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2/2: Mihawk x Reader
Length: 13k+
Rating: 18+,
Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence (Eventually), Psychic Invasions of Privacy, Obsessive Tendencies, Emotional Dysfunction Played for Humor and Angst, Questionable Consent (Mental Realm), Long-Term Ghosting, Suggestive Themes, Unsolicited Sword Metaphors, Language, Mentions of Hormonal Meltdowns and Crayon Consumption
You locked him out. You tried silence, distance, and deflection. He made your mind his battlefield—and now he’s here, in your life, in your space. What started as a telepathic draw ends in the worst realization: you may like mean swordsmen.
PART ONE
For @ari20002
Interested in being in the taglist? HERE
-X-The Cold War-X-
After Mihawk’s latest display of cold detachment, you did the only sensible thing. You threw him into what you privately referred to as the restricted brain section, including the spraybottle of shame to spritz when he hisses. Bad Mister Sea Ghost, bad.
No more shared thoughts. No glimpses. No shadowy echo of his presence brushing your mind like an unwanted breeze.
“You were always foolish. But this is beneath even you.” He said, irritated.
You locked the door. Tight. Enough that he’d feel it. No trust. Just two emotionally constipated soulmates, broadcasting silent contempt across the link like spies behind mirrored glass. Watching. Waiting. Withdrawing.
Because you didn’t trust him.
How could you?
He’d been there. Listening for years. Saying nothing. Not even a name. No warning. No comfort. Just static in your head and silence when you cried. A phantom who judged you from afar, unseen and unkind.
And now he expected what? Gratitude? Forgiveness? Recognition?
No.
The bond clicked shut with a psychic finality that made even him flinch.
Across the sea, Mihawk stood slowly. Cape rustling. Wine forgotten. His gaze sharpened. His aura stirred. A blade, barely unsheathed.
Years of being watched. Of wondering if you were imagining things. Of feeling shame leak through the bond whenever your feelings swelled too loudly. Of hearing breathy, judgmental silence during moments meant to be private.
And he’d let you suffer in silence anyway.
“You ignored me,” you muttered aloud to no one. “Mocked me. Haunt me like some snide, invisible art critic. And now I find out you’ve been sailing around under a title that commands kings, and you couldn’t say, ‘Hey, by the way, might be relevant’?”
He said nothing.
Which was nothing new.
The same man who bore your panic, your heartbreak, your telepathic accident during one particularly hormonal summer, without a single comment or sliver of mercy.
You ghost him.
No more cats in boots.
Cold. Clean. Clinical. Sometimes the bond pulsed faintly like a memory trying to crawl back into your bed. Like a cat scratching at the door it once ignored.
You didn’t open it.
Cold War: Phase 1 — Radio Silence
You mute the bond.
You imagine draping a velvet curtain over it, thick and dark, like the kind that blocks out both daylight and regret. You meditate. You burn sage. You flip off the universe and whisper,
“No thoughts. No spectral swordsmen. Not today, you petty poltergeist.”
And then… nothing. Mihawk says nothing. No snide “you’re flustered” remarks. No ghostly eye-rolls over your posture. No midnight sighs about your tragic wine pairings. Not even a psychic scoff.
Silence.
Flat. Undisturbed.
You blink. Think, Huh.
Maybe you broke him. Maybe he’s mad, sitting in his imaginary gothic man-cave with a half-drunk goblet and a tragic internal monologue. Maybe he’s stewing. Brooding. Brooding harder than usual.
You feel smug.
No, you are smug.
You lean back in your chair like a villain who just pushed the self-destruct button.
He’s embarrassed, you tell yourself.
That’s what he gets for tossing unsolicited smut through a sacred soul bond like it’s psychic fan mail.
Cold War: Phase 2 — You Begin to do Self-Therapy (Stupidly)
You didn’t tell him what you were doing. Of course not.
You had stopped confiding in the voice years ago, after it ignored your pain, your fear, your grief, with all the warmth of wind passing through stone. You used to think it was shy. You used to believe in fate.
You don’t anymore.
Now you believe in action. In boundaries. In silence as survival.
Unfortunately, action isn’t always enough. Not when you aren’t on your guard.
You were alone in your attic room, trying to journal about composting, healing, or how you positively do not need his validation. And then it happened.
Suddenly, you were not journaling.
You were somewhere else entirely, watching your own body writhe against a stone wall under the flicker of candlelight. His mouth was on yours. His voice spoke into you like a secret being claimed. His hands moved with the weight of practice and sin, pinning your hips like he had been planning it for years.
Your brain stopped. Blank.
Your hands trembled.
Your soul immediately began filing restraining orders in four languages.
You slapped your quill down and stared up at the ceiling with all the righteous fury of a woman who had just been psychically mugged.
“Are you insane?” you shouted. “I was eating grapes. You are a walking restraining order in lace cuffs with attitude problems.”
He said nothing.
Not even a twitch.
You scowled harder.
“And if you are so interested, why don’t you ever show up? Huh? Why don’t you come out of your creepy mind castle and say it to my face?”
You slammed your mug onto the windowsill.
“I live near the sea and I’m not scared of you!”
You were mortified. Furious. Desperately trying to shake him from your mind. You had already tried everything. Cold showers. Tax math. Mentally reenacting the worst job interview of your life. You had imagined falling down stairs and breaking your ankle just to keep him out. Nothing worked.
“I am not flattered,” you whispered another night, pacing your floor like a woman possessed. “I am horrified.”
You pointed to the ceiling as if the stars would carry your rage.
“I should be allowed to bathe without my soulmate turning it into psychological warfare.”
You threw your arms wide in defeat.
“And I am still finding sand in my boots. Stupid fine-grain sand.”
You didn’t notice it at first.
That detail.
Stupid sand.
You hadn’t been to the beach in weeks. The nearest road was citystone and grit, not coastal. But the sand in your boots was pale and fine, the kind that stuck to leather and refused to leave. The kind from a quiet cove, not a muddy shore.
You were angry all over again. It had been nineteen days of silence, and he still had not apologized. Not for haunting your bond. Not for sending you an unsolicited mental novella about what your thighs would look like draped over his lap.
So you did what you always did when the storm inside became too loud.
You talked to yourself.
“This rain smells like rotting pears,” you muttered, throwing your cloak over the chair. “I bet that smug bastard has never even seen a bantam pear tree. Let alone prune one.”
You kicked your boots off by the fire and added with a growl, “At least it’s quiet here. Not like that tavern in Highledge. Ugh. Never again. Who puts lavender in beer?”
And just like that, without meaning to, you gave him everything he needed.
-X-The Slip Up-X-
Back in Mihawk’s Mind Palace™
He’s on a ship. Alone. Reading quietly. You may be spiraling.
Mihawk is calculating.
You have not spoken to him directly since The Incident: Otherwise known as the unsolicited mental rendering of you pressed to stone, moaning his name like a prayer no one should have heard.
You never responded.
You built a wall. He felt it.
But you are not very good at closing the bond.
You constructed your barricade with fury, but he found the flaw in your architecture and slipped through like smoke with vertebrae. The kind that winds down the spine and lingers.
His Observation Haki is not the gentle kind. Not the polite knock at the door. It is the blade already pressed under the chin, invisible and certain, with no sound and no warning. It is the kind that stops grown warriors mid-breath.
It is also the kind that follows. A lighthouse in a storm. He can always get a general read. He just needs particulars.
Then you say the sand thing.
And he freezes.
His eyes narrow over the edge of the book. Slowly, carefully, he folds the page’s corner without looking. He sets the book aside and speaks into the empty deck with crisp precision.
“Interesting.”
He stands.
Adjusts the sail. Shifts the rudder.
Course change. South coast. Narrow inlet. Pale sand. Not volcanic.
He passes another ship on the water, cutting through fog like the ghost of a warship. The sailors panic. One drops the spyglass.
Mihawk simply calls out, calm as ever.
“Have you passed a fishing inlet with white cliffs? Shallow tides. Less than five miles wide.”
The helmsman, shaking, stammers, “Sir, that’s a sixty-mile range—”
“Forty-seven.”
Because Mihawk does not guess.
He calculates.
Specific Clues You Gave Without Realizing:
"Sand in my boots" — fine pale inlet sand.
"The wind tastes like seaweed and regret today" — there is a dried kelp processing village nearby, population 112.
"Why does the bakery lady hum sea shanties?" — cross-referenced as a coastal sailor tradition, passed down matrilineally. Confirmed.
Later, in his private study aboard the ship, he sits in silence with a map stretched across the table. A celestial globe rests beside it. Several ledgers lie open, annotated in his steady hand like assassination briefs. A quill is tucked behind his ear. The sword rests within reach.
His fingers trace the coastline, eyes sharp and still.
“Rotting pears,” he murmurs.
He flips open his weather log. Of course, he keeps one.
“Autumn. Inland. Humidity above sixty percent. Orchard decline within a twenty-kilometer radius. South-facing winds.”
He drags his finger west.
“Lavender beer,” he says next, flipping through an annotated book of regional trades. “Only brewed in one village east of Highledge. Elevation four hundred thirty-two feet. Known for migratory seabirds with yellow bellies.”
And the final detail?
You said ‘hush’. Angry librarian style.
Not just as a word, but as a wish. As something sacred. You said it like someone who used to live above a tavern, who knows what it means to pray for stillness. Like someone who had once been surrounded by shouting drunks and now guards silence like treasure.
There are only three libraries in the region.
And you are likely hiding in the smallest one.
He pins the map.
Target acquired.
Mihawk does not need a name.
He does not need a face.
He has your tone of voice. He has your commentary on rotting pears and lavender beer, your offhanded mutter about sand, and the way you said at least it’s quiet here with the hollow conviction of someone who hasn’t felt happy in weeks.
He triangulates.
Bad beer. Strange humidity. Seabird patterns. Regional orchard decay. Subpar shanties. Your voice.
And, frankly, there are not that many civilized places in your backwater archipelago.
-X-Home Invasion-X-
It starts with the bell.
A soft chime from the front door. Faint. Harmless. The kind of sound that barely registers over the rustle of old pages and the soft ticking of the clock above the desk.
You hardly notice it.
People come and go. Sometimes the baker drops off her borrowed romance novels. Sometimes a fisherman comes in to check the tide tables, pretending not to read poetry. Sometimes you hear that bell, and it means nothing at all.
You don’t feel anything. Not at first.
No shift in the bond. No psychic ripple. No warning.
Just silence.
You keep shelving, fingers tracing worn spines and titles faded by time. You think about soup. About whether it might rain. About nothing in particular.
Then you hear a chair scrape.
Not loudly. Just enough to register. A single wooden leg dragged slightly along stone, too careful to be clumsy.
You freeze.
The library is not extensive. You would have heard footsteps. You would have heard someone say hello. You should have felt something.
But you didn’t.
Your heart begins to pound, sharp and uncertain.
You inch forward. Peer through the gap between shelves.
And you see him.
Sitting in your chair at the front table. Like he has always belonged there.
A long black coat settles around him like a shadow draped in fabric, tailored not for comfort, but for quiet command. It flows with his movements, whispering with each shift like it also has secrets to keep. His posture is elegant, yet unbothered, as if he’s grown used to being the most dangerous man in any room and no longer finds the need to announce it.
Mid-thirties, maybe. He feels ageless in the way of cathedral stone, weathered not by time, but by purpose. His skin is pale beneath the subtle gleam of candlelight, sharp angles and sharper silence carved into his face like a statue chiseled by intent.
His eyes—gold, cold, impossibly dark—cut through the stillness like twin blades honed on solitude. They do not flicker. They see.
At his chest, a golden cross glints beneath the open edge of his coat, not for piety, but for precision.
Behind him leans his sword-girlfriend, whom you're pretty sure he named, like a beloved body-pillow. Tall as a grave marker. Silent. Familiar. Like something that has killed and remembers it. It rests not because it is tired, but because it will certainly be needed again.
And he does not draw it, because he does not have to.
He is the threat. The promise. The punctuation at the end of fate.
In his lap rests a book.
Your book.
The one you had annotated last week. The one with your notes in the margins, your thoughts scribbled in the corners, your dried flower marking the chapter you hadn’t finished yet.
Mihawk turns a page with careful precision.
“Are you going to run?” He says, calm and as real as the voice in your head. “Because I’m not above chasing you through five more provinces.”
You freeze like an ant before a magnifying glass.
He should not be here.
He should not be real.
You did everything right. You silenced the bond. You buried your thoughts beneath the pages of composting manuals and the weight of sleep deprivation. You filled your head with rain, receipts, and bitterness.
But he is here anyway.
Your feet move before you think.
You step back. Bump the edge of a shelf. Books shift, one nearly falling.
His eyes rise.
Yellow. Cold. Certain.
They find you instantly.
There is no surprise on his face. No hesitation. Only confirmation.
As if this moment had already happened for him. As if he had been expecting you to appear in the gap between shelves and run.
You turn.
You don’t remember making the decision. You don’t remember grabbing your coat, the key, or even your breath.
You just run.
Past the biographies. Past the tea kettle on the counter. Out the back door and into the alley, boots slapping against the wet stone.
You bolt out of the library, boots slapping wet stone, breath ragged in the twilight air.
You duck alleys. Vault walls. Switch cloaks.
Your heartbeat is a war drum.
But his presence is everywhere.
Not in sight.
Not in step.
But above you. Around you. Inside you.
“Faster,” he murmurs across the tether, smooth and amused. “I decided to give you a five-minute head start. Even after all the sailing I did.”
You don’t scream.
You snarl.
“Five minutes?! This is a death run! I’m being hunted!”
“Correct,” he replies. “And I’m finally enjoying myself.” His voice is calm and distant. Sliding through the cracks in your mind like a dagger into flesh.
You stop breathing.
Not because you’re afraid (but yes, you are) but because he sounds amused.
You are outmatched in every conceivable manner.
But you don’t stop. Down the narrow hill trail, boots grinding against loose shale, lungs burning, your cloak snagging on branches.
The crows. The feeling in your spine. The pressure. Even without hearing anyone behind you, you can feel the way stalks towards you.
Somehow, everywhere.
Your blood sings run, run, run…
Then it stops.
Because he’s there.
Just ahead.
Still, already waiting. He tilts his head, barely, eyes shockingly bright against the sharp angles of his handsome face. Black coat. Wide-brim hat. A sword that hums like it remembers every death it ever delivered.
“You led me on quite a pilgrimage. It was rude.” He drawls, casually, “But not unexpected.”
You turn to run the opposite way, into the forest.
He raises a hand.
You freeze.
Not because you want to obey.
But suddenly, the ground feels like it might crack under you. Something hits you not like a wave, but a precision strike, just enough to choke your instincts and send every cell in your body whispering apex predator.
Mihawk walks toward you slowly.
He’s measured and balanced. A perfect weapon, not even touching his sword. But he closes the final distance in one step. His hand brushes your chin, bare, careful, and cold.
Like fog and like dread.
Like something your blood knew before your brain caught up.
And that face. Those golden eyes.
“You are Mihawk.”
Your voice cracks mid-syllable.
He gives a little sigh, rolling his shoulders like this conversation is mildly inconvenient.
“Unfortunately.”
You take a step back, and he watches it like a man indulging prey.
“That wasn’t a joke. That’s you. That’s your bounty. You’re the warlord.”
He lifts an eyebrow.
“Bureaucracy is tedious.”
“You’re Dracule Mihawk.”
“Please don’t say my full name like it’s a murder spell.” He says drily.
“You’ve been in my head for over fifteen years—”
“I’m aware. Believe me.”
You’re spiraling. Your hands are shaking. Your voice is rising.
One step. Two.
Then crouches before you, balanced and quiet.
“But now you’ve seen me. And you can’t unsee it. And your entire town just witnessed your meltdown, and will soon be letting the local marine office know I’m here, and soon they’ll realize why.”
He rests one hand on the hilt of his blade, more relaxed than threatening.
But his gaze?
It could pin a god.
You open your mouth. Nothing comes out.
And Mihawk—former Warlord of the Sea, silent psychic menace, walking weapon of dry wit and existential dread—smiles ever so slightly.
“That’s the first time you’ve shut up in seventeen years.”
You’re not having a mental breakdown. You’re having a Mihawk. You’re a Dream. A Screaming, Flailing, Cursed Dream.
“What the hell do you want?!”
You stop. Breathing hard. Cheeks flushed.
He stands to his full height, letting his shadow fall over you. Watching you. Like he’s at the opera. With wine.
“What I want,” he says mildly, “is for you to keep talking. It’s better than theater.”
You sputter. “This isn’t funny!”
“You are hysterical.”
“I’m losing my mind!”
“Exactly.” He gestures vaguely, like you’re a fine painting. “It’s riveting.”
He laughs aloud, which is more disarming than his silence. At one point, you scream into your arm. He has the audacity to chuckle. It’s not even mean. Just… entertained. Like you’re the first bright thing he’s seen in years.
“I’m not well,” you mutter, collapsing into a seat on a flat stone. “I’m having a breakdown.”
“Yes,” he agrees, sitting beside you like you invited him. “But you’re lovely when you panic.”
You glare at him. “I’m going to kill you.”
He sips imaginary wine.
“The attempt would be adorable.”
The longer you spiral, the calmer he gets. It’s as if your rage, your disbelief, your disaster meltdown, all confirm something for him: That you are real. That you have teeth. That you are exactly as he knows you: chaotic, clever, and intolerable in the most captivating way.
“You are a dream,” he murmurs. “A very loud, mildly violent, deeply caffeinated dream. With opinions.”
You choke. “You’re mocking me.”
“I’m enjoying you.”
“You didn’t even like me. You just came here to terrorize me for those puss in boot thoughts.”
“Perhaps.”
He turns to you, eyes gleaming like obsidian and wine.
“But I have waited years and watched you sabotage yourself. Watched you grow teeth. And now you’re here.” He leans in slightly. “So I’m going to watch you unravel. In person. Just for a while. In person, just to be sure of what I want.”
Yes. Perfect.
You’ve just finished your full-fledged meltdown. Your heart’s still thundering, you’re covered in mud, your cloak’s ripped on a bramble, and your legs are shaking. The reality of Mihawk is too much: Warlord. Soulmate. Closet telepath. Absolute menace.
You point at him, still breathless.
“Are you going to kill me?”
He doesn’t hesitate.
“It would be easier.”
Then, you yelp.
Because this man, this walking cathedral of judgment and precision, this former Warlord of the Sea, grabs you like a sack of flour and flings you over his shoulder as if it's go time.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Solving a logistical issue. You’re loud. And prone to running.” He snorts.
“I WILL BITE YOU!”
“You’ve said that before. It was ineffective.”
“PUT ME DOWN!”
“Eventually.”
-X- CAUGHT -X-
He walks back to the village with you slung over his shoulder like an unwilling parcel.
You scream the whole ride. You hurl an apple at his head. You kick. You curse. You make wild, flailing attempts to wriggle free. At one point, you try to leap off his shoulder with all the conviction of a martyr diving into the sea.
He catches you by the back of your shirt with two fingers. Effortless. Like a disappointed cat dad.
By the time he reaches the edge of the cobbled lane and turns down the narrow alley that leads to your rented lodging, you’ve cycled through all five stages of soulmate grief and are hovering somewhere between fake-your-own-death and start a new life in a barrel.
