s young or old, her dark green eyes meet yours without shame and with a certain confident determination; she isn’t beautiful, but she is charming in a sense. She’s kind of frightening too.

“Aemond,” you plead again and face him.

Said man brushes the loose strands of hair out of your face and again just comforts you. “I’ll be there soon, my love.”

You exhale and nod. He gives you another kiss but you don’t return it this time because you get upset that he’s leaving you with a bunch of strangers that were just loyal to Daemon, not so long ago—And neither of them know that you’re secretly supporting your mother so what if they try to poison you?

Aemond scoffs in response to your refusal, but not out of anger he finds it amusing. “Be careful,” he tells you.

You roll your eyes to the side. “I hope you find me dead in the tub,” you grumble and then turn on your heels and walk to the door. Of course four guards follow behind you, and the girls that came out to greet you also follow you inside in between the guards and you.

It’s a silent walk for the most part as one of them guides you to your chambers through the twisted halls, but you hate it, especially if they might think of you as an enemy. So you do the best thing you can and at least try to befriend them. Just so at least if they had it planned, now they won’t kill you.

“I don’t know how long I’ll stay but, the three of you will still help with plenty in my current state, so is it okay if I know your names?” You ask them.

The nice looking lady guiding you looks back and smiles as she introduces herself. “My name is Riven, Princess. I’m at your service.”

You offer her a kind smile. “Nice to meet you, Riven.”

“I am Lys,” the serious woman introduces herself. “My Princess.”

You smile at her and then glance at the third girl—lady?

“I am Alys Rivers, Princess,” she says and bows her head.

“Well It’s nice to meet you all, and I’m sorry in advance for my attitude, it’s been all over lately,” you giggle.

Alys shakes her head. “Not to worry, we understand. You must be extremely tired. I don’t know how you’re traveling with how far along you seem to be. It’s brave”

You tap your belly and shake your head. “Thank you, and I truly don’t know either. Love for my husband perhaps, or a sense of anger for the prince that once resided here.” You say and look ahead.

“Anger is the best motivation, revenge is even better,” Alys interjects.

You glance at her over your shoulder and slowly smile wider. “I couldn’t have said it better. Nice.”

The corner of her thin lips pull to a smile, and she follows by bowing her head as a thanks.

Now, once they take you to the chambers you’ll be staying at, they're quick to prepare a bath and take your armor off. They help as gently as they can, and once you’re in that bath it feels like heaven, it doesn’t fail to lull you to sleep after a long day. So by the time you’ve changed into your evening gown and dinner approaches, you can’t even stay awake that long.

The slumber that took you captive was so deep that you didn’t even wake when Aemond walked in just at the time he said he would join you. He finds you laid back on the bed, snoring quietly, and your belly pointed at the ceiling.

He thought you looked too precious to wake so he just quietly admires you with a soft awe-struck smile, and then very gently, with the softest touch, caresses your cheek.

He meant what he said those many months ago, he didn’t want to be parted from you. Ever. It was a selfish desire, but it’s one he’s been loyal to since he was a timid boy and you were a rebellious girl always having his back. He can’t even stand the thought of losing you, so the safest place for you is at his side. And if it comes to it, if it comes to choosing, he’d choose you over the twins on that birthing bed, he’d choose you over even Aerion. The world could burn before he lost you.

Nevertheless, you slept through the night without waking up. When you did it was dawn, or it seems like it, it’s raining outside so it’s difficult to know. It just isn’t very dark outside anymore. But most importantly Aemond is sleeping beside you.

He looks peaceful. Beautiful under the soft light. It’s still so bizarre how much love you still possess for him—or really a man you know is still in there, buried for only you to see. There’s a good side to him, a sweet and caring side to him that he’s carried ever since he was a freckled faced boy who kept to himself. It’s said he lost it now that he’s a grown man, but you see it everyday, of course it is different now, but it’s still there, and it’s that sweet side, that protective, caring, and gentle side of him that you’re attached to, that you love deeply and can’t come to hate.

You want to. You wanted to, but…your heart and soul can’t muster up those emotions.

Is it cruel of you? Maybe. It probably makes you a terrible person, but you can’t help from what your heart wants. Perhaps if you hadn’t grown up together you would be able to hate him.

And maybe you still find him attractive, and beautifully majestic. Maybe you cling onto the hope that he’ll change for the better. And…you also hate the thought of him being with someone else regardless of what you did, so you stay with him so he’ll only love you.

However, there is one thing that you know now even with all the love you still harbor for Aemond, if Cregan had asked you now to stay with him, to be his wife over Aemond’s, you’d accept his proposal. Perhaps then you could have avoided disappointment, betrayal, you could have saved your brothers and kept your heart. Perhaps then it would be easier to hate Aemond.

But life isn’t different, you’re here with Aemond, next to him and admiring him as he sleeps—and also working behind his back to secretly destroy his family and the side he’s loyal to.

Life has turned out to be a queer thing...

Oh Aemond, why couldn’t our lives have been easier?

You caress his cheek as he remains asleep, and still can’t help but smile softly at him before you press a kiss on his nose, and then get up. Or you struggle to anyway. And since he stays asleep you try to do what you need quietly, while your mind is loud with many different thoughts.

Like the one most important thing, is it selfish to love both Aemond and Cregan?

It’s not like you haven’t tried letting Cregan go, you’ve tried, but it doesn’t work. No matter what, he’s always with you. He’s still the very breath you need to stay alive…

Gods.

If only you could talk to your mother, she’d know what to say.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Aemond’s voice startles you.

You stop what you’re doing and look back, catching him still laid down with his gaze on you.

“You looked too precious,” you say sweetly. “And you need sleep, Aemond. You’ve been going to sleep late, and waking up early. You can’t manage an army with your mind all exhausted.” You smile and continue to braid your hair.

Aemond hums and keeps his gaze on you. “You missed dinner,” he points out.

You sigh deeply. “I know,” you groan. “Forgive me. I got so tired when I was in the bath. I just wanted to close my eyes for a moment, but I just never woke up. I didn’t even feel when you came in. Sorry.”

He shakes his head and sits up. “Don’t worry. You should forgive me. I’ve been the one dragging you around camp after camp. It probably isn’t easy.”

You laugh softly. “No. So it felt nice sleeping on a bed.”

He hums in agreement and gets out of bed to walk towards you to give you a gentle peck on the lips, before he then walks off to use the chamberpot.

“So what now? What was decided last night?” You ask him loudly so he can hear you.

“We were just discussing shifts, guard posts. And nothing worthwhile. We’ll have a meeting later today about what to do,” he responds.

You slowly shift around and watch him return to the room.

“We’ll go after we break fast,” he adds. “I’ll have it sent here. And after that we'll talk with the maester.”

“Aemond.”

“Y/N,” he counters and faces you as he picks up his clothes. “With you so close to going to labor we'll stay here until after the twins are born.”

You blink and stop braiding your hair to slowly narrow your gaze. “What?” You quip. “But what of Aerion? Aemond I can't possibly stay here. We can’t.”

Aemond puts his stuff down and approaches you, he kneels down in front of you and takes your hands in his. “My love, you can’t possibly keep traveling anywhere else. I doubt we’ll make it back to King's Landing. We’re staying until after the twins are born. And as for Aerion, he’s safe there. No one will harm him.”

You pout. “Perhaps, but I’ll miss him. And my cat.”

Aemond laughs softly as he cups your chin and leans in. “I’m sure you’ll have your hands full with twins soon. Your heartache will hurt less.”

That was no comfort whatsoever.

You sigh nonetheless and continue on. “You’ll join the fights happening around in the Riverlands then?” You ask sadly. “I mean unless we want to flee like Daemon the Craven?”

He was no craven, you can admit that, but it’s what Aemond wants to hear.

“No,” Aemond deadpans and gets up to continue to change. “I’ll fight. Our army will. We aren’t cowards. We’ll show them who the real warriors are.”

You hum softly and once you finish your braid you begin to smile. “Okay Aemond,” you call out and push yourself off the chair.

“Why don’t you ever ask for help,” Aemond grumbles.

You flick your wrist down and brush him off. “I don’t need it right now. Anyway!” You exclaim and waddle towards the vanity to pick up glimmering headpieces. “One of the girls, Alys, helped me pick them out, but I can’t decide between the two.” You turn and show him a silver headpiece that has a silver majestic seahorse from your Velaryon sigil. The headpiece is pretty simple, nothing else decorates the band since the Velaryon seahorse made of tiny shards of sea glass is the main design.

“Or! This one,” you offer him a different option, another silver option, but this time this silver band is made of dragons that wrap around your head and meet at the middle with their heads just slightly pointed upward. This headpiece also has thin chains dangling down the sides.

“Which one will look better with that dark red gown?” You ask as you point to the gown hanging over the long mirror. “Hm? Alys said this one,” you say and raise the dragon one. “But I want your opinion.”

Aemond pulls his shirt on and then looks between both options. He takes a moment before he points to the seahorse one. Albeit you don’t feel convinced with his choice.

“I think I’ll go with the dragon one,” you declare, earning a confused grumble from aemond. “Thanks!”

“You’re wearing your chest armor,” Aemond commands as you put the headpieces back down. “I don’t want to hear you argue.”

You groan deeply. “It’s heavy, and it’s uncomfortable on my breasts. Can’t I just stick with you all day.” You turn and waddle towards the gown.

“You are, but arrows fly y/n, stuff still happens.”

You frown in discontent. “You’re such a worrywart,” you grumble.

“Yeah well I always have to be when my wife is never careful,” he argues.

You roll your eyes to the corner and catch his pressing stare, it makes you giggle and want to argue back. However, as you part your lips, a knock then raps on the door.

“It’s Ser Criston, My prince,” said man announces himself, catching both Aemond and you by surprise. “It’s urgent. Please meet me and the rest of the council at the main hall.” His footsteps then recede, and Aemond and you share a concerned look.

Since Ser Criston said it was urgent, the handmaidens come and help you dress quickly, but you don’t bother to break fast. Aemond and you immediately make your way to the main hall where the commanders, a maester and Ser Criston already wait with worried looks. As if someone had just died.

“What is it, Ser Criston?” You address the man’s concern as you clasp your hands over your belly.

The knight sighs deeply as he looks at Aemond before sharing the urgent news. “A Raven came in this morning. Princess Rhaenyra, and Prince Daemon have taken the capital.”

You stiffen, and hide your proud smirk by clenching your hands and looking down to try and look upset.

“Prince Aegon and Princess Jaehaera escaped along with a few men, but the Queen Dowager and the Queen were left behind,” he adds, causing Aemond to clench his own fists harder, to the point that his knuckles are growing whiter.

You understand his anger, you don’t wish for things to change, you’re proud and gleeful that your mother successfully took King’s Landing back. But you understand why Aemond would be angry.

“How did they know when to attack?” A commander asks the small group of men. “This march was kept secret for a reason.”

You don’t hide by ducking your head, you keep your face serious and your stance firm. You only move to gently cup Aemond’s hand that was forcefully clenching the pommel of the sword you gifted him.

He feels your touch and meets your gaze. He doesn’t suspect you, even if the others watch you with suspicion, he doesn’t doubt you. Even if you, with the help of Lord Larys, are the reason your mother is sitting on that throne now, and why Daemon isn’t here.

“Well mayhaps we shouldn't have to break our heads. Instead we should look amongst us,” Ser Criston counters with anger as his eyes slowly fall on you, and the other commanders look at you too.

They’re accusing you? Yes it was you. But you won’t tell them that. You still need to play your game, there’s much to do.

“Say it, Ser Criston,” Aemond spats out with a fuming look. “Name who you suspect.”

Ser Criston blinks repeatedly and stiffens, whilst you begin to smirk just to piss them off more.

“Perhaps it’s time the Princess stays out of our affairs,” an old Lord with an uneven beard suggests.

You hum and slowly knit your eyebrows in feigned confusion. “Forgive me, tell me your name again?” You sass him.

The man blinks in disbelief and looks around the table as if looking for aid. When he doesn’t find any, he looks at you again and raises his head. “Ser Mayfist.”

You hum with disinterest and let go of Aemond to lean your head forward. “Give me a reason why I should stop coming and I’ll consider not feeding you to my dragon, or have you meet the sharp end of my arrow.”

Aemond scoffs in amusement.

Ser Mayfist glances at Aemond, he sees the anger that hasn’t faded since he found about the news, and cowers, however, Ser Criston is braver, he answers. Not at you though, he doesn’t talk to you. “Pardon my bluntness, my Prince, but she’s the daughter of the Princess. I can’t say you shouldn’t bring her along, but she shouldn’t be here. Her brothers are dead, she has every reason to betray us. To betray you. She could’ve been the leak.”

You look at Aemond, and he meets your gaze and holds it. Doubt doesn’t pass behind his eye, he just sighs and then caresses your belly before pressing a kiss on the side of your head.

“<You. Or me?>” Aemond asks in High Valyrian.

You slide your gaze to Ser Criston and continue to smirk. This time there's malice behind that gesture though. “Why don’t you get your head out of your ass, Ser Criston,” you counter calmly even if you are annoyed. And the knight looks baffled that you dared to talk to him like that after holding your tongue in front of him for every meeting, for years.

“If I wanted to do that I wouldn’t be here,” you continue to sweet talk all of them, like an enchanting song that takes them all captive. “Or I would have killed you already don’t you think, hm? I’m not your mole. I have no desire to help Daemon or my mother. But I’ll tell you, snakes creep in the corridors of the Red Keep. You’ll probably find your mole hiding in the dark corners of the castle.”

“Speak like that about your Princess Regent again Ser Criston and I will have no hesitation in killing you,” Aemond interjects sharply.

Ser Criston bows his head as an offer of forgiveness, but he doesn’t say the words, you know he still suspects you. He might even hate you more now than already did, for some odd reason.

“What we should be asking ourselves is what we are meant to do now?” You change the subject.

Aemond nods stiffly, and then turns around swiftly to storm towards the fireplace lit with burning flames. He clenches his fist and shakes his head before he uses all his pent up rage to swipe the jug of wine off the small circle table by the fireplace, and manages to throw the wine in the fire, causing it to enrage and blow out.

You swallow thickly out of discomfort to this display of anger, but you then just ignore it and walk over to him to grab his arm and lean over to meet his gaze. You don’t say anything, nor does he. He just grabs your hand and caresses your knuckles. He continues to hold your gaze, and as if he found what he was looking for within your eyes, he turns to face his men, and you turn with him.

“Bring Ser Simon Strong to the Courtyard,” Aemond demands. “Along with every man and boy with the name Strong. Drag every bastard out to the mud. Men and women alike.”

You hold onto Aemond and feel your heart jump at the sound of his threat. Yet you don’t show your discomfort. Not there with all the men watching you. You just keep a straight face painted on and follow your husband out.

——

*LATER*

“Let the gods decide if you speak truly,” Aemond’s threatening but cool voice travels over the sound of the pouring rain. “If you are innocent, the Warrior will give you the strength to defeat me.”

Just like he demanded, Ser Simon Strong was brought out—dragged out of his cell and thrown to the courtyard where he was accused of being a traitor to the crown just because he had yielded the castle to Daemon with so much haste. Ser Simon is a traitor, Aemond said, everyone else echoed his accusation, you just stood under shelter and watched the confrontation. You listened as Ser Simon pleaded for his life, swore that he was Aegon’s ally, after all his kin, Lord Larys is a member of the small council. But that man himself is under fire for one, being brothers to Ser Harwin, the supposed father of Lucerys, Jacaerys and Joffrey. And two, well who would trust Lord Larys?

So that exact plea only worked to anger Aemond more. And even if you wanted to do something, (not like you do honestly), no matter what you can’t step in this. It's a fair trial under the law. Everyone else though, all the older and younger men. The children with a bastard name, or the Strong name were dragged out too. And the women were brought out more harshly. How can you help them? Should you?

You sigh and bite the inside of your cheek while you notice a sword being shoved in Ser Simon’s hands.

The man was old and terrified, the fight won’t last long. Still you walk down the steps with servants trailing behind you holding an umbrella, and approach Aemond with a tiny smile.

“<You won’t need it,” you tell him in Valyrian as you cup his jaw. “But good luck.>” You lean in and give him a sweet kiss. When you pull away, Aemond caresses your bottom lip with his thumb before he carefully rubs your belly.

“<Thank you, my love,>” he says and steals one more kiss from you before he turns and slowly unsheathes his sword while he walks to the clearing people left for both men to fight.

It’s not the old man’s life you fear or desire to save, so you watch the duel, you hear the metal sing as the man tries to block Aemond’s swift swings. And just like you predicted the duel doesn't last long whatsoever, Ser Simon is quickly succumbed by Aemond, not only because of his skill, but his speed, his strength and determination. Honestly it’s so impressive that you can’t help but get excited, after all these kinds of things do excite you.

And as Aemond cuts the man to pieces with swift swings you watch his stance and every single move without batting an eye. When he demands the corpse be fed to Vhagar, you clap at Aemond’s success and run over to stand by his side.

Aemond wraps his arm around your waist and kisses the side of your head before he pulls you with him towards the others; the old and young men, the bastards and the women drenched in rain not knowing what’s going on. After all, in cases like these only the man in charge and those who follow him die, not everyone else.

“Let’s make this quick, my y/n and I need to break fast,” Aemond says without any ounce of remorse. You on the other hand grow stiff and guilty.

There’s nothing you can do to spare the old and young men. One by one they met Aemond’s sword and begin to stain the dirty puddles red. It’s the innocent that you can’t stand behind and watch die though, your heart can’t take it, so you quickly try to step-in in the best way you can and will guarantee mercy.

“Aemond, my love,” you interject and grab his wrist and push down the arm he’s holding his sword with. “Perhaps the children can be used as soldiers, or cup bearers, servants, and stable workers? With such a large army I’m sure our men will appreciate the help.”

Aemond holds your gaze, and you feel his grip loosen around his sword.

“My prince, those same boys will grow and seek revenge for today's actions,” Ser Criston rebuttals, making you clench your jaw and roll your eyes towards him. “We can’t spare a life.”

Aemond takes in every word and glances down to think, so you cut in quickly. “They can try. And if word spreads about some rebellion, they can meet a quick end, they’re no match against our dragons.”

Aemond let’s out a deep sigh and doesn’t respond, he steps past Ser Criston and you, and exhales deeply as he tightens his hold around his sword. “Let it be known,” Aemond announces with his chin up and a scowl on his face. “That your pathetic lives were spared by the goodheart of my y/n. Your Princess. Ser Louis you may use them as you see fit.”

One of the commanders nods and has the children taken away harshly. It wasn’t how you wanted it, but at least they didn’t meet a gruesome end just because Aemond felt like it.

“These wenches though,” Aemond continues and points to the women with the tip of his bloody sword. “Feed them to Astraea and Vhagar.”

Huh?

You snap your eyes to the commoner, lower ranked, and servant women all with the name Rivers or Strong, just sentenced to death. Much like with the children innocent to Aemond’s thirst for blood, you could plead for their lives, but you already pleaded for more than you should have.

Yet there is one woman in the line that catches your eye, Alys Rivers, the woman appointed to be your handmaiden.

She meets your gaze with a pleading look. She’s been nice to you, she’s talked to you more than your other handmaidens have, you can’t just watch her die.

“Aemond,” you cut in one last time. “Please can you spare the life of my handmaiden,” you plead to your husband. “She’s been kind to me. She’s helping me, and will help when the twins come. Shes a wetnurse. I need her. Please.” You glance back at Alys, and Aemond follows your line of gaze, but ends up looking at her with disgust. When he meets your gaze he hesitates, but he can’t resist you though so ends up nodding stiffly.

You sigh with relief and quickly turn around to walk over to offer Alys your hand. She’s hesitant, but she then takes it and bows her head.

“Thank you, Princess,” she says.

You offer her a soft nod and a faint smile before you return to Aemond’s side.

“Come,” he says and pats your hand hooked around his arm. “Let’s go break fast.”

You hum in agreement, but then glance back at the women you couldn’t save and spot Alys watching them all be dragged to the gates that go past the castle walls, and lead towards where the dragons rest. You can’t see her face but you do see her clenched fists. You can’t even imagine her grief; watching everyone you once knew die before your very eyes, and all for what? A whim?

Men are scary sometimes when they seek revenge, but a woman's path of revenge is what everyone should really fear.

Just like yours some are silent, most men are loud with their revenge, their search for some justice, but a woman's? Even if we are loud, people usually doubt women, so when we get revenge it’s unexpected, no one sees it coming, so it’s women everyone should fear. Perhaps we should fear her.

——

*LATER*

What can you say to her after what Aemond did to the people that lived here. People she’s lived with, friends, children she’s probably raised. She’s the only one here too, the other girls haven’t come back since this morning. Aemond is busy discussing matters of war and getting updated on what happened since your mother took King’s Landing.