He doesn’t knock.
He opens the door with his hip, balanced and fluid, utterly unbothered. His other hand is still occupied with you.
Your sanctuary greets you with the scent of bergamot and betrayal.
It was yours.
The modest one-room above a sleepy bookstore. The kind of place with creaky floors, moth-soft curtains, and a single small drawer where you kept your most sacred things: a handful of old letters, a bundle of dried sea lavender, and the last remaining shreds of your dignity.
He sets you down. Not because you asked. Not because you fought. Simply because, at this point, where would you go? The entire village saw him carrying you in like an unapologetic kidnapper. Only one brave old woman dared to ask what was going on, and instead of Mihawk’s boot, she received a curt, almost polite answer.
“Soulmate business.”
Now your drawers are open. Inside and out. The town knows your business, and Mihawk knows where your journal is.
The sea lavender has been placed in a glass.
And the world's greatest swordsman is lighting a candle at your desk with the kind of ease that suggests ownership, like he has always been here. Like this room has been waiting for him to arrive and fill the silence with something heavier.
You stand frozen in the doorway, the frame barely brushing your shoulders. You do not bother to close the door behind you.
Shock has calcified into fury, a quiet, gnawing pressure in the back of your jaw.
Your cloak is torn from the chase. Your boots were caked with mud. When you tried to enter, he gave you a judgmental look fit for a grandmother.
All while he wears that stupid open jacket like he just stepped out of a cursed oil painting that drinks moonlight and never fades.
Your head aches. Not from injury. But from the migraine that is the growing, irreversible knowledge that your lifelong psychic squatter is Dracule Mihawk.
The greatest swordsman alive. The Warlord. The myth. The recluse rumored to live in a fortress surrounded by sword-wielding monkeys and unspeakable solitude. And he is here.
Lounging in your rented room like it’s a war camp and you are the next siege. His presence fills the space. Thick as smoke. Rich. Heavy. Unwelcome.
And impossibly smug. And also wearing boots, just like your little Puss in Boots stories, but that’s a redundant point.
“Are you insane?” you manage, your voice hoarse and furious, barely more than a whisper.
He exhales through his nose. Calm. Slow. Although your question may seem uninteresting, it did raise a point.
“No.”
“You broke into my room.”
“It wasn’t locked well.”
“You unpacked.”
“You were behind schedule. I assumed you’d flee again.”
He gestures toward the teacup on the table, your teacup. The chipped blue one with the ink stain from a letter that bled too much when you cried on it.
“Sit,” he says, not even looking at you.
You do not sit.
You march forward, planting your hands on the table with the full weight of your fury. The candle flame between you sputters slightly.
“You do not get to invade my room like it’s your ship,” you say. Calm. Clear. A final warning, delivered with restraint you do not feel.
Candlelight carves his cheekbones into cruelty, throws shadows like war paint beneath his eyes. His gaze finds you slowly, deliberately, as if the moment must be earned. And when he speaks, it is quiet. Flat.
“You’ve been haunting my skull since you were eight. Like I planned to have my soul grafted to a little brat who talked to herself and recited poetry about cosmic romance while I was committing high-seas murder. Consider us even.”
Before your body can react (before your soul can scream no, no, no), he grabs you by the waist and tosses you over his shoulder like yesterday’s moral compass.
Again.
You yelp. Thrash. Kick him in the ribs. He does not flinch.
“You kidnapped me!”
“You weren’t moving fast enough.”
“This is illegal!”
“So are most of my hobbies.”
He sets you down. In the only chair in the room. The chair he has decided is yours, just as he has apparently decided the bed is now his.
He lies back on it like a man returning to his estate. One arm was folded behind his head. One boot still on. A soft sigh leaves him, the sound of a tyrant pretending to be tired.
Your jaw drops. Your left eye twitches.
“You’re in my bed.”
“That’s incorrect,” he says without blinking. “This bed now belongs to the better swordsman. And I have seniority.”
You lunge for your tea. Desperately. You sip. You sputter. You spit.
“What—what is this—salt?!”
He does not look at you.
“You didn’t sit when I told you to. That was your cue.”
“You swapped my sugar with salt?!”
“I had time.”
You stare. Fists clenched. Mouth still tasting betrayal. He lies there like a god who has always owned the sky. Calm. Certain. Disgustingly composed.
“You’ve gone mad,” you whisper.
“Undoubtedly,” he says, almost cheerfully. “But you’re the one who named your potted plant Destiny and wrote diary entries to the void. So let’s not pretend this is a one-sided descent.”
You throw a pillow at him. He doesn’t flinch.
You throw the second. It lands square on his chest.
He places his hand over it like a man shielding a sacred heirloom.
“Thank you. I was cold.”
You storm to the window.
He watches you go, and for once, there’s no smugness behind his gaze. Just something unreadable. Something weightier than you want to name.
The street below is quiet. Sunlight crawls across the stone in fractured reflections, molten and slow. The scent of candle wax and lavender still lingers behind you.
You don’t turn around.
He rises slowly. Deliberate. Not threatening, but absolute. His shadow stretches across the floorboards like a curtain pulled across fate.
“You articulate your words differently when you’re nervous,” he murmurs behind you. “I like it.”
You spin, fists raised, heart lurching.
But he’d already moved past you and returned to your desk. Already examining your ruined tea as if it were vintage wine, not seasoned betrayal.
You hate him.
You hate that he’s in your space. You hate the way he fits into it like he’s always belonged there. You hate the bond, the silence, the truth of it blooming in your chest like a bruise that won’t fade.
And worst of all, you hate that he’s right about everything.
You’re barefoot. Furious. Unmoored.
You’re still not convinced this isn’t a hallucination brought on by mild dehydration and chronic heartbreak.
“You can’t truthfully be the Mihawk,” you say again, one last frantic grasp for reality.
He doesn’t blink. “You’re not particularly observant.”
“You look like you’re wearing eyeliner.”
“Precision is a lifestyle.”
“That was my grandmother’s.” You point, wild and accusatory, at the chipped teacup now resting like a crown on your nightstand.
“Then she had taste.” He still hasn’t raised his voice. Not once.
And that’s the worst part.
Not the abduction. Not the psychic freeloading. Not even the way he caught you bridal-style when you tried to leap from a second-story window ten minutes ago.
No.
What’s killing you is that he is perfectly calm. Smooth as an untouched pond, like he expected every detail of this interaction and made contingencies for every variable.
The switch from him not giving a damn to suddenly caring is jarring and unfair.
“You didn’t even tell me of your existence for ten years.” You say softly.
He looks at you now. Fully. Quietly. No smirk. No mask.
“Because you weren’t ready to know it,” he says evenly. “I let you believe what you wanted.”
And somehow, impossibly, that makes it worse.
You want to punch him in the neck. Or cry. Possibly both.
Instead, you jab a trembling finger at the shelf where your tunics are now neatly folded in unnatural, militarized stacks.
“You packed.”
“You don’t fold your tunics correctly. You create unnecessary creases.”
“That’s not your job.”
“Everything about you is now my job,” he says, so flatly it feels like law. “I didn’t ask for it. But here we are.”
You slam your hand on the table. It makes a dull sound, and nothing changes.
“So what now? You’re… staying here?”
“I stay wherever I choose. Right now, that’s next to you. Or on top of you. Depending on how the afternoon goes.”
You shriek and launch the closest object (your book of poetry, no less) at his smug, stupid face.
He catches it one-handed. Doesn’t blink.
“Predictable,” he says, thumbing through the pages. “But charming.”
You bolt for the door. You reach for your boots. You freeze.
Because Mihawk, in a feat of quiet, deliberate sabotage, has removed the laces from your boots and braided them into one long decorative cord, now tied neatly around your window curtain.
You stare at it.
Then at him.
He meets your eyes calmly, like this is a normal thing to do in someone else’s home.
“If you can’t walk,” he says, “you can’t run.”
Your entire body turns to wildfire.
You whirl on him, fists clenched, voice shaking. “Why now? After all this time? Why show up now?”
He leans back again, folding his arms behind his head. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
And for the first time all night, he gives you the truth.
“Because I thought you were a child. Then a fool. Then a fantasy.”
He pauses. Then he stands.
The shift is subtle, but the room feels it. The air folds in on itself. Your lungs forget how to breathe. His presence doesn’t just occupy space; it claims it like gravity, remembering how to pull.
“And now, you’re a problem.” His eyes lock on yours, gold and unblinking, like judgment cast in metal. “And I make it a point to solve problems before someone else does.”
And he does solve his problem—you—by staying.
He makes himself at home with the quiet efficiency of a siege. The kind where the gates don’t fall with fire, but with inevitability.
You tell him you have to go back to work.
That you have a schedule. A duty. A life.
He nods once and returns your shoelaces like a concession in some bizarre diplomatic negotiation. He doesn't stop you. Doesn't follow. Doesn’t smirk.
Because he knows.
He knows the worst punishment he could inflict is letting you walk out that door and pretend the world still makes sense.
The library is packed.
Too packed.
Patrons line the aisles, whispering furiously behind the spines of borrowed cookbooks. Someone from the apothecary section stares so hard that they knock over a display of herbal remedies. A child points at your neck and yells something about fate marks.
And when you reach the front desk, your assistant, God bless her, leans in and murmurs, with the wide-eyed panic of someone who’s just seen death leave a tip, “We called the local marines. They said if it’s soulmate business, we should… stay out of it.”
You nod. You smile.
You attempt to shelve a book.
You drop it.
Because none of this is normal. Because he stayed.
Because the worst part isn’t the chaos or the attention or the whispered rumors from the herb aisle.
The worst part is that somewhere in your chest, beneath the salt and fury and migraine, something terrible is beginning to bloom.
The creeping, traitorous understanding that he was right. Things wouldn’t be the same now that people knew.
You make it through the rest of your shift at the archive in a state of functional dissociation. Your fingertips are ink-stained. Your bag is heavy with reports no one reads. Your patience has been chewed through by gossiping patrons, ancient shelving systems, and one particularly nosy old man who asked if your “scary husband” would be joining you for lunch tomorrow.
You trudge home. Up creaking stairs, down a narrow hall. You open the door.
And there he is.
Sitting in your chair like he paid rent. Long legs crossed. Boots off. His coat, your least favorite symbol of tyranny, hung neatly on your wall peg, like it belongs.
A book is open in his hands. Your book. The spine cracked to a page you know you dog-eared last winter during a nasty rainstorm.
He does not look up.
“You’re late.”
You stop.
Just inside the doorway.
The air shifts. Pulls. Tightens. Like something enormous has moved into place behind you. Like gravity has clicked. Like the game, you didn’t know you were playing, and he has just revealed the board.
Your voice scrapes out low. Dry. Almost a whisper.
“Have you just been… sitting there?”
He turns a page. Calmly. Like this is ordinary. Like your life is ordinary.
“You were delayed. And your neighbor gave me a scone.”
You blink. “She what—”
“She asked if we were fighting. I said no. She said you throw books when you’re upset, and offered me a bribe to be gentle.”
You stare at him. At your chair. At the steaming cup of tea beside him, your chipped blue one again, salt mercifully replaced by something real.
He glances up at last. Eyes like golden blade-tips.
“I’ve marked the pages you skipped,” he says. “Your annotations are inconsistent. But interesting.”
And for a second, for a single second, you forget how to breathe. Because the man who invaded your room, stole your boots, salted your tea, and dropped into your life like a guillotine.
Is reading your favorite book. In your chair. And remembering your marginalia.
It would be romantic if it weren’t horrifying.
Or maybe it’s horrifying because it is romantic.
You drop your bag. You don’t realize you’ve done it until the thud echoes like punctuation at the end of a sentence you didn’t mean to write.
He closes the book with care. No smirk. No triumph. Just quiet inevitability, the same expression one might wear when claiming a plot of land they never needed to conquer.
“You can’t still be here.”
He sets the book down. “I am.”
“This is my room.”
“It’s no longer just yours.”
You laugh: sharp, thin, brittle. It cracks halfway through and falls apart like glass. “You think this is normal?”
He finally looks at you. Gold eyes calm, flat, deeply unbothered. “No.”
“Then why—”
“Because I tolerated your presence in my head for over a decade,” he says smoothly, like this is diplomacy and not madness. “And I endured it in silence.”
He stands. Slow. Not looming, steady.
“Now,” he says, stepping toward the counter, “you can endure mine.” He picks up the chipped mug again. Your chipped mug. Cradles it like it’s worth something.
He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t cajole. Doesn’t plead.
He just moves.
He lays his sword across the top of your bookshelf like it belongs there. The wood creaks beneath the weight of legend.
He moves his coat aside and hangs your own in its place. Hangs it neatly, like a man setting roots.
He glances at your disorganized bookshelf, the pages skewed, ink curling at the corners from nights when your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
He sighs. Not judgmental. Not impatient. Just quiet. Like it’s going to be a long job. But one he’s already committed to.
You pace the room. Back and forth. Again. The wooden floor creaks beneath your steps, as if it's trying to warn you. The air is thick with the scent of candle wax and fresh ink; your dinner remains untouched on the counter. You can’t eat. Can’t sit. You can barely think.
“You didn’t care before,” you snap, rounding on him for the fourth time in five minutes.
Mihawk doesn’t even look up from where he’s inspecting the edge of one of your kitchen knives. He runs a cloth along it, slow and precise.
“I ignored it before,” he replies evenly.
“You ignored me.”
“Yes.”
It’s maddening. The calm. The lack of guilt. The fact that he’s polishing your knives like he’s lived here for years.
You spin toward him, sharp and breathless. “And now what? You’re going to pretend we’re bonded and play house?”
He doesn’t so much as blink. Doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t scoff.
“I don’t pretend,” he says, smooth and dismissive. “How puerile.”
It’s not a fight. It’s not romantic. It isn’t even angry.
It’s strategic.
He is strategic.
He doesn’t storm into your life; he settles into it. Like frost. Like mold. Like smoke that never really clears.
He’s already labeled your herb jars. He’s sharpened every blade in your drawer. He rearranged your library, again, this time by “moral alignment” and something called “author’s probable blood type.”
You’d asked where your favorite novel went.
He said, “Neutral Good doesn’t belong beside Sociopathic Cowardice.”
And that was the end of the discussion.
You noticed your window wouldn’t open.
“Did you add a lock to my window?”
“You were vulnerable,” he replied without glancing up.
“To what?”
He looked at you, calm, cool, certain. “You have a face that invites trouble.”
“You are the trouble.”
He steps past you without touching you, and you freeze, not because you’re afraid, but because the air changes when he moves. He picks up your chipped mug like it belongs to him and sips as if the tea were poured for him.
“I will run away,” you say under your breath. “Again.”
“You won’t.”
And it isn’t a threat. It’s not even a dare. It’s just true.
Because you know, horrifyingly & irrevocably, you’d come back even if you did.
He moves through the room like he’s already paid rent.
He lays his sword gently across your bookshelf. He lifts your coat off the hook and hangs his in its place. He eyes your stack of unsorted journals and exhales through his nose, just once, like a man resigned to cleaning up a mess that’s already his.
Finally, finally, you can’t take it anymore. You round on him, arms shaking at your sides.
“You could just… ignore me, couldn’t you?”
Your voice cracks in the middle.
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t raise his voice. He pours two cups of tea. He sets one in front of you.
Then, with all the finality of a blade laid flat.
“Get used to me.”
And he means it. Gods help you, he means it.
He makes you so mad that, once again, you try to run. No warning. No packing. Just boots on and gone, storming down the hillside trail behind the bookstore, into the tangled trees that lead toward the cliffs.
It’s not graceful. It’s not planned. It’s not even rational. But it feels like defiance.
At least until you misstep on loose stone and twist your ankle trying to prove a point.
Now you sit on a cold boulder halfway down the slope, your ankle pulsing with pain, your palms scraped, soaked in sweat and pride and the overwhelming desire to scream into the sky.
The woods are quiet. Until they’re not.
You don’t hear him approach, of course you don’t, but suddenly he’s there. A shadow in a black coat, stepping out from behind the trees like the forest decided to conjure your humiliation into human form.
Mihawk crouches in front of you.
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t gloat. He just sets down a roll of linen bandages beside his boot and unrolls them with the same reverent care he probably gives a dying man or a dull sword.
You try to hiss through your teeth, but it comes out as more of a growl. “You followed me.”
“You limped through a ravine in pitch-dark. I followed your trail of bad decisions.”
You glare. He lifts your injured ankle with all the tenderness of a man handling priceless crystal.
“Don’t touch me.”
He tightens the bandage a little too perfectly. “Then stop hurting yourself.”
His fingers brush your calf. You flinch. It’s not the pain. It’s the heat. He’s warmer than you expected.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You’re injured. Sit still.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Humph.”
He says it so simply. Not out of cruelty, but inevitability. Like gravity. Like time. Like the bond you tried to outpace and now can’t seem to undo.
You look away, jaw clenched, hands fisted in the fabric of your coat. The silence stretches. The bandage tightens. The pulse in your ankle steadies.
When he finishes, he doesn’t let go. Not right away.
He stays crouched. Looking up at you with that unreadable expression, all shadowed eyes and moonlight, quiet and relentless as the tide.
“You can’t keep doing this,” you whisper.
“Neither can you,” he replies.
And there, in the hush between pride and surrender, something shifted. Not in the world. In you.
You hated him. You hated him more than anything. More than the ache in your ankle. More than the sweat clinging to your back. More than the absolute certainty that he would not leave you alone.
His eyes lifted. Calm. Steady. Exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the climb. It was the kind of exhaustion that came from bearing weight for too long. From silence worn like armor. From watching the storm arrive and deciding to stand in it anyway.
The quiet between you lengthened. Not the soft, companionable kind that came from mutual understanding. This was a sharp, brittle quiet. The type that preceded wars. The kind that pressed its palm to your chest and said you were not supposed to find me.
And yet, here you are.
He reached for the bandage again, his fingers precise and movements practiced. The fabric pulled against your skin, and you flinched.
“Careful,” you snapped.
He did not pause. “Stop moving.”
“You are bruising me.”
He paused then. Not in guilt. But in resignation.
"You bruise easily," he said, voice low. "Emotionally and otherwise."
The words caught. You did not answer. Could not. Something about them had reached too deep, like a wire struck behind your ribs.
You turned your face toward the woods. The air was sharp, filled with pine and the faint salt of the sea. The leaves were still. Not even the wind moved.
And then, so quietly you almost regretted the question before it left your lips, you spoke.
“Was I that awful?”
He finished the wrap. Secured it with a final knot. Then he stood.
He looked at you from his full height, not towering, not gloating. Just standing in the fading light like he had always been part of the scenery. Like the trees had known he would come.
“You’re my cross to bear,” he said. “But it’s not a heavy one.”
There was no heat in it. No venom. Only truth, delivered without mercy.
You winced. Just slightly.
He adjusted his coat, his expression remaining unreadable.
“I didn’t want this,” he said. “You didn’t want me. We agree on that.”
His gaze shifted to the horizon. The sky was beginning to turn purple. A single star blinked through the clouds.
“But fate does not ask what we want. It simply binds.”
You bit your tongue. Pride burned hotter than your ankle now.
Still, some defiant part of you stirred.
“You could have chosen someone quiet.”
He glanced down at you. One brow arched.
“You think I deserve peace?”
“I think I deserve a thank you for not stabbing you.”
“Try it,” he replied, voice like velvet stretched over steel. “And this time, I’ll let you.”
Silence bloomed again. You seethed. He remained still.
He was impossible. Arrogant. Smug. And yet he was not leaving.
You stared at it. Then at him.
He turned without waiting for praise or thanks, the edge of his coat brushing past your knee. It was barely a whisper of fabric, but it grounded everything: your pain, your rage, your helpless awareness that no matter how hard you fought, he was already two steps ahead.
You blink.
He walked past you, slow and steady, as though the conversation had ended the moment he stood.
“Get up when you’re ready,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re not going back to that town.”
Your head snapped up. “Why not?”
“Because I burned it.”
You gaped at his back. “You did what?!”
“Metaphorically.”
A pause.
Then, muttered under his breath, too soft and too honest: “Mostly.”
When you finally returned to the village—limping, furious, bracing yourself for the fallout—you found it more or less intact. The bakery still had its crooked sign. The bookshop still had its faded awning. But the marine office? That was… different.
A clean, surgical gash ran down the front of the building. Not scorched, not smashed. Sliced. Right through the stone, like a blade had passed through butter.
“What the hell?”
You stared.
It hadn’t exploded. It had simply been cut.
And Mihawk, of course, stood next to a modest wooden cart and horse like he had personally invented civility. Most of your belongings were already stacked neatly inside, tied down with knotted ropes and folded blankets.
Your cloak. Your ink bottles. Your small, chipped tea set. He’d even remembered the potted plant named Destiny, currently tucked in with extra straw like a fragile heirloom.
You didn’t ask where the cart came from. Or how he convinced someone to lend it to him. Or if he had simply stared at a farmer until one was surrendered.
Instead, you stood very still, your bag still over one shoulder, your ankle throbbing, your heart twisting.
“I like my job,” you said, voice thin.
He looked at you but said nothing.
“I had a routine. People there were kind to me.”
Still nothing.
Your eyes burned. You bit the inside of your cheek, but the tears still came. Quiet. Frustrated. The kind you hated.
“I had stability,” you whispered. “And you—you just—”
Mihawk didn’t apologize. Of course, he didn’t.
“The marines were getting nosey,” he said, as if that somehow justified tactical destruction and the abrupt upheaval of your entire life.
Then, with the same stoic indifference he might show a misbehaving cat, he bent slightly, hooked an arm behind your knees, and lifted you off the ground.
You squawked in protest, clutching your satchel like a lifeline. “I can walk, you tyrant—”
“You limp,” he said, flat and factual. “Poorly.”
Before you could bite back a reply, he placed you directly into the cart. Right on top of a folded wool blanket, wedged between your favorite tea tin and the box where you kept old letters and loose buttons. Like you were another belonging to be loaded. Something that had always been his.
You scrambled upright, breath shallow, heart pounding. “This is abduction.”
He didn’t look at you.
He just adjusted the edge of the blanket so your legs wouldn’t chill and tucked the satchel into your lap. Then he handed you a handkerchief.
Black. Embroidered. Absurdly expensive.
You stared at it, then at him. “Are you serious?”
“You’re leaking,” he said simply. “Use it.”
You wanted to throw it at his head. You wanted to scream. Instead, your fingers curled around the fabric. It was soft and warm from his pocket.
Because goodbyes always hurt. Especially when you’re being stolen. Even when the thief carried you like something worth keeping.
-X-Emotional Turning Point-X-
Being kidnapped by the world-famous Warlord was actually quite dull.
There was no rope. No threats. Just a cart, two mismatched mugs, and the occasional sound of Mihawk's boots crunching the path ahead.
He didn’t even look like a kidnapper. Not really. More like a judgmental grim reaper in high fashion. You were the one sitting in the cart like unwanted luggage, wrapped in a blanket he’d probably folded himself, seething with the realization that you were, against your will, comfortable.
But boredom didn’t last long.
Because by the time the sun began to rise, Mihawk had already started his silent campaign—what could only be described as: Subtly, Strategically, and Downright Manipulating You Into a Relationship Without Ever Saying the Word “Date.”
He didn’t force anything. He simply appeared beside you when you went to collect water. He handed you the ladle like he’d always been there. When you glared, he only raised an eyebrow. When you returned to camp, the fire was already lit, and the teapot—your teapot—was quietly steaming.
“You packed this,” you accused, horrified.
“We can't carelessly leave grandma behind,” he replied, without remorse.
You noticed the blanket draped over the fallen log just before you sat down. He’d placed it there too, probably with obscene precision. And now he handed you tea like this was normal. Like you weren’t supposed to be furious.
You said nothing. But you drank it.
He sat across from you. Unbothered. One leg folded, coat resting over a low branch, sword within reach but untouched.
“You’re treating me like a child,” you finally muttered.
“No,” he replied, calm as ever. “I’m stabilizing you.”
It got worse.
When you reached for your satchel, the straps had been repaired. Reinforced. When you leaned down to check your boot, the laces were already retied. Your spare journal had been alphabetized by theme.
He even fed the potted plant. The damned potted plant named Destiny.
You didn’t speak for hours. But your fingers reached for the teacup again when you thought he wasn’t looking.
And he said nothing. Did nothing. Just refilled it when you weren’t paying attention.
By the time the next dusk settled and the sky turned to lavender ash, you weren’t sure when the day had stopped being yours.
Somewhere between the tea and the silence. Somewhere after Mihawk fixed your boot laces, but before he rearranged your journal stack without asking.
His words were relentless and harsh, but his actions spoke of care.
“We should reach my ship before midday.” He said casually.
Mihawk stood to stretch, slow and languid, like a blade unsheathing itself on instinct alone. His movements were fluid, every shift of muscle deliberate, controlled, effortless in a way that made your mouth go dry. He rolled his sleeves with the casual grace of a man not preparing for battle, but for something far more intimate. Something certain.
Then he glanced toward the horizon, checking the perimeter with that same impossible stillness, as though danger itself would think twice before approaching. Not because he was tense. But because he wasn’t. Because he had survived nights darker than this one and made them kneel.
And somehow, without ever saying it, he was there.
Not looming. Not chasing. Just there.
Unshakeable.
And nothing was scarier than that.
Not the sword. Not the bond. Not the quiet.
But the fact of him. The certainty of his presence. The way he sat beside the fire, like he had always been part of the frame. Like, he would still be there tomorrow. Like somewhere between silence and salt, he had simply decided: You are mine to deal with.
He handed you a book earlier. The title was something disarmingly ironic, probably selected intentionally. You had laughed. That, too, had been part of the trap.
Later, by lantern light, you flipped through it out of boredom. And there it was. One paragraph. A line you couldn’t unread.
Emotionally distant men often create dependence through calculated absence, building intimacy by scarcity. They offer silence, then attention, absence, then relief. This rhythm becomes the hook.
You stared at the page.
Then threw the book so hard across the room that it knocked over a log.
When Mihawk’s ship came into view the next morning, tethered at the edge of the rocky dock like some gothic punchline, you almost turned around. His strange little vessel looked more like a floating coffin than a ship, dark and elegant, trimmed in metal and secrets. No crew. No name. Just wood, silence, and inevitability.
He stood near the gangplank, arms crossed, watching your approach with the patience of a man waiting for weather. Not smug. Just certain.
You reached the top step. He inclined his head slightly.
“I didn’t agree to this,” you said.
“You didn’t object either,” he replied, and stepped aside.
Inside, the ship’s cabin was unexpectedly warm. Dim candlelight glowed in wall sconces. The furniture was minimal yet solid, made of dark oak and well-maintained. There was a desk. A long weapons rack. Two chairs. And one bed.
One long, low bed made up with immaculate hospital corners, a stack of folded blankets on the end, and a book resting open on the nightstand.
You froze.
You had been waiting for your library to receive that specific book for months.
He brushed past you without fanfare, removing his sword as he moved toward the desk. “You kick less than I expected,” he said plainly, as if the sleeping arrangements had been discussed, agreed upon, and finalized in some meeting you had apparently missed.
“Wait,” you stammered. “We’re sharing that?”
“It is the only bed.”
“You don’t have to be in it!”
He looked at you, then at the bed, then back at you. “I’ll stay on my side.”
That night, you lay flat on your back at the very edge of the mattress, tense as a trap wire. The cabin creaked with the motion of the sea. Candlelight flickered low. Mihawk didn’t so much as breathe loudly.
He lay still, arms crossed behind his head, eyes closed like he hadn’t just rearranged your entire life and claimed half your sleeping quarters without so much as a polite may I.
You didn’t sleep. You simmered. You stared at the ceiling and planned five different ways to reclaim your autonomy, your dignity, and your pillow. But when you woke, it was morning. You were covered with your cloak. Your book had been closed and moved beside the bed, a ribbon marking the page. And there was a steaming cup of tea waiting on the desk.
Not just tea. Your favorite blend. With honey. No salt this time.
He wasn’t even in the room. Gone somewhere, likely checking sails or sharpening something dangerous. You hated the quiet efficiency. The way it made you feel considered. Seen. Handled.
And it didn’t stop there.
The affection continued in the form of routines. A second cup of tea left for you beside your boots. Your laundry is done, cleaned, and folded. Herbs restocked. Your favorite ink bottle, mysteriously refilled.
He explained nothing.
You would mutter complaints under your breath. He would answer them as if you had spoken aloud. You paced when he disappeared. You stiffened when he came too close. But somehow, every day, he adjusted to the gaps you didn’t know you had.
No declarations. No confessions. Just consistency.
The courtship of a swordsman was not flowers and poems. It was calculated silence. And then, suddenly, a perfectly timed need is met.
A cleaned blade. A perfectly repaired satchel strap. An extra pillow tucked behind your back while you read.
One night, in a half-sleep daze, you turned over in bed and reached for him. Not out of longing, but habit. And he said nothing. You drew your hand back like it had burned you, face flushed with something unnamable.
You began eating the food he cooked without comment, only realizing days later that he had been adjusting the ingredients in microscopic increments to suit your tastes.
He never gloated. Never teased. He just noted the shift. Tucked it away. Like a botanist pressing a petal between pages. Like a swordsman counting your stumbles before the final strike.
You were the flower. You were the opponent. You were the fool who fell for it without ever being asked to.
And one morning, after a night too quiet and a dream you didn’t want to admit, you woke to the sound of gentle waves and creaking wood. Your boots were by the small galley stove, cleaned and repaired, soles warm from the fire. The kettle was already on. The scent of your favorite tea curled through the cabin like a soft invasion.
You hesitated in the small galley, bare feet pressing against the worn planks. Your eyes landed on the chipped cup waiting at your usual seat. Steam curled above it like a signal. The quiet was not empty; it was considered.
Your defenses cracked in the warmth like sugar dissolving in a kettle.
“You’re conditioning me,” you whispered, half-bitter, staring at the tea.
Mihawk looked up from the book he’d been reading at the small table. He didn’t blink. He didn’t smirk. He simply closed the book with one hand, reached for the kettle with the other, and poured a second cup.
He set it beside yours. Careful. Precise.
“Good,” he said. “Then you’re learning.”
You got injured, a shallow cut during a storm docking, and Mihawk appeared at your cabin door like a bloodstained angel of judgment. He didn’t knock. He simply entered, knelt, and cleaned the wound with quiet precision. His hands were calloused. Steady.
When you were sad, he said nothing at all. He just stayed. His presence folded into the quiet like a second heartbeat, anchoring you without permission.
Eventually, you stopped calling him invasive. You stopped pushing. You started asking.
“Are you staying tonight?”
He shrugged. “Unless you object.”
You didn’t. And you began to sleep better when he was near. You hated that. You craved it anyway.
It was a slow unraveling. Subtle. Precise. He colonized your world with clean edges and silence, until one night, curled in the corner of his absurd little ship and clutching your favorite cup, you muttered under your breath,
“We’re not even dating.”
He blinked. Slowly. Like a snake preparing to strike.
“You invited me to stay.”
“You broke into my home.”
“You said the tea was comforting.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“You allowed intimacy.”
“I never—”
“You didn’t stop me.”
And in Mihawk’s warped, calculating, elegant worldview, that was consent. That was courtship. That was love.
It was terrifying. It was effective. It was him.
And when, days later, you finally snapped—when you slammed your hands down on the table and demanded an explanation, a real one, for the mess he had made of your life—he didn’t blink.
He just looked at you. Calm. Certain.
“You are mine,” he said. “You’ve always been mine. I am simply waiting for you to realize it.”
-X-The Climax-X-
You hadn’t meant to do it. Truly. You were strong. Principled. Above it all.
But living with Mihawk on a boat the size of a large coffin with sails had done something irreversible to your sanity.
His voice—his smug, infuriating, telepathic voice—had been curling through your mind like smoke for weeks. Judging. Correcting. Observing. Like a disdainful ghost with a doctorate in brooding and an unfortunate affinity for your every passing thought.
And now? Now you were one insult away from lighting the boat on fire.
The wind outside creaked the mast. Inside, the cramped cabin was too hot and lacked sufficient air circulation. Mihawk sat at the narrow table, sharpening a dagger, the sound a slow drag of steel over stone. Your cot was pressed against the wall. His bedroll was unrolled beside it, not touching, but close. Too close. Like everything on this damn ship.
“If you’re going to have fantasies,” Mihawk said aloud, slicing through the quiet, “at least make them strategic.”
You glared up from the mess of documents you had been pretending to read.
“I will end you.”
“You couldn’t end a mouse.”
“I have a knife.”
“You also once said ‘pickle philosophy is underrated’ in front of a Navy informant. Let’s not pretend competence is your lane.”
You slammed the book shut. The boat swayed. So did your self-control.
Your neck was hot. Your palms itched. The soul-bond was glowing, literally glowing, a faint heat at your spine and down your arms. You could feel him, too vividly. His presence pressed in from across the narrow room. Too solid. Too calm.
You stood, pacing the three paces the cabin allowed.
Your voice came out low and dangerous. “I swear, if you don’t shut up—”
“You’ll what?” he asked without looking up. “Take it out on me?”
You stopped. Dead still.
“You wouldn’t,” you said softly.
He set the dagger down.
“Wouldn’t what?” His voice was a slow drag of velvet. “Exploit an opportunity? Savor a moment? Drag your mind screaming into clarity?”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You’ve been denying us for too long. Your not mad. You ache.”
You clenched your fists. Heat flared under your skin, sharp and traitorous. You turned away, facing the wall like it might shield you from the bond, from him, from yourself.
But the boat was too small. The air was too thick. And you could feel Mihawk rise. Could sense the weight of him as he crossed the distance, slow and precise.
“You’re not supposed to be mine,” you muttered. “Not like this.”
“But I am.”
He was close now. You didn’t need to turn to know it. The heat of him radiated at your back, measured and quiet. You felt his hand hover near your hip, not touching. Waiting.
The silence between you wasn’t peaceful. It thrummed like a bowstring.
“You hate me,” you whispered.
“You make it difficult to enjoy peace,” he said, just behind your ear. “But I’ve never been happy at peace. I burn for your war. I’d hate the quiet far more.”
You turned then, too fast, too breathless, and he was already there. Still not touching. But close. His eyes held no arrogance. Just precision. Wanting, distilled through restraint.
Your voice broke when you asked it. “What do you want from me?”
He tilted his head. Not cruelly. Not smugly. But like he’d just been given the coordinates to a treasure no one else had dared to name.
“Everything,” he said, voice quiet as dusk. “But I’ll take what you give.”
The bond flared. Hot. Gold. Blinding.
Your breath stuttered in your chest.
And then, gods help you, came the worst decision of your entire chaotic existence.
“Then take everything,” you said, sharp and confident, like a threat you couldn’t walk back.
Silence. Not the soft kind. Not the tense kind. This silence had teeth.
He inhaled once, slowly and in control, but dangerously.
“Excuse me?” he said, like he was testing whether you were a hallucination or a particularly bold ghost.
“Five minutes,” you repeated, louder this time. “You get five goddamn minutes to do whatever it is you’ve been threatening to do with your telepathic cheekbones and your stupid voice, and then we never speak of it again.”
His eyes were fire and flint. And something older than both, primordial and fierce as the molten sun.
“You’re asking for everything?” he said, almost gently.
“I’m authorizing it. Shut up and clock in.”
The change was immediate. Tangible. The air thickened like a storm had crept into the cabin. Heat licked up your spine, under your skin, inside your lungs.
He hadn’t moved. Not even a step. But your knees buckled anyway.
And then, images.
Sounds.
Fantasies that weren’t yours and yet felt carved into your bones. You saw his hands on your hips. Felt his mouth on your neck. A phantom weight pressed your back to the wall and stole your breath. Your heartbeat punched your ribs. Sweat prickled at your collar.
Mihawk’s voice coiled through your mind, velvet and venom.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” he murmured.
Your spine arched. Your breath caught. The bond pulsed hard enough to dizzy you.
“You shouldn’t have worn that,” he added, voice dark with heat.
Your clothes, your plain, harmless clothes, suddenly felt too tight. Too revealing. Like silk spun wrong across flesh he already knew too well.
You whimpered. A shameful, wretched sound. One he’d remember forever.
“You hate this part of you,” Mihawk said with maddening calm, reading your thoughts like scripture. “But I will take you apart and forge you stronger, so you may enjoy it.”
His hand finally lifted.
Only one.
And even then, he didn’t touch. Not really. Just hovered near your throat, not even brushing skin, and you tipped your head like he had pulled it with a string.
Your mouth was dry, your body on fire. His smirk was slow. Lethal. Worshipful.
The sky stretched out above you in a velvet sprawl, dark and vast, dusted with stars that gleamed like the sharp edge of memory. The wind moved in slow, deliberate pulls across the deck, tugging gently at your hair, fluttering the edges of your coat. Somewhere below, the water sighed against the hull, steady and endless.
You had meant to win.
Instead, you were here.
Straddling him. On his captain’s chair. Chest heaving, mouth parted, pulse hammering in your throat.
Mihawk sat like a man carved from stone and ritual. His hands rested lightly on the armrests, not touching you, not even acknowledging the way your hips brushed his. His shoulders were relaxed. His posture was perfectly aligned, perfect like the swordsman he was. But his eyes told the truth.
They watched you with the kind of focus that made time slow. Cold amber, smoldering beneath the surface. He looked like a man who had waited years for this moment, and now that it was here, would not rush it.
You pressed your hands to his chest. Not to push him away. Not yet. Just to ground yourself. Your fingers curled slightly in the fabric. His coat was warm where it clung to him, layers of silk and cotton stretched over lean strength.
“You don’t get to look like that and act like this,” you said.
It came out quietly. Rough. It sounded like surrender.
The corner of his mouth twitched, the barest hint of amusement. He did not respond. He did not need to.
Your legs trembled. You hated that they did. You started to shift back, heart thudding in rebellion, but it was already too late.
He moved.
Not suddenly. Not cruelly. Just with purpose.
His mouth met yours like a drawn sword. No hesitation. No warning. Just contact. Direct and absolute.
It was not soft.