Perhaps you shouldn’t say a thing, she wouldn’t think it’s genuine, but you feel as if you need to. Besides when Aemond is gone like times like these, without Vanessa here you’ll be rather lonely.

“Uh,” you interject and carefully put a silver ring on your finger. “Where is Riven and Lys?”

Alys turns with your evening gown in hand, and answers. “I don’t know. I tried searching for them but I haven’t been able to find them. I think they left.”

You sigh and glance at the golden ring Aemond gave you. “They’re scared?” You ask.

Alys nods. “They have every right to be. But they’re cowards, standing your ground and fighting back is what makes you truly brave.”

You lift your eyes and look at her approaching you through the mirror. “Yes, that’s right,” you agree in many ways than one.

“Now get up and let me help you,” she says. “You will drive your husband mad with this gown.” She smirks.

You smile softly and use the surface of the vanity to push yourself to your feet. As Alys begins to help you dress you finally express what runs through your mind. “I’m sorry for what happened today. I can’t imagine what you must feel.”

Alys stops what she’s doing and slowly looks at you through the tall mirror. “You tried your best to intervene in today's unjustifiable violence. Your actions will be remembered today.”

She truly has no shame expressing herself. You like it.

So you hum softly in comprehension, and when she continues to help you, you continue more lightheartedly. “I’m glad you were brave enough to stay. I’m grateful.”

“Thank you Princess.”

You smile wider and drift your gaze to your reflection.

“But,” she adds. “I should be grateful to you. You saved me from getting slaughtered. You saved my life.”

You sigh and look at her once again. “We have to save who we can. Just because we’re rulers, doesn’t mean we have the right to be cruel. Just know though, if you betray me or my husband I will have no hesitation in killing you.”

Alys meets your gaze and begins to smirk instead of growing uncomfortable or fearful. “Show me I can respect you and I can be your greatest ally.”

You let out a soft laugh. “You have quite a tongue on you, miss. I admire it.” You grin brightly and nod. “I’ll try my best. Albeit you’ll have to excuse me, I’m growing quite irritable the longer these children stay inside me.”

“I can imagine,” she says and walks behind you to tie the laces. “Twins aren’t easy carrying. But from what I know, they should come out soon.”

You exhale deeply. “I hope. Tell me, have you lived here all your life?”

“Yes, I’ve traveled a bit, but not far and not long. I don’t have much money, so I get to stay here,” she shares. “I can’t say it's been easy, but I’m alive, and that I have fought for.”

“I admire it,” you tell her sweetly.

Alys walks in front of you and meets your gaze. “Does it feel fine?”

You nod quickly since it hasn’t started bothering you right away. “It feels fine.” You walk back to the vanity and reach for the empty plate of oranges. Damn. And you’re still craving more. Considering dinner isn’t until later you won’t be fulfilled just yet. And you can’t really walk around without Aemond, even if you have your guards. Damn.

“Alys,” you call out and turn with the empty plate. “Could you go to the kitchen and get more oranges? Please.”

Said women nods without hesitation and quickly leaves with the plate, leaving you alone.

There’s nothing to do here. Why can’t Aemond come back already?

You blow out air and sit down on the chair because your feet are killing you. “Be nice to me and come out already,” you whine as you pat your overgrown belly. You sit back and glance at the scar on your face. You lift your fingers, and trace the scar with the pad of your fingers.

Those boys you tried to defend that night are now gone…you’ll never see them again—

Thuds suddenly sound outside the door, you grow instantly curious about what it could be, but as you listen for more, nothing fills your ears, not even the rain since it stopped raining. It must’ve been some servant or guard. You drop your hand and pick up the book off the vanity surface, you open it to where you were before, but then the door opens.

Alys just left so she won’t return right away, it must be Aemond!

You look back with a smile, but that quickly dies down as you see a skinny pale man creeping in.

He’s not one of your assigned guards, nor a commander or someone that works under Aemond. He looks terrifying with his deep set eyes and his dark cloak.

“Get out!” You yell out as you quickly get up and face the man. “Get out,” you demand again and look past him to call your guards who let this weird man in. But that’s when you see them bleeding out on the ground. “Get out now!”

Your bow and arrow are at the other side of the room, your dagger is sheathed and hanging over your long mirror.

“I can’t possibly do such a thing,” the man says in a gravelly voice. “I have a message to deliver.”

Fuck. Fuck.

You don’t give away where your weapons are, so you quickly try to bolt to get your dagger, but the man is quicker since your belly is weighing you down, so man catches up to you and quickly, and quite harshly pushes you back. When you come to a stop he proceeds to wrap his fingers around your neck.

“My husband—”

“Stuck in meetings,” he cuts you off. “I saw it. He won’t come. Don’t worry I’ll make sure to leave a part of you behind. I’ll carve out those devils from inside ya so he can keep ‘em.”

You slowly curl your lip to scowl and try to move your leg to kick him, but he catches your attempts before you can do it, and points the tip of the blade against your belly.

At the sudden feeling you freeze now with fear. You’ve never been utterly useless like this, you haven’t been pinned down, unable to defend yourself. You’ve never been threatened so up close like this either. Now that you are, you're horrified.

“Move and I’ll make you watch yourself bleed out.” He sneers by your ear. “When the flames finish engulfing this tower I’ll come back and grab your body to deliver it to your mommy. She can keep your head. And your husband can keep your womb.”

Flames?

Flames are nice to you. You’ve proven that to yourself.

Unless you’re just more high tolerant to fucking heat than you’re fucked!

“Then stop talking and do it!” You snap back in a shaky voice.

The man snickers and slides the blade up. He doesn’t press deep enough to cut you, but when he reaches your neck he drags the blade to the side and presses the blade in to cut just the side.

You grunt and begin to heave. The man then lets you go by pushing you back against the wall. He then runs off to the door and picks something off the ground that was tucked under one of your guards, a torch. You try to move towards your dagger, but he lights the torch swiftly and throws the torch inside.

Before he closes the door though he meets your gaze. And rather than cowering with fear or trying to desperately escape at that moment, you hold his gaze and slowly let a menacing smirk grow on your face.

The man looks at you with disgust and sneers, “crazy bitch.” He then slams the door shut.

After that your smirk fades and panic does set. It’s too high up to jump out, and there’s nothing on the side of the outer walls to use to climb up or down. The door is your only exit, but the fire quickly grows and spreads as if it was feeding something off the ground. The flames block the door.

But! Fire, it doesn’t hurt you like it should, so you quickly run through the fire to get to the door. The fire doesn’t hurt your legs, it tickles your skin, but nothing happens, it’s just the bottom of your gown that begins to get touched by the fiery flames.

However, the door seems to be stuck against something, it doesn’t budge. And the knob is getting hot.

“Someone! Please help!” You cry out in hopes there is someone nearby to help you. You slam your fists against the door and continue to yell out for help, but to no avail, thick smoke fills the room and crawls into your lungs quickly, causing you to begin coughing.

Maybe this fucking tower isn’t so high up. You turn, but stop as you see that the flames now eat away at your bed, they’re growing on your vanity, on every piece of wooden furniture, it combines with the flames from the fireplace. It already blocks the window. There’s no balcony in this damn room, so you can’t run there.

The room is getting engulfed by fire quickly; every curtain, the rugs, the sheets on the bed, leaving you to see only bright furious orange and red flames. They continue to eat away at your gown too, making the red color truly glow red as the fire burns it away. It melts the golden chains that hang down your shoulders, and the silver ring on your hand.

The only thing that the fire doesn’t destroy is you, it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t eat away at your skin, or the hairs on your arms, or the silver-white hair on your head. You’re untouched, being able to only watch, feeling the fear slowly fade away and turn to anger. Once again someone’s trying to kill you, but they failed again, they only worked to make you angrier, and only worked to fuel your thirst for revenge.

Thus you watch the flames, you watch it all burn away with a cold stare and faint smirk. You can only imagine the commotion outside, the panic, the pride the creepy man might feel. They would have let Aemond know by now, Ser Criston is probably holding him back from barging in—If he actually cares though.

You could use this moment to escape, return home, maybe even go to Cregan…

But there’s still much to do, there’s still people to take down, and promises to keep. Plus you want to see the look on the creepy man’s face when you come out alive.

He’ll shit himself.

So when the wooden door crumbles when the wood doesn’t hold it up right, you walk past the door frame, and past the burnt corpses of the guards. The hall is engulfed in flames too, most likely so no one could have the chance to save you, but you walk through those furious flames and stride through the twisted halls left empty because of the fire that basked every inch of the tower. All to make sure you would die.

Fuck them. It’ll take a lot more to kill you.

Once you approach the tower's doors they’re slowly getting eaten away by the flames, and you can hear the panicked cries of people, the shouts of Ser Criston instructing men to hold Aemond down. When you touch the wooden doors, a deafening prideful song echoes from Astraea, you recognize her right away.

When you push the flaming doors open the commotion is quickly cut off. Everyone freezes and watches you, the figure walking out of the burning tower, untouched by fire. When you walk past the doors you raise your chin and find Aemond getting held back by guards, his eye gleaming with tears, his nose and eyes red, and tears rolling past his eyepatch. When he realizes you’re not an illusion, he pushes away the men and doesn’t fret to rush to you.

You on the other hand look around the crowd, you see people whisper amongst themselves with shock and disbelief, and Ser Criston and the other commanders look horrified. There’s one person, perhaps more but you only notice her, Alys Rivers looking at you with awe. Albeit Aemond then wraps his green cloak around you to cover your exposed body and steals your attention away.

“Y/N,” he says with panic as he faces you and cups your cheeks. “Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

He was crying.

You blink and lose the anger from your face, and the numbness that took over as you walked through the halls. Fear once again strikes in you as you fully take in what just happened.

“Aemond,” you whisper softly and touch his chest.

Said man lifts your head and spots the blood coming out of the cut the man left on your neck. “Who did this?” He sneers and tilts your head down to meet your watery gaze.

You look at the crowd and see him trying to run through the crowd. He was trying to run out the front gates. He won’t get far though, Astraea is close, you know she’ll be waiting for him.

“A man. He’s trying to run out the gates,” you mutter. “Astraea will catch him though.” You assure him.

Aemond holds your gaze and doesn’t move to catch the man, he looks into your eyes with his glossy eye and tightens his hold on your jaw as relief is all you read off him.

“<My love,>” he whispers, and then presses his forehead against yours to just take in the fact that you’re alive.

“I’m okay,” you assure him softly as you caress his cheeks. “I’m okay. I’m okay.” You press a gentle kiss on his lips, and when you pull back he stares at your lips before he pulls you in for a deeper and more passionate kiss. One he savors, one where he demonstrates all the love he has and fear he had. He doesn’t care that people watch, he kisses you and lets everyone see the love he has for you.

You don’t hold back either and let him take control, you melt into the kiss. You appreciate his love, relish in it proudly, and when he pulls away, you smile at him with glee and relief.

“<Oh my sweet y/n,>” he whispers against your lips before he pulls you in for an embrace. You clutch onto him and dig your head in the crook of his nec. And as he holds you tightly against him you begin to slowly smirk.

Fire doesn’t kill you, but it will kill them. It’s not hard to know that someone from the Green side is the one who wants you dead. They can’t stand the love Aemond has for you, or the control you have over him by simply loving him. But you’ll show them, you’ll burn them all.

Tagged- @namelesslosers @stargaryenx @chainsawsangel @lauftivy @winxschester @cloudroomblog @llarue @padsdarlg @sofietargaryen @gracielikegrapes @dreaming-of-the-reality @itzelpeyton @patdsinner33 @mrsdominickstark @elaena-aerrin @todoroki-slut

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starry-pierrot · 2 months

Text

Sleeping Critters

So I'm not the biggest fan of Poppy...at least until CH3 had come out. Don't get me wrong I still dislike the creators and I'll never pay for the game but the smiling critters and Dogday got me. So have this super indulgent fic! Also this is canon divergent so not 100% accurate to the lore!

Warnings: Mention of cannibalism, death. Kissy Missy is dead (Hoping she's alive in CH4)

Characters: Dogday, Reader, Poppy, Smiling Critters

After defeating the prototype you, Dogday and Poppy try to rebuild what you can of PlaytimeCo to offer whoever is left a safer home.

===================

You were tired.

Very tired.

About a month ago you had finally defeated the prototype, freeing whatever toys that were left in PlaytimeCo from its claws. But that also left you with a lot more work to do. You could have just left it all behind and maybe taken Poppy and Dogday with you but that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of them.

Not to mention you did not have the space to house a partially giant dog.

And he had wanted to stay to watch over the rest of the smiling critters…wherever they are.. Now that Catnap was out of the way they might see some reason. Which is why you were so tired. After everything had been dealt with you agreed to help Poppy and Dogday find the others, to build a new home in PlayTime Co, even if it was temporary.

Who knew when whoever owned the damn buildings would come and legally claim them someday. Sure it’s already been years but you wouldn’t be surprised if the titles were transferred to someone else after so long. But until then rebuilding would at least make everyone more comfortable.

The problem was that…you three had hardly found anyone just yet. Poppy knew there probably wasn’t much of the toys left but still she encouraged you to check every nook and cranny you could. So far you’ve only found a few Mini Huggy’s, a Cat-bee and a Candy cat. It’s not much but it's cute to see them all snuggled on some of the beds in the orphanage.

“Angel, are you sure? I can go by myself.” Dogday asked as he looked at you, the two of you were standing at the entrance to Playhouse. “You haven’t been sleeping much lately.”

“No, I can do it. Besides I’d rather not leave you to potentially cannibalistic little fur balls if I can help it.” You manage to hold back a yawn before reaching for the door. “I’ve handled them before, I got the flares.”

Meanwhile Dogday only had his hands and a pipe you had torn off from the wall when it was loose, you’d be more worried if you hadn’t closed his lower half with a sewing kit. And now he seems to get around alright on that little bright yellow gym scooter. But still you worry he might get overwhelmed.

“If you say so. Just please don’t go too far from me.” Dogday urges as you open the door and slip inside. Much like the last time you visited the place was a mess, meaning those wheels on Dogday’s scooter aren’t going to be much help.

“Seems the dog is gonna have to do a trick to get around.” You tease as you step over some toys that were left on the ground.”

“Har har, Angel.” There was no malice in the fake laugh, planting his hands on the ground he hauled himself up into a handstand he began to follow behind you as you searched. If it was one thing that was annoying it was all the crawling you had to do, your knees weren't meant for all this crawling!

“Hey Little critters! We have food back in the orphanaaaggee!” You try to draw them out but so far the two of you haven’t seen any of them. You don’t remember seeing many on the prototype, it couldn’t have killed all of them could it? No, there were far too many.

“Catnap is gone, you don’t have to listen to him anymore!” Dogday called out as he crawled around on his belly, “Come on you little fellas!”

Where the heck could they be hiding? This play house wasn’t that big! Maybe if-

CRACK!

“ANGEL!”

Suddenly the floor snapped under you, you would think you would have remembered to check that considering what happened the last time. But suddenly you were tumbling down and down..and down-what did you find a secret deep tunnel or something?!

“Ooof!” Hitting the ground hard you could help but gasp as the wind was knocked out of you, your already tired body screaming in pain from the impact.

“Angel!?” You could barely hear him calling from the top of the hole, “ Angel are you okay?? Say something!”

It took you a moment but eventually you turned over, “Yeah…y-yeah I’m alive.” With a groan you sat up noticing that you seem to have fallen into a hidey hole. It looked like it had been dug out, there was another hole further up but there was no way you could reach it.

“Stay there I’ll…I’ll come find you!” Dogday said, “That or I’ll find some rope.”

“Nowhere I can go!” You call up and after a few more moments of talking Dogday was off to find something to pull you up with. Which just left you here…alone…in a dark and quiet spot. Oh this was going to be terrible. You didn’t even have your phone or heck even a book on you.

Sure you were fine when you were moving around but now that you had to sit here and wait in an admittedly comfortable little spot…your eyes were drooping after the first ten minutes. You knew you should have listened to Poppy when she told you to get more rest. Jerking your head up you shook yourself trying to wake yourself up a little more. But that didn’t seem like it was working much.

“Dogday?” you tried calling up hoping that he was still nearby but with no response you had no choice but to sit and stay. “Well shit..” Your eyes grew heavier and soon against your will your eyes closed as your head dipped into the crook of your shoulder.

Only for you to jerk awake once more which quickly turned into a little spat with your body as you tried to stay awake. Too bad your body had won out eventually.

You had fallen asleep. --

“Angel!”

“Angel!!”

You cracked your eyes open to the darkness, feeling awfully comfortable in the little hole you had fallen in. Was it always this warm down here?

“Angel!” Dogday yelled whispered at you, frantically trying to get your attention. Looking up you could see him erratically moving a hand only to stop once he’s realized you were awake. “Oh thank god! Don’t move! I’ll l-lower the rope down!”

He must've found some rope. Good thing because your legs were starting to cramp from the curled position you were in, “How long was-”

“SHHHH!” He quickly hushed you. “I said don’t move! Be quiet!”

What? “Wh-why?”

“Sh! Sh! Just-quiet! And..don’t look down.”

Well now you had to look down. And when you did you had to force every bit of nerve in your body to stay still, a squeak just barely escaping your lips. Even stuck in the dark you could make out a Catnap Smiling Critter sitting right on your chest, sleeping. Little growling snores filled the space and when you looked around you could see at least one of every single smiling critter either sleeping next to you or outright on top of you.

Something touched your head and looking up revealed the rope Dogday had lowered down to you. Craftycorn had taken your right arm hostage but luckily the left one was free.

“Just hang on…gonna t-tug you up alright?” It wasn’t much of a game plan but the idea of being tugged out only to have to run was better than staying down here in a potential feeding hole. Lifting your free arm up you almost grip the rope when you feel movement.

Looking back down your eyes stare into the little Catnap’s eyes alight with their white pupils. The two of you stared at one another for a moment. It wasn’t attacking. But if you broke the spell that seemingly had overtaken the two of you…would it? You did come here after all to try and get them to go back with you, to save them.

Best case scenario Dogday pops your shoulder out of your socket while pulling you up to get you away from the man eating plushies so the both of you can run.

Worst case you become a meal.

Taking a breath you lick your dry lips “T-the prototype is dead....we can feed you. At the orphanage.” You whispered, “I can fix you up.” You knew the Critters were experiments made from children but did they even know that anymore? Dogday had made it sound like they still could understand what was going on like most normal children but would the years of being down here change their view point to follow the strongest out of the pack?

Still the little creature stared at you for a long while before it bumped its head against your cheek making a little sound.

You felt your heart beat hard in your chest as you stayed still, soon it became apparent that the little critter wasn’t going to hurt you. Lowering your arm down you carefully petted between it's ears, “Um…ya know what just let them nap for a moment.” You say while looking up at a panicked and still nervous Dogday. --

It took almost an hour before the other Smiling critters in the hole woke up and much like the Catnap one they all just stared at you. It was a little unnerving in the dark but once Dogday pulled you up and the little critters climbed up behind you, you couldn’t help but coo a little bit at them surrounding your feet.

“Ohh who’s an adorable little monster?” You smile as you pick up a Hoppy Hopscotch and scratch right under it's chin. Catnap had climbed up onto your shoulder and a Dogday one had been attached at your ankle.

“Angel…please don’t tease them like that.” Dogday’s voice was flat, clearly unamused at you acting like they were adorable little creatures and not the monstrous flesh eating plushies they were.

“But look at them!” Holding out Hoppy you pouted at the dog, “They’re harmless!...at least now they’re harmless!”

Dogday’s eye twitched at that, “I question how much self preservation you have. Lets just get them back to the orphanage. I’m sure Poppy will be happy we found more toys.” Seems the dog still had some nerves about the critters, but it was only right considering what had happened down here.

"Okay okay, I'm coming!" Pulling Hoppy back you began walking behind the dog and the smiling critters followed closely behind.

“I’m cooking all of you some beef.”

--- Please like and reblog if you like!

#poppy playtime #poppy playtime dogday #poppy playtime poppy #poppy playtime reader #dogday & reader #poppy playtime smiling critters #smiling critters #smiling critters catnap #smiling critters dogday #smiling critters hoppy hopscotch #poppy playtime player #my writing

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ofoceansandtombsanew · 1 year

Text

tags: f!reader (afab), spoilers for anime onlys

a/n: after some very popular demand, here is another makima piece (more specifically a sequel to my last fic). this is not one of those standalone sequels however, it would be best to read the prequel to best understand this one.

man is the breast, heaven is the playground (prequel)

AO3

i. ハッピーエンド

“So, how’s the married life treating you?” Himeno deviated completely from what you were initially discussing.

Perhaps ‘marriage’ wasn’t too far off from what your relationship actually was. A life-binding contract was marriage in its own right. Despite your musings, however, the truth of Makima’s identity as the Control Devil was a secret. Even if it was Himeno, you wouldn’t let that fact slip. “It’s not the married life,” you replied instead. “But yes, things are going great. Does everyone still hate me for taking away their queen?” It was quite the uproar when you both announced your departure from the Devil Hunters. Makima received more flowers than you could carry on your last day. It had been several years since then and now you were nestled in Takamatsu in Kagawa Prefecture.

You managed to find work in translation, much to the joy of your family back home. “We have to meet this girl who got you to quit,” your mother insisted, she’d hear no objections. She might have wanted you to come home to your country in general, but she was happy nonetheless you were no longer hunting devils for a living.

Himeno’s snort told you as much. “I don’t think Nanaka will ever be over it.” Himeno snickered.

“I’m glad to hear she’s still alive and kicking regardless,” you replied honestly with a chuckle of your own. Even if you had never seen eye to eye, you wished the brunette the best as Himeno mentioned setting Nanaka up on a blind date. “How’s your new partner?”

Himeno’s voice was a mixture of satisfaction and melancholy. “Aki’s great, he’s still alive after all this time. I wish he’d just settle down now. I’m hoping this new division helps with that.”

Right, Himeno mentioned something about it before. A Division composed of tamed devils and fiends, though it would be terminated should there not be any good results. “Any new additions?”

“Since last time, the Blood Fiend actually. Other than that, there’s still just the Spider Devil with the Violence and Shark Fiends.”

“Any other blessings I should know about?” What about that Angel Devil you talked about? You still keeping his discovery secret?

“None for now.” Still my best kept secret in the village I found him in.

“I see.” Good for him.

It wasn’t too long ago Himeno had sent you a coded message detailing her orders. She requested that if things about him ever came to light, you and Makima would help somehow. The redhead didn’t seem too interested in this request, but she agreed when you asked. The Angel Devil is a peaceful one, Himeno detailed in her script. He doesn’t have what it takes to kill, so I just want him to stay with the humans that brought him up. The little guy even has a girlfriend. Humans and devils living in peace might be a reality one day, I’m just not naive enough to think that’ll happen overnight. Maybe that’s what won you over now that you thought about it.

“Well,” Himeno pulled you away from your thoughts and back into your conversation. “There is a Zombie Devil I’ll be snuffing out tomorrow morning, maybe that’ll be our new member.”

You grimaced at the thought of a zombifying-devil. “Even I think that’s a terrible idea and I’m the one who decided to become a devil hunter just so I could travel.”

“You think every idea I have is terrible.” Himeno whined.

“Not every idea,” you corrected with a teasing tone. “Only most of them.” Upon turning a corner, you viewed the welcoming sight of your apartment door. “But look, I’m just getting home so I’ll talk to you later. Try not to get yourself killed tomorrow.”

“Say ‘hi’ to the missus for me.” Himeno drawled before hanging up.

Still a maelstrom. It would always be a relief to hear from the playful devil hunter in spite of that maelstrom though. You sighed in satisfaction, reaching for your keys when the door opened on its own.

The breeze must have drifted your scent under the door, you figured, as you welcomed the comforting sight of your girlfriend. “Welcome home, [First].” Makima greeted you warmly as you walked into her embrace. “How was your day at work?”

“Peaceful,” you pecked her cheek before kissing her lips. “How about you? Busy day again?” You weren’t the only one to find new work after your resignation from the Devil Hunters. Makima took to working at a small but popular café in the neighborhood, preparing tea and crafting baked goods. She told you before baking was merely an activity she took up to alleviate her boredom, but it had since become something she enjoyed. It was beneficial to your being as well as you happily indulged in testing prospective new items on the menu for her.

“The choux crème has been a really popular item, more people are coming in for it.” Makima replied, satisfied. You blanched at the emphasis of the dessert name and the hounding sound of heavy paws heading your way. Your reaction, sadly, was too slow as Makima’s many dogs came to greet you like clockwork.

“Maki- nooo!” You sputtered as Makima laughed gleefully at the onslaught of wet tongues and wagging tails. “Tell them to get down!”

Makima’s expression was teasing, “but they’re so happy to see you come home, see?”

You dodged another lick from Macaron with expertise. “You’re not funny, I hope you know this,” yet the grin on your face said otherwise as Makima finally got her pups to relax. I guess I’ll be washing up sooner than expected.

“Someone looks like she’s in a good mood today,” you noted as you massaged lotion onto your freshly washed face. Bagheera and Tora welcomed you home, brushing against your legs now that their larger canid roommates finished their turn. Makima moved about the kitchen, making tea. “Did something good happen while you were out?”

“Your mother called today,” Makima answered with a small but satisfied smile. You couldn’t hold back a small grin of your own at those words. That action alone would probably give your girlfriend enough happiness to last several days. To earnestly earn the love of your family and feel as if she were part of it herself, it meant more to Makima than she could ever express. “She wanted to practice her Japanese before she came here.”

“My mom called and she just wanted to practice her Japanese with you?” You implored in disbelief once you settled on the couch, Makima sitting between your legs as she drank a hot cup of chai.

Your girlfriend’s smile was an uncanny replica of the Mona Lisa. “She asked why you haven’t proposed yet.”

“Now that sounds like my mother.”

Makima took a long sip of her tea before saying anything else. “Maybe we should be married in the human sense as well.” She set her cup down on the coffee table. “It’s the ultimate contract for humans.”

Your expression was curious. “You like the idea of marriage?”

“The idea of weddings was something I was always drawn to.” Her golden eyes had a distant look in them, her mind far beyond your comfortable living room with your many pets. Makima never went into the specifics of her childhood, but she told you enough to get the picture. She was simply one of the best kept secrets of the government; a young devil whisked off the streets of Tokyo to become a necessary evil. Concepts such as love, family and friendship were ones she learned from film and books. “The idea of binding yourself to another person for an eternity, it’s a concept I’m fond of. I wanted a big wedding.”

“I’m not opposed to a wedding,” you smiled. Marriage hadn’t been something you thought about prior to Makima. Your contract with her practically was one, all a wedding would make Makima’s integration into your family official. “I’m not sure if we have enough people in our lives to have the wedding size you’re thinking of, though.”

“I have plenty of people at the headquarters in Tokyo that would come if I asked.” Makima’s lips curved into a smile primal in nature while amusement danced in the rings of her irises. “Nanaka would for certain, she wouldn’t want to do anything to make me sad. If she’s still alive, we could extend her a personal invitation. What do you think?” At your dry look in response, your girlfriend chuckled lightly before pressing herself against your chest. “It’s a joke, I’m joking.” You decided to take her word for it. You always wondered to what extent it would be possible for Makima’s view of those who had fallen victim to her abilities as her equal. Perhaps it was one of those questions best left unanswered. “Weddings are one of those things that feel best when those in attendance truly care about the couple. I only want those people to come to our wedding.”

There was a lot of moral ambiguity that came with dating the Control Devil. Any devil really. You wondered if you were the only person in the world to do so, but you wanted to believe in the one you fell in love with.

Makima no longer relied on the fake relationships she manufactured with her abilities since your move to Takamatsu. Not for the interpersonal parodies she made to fill the loneliness inside her. She wasn’t perfect. Her first few weeks of generating business at her café were completely reliant on absolute control’s influence to bring customers in directly and through word of mouth. You were quite sure that power was how she obtained her job in the first place.

But you’re still trying your best. “There’ll be people like that,” you cradled Makima gently as you kissed her forehead. “My family loved you before even coming over to meet you properly. More of your regulars are just normal people you just happen to talk to daily. When the time comes, lots of people will be there just because they’re your friend.”

ii. 「純愛だよ」

There would be many people that would come to the wedding for Makima’s sake, that you were sure of. Kishibe of the Devil Hunters, however, would not be one of them. This you were certain of as you recalled the day you encountered him only a month after your resignation. If not for the way he intercepted you outside of your apartment building on your way home, definitely because of his cold but calculating stare.

When the man made no move to explain what he wanted, you decided to move your piece first. Nothing about the encounter felt coincidental as you were led to a place with as few people as possible. “So what do you want?” You had seen from the ground level that Makima had opened the window and you wondered if she knew of this sudden arrival. “I’ve been busy planning a move and I want to go home, it’s my turn to cook dinner tonight.” You dangled your small bag of groceries, a few ingredients required for the dish you planned to cook.

“You can’t spare a moment to talk to an old work buddy?” In spite of his words, there was no nostalgia or yearning in his tone. Kishibe held out his box of cigarettes to which you declined before he lit a cigarette of his own. “It’s been a while after all, we haven’t talked in so long.”

“We barely talked in the first place,” you replied tersely. Besides introducing you and Makima to one another, you seldom saw the man held as one of the strongest in the Bureau. He was an enigma, a drunk enigma who still managed to do his job well. You were doubtful you’d be able to hold your own against him for long. “Hit me with that line after it’s been a few years.”

“How is Makima?” Your eyes narrowed at the sudden question. “It was quite the surprise to everyone that she resigned. I’m surprised the higher ups weren’t more insistent that she stay.”

“Cut the crap and tell me why you’re here,” you crossed your arms and you shared a knowing look. Whatever it was, you were on the same pageー both of you knew more than what you initially assumed. “What is it that you need to know so you can get out of our hair?”

“I suppose we can drop the pleasantries then,” Kishibe put out his cigarette as quickly as he lit it. “I’ve never been fond of Makima, but I could always tolerate her. Whatever inhumane deeds she committed, as long as I knew she was on humanity’s side, I could always turn the other cheek.” Tired black eyes that knew too much glanced at you piercingly. “I just find it strange that she decided to leave the Bureau to play house with a new toy.”

Your eyebrow twitched, but you held back your anger. “Because she’s the Control Devil, you mean,” you chuckled humorlessly. “Were you the one that brought her to officials? You worried that your dog got off its leash? Or is it because that dog turned on its masters?”

Infuriatingly but unsurprisingly, the man didn’t answer any of your questions. “I was worried that the Control Devil forced you into making a contract with her.”

“Makima can’t force me to do anything,” you scowled.

“Did she make you make a contract with her?” Kishibe queried.

“That’s none of your business.” After a strong silence between you both, sighed. “It’s part of our contract,” you answered begrudgingly. It would be better to cooperate lest he decide to take action due to your insubordination. “Makima can’t use her powers on me. She couldn’t force me to do anything before anyway. I’m not sure about the specifics, neither is she. We just know she hasn’t been able to order me successfully.”

“And what does she gain from a contract like that?”

“We stay together forever,” a soft voice cut through the conversation before you could answer. Makima stood behind you in an accompaniment of caws and frantic wingbeats as crows dispersed from where she stood. You sighed in relief at her appearance, at the very least Kishibe was the only devil hunter that had come to inspect the motivations of the Control Devil. “Hello, Kishibe,” a cold smile spread across her lips as she softly nuzzled the crow perched on her forearm. “had I known you were coming, I would have made tea.”

“You don’t need to keep up appearances on my account,” the older man insisted gruffly as Makima sent her corvid on its way. “You’ve been listening since we left the apartment. You left the window open.”

The redhead seemed to take a dark thrill in this moment, “yes I suppose we don’t have to keep up those things,” she agreed fluidly. “I wanted to keep a listen out for [First] so I could greet her at the door when she came home. Anyone would worry about their beloved when a strange man intercepts them.”

I do not need a fight breaking out. Makima versus Kishibe, you worried less about the physical outcome. No, you were fearful of what the long-term consequences of this fight would be. “Makima,” you stepped between the devil and the hunter. “we finished talking, let’s go home. He got the answers he was looking for.”

Makima’s smile shifted into one warmer for you, “yes, let’s go home.” You held her hand with the one not holding groceries and gave it a squeeze, Makima squeezed back.

You glanced at Kishibe over your shoulder, “you have the answers you’re looking for,” you repeated.

It’s-

iii. ごめんな

Your wet cough tore you away from your memories. It hurt, it hurt, everything hurt. It all hurt, yet you couldn’t react beyond a weak gasp as you laid on the ground, crushed under debris. Ah, this sucks.

You get off hours early from work, and a devil decides to attack. Perhaps it was muscle memory from your devil hunting days as you absently reached for a weapon that was no longer there. It had long since been confiscated after you resigned, civilians had no need for such weapons. Yet the horrifying realization that your sword was gone, was all the devil needed before gleefully thrusting its hand through your stomach. This all sucking was truly the understatement. Where were the devil hunters patrolling the area supposed to be, stopping to get lunch?

Today was supposed to be a good day, you lamented.

Your half-day at work aligned perfectly with Makima’s off-day. You were supposed to swing by and change into something comfortable, then you’d hit the town. You recalled the dress she said she would wear. It was gonna be that white sundress she got last year, she looks so good in that.

She was waiting for you.

That was what hurt you the most. Makima and the makeshift home you made for yourself. The two cats that slept anywhere that inconvenienced you and the seven dogs that welcomed you home rambunctiously everyday yet you were somehow still surprised when it happened. Makimaー

Your phone rang in the distance for the fifth time in the past six minutes.

I’m a terrible girlfriend, you berated yourself. You couldn’t crawl to it and your arms refused to move no matter how much you willed for your adrenaline to make a miracle happen. I’m sorry, you weeped quietly as your phone fell silent before the sharp trill of your ringtone started all over again. I’m so sorry.

You weren’t particularly religious, nor were you sure if there was a god that they would stop to listen to hear prayers for the sake of a devil. Still, you prayed. please let her be okay. I’m okay with dying as long as she’ll be okay. Don’t let this be what makes her lose hope in everything. I want her to be loved for the rest of her life.

Whether it was by your family that survived you, whether it was by the friends, whether it was by someone else who loved her beyond the controls of her abilities. Anything would be better than her being alone again.

Please.

The continuous trill of your cell phone accompanied you until your eyes closed, and your chest stopped heaving.

iv. 彦星と織姫の物語

At five years of age, you dreamed of a prince on a magnificent horse saving you from a life of despair.

The world was unimaginable without your parents.

And you were sure you were born for a special purpose, a belief amplified by the strong feeling something was missing in your life and you needed to find it.

At thirteen years of age, you understood how the world truly worked.

The world continued despite the loss of your parents.

There were no princes riding on magnificent horses and there wasn’t anybody who would save you from the despair-filled life you were living.

And no one was born with a special purpose in life, not even you.

One… two… three… four… You held yourself tightly, forehead pressed against your knees as you waited for the sound of rushing footsteps to fade. It was just your luck that you ran into cops that found it more than a little suspicious that a preteen was wandering around instead of at school. They were unconvinced when you told them you were homeschooled and a kick to the shin later, you were hiding in an alley. Just a little while longer, you whispered, hugging yourself tighter. There was no prince that was going to come and save you, you realized this the moment your parents died and you were left alone in the streets of Beijing to fend for yourself. You became your own prince.

That was why you stole from merchants, that was why you picked pockets of anyone gullible enough to let their guard down.

You stood up from your crouch when you were sure the police officers were gone. You’d earned enough cash that day and something for dinner to boot. It was time to go home before you got too cocky and landed yourself in trouble. You patted your pocket with the squished meat buns in them. That would be enough to get through today.

You just needed to save. You were unsure of the amount you needed to save, but once you had enough, you would be able to get out of this place. That belief reassured you more than anything, it certainly reassured you more than the dead magpie your right foot nearly touched. Ew gross! You nearly touched another in your attempt to avoid the first. The cats would be in heaven later when they found this spot you grimly thought.

You glanced to your right, wondering if this would be a decent alley to leave into the main street when you saw a girl your age sitting with her knees bunched to her chest. You couldn’t see her face from how she was hunched over, nor did you trust her. It didn’t look like she was with anyone else, though it crossed your mind that maybe she was a decoy so you could get jumped.

You glanced over your shoulder without turning, relieved no one was standing behind you. You’d seen it happen more than once, you weren’t going to be another victim. Promptly, you turned around, more than willing to pretend you never saw the girl in the first place and exit in the opposite direction when-

Growl.

No, you told yourself sharply as you paused midstep. Giving someone else your food would be a terrible idea. She can find something for herself.

That was what you told yourself; it was what you told yourself and you still begrudgingly turned around, stomping your feet all the while when there was no one to be mad at but yourself.

“Here,” you grumbled without looking at the girl, holding your misshapen haul over her. “take it before I change my mind.” When she made no move to take the buns from your hand, you dropped them in front of her. The wrapping would keep the dirt off of them. “You’re welcome,” you sighed as you finally took your leave. Your only consolation was that she wasn’t a decoy that would lead to your ass getting kicked. There goes dinner.

When you felt a gentle tug on your sleeve, instinctively you jerked away.

You glared at the girl, ready for a fight. “Hey get off of m-,” You. Your words halted as soon as you saw her wide-eyed stare and tears. There was nothing familiar about this girl, you had never seen her before in your life. There was nothing familiar about her black hair, nor the mole under her left eye. You were sure you couldn’t say you’d ever met anyone with golden eyes with red rings in them either. There was no reason to feel like your senses had been set ablaze and the universe shifted.

You didn’t know this girl.

This girl was a stranger.

You knew this and yet you still fell to your knees as warm tears flooded your eyes without your permission. Your mind had gone blank, unable to conjure a single thought and even if you could, you doubted you would be able to voice them. So you followed instinct as it screamed at you to hold this stranger in your arms, welcomed the way she threw her arms over your shoulders in return.

An indeterminable amount of time passed while you cried in the arms of a stranger before you stood up again.

As you wordlessly led her to your home, it vaguely crossed your mind how strange this was. It was strange that you held this girl’s hand while you crossed the street. It was strange that you led her into the abandoned apartment building you called home. It was even stranger that despite only meeting a few hours prior, you were laying with this girl on your tattered bed, holding each other like you were scared you’d disappear if you let go.

It was all strange, but something told you it would be even stranger had you ignored her in that alleyway. “By the way,” you yawned, as it dawned on you that you never once asked for your new companion’s name. “what’s your name?”

When there was no immediate response, you thought the girl fell asleep. “Nayuta,” you finally heard the feathery light reply. Nayuta pressed herself closely to your chest, listening to your heartbeat.

“I’m [First],” you squeezed.

Nayuta squeezed back.

v.「行かないで！行かないで！行かないで！どこにもいけないで！離れないで！あたしのそばにずっといて！」支配の悪魔が叫んだ。魂が叫んだ。

You discovered Nayuta was a devil less than a month after you started living together. She did a terrible job hiding it. Considering how airheaded she could be, though, you doubted Nayuta was truly trying to keep it a secret. Still, the truth of her nature eluded you for a few weeks as you initially accepted that perhaps these things were simple coincidences.

Her eyes were unlike anyone else’s eyes you’d ever seen. (You wondered for a while if they were special contacts, but if they were, they were beyond dried and damaged considering she never took them out.)

Animals listened to her way too easily. (There was no longer any need to fight off the crows when they got too close to your meal. A simple “go away” from your companion, and they would fly off just as she commanded.)

There was the time you bore witness to something you wouldn’t have believed had you not seen it yourself. Nayuta walked up to an older woman, held out her hand and plainly demanded, “give me all your money.” Promptly, all the yuan in the woman’s wallet was placed in Nayuta’s hand.

(“That old lady just gave you all her money?” You gawked in disbelief, eyes bulging out of their sockets. “How?!”

“I told her to give it to me,” Nayuta told you plainly, like she was telling you the sky was blue. Then she told you she wanted soup dumplings and jianbing for lunch.)

As such, it was no wonder why you found yourself thinking that she was a devil. It never crossed your mind that perhaps she had another sort of trick up her sleeve. Devil was the first thing that came to your mind and the only answer you felt was right.

“Hey, Nayuta,” you asked after much contemplation, watching as she drew a dog on the dirty hardwood floor of your home. Your belly was full from eating roujiamo and candied hawthorns, purchased with money Nayuta got from a mean teenager. “are you a devil?”

Nayuta paused her ministrations, staring at her rough sketch before she nodded, “yeah.” Her revelation wasn’t a surprise in the slightest. Gold eyes stared into yours as you thought over your next question. Were you scared of her now? No, you answered your internal pondering quickly. Being scared of Nayuta felt like an inherent rejection of what made you ‘you’. You’d never be scared of her, there was nothing intimidating about a devil who wanted a large dog so she could ride atop it like it was a horse. Instead you asked, “what kind of devil are you?”

“The Control Devil,” she answered truthfully.

“Have you ever used your powers on me?”

It was like a dam suddenly broke as Nayuta’s expression suddenly changed from blasé to fearful. “I haven’t!” When did she even get in front of you? It felt like you had only blinked once before she was standing right in front of you, grabbing your hands tightly as she shook her head frantically. “I haven’t!” She repeated desperately and you almost took a step back in bewilderment. You hadn’t seen Nayuta cry since the day you first met but you could tell these tears were different.

Her tears from your first meeting were inexplicable. A visceral reaction to whatever emotion took over the both of you that day. These tears were based on fright and distress.

“Na-,” you tried consoling the girl, but panic had overtaken her completely.