He kissed you like someone who understood violence and chose it often. Like someone who had been planning this for longer than you dared ask. His hands stayed where they were, unmoving, while yours slid upward, into his hair, curling with something that felt far too close to need.
You bit him, hoping it would make him stop. Hoping it would make you stop. You made a sound low in your throat, dark and pleased. Hoping he'd use his damn hands.
That was your first mistake.
Because he noticed.
He drew back slightly, just far enough for breath to return, though barely.
His eyes narrowed.
“…Do you like being punished?” he asked.
Your breath caught.
“No,” you lied.
His gaze dropped to your mouth. He studied you like a blade he was considering wielding.
“Interesting,” he murmured, raising a single digit.”Let’s test that theory.”
Three minutes. That’s all you had lasted.
Three unholy, soul-emptying minutes in his lap, on his chair, with the moon watching and your dignity unraveling with each breathless gasp. He hadn’t even touched anything lewd at first and hadn't needed to. He let your own need destroy you. Let the bond burn hotter with every second you pretended not to want him, until your body answered for you with a truth too old and raw to deny.
You remembered the moment it shifted.
The sharp inhale as your hips rocked forward. Encouraging it. His voice is low and godless in your mind.
“I feel it,” he had said, cold and exact. “Every time you pretend otherwise.”
And when he finally touched you?
You broke.
You had clung to him like he was the only solid thing left in a storm, nails dragging across his coat, trying to leave a mark. Anything to prove you hadn’t gone willingly. But he had already known. He had known from the moment you dared him with five minutes. He had known when your breath hitched, when your voice trembled, when your eyes lost their fight and gained hunger instead.
Now, your back hit the mast with a dull thud. He caged you there with one hand planted beside your head and the other sliding down your side. His hand was cool against overheated skin, and it moved with patience, with possession. He found the laces of your shirt and tugged slowly, watching your mouth part with every loosened loop.
“I hate you,” you whispered, already shaking.
“You burn for me,” he replied, just as sharp.
His fingers dipped beneath fabric, found your bare skin, and traced slow lines along your ribs like a cartographer mapping the edges of surrender. When he finally kissed you again, it was not an attack. It was a sentence. A vow. Teeth and tongue and everything you had refused to admit you craved, all in one punishing pull.
Your knees buckled. He caught you.
Then he took his time.
On the captain’s chair. On the warm boards of the deck. Against the mast. In your mind.
There was nowhere he didn’t reach.
Your name, once a weapon in your mouth, became a prayer in his. He said it once, low and reverent, while pulling your hips down onto his lap, and it made you cry out.
He pulled his own first name out of yours. And when he did, he didn’t smirk. Didn’t gloat. He just held you tighter, like he’d been waiting for you to break like that.
And you did.
Over and over.
Until your legs no longer listened. Until your voice was hoarse and your nails dug red lines into his shoulders, until his back was red with welts. Until the sky turned to pale ash and the sails began to glow with dawn.
You lay against him in the aftermath, breathless and ruined, draped in his coat, while he sat silently, his arm around your waist, his gaze lifted to the stars.
“Fine, we’re dating,” you rasped, clawing at the last ragged thread of your dignity like a soldier too stubborn to surrender the battlefield.
He didn’t even open his eyes.
Didn’t shift.
Didn’t breathe a little harder. Not a single sign of acknowledgment beyond the smallest, most insufferably contented hum.
His hand does twitch, close to your thigh. One eye cracks open to give you a look.
You swallowed. Air still burned in your lungs. Your knees still trembled. Your inner thighs burned with the full-body reminder of what had just happened on the captain’s chair. Of how little effort it took for him to dismantle you.
“Married,” you muttered under your breath. “Whatever. You win.”
“You’re welcome,” Mihawk said smoothly, his tone practically glowing with victory. He didn’t even try to hide it now. That rare, razor-edged smugness had bloomed into something bright and appalling, delight coated in silk. “Would you like a summary report? Perhaps an annotated breakdown of the bond’s neural response curve?”
You didn’t speak.
You glared. The kind of glare that would have reduced most men to ash or at least made them stammer an apology. But Mihawk? No. He had the gall to smirk. Slight. Elegant. Devastating.
“Would you like a sword through your astral projection?” you asked, voice low and deadly.
He exhaled. Amused. Delighted. Downright victorious. “You’re cranky when satisfied.”
“I’m homicidal when outmaneuvered.”
“I’ll allow it,” he said, folding his arms behind his head. “For balance.”
You hated him, and the way your hands twitched toward him again. You hated how your pride burned in your chest like a bruise, right next to the slow, molten sting blooming between your thighs. You hated that, despite all the fury, all the embarrassment, some part of you was already glancing at the curve of his mouth again.
Already craving round two.
You slumped deeper into the carved wooden chair like a puppet with cut strings, defeated in every sense except the one that mattered most, because gods help you, you had never felt more alive.
“I need tea,” you muttered. Anything to anchor you. Anything to make this feel less like unraveling.
“You need hydration,” Mihawk agreed, rising with that infuriating ease of movement that made it seem like his body had never known tension. “And possibly prayer.”
“I hate you.”
“You’re repeating yourself,” he added, placing your favorite cup beside you with quiet precision, not unlike setting a blade down after a clean strike, “but you came in three minutes.”
You stared at the tea.
Still warm. Steeped exactly how you liked it. The right amount of sugar. The kind of stupid, intimate detail no one should have remembered unless they had been watching. Measuring. Preparing.
Of course, he had.
Because Mihawk doesn’t manipulate in the traditional sense.
He doesn’t sweet-talk.
He doesn’t seduce.
He doesn’t even flirt.
No, Mihawk is something much worse. Much slower. Much more terrifying.
He restructures your reality with quiet, surgical precision. Until you're orbiting him without realizing you've left your axis. Until the sound of his boots on the deck is normal. Until his silences speak louder than other men's promises. Until you're living in the center of his gravity and swearing it was your idea.
He makes falling for him feel like a logical choice.
Like the natural outcome of long exposure and shared silence.
Like inevitability.
Like how the tide wears down stone until the cliff is gone and the sea simply says, mine.
Not with flowers. Not with grand confessions. But with consistency. With attention disguised as apathy. With small, precise acts that made you feel seen in ways that made you furious. Because you hadn’t wanted to be understood. Not like this. Not by him.
He doesn’t court your heart. He colonizes it. He lets your protest wear itself out on the jagged rocks of his patience.
And then, when you’re exhausted and when the fury has burned through your pride and left only want behind, he meets you there.
Calm.
Ready.
Waiting.
You sip the tea, bitter with awareness. It’s perfect. Of course it is. The warmth settles in your chest like surrender, like something you didn’t ask for but can no longer deny.
You’re not sure when it started, this slow unraveling, this tactical invasion of your better judgment, but you know exactly where it ends. Right here. With him. On a ship that smells like old wood, sea salt, and sharp steel.
And he’s already there.
Watching you come undone in the quiet. Not saying a word. Just existing. Just being that maddening, inescapable force that slipped into your life like a dagger in silk.
Now you know exactly who your “Prince Charming” is.
And he’s a sword-wielding introvert cryptid with wine breath, a trench coat that sways like a villain’s cape, and more emotional repression than a whole kingdom’s worth of poets. He owns four identical shirts, treats declarations like tactical risks, and communicates primarily through narrowed glances and alarming acts of devotion.
But he’s real.
And, against all logic, better judgment, and prior resistance, he’s yours.
Even if he won’t say it out loud until you’re both old and grumpy and halfway through a duel-flirt at dawn. Blades drawn. Eyes locked. His version of a proposal sharpened to the point of blood and poetry.
Which, in Mihawk’s language, is a declaration of eternal love.
-X-Honeymoon-X-
Cosmic Joke Status: Hilt-Deep
Congratulations.
You’re now mentally shackled to a six-foot-something warlord who treats emotional intimacy like a duel and considers eye contact an act of aggression. He sharpens his swords more often than he speaks, drinks wine like a judgment, and once leveled a naval outpost because they lost your marriage paperwork. Because somewhere between his silent tea offerings and the way he adjusts your grip on a blade without a word, you realized, this isn't subtlety. It's a lifetime commitment. And you’re already ruined.
1/2: Mihawk x Reader
Length: 18.5k+
Rating: 18+
Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence (Eventually), Psychic Invasions of Privacy, Obsessive Tendencies, Emotional Dysfunction Played for Humor and Angst, Questionable Consent (Mental Realm), Long-Term Ghosting, Suggestive Themes, Unsolicited Sword Metaphors, Language, Mentions of Hormonal Meltdowns and Crayon Consumption
Having Mihawk as a soulmate is like being spiritually handcuffed to a haunted cryptid in a cape who thinks silence is foreplay and emotional repression is a personality trait. His presence is sharp, cold, and somehow always judging you mid-snack. He’s been lurking in your head like a cursed wine sommelier since the bond activated—critiquing your sword form, your taste in literature, and once, your soup.
“If my soulmate’s a child, I’ll wait until they’re old enough to hunt.”
Part Two
For @ari20002
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You’re a proud little girly-girl, equipped with dreams, skills, big ideas, and exactly thirty books of varying fairytales featuring soulmates you have been studying since birth.
It all starts innocently enough. You’re sitting in the corner of the room, reading fantasy books and chewing on crayons like they’re gourmet snacks. No shame. You’re living your best life, and crayons taste better than people think, okay?
And then—bam.
Somewhere, miles away, a certain swordsman with an unnerving mastery of Haki and a complete inability to handle social interactions hears you.
Growing up, you assumed your soulmate is either dead, fictional, or a weird pile of emotionally repressed sea foam that’s just out there… somewhere… probably not interested. You’ve never met him.
And when he finally does decide to open his mental mouth? It’s always one of three things:
A single, cryptic monologue about blade technique that definitely sounds suspiciously sexual.
A scathing insult aimed at some rival you’ve never met, but somehow you’re still offended by.
Two words, maybe three, and then nothing. Absolutely nothing.
You: “Am I being haunted??”
Older you, lighting a cigarette: “Oh, honey. That’s just him. He does that.”
He doesn’t talk to you directly. He just... vibes ominously from across the soul realm, like some emotional tornado.
You try calling out through the bond? Silence. You try threatening him? A single cherry blossom falls dramatically from nowhere, like, you didn’t order that. You think a lewd thought? Your pillow spontaneously combusts.
You had dreams. You thought that maybe you’d meet him one day; he’d sweep you off your feet, kiss your forehead, maybe let you ride on his sword like it’s a magical broomstick. You had a dozen memorized stories telling you exactly how your soulmate should act.
Meanwhile, your actual soulmate is out there, somewhere, fortifying his mental palace with stone walls, a moat, and a polite “do not disturb” sign carved from obsidian.
He ghosts you so thoroughly, so methodically, that you grow up convinced that your soulmate bond is just some cosmic glitch, like some weird, one-sided internet connection to an emotionally unavailable man. It’s like a weird echo chamber of self-inflicted torment.
You know nothing about your Prince Charming. Nothing at all.And the blanks? Oh, you fill them in… so badly.
-X-Bond Awakening-X-
Age 8:
You feel the bond click into place: a soft, clear sensation, like a silver bell ringing deep in your chest. You gasp dramatically, eyes wide, staring at the horizon as if something monumental is unfolding in front of you.
Your book goes flying into a bush.
"He’s here," you whisper, breathless, your voice full of awe. "My destiny."
You turn to the chickens behind your house and, almost without thinking, speak to them with conviction. "He’s probably a prince," you muse, excitement building. "With a tragic past. And excellent hair."
You’re positively buzzing with fairytale dreams, convinced that the universe has just handed you a perfect destiny. The moment the bond snaps into place, you practically spring from the ground, running barefoot outside like some mythical prophecy has just awakened.
"My soulmate is out there!" you shout, grinning from ear to ear. "I knew it! We’re going to get married on a cliff during a lightning storm. He’ll save me from a dragon, make breakfast in bed, and maybe, just maybe, we’re secretly royalty."
Meanwhile:
Mihawk, at the age of 16, is in the middle of training. His mind is sharp, focused, and his brooding demeanor makes it clear that he hasn’t smiled since he was a child. In fact, everything about him exudes an almost otherworldly calm, like a sword waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
The bond pulses, and Mihawk feels you: your presence, your bright, chaotic energy.
He pauses mid-training, his grip tightening on his sword hilt, and for the briefest moment, he wonders if he’s made a mistake, if this feeling is some kind of trick.
A voice. Soft, bright, and completely innocent.
"Do you like roses or daisies more? I wanna match!"
You’ve named the bond and named it something ridiculous, something cute.
"Soulbeam," you called it. "Soulbeam" sticks in his mind like a dagger, a constant reminder that he is now tethered to this irreverent, energetic little creature, one who thought soulmates were meant to be some grand, poetic connection. And every time the bond flares, Mihawk feels you. He hears you. And the words you say are both nonsensical and endlessly annoying.
"Soulbeam reporting for duty! I think my neighbor’s goat is evil. What’s your opinion?"
He stands there, frozen. His mind reels, and for a second, it feels like his internal organs are on fire. It’s the strangest sensation; a pull, a presence that somehow makes everything inside him go still and wild all at once.
“Absolutely not.”
He didn’t block you out because you were weak. No, you were strong, too strong, in fact. You were a force of nature, filled with glitter and hope and an unfiltered belief that soulmates were supposed to love each other.
Mihawk, however, wasn’t interested in any of that.
He wasn’t interested in being “fixed.” He wasn’t interested in being attached to some tiny, romantic child who thought the world was a fairytale.
So he slammed the bond shut with the kind of telepathic force that one usually reserves for banishing devils, immediately, with no reservations.
And just like that, it was gone.
You?
You took that silence as a mystery. You figured he was brooding. And that? That was hot. Maybe he was mute. Maybe he was shy. Maybe he just couldn’t handle the intensity of the soulmate bond.
Back to you:
Your side of the bond? Nothing. Just… static. A void. You once tried shouting into it, and it echoed back like a haunted well.
You: “Hello???”
Bond: [Muffled noise of a door locking.]
You start thinking maybe it was a weird fever dream. Maybe your soulmate died. Maybe they’re in another dimension. Maybe you’re the hallucination? Your fairy tale books haven’t given instructions on this sort of thing.
Meanwhile, Mihawk is actively dodging it like it’s jury duty.
-X-Passages from Your Childhood Psychic Transcript. Aka, silence.-X-
Age 9:
“Hello?? Mister Sea Ghost? I think you left your sword feelings in my head.”
You tried again and again. Sometimes, asking questions like “Do you like cats?” or “Do soulmates get presents or just the shared trauma?”
Every time, you were met with the deep, echoing void of a man willfully choosing psychic silence.
But every time, you’re met with nothing. Not even a whisper. It’s like you’re shouting into the dark and waiting for someone to throw you a rope. You can’t even get a single scrap of acknowledgment.
Frustrated, you run to the library, a sanctuary of your own. You’ve always loved the smell of old pages and the promise of endless knowledge between covers. But today, it’s not for the stories. It’s because you want something to fill the silence.
You pull a book from the shelf, one that catches your eye. Something that might finally give you an answer about him. You shuffle up to the counter with a stack of books you’re not supposed to check out yet, hoping one of them has the magic key to unlocking this mysterious bond. The librarian glares at you, but you barely notice. You’re too wrapped up in trying to figure out if soulmates are supposed to be this distant.
“Do you want romance?” you whisper to yourself, flipping through the pages. “Or just awkward silences?”
The librarian sighs, taking the books from you and giving you a pointed look. “I’m not sure that’s what these books are for. You shouldn’t be looking in the adult section yet.”
“Do you accept interns?”
“Not under 12.”
You huff and roll your eyes, muttering something about soulmates not being nearly as fun as everyone makes them sound. You leave the library with nothing but more silence, and a creeping sense that maybe, just maybe, Mister Sea Ghost is the worst roommate the universe could’ve given you.
Elsewhere:
Shanks hears about it over sake once.
“You blocked your soulmate?”
Mihawk, sipping dark wine: “They were a toddler. I am not raising a mini swordsman with sticky fingers and jelly on their face.”
“So you just disconnected?”
“I meditated. With extreme prejudice. I don’t talk to children.”
Shanks: “…they’re like, small and have feelings. You could’ve just muted the telepathy.”
Mihawk: “I did. With violence.”
Age 10:
"I drew us getting married. That’s you. I made you a cape. You feel ‘capey.’"
Silence.
You flip open your new costuming book on princes, trying to fill the void. "Do you think our souls touched in a past life? Were we gladiators or pirates? Or royalty?"
More silence.
You sigh, glancing at the bond, hoping for a response. But it's as empty as ever, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your ‘capey’ drawing.
Elsewhere:
Mihawk, age 18, buries his face in his gloved hands. Seriously considers abandoning the concept of feelings altogether. Pauses mid-duel with Shanks. Visibly flinches. Shanks politely asks if he’s okay. Mihawk lies and says he’s allergic to pollen.
You: “HI. I HAVE A STICK. I’M NAMING IT SWORDY.”
Mihawk, mid-swing, freezes. Blade humming in the air. A vein in his temple throbs.
This man, a literal weapon-in-the-making, immediately drops his sword, turns on his heel, and starts walking. Doesn’t say where. Doesn’t say why. The monk who raised him just watches in silence.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from this bond before it gives me a migraine and a court summons.”
Age 11:
Over the Years…
“Do you like roses or daisies more??? Please, I'm planning the wedding!!!"
Mihawk at nineteen, in the middle of a bloody duel with three grown pirates. Someone lands a lucky cut. He blinks, distracted.
“My soulmate just proposed to me.”
Enemy: “What—”
Mihawk: [kills him in one stroke] “And I’m still not answering.”
Age 12:
You start writing letters to your soulmate like a tragic romance heroine:
“Dear Mysterious Mister Sea Ghost, I stubbed my toe today, and also no one loves me.”
He reads every mental blip you scream into the void.
And then he slams it shut.
Again.
More Silence.
Years of it.
You do end up interning at the library.
Age 13:
Puberty.
“So I think I’m dying. Or my soulmate is. Or both.”
Mihawk stands and walks to the wine cellar. Opens the bottle labeled “For Soulmate Emergencies”.
Pours a glass. “Absolutely not.”
“I got my period today. Is this a shared sensation, or should I send you a warning next time?”
Mid-wine sip. Chokes. Drops the glass. The entire forest around his castle hears the sound of despair.
He began meditating by candlelight, the soft glow flickering like a whisper against the encroaching darkness. But then, like a rogue wave, a hormonal surge hit him, crashing through the bond with all the subtlety of a glittering tsunami. It was a chaotic mixture of frustration, rage, and way too many crushes on fictional characters. The kind of feelings you only get when you’ve been reading too much and can’t decide if you’re emotionally destroyed or just overly horny.
He gritted his teeth. “I don’t know how this is my life now.”
Age 14:
By now, you’re fully leaning into delusion because it’s all you have.
You’ve embraced it. Leaned into the madness like a warm blanket.
You still call the bond “Soulbeam.” It sounds better than "Psychic Invasion Hour", and it feels more romantic, like you're waiting for some tragic prince to finally cross the distance.
You journal about your imaginary man like he’s a mythic creature, half in jest, half in the hope that someone might believe it. You write about him with all the drama of a fairytale heroine; his soft eyes, his untold mysteries, the way he probably looks in a cape. You paint him in broad strokes, the perfect romanticized version of a man you can’t even meet.