“I didn’t, [First], please believe me!” Nayuta begged hysterically, her grip on your hands somehow tighter. “Don’t leave me!”

“I believe you!” Your heart felt like it was beating a million kilometers a second, but you had to convey how you felt. Nayuta looked as if she was going to cry once more, scared but hopeful.“I believe you,” you repeated softly. “I’m not gonna leave you.”

vi. 誓いの言葉

Nayuta wasn’t much of a talker.

That wasn’t to say she was timid, nor was she diffident. It was more like she was an airhead who skipped to the beat of her own drum. She did as she pleased and she said what was on her mind as it came to her mind. That was how you often ended up spending hours of your day looking for her if she suddenly ran off to find something that piqued her interest or keen sense of smell.

This time thankfully, she’d only been drawn to the display TV in front of a store. That was leagues better than the time she’d wanted to see why two cats were fighting in an alley.

You shot the girl an incredulous look, hands on your hips. “I keep telling you not to let go of my hand when we walk, you always get lost,” you scolded, more concerned than annoyed. The last thing you wanted was for Nayuta to run into devil hunters while you were separated. It was your worst fear that she would be taken from you and killed. Despite your worries, however, it didn’t always prevent instances when something would catch Nayuta’s eye and she’d let go of your hand in favor of checking out.

“[First],” Nayuta pointed at the television, completely ignoring your worry. “[First], I want one of these.”

You pursed your lips in annoyance knowing Nayuta had moved well beyond the matter at hand. At the excited look in her ringed eyes, however, you felt your annoyance fading faster than you’d like. “You want what?” You looked at the TV, wondering what grabbed her attention so much. It was a wedding, you realized after a few seconds. The wedding was western style, the bride donning a beautiful white dress. “Do you want the dress?” There was absolutely no way you’d be able to finesse a wedding dress no matter how hard you tried.

“I want the wedding.” That made you look at her even more wide-eyed than before.

“We can’t afford something like that!” You held up your hand before she could make her ridiculous suggestion. “And they won’t let two kids get married anyway, we’d have to wait until…” you honestly weren’t sure, now that you thought about it. You shook your head and Nayuta’s brow furrowed with a disgruntled pout, “anyways, we can’t have a wedding like that, it costs too much money.” When Nayuta didn’t reply, you poked her cheek. “You okay?”

Nayuta’s following grunt was neither in agreement or disagreement. When she didn’t object to you holding her hand, you held back a snort of amusement as you led the way home. It became apparent later on, when Nayuta approached you with your off-white bed sheet, however, that she had not gotten over the topic of weddings.

“It’s my veil,” Nayuta said as much when you asked why she was wearing your sheet. “I want the wedding now.”

“If you don’t put the sheet back on the bed, it’s the only one we have!” Laughter slipped through your words at the ridiculous display. But she’s still really cute. A total dork, but cute. Your hands moved to adjust her ‘veil’ more evenly on her head. You wanted to marry Nayuta when you grew up; when you had your house and weren’t living off scraps. Then her veil wouldn’t be the dirty sheet you laid on and she could wear the princess-style gown that you saw in the movie, not the dirty clothes you wore everyday. That was a long day away, you knew. It was hard enough imagining that you’d ever be somewhere better than this. “Okay,” you said warmly. “let’s have a wedding.”

Nayuta beamed, holding her head high, before she noticed the sheet slipping. You couldn’t hold back another snicker at that, “we have to say the vows first,” you instructed. “It’s where we promise each other the things we’ll do for each other once we’re married.” Your mother was fond of movies where weddings were the center of the plot, but you couldn’t recall any of the vows expressed in them. “I promise…” you began, pondering what you would say. I promise that first, I’ll get you a big house. One that has lots of dogs, well, as long as they’re cats too. We’ll have food from all over the world because we’ll have some fancy butler make it for us, and when we feel like it, we’ll go to any amusement park we want. And I’ll protect you from any devil hunter we come across.”

“I promise that I’ll be with you forever,” Nayuta followed seamlessly in your exchanging of vows. “I won’t use my powers on you. I won’t let go of your hand when we go out, because you get upset when I get lost. And I promise I’ll protect you too.”

You grinned, content. “Now we have to kiss too.” It was a quick kiss, a simple peck on the lips before you rested your forehead on hers. “And I now pronounce us wife and wife.” The imaginary audience applauded, welcoming your union in open arms.

“The people in the movie were dancing too afterwards,” Nayuta chirped after a moment.

“That’s because we’re supposed to have our first dance as a married couple afterwards,” you replied. The sheet, unfortunately, could not keep up with your dancing even if it was a slow waltz to an unknown melody you made on the spot.

“I want a real wedding this time.”

I do too. “We can get married for real when we grow up,” you vowed once more as you clumsily led each other in your dance.

Nayuta’s smile was saccharin, “promise?”

“Promise,” you repeated joyously. “it’ll be in a fancy hall with lots of people.” Not that either of you knew enough people to have even a small number of guests at your wedding. But that could change by the time you are grownups.

vii. 旧友

The day the devil hunters came was a blur.

You weren’t sure what it was that led to their discovery of Nayuta. You could only guess in the future that it was because of the trail of people who complained that their money had been stolen and they couldn’t remember how. At the time, guessing wasn’t going to get you out of the situation you landed yourselves in.

They didn’t buy your usual excuses.

There wasn’t anywhere to run in the corner they expertly trapped you in as you ran away, believing you had been making progress in losing the one following you.

You held your arms out between, knowing full well you were a flimsy shield to someone trained to kill devils.

Nayuta fingers dug into the back of your shirt, body tense. Her abilities required she believe one was lesser than her for her to order them, that was impossible when you were both scared out of your wits cornered with nowhere to go.

The woman kept an eye on you both, weapon drawn in one hand, phone in the other. “I found the C-” were the only words she managed to get out when she suddenly collapsed, revealing the scarred old man behind her. You learned later he called himself Kishibe.

You weren’t sure if you should have felt relieved when you saw the old man, suited up as any other devil hunter would be. You didn’t like him, that much you had decided in your silent stare down.

He released a raspy sigh, humming thoughtfully as he crushed the unconscious woman’s phone. “I came here expecting to only find one of you,” the man scratched the side of his head sluggishly. He eyed you carefully with a sense of recognition you couldn’t quite place before his eyes drifted to Nayuta beside you. “The Control Devil really is a selfish one.”

viii. マキマとナユタ

“You’re starting to look like me, Himeno.” It had been years since he’d last seen the woman and she seemed tired beyond her years. If Life played favorites, it was more than apparent Himeno was not one of that group. Aki died, succumbing to his final two years to live. The Chainsaw kid took off before then in the aftermath of the brief but chaotic attack of the Bomb Devil. Perhaps she’d been driven mad, perhaps she craved being the country mouse of Aesop’s fable. It was all the woman could do to run off with sister and the Blood Fiend, nestled in the quiet coastal town of Shonai in Yamagata Prefecture.

“It’s rude to point out a lady’s age, sir.” Himeno accepted the cigarette regardless. A large portion of her bangs were white and gray, her eye showing signs of crow’s feet. “What are you doing in little ole Shonai?” Smoke wafted from her mouth with a soft exhale.

“I started my own delivery service,” Kishibe gestured his cigarette to his car. “and you’re my first and only customer.”

Himeno’s smile was amused, but her one visible eye was anything but. “Funny, I don’t recall me or my sister ordering anything.”

“Consider this your lucky day then, it’s the delivery of a lifetime.” Kishibe didn’t miss a beat. “It’s a two-for-one deal.”

“I’ve had enough once-in-a-lifetime deals.” Himeno crushed her cigarette on the bottom of her foot before flicking it to the wayside. With more than a hint of finality, she waved and walked in the opposite direction of his vehicle. “Whatever it is, you should keep it to-”

“It’s the new Control Devil.” Those words made Himeno stop in her tracks. “They discovered her in China, but I managed to nick her.” Just in time to thwart disaster. Makima had been a ticking time bomb that had been staved off successfully when ー appeared in her life. That timer began once again when ー was killed in an attack by the Rat Devil. If the Chinese government had disposed of your current incarnation in front of the new Control Devil, Kishibe knew that there would have been no preventing the hell that would be unleashed upon the world.

Still, it would be best for the two of you to be protected til you could properly fend for yourselves.

Himeno’s shoulder shook for a few moments, it wasn’t hard to imagine the thoughts going through her head. I can keep on walking, she possibly thought. I can pretend I didn’t hear anything. Yet human nature got the better of her, Himeno sighing shakily, “why’d you bring her to me?”

“I’m not fit to raise children and out of all my old contacts, you’re the one I trust the most to do a good job handling her.” Kishibe answered truthfully. Not even Quanxi could be relied on for such a task. As much as he trusted his unrequited love, he knew the woman would have less of an interest in raising children than she did his old advances.

“What’s the second part of the deal?”

“Take a look in the car.”

Warily, the former devil hunter turned around, taking slow steps towards the car and leaned close to the window.

Himeno said nothing for a while as Kishibe watched her back, knowing that she was likely experiencing a strong wave of emotion. Everything likely clicked the moment she saw you. The same skin tone, the same hair texture, everything exactly the same as she remembered. “ー always knew about Makima, didn’t she.” Despite her phrasing, it was not a question. It was a soft, emotional observation.

“This new one shouldn’t have any of Makima’s old memories, but it seems this is one attachment she can’t shake.” Perhaps this was part of their contract. Leave it to Makima to make the implausible possible. The life of a devil may have been cyclical in nature, but reincarnation among humans was unproven. Yet here you were in all your similarities to ー. Kishibe didn’t ponder what this meant for humanity. If this meant his old buddies were somewhere walking around earth as new beings. Perhaps you were simply an exception, a product of the contract ー made with Makima. Makima did say you’d stay together forever.

Kishibe doubted he would ever receive an answer. All he was certain was that if you were the one thing keeping the Control Devil from wreaking havoc on the world, you were a necessary piece of the puzzle.

“This one isn’t ー either, she’s [First]. She doesn’t have any memories from before.” Kishibe warned, lightly tapping Himeno’s shoulder. He didn’t need the woman to get any false hopes. ー was dead, there was no doubt about it. The age separating Himeno and yourself was succinct proof. You weren’t the friend she lost more than a decade prior. “If you really can’t handle it, I’ll figure things out.”

Himeno’s one blue eye shone with more fire he’d seen since the last time he’d seen her. “I’m glad you feel that way,” the man tipped his proverbial hat to her. “I’ll be back when they’re old enough for defense training.”

“Hey, Gramps, where are we?” You demanded once you had woken up, rubbing your eyes tiredly. He might have saved your life, but he had kept you in the dark long enough.

Nayuta ungraciously yawned,“I have to pee.”

The wizened man took a hard look at the pack of cigarettes in his hand before shoving it in his pocket, sighing heavily. “We’re in Shonai over in Japan.” At last, he introduced the woman next to him. “This is Himeno, she’ll be taking care of you both from now on.”

You shared a look with Nayuta, wondering if this place would really be the best for you. It beats living where we were though, you were forced to admit. A part of you would miss the room you and Nayuta called home for the longest time, where you had your wedding and where you drew on the floor when you got bored. But you planned to leave that building someday, hoping you’d be leading a better life by then. ‘Someday’ simply came faster than you expected.

Thanks, old man, you doubted you would see much of him again though as you saw his car become smaller and smaller in the distance.

“Do either of you like cartoons?” Himeno asked when it was just the three of you. “What do you like watching?” When neither of you could come up with a response, Himeno cheerily made the decision for you. “We have the complete Ashita no Nadja set at home, we can watch that when we get there. But since we’re celebrating your arrival, you have to pick dinner.”

Nayuta wasted no time in answering that question, “I want pancakes.”

You rolled your eyes, bemused. “What if I want burgers though?”

Nayuta looked at you carefully, as if she hadn’t considered the possibility. “We want burgers and pancakes,” she told Himeno a second later.

“Burgers and pancakes,” Himeno said more to herself than anyone else. “Alright, I can work with that.”

translation notes:

i. happy end ii. it’s pure love iii. sorry iv. the story of hikoboshi and orihime v. “don’t go, don’t go, don’t go! don’t go anywhere! don’t go away! stay with me forever!” the control devil shouted. her soul shouted. vi. word of oath vii. old friend viii. makima and nayuta

#look she's writing #csm x reader #chainsaw man x reader #makima x reader #nayuta

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cutecurly-hair · 3 months

Text

Hearts Unleashed (Part 5)

Pairing: Nick Nelson x Black!fem!reader

Warning: Fluff, Smut, Body Shaming

Words: 5,738

The weekend flew by, and before I knew it, Monday had arrived with its usual speed. I found myself back in the same classroom, at the same place and time, but something felt a little different. Nick and I had been texting non-stop over the weekend. It was just casual conversation, nothing special, but for some reason, it made me inexplicably happy.

I noticed a bunch of curly black hair in front of me. Charlie and I hadn't talked since that day. I sent him a bunch of texts, but he didn't reply. I checked with Ellie and Tao, and they hadn't heard from him either. It wasn't just me he was avoiding; it seemed like he was avoiding everyone.

Interrupting my thoughts, Nick said, "This is Nellie," showing me a picture of his dog, and she was the cutest thing in the world.

"Oh, my god, she's so cute! I've always wanted to have a pet, but ever since our cat died when I was little, we just never got a new one," I said, a tinge of sadness in my voice.

Nick's brows furrowed in concern, a cute little habit that I couldn't help but notice when he was puzzled or concerned about something. "You know, maybe you should come round to my house and meet her. Plus, my mom has been bugging me to invite you over" he suggested. I couldn't contain the smile that spread across my face, I don't know if it was because of Nick's mom has been asking about me or Nick inviting me to his house.

"Are you free on Saturday?" he asked hopefully, his brown eyes searching mine.

"Yeah, I think so," I replied, feeling a flutter in my stomach.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ +

"Charlie! Charlie! Wait up!" I yelled across the bustling school hallway, dodging through students those rugby drills are finally proving some use.

Finally catching up to him, I took a moment to catch my breath. "What happened with you? I've been calling and texting you. I was even this close to coming to your house to make sure you were alive," I said, demonstrating the minuscule gap between my thumb and forefinger to prove my point.

Charlie turned to me, his face a mix of surprise and sheepishness. "Sorry, I've been dealing with some stuff, and I needed a bit of space. Didn't mean to worry you."

I crossed my arms, trying to hide my concern behind a facade of annoyance. "A simple 'I need space' text would have sufficed, you know."

He scratched his head, a nervous grin appearing on his face. "Yeah, I know. I'll keep you in the loop next time. Promise."

As we walked, the tension melted away, and our usual banter resumed. Charlie might not be telling me everything, but our friendship stayed solid, thankfully.

"Ugh, I've got a ton to catch you up on," I exclaimed, pulling him into a tight hug. His laughter filled the air. "Do I detect some juicy gossip?" he teased, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. Even though I haven't talked with him for a couple of days, I still couldn't help but miss him. I had every right to be mad, but I knew deep down Charlie was keeping something from me, but it was within his right to tell me when he is ready.

"Oh, you have no idea," I replied, joining in the laughter.

"You look fine, sweetheart," my mother remarked as she emerged from the archway. She must have noticed my tenth attempt at fixing my hair and the frustrated sigh that accompanied it. Admittedly, I may or may not have put on a little makeup. Sensing my mom's curious gaze, I decided to address it before she could.

"I'm going to a friend's house. I'll be back around 5," I informed her, trying to keep it casual.

"Are you heading over to Charlie's?"

I hesitated for a moment, then replied, "Um, no, his name is Nick," hoping my response would slip past without her catching the name. My mother, sensing something, walked over to me and handed me my coat and gloves, well aware of my tendency to get cold easily. I was honestly not made for cold weather.

"Is this a boy from school? You know how I feel about you going to somebody's house," she probed, hinting at her concerns. I knew I had to choose my words carefully to navigate this conversation if I wanted to be allowed to leave the house.

"He's my classmate in English. I want him to look over my paper that's due next week," I lied, maintaining a calm tone and hoping she wouldn't see through the deception.

"You've never needed help with your papers before. You're really good at writing," she remarked, clearly skeptical of my story.

"This paper is 50% of my grade. I have to do well on it," I asserted, emphasizing the importance of the assignment and knowing that grades were a language my mother understood well. Having dealt with her expectations back home, I knew I had to convince her to let me go.

She looked pleasantly surprised. "Yes, you're right. Grades are important. I'm surprised I didn't have to remind you," she smiled, genuinely pleased to see me showing concern for my academic performance. Seizing the moment, I quickly put on my coat and gloves, ready to head out the door.

"Come back in time for dinner!" she yelled as I walked away. I gave a quick nod to show I heard and hurried off before she could ask more questions.

My hands were practically freezing, despite the gloves doing a lousy job of keeping the cold out. I stubbornly kept them on, pulled my coat tighter, and power-walked down the street. The bone-chilling London winter seemed to pierce right through me, making me pick up the pace even more.

I stood there for a moment, torn between knocking and ringing the doorbell. My indecisiveness was playing its usual tricks on me. But before I could finally decide, the door swung open. There was Nick, giving me a gentle smile.

"Hey," he greeted. It was kinda unexpected to see him so chill and casual, a side of him I hadn't really seen beyond the school environment.

"Hey," I smiled back, deciding to ditch my gloves that weren't doing much to fight off the cold anyway.

Nick made a gesture towards a delightful chocolate and white mix Border Collie. "Uh... this is Nellie."

"Hey, Nellie. You're so adorable," Reaching down to pet the dog behind its ears. The warmth of Nellie's fur against my hand brought an unexpected comfort, making the chilly weather outside seem momentarily forgotten.

"Did you do something with your hair?" he asked, his eyes locked onto my puff ponytail that had consumed a good chunk of my morning. Lately, I'd been experimenting with new hairstyles, breaking away from my usual braids.

I immediately reached up to touch my hair, a hint of worry crossing my face. "Wait, is it bad?"

He shook his head without hesitation, offering a reassuring grin. "No, you look… it looks great." His compliment made me feel like the effort I put into styling my hair that morning was totally worth it.

"Okay, you better come in before Nellie thinks we're going for a walk," he said, his eyes lingering on mine for a moment longer than necessary.

"Okay"

Walking into his house, I couldn't help but notice how incredibly homey it was. The place just radiated coziness, making it clear that it wasn't just a house; it was a warm and welcoming home. Definitely nothing compared to mine, my house was just cold and empty still filled with boxes. I noticed a few portraits on the wall, nowhere really of his dad. Which I have nothing to brag since my parents have been divorce.

He led me upstairs to his bedroom, which I couldn't help but feel uneasy, like it was way to personal...like I shouldn't be here. But as soon as I saw his room it was very clean...? Definitely not what I was expecting.

Nick saw the look on my face "What? What's wrong?" he asked looking around confused. I couldn't help but chuckle, breaking a smile "It's so clean in here...it's weird," But overall, it suits him with the rugby poster littered all over the walls with a cute little light hanging over his bed. There it was again, that small hint of vanilla, smoke and a mix of musk but the musk was a lot stronger.

Dramatically, he placed his hand over his chest, gasping, "Are you seriously thinking that I am weird because I know how to clean,"

"I just never expected something like this," I said, gesturing to the room. Walking around, I noticed a few books on the shelf. "Especially for a rugby player. I mean, aren't you guys supposed to be dirty, by default?" I picked a book off the shelf, the title reading "Le Petit Prince (French Edition)."

A French Novel?

Sensing my curiosity, Nick blushed, swiftly taking the book from my hand and putting it back on the shelf. "My dad gifted it to me, but I barely read it," he admitted, a touch of embarrassment in his expression.

Sensenig that his dad was a sour subject I decided to drop it. Still observing his room, noticing the little trinkets of action figure and posters, until my eyes landing on the little snacks on the TV stand plus Mario Kart next to the Nintendo, excitement bubbled up within me as I took in the familiar sight.

"You have Mario Kart!" I exclaimed, my eyes lighting up at the sight of the game. Memories of playing it flooded back.

Nick's eyes beamed. "You like Mario Kart? Do you know how to play?" he asked, a playful smile on his face.

I nodded. "Me and my Dad used to play all the time when I was little. I still do, just never really picked it back up," I said, shrugging.

"Do you want to play?" he asked, holding the Nintendo playfully.

I smiled. "You don't even have to ask."

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ +

"Come on, Come on I'm in the lead! Can you just let me win" Nick yelled, he was particularly begging at the point.

"It doesn't matter cause you're not going to win," I smirked. He's literally the King of Rugby and practically wins at everything. This is one thing I'm really good at, so I am definitely not going to let him win.

"Can you let me win one time? You've won five or six games."

"I am literary going easy one you,"

"No!" he groaned at the screen when he saw my Princess Peach cross the finish line. I couldn't help but laugh at his reaction.

"You need more practice, Nick. Maybe I can give you some tips," I teased, reveling in the playful banter. It was one area where I knew I could outshine the rugby star.

He pouted, "I don't need tips. I just need a fair chance." The adorable pout he sported was enough to make anyone's heart melt.

"I think this is just Karma kicking you in the ass; you can't be good at everything," I said sarcastically, while grabbing a little popcorn.

He nodded in agreement, "No, you're exactly right. You're just good at everything," he admitted.

"No, I'm not," I chuckled. But there was something in the way he looked at me, and it's been happening a lot lately. I can't quite figure out why he has this knack for making me feel this way. It's as if a single glance from him is all it takes to turn me into a bundle of nerves.

"You are. You're a proper little nerd. And you don't even know it."

"I am not!" I protested, playfully nudging him.

"Let's see. You're good at video games. Literally all school subjects, but especially math's. Amazing at photography. Befriending dogs, and you are good a sports manager. Like I have never seen our gear so clean before-"

"Shut up!" I interrupted in a playful groan, feeling warm flush spread across my cheeks. Covering his mouth, while pushing him onto the bed. It seems this was the only way of shutting him up.

"You know it's true," he mumbled from beneath my hand, a blush coloring his cheeks. "Get off me. Seriously, get off," he added with a laugh, the room filled with our shared laughter.

The laughter quickly faded, leaving a lingering warmth between us. I don’t understand this feeling, I have never felt this way before. Our eyes were saying one thing, but our bodies were saying another. In that stillness, I became aware of the soft sound of snow falling outside.

"Oh, my god" I was star-stuck looking out the window.

His eyes followed mine, and as he turned to the window, a quiet gasp escaped his lips.

"It's snowing."

We just look at each other we didn't have to say anything, we jumped up from the bed, rushing down the stairs putting our coats on. The air was charged with anticipation, I was on the brink of witnessing snow for the very first time in my fifteen years. Nick handing me a hoodie in the process.

I shook my head refusing the offer, but he only shoved it back in my face,

"You were freezing when I first saw you this morning," he chuckled, a mischievous glint in his eyes. But he wasn't taking no for an answer.

I couldn't help but laugh, realizing he had a point. Gratefully accepting the hoodie, I slipped it on, feeling the warmth envelop me trying to ignore his overwhelming scent.

"It's a bit big," you said, glancing at the blue fabric draping down to my knees.

"It looks good on you," he said breathlessly, he was looking directly at me. Two compliments in one day, that was definitely something.

It was absolutely beautiful outside, the cold didn't bother me as much as before, it may or may not have something to do with the hoodie I was wearing.

Nick wasted no time sticking his tongue out to catch the tiny snowflakes. His cheeks had a rosy flush, and there was something about the way the light hit his hair, making it look a bit browner. He looked marvelous.

Caught staring, I locked eyes with him, and there was a fleeting smile on his face. Before I could fully process it, he playfully threw a whole snowball at me, leaving me in disbelief. I hurriedly made a makeshift snowball. It instantly became a snowball fight.

For a moment, just a moment everything seemed perfect, the way he laughed when Nellie was eating the snow. To when he brushed the snow off my hair. The way he took pictures of me when I made snow angles. When he laid beside me all I did was listen to him talk any and everything.

It was just perfect.

I couldn't shake the knot in my stomach, and suddenly, those stolen glances and shared moments held a new weight. When he looks at me, it's like he's seeing something beyond the surface. There's this intensity in his gaze, and I can't help but admire the way he looks at me. The way his eyes light up when he smiles, the little expressions that make him uniquely him. The realization hit me -

I have a crush on Nick Nelson

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ +

"Are you even listening to what I'm saying?" Ellie snapped her fingers in front of my face, trying to grab my attention. My eyes, however, were glued to the three little bubbles dancing across my screen, eagerly awaiting Nick's response.

Ellie couldn't resist taking a peek at my screen, and a knowing smirk crept onto her face as she shook her head. "Oh, I see what's got you all distracted now."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm listening," I mumbled, tearing my eyes away from the screen to meet Ellie's amused gaze.

She chuckled, leaning back in her chair. "Nick, huh? The mystery guy who's got you glued to your phone?"

Blushing, I tried to downplay it. "We're just chatting, you know, about random stuff."

"Random stuff, right," Ellie teased, wiggling her eyebrows. "I've seen that look before. You've got the 'crush glow' all over your face."

Rolling my eyes, I shrugged. "Oh, come on. It's not like that. We're just friends."

Eyebrow raised; Ellie smirked. "Friends who text 24/7, interesting definition of friendship."

I sighed, realizing she saw through my attempt at nonchalance. "Okay, fine. Maybe there's a tiny crush. But seriously, don't make it a big deal."

Glancing out the window, I spotted Nick chatting with a pretty girl that I always seen around school. They were standing so close, and her laughter reached my ears even through the closed window. My heart sank as I watched them share a moment. She was effortlessly charming and ever so pretty, and the way Nick's eyes lit up in response made my stomach churn. It felt like they were in their own bubble, leaving me on the outside looking in.

Ellie looked at me and she frowned and nudged me gently. "Y/N, what's going on? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

I forced a weak smile, attempting to mask the turmoil inside. "Oh, nothing. Just caught up in my thoughts, you know?"

But Ellie wasn't buying it. She followed my gaze, her eyes narrowing as she took in the scene outside. "Oh...that's Imogen. That's one of Nick's close friends,"

"Oh, really?" I tried to sound casual, but I could feel a knot forming in my stomach. "Just a friend, huh?"

Ellie shot me a knowing look, her eyebrows raised. "Y/N, are you getting jealous?"

"What? No!" I protested a bit too quickly, my cheeks heating up. "I mean, why would I be jealous? We're just friends, like I said."

Ellie chuckled, clearly amused by my reaction. "Sure, just friends. a friend who you have a crush on."

I rolled my eyes, attempting to change the subject. "Let's focus on something else. What were you saying before about our plans for the weekend?"

Ellie raised an eyebrow, clearly not letting me off the hook that easily. "Smooth transition, but we'll get back to this later. Anyway, I was thinking we could do a little movie night at Tao's. We can bring some snacks, binge-watch our favorite films, and just unwind."

"Yeah, that sounds great," I replied, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling. "Movies and snacks sound like the perfect distraction."

As we continued discussing our weekend plans, my mind kept drifting back to Nick and Imogen. I couldn't help but wonder if there was something more between them. Were they just friends, or was there a deeper connection? The uncertainty gnawed at me, and I found myself absentmindedly scrolling through our previous texts.

The guys were practicing for an upcoming match, and I was just here cleaning the Rugby they have already gotten so dirty after a couple of throws. Occasionally, Nick would glance over in my direction, offering a reassuring smile or a quick wave.

"I can't believe they have cleaning rugby balls. Doing the dirty work while we get all the glory?" Charlie teased, nudging me with his elbow.

I chuckled, playfully swatting at him. "Someone's got to keep these in top-notch condition. Can't have you all playing with muddy balls, can we?"

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of action, I noticed I haven't been seeing you lately. Any particular reason?"

I hesitated for a moment, debating how much to reveal. Finally, I decided to open up to Charlie, knowing he'd always knows what to do. "Well, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You know, get some 'guy advice.'"

"I think I am the worse person to give 'guy advice'. especially now" Charlie looked down the ground.

Noticing the sadness in his eyes, I joked around with him "Oh come on, Charlie, don't be so hard on yourself. You're my go-to guy for advice, whether you like it or not."

He managed a small grin, "Alright, shoot. What do you need from my services this time?"

I sighed, glancing back at Nick on the field, his focused demeanor contrasting with the playful banter of the other players. "It's just... things have been different lately. We've been hanging out more, texting, you know, normal friend stuff. But I can't help but feel there's something more."

Charlie looked worried as soon as I brought up Nick's name, "Of course this is about Nick Nelson,"

I nodded, "Yeah, it is. I mean, we're friends, but there are these moments, these looks, and it makes me wonder if there's something more. And then today- I don't know... it just hit me differently."

Charlie glanced around to ensure no one was eavesdropping before he spoke. "Look, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but there's something I think you should know."

My heart sank a little, and I furrowed my brows in concern. "What is it, Charlie? You're making me nervous."

He took a deep breath before continuing "Okay so Tao told me to tell you that-

"Wait why couldn't Tao just tell me himself?"

Charlie looked a little uneasy "Because Tao is Tao"

Great he still doesn't like me.

I shook my head, urging Charlie to continue. "Tell me what Tao said."

He took a deep breath before continuing, "Tao found out from a friend who is also friends with Nick, and he said that Nick is single. But he is super interested in this girl that was originally from the all-girls school."

I swallowed the lead in my throat "What girl,"

Charlie sighed looking out onto the field "Her name's Tara Jones,"

My heart sank as Charlie dropped the bomb about Nick's interest in Tara Jones. Her name replayed in my mind like an annoying song on repeat. I couldn't shake off the blame creeping in why did I let myself get attached? Was I just too naive, thinking there could be more between us?

Nick's wave from the field added salt to the wound. I managed a feeble smile and a wave back, but inside, it felt like a whirlwind of emotions. Watching him, I questioned every shared laugh and conversation we had. Were they all just leading up to this moment where he'd be drawn to someone else?

The game raged on in the background, but my world stood still in that painful moment of realization. The cheers from the crowd turned into distant echoes, drowned out by the pounding of my heart, echoing the rhythm of disappointment.

How can I be so stupid.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ +

She was so beautiful, and I could see why Nick might be into her. Browsing through her social media, her confidence and elegance just stood out. It's something I feel like I lack. Her dark skin had this warm, rich tone that glowed in every photo. The more I looked, the more I found myself comparing. It made me question if I could ever match up to someone like her in Nick's eyes. The more I scrolled, the more I felt like an outsider peeking into a world that seemed so different from mine.

"See, I told you," Tao said, peering over my shoulder. Charlie shot him an annoyed look.

"Tao, come on, give it a rest. This doesn't necessarily mean anything," Charlie snapped.

"Like hell it doesn't," Tao retorted. I deeply sighed; their bickering wasn't making the situation any better. Isaac looked at me with a hint of concern.

"We don't even know if she actually likes Nick back," Isaac chimed in, attempting to offer some comfort.

Charlie scoffed, "I'm the one stuck seeing them in class every day, and trust me, it's nauseating. Believe me, he's into you," he added, shooting me a look.

Tao, fixing his gaze on Isaac, cautioned, "I've warned you about fueling romantic fantasies that just won't happen. Life isn't a romance novel, you know." ignoring Charlie reassurance.

"But I want to believe in romance." Isaac wined still looking hopeful. Our heads turned to the door when Ellie came in, Isaac immediately jumped at the chance "Ellie! So, there's this girl at school who Nick's got a crush on?"

"We've heard from multiple sources" Tao cut in, but Isaac completed ignored him "We don't know if they're a thing. Can you talk to her? Since she is in your year"

Isaac's hopeful gaze shifted to Ellie, who raised an eyebrow at his enthusiasm. "Whoa, slow down. First, spill the tea. Who's this mystery girl Nick's into?" Ellie said, playing dumb while glancing at me to check if it was Imogen we were talking about. I just quietly shook my head no

Tao chimed in, "Her name's Tara Jones. She was originally from the all-girls school."

Ellie crossed her arms, processing the information definitely wasn't expecting that. "Tara Jones? She's a sweetheart, I don't know Tara that well. I can just go up to her and ask who she fancies. And I'm, too busy being the cool, mysterious new girl, who everyone wants to hang out with."

Isaac quickly jumped back into the conversation, seizing the opportunity. "We just want to know if there's something going on between her and Nick. You know, for Y/N's peace of mind."

"I'm fine. It's honestly fine. I'm just being an idiot and overthinking things," This whole thing has been stressing me out, more than I realize. It's probably best if I cut my losses now before I get more attached.

Ellie gave me a sympathetic glance rolling her eyes while she sighed "Well, I can try to find out, but no promises, only if I get a chance I'll ask her,"

I flashed her a thankful smile, and Isaac promptly leaped into Ellie's arms. Sometimes, I forget how much of a hopeless romantic he is. Charlie joined in, gesturing for me to join them. Gratefully, I embraced the warmth of the hug. I realized I wouldn't know where I'd be without them.

Tao sat there, glaring, watching the scene.

The next school day rolled around, and I made a quick stop at the boys' locker room to check on inventory, making sure to steer clear of any awkward encounters, especially with Nick Nelson. Luckily, I managed to avoid any unexpected run-ins. However, as I strolled to my next class, it hit me that I'd be sharing a class with him soon. The knot in my stomach tightened, and a sense of unease settled in, a reminder of the events from the day before.

Waving at Charlie as I eased into my seat, a jumble of nerves hit me hard. Concentrating seemed like an impossible task, with my thoughts entirely hijacked by the looming encounter with Nick. What in the world was I even going to say to him, if I mustered the courage to say anything at all? The classroom blurred as my mind grappled with racing thoughts.

"Y/N?" he said, staring right at me with worried eyes.

Finally returning back to earth, I mumbled, "What?"

"You just spaced out," he observed.

Not knowing what to say, I managed a simple "Oh," fiddling with my blue pen, which oddly seemed to help with my nerves. Nick, sensing the habit, scooted closer to me. I swear I could feel his body warmth.

"What's up?" he said, looking directly at me. "I can tell when something's on your mind," he added in a hush, leaning even more closely.

Gosh, I hate the way he makes me feel. The way I act around him is ridiculous. I hate that every time he gets close, my heart races, every touch, every feeling. I hate all of it!

Why does he make me feel this way?

"Do you...Do you want to come to my house later?" I blurted out, causing for Charlie to peek over at me with panic eyes screaming What the hell are you doing!

He looked surprised, but all he can do is smile.

Mom is not going to be here until super late, so I can have the house all to myself. I cleaned from top to bottom of house, throwing all the boxes away and tightening up everything was squared away.

Hearing a knock at the door, it was him standing at my door smiling from ear to ear.

"Hey"

Opening the door for him, "Hey,"

"So, how does this work?" he asked hesitantly, glancing around the room as if unsure of what to capture with my old Canon. The way he held the camera was so awkward, it brought a smile to my face.

Figuring it was a fair trade after all the rugby lessons, I decided to teach Nick a thing or two about photography.

"You can take a picture of anything you like, really. It could be something beautiful, something that grabs your attention, or simply anything that intrigues you," I explained, observing him furrow his brows while peering through the viewfinder.

"Anything?" he asked, seeking confirmation.

I nodded, a spark of enthusiasm lighting up my eyes. "Exactly! That's the beauty of it. Photography allows you to freeze a moment in time, to capture something you love, like, or find amusing. It's incredible how a single image can encapsulate so much emotion, tell a story, or even memories."

Nick listened attentively, his curiosity evident. I continued, "You see, every photo has a story behind it. It's a way of preserving feelings, experiences, and moments that might otherwise fade away. You get to share your perspective with others through the lens, allowing them to see the world through your eyes."

As I spoke, I could see Nick growing more intrigued, absorbing the idea of photography beyond just pressing a button. "Give it a try," I encouraged, "Capture something that stands out to you, something you'd want to remember."

Right as I looked back at Nick, I noticed that fuck, he was looking directly at me. His eyes looked into mine and there it was again, that knot in my stomach. I didn't know what to do, I had completely froze. His eyes seemed different though-

Feeling a buzz in my pocket, I checked my phone. It was a message from my mom, letting me know she wouldn't be home until midnight and that there was lasagna in the fridge. A sigh of relief escaped my lips, knowing I wouldn't have to explain having a boy in my room when she returned.

Hearing a click, I turned to Nick, curious about what had caught his attention through the lens of my camera. "What did you take a picture of?" I asked.

"Just something that I thought was beautiful," Nick replied with a soft smile, his eyes lingering on mine. Raising my eyebrows confused but also curious. He didn't say anything at all, other than putting the camera down.

"Want to watch a movie?" he suggested,

"Already one step ahead of you," I grinned, pulling out one of my favorite Marvel movies.

We settled into the living room couch, time passes by, and my eyelids begin to grow heavy. Waking up to see the credits rolling I quickly sat up. I completely sleep through the whole entire movie.

Looking out the window, it was dark outside, looking at Nick he seemed to be tensed.

"I feel asleep, didn't I?" I chuckled.

Nick's lips curved into a gentle smile, "Yeah, you did. Must have been a comfortable couch."

I stretched my arms, attempting to shake off the drowsiness. "Sorry about that. I guess I needed the nap."

Nick shrugged, "No problem. You looked peaceful."

We sat quietly, the feel of the movie night still in the air. Even with the unexpected nap, the evening felt calm.

"I should probably head home," Nick said, glancing at the time. "It's getting late."

As he stood up, I walked him to the door. Opening it without caring about the cold air seeping in, the night possessed a certain calmness, and the air held a subtle tension, like the moment before something shifts.

"Thanks for inviting me over," Nick said, and for a moment, our eyes met in a way that spoke volumes, yet said nothing at all.

"I wish that you didn't have to go," I admitted, feeling the weight of the night settling in.

"I wish I didn't either," Nick confessed, a hint of reluctance in his voice.

"You look so cuddly like that," he added, his gaze lingering on my knitted sweater.

My eyes softened, and a playful grin tugged at the corners of my lips. "You think so?"

He nodded, smiling back at me. "Yeah, like a giant teddy bear."

I chuckled, feeling a warmth spreading through me that had nothing to do with the sweater. "Well, I guess I'll take that as a compliment."

Nick's cheeks turned a shade of pink, and he scratched the back of his head, a sheepish grin on his face "It's meant to be one," he replied, and we stood there for a moment, the unspoken words hanging in the air.

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, if I didn't have early morning practice, I might consider staying longer."

I felt a subtle warmth spreading through me. The casual banter, the shared laughter it all felt so easy and right. Yet, there was an unspoken tension, a magnetic pull that lingered between us.

"I guess I'll see you around," Nick said, but he didn't make a move to the open door; it looked like he wanted to say something else he just couldn't find the words.

As he stepped closer, the air between us seemed to shift, and before I knew it, he pulled me into a gentle hug.

Vanilla. Smoke. and Musk

I slowly wrapped my arms around, wanting to not let go, but he quickly pulled away, backing towards the door.

"Um… catch you on Monday," he mumbled, clearing his throat, his gaze fixed anywhere but on me. He melted into the night, leaving me standing there, gaping at the door, with a whirlwind of thoughts spinning through my mind.

Charlie casually peeked around the side of the door, and from the look on his face, it was clear he caught the whole thing.

"Still questioning if he's into you?" Charlie asked, shooting me a knowing look.

#nick nelson x y/n #nick nelson x reader #nick nelson x fem!reader #nick nelson x blackreader #nick nelson fanfic #kit connor #heartstopper #charlie spring #black!fem!reader #black reader #heartstopper netflix #heartstopper fandom #heartstopper fanfic

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mikasa-imadebiscults · 11 months

Text

“Hope You’ll Make It Through This Alive”

Hange Zoë x FEM! Reader

(Warning: Takes place on that ship in season 4 pt 2, tiny bit of spoilers for season 4 pt 3, swearing, smut, public sex, fingering)

Scenario- You and Hange are stressed about all the things that are going to happen, so you two decided to do something to relieve the stress but better be quiet or else someone might hear you two

You silently stand next to Hange as they just told Annie that we can’t make it to her hometown in time to save her father. You feel bad for the young blonde woman as she dropped down to the floor, losing all will to fight.

You desperately needed a break from all this stress and feelings of hopelessness, so you walked out the door and went to the edge of the ship where no one was at, leaning on the railing, looking at the sea as the wind softly blew through your hair.

After a few long minutes you hear soft footsteps coming your way. You didn’t think much of it until you felt two familiar hands on your shoulders.

“You’re stressed, aren’t you?” Your partner spoke as they massaged the tension out of your shoulders.

“You know, I remember the first day I met you..we instantly connected with each other. You would be talking my ear off about all the things you did that day and would tell me about all your experiments. The light in your eyes was so bright that it was almost blinding.. but now over the years I saw that same light die out slowly.” You say as memories flood your brain.

Hange doesn’t say anything and is unsure on what to say, they unknowingly stop moving their hands.

“Dammit I’m sorry, I must’ve made you feel bad. Don’t you worry, I still love you very deeply I can assure you that hasn’t changed one bit” You turn around to face Hange, wrapping your arms around their waist and pecking their lips.

“What I’m saying is that it hurts me that you went through so much pain, and you don’t even deserve any bit of it.” You say as tears start to form in your eyes.

Hange pulls you into a tight hug, “It’s okay darling, I’ll be alright. You don’t need to cry anymore, wanna know why? It’s because both of us are gonna make it out alive, no matter what happens.” They say even though they’re uncertain about the outcome of the battle that’s about to come.

Why does Hange always do this? They always act like they’re okay when you know damn well they aren’t. You want to take all the stress away from them, even if it’s only temporarily.