It’s ridiculous. You know it is. But it’s all you’ve got now. So you document your imaginary soulmate's every flaw and glory, carefully cataloging his existence as if he’s a figure in a book, a beautiful, unreachable fantasy.
“Dear Prince Quiet mystery-man, I hope your cape is warm. I’m learning embroidery for our wedding.” PS: Do you prefer pink or yellow for curtains?”
Still, nothing. Not even static. Just spiritual tumbleweeds.
You start assuming:
He died tragically.
He’s a specter.
Or, worst of all, he knows about you and doesn’t care.
Your inner monologue morphs into a full-blown one-woman show. You whisper to the wind like a theater kid who’s way too familiar with the phrase “I’m just misunderstood,” but, worse, like a book nerd who’s read one too many romance novels and is about one tragic love story away from collapsing into a puddle of overdramatic angst.
Elsewhere:
You have feelings. Strong ones. For some bard. You cry. You scream. You throw a shoe at a tree.
Mihawk feels the hormonal flare hit his soul like a cannonball.
“Nope. Nope. This is a divine punishment. I will not engage.”
He adds a second moat around his estate. Trains baboons to intercept mail. Builds a telepathic firewall out of willpower and petty hatred for emotional chaos.
Age 15:
Every once in a while, your voice tries to come through again.
And Mihawk, cold, brilliant, emotionally allergic Mihawk, feels the bond tickle his consciousness with:
“Today I ate three peaches and cried for no reason. Is that… normal?”
He closes his eyes and forces his Haki to mute. At least you’ve lost your penchant for detailing your dreamed romances between the two of you. He’s tired of your mental monologues about him being the sleeping-beauty knight, the lone prince of some tragic story you’ve written in your mind.
“I will not be emotionally blackmailed by fruit.”
He once dueled a Yonko. He once cut a tsunami in half with a single swing of his sword. He once made a man cry from sheer presence. But teenage melodrama? Teenage love fantasies about someone who isn’t even in the same hemisphere? That is what’s breaking him.
It’s absurd, really. But here he is: tired, exasperated, mentally dodging your romantic rants about fruit, your attempts to weave him into some grand fairy tale that he’s long since dismissed.
“I LOVE BOOKS!” You scream it like you've just discovered fire, but instead of warmth, it's an unhealthy obsession with fictional characters who can't text you back.
And yet, despite his best efforts to ignore it, he’s still there. Still listening. Still unwilling to let you go. Because somewhere, beneath the layers of disdain, a part of him is invested in this bizarre, ridiculous game you two are playing. Even if he refuses to admit it.
Unholy. Unmanageable. Unwanted.
Every time you get dramatic, like crying over some village boy who won’t kiss you during festival season, he feels a distant pulse through the bond.
Your heartbreak echoes across the sea like a cursed foghorn. And Mihawk? Mihawk does the only logical thing.
He attempts to remember the spell to permanently silence the bond.
Back to you:
You start to spiral, your thoughts tumbling into chaos like a jar of marbles being shaken up. Everything is slipping through your fingers; your sanity, your grasp on reality, maybe even your sense of self. You’ve had enough of your soul-crushingly silent bond with him, but now you’re spiraling down a rabbit hole of existential dread.
It coincides at the same time your local library runs out of young adult fiction. Of course. You’re stuck with nothing but dusty classics, historical fiction, and some guy named Sir Nietzsche.
You accidentally pick up the book, thinking it’s just some old philosopher, and within ten pages, you’re questioning everything you ever believed in. The world? A dark, cold place filled with nothingness. Your soulmate? A twisted joke, just like everything else. You wonder if he, too, is secretly reading Nietzsche somewhere in the ether, sighing dramatically over the futility of existence.
It’s too much. You’re way past the point of asking for your soul back. You just want to close the door on this whole miserable mental game.
But, no. You can’t. Because, just like with the library books, you're stuck with this: your thoughts, your bonds, and him.
You sigh and shove the book aside, realizing you’re too deep now. There's no escaping it.
“Okay, so maybe I don’t have a soulmate. Maybe the universe gave me a soul void. A romantic absentee landlord. A soul eviction notice.”
Your frustration builds, and you hurl your arms out, gesturing dramatically to the empty air, like it’s the most insulting thing in the world. You start talking to the void, out of sheer spite.
“I bet you have terrible posture. You probably eat dry toast and act like it’s a five-star meal. Maybe you iron your socks like some kind of psychotic neat freak. You know what? I hope you step on a sword facing up. A big one, too. The kind of sword you don’t even deserve. You’re probably the type to judge people mid-bite of a sandwich.”
Still. Silence.
Your heart beats a little faster, not from fear but from a building, bitter sense of ridiculousness. You’ve been yelling at nothing. Nothing that’s listening, at least. You’re pretty sure the bond’s somewhere out there, but it’s as empty and oppressive as ever, like a vacuum that absorbs all your thoughts and spits out none in return.
You let out a long breath, crossing your arms, pacing in circles. “You know what? Fine. You’re probably emotionally unavailable. Maybe you’re not even real. Just some idea floating around in the universe to torment me, like some cosmic joke that I’ve been too dumb to get.”
The silence presses down harder, like it’s taunting you, and you’re done.
You grow convinced your soulmate is:
Emotionally unavailable
Possibly fictional
Statistically likely to be the worst man alive (You are accidentally right.)
There’s a painful pause before you finally mutter to the void, “If I ever meet you, I’ll be surprised if you’re even human.”
Still, nothing.
And yet, somehow, it doesn’t matter. You’re done letting the bond have control over your headspace. You’ve spent too long trapped in the cosmic void, waiting for someone who isn’t even sending postcards.
It’s clear now: your fairy tale dream of princes and seafaring romance is dead. Maybe it was always a stupid dream. Maybe you were just a kid throwing wishes into the stars, hoping one would land on someone with a cape and an absurdly sharp sense of decorum. But reality? Reality’s a bitch with a wicked sense of humor.
You pause, staring at the ceiling, letting the weight of the moment settle in. You’ve outgrown the idea of soulmates, of “destiny.” Screw fate, screw this soul bond that’s only ever been a reminder of how badly you’ve been ignored. You can’t spend another second waiting for a man who thinks “communication” is a weapon of war, one he’s long since abandoned.
“I’m done,” you mutter to the room. To the void. To whatever’s still listening, which is probably nothing.
Your dream of some grand, seafaring romance—of some mythical, sword-wielding prince who’d sweep you off your feet—shrivels up and dies like a flower left too long without water. You’re no longer holding onto the idea that he’ll come to your rescue, because the truth is: no one’s coming. Not him. Not anyone.
Age 17:
You’ve grown accustomed to the silence. It’s no longer unsettling. You’ve come to accept it, even embrace it, like that one sock you can’t find the pair to, but just keep anyway. The void is just… there. Like an old, familiar shadow that doesn’t judge you for binge-reading romance novels at 3 AM. Sometimes, you speak to it out of habit, though you no longer expect a response. It’s like you’re in a one-sided conversation with the universe, and it’s too busy to even pretend to listen.
It probably helps that you now work full-time at the library, where silence is practically a job requirement. And the books? Well, they don’t talk back, but at least they don’t judge you for talking to yourself.
"You probably read the dictionary for fun," you add, “and then rate it like it’s some high-class wine. 'Ah yes, this page really brings out the notes of 'preposition' and 'conjunction'...'" you mutter one day, tossing a stone into the nearby pond. "And never laugh. Or cry. Or do anything fun. You're probably allergic to happiness."
The bond remains silent, of course. A solid, oppressive wall. It’s just another thing in your life that refuses to engage with your existence.
So you do what every curious young woman does. Things.
Elsewhere:
Mihawk is alone. Reading. A glass of wine in one hand, a polished blade in the other. Entirely unbothered.
Until he feels it.
That snap. That flush of heat across the bond. The unmistakable psychic echo of you going:
“Screw destiny, I’m taking control of my own pleasure for once.”
And his whole body locks up. Wine shatters on the stone floor. The castle trembles.
“…No.”
He closes his eyes. Tries to mute the connection like he always has.
Fails.
He is pacing. And that’s the problem. Mihawk doesn’t pace. He’s muttering to himself, cape flaring like he’s fighting the wind indoors.
“She—why now—she chose this moment? Of all the moments? What happened to journaling? To princes? To dramatic poetry about rain? No. No. I refuse to acknowledge this.”
But he does. Because the bond is alive. And so are your extremely specific fantasies. And he cannot unsee them.
Back to You:
You don’t realize what’s happening yet. But suddenly, you feel… watched?
Judged?
Psychically menaced?
The candle flickers. A cold chill moves through the room. You glance over your shoulder.
“…Okay, maybe not tonight.”
Age 18:
Eventually, you come to terms with it. You’ve been haunted by a spook with an impeccable fashion sense and a crippling fear of emotional connection. It's fine. Really. You’ve learned to live with it, like that one awkward roommate who keeps leaving their shoes everywhere, but you’re too polite to ask them to leave. You’ve got books and some friends. Mostly books, though.
One day, in the middle of a particularly rough shift at the library, you finally snap. “Where the hell is my mysterious phantom husband when I need him!?” you shout, thoroughly annoyed. The nearby librarian gives you a look, but she’s used to your bizarre monologues by now.
In a moment of pure frustration, you smack a late-returning patron with a frying pan (gently, of course, no need to ruin the books) and mutter, “I don’t need a damn soulmate.”
You’d long stopped broadcasting deliberately. You weren’t trying to reach him anymore. It was just... venting. Like singing in the shower or talking to your houseplants—except your houseplants actually exist compared to your ghostly soulmate.
But then one fateful day, you stub your toe on the corner of the coffee table, and the sheer force of your colorful curse causes the bond to flare up. Somewhere across the sea, Mihawk’s wine glass shatters mid-air, and for the first time in... well, ever, he cracks.
“…Fine. I’ll say hello. But only once.”
You: “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?!”
He vanishes in a swirl of cape and roses, because apparently, dramatic exits are part of his "soulmate package."
From that moment on, you can feel it. You’re being watched. Not in a creepy, "I’m lurking in your bushes with binoculars" kind of way, but more like, "I’m perched in my emotional fortress, judging your life choices while sipping my imaginary tea and judging your book choices."
You screech.
SENGOKU, GARP, AND KONG.
He exists. He actually exists.
Like, of course he does. Why wouldn’t your emotionally unavailable Mr. Sea Ghost make a grand entrance right when you’re losing your mind? And here you thought you were just talking to yourself... But nope. Apparently, your elusive, emotionally distant phantom husband has been there all along, waiting to judge you from the comfort of his invisible high tower.
And now it’s clear he’s been doing phantasm recon until you're at least old enough not to use a juice box as a shield.
You’ve never felt so... tracked. You’re sure that one day, you'll turn around and catch him lurking behind a tree, sipping his wine with a judging glare, and mentally critiquing your posture as you reach for a snack.
Quietly. Judging. Possibly now interested.
Possibly against his will.
Ah, romance.
-X-Emotional Fallout-X-
Age 19:
Okay, so your soulmate does exist.
Asshole.
You’ve realized that he’s definitely one of the worst soulmates in history. It’s not just that he’s a wight with a suspiciously good wardrobe (he vibes it) and a penchant for haunting your emotional well-being. No, it’s that he’s the type of visitant who shows up only when you’re trying to have a normal life.
But you don’t hide from him. No. That would imply effort. That would imply fear. And you’re way past the point of letting some cold-eyed, cryptid-in-a-cape, emotionally constipated wraith ruin your self-esteem.
You simply... decline to reach out.
Like a soul who’s unionized, demanding appropriate breaks from emotional trauma. You’re not scared of this poltergeist. You’re just profoundly uninterested in opening your heart to a man who:
Ignored you for over a decade.
Psychically recoiled every time you had a thought that was remotely more complex than, “Wow, clouds look nice today.”
Once accidentally received every single vivid, shameful detail of your first-ever kiss and responded by judging you so hard through the bond that you got psychically bullied. You just thought it was a hormonal downturn.
In retrospect, the impending sense of doom made a lot more sense. You weren’t depressed, you were cursed.
And now? Now you’re mad. Mad enough for a retry.
You lit candles. You were trying to move on. You were dignified, adult, and empowered. But just as things were heating up, somewhere across the Grand Line, Mihawk paused mid-training with the slowest, most dramatic blink.
“…Really? At this hour?”
And you felt it. That sharp, flat slap of his contempt. Not anger. Not awkwardness. Just pure, unadulterated bored disdain, like you were the most minor inconvenience in a late-stage opera rehearsal.
You’re pissed. Like, seething. You’ve spent years talking to an emotional spirit who barely acknowledges your existence, and now you finally summon the courage to put your foot down…and this is the response you get?
“Ah. So Mister Sea Ghost does exist,” you mutter under your breath, as though you’ve just discovered that the universe has decided to bless you with the worst astral gag ever.
His voice slices through the bond, so cold it could freeze lava. "You're more obstinate than I expected."
You don’t even flinch. You fire back, without missing a beat, "And you’re colder than I remember. Still judging people mid-orgasm, or was that a me-only feature?"
There’s a moment of utter, bone-deep silence. You can almost feel his internal eye-roll like a physical force traveling through the bond, so strong you almost choke on it. But you don’t care.
In fact, you almost relish the fact that he’s so ticked off. It’s like a small victory for the soul.
You stand there, stewing in your own indignation, while your soulmate—somewhere out there in his little fortress of icy emotional neglect—probably battles with his own internal conflict. You can almost hear him, pinching the bridge of his nose, muttering something about how much he regrets existing in the same universe as you.
You’re beyond giving a damn. You’ve got dignity to salvage.
And besides, it’s not like he actually knows what to do with you, either. It’s a one-sided dance of chaos at this point, and if he doesn’t want to tango, then fine.
You don’t need him.
So, with all the confidence you can muster (because hey, if your soulmate wants to be emotionally unavailable, you’ll just outplay him at his own game), you take a deep breath and mentally shout, "Get lost."
No more messing around. No more waiting for his ice-cold self to finally stop being a spiritual lurker in your life. You’ve got better things to do than entertain a man who critiques clouds and judges your most embarrassing moments.
The silence stretches between you, long enough that you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is the one time it’ll be permanent.
And then, finally, his voice cuts through the bond, thick with irritation and, surprisingly, mild regret.
"I will not be disrespected like this."
“Really?” you shoot back, leaning into the chaos now. “If you were going to keep being a judgmental wraith, you could at least have some respect for your own mental bandwidth. I’m not your emotional punching bag, buddy.”
And just like that, you shut the door. Not literally, obviously, because you're not physically anywhere near him, but mentally? You’ve slammed that thing so hard metaphorically that you think you might’ve left a dent.
You don’t need him. You don’t. You’ve got your dignity.
"Is there a special class for being this moody when absolutely nothing is happening, or do you just come by it naturally? You’re like the emotional version of a fog bank."
And if he wants to sulk in his silent, censorious stronghold while you live your life? Well, he can knock himself out.
You hear it.
A single exhale.
So faint you think you imagined it.
But it was a laugh.
Elsewhere:
And then, it happens.
He laughs.
Actually laughs.
Not a huff. Not a smirk. But a real, startled laugh; low, short, and completely unguarded. The sound is so unexpected that for a moment, Mihawk just freezes, as if the very act of laughing is something his body hadn’t done in ages. It’s the kind of laugh that escapes him without warning, a brief moment of human vulnerability in a world he’s carefully controlled.
He drops the book he’s holding, the pages fluttering uselessly in the air, forgotten. His gaze shifts to nothing in particular, staring into the distance, and for a long moment, he does nothing but process the unexpected disruption.
“…ridiculous,” he mutters to himself, the words somehow filled with both amusement and a strange fondness that he can’t immediately dismiss.
And yet, for the first time, he doesn’t mind it.
That’s it. That’s the crack in his armor.
Mihawk doesn’t get swayed by grand declarations of fate, doesn’t respond to insults or challenges with more than a cold stare or a heavy silence. He doesn’t even react to your complete disregard for the mystery that shrouds him. But you? You’ve broken through all that with nothing but a casual jab, a sarcastic remark thrown his way like a stone skipping across still water. The moment it happens, Mihawk sees it. A quiet shift. A soft, almost imperceptible movement, like a shadow flickering just out of reach.
You’ve made him happy.
It’s the smallest thing, barely audible, a breath of amusement that passes through him before he even realizes it. A chuckle, so unexpected it cuts through the suffocating silence that’s always hung between the two of you.
And in that brief moment, he wonders what it would be like to really know you.
His guard lowers in stages.
First, he listens at night, when the bond goes quiet and he feels the absence of your voice more keenly than he’d like to admit. He’s puzzled by it. It’s just silence, but it doesn’t feel like it should be quiet. Then, he notices when you stop talking. When the bond falls silent for a few hours, a day, or a moment. And, to his own surprise, he finds that he misses it. Misses you. Soon after, he starts remembering the ridiculous things you say. Not the cutting jabs or the sarcastic barbs, but the odd little details that make you who you are.
“She said her kitchen knife collection has a favorite. That one ‘just feels stabby, in a fatal kind of way’.
He remembers that. Oddly, he remembers it with a kind of fondness, even though it’s absurd. Who even says that?
He catches himself waiting.
Waiting for your voice to break the silence again. Waiting for your next ridiculous thought, your next unguarded, human comment that reminds him that you’re more than just an interruption to his well-ordered life.
And most of all, he waits for the next time you, without meaning to, see straight through him. You manage to expose something in him without even knowing it. Something he thought was buried too deep to surface.
He’s listening now. Not just because he has to, but because he wants to.
Age 20:
You stop broadcasting like a gremlin radio station. The shift is subtle at first, almost unnoticeable. You become quieter. Sharper. Focused. The chaotic stream of your thoughts that used to ricochet wildly across the bond settles into something more controlled. Something more dangerous, even. No more wild bursts of sarcastic commentary, no more throwing insults into the void. Now, when the bond hums, it simmers instead of screeches. It’s as though you’ve pulled the reins on a creature you never thought you could control, and yet, somehow, the bond feels more potent, more deliberate.
It isn’t long before he notices.
From then on, it’s a deeply predictable disaster of awkward sword flirtation, long silences, and mutual eye contact held for exactly 0.3 seconds too long. There are moments where neither of you speaks, but the air between you thickens with the weight of things unsaid. Your connection, once a tangled mess of desperate energy, has become something far more complicated. It's like a thread pulled too tight. One that can snap at any moment, but in a way that almost feels necessary.
You’ve never met him. You don’t even know his name. But somehow, you know he’s there. He’s listening.
It’s almost maddening at first. You can’t help but wonder when he’ll speak again. You stop trying to get his attention, stop throwing out your sharp remarks like they’re breadcrumbs meant to lure him out. Instead, you focus. You do your best to act like he’s not there. Like the bond isn’t there.
You’re muttering to yourself, still feeling the sharp sting of your latest rejection. A lord with a scent that could only be described as clove and desperation had just proposed to you, and you had turned him down with a level of dramatic flair that would’ve made anyone proud.
“My soulmate’s obviously a revenant,” you say, tossing a stone into the nearby pond. It skips across the water, barely touching the surface. “Or a weirdo. Or a dramatic loner with too many candles and commitment issues—”
And then?
He answers.
His voice cuts through the bond like a blade. Quiet. Dry. Absolutely him:
“I only have six candles.”
You freeze.
You blink, your hand still in mid-air from the stone you threw. For a moment, you think you misheard him. No way. He’s not responding. He never responds.
“...You’re listening?”
His voice is flat, as though this were some mundane conversation and not the soul-shattering revelation that it is. “Unfortunately.”
The words are out before you can stop them, the astonishment in your voice so clear that even you’re surprised. “You can hear? EVERYTHING?”
“Against my will.”
You can feel him, the weight of his presence pressing against the edges of your thoughts, filling the space with an unexpected, almost tangible coldness. It’s the most alive he’s felt in this bond in... forever.
For a moment, you just stand there, processing the ridiculousness of it all. He’s real. After all this time, all these years of ignoring him, of practically begging the universe to send you a sign, he finally shows up, and in the most unnecessary way possible.
“You’ve matured,” Mihawk’s voice comes again, almost like a quiet, distant comment. “You’re tolerable now.”
“Tolerable?” You almost choke on your own disbelief, completely forgetting for a second that this man, your mystery soulmate, has been haunting you from the shadows for over a decade. “Now you speak?!”
“Yes.”
“Oh ho ho ho. You’re real. And you’re a bastard.” The words spill out before you can stop them, the harsh truth ringing in the air between you.
His voice, colder than ice and sharper than steel, cuts through with no hesitation. “You named your blanket ‘Sir Fluffington.’ I was protecting myself.”
You blink, shocked by the audacity. “You ignored me for twelve years!”
There’s a silence before Mihawk responds, calm and collected as always. “You once cried over a seagull you thought was your cousin. Forgive me for hesitating.”
The mention of the seagull hits you like a punch to the stomach, and you can’t help but laugh. “GHOSTED!” you accuse, the bitterness still fresh.
“Delayed engagement?” You can’t help the incredulous laugh that escapes you. “You spiritually blocked me for over a decade.”
“…It was necessary.”
You feel the weight of his words in the silence that follows. The bond is no longer just a distant connection; it’s a conversation. A connection. Something more real than you ever imagined. And somehow, you realize, you don’t want to let the moment go. You need vengeance.
You cross your arms, feeling more alive than you have in years. “You don’t get to come back after ghosting me through my entire emotional adolescence.”
Mihawk’s tone is casual, almost amused. “And yet, here I am. You don’t hide very well.”
“I wasn’t hiding. I wasn’t even aware I had an audience!”
He leans in, his presence pushing through the bond with the force of a tidal wave. “Even worse.”
“Well, asshole. I’m disinterested now.” You say it like you believe it.
Mihawk tilts his head, that familiar cold glint in his eyes. You’re not sure how you know it, but you do.
“Liar.”
And just like that, the emotional distance, the years of silence, collapsed into a game. A game you didn’t expect. A game you didn’t want, but now you will play.
Because Mihawk? He’s petty.
He doesn’t force his way in. No, it’s far more insidious than that. He slips through the cracks of your defenses with such ease that you almost don’t feel it.
He doesn’t just break in.
He walks through your defenses, sits down, and leaves behind the unmistakable reminder that he could do this any time he wanted.
And you’re left with a choice: figure out how to shut it out, or play along.
Age 21:
You’re grown. Battle-tested, emotionally disillusioned, and done with waiting for the “mysterious soulmate” who ghosted you harder than your absentee dad and that one traveling salesman who swore he’d come back with mangoes.
Your childhood fantasies? Dead.
Your teenage hopes? Buried.
Your bond? No longer silent as a crypt.
You don’t even know what he looks like. For all you know, your soulmate is a myth. A programming error in the universe’s romantic algorithm. A punishment for being emotionally available too early in life.
And he’s now invaded.
Your Thought Hut™: Formerly Private, Now Haunted
You used to have a perfectly functional internal monologue. Cozy. Chaotic. A safe space where you could:
Complain about the weather (obviously, it’s never good enough).
Think up creative insults for your enemies (did you really just make a creepy face at me, Roger?).
Overanalyze your own emotions (why do I cry every time someone asks about my hobbies?).
Narrate your day like a tragic anti-hero in a play no one asked for (cue the dark, somber music).
It was yours. Completely private. Your safe little corner of the universe where nothing could disturb your thoughts.
Until it wasn’t. Because, every once in a while, right in the middle of your most personal spirals, he speaks. Like a sword slamming into your breakfast table. No warning. No preamble. Just... there.
You, tripping over your own feet: “Ugh, I am elegance. I am grace. I am—falling on my face.”
Him, bone-dry: “Do you duel like that, or only descend stairs?”
You, contemplating your emotional wreckage: “Maybe I am the problem. Maybe I’ve been emotionally closed off because I’m afraid of being known—”
Him: “Or maybe you’re simply exhausting.”
You, when dinner burns: “If my soulmate were real, he’d know I’m suffering. And bring snacks.”
Him: “If you’d used the correct ratio of oil, this wouldn’t be happening.”
You, after a moment of poetic solitude staring at the waves: “The sea understands me. At least someone does.”
Him: “The sea is trying to drown you. Not understand you.”
You try to block him out. You really do. You talk less. You think in nonsense. You hum random songs in your head to fill the void. You even consider creating a mental “Do Not Disturb” sign made of barbed wire and spite. But it doesn’t work.
He still gets in. Not every day. Not constantly. But enough to be annoying. Enough to make sure you know: he’s still there. Still listening and still judging.
Once you get injured. Nothing life-threatening, just a cut or a bump that shakes you more than it should. You cry alone. But it’s not dramatic. It’s quiet. You mutter to yourself, half-laughing to keep it together:
“You’re probably thrilled. One less idiot to keep track of.”
For once, his voice doesn’t come in sharp. It’s... quiet.
“No.”
Just that. One word. A single syllable. But somehow, it lingers. It doesn’t hit you like the usual biting sarcasm. It doesn’t mock you. It’s just... there.
You freeze, blinking at the mirror. But he doesn’t speak again. And yet, that one syllable hangs in the air like a weight.
Later, you’re brushing your hair, glaring into a cracked mirror, your thoughts running a little darker.
“If I die, he'd better feel guilty.”
“I won’t.”
A pause.
“But I’d be irritated.”
You smile, despite yourself. That... almost sounded like interest.
“Wow. That almost sounded like concern.”
“Don’t push it.”
You don’t know his name. You don’t know where he is. You don’t know why the universe stuck you with the verbal equivalent of a gloved slap to the face every few weeks.
But you do know this:
He listens.
And that, somehow, is worse than nothing.
He’s suddenly your uninvited, deeply opinionated mental roommate. The kind that critiques your life choices while contributing absolutely nothing. He’s the emotional couch surfer who eats your snacks and somehow still manages to judge you for it.
And as much as you want to shut him out, there’s something about him that lingers. Like a shadow that you can’t quite shake off, no matter how hard you try.
Age 22:
Your thought process: a perfectly normal house with a locked door.
Your soulmate: broke in like a nosy cousin, raided your liquor cabinet, and is now judging your life choices from your favorite chair.
You: “This is my mental space. My head. My domain.”
He: [already lounging on the couch with a glass of wine] “You live like this?”
It Usually Goes Like This:
You: “Please leave.”
Him: “No.”
You: “Why?”
Him: “I’m comfortable.”
You: “You’re a soul parasite with a superiority complex.”
Him: “You talk to your cutlery like it’s sentient.”
You: “That doesn’t mean you’re allowed in here.”
Him: “If you’re going to insult me, at least be original.”
And it just gets worse…
You try to meditate. You try to relax. You try to avoid bonding with a human man who is not your psychic wine-drinking punishment.
He interrupts.
Every. Single. Time.
You: “If you sabotage this date, I swear—”
Him: “He’s using too much cologne. And his footwork is sloppy.”
You: “You can’t see his footwork—”
Him: “I know.”
You: “GET. OUT.”
Him: “Make me.”
At one point, you try freezing him out.
You stop thinking in words. Just walls. Ice. Silence. You go fully passive-aggressive, locking down your mind like a fortress. If he wants to get in, he’ll have to knock harder than that.
For a few hours? It works.
It’s quiet. Too quiet. There’s no voice in your head making sarcastic comments or evaluating your life choices with brutal efficiency. No dry commentary on your every move. It’s like he’s gone.
You start to relax.
But then…
“You missed a thread in your stitching.”
You freeze.
He’s back.
Commenting on needlework now, like a cursed aunt at a family reunion. His voice slices through your thoughts with that same unnerving calm, like he's somehow found the tiniest crack in your ice fortress and slipped right back in.
You hadn’t even realized you were stitching until he had to point it out. It wasn’t even a big deal, just a minor imperfection, something you'd fix later. But the fact that he noticed it? That it didn’t slip past him? It makes you grind your teeth.
You don’t even know how he does it. One moment, it’s all cold and silent, and the next, he’s right there, commenting on your needlework like he’s been waiting for the perfect moment to strike. You almost want to throw the sewing kit out the window and scream into the void.
But, of course, you don’t.
You just grit your teeth and mutter under your breath. “Auntie Sea Ghost strikes again.”
“Also, your soup lacks depth.”
You snap.
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD, VELVET NOSFERATU.”
“A stronger insult this time. I almost felt something.”
And he never leaves because: He’s bored, He’s petty, He is mildly invested in your emotional development, though he’ll never admit it. And deep down, some part of him thinks: “If I leave, who will keep you sharp?”
You try begging. You try threatening.
Nothing works.
So eventually?
You just start narrating everything to annoy him.
“Oh, I’m putting socks on now. One’s got a hole. I know that offends your noble sensibilities. You’re probably standing in a doorway again. You seem like the type. Do you own more than one shirt, or is it just one immortal shirt with a vengeance pact?”
Until finally…
You hear him sigh. Long. Sharp. Dramatic.
“You are intolerable.”
You grin.
“And yet. You’re still here.”
“…Petty,” he mutters.
“Exactly. LEAVE.”
Age 23:
You’re in the middle of trying to live your life. Maybe eating, maybe healing from a fight, maybe just trying to have one private thought, when he slides back in, unprompted:
“You’ve been chewing that bread like it personally offended you.”
You snap. "WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE? For years—YEARS—you said nothing. Not a whisper. Not a name. Just silence and judgment! And now? Now you’re here every damn day with commentary like you’re hosting some twisted cooking show inside my skull!”
A pause, just so you can wheeze a breath mid-rant.
“Did you get bored? Did you miss the sound of my mental breakdowns? Did you fall in love with the decor? Because I didn’t invite you in. You’re not even helpful! You’re just—just—”
“Your better half?”
Silence.
Then, like the punchline to his own joke: “…Dracule Mihawk.”
You blink.
Because this guy, the one haunting your thoughts like an emotionally stunted soul phantom, is only just now giving you his name? The same man who sighed when you cried at fifteen, mocked your cooking attempts, and only speaks to you when you’re being “tolerable”?
“…Sorry, what?”
“That’s my name.”
You stare into the mental void.
“Dracule?”
Pause. He knows what’s coming.
“You mean to tell me you were judging me while walking around with a name that sounds like it comes with a velvet cape and an unpaid bar tab?”
He sighs deeply, like he’s carrying the weight of every sarcastic remark you’ve ever made. Long-suffering. “Yes. I figured this is how you’d react.”
“No wonder you didn’t say it sooner. If my name were a whole vampire aesthetic, I’d hide it too.”
“Are you done?”
“NO.”
He doesn’t leave. Of course not. He listens to the whole roast like a man sitting in a recliner he didn’t buy, in a house he doesn’t pay for, with snacks he didn’t make. You pace. You rant. You bring up the time he judged your taste in flowers but couldn’t even spare a syllable of acknowledgment when you were sobbing alone in the rain at sixteen.
“You—”
“Do you even realize how unfair this bond has been?”
Him: “Yes.”
You: “…And?”
Him, maddeningly calm: “I was waiting until you were worth speaking to.”
You go feral. A full-on growl escapes your throat. “Excuse me?”
But you quiet down after a moment. He’s still there, unfazed.
Now you know his name. Now you know he’s not leaving. But now? You get to judge him right back.
The bond is no longer a cold void. It’s a battleground. A sofa. A long, endless dinner table where sarcasm is the language and your soulmate is just the man at the end with a judgmental stare and the emotional range of a black-and-white movie.
-X-Unexpected Sights-X-
You’re working a quiet librarian job in a minor coastal town. The hum of the ocean outside is the only real noise, the occasional gull’s cry filtering through the dusty windows of the small office. Sorting archive files. Cleaning up old Navy intelligence and shredded wanted posters. Most are faded, outdated, forgotten; records of lives long past, irrelevant to anyone still breathing.
The pile in front of you is no different. A stack of yellowing papers, brittle to the touch, barely held together by fraying rubber bands. You sift through them, filing them into place, scanning for anything that might need attention. Nothing new. Nothing important.
Then, you find it.
A scrap of paper. Almost out of place, as though someone had tried to hide it away. Perhaps on purpose, perhaps by mistake. You lift it carefully, the edges crumbling in your fingers. The paper is yellowed with age, fragile. You can feel the years on it just by holding it, and your curiosity spikes. What’s so important that it would be tucked between two water-damaged records?
You unroll it slowly, trying not to rip it, and there it is.
Young. Grainy. Black-inked. It’s a wanted poster, as old as the rest of the clutter in this room, but it shocks you in a way no other faded page has. The image is of a man with an arrogant profile, his gaze sharp and defiant. And there, beneath his face, the name hits you like a slap:
DRACULE MIHAWK
The words almost seem to leap off the page. Hawk-Eye Mihawk: The Marine Hunter.
You blink, disbelief flooding your senses.
You read on:
Age: ???No known crew. No known allegiances.Exceptionally dangerous. Considered a duelist of unnatural precision.“Presumed armed at all times.”
The final line leaves a strange weight in your chest. Wanted Dead or Alive.
He’s tall. Lean. Broad-shouldered. Black hair slicked back, jaw sharp enough to cut silk, gold eyes gleaming like coins beneath candlelight. The outfit suits the name, a dark ensemble of black leather and red velvet gone vampire hunting, complete with what can only be a big-ass sword on his back.
You can imagine his hand removing a glove slowly, fingers long and calloused from years of wielding a sword heavier than most men’s dignity.
The dust motes in the air hang still, like they’re holding their breath. You can’t shake the feeling that you’ve just uncovered something much bigger than this coastal town, bigger than your quiet life as a librarian sorting forgotten pieces of history. It’s like the universe just handed you a secret and expects you to know what to do with it.
You blink again, your breath catching in your throat. “...I’m sorry. WHAT.”
And, of course, right on cue, he shows up through the bond.
Like a cold draft slipping through an unwelcome window, prickling your skin, his presence fills the space with an almost tangible chill. You’re already vibrating with indignation when the bond stirs, like he’s been waiting for just this moment.
“So. You’ve seen it.”
The voice is calm, almost too calm, like he’s expecting this reaction. Like he’s in complete control of the situation, as always.
But you can’t focus on his tone right now. The reality of it is too much: he’s real. The man from the wanted poster, the man whose name you only heard in hushed, fearful whispers, is standing in your mind, making himself at home like an unwanted guest.
You blink.
No fucking way.
“No. Shut up. Not you.”
“It is me.”
The voice is casual. Detached. Like someone trying to sneak into the kitchen at 3 a.m. but accidentally kicking the chair, the scraping sound echoes in the silence.
“You? The Most Wanted Man in the World is also my inner voice with the soul of a decorative gargoyle? No.”
“It is literally my name.”
“And I’m naming my next houseplant ‘Whitebeard.’ Doesn’t make it true. What are the odds?”
“I’d say absolute.”
You narrow your eyes at nothing, already painfully aware of who’s responsible for this intrusion.
“You.”
Him, unbothered, internally sipping wine:
“…Yes?”
“You told me your name was Dracule Mihawk.”
“It is.”
You stop breathing for a moment. The words hang in the air like the last few notes of a song you can’t unhear, and your thoughts spiral. The walls of the library close in around you, the books on the shelves suddenly feeling far too heavy, as though they know what’s happening and are silently judging you for it.
You lean against the desk, staring at the cracked, yellowing poster like it's going to answer for itself. Your fingers are shaking. You’ve been pulling at threads for days, and now that the knot is finally unraveling, it’s worse than you imagined.
This is not a game. This isn’t some misunderstanding. The man on that poster—the Mihawk—is talking to you in your head.
You feel like you’re losing your grip on something, but you're not sure if it’s the world around you or the reality you’ve clung to.
“You’re lying.” You hiss, your voice low enough to be a secret. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe that my mysterious, emotionally unavailable brain spook who critiques my life plans and once made fun of my inner monologue is actually the Dracule Mihawk. That’s a real person. You are an asshole ghost with opinions and too much free time.”
“I am aware.”
You blink, a sharp laugh slipping out before you can stop it. “He’s six feet tall and kills people with butter knives.”
“Six-six.”
“Oh, good, you’re delusional and insecure.”
“I don’t care if you believe me.”
“Well, that makes two of us.”
The bond crackles with that all-too-familiar, infuriating silence, like he’s weighing his words carefully, deciding how much of his charming self to offer. You know better than to expect anything resembling sincerity from him, but the defiance in his voice sets your teeth on edge.
You stand there, tension building, fighting the urge to shout at the bond to make it stop, make him stop. Instead, you clench your fists, the pressure of his indifference pressing down on you.
And then, his voice cuts through again, low and dangerous.
"Dracule Mihawk." The name feels foreign on your tongue, bitter. You toss the paper aside, ignoring the fluttering sound it makes as it falls to the floor.
His words twist through your mind like cold air.
"Yes, it’s my name. And you would do well to remember it."
You scoff, disbelief tightening in your chest, shaking your head as if you can shake off the absurdity of it all. "Nu-uh. No way you’re Dracule Mihawk, infamous Marine-hunter, the one who even I know about. That guy is a WARLORD of the SEAS."
You throw your hands up in frustration, your voice rising with each word, every syllable unraveling a little more of your sanity. "You’re just a menace and a liar! Mihawk’s a real person. A warlord. A swordsman. What are you?"
“Your soulmate.”
You freeze, the weight of his words crashing down on you like a wave. Soulmate. The word feels like a slap, ringing in your ears like it’s something that should’ve made sense, something that should’ve been welcome. But it wasn’t. Not now.
“No,” you mutter, a hollow laugh escaping your lips. "My soulmate died tragically or was raised by seagulls. You are not him."
There’s an almost imperceptible pause, a flicker of something familiar in the bond. A warmth. A strange ache you can’t place.
“I never claimed to be what you imagined.” His voice is quiet, like he’s finally peeling back layers, reluctant but steady. “But I am what you got.”
“You’re a pathological liar with a passive-aggressive tone.”
“You once named your pillow the Sultan of Snooze.”
“AND YET, I have not lied about who I am.”
You can feel him on the other side of the bond, his presence steady and calm like a stone in a raging river. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t explain. He just lets you stew in your confusion, letting your anger simmer until it’s boiling over.