You pull away from the warm hug to look at them. “Hange, if you allow me, let me make you feel better. I know it won’t relieve the stress permanently but at least you’ll be relax temporarily.”

“I know what you’re getting at and I appreciate the offer but I think you’re the one that needs it right now.” They say with a wide smirk on their face as they saw your eyes avoid their own.

Before you could even answer they turned you around and bent you over the railing. Leaning forward on your back and place soft kisses on your neck.

“H-hange what if someone catches us, everyone is already close by.”

“It’s fine darling, just be extra quiet to ensure that nobody hears your sweet voice except for me.” Hange whispered in your ear, sending shivers through your body.

Their right hand slowly moved down your body and into your pants, two fingers teasing your sensitive clit, making soft and quiet moans slip from your mouth. The noises soon became muffled as Hange covered your mouth with their left hand.

“What did I just say my dear?” Hange says as they shove their middle and ring fingers inside you.

They move their face to kiss your shoulders and back. Fingers curling inside of you, as they still have their hand over your mouth firmly but making sure that they don’t hurt you.

Hange was always good at this, they were always good at pleasuring you no matter what the situation you were in.

Hange thrusted their fingers in and out in a speed that can rival anyone, making it hard to keep your voice down thank god for the hand over your mouth. You are starting to think that they get turned on by the idea of someone catching you two.

At the pace they were thrusting, you quickly came all over their fingers. Hange waited a moment so that you could calm down from your high and they removed their hand from your mouth. They pulled their fingers out and tasted you.

You were hunched over the railing with dazed eyes as Hange wrapped one arm around your waist and the other on your chest to bring you up a bit so you won’t fall and they leaned forward to rest their chin on your shoulder.

“I hope you’ll make it through this alive, even if I’m not there by your side anymore.” Hange thinks to themselves as they turned their face to kiss your cheek.

If only you knew that was going to be the last time you and Hange ever got intimate..

Masterlist

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abigailmoment · 6 months

Text

"I'm worried about fucking things up between us. He's...words. Words," Tav muttered, making absent come-hither motions as if trying to summon the right ones. "Delicate's wrong. Maybe fragile? Fragile like a smokepowder bomb. But that's wrong too. Wounded. But that's not enough. It's like he's walking around with a bunch of scabbed over stab wounds. But he's had them forever and he's so used to them he can walk around, and backstab people, and laugh. But they're still there and they're fucking stab wounds and I can tell when they're being jostled."

"Do you know how he got them?" Halsin asked.

"Parts of it," Tav said. "I am making plans to commit murder when we get back to Baldur's Gate."

Her eyes flicked up to Halsin's face to make sure there was no judgement there. There wasn't.

"I have lists," she continued. "Of possible tactics. Notes. Diagrams. Some doodles." Full text below. Full text on Ao3.

Halsin walked into the woods until the sounds of the revel had faded behind the sounds of leaves. Then he settled comfortably, leaning back against a birch tree, and just looked out.

The colors of the forest were muted in darkness, but it was alive with shapes and sounds. The protecting spread of branches above, and the stars peeking down between them. Cricket chirping and owls with opinions. The world sounded green and alive, and that was very wonderful. Just being present here was like a blessing after so long in a dungeon.

It was hard to say how long he'd been sitting, almost slipping into reverie, when he noticed a pattern in the movement of the animals around him. There were a lot of them heading east. A fox passed him. A racoon. Another fox. A pair of hedgehogs complaining to each other about how two-leggers were always making such a fuss of noise about nothing.

The party he'd left was southward, so this would be something else bothering them. Investigating such disturbances was so much a habit for him that he barely thought before standing and walking quietly west.

He heard the hard crunch of boots crushing leaves--someone moving rapidly and with no thought to noise. He approached the sound and found Tav. No longer at the party, she was pacing back and forth between two trees, muttering to herself. Occasionally she stopped and said 'Fuck!' very quietly but very sincerely. Then she resumed pacing.

Halsin waited, but she didn’t notice him. He took another step and intentionally found a branch to break underfoot. Tav started and her eyes snapped towards him.

"Hi," she said, eyes wide. "I'm sorry. Was this...were you using these woods? I can move."

Halsin put up his hands. "There's green enough for everyone. I just happened by. Is something troubling you?"

"I. Uh." She raked her fingers through her hair once. Twice. "I'm in trouble."

"I see.” Halsin had a few guesses about the kind of trouble that drove one to pace and mutter in the night. ”Do you want to speak of it?"

"I. Maybe. That might be..."

She hesitated. She started pacing again. Got three steps and stopped. She was worrying the base of one horn with her nails. Finally she seemed to come to a decision and turned to actually look at Halsin.

"If you had to pick, out of all of my companions. With whom do you think it would be the worst idea to get..." She made a mixing tangling motion with her fingers, and eventually supplemented the gesture with the words: "...emotionally involved?"

"I feel I would need to know them better to answer confidently," Halsin said.

"That is a thoughtful, charitable sort of a thing to say," Tav allowed. "But I bet you don't actually need that. I'll give you a hint. It's NOT the woman who could set me on fire with a hug."

Halsin took a moment to consider, but based on superficial observation the answer did seem obvious.

"Astarion?" he guessed.

Tav clapped her hands together in a pantomime of celebration and then pointed her fingertips at him. "You're good at this game. Your retroactive prize is being saved from goblins."

Halsin smiled slightly. "I'm glad I guessed right."

"Yeah, me too." Tav sighed. She was rubbing her hands together and staring off to one side. "We were flirting. It was a game. About saying stupid, over the top things that we both knew we didn't mean. And he had all these great-awful pickup lines and we were getting more and more dramatic. And then. And then he looked at me and he said 'I love you.'"

Her hands were in her hair again, raking over her horns. "And he did NOT mean it. But my heart did that little thump-thump-leap thing LIKE he meant it."

She stared hard into the dark woods, hands tangled in her increasingly wild hair.

"And that is a PROBLEM," she whispered.

"Is it?" Halsin asked.

"Yes." She snapped, eyes focusing back on Halsin. "Yes, that is a problem. Because the things I have to offer are effective group management techniques and limericks. And if I lose my head over the most mother-would-not-approve albino bad boy who is part of the team I have to handle I will stop being an effective group manager. Then all I have to offer is limericks. And they ARE magical limericks. But they still aren't going to save the realm from the Absolute. Which is apparently what we need to do."

Then she had to stop because she had not paused to breathe for that entire paragraph. Her hands were moving again, nails raking over her horns to the point where Halsin was concerned she might hurt herself.

So he reached out to take her by the hand and shoulder and suggested with gentle pressure that she might sit down. They ended up cross-legged in the grass. A much more stable and grounded position. Tav exhaled slowly, and looked up at him.

"Hi," she said. "Sorry."

"There is nothing to be sorry for," he told her. "It seems you are taking a great deal of responsibility on to yourself."

"I've read a lot of epic legends, Halsin." There was something haunted in her expression. "I'm really starting to think we're in one. I think the things we do here are going to have some far reaching consequences."

"I see," he said. And he supposed a bard would know. "Very well then. Grave as they may be, let's set aside your responsibilities for a moment."

She seemed very gesture-prone, so he decided to illuminate this advice with motion. He moved his hands, as if gathering his responsibilities up into a bundle. He carefully set them down to his left.

Tav seemed wary to the point of intimidated by the prospect of setting her responsibilities aside, even metaphorically. But after a moment she imitated him, and she did so with all the buy-in of someone whose arcane magic was partially based on improv. It took her quite some effort to get all her obligations wrapped up and when she shifted them to the side it was with a little huff of effort. Halsin couldn't help but smile.

"How do you feel?" he asked when she was done.

"Scared," she said. She was fretting her fingernails in the same way she'd been fretting her horns before.

Halsin rumbled in an understanding way, but didn't say anything.

"I like him," Tav continued after a moment. "A lot. He's fun. He's sharp and interesting. And talking to him is like playing. And he's mean, but that's fun too. And he's VERY pretty."

She dropped her head to the side, as if she needed a moment to recover from just how pretty he was. Then she rubbed at her eyebrow.

"And sometimes...he's sad. And then I wish I were a wizard so I could just incinerate everything that makes him sad."

Halsin nodded. "I believe there are scrolls for that."

Tav's eyebrows shot up and she looked at Halsin sharply. "Did you just...are you enabling me? To do an arson?"

"To protect people you care for?" Halsin asked. "Most certainly."

The surprise melted away and she smiled slantwise at him. "I suppose I should have expected that after seeing you maul half the goblin camp."

He nodded, and it was a pleasant moment of mutual understanding. He let it lapse into silence so that she would start to fill that silence again with her fretful thoughts. She did.

"Do you know how he got them?" Halsin asked.

"Parts of it," Tav said. "I am making plans to commit murder when we get back to Baldur's Gate."

Her eyes flicked up to Halsin's face to make sure there was no judgement there. There wasn't.

"I have lists," she continued. "Of possible tactics. Notes. Diagrams. Some doodles."

"Could your plans use a bear?" He asked mildly.

Tav laughed, and it was loud and startled and genuine. "Yes. Fantastic. Always. I'll incorporate you into my ideas and daydreams."

The laughter did her good. When it finished the thread of tension loosened and her shoulders had relaxed a notch.

"I probably don't need to worry about hurting him with this," she said a little ruefully. "He's not serious. This is a game for him? Or a ploy? I'm not sure. Whichever. I'm the only one throwing her heart around like an idiot."

Halsin, who had been at camp long enough to observe some of the dynamics between the companions, decided not to comment on some of the assumptions she was making. He just made a thoughtful noise.

"So I guess that just leaves me scared about, you know." She flicked her fingers over her sleeve, removing a bit of dirt with affected casualness. "Getting hurt myself."

"It can be a frightening thing. To be the more loving one," said Halsin. "But it doesn't need to be a bad thing."

Tav hummed in a prompting, curious way. Halsin considered what he was about to say, and decided this was a reasonable time of have an opinion.

"We give each other what we can in the time we have," he said. "You have a gift. You have love for another person. A man who, from what you've said, could very much do with being loved."

Tav hummed a little more softly.

"That's nice," she said. "That's a bit of poetry."

"Pardon me. I know it's not my profession."

"Naw." Tav shook her head. "Anyone can be a bard. Just don't be surprised if I steal your words for lyrics."

Halsin opened a hand and offered his palm. "They are freely given."

"Boring," Tav complained with a smile. "I wanted to steal them."

"Well then." Halsin closed his hand. "I take back my permission."

"Good. Thank you." The smile had wedged itself firmly in the side of her face and remained even as she sighed. "I guess I'm already fucked. It's not like you can fall out of love. Not while we're spending every day together."

She covered her face with her hands and said much more quietly: "And I do not have the willpower to say no to the sex."

Halsin nodded and made a noise of deep understanding. Eventually, Tav peeked up from her hands.

"You're really good at listening," she told him.

"It is an important part of being an archdruid."

"Thank you."

"Please let me know if you ever need to be listened to again."

#astarion #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion x tav #astarion x oc #halsin & tav #talking about feelings #Tiefling Revel #halsin is exetremly emotionally intelligent #pining #sort of #astarion isn't actually in this one #but it's almost entirely about him #don't tell him he'll get a big head

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harringtown · 2 years

Text

the road not taken

this became much longer than I was planning so it took a while but!!! no joke i was plotting this fic and had a moment of ‘wait they storm into the road, literally the road not taken cuz its outside steve’s house’ and had to sit back for a second cuz I impressed my own damn self w that one. anyways I hope u enjoy anon!!!

requested by anonymous

pairing: steve harrington x reader

summary: au based on tis the damn season by Taylor Swift (aka the reader left Hawkins, and Steve, but the past is hard to run from, aka some second chance almost romance w a happy ending)

word count: 6.8k

Hawkins hasn’t changed much in eight months.

Last August, when you left—when you fled, if you’re being technical—the town was slipping into fall. Bare trees and chilly winds saw you off, but now, spring is poking its head up like the flowers sticking out of the concrete sidewalks.

The train station drops you at the far end of main street. Eight months ago, when you made this walk in the other direction, you kept your eyes down and your breath held, like Hawkins might get stuck in your lungs.

Now, you walk slowly, dragging your suitcase behind you, and sweep your gaze around a place you swore you wouldn’t come back to.

Time is funny like that. It couldn’t have predicted you coming home from college for spring break to surprise your family. But it probably couldn’t have predicted you running in the first place.

Starcourt’s destruction has rejuvenated the main square, and the once abandoned shops are back in full gear. Residents mill about in front of stores and restaurants, kids amble around the grass, cars pull by. Hawkins is alive again. After everything it, and everyone who lives here, have been through, it still always manages to bounce back.

You pass the diner, and the general store. The post office. The arcade, and the video store.

A familiar bike is chained up against one of the poles in front of the video store. Affection swells in your chest.

Robin.

You may have cut off Hawkins and Steve Harrington when you left, but you didn’t burn all your bridges. Not with Robin, or Nancy.

And if you’re going to survive this week, you’ll need more than your family to do it. You’ll need friends, and you don’t have a whole lot of those left here.

So, you head for the video store. The lot is full, probably arcade overflow, but none of the other vehicles are familiar.

You pull on the front door’s handle, a bell chiming inside, and in the half step you take, red flashes in your peripheral vision.

You’d know that car anywhere. And the only reason you missed it was because it’s parked on the side of the building.

A red BMW. You even remember the damn license plate number.

Your train of thought careens into a wall of curses, but the bell rang, you’re standing halfway in the store already, and there will be no escaping now. Not unless you literally sprint away like some scared kid.

Please, let him be on break. Or in the back. Or absolutely fucking anywhere else.

You take a breath and step all the way into the store, letting the door swing shut behind you.

“No way,” says a familiar, feminine voice, and you’ve barely clocked Robin behind the counter before she’s pushing around it and rushing you. “Are you actually here right now?”

You grin, and say, “I’m here,” a second before she hauls you into a tight hug. And you can barely breathe, but you don’t mind, because you’re squeezing her just as tight.

Robin pulls back, shaking her head. “Nancy and Jonathan bet five dollars you wouldn’t set foot in this town again, but I knew you’d be back.” She steps back, gesturing to the store around her, with its funky-patterned floor and peeling wallpaper. “I mean, who could resist the charm of our lovely town?”

“Charm is a word for it,” you say, and Robin laughs, slinging an arm around your shoulder.

“So,” she says. “How long do we get you for?” And her smile falters, just for a second, after the word we, like she considers correcting, and decides not to. You’re grateful to once again be around people who know what subjects to avoid. “Please tell me you dropped out of college.” Her nose scrunches. “And ignore how horrible that sounds.”

You snort. “Just here for the week. Unfortunately, I’m still enrolled.”

Robin breaks away from you to round the counter again, retaking her place, and you lean into the ledge across from her.

“I missed the hell out of you,” she says. “Seriously. It’s not the same without you. No one else gets my movie references or will agree to take me to the snow cone stand out in Rockwood.”

That familiar ache, the one that showed up when you got on the train last fall, pulses in your chest.

“I missed you, too.” You lean into the counter. “It’s nice out there, and the people are great, but there’s no Robin Buckley in Indianapolis, which makes it pretty much intolerable. And they don’t even have the Rockwood snow cone place.”

Robin grins, and she opens her mouth to speak, but a sharp inhale from the doorway to the back hall sucks the words out of her mouth.

It sucks all the air out of the room, too.

It’s as if you sense him before you see him. The knot in your chest pushes on your lungs, and it takes everything in you to control your expression as you meet his eyes.

Steve Harrington.

Eight months older, his hair a little longer. Grown into himself, a little more. The bruises and wounds he wore when you left him are nowhere to be found.

Your mouth falls open, though you’re not sure what you plan on saying. If you plan on saying anything at all.

What could you possibly say that would ever be enough?

He’s wearing a pair of light wash jeans and a deep navy Y-neck Henley, and he’s still frustratingly handsome, and he’s still your Steve. Which makes no sense, because he was never actually yours. That was the problem.

His eyes widen, just a bit, and a dozen emotions flicker across his face—shock and confusion and anger and hurt and more—before he shoves an invisible wall up between you. His lips pull into a thin line and his jaw tightens.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. Like it’s a nuisance. Like it’s an inconvenience.

You swallow the icy hurt. Two can play at that game.

“Renting a movie.” You jerk a chin at the aisles of films. “This is a video rental store.”

His brows twitch. He comes up beside Robin at the counter, leaning casually into the corner, and his show of false confidence isn’t lost on you. Eight months haven’t changed him that much. And you spent much longer memorizing him.

“Fine.” He shrugs a shoulder. “What are you doing in Hawkins?”

“My parents live here. Am I not allowed to visit?”

“You are,” Robin says, gaze flicking between you. “And we’re happy to see you. Even if we have a hard time showing it.”

Steve huffs. “Yeah. Happy.” He meets your eyes and lifts his brows. “So much for escape, I guess.”

You narrow your eyes, irritation prickling across your skin like needles, and you open your mouth to snap at him, but before you can, the bell dings over the door. A handful of teens who have just snuffed out a firecracker without even realizing it.

“I’ve got ‘em,” Robin says. To Steve, “And finish sorting those files, because if it’s not done by the time Keith gets in tomorrow, I swear, he’ll actually have an aneurysm, and I really don’t want to deal with it.”

Steve frowns, like he’s considering making a fuss, but in the end, he just tosses a look your way, and heads for the back of the store without another word.

And as much as you’d secretly been waiting for the moment you laid eyes on him again, you’re relieved to see him go.

Something you’d never admit to anyone, even Robin: on cold, lonely nights, you imagined coming home to Hawkins. Coming home to him. You imagined showing up at his doorstep and telling him you were sorry—telling him everything. And in your fantasies, he let you in with open arms.

But this is reality, and in reality, you didn’t make a clean break from this town. It’d be silly of you to expect to come back and find anything but scars.

It’s going to be hell cleaning the blood out of Steve’s seats, but he doesn’t comment on it as he, you, and Robin pile into the car. The blankets handed out by the EMT—which made no sense, because it’s July in Hawkins, and you survived a fire, not a winter storm—form half of a fourth person in Steve’s backseat.

Once Robin is dropped off, it’s just you and Steve in the front, and the tan blankets in the back. Steve drives away from her house, but he slows the car and parks it just down the road, next to a huge chunk of forest, safe from anyone who might be driving this time of night.

You don’t ask why he didn’t just drive you home. You don’t really want to go home.

The EMTs said dozens of people died in the fire that wasn’t a fire. Dozens. Your parents will have questions, and after a day being interrogated by Russian soldiers, you’re in no mood for it.

Steve drops his hands from the wheel.

“We almost died today,” you say softly. “Again.”

“But we didn’t.”

“But we could have.”

He lets out a rattling breath. A second passes, and his fingers slide across the bench seat to bump yours. Another second, and he places his hand atop yours. You flip your palm up, threading your fingers together and squeezing once.

Steve exhales again, but it’s relieved, not strained. Like your touch is pulling some of the horrible day out of his limbs.

“Yeah,” he says. “We could have.”

“How many times can we almost die before we—”

“Don’t,” he interrupts. “Don’t even say that.”

“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

Steve closes his eyes. When he opens them, he pulls his hand from yours. He doesn’t say anything, but somehow, that says enough.

With the promise to call Robin later, you slip out of the video store and into the warm, early evening. Your suitcase wheels rattle over the concrete. It’s not a short walk home, but you’re in no hurry, and after an hour of avoiding Steve, you’d walk ten miles if it got you out of that store.

It’s like the universe can read your thoughts. A beat later, red flashes in your peripheral, and a familiar BMW slows beside you where you hug the curb, almost to the parking lot exit.

Steve reaches over and rolls down the passenger window, a hand on the back of the headrest as he peers out at you.

“Are you walking home?” he asks.

“What does it look like?”

He gives you a patronizing look. For a second, he chews on the inside of his cheek. Dread coils in your stomach—whatever he’s gearing up to, it can’t be good.

With a sharp sigh, he says, “Get in the car.”

Your stomach tumbles. It takes more strength than you’d like to admit keeping your face even as you say, “No,” and continue walking.

Steve’s frustrated curse carries through the window, and he puts just enough gas on the Beemer to catch up to you before he slows down again.

“Get in the car, Y/N.”

“I said no.”

“For the love of—its two miles to your house.”

“I am aware of that, yes,” you say. You and your already worn sneakers are soon to be even more aware. Painfully aware. But that’s better than the alternative.

“You’re being ridiculous. You realize that, right? This is ridiculous,” Steve says.

You keep walking.

Another colorful curse comes from inside the car, and then, the tires skid as he jerks the car to the right, half up on the curb. A few feet to the right, and he’d have tagged you. Except, he wouldn’t, because it’s Steve, and his driving may be reckless, but it’s also impressive, and he knows it. And he knows that you know it.

Screw him for still knowing you. And for assuming you still know him.