"I am Mihawk, the one and only Dracule Mihawk," he finally says, voice dripping with a nonchalant edge that grates on every nerve you have. "You’d do well to stop underestimating me."
You huff, pacing in small circles, your mind racing in every direction.
"Stop underestimating you? You’re telling me that you are Dracule Mihawk, Marine-hunter, the guy with the goddamn title. But you relax in my head like a lazy cat who refuses to leave the couch, nibbling on existential dread like it's a snack???"
Your frustration is palpable, thick in the air around you, but you know he’s not even remotely fazed by it. That quiet confidence, that unnerving calm, it bleeds into the bond like an uncomfortable chill.
"A title I’ve long since outgrown. But yes," Mihawk’s voice comes in, cutting through your spiraling thoughts. "The very same."
You grind your teeth, a sudden, bizarre mix of confusion and annoyance settling in. "I don’t believe you.”
The bond hums with his presence, something cold and sharp at the edges, and his next words are almost... too calm.
"Are you calling me a liar?"
You freeze. His casual indifference lingers like smoke in your mind, and for a moment, you wonder if you’ve gotten in deeper than you should’ve.
"I think you’ve misunderstood the situation," he says, and it sounds like an eerie kind of promise.
There’s something unsettling in his tone now, something that makes your skin crawl even as his words don’t hold the same bite they used to. It’s almost like he’s playing a game, waiting for you to catch on to some piece of a puzzle he’s only showing you in fragments. The more you listen, the more you feel a disturbing, silent pull in the bond.
It’s not just the words anymore. It’s the weight of them.
“Misunderstood?” you repeat, more to yourself than to him, feeling the heavy silence pressing in from all sides. “What, exactly, am I supposed to understand here?”
The bond shifts again, his presence curling around your thoughts like a shadow; quiet, precise, and strangely suffocating. You wish you could push him out, hope you could slam the door in his face, and be done with it. But he’s always there, always waiting, like an uninvited guest who’s already made himself far too comfortable.
The silence stretched between you, heavy and taut, like a wire drawn tight enough to snap. The weight of unspoken things pressed down on your chest, and despite the tension, you couldn’t shake the feeling that Mihawk knew something you didn’t. That realization hit you harder than it should have, and you felt it settle deep, like a stone dropped into a still pond.
“This seems like something you should have mentioned before inviting yourself into my head. You know, if you’re actually a WORLD FAMOUS PIRATE.”
A long, quiet pause followed, and you felt the bond stir, his presence cool and unshaken.
“… I didn’t hide it. You just never asked the right questions.”
Your breath caught in your throat, disbelief mixing with frustration. “You’re a grown man! I’ve had this bond since I was eight. You could’ve told me anytime.”
“You were a child.”
“You’re avoiding the part where you are a demon with poor social skills.”
“That assumption wasn’t entirely off.”
The familiar cold presence eased in, settling around your thoughts like an unavoidable chill, a hand resting casually on your mental desk.
“You’re insufferable.”
“And yet. You keep talking.”
“You’re a fake. Some weird bounty hunter or cultist with soul bond tricks. You got into my head and started freeloading like a couch surfer with emotional issues.”
“You’re unreasonably hostile.”
“You’re allegedly a war criminal in a cape!”
“Alleged.”
“I hate that you sound so calm about this.”
There was a long silence, heavier than before, pressing down on you from all sides. And then, finally, he spoke again. His words were slower, more deliberate.
“You’re defensive when cornered. Noted.”
You huff.
“If you’re him, prove it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Show up. Step out of the shadows with your spooky golden eyes and your vampire vibes and stab something accurately.”
“You just described every Tuesday of my life.”
“Again: not helping your case.”
And then, for the first time, you froze.
His words hit differently. There was something more in them. Something raw, something unexpected. A shift in tone that felt… almost human. Almost vulnerable.
“I wanted you to speak to me, not my reputation.”
You freeze.
The simple honesty in his voice broke through the layers of distance you had built around yourself. The mask of indifference he wore so easily faltered, just for a moment. And for the first time, you realized something that made the silence after his words feel like it was pressing into your chest.
He wasn’t just a cold, distant figure. He was real. And, somehow, despite everything, you felt something. Something that made you wonder if the bond was never really about the lies or the distance between you. Maybe it was always about this.
The faintest, guilty apology pressed between decades of stoic silence. And for a brief, fleeting moment, you wondered if you’d gotten more than you bargained for.
He tries to say more, but you’ve already pulled away: emotionally, mentally, entirely. You shove the bond back like a heavy door, forcing your thoughts quiet. There’s no room for him here, not now. Not when you’re finally starting to make sense of things on your own.
He doesn’t push. Not right away.
But he lingers.
You feel it. That cold weight just outside, like a storm pacing the edge of your mind, threatening to break through. For the first time, he doesn’t have a sarcastic reply. He doesn’t taunt you or poke fun at your emotional state. Instead, you hear his voice, low and steady:
"I thought you'd be strong enough for it."
You freeze, the words hanging in the air. They don’t come with the bite you’re used to, the sting of his indifference. There’s something, something different in his tone. Something almost human. But you shake your head, the pressure building again. Not now. You can’t deal with him like this. Not when you’re so close to finally having control of your own thoughts again.
You don’t answer because you’re not ready to believe him. Because if he’s telling the truth, that means your soulmate is real. And he chose to abandon you until it was convenient. And he’s a real-life nightmare who unironically wears greatcoats and has a giant sword he uses to teach manners with.
And you’re not sure which betrayal is worse.
You’ve just spent years with this maddeningly silent, contemptuous presence in the back of your thoughts. A man who didn’t speak, didn’t share, didn’t even offer a name. For over a decade, he was nothing but a shadow of judgment and cold amusement. You assumed he was a repressed outlaw. A cursed monk. Maybe a bird.
The fact that he’s real and has been quietly watching you from a distance the entire time, or the cold realization that he had the power to speak up, to make things right, but chose silence instead. That decision weighs on you like a stone in your chest.
You swallow hard, the weight of it sinking deep. You can’t decide whether to scream or cry or just shut it all down.
So you don’t believe him.
You wouldn’t. You shouldn’t. Not after years of silence and disdain, only for him to suddenly start showing up like an emotionally unavailable gargoyle perched in your skull, and now you find out he’s ‘Dracule Mihawk’, one of the most dangerous men alive?
No.
Absolutely not.
-X-Strange Happens-X-
You didn’t know what Haki was. Hell, you didn’t even know how to fight. You were just a normal person—scrappy, clever, sharp with your words, maybe—but not a warrior. No mental defenses. No training to ward off the most precise soul-knife of a man to ever walk the Grand Line. You worked in a small-town library, for god’s sake. Your biggest battles were with overdue books and keeping the library quiet.
And yet here you were, tangled in a bond you couldn’t understand, with a voice that had been lodged in your mind for years.
Snide. Silent. Infuriating at times.
But recently? Lately, that voice had become too present. Too real.
You stare at the old wanted poster again.
Dracule Mihawk.
The name still feels like an impossible thing to say aloud, something that doesn’t belong to you. But now, in the silence of your own thoughts, it’s there: solid, heavy, undeniable. His name had slipped into your mind like an unwanted guest.
You still weren’t ready to face it. Mihawk? Your soulmate?
It didn’t add up. None of it did. The bond. The silence. The years of torment, his casual indifference to your existence. It had to be a mistake. Or worse, some psychic scammer who’d been freeloading in your head for years, offering nothing but critique and emotional baggage.
But now...
"Tell me your name."
His words come in with a quiet finality, leaving no room for argument. You can’t give him that satisfaction. Not yet. Not when you’re still trying to wrap your mind around what’s real and what’s not.
You sigh.
It’s a long, drawn-out thing that seems to echo in the silence between you, a quiet rebellion against the inevitable. "You don’t get to decide that," you mutter, your voice barely above a whisper.
He doesn’t answer immediately, and for a second, you almost think you’ve won. But then you feel it—the weight of his presence, unwavering, unyielding. His patience isn’t endless, but it’s damn close. And you know... he’s not going anywhere.
You rub your temple. "This is insane."
Weeks, maybe months, you’ve spent ignoring his request, turning the idea of sharing your name into the one thing you can control in this unrelenting chaos. You won’t give him that part of you, not after everything.
You feel his eyes, cold and calculating, through the bond, even though he’s miles away. His presence hovers in your mind, lingering, steady. He’s waiting. Pressing. The tension is almost unbearable. He’s asking. But you’re not ready to give. Not yet. Not when you still don’t trust him. Not when you don’t even know who he really is beyond the cold, unyielding voice in your mind.
So you say no with the same tone you’d use to tell a child, “NO CUPCAKE!”
But you can’t make him leave.
“You had years to ask nicely,” you say snidely, crossing your arms in a futile attempt to hold your ground.
He pauses, the silence stretching just long enough to make you question whether you've actually won this small battle. Then, in that voice of his—calm, unbothered, like he’s had all the time in the world—he responds.
“I’m asking now.”
And you swear, for a second, you hear the faintest hint of a smirk in his words. Damn him.
You grit your teeth, feeling the pressure building. This bond, this curse, has become so much more than you ever expected. He’s more than a voice now. He’s a constant. A weight. A presence that refuses to let go, even when you desperately wish it would.
“You don’t get to pop back in like a psychic roommate and demand access to my name, weirdo.”
“You know mine.”
The silence stretches, thick and heavy between you, and for a moment, you think the bond might go quiet again. Then, like the most casual of comments, his voice slides through with that same unnerving calm. It’s almost too composed, like he’s been expecting this moment.
“Ha, nice try, fake swordsman.”
You scoff. It’s not a real challenge, you know it’s not. Still, his words irk you more than they should. The nerve. You treat the bond like a crusty old switchboard, using it when you feel like it, ignoring it when you don’t.
You occasionally blow mental raspberries into it, just for fun. Sometimes you sigh dramatically, whispering under your breath as if to keep the peace, or perhaps ruin it.
And other times, when you're feeling particularly petty, you drop spicy half-thoughts just to see if he’s still listening.
“Oh no. Someone handsome offered me rum and a massage. Whatever shall I do?”
Cue: a wineglass shattering somewhere.
You can’t help the little smirk that creeps up your face. There’s a certain satisfaction in knowing you’ve triggered something, even if it’s just in his mind.
You know he’s listening. You know he’s there, waiting, his presence hovering in the bond like a shadow that won’t leave. He knows you’re not hiding. You’re not running.
You’re just… withholding.
It’s like holding up a very pretty, very emotionally unavailable middle finger wrapped in silk.
And that drives him insane because your soulmate is clearly a man who’s used to being the final page in someone’s story. The end boss. The goal. People fight for his approval. They strive for his attention. But you?
You treat him like an unreliable narrator with commitment issues. And somehow, that’s the one thing that gets under his skin.
So he retaliates.
You’re trying to sleep. Or focus. Or just have a single thought that isn’t under surveillance by the man you’re still not convinced is Mihawk.
You’ve locked the bond down tight. You’ve iced him out. You’ve mentally insulated your soul like a paranoid homeowner with psychic blackout curtains. You’ve made sure he can’t slip in unnoticed. You’ve kept him at bay, just at bay. It’s taken effort.
And he’s just there.
No knock. No dramatic flaring. No warning. Just a sudden, soul-chilling presence, like a sword being unsheathed inside your mind.
It’s not the usual invasion. It’s worse. It’s more intimate. More personal. The sensation of him slides through your thoughts like ice cutting through warm water, sharp and cold and completely unavoidable.
You sit up in bed, heart pounding, instinctively reaching out to slam the door on him, to shove him back where he belongs. But it’s too late. He’s already inside.
It’s nothing like the times before. You feel his weight in the air around you. Like he’s right there, just beyond the edge of your awareness, like his eyes are watching from the shadows. You’ve fought this, tried to control it, but now it’s him, and it’s real, and there’s nothing you can do but sit in the sudden, oppressive silence of his presence.
You feel it, but you don’t understand it.
It hits like a wave of stillness. Not threatening. Not loud.
Just this weird pressure in your thoughts, like something is waiting. Something watching. And suddenly, you’re… relaxed? Your chest is looser. The tension you’ve carried for so long, so desperately, starts to bleed away, as if his presence is lulling you into a strange calm.
You stop pacing. You stop fuming. You stop fighting.
Maybe it’s fine. Maybe you’ve been holding on to something that doesn’t need to be held. Maybe you’re just tired of guarding everything, tired of pretending this doesn’t matter.
Maybe, just maybe, he deserves one piece of truth.
You hesitate for a moment, but it’s enough. Enough to finally lower your mental shields, to let the walls crumble. You throw up psychic defenses—visualized walls, closed doors, salt lines, sheer willpower—and yet, he walks through them like they’re made of fog.
It doesn’t stop him. He’s in your head. He’s always been in your head.
You sigh, letting your back rest against the cool wall, exhaustion weighing heavily on your limbs. There’s no fight left in you, not right now. The mental exhaustion, the constant pressure of the bond, it’s all too much. You finally give in, allowing a surrender, just a small one, barely a whisper of what you’ve been holding in.
“…It’s—”
You almost don’t want to admit it, but the words come anyway. Soft, reluctant, but enough to let it slip through.
“Okay? There. That doesn’t make you right.”
And then you freeze, the cold grip of realization hitting you like a tidal wave.
“…Wait. NO. NOPE—”
His voice cuts through the bond, calm, infuriatingly controlled: “Thank you.”
You feel your skin burn with embarrassment, a rush of heat flooding your chest. "What the hell was that?!" You lash out, the words a mixture of confusion and anger.
“You gave it freely.”
Your blood boils. “You did something to me. You opened a door without my permission.”
“You were already standing next to it.”
The words escape you before you can stop them. You can feel the heat of humiliation crawling up your neck, your stomach churning as you slam the bond shut with all the force you can muster. You lock it down tight, shutting out his presence, slamming the door on him.
Humiliated. Exposed. Angry.
Because he stole something from you! Not with malice. Not even with violence. But with something much worse: MAGIC.
It’s like one of your fantasy books come to life, and this? This was your territory. You were the one who got to decide what parts of yourself to give away, not some brooding, cape-wearing sword enthusiast who seemed to think “sharing” was a one-way street.
That one piece of yourself: your name, the last shred of your identity that you hadn’t willingly thrown into the abyss, was now in his hands. *And you didn’t even get to make a bargain!
You stare at the bond, your mental fist clenched around nothing. You try to imagine the worst. Maybe he’s wearing your name like a necklace now. Maybe he’s polishing it with his sword. Maybe he’s planning to tattoo it on his chest like some kind of bizarre declaration of ownership.
It felt like he picked the lock of your soul with a flick of his wrist, and when you weren’t looking, he walked away with your real name as though it were just a trophy.
And worse? He sounds so damn calm about it.
There’s no anger in his voice. No smugness. Just that unnerving, infuriating detachment, as though what he did was nothing. He doesn’t feel guilty. He doesn’t feel bad. He’s just there, like this was just another Tuesday for him. And somehow, that’s what makes it worse.
The calmness of it, the way he’s so casually infiltrating your thoughts like he owns the place, is maddening. It's not even a victory for him, just a simple fact. And you can’t stand it.
You grit your teeth, feeling your fists clench at your sides. You try to bury your anger, but it's impossible. Not when he's so calm about everything.
Then you hear it. That voice again, sliding through the bond like he’s settled back in for a comfortable conversation.
“You’re not even cool!”
"I’m the world’s greatest swordsman. Did you think I wouldn’t have finesse?"
“YOU MENTALLY VAULTED INTO MY SAFE ROOM AND STOLE MY NAMETAG WHILE I WAS EATING NOODLES.”
The bond crackles with his quiet, mocking tone, and it makes you clench your fists.“You imagined me shirtless twice this week. The line is blurry.”
The audacity. The nerve.
That. That right there is the final straw.
You scream. The frustration rises like a tidal wave, swelling in your chest until you think you might explode. But he’s unbothered. Completely unmoved. That cold, impenetrable presence of his remains steady, unshaken.
You’re in the eye of a storm.
Your thoughts are a whirlwind of rage, confusion, humiliation, and he’s still there, calm, collected, like he’s simply watching the chaos unfold for his own amusement.
Age 24:
You’re in the bath. Alone. Vulnerable. And mentally roasting him like he's the worst TV villain you've ever watched, because, let’s face it, he kind of is.
You sigh, sinking deeper into the water, letting the warm waves of relaxation drown out the mental chaos. Just you, your thoughts, and the peaceful silence.
“He’s not even a real person,” you mutter to yourself, scrubbing shampoo into your hair. “Just a soul-rotted mannequin with tragic hair and a superiority complex. He probably doesn’t even have a heart. Or a libido.”
Silence.
You relax.
You pause, an eyebrow arching as you entertain the thought. “I bet he’s like, in a relationship with his sword. Doesn’t even like women. He’d have done something by now. Right?”
You let the thought sit there, a little too smugly. The image of Mihawk, sitting there like some brooding monk, whispering sweet nothings to his blade, makes you snicker under your breath. It's absurd, and for a moment, it gives you a sense of control. Because this, this is something you can laugh at.
You close your eyes and exhale slowly, your thoughts finally starting to settle. The warm water cocoons you, the tension from the day starting to melt away. The bathroom is quiet, peaceful, and for a moment, it’s just you and your thoughts. No Mihawk. No weird psychic bond. Just some much-needed solitude.
At least, that’s what you thought.
Suddenly, the air shifts. That cold, familiar weight settles into your mind again like a shadow.
You freeze. No. Not now.
“I do enjoy your little theories,” comes his voice, as smooth and unbothered as always. “But you’re wrong.”
You shoot straight up in the tub like a startled cat. Water splashes everywhere as you choke on your own breath, wide-eyed and flustered. You sit up in the tub, water splashing around you, every nerve in your body instantly on edge. "I— what?"
You scramble to grab a towel like that’s going to somehow protect you from the psychic stalker in your head.
There’s no logical reason for it, but you feel it; his presence is there, as calm and insufferable as ever.
“I’m not in a relationship with my sword,” he says, as though this is just a casual conversation. “And I’ve always been... quite interested in women, specifically annoying librarians.”
The words land with a certain unexpected dryness, and for some reason, that makes you squirm.
The words hit you like a bucket of ice water. He says it with such ease, like it's nothing, completely unbothered by the fact that he’s not just in your head anymore, like he’s in your bath, too. Your private space, your peace of mind, all invaded by the actual Dracule Mihawk, who’s somehow decided that this moment was the perfect time to have a heart-to-heart with you.
You clench your jaw, trying to ignore the heat creeping up your neck. Annoying librarians? That's the best he can do? You're supposed to be angry, right? Furious, even. But there's something about his tone, something about the way he speaks without a hint of hesitation, that makes you squirm in the most uncomfortable way.
You grip the sides of the tub, your fingers trembling from a mix of frustration and... something else you can’t quite place. The water suddenly feels too warm, too suffocating.
“Oh, really? Really?” you snap, your voice rising despite your efforts to keep it contained. “What part of me saying you’re a weird, cold mannequin with issues is wrong?”
The silence stretches, thick and heavy, as if he’s measuring his response. Finally, his voice comes back through the bond, smooth as ever.
“You assume because I do not pant like a dog or whisper like a fool that I am not watching. Not wanting.”