He slams the car into park, snaps his head up, and says, “Get in the goddamn car, y/n.”

For a long second, you do nothing but gape at him.

“You almost hit me,” you say.

“No, I didn’t,” he says.

Another second to consider how long this walk will actually be.

Damn it and damn him.

You drag your suitcase toward his car, reaching for the back handle, but Steve is out of the driver’s seat and around the back bumper in a blink, popping open the door. It’s so frustratingly Steve that you can do nothing but toss your suitcase inside. He nudges the back door shut and opens the passenger side, but he doesn’t look at you as he does it. And you don’t look at him as you climb into the car.

Steve pushes the door shut. Hesitates. You see him take a deep breath and return to the driver’s side. He climbs back in, shuts the door harder than you think is necessary, and puts the car into reverse.

“What the hell was that about?” you snap as he pulls the car onto the road, heading toward your neighborhood.

“This is still Hawkins,” Steve says. “And I’m not about to let you wander around at night by yourself.”

“The Mind Flayer is dead,” you say. “Isn’t it?”

A muscle clicks in his jaw. His grip on the wheel tightens.

“Yeah. It’s dead.”

“But… ?”

He flicks a glance your way, like he’s surprised.

“But I have a bad feeling,” he says.

“Don’t you always.”

“Says the one who rode a bad feeling right out of town,” Steve retorts.

He’s right, and he also tends to be right when it comes to anything monster related. But those are sticky subjects, and you’re trying to avoid sticky subjects.

So, instead of taking the bait, you turn up the radio.

When no one is talking, it feels just like it used to. You lost count of the nights you spent in this very spot, driving to nowhere, Steve at the wheel.

And here you are again, in Steve Harrington’s car. Like you were always going to end up back here. Like you never left at all.

“I thought you told them no,” Steve says. He’s been slouched back on the couch for the better part of the afternoon, but the moment you broke the news, he straightened like a rod.

“I did,” you say. You can’t look at him, so you look at the shag carpet, counting the individual threads. “But I guess they saw the reports about the mall and figured having the survivor of such a tragedy at their school was a good look. So, they called and asked if I’d reconsidered. Offered more scholarship money, too.” You risk a glance his way. Every inch of him is rigid. “And I said yes.”

Steve pushes to his feet. The abrupt movement makes him wince and reach for his still-healing ribs.

“You’re leaving?” he asks.

“My move in date is August 21st,” you say. Steve twists to peer at the calendar hanging in your kitchen.

Today is August 7th.

Steve shakes his head and paces in front of the couch. On the settee across from him, you’re immobile, digging your nails into your palms.

“Two weeks ago, the plan was to take classes at the community college this fall and save up,” he says. “What happened to waiting for Robin to graduate? Getting some shitty apartment for the three of us in Indianapolis?” He fixes his stare on you. “What changed?”

You let out a rattling breath. You’ve been planning out this speech since you accepted a spot at the university, but now that it’s here, all the words are out of reach.

“I have to get out of here, Steve,” you say. “If I don’t go now, while I still can, I don’t think I’ll ever escape it.”

“Escape what?”

All of it. The monsters and the tombstones and the empty seats in every cafeteria or arena. The ghosts. The loss. The pain.

And him. You’d be lying if you said part of your reason for going wasn’t him.

Him, and everything you’ve spent so much time wishing you could be—everything you will clearly never be. And regardless of whoever’s fault that is, it has to end with you.

But you can’t tell him that. The fact that you can’t is only another reason to go.

“I just…” You rake a hand through your hair. “I just have this feeling that if I don’t get out of this town, it’s going to kill me.”

Or you’re going to kill me, Steve Harrington, and you won't even know you pulled the trigger.

Steve’s lips form the inevitable beginning of a protest, but you don’t give him the chance.

“Look at me, Steve,” you say, lifting your arms and gesturing to yourself. Coated in bruises and scabs, bandaged and bound. “Look at me and tell me that if I stay, you can guarantee it’ll never get any worse than this.”

He hesitates. And you know he’s thinking about being down in that base, you and Steve and Robin being beaten to bloody pulps—about how you barely made it through this alive.

“The Mind Flayer is dead. It’s over. There’s nothing to run from,” Steve says. And you wish like hell that was true.

“It’s been over before. And then it wasn’t.”

He shakes his head. “Even if it does come back, you’re really okay with just… leaving? Ditching us?”

“I’m not… ditching anyone,” you say, which is definitely a lie. “It’s college. I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.” Another lie.

“Bullshit,” Steve says. “You’re running.”

And he’s right. And you are. Add it to the list of things you won’t admit to Steve Harrington. Already, the list is miles long. What’s another bullet point?

Your driveway is empty. Steve says nothing as he pulls his car up to the curb and puts it in park, but you know what he’s thinking.

There’s always at least one car in the driveway.

He doesn’t say anything as he gets out of the car with you, either, and you’re grateful. You don’t have the guts to ask him to come inside with you. Even if it’s probably nothing, in this town, it could be something. And somethingwas always a lot less scary with Steve at your side.

As you fish your house keys out of your bag, Steve waits at your back, hands in his pockets, humming absently.

He’s nervous. Whether it’s about the empty house or something else, you’re not sure.

You unlock the front door and nudge it open, stepping into the foyer. Steve is close behind, trailing you all the way into the kitchen.

The calendar hanging next to the cabinets pulls your attention.

March 19th to March 26th is highlighted, and BLOOMINGTON is scrawled in your mother’s handwriting.

Shit.

Of course, the one time you try to do something nice and surprise your family after avoiding this town like the plague for almost a year, it’s the week they’re out of town visiting your grandparents.

“Shit,” Steve says, right at your shoulder. You jump, not having heard him approach. He takes two steps back.

Shame burns under your skin. You clear your throat.

“I wanted to surprise them. My parents were so bummed when I didn’t come home for Thanksgiving, or Christmas,” you say.

“Yeah, well, they weren’t the only ones,” Steve says. The dark, empty house only makes his sarcasm drip thicker. “I think you took the surprise thing a bit too far.”

“You really don’t have to rub it in.”

He pouts. “I think I’ve earned the right.”

“You didn’t earn anything,” you snap. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

His eyes go wide, confused and frustrated all at once. “Wait, what—”

“Thanks for the ride,” you say. “But you should probably get going.”

He folds his arms over his chest. “You’re not seriously going to stay here by yourself.”

“I can survive a week in my own house, Steve. And your bad vibes, or whatever, aren’t exactly worthy of me forking over the cash to change my train ticket back. Besides, the next train isn’t until tomorrow. Whether you like it or not, I’m staying in Hawkins tonight.”

“Is your pride worth dying over?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” you snap. “And if it’s that big of a deal, I can just stay with Robin.”

Steve snorts. “Where, on her bedroom floor? She’s got four sisters. There’s not a spare square foot in that house.”

You scrunch your nose. Stare at him for a long minute.

“You’re not suggesting—”

“My house.”

“Not a chance.”

He scoffs and says, “What, worried you can’t resist jumping my bones the second the lights go out?”

“If I’m jumping your bones, Harrington, it’s to lock my fingers around your throat.”

Steve’s lips turn up in a lopsided grin, and he bats his eyes.

“Is that a promise?”

You exhale sharply, letting out a curse.

“You’re sleeping on the couch,” you say, jabbing a finger at him.

“Obviously,” he says, and he looks bored as he does, which means he’s anything but.

Harriet Williams’ going away party falls three days before your own departure, and though neither of you are in the party mood, Robin drags you and Steve there, anyway, with the promise of shitty mixed drinks and even shittier music.

And it’s better than sitting in your room thinking, so you agree.

Four cups of whatever concoction is in the kitchen later, you’re glad you came. The house is too full of people, and it’s much too hot, much too loud, and every surface is sticky, but you don’t care. You’re dancing with Steve, and you’re too drunk to feel guilty, and he’s too drunk to be angry at you.

It happens in the silence between songs—no more than five seconds. But it happens. Your lips meet his, and his fingers curl into your waist, and he tastes like cheap tequila and orange juice.

And then he shifts away. And you’re dancing again. And the next day, either Steve doesn’t remember, or he doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t bring it up.

That night, that moment, gets caught in the wind and drifts away.

Steve’s house isn’t deserted. His parents are home, along with his aunt and younger cousins, which means he really will be sleeping on the couch, and not in one of the guest rooms. You’ve only seen his house this full a few times in your life, and it’s almost odd. To tiptoe through his halls instead of just walking.

But even with the packed house, it all feels so normal. Like you’ve slipped back into some ancient orbit.

Steve sets you up in his room, only leaving to change into a pair of sweats and a tee shirt you and Robin bought him as a joke. Two sizes too big, with a massive eagle spread across the marbled blue fabric, it is undeniably horrendous, but he’s wearing it. And from the looks of the worn fabric, it isn’t the first time.

He doesn’t say much before he heads downstairs. As if he’s afraid speaking will break this tenuous peace you’ve found in the silence.

You’ve both been walking in a memory since leaving your house. You don’t want to step out of it, either. Not yet.

It takes you ten minutes of pacing before you gather the courage to get into the bed. He isn’t even in it, but it’s Steve’s bed. You’ve slept in it a handful of times, mostly after parties in high school, but somehow, it’s more intimate without him in it.

You turn out the lamp and slide under the covers, and you can feel the slightest groove in the mattress formed by years of him sleeping in the same spot.

His scent envelopes you in a second blanket, and tears well in your eyes before you can stop them. You squeeze your eyes shut against them, but one escapes, trailing down your cheek and onto the pillow.

It’s another ten minutes before you can open your eyes without the threat of tears. Thirty more tossing and turning and thinking.

Then, the knob turns on the door. Panic leaps into your throat—it still does, even two hundred miles away at school—and you jerk into a sitting position.

Steve leans into the doorway, his lips pressed together. Seeing you’re awake, he slips inside, closing the door behind him.

“To the shock of nobody, my dad got booted from he and my mom’s room. I’d rather sleep on the floor here than have a shame sleepover with my father in the living room,” he says. He clears his throat. “If that’s cool.”

“Yeah,” you say, and it comes out as more of a squeak. You try again. “Of course.”

“Thanks,” Steve says.

“It is your bedroom,” you say. A smile drifts over his lips, but it’s gone as fast as it comes. He heads for his closet, opening the doors and kneeling to dig out a pile of folded blankets from the back.

“Steve.”

He stills. “Yeah?”

The words are out of your mouth too quick for you to stop them. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

Now he’s really frozen. “What, are you volunteering to swap?”

Your laugh is thin and hollow. It doesn’t even sound like your voice as you say, “Just get in the bed before I change my mind.”

He stands. Turns your way. Looks at you for a long moment, likely trying to decide whether you’re serious. Eventually, he crosses the room, leaving the blankets behind.

You scooch to the side, toward the wall, so he has room. The moonlight streaming in through the window flashes over his clenched jaw.

He climbs into the bed beside you, the mattress sinking just a bit with the added weight.

“Thanks,” he says for the second time since entering the room.

“You’re welcome,” you say, even though it’s his bed in the first place.

Silence hangs in the air, fluttering like sheets on a line, and you lay in wait, praying Steve will fall asleep so you can relax.

But he doesn’t. Instead, you lay side by side, flat on your backs, hands folded over both your stomachs, like matching Victorian children in some twisted double funeral.

Steve whispers your name.

“Hmm?”

“Are you awake?”

“No.”

A pause.

“Can I ask you something?” he asks.

“Can I stop you?”

He laughs softly, but it dies out halfway through.

“Why didn’t you call?”

Your stomach drops.

“Steve—“

“You and me, we used to talk about just taking off and leaving everything behind,” Steve says softly, “but I never actually thought you’d do it.” He shakes his head. “Or I figured you’d at least take me with you. Stupid of me, I guess.”

“Steve—” You say again, as if it’ll make up for what you’ve done.

“Just tell me why,” he says. “Tell me what the hell I did to you, to piss you off so much.”

“You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he says.

“You can’t honestly tell me that you didn’t know how I felt about you,” you say, without meaning to. The subsequent silence is thicker than the first.

“I…” He trails off.

“Yeah,” you say. “That’s what I thought.”

“I was an idiot,” he says, and it’s as if he’s talking to himself, not to you.

“I know,” you say. “Which time are you talking about?”

He laughs, but it’s a little sad. He hesitates a moment before he speaks again.

“The day you left…” He pauses. Like he’s trying to organize his words. “The second you left my house after saying goodbye, I felt this pit in my stomach, and I realized it wasn’t new. It’d been there a long time. And it just kept getting worse.” He laces his hands behind his head. “I actually called Robin, at like, midnight that night, told her I thought I was dying, and she just said, ‘You’re not dying, dingus, your heart is broken.’” Another long pause follows. “I don’t even think I realized until right then that I—” He stops. He always stops.

Or you do. But you always end up here, a foot from the finish line, neither of you brave enough to cross it.

And you’re not sure what to say to all that, or what it means, so you just say his name again, softly, almost a plea.

“You know, I wasn’t mad at you for leaving Hawkins,” he goes on. “I mean, I’d have to be a complete and total asshole to be angry that my best friend got a killer scholarship to a college far the hell away from this place.”

“You seemed pretty angry,” you say.

“Yeah, well, I was angry, but I wasn’t angry about that. I was pissed that you ditched me, like we didn’t spend ten years surviving this town together.” In your peripheral vision, his chest rises and falls rapidly, like he’s angry or nervous or some combination. “Like none of it mattered.”

“It all mattered,” you say, fiercer than you intend. “That was why I had to go.”

“What?” He’s looking at you now, and you force yourself to meet his eyes. You’ve braved scarier creatures than the truth.

“I told you that I left Hawkins because I had to get away from the monsters. And that was mostly true. But I wasn’t just running from monsters. I was running from you.”

His mouth opens, and abruptly shuts.

“I spent ten years loving you, Steve. Ten years waiting for you to figure it out, or do something, but you never did, and I… I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Couldn’t do what?”

“Pretend not to,” you say. “Pretend that you did. Pretend that one day you could. I don’t know. All I know is that every time you called me and asked me for help, I dropped everything and came running. I couldn’t keep dropping everything for someone who didn’t even want to carry it in the first place.”

He chews on his cheek for a beat, and now, he’s the one avoiding your gaze.

“When we were younger, I thought that maybe you—” He lets out a sigh. “But then we got older, and it seemed like you didn’t anymore, and then we got to high school, and Eleven ripped open a hole to another universe, and then you were gone. I mean, I waited weeks for you to call. Told myself you just hadn’t set up your new number yet.”

He’s circling his own admission like a shark around chum, and you’ve known him long enough to see that, but the gap in time has robbed you of the ability to tell what it is.

“I got it wrong,” you say. “I got scared, and I didn’t know what to do, and it was like… like I couldn’t even think. I just had to run. But I was wrong. I was wrong, and I should have just come to you, told you what I felt, but I didn’t.” You roll onto your side to face him. “But what would it have changed, anyway?”

He mirrors your position.

“Everything,” he says. “Something. I don’t know. I don’t know because you never said anything.” He inhales. “But I never said anything, either.”

Shock renders you silent. Steve catches your gaze, and immediately looks away.

“You know, sometimes, I wonder what it’d have been like if we did things the right way. I think maybe it could have worked out, if I met you in Biology class and not on some battlefield.”

Your stomach churns. “And by it…?”

“I mean us,” he says. Shakes his head. “But we didn’t meet in Biology. And we sure as hell didn’t do things the right way. We—I—royally fucked it up, actually. I know it’s too late to mean anything, but I’ll never stop being sorry for everything that went wrong with you. ”

Some of your anger softens, revealing what lies beneath it—sadness. Because you’re not really angry at Steve, not the way he or you would think. Because you were young and stupid, and you still are, in a lot of ways. Because sometimes you can be angry just because.

“It wasn’t all your fault,” you say. “We were just kids. We were already dealing with… well, not the end of the world, but pretty close to it. And it’s not like I can be mad at you for… for anything, after what I did.”

“Still,” Steve says.

“Yeah,” you say. “Still.”

Because what more is there? You fucked up, or he did, or you both did, and now, here you are, on the other side of the wreckage. And you’re not sure whether or not it's salvageable. If you even want it to be.

“Promise you’ll call,” Steve says, his voice muffled by your hair. He pulls back, and his expression is sincere, so Steve it hurts to look at. “Promise you won’t forget about me.”

Tears well in your eyes, but you don’t force them away. Instead, you let them fall and hope that Steve believes them as something different than they are. And you tell him, “I promise,” even though you’ve already made yourself a very different promise.

To leave Steve Harrington and Hawkins behind.

He pulls you in for another hug, this one tighter than the last, and when you pull back, neither of you moves back all the way, and your forehead finds his, and your noses bump, and you can almost taste the kiss, and—

Steve shifts away.

Your eyes snap open in time to see his Adam's apple bob. You clear your throat and extricate yourself from his arms.

“I gotta go,” you say. “I have a train to catch.”

Steve’s lips part.

You want him to ask you to stay. You want it more than you’ve ever wanted anything.

But he doesn’t. So you don’t.

You wake up to the soft, steady rhythm of a heartbeat and a warm arm slung loosely over your waist. Before you open your eyes, your brain registers the scent as Steve, and though it should be surprising to wake up like this, for some reason, it doesn’t feel weird.

And when he opens his eyes, when he sees you, he acts like it isn’t weird, either.

“Tell me about school,” Steve says, as if you’ve done this a hundred times, in this very spot, with his hand on your hip. “Do you like it? Do you live in a dorm with, like, five roommates?”

A smile pulls on your lips. You’re not sure what magic spell you’ve both stumbled into, but for the moment, you don’t want to break it. To be honest, you’re not entirely sure you’re awake.

So, you tell him. You tell him about your classes, and about the friends you’ve made, and about your roommates, of which there are two, not five, who are actually very nice. All the time you talk, he doesn’t pull his arm away from you, and you don’t pull back.

It feels like everything it could have been.

Then, he asks you another question.

“Are you happy?”

And you hesitate.

“I’m… getting there,” you say. “But nobody there knows me like Hawkins does—” You lift your eyes to his, and you know he’s thinking the same thing you are. Nobody knows me like you do. “—and I’m worried that they never will.”

Steve stills. Shifts back, taking his arm with him and leaving cold in its absence. You’re not even sure what you said to make him move back, or if the magic spell just broke.

He sits up, and the marbled shirt has ridden halfway up his back, revealing a stretch of tan, scarred skin.

“You know why that is, don’t you?” he asks. He turns his face just enough for you to see his profile, jaw clenched and brows furrowed.

It’s your turn to sit up.

“What are you trying to say?”

He shifts all the way toward you. “I’m saying, there’s a reason you weren’t happy in Hawkins, and there’s a reason you aren’t happy in Indianapolis.” You haven’t heard him talk like this in a long time, since high school, but unlike high school, he doesn’t sound mean. It’s just that confidence, but now, it’s real. “I played my part in what happened with us, or didn’t happen, or whatever, but it takes two to tango.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He presses his lips together.

“The day you left, if I had asked you to stay in Hawkins, what would you have said?” he asks.

“I—” The words evaporate on your tongue. You would have what? Would you have stayed? Was the version of you that dropped everything and fled even ready to be asked that question, let alone answer it?

“You don’t let anybody get close enough to love you,” he says. “And I’m sorry I didn’t try hard enough, but you can’t say it was just me, or just us being dumb kids. And you sure as hell can’t outrun that. ” He inhales sharply, but the words are out, and there is no taking them back.

You throw the covers off and climb out of his bed, jamming your feet into your sneakers and grabbing the first hoodie you see off the top of your suitcase.

“Screw you, Harrington,” you snap.

“Wait—” Steve scrambles out of bed behind you, but you don’t wait to hear the rest of what he has to say.

You push through his door and into the hall, storming down the hall and the stairs, ignoring the chatter coming from the kitchen and Steve’s family, out the front door into a literal storm.

Thunder cracks over your head, and the rain falls in cold sheets, but you’d rather walk through the storm than stay a minute longer. You trudge down the porch and the driveway, Steve’s words ringing in your ears.

You sure as hell can’t outrun that.

You come to a stop in the middle of the pot-holed lined street in front of the Harrington house. Running. That’s exactly what you’re doing. Again.

The front door swings open, and Steve runs down the porch, wearing just his sweats, horrible animal shirt, and an untied pair of sneakers. Panic lines his face until his eyes find yours, and he relaxes, just for a second, before his expression twists again.

He jogs into the road, just off the curb.

“Steve, I’m not—”

“No,” Steve says. “Wait. I need to say something. It’s something I should have said a long time ago.” He swipes the hair and water out of his eyes, closing the distance between you, until you’re barely a foot apart. His chest heaves.

“Eight months ago, when you told me you were leaving, I should have asked you to stay. And every day for eight months, I’ve regretted it. So, I’m asking you now. Please, stay.” He licks his lips, and you get caught on the droplets of rain lining his mouth. “I mean, don’t drop out of college, because that’d be crazy, but… you know what I mean.” He shakes his head. “I’ve been in love with you since we were fourteen, and I should have told you a lot longer than eight months ago, but I—“

It should take more than that, but you’ve been waiting longer than eight months to hear it, and you’re moving before you consciously decide to.

You press your lips to his, and his mouth parts under yours, and he tastes like rain and a little like morning breath, but you don’t care. You wrap your arms around his neck, and his wind around your waist, and you’re pressed so close together that even the rain can’t get through.

When Steve pulls back, his pupils blown and his breathing uneven, he just dips his forehead against yours, never releasing you from his arms.

“I know we always talked about Indianapolis,” you whisper. “But do you think Robin might be willing to move to Indianapolis instead? I can move off campus next year.”

Steve shifts away, eyes snapping open, a wide smile spreading across his face. He presses a kiss to your forehead, and says, “I think she could be convinced.”

“And you?”

“I’m all yours,” he says. “If you’ll have me.”

You smile, and lean in to kiss him again. And though it took you a while to get back to it, the road you almost didn’t take looks pretty good now.

taglist: @milkiane @spideyboipete @robiin-buckley @robinbuckleyssgf @la-fille-en-aiguilles @sunlitide @cityofidek

#brooke writes fic #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x you #Steve Harrington x gn!reader #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fic #steve harrington au #stranger things #stranger things au #stranger things imagine #x reader

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fanfictionalhooligan · 8 months

Text

Oneshot: Dying in Husband!Haganezuka's arms〚WARNING: Severe angst and dark themes〛

This came from the following anonymous heacanon request:

"How would Hotaru react if his wife died in his arms? Or died in general? I love angst I devour angst."

For the art response, I will be repurposing drawings that ironically work well for this scenario under the right circumstances:

❖ - ❖ - Oneshot: Dying in Haganezuka's Arms - ❖ - ❖

“Out of my way –“

“Haganezuka-san, she’s in critical condition –“

“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY! I’ll kill you!”

His voice was shrill and transforming into something unnatural at the words ‘critical condition’ and his eyes were wide with horror.

“Please, Haganezuka-san, it might be best for you not to be here right –“

“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU – get out, NOW!”

The Kakushi trying to block him from entering the room suddenly cried out in pain and recoiled, then stared down at the deep slash in his own arm in horrified disbelief. Haganezuka had struck a blow with his knife this time. No one had seen him actually do it before, despite so many instances of chasing Demon Slayers.

The blade was dripping with blood as Haganezuka clenched the handle and marched forward; fear gripped the Kakushis around him like ice and they scurried away from him.

There she was.

His love. His Spring. The blossom that had emerged beneath the snow after a long, lonely winter. There she was - his wife, covered almost head to toe in blood-soaked bandages and IV lines hanging off of her like chains, laying silently and limply upon a cold hospital bed. Her gaze was dull and unfocused and anyone could tell that she was slipping away.

Haganezuka’s blood froze as he paced towards her, as if time had slowed for him to live every agonizing second of this hell. His arms dangled limply at his sides; the knife clattered against the floor, splattering the blood from the Kakushi’s arm as well.

The sound stirred her awake as if she could recognize it in her sleep. She must have known that her husband was nearby if there were knives around. Her eyes opened, focusing just enough to take in the familiar sight of his face. She smiled softly. “Hotaru…”

Her voice was hardly audible, so small and feeble. Haganezuka desperately rushed forward and threw his arms around her, lifting her entire upper body from the bed. “Y-you’re alive…” he whispered, unable to accept that it could change any moment. “The battle’s over. The demons are gone. We can finally live in happiness – hey, are you listening?” His voice shook as her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. His gaze travelled down to her abdomen and the pool of blood that had soaked through it.

There was a stained, crimson-red pole in the corner of the room that had been removed; his face grew pale when it registered that she’d been impaled with it. A pole – a fucking stop sign pole. Of all the things –

“Hotaru,” she murmured, as if sensing that he was about to murder everyone in the room for letting this happen. “It was Muzan. He was…” her voice was faint and almost didn’t finish the sentence. “He…tried to run…we stopped him…buildings and streets were destroyed…”

Haganezuka’s entire body was trembling uncontrollably. She was far too calm. “I – I get it,” he replied. “You don’t have to explain…just…”

She gazed softly at him with a smile. There was something about that tender, glistening gaze that welled up his eyes with tears, and they began streaming down his face and dripping down quietly into her hair. “H-hey…” he began. “Don’t go. Don’t go, you hear me?”

His throat grew tight when she simply kept smiling at him.

“Come on – don’t go, my love. Please,” he begged her. “The battle’s over! The worst is over –“

“Hotaru…” she whispered, making him go completely still as he held her in his arms. “I…I was waiting for you. I wanted to see your face…”

One last time. That was what she meant.

She’d only been holding on long enough to be able to see his face for one last time.

“I’m here,” he whispered feebly, pressing his forehead against hers. “I’m here and I’ll stay by your side, okay? J-just stay with me, too, okay? Please!”

The Kakushis behind him somberly bowed their heads and quietly left the room.

Her eyes were glistening with tears, too. “Hotaru…I love you. I always will. Whether in this lifetime or the next. The sun will rise for us…”

The seconds were slipping away. “But you’re my sun, don’t you know that? If you d-don’t rise again, I can’t…” Haganezuka’s voice finally broke into a sob when she closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest, so content to be in his arms with that beautiful, oh, so beautiful, fading smile of hers.

“I love you,” he whispered, holding her tight and his sobs making it almost impossible to speak. “Can you hear me, my love? I love you so much, and I wanted to show you that every day for the rest of our lives. I am the happiest man in the world when you’re there with me, and just… please…please stay.” He wanted her to hear every word, to keep listening, anything at all for just another moment with her.

Her eyes fluttered open just a crack, just barely enough for him to see the green of Spring before it faded back into the winter snow. “Hotaru…the rest of my life has already been the happiest because of you.” Haganezuka’s lower lip trembled as her voice grew quieter and quieter. “You’re here now…and I’m happy.” A single tear slipped out of her eye before it shut for the last time. “I only wish I had more time with you…and…”

She never finished the sentence.

Haganezuka went completely, utterly still. “Misaki?”

Silence. Only silence.

Dark, cold, hollow silence.

Her head rested limply against his chest. While her own had stopped rising and falling.

Haganezuka’s eyes widened and time froze, and the world around them felt like thousands of kilometers away. He slowly looked down and saw that the smile had never left her face – just because she was in his arms for her final sleep. It was at that moment, right then and there, that Haganezuka cried out and wrapped his arms tightly around her, burying his face into her hair, gripping her so tightly that the IV poles fell over as the lines were yanked. The sobs wrenched through his body, choking uncontrollably and whispering her name now and then even though the sound of it from his own voice only made the tears multiply. Her body was shaking along with his as he cried.

She was gone.

And, after that, swords would be gone.

There were no demons left and they would likely be discarded like useless artifacts of the past.

Those two things, his beloved Spring blossom and his swords - all that had ever made any sense in his life - were taken from him. Just like that.

Haganezuka rested his chin against the top of her head, cradling her and rocking slowly back and forth as if she were simply sleeping and must not be disturbed. Somewhere inbetween his sobs, the glimmer of the knife on the ground next to him caught his eye. He grew still in the cold silence, his gaze suddenly fixated on the bloodstained blade and unable to look away.

Maybe…maybe she wasn’t that far away.

He slowly became possessed by the silence as he simply continued to sit there for hours, cradling his wife’s delicate body in his arms to make sure she could continue to sleep peacefully where she’d been happiest. He was allowed to mourn alone and undisturbed. No one noticed how far down the pit of silence that his demented eyes were staring.

Haganezuka reached towards the knife.

- End

❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖

Are you okay? Because:

THIS IS NOT CANON EVEN FOR AN AU. NOPE. NOPE NOPE, NOT IN THIS HOOLIGAN’S WORLD. This is a “what if”and I cannot with this ending ever make it official. Consider it an AU of an AU for masochistic angst lovers xD

***To address the suicide implication: I was conflicted on whether it’s OOC for Haganezuka, with Demon Slayer being a lot about moving forward even when you lose everything. So in this case, I wanted to portray it more like he was at his darkest lowest point and having a moment of madness that someone else would need to pull him out of if they’re in time. It would be possible for the ending to be a “HEY STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING” from Kanamori who storms into the room, knowing how impulsive Hotaru is and just having found out that his wife had died.

On another note, I had never intended to do another fic for Demon Slayer, but somehow nostalgia just took over me because I was actually well-known for writing horrific death scenes over at Fandom back in the day xD But damn this was painful.

Anyway, if your heart is rekt, go read the true happy ending of this story here, come now. Don't worry, it's real.

I hope I did your headcanon justice, anon!

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murasaki-cha · 3 months

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So I read Serena.... wow. I'm gonna make a long post expressing my opinions because THERE ARE A LOT!! (there's pictures too!)

These are going to be just my thoughts and how I understood the story + characters so if anyone disagrees, sorry but our vibes don't match, please don't come at me.

Now first of all can they adopt me??

Ok going to be serious here (not for long) this manhwa is so good!! I have read another manhwa of Ina-nim, the author/artist, called "Black Winter" (it's amazing go check it out) so I knew this was going to have layers upon layers as a story. AND IT DID!!

The story is so complex, everyone is scheming something, no one says the full truth and you never know when you might get stabbed in the back.

I'm going to be honest, I've known about Serena since it came out and I didn't want to read it. Not because I thought the story was bad or anything, since I knew how great this author is already thanks to their previous story, but because I knew it was going to be messy. Super messy. And it is, it is a hot dumpster fire mess. And I didn't really want to deal with it since it would have been exhausting and I would have dropped it or put it on hold. But by now (chapter 72 as of the latest update) I think that it has become more "stable" to say and I found it easier to enjoy the story since I read it in one go.

I particularly loved that none of the characters were good. No one. But no one is exactly bad either. Everyone here is just gray, they're flawed, they do bad stuff, they hurt each other. No one is right or wrong. We see things form their perspective and we see their reasoning but whether we sympathise with them is up to us because, let's be real, even their thought process can be fucked up at times.

Besides Victor. Victor is pure evil. If we throw holy water at Victor he will start melting. Victor should be burned.

Now moving along let's talk about the main characters.

Starting with Serena. First of all MOTHER!!🛐-

Now Serena is the type of fl I expected to get lots of hate(and she did). She had a lover while she was married, she was way too stubborn, she thinks she's better than everyone, etc. And yeah she did all those things. She's also a very traumatised little girl who had her entire world shattered at the age of 17, had to marry a stranger and feel her worth slip through her fingers. Serena is constantly paranoid due to her past experiences and the way she's been treated. She's desperately grasping for whatever little power she can have in the begining.

Now that is not to say she's never done anything wrong. Her using Fredrick as merely a way to destress and a shield, her prejudice against Eiser simply because of his family, her thinking she deserves to be in charge even if she is unexperienced simply because she is a Serenity, her refusing to see anything from anyone's perspective but hers. She's too prideful, too stubborn, too guarded.

But she's a great businesswoman, she takes her tasks seriously and she's super intelligent. The moment she started working on the hotel she changed because she was finally in her element. That spoiled, angry Serena in the beginning was simply what the isolation had done to her, the way it had fundamentally changed her. She started seeing everything in a new light when she started learning how to manage the hotel and being more open minded while still being guarded. Serena is a perfect morally gray main character, she's flawed, she's human.

Next we have Eiser. DADDY-

I swear I'm not being biased when I say I loved Eiser SO MUCH! First things first, he is an asshole. Not gonna sugar coat it. In fact that is the sugar coating. He is quite possibly the most secretive man alive, we know exactly 3 things about his past in the last 72 chapters and I'm not even being sarcastic, that's the total amount. And that is probably what makes him so interesting as a character to me at least.

One of my favorite things about Eiser was that he didn't have any feelings about Serena in the beginning. Yeah he mostly saw her as a means to an end and felt a smidge of responsibility because of her brother, but that was it. He honestly did not care about what Serena did or thought. Eiser's only objective is to save Serenity hotel, probably fuck up his family along the way because screw them and the rest is an enigma. He doesn't do feelings, not anymore at least.

We learn from the beginning that he's not a "good guy", he's not Male Lead™ that's mean to fl to protect her or to not get close to her and his whole world revolves around her etc. He's not just this guy meant to be a love interest, he's a whole other well constructed character. He has his own goals (which we never know what they are because his thought's are more secretive and guarded than the Vatican Apostolic Archives), he follows the most efficient way to achieve those goals and that's all that matters to him. He recognized Serena's skills all along yet still thought of her as a spoiled little princess because he didn't care about knowing her, didn't need to, that wasn't going to help him.

There really isn't much development about Eiser aside his relationship with Serena (but that's a talk about further below), but that's kind of on point for him. Unlike Serena, Eiser has been doing business for years now, he knows how to run things, he knows how to work with people, he has experience and skill and friends (surprisingly). Eiser's role is more of a mentor for Serena than as someone who also needs to learn.

And last Frederick (gonna hide behind a chair real quick)

Don't come at me for this but to be 100% honest, Frederick was as interesting to me as a white sheet of paper. Most of the time he was just there. That's it. Look the man is mysterious I agree and his character would have been so so interesting but he literally gave me nothing. I swear I'm being unbiased, even if Eiser didn't exist this man would have done nothing to impact me as a reader. But I think that shows how important or how much impact he made to Serena's story.

Frederick is interesting in the fact that we don't know his role in the story. He says he's doing everything to help Serena yet will that make him an antagonist or not is yet to be revealed. Also Frederick isn't even his name??? so there's that. Unlike the first two, he appears too few times and we don't really know what's up with him. So far he has made it his main objective and like basically his personality to protect Serena from his employers.

I liked that it showed he came here with impure intentions and his own goals but ultimately he just made his entire world revolve around keeping Serena safe and that kind of bumped me. The most interesting thing about him so far right now is the mystery of his past (who he killed, what's his true identity) and whether he'll be an antagonist by the end or not.

And now we move to the most dreaded thing. The romance.

I'm gonna say it straight up, Serena x Eiser for the win. Enemies to lovers has gone and done it again and by god did I EAT IT UP!! They were mother and father fr!!

Now let me express my opinions on both couples here with actual words.

First I want to talk about Serena and Frederick. From the beginning this story did not have a love triangle, at least for me. Serena and Frederick always looked like a relationship born out of necessity (which Serena later on confirms that that's what it might have been all along). Serena craved for whatever warmth and protection she could get and Frederick became kind of a safe place for her. She essentially used Frederick as a distraction, a means of relaxation and someone to just vent. She never properly saw him as his own person or equal but as a means of escape from her struggles.

Meanwhile Frederick himself didn't exactly love Serena in a pure way. He loves her yes, but he's also obsessed with her. He feels the need to make her need him so he can stay by her side. He wants to be the only one seeing her weak and vulnerable, caging her and himself in this relationship. And the only way he knows she will be by his side is if she uses him. And the more Serena takes charge of things as head of Serenity and builds herself up, the more Frederick notices that she's slipping away from him so he desperately clings to the mission of protecting her from his employer. He even admits these himself:

Perhaps they did have something beautiful in the beginning but it slowly developed into a relationship that caged them both.

Now sit down because I'm gonna be talking about mommy and daddy (I unironcally call them that no I'm not joking) and this talk is going to be a loooong one *cracks knuckles*

Serena and Eiser were never the picture perfect couple, furthest thing from it and they were not planning on trying to change that anytime soon. They were toxic, they hurt each other and they didn't care about each other. To Eiser, Serena was just the girl he was supposed to marry to save Serenity and to Serena, Eiser was the man that took Serenity and might kill her in the future. None of them saw each other in a good light and none of them bothered to understand the other. Eiser was completely indifferent towards Serena and Serena just wanted to hurt him. Off to a great start because they were already at rock bottom so the only way to go is up!

The way their relationship developed was really natural and well paced. Everyone knows that the beauty of a good enemies to lover is the slowburn AND THE SLOWBURN WAS SLOWBURNING HERE LEMME TELL YOU! They first needed to see each other in a new lighting as equal business partners to go any further into their relationship or start trusting each other. They're both very calculative people and Eiser did see that, has always seen that, so he resulted to manipulating Serena into "competing" with him to give her the chance to properly work in the hotel. And Serena took the bait but never played right into the palm of his hand and always took charge of things her own way.

It was important for them to recognize each other's full capabilities, not just with the veil of "Grayan" or "Spoiled little princess". Most importantly it was essential for Serena to see that Eiser is in fact truly helping her family without any ulterior motives (that are harmful to her family at least) and never had any plans of taking over and eliminating her. And while Eiser was always aware of Serena's abilities and respected her as an individual, he always too disinterested in her to see how fully capable she is. One of the funniest things in my opinion was how Eiser was showering Serena with praises in his head 24/7 yet verbally he would break out in hives before complimenting her. (Istg the communication in this household died back in that carriage with Serena's family)

And that was the biggest wall that blocked them from going further with their relationship, so as soon as that was gone, well would you look at that, they can actually get along just fine and decently! And the romance just came along to them naturally.

Eiser was always drawn to Serena since he first saw her, he was always intrigued by her actions even if that left him puzzled. He always read people for his benefit, but Serena simply caught his eye every time by pure curiosity. He enjoys seeing her expressions and reactions and her journey to rising to her rightful place. Plus, Eiser always felt a kind of kinship with Serena. He saw the loss, betrayal and devastation in her and recognized it as the same as his own. The fight Serena put all these years to try and keep her place and protect what's hers is what he wished he had done all those years back and what someone had done for him when he was at his lowest. It was only after he truly got to know Serena that all these feelings started to subconsciously transform into something else, something even he isn't truly aware of.

Serena surprised me by being the first one to recognize(?), in a way, she had fallen but I'm not complaining, it was beautiful. Serena's main problem with Eiser was that she couldn't trust him, for very obvious reasons, that mans true thoughts are locked in a safe inside a safe inside another safe that happens to be inside a warehouse in Antarctica. I think the most important thing for Serena was to get to realize that Eiser was trying to truly help her family and the hotel. To me there were 3 major moments where Serena's feelings for Eiser changed: When they went to visit President Harol's mansion and he took the peaches and also defended her, when he said he'll build another hotel by the seaside during their date and when he told her he didn't hate her. All these moment helped Serena see that she had made a wrong assumption about Eiser and even though that wasn't enough to dispel all her suspicions towards him, rightfully so because Serena isn't an idiot, it made her trust him a bit more and be more comfortable around him.

Also their backstory, with Eiser being Serena's "prince" was so freaking cute. And the way she always looked for him when she went to those masquerade parties as a way of comfort, sobbing on the floor. If you go back and reread, you'll see that Serena has always been conscious of Eiser from the very start, albeit subconsciously. She always described him touching her like "The spot where he touched burned even after he had let go", or how she was conscious of being dressed "thinly" in front of Eiser but never in front of anyone else, not even Frederick. In my opinion, she had recognised Eiser as the masked prince at the time or knew subconsciously, but because of the animosity between him and her prejudice against him because he was a Grayan, she didn't want to admit it because that would admit that Eiser was anything but a simple marriage and business partner to her.

And now with the release of chapter 72, I am dreading the road in which their relationship is heading and how far back it may devolve. Like I don't blame Eiser because 1) he doesn't know about Serena's trauma 2) he saw red after seeing the way that man was hurting his wife I support the Grayan in him taking over at that moment. But unfortunately for Serena he just proved her greatest fear when it came to him, that he's still very much a Grayan no matter how much he despises them. Her reliving her childhood trauma and seeing Victor in Eiser could revert her to earlier Serena where she was always paranoid and scared of Eiser, but now with proof that he is in fact just as dangerous as she thought him to be. Worse thing is, she can't even go to Fredrick for comfort because she's suspicious of him too so she's truly alone (she has Sui but Sui was there before too and we saw the state in which Serena was in back than). This is a very complicated and simply put shit situation for them, it could possibly be one of their roughest patches in their entire relationship and it's going to take understanding from both Eiser and Serena to get over it and possibly, hopefully, truly trust each other after this. Please Ina-nim please I'm putting my trust in you!! (Ina-nim played us all like a cheep kazoo with chapter 72 like I could not have been more wrong and thank fuck for that! Never have I been so happy to be so incredibly wrong about something! War is over people cheered everyone cried tears of joy!!)

And lastly, thank you for coming to my ted talk, this entire post was just a way for me to vent all the thoughts this webtoon gave me and If you read it, good for you, I love you. As a reward have this collage of chibi mommy and daddy being silly goofy because my chosen career path requires me to have adobe illustrator and I never use it responsibly

#serena #selena #serena webtoon #serena manhwa #serena serenity #eiser leinz grayan #frederick bloom #serena x eiser #manhwa memes #manhwa #webtoon

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