You blink, not expecting that. It sends a wave of heat rushing to your cheeks, and you have to swallow hard to keep your composure.
You never thought faux Mihawk would feel anything beyond exasperation and annoyance.
“You mistake silence for disinterest,” he adds, his tone slightly amused, as if this whole conversation is just one big joke to him. “You mistake control for lack.”
You nearly choke on your own breath. Your mind goes blank, trying to process what the hell he's implying. What the hell he’s doing.
And then, in the calmest voice possible, he drops it.
“I have imagined the sound you’d make when you gasp my name. I have thought about it more than once.”
Your heart skips a beat.
Everything stops.
You’re clutching the edge of the tub like it’s a lifeline, knuckles white, the water around you suddenly feeling colder than it should. The rush of his words, that terrifying calm, makes your brain feel like it's melting.
Your soul? It’s screaming in protest, but you can’t seem to make your mouth catch up with the chaos in your mind.
“I—what—you never—”
“No.”
The single word cuts through your spiraling thoughts like a blade, and you can almost feel the edge of it pressing into your skin. “You only think I’m disinterested because you want a man who fawns.”
He doesn’t let up.
“I don’t fawn.” You try to sound composed, but the words feel small, weak against his presence. “I claim.”
Your chest tightens. You want to shout, to say something sharp, to push back. But the bond presses on you with an unsettling force, and before you can even form a proper thought, he’s twisting the knife again, effortlessly.
“And for the record—I am not a statue. Nor one of your fairytale heroes. I won’t be treating you like a princess.”
You raise an eyebrow, biting back a smile. “Oh, no worries. I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself.”
His gaze sharpens, a flicker of amusement hidden behind that impenetrable mask. “You think I’m here for your amusement?”
“Doesn’t seem like there’s much else to do with all this chemistry between us,” you quip, leaning casually against a nearby table, knowing full well you’ve just poked the lion.
“Your idealized fantasy man doesn't imagine the shape of your spine when you stretch.”
Your pulse quickens, skin prickling with the weight of his words, like they’re seeping into you from the inside. Your breath catches, a sharp intake of air, and for a moment, your body is paralyzed, like you’ve been struck by something far too real.
“Your little dream prince doesn't dream of how your throat would sound when you beg.”
You feel your chest tighten, the heat in your face blooming, a rush of emotions flooding through you that you can’t even begin to categorize.
“The creatures you read in your books don’t hunt like I do.”
Your mind spins, spinning out of control, caught in the rhythm of his voice.
“I have waited. With patience. Perhaps too long.”
The final words hang in the air like an anchor pulling you deeper, dragging you under the surface of your thoughts. You try to steady yourself, to stop your hands from shaking, but all you can do is slap a wet cloth over your face and scream into it, the noise muffled by the fabric but no less raw.
Mihawk doesn’t speak immediately, but you can feel him there, unbothered, calm as always. His silence is thick, pressing against you, like a weight on your chest.
Then, just when you think the storm has passed, you hear it.
“Do not question again whether I want you.”
It hits you like a punch to the gut, leaving you breathless. The room spins, your thoughts scatter, and for the first time in your life, you feel like you're losing control of the one thing you've held onto for so long: yourself.
And then, before you can recover, the final words slip in, cutting through your thoughts like a blade.
“Question only how long I’ll wait before proving it.”
The room around you shifts, the edges of your vision blurring. It’s not a dream. It’s not a thought. It’s him—right here, now, with you.
Suddenly, you’re not alone. You’re no longer in the safety of your room, the familiar scent of your surroundings replaced by something heavier, darker. You’re seeing through someone else’s eyes. His eyes.
You’re pressed against a cold stone wall. The air smells like aged wine and salt, the tang of something ancient that lingers in the corners. There’s candlelight flickering, barely illuminating the dim, damp space around you. The fabric of your clothes is torn open, the rough edges brushing against your skin as his hand grips your chin, tilting your head just enough for him to invade your senses.
His thumb traces your bottom lip, dragging down in a motion slow and deliberate, like he’s savoring the moment. Like he’s marking you, branding you.
And then his voice, not just in your mind, but at your ear, low and ragged, like he’s already there with you.
“Pay close attention.”
You can feel it. Every inch of it.
The heat of his breath against your skin, the possessive weight of his palm on your waist, the way his fingers seem to hold you in place. The press of his mouth along your neck, not kissing, not yet, just hovering. Like he’s waiting, enjoying the anticipation.
You don’t understand it. You don’t know how to react.
“If I touched you,” he says, his voice rougher now, “you’d forget every version of your name except the one I gave you.”
The words hit you like a punch to the gut. You shudder involuntarily, the raw intensity of his claim sending a flood of heat through your body.
“Do you want to know what I see when you sleep?” His voice cuts through the air, sharp and dark, like a whisper that feels far too intimate. “Do you want to know what I think about when your voice goes quiet?”
Your breath hitches, caught somewhere between desire and horror. You try to pull away, to escape, but there’s nowhere to go. The bond is pulling you deeper, dragging you into the storm that he has created.
You try to scream, to force him out of your mind, but the vision only grows stronger.
Your hands are on his chest now, trembling, desperate. You can feel the steady beat of his heart beneath your fingertips, hear the soft, restrained sound he makes in the back of his throat, like he’s holding himself back, barely controlling the storm inside him.
And then you stand bolt upright in your bath, spilling water everywhere.
The sudden motion catches you off guard, and you gasp for air, your skin clammy, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps as if you’ve just sprinted through a thunderstorm. Your heart is racing, and it’s all you can do to hold onto your thoughts.
“Mihawk,” you whisper, your voice hoarse and breathless. “What the hell—”
“You wanted proof.”
His voice slides into your mind, calm as ever, cutting through the chaos.
“You think I feel nothing? I could show you a hundred things that would make you burn.”
You swallow, your pulse quickening.
“This was restraint.”
You throw a soap bottle across the room in frustration, your hands trembling as you try to regain control. You can’t process what just happened. You can’t even think straight.
“You violated my mind,” you snap, your voice shaking with anger and confusion.
“You said I didn’t want you.” His voice is still smooth, as if he’s not even slightly bothered by your outburst.
You cover yourself with a towel, red-faced, furious, and something else—something dangerous—lurking in the pit of your stomach. Something you don’t want to acknowledge.
“I showed you what true want looks like.”
You clench your fists, your chest heaving with a mix of emotions you can’t untangle. You want to fight him. To argue. To shut him down once and for all. But a part of you knows you can’t.
There’s a long pause, an agonizing silence that makes your heart thud louder in your chest. And then, finally, his voice. Low. Calm.
“Next time,” He murmurs, voice low but firm, “I’m making you beg. And I’ll be the one with a book, lecturing you.”
The bond goes silent, leaving you trembling in cold air, your heart pounding, and your mind a whirlwind of thoughts you can’t quite control.
Elsewhere:
Inside Mihawk’s head is the ongoing epic of eternal suffering.
He doesn’t need love. He doesn’t need softness. He’s never asked for those things.
What he does need, what he longs for, with a desperation he refuses to acknowledge, is five uninterrupted minutes. Five minutes where he doesn’t have to hear the constant flood of your thoughts. Five minutes where he isn’t trapped in your mental whirlwind, where he can have a single moment of peace without you mentally debating the politics of kissing someone with a mustache.
It’s maddening.
Mihawk is a man of patience. Of discipline. His entire life has been built on control. Control over his blade, control over his actions, control over his thoughts. He’s spent years honing himself to perfection, shaping his mind into something sharp, precise, like the edge of his sword. He’s never needed anything more than that.
But you?
You’ve managed to unhinge it all. All of it. Simply by existing in his mind.
You, with your distracted, erratic thoughts, your endless stream of overanalyzing, your sudden jumps from one topic to the next without rhyme or reason. You’re like a feral ball of energy with anxiety wrapped around every thought, bouncing from one question to another, never settling. And no matter how hard he tries to concentrate, it’s impossible to ignore you.
One moment, he’s lost in his own thoughts, strategies, training, and the plans he’s meticulously crafted for years.
And then there you are, wondering if your favorite color is really as important as you thought, if cucumbers are technically a fruit, and no, you didn’t just think about kissing someone with a mustache.
And yet, he can’t escape it. He has to hear it. The quiet, constant hum of your mind, like an unfinished symphony playing in the background of his every waking moment. It never stops. He hates it.
But there’s something else there, something unsettlingly fascinating about you. Something that keeps him tethered, keeps him from slamming the door to this ridiculous, chaotic bond.
Because for all your chaos, your incessant mental chatter, and your complete disregard for his peace of mind, there’s a strange allure in it. A part of him—one he refuses to acknowledge, even to himself—finds himself waiting for your next thought, your next outburst, the next wild tangent that takes you away from the seriousness of everything else.
You are the only thing that ever disrupts his perfect control. And somehow, that makes you all the more... compelling.
But still, the tension builds, unbearable, nagging at him like a constant itch.
“Five. Minutes.”
He’s had enough. His patience has worn thin, but the temptation to break his composure is almost too strong to ignore. He could.
“I could kiss you so precisely you’d forget every man who ever looked at you. I could carve pleasure into your throat with my name alone. I could use my hands like instruments. Not to undress you. To ruin you. Slowly. With reverence.”
The words land heavy on the air, slow, deliberate, almost too much.
His voice weaves through the chaos inside your mind, cutting through your scattered thoughts with unnerving precision; sharp, deliberate, almost too calm.
He could.
Grip the back of your neck like it was his to claim, a possessive hold that leaves no room for resistance. He could lay you across black silk and never raise his voice, only your standards, until the very air between you shifts, heavy and expectant.
He could speak only once, low and final, and watch you shatter with a single word.
He could make you beg without ever laying a hand on you.
But instead?
You’re currently imagining what he’d look like in a cowboy hat. You’re thinking about cats in little boots. You are thinking of other pirates.
And that, of all things, is what twists in his gut.
You are, in his words:
“A walking contradiction—an unsolvable riddle wrapped in soft hands and frivolous thoughts.”
He’s helplessly intrigued. And he hates that he wants to solve you anyway.
“Stop thinking about grilled cheese. Stop wondering if seagulls pair-bond. Stop thinking about Benn Beckman. He’s not me.”
The words slice through your thoughts, sharp and pointed, like ice chiseling its way through the storm of your mind. His voice isn’t angry, it’s just there, unwavering and direct, commanding the space in your head like it owns it.
“Just... breathe. Sit still. Be worthy. And I will show you things no man could dream of offering.”
The calm in his voice almost makes it worse. There’s a quiet authority behind every word, a silent promise woven into the spaces between his sentences.
You can feel him now. His presence is suffocating; always there, an unshakable weight in your thoughts. His gaze presses against your mind like a physical thing, impossible to ignore, far too present.
“…You’re thinking about cats in little boots again.”
The frustration pulses through him like a crackling storm. “You’re lucky I’m even bonded to you.”
The irritation in his voice is masked by the quiet amusement, but you feel him so close, so insistent, cutting through your thoughts with perfect clarity.
You cringe. You don’t want to think about cats in little boots. But here you are, trapped in his attention, unable to escape, unable to stop.
“I could’ve had a sweet carpenter husband. A dog. A porch swing.”
You chuckle, but it’s not the lighthearted laugh it should be. It’s twisted, tangled in the weight of everything that’s been left unsaid between you. A bitter laugh. One that feels like a release, but also like the air’s been taken from your lungs.
And then, without hesitation, his voice slides into your thoughts again, low and deliberate, as if he’s been waiting for you to admit it.
“You don’t deserve a porch swing. You deserve to be pinned to the wall and read like scripture.”
The words hit you like a punch to the chest, and your breath catches in your throat. You trip over your own thoughts, your pulse quickening, a rush of heat flooding your face. You’re not sure if it’s from anger or something else. Maybe both.
“What?” you breathe, unable to keep the confusion and something else from rising in your chest.
He sighs, exasperated. The sound cuts through your mind, filled with a mixture of admiration and something raw. Something that makes you feel exposed, like he’s peeled back a layer you didn’t even know was there.
“You see? Five minutes. That’s all I need.”
Your mind spins. The words make your head reel, but the confidence in his voice makes it worse, makes it feel real. Too real.
“But no cats in boots.”
-X-Branching Out?-X-
You had a plan. A beautifully petty, completely unhinged, desperation-fueled plan to rid yourself of the relentless, mind-numbing chaos that had become your existence.
Step one: Find a perfectly attractive, fully consenting, not a psychic sword-wielding cryptid man.
Step two: Seduce said man.
Step three: Break the soulmate bond by committing the age-old act of physical defiance: horizontal cardio, maybe some nice hair-pulling.
It wasn’t about romance. It was about peace. Quiet. An hour where your brain didn’t feel like it was being sharpened by a murder monk with control issues. The idea of real, uninterrupted silence. Without Mihawk’s voice invading your every thought, without his smirking commentary. It was enough to make you feel like you could breathe again.
Sex.
You knew it was unhinged, but what else was left? What other choice did you have when the mental cage you’d been stuck in for years had become unbearable?
You needed peace. So, you picked a target. Someone uncomplicated. Handsome. Local. Alive. No swords in sight.
A nice, normal man who wasn’t bent on dominating your mind.
Great smile. Even better eyes, soft and warm. Everything you didn’t realize you’d been craving until now.
You could already feel the weight lifting, just by thinking about a night without Mihawk’s presence hovering over your thoughts.
You lit a candle. The soft flicker of the flame felt grounding, almost soothing, as you took a deep breath. Your heart raced, though, as the reality of what you were about to do settled in.
For once, this would be your choice. Your decision. You’d finally found a way out.
You made your move.
But as you reached for the door, a single thought threaded through your mind. One voice, low and impossibly calm, cutting through your confidence like a blade:
“No.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t a request. It was an order, one that reverberated in your skull, sinking deep into your bones. Your breath caught in your throat, a shiver of something both dark and maddening rushing through you.
The bond had never felt this loud before. This forceful. His presence, once a quiet annoyance in the back of your mind, was now an undeniable command. He had crossed the line, stepping out of the shadows and slamming his authority against your will.
You flinched. Your date blinked, confusion flashing across his face as the room suddenly shifted. The candle flickered, its soft flame dancing for a moment before—by some unseen force—it was snuffed out, leaving you in the dark.
Your heart raced, the tension in the air growing thick, suffocating you from all sides. Mihawk’s presence in your mind tightened like a vice, smug and unrelenting. You could almost feel him, a cold, invisible force swirling through your thoughts, tightening his grip on your every move.
And then came the commentary; uninvited, unwelcome, and cutting through the fragile thread of your focus like a blade:
“His hand placement is sloppy. He smells like regret. Are you actually going to let that jawline near you? That’s the chin of a tax fraud. Pathetic. I could undo you with a look and a leather glove.”
You fought it. You tried to ignore him. You leaned in closer, closing your eyes, hoping for a moment of peace. Your date, still unsure, placed his hand on your waist, hesitant. It was just a simple touch, just a normal kiss.
“That hand moves one inch lower, and I will dismember him.”
Your breath caught in your throat. You choked. Literally. Mid-kiss. The world seemed to stop. Your date pulled back, eyes wide with confusion and concern, his face a mixture of disbelief and alarm.
“Are… are you hearing voices? Like soulmate stuff?” he asked, his voice trembling, his face pale. You could feel the heat in your cheeks as Mihawk's influence weighed heavily on you.
“Yes,” you hissed, barely able to hold back your frustration. “And he’s an asshole.”
And there it was, the smirking satisfaction that Mihawk never failed to bring with him. In the back of your mind, his voice whispered, smooth and cold, like velvet over broken glass.
“Also,” Mihawk continued, without an ounce of remorse, “I know where this man lives. His mother gardens. I will salt the soil.”
You shrieked into a pillow, the sound muffled, but not enough to hide the complete mortification coursing through you. Mihawk’s casual cruelty stung more than you wanted to admit. The complete absence of empathy in his voice, the sharpness of his words, left you frozen.
Your date, now visibly horrified, took a cautious step back, eyes wide with panic. "I—uh, I think I should go."
"Good idea," you muttered, unable to meet his gaze, still too raw from the invasion of your thoughts. Your date, with what could only be described as the fear of God in his eyes, excused himself quickly, leaving the room with a shaky goodbye. You could practically feel him racing out the door.
The next day, Mihawk was smug. You could feel it all the way across the sea. His presence, cold and unyielding, filled your thoughts again like a shadow, casting its weight over everything.
You could almost picture him, sitting back in some dark room, swirling wine in a glass, completely at ease. You knew it well enough now: Mihawk, with all his quiet arrogance, was mentally filing away blueprints labeled “Plan B: Possessiveness.”
You tried again. And again. Same result.
Every time you so much as thought about someone else touching you, his voice tore through your mind like a banshee armed with fencing commentary and relationship ultimatums.
You could practically feel his smug satisfaction as it reverberated in your skull, like his very thoughts were carving paths into your brain, suffocating all other possibilities. It was maddening.
When asked why you were drinking on the roof, you just muttered, “I’m being held hostage by a man in my head who thinks monogamy is enforced through psychic terrorism.”
Your friend nodded, passed you the sake, and said, “At least yours isn’t a cook.”
At first, you thought the other things were a coincidence.
A gentle flirtation with a local shipwright? He tripped walking away and broke two toes. An amiable chat with a traveling bard? His instrument exploded, the sound so sudden and violent that it made everyone in the vicinity jump. And then there was the marine lieutenant. He was trying to help you off a dock, his hands on your waist in a too-familiar way. The moment his fingers brushed your skin, he screamed. Dropped like a stone. Convulsed. His eyes were wide with terror.
No marks. No wounds. Just pure, unadulterated agony.
And there, in the back of your mind, you knew. You knew.
Because somewhere, far away, tied to your soulmark like a bloody signature, Mihawk was watching. Using that stupid black magic you knew he had.
And laughing.
Not loud. Never loud. It was always a soft chuckle, a smirk that rippled through the bond with the same unsettling calm that he always wore. That soft, smug mental chuckle that raked across your nerves like velvet over broken glass.
“I didn’t kill him,” Mihawk’s voice whispered into your mind, impossibly calm. “You should be grateful. The urge was considerable.”
You screamed into your pillow, the weight of his words cutting into you. That sickening feeling of helplessness, knowing that somewhere, deep down, he was always there, always watching, always controlling.
It got worse from there.
Every time someone so much as glanced at you with prolonged interest, the air around you thickened. It was slow, heavy, and suffocating, like a shadow descending too quickly, too dark. The pressure would build, suffocating your thoughts, until something bad happened.
A cracked rib.
A pulled muscle.
A debilitating charley horse at the worst possible moment.
You felt like you were losing your grip, like you couldn’t escape the invisible force that hung over you every day. You hated it. Hated him. The constant, omnipresent weight of his influence.
“Stop injuring people, you petty knife rack!” you shouted mentally, desperate, the anger clawing its way out of your chest.
And he—of course he—was utterly unmoved.
“If they valued their lives, they’d keep their eyes to themselves.”
You tried. You tried to explain the simple concept of consent. Boundaries. Reason. You yelled at him, vented your frustration, but he simply countered with the same cold logic that had been his hallmark for so long.
“I have never interfered with your choices. I only correct the foolish who imagine they had one.”
The words made your blood boil, but it wasn’t enough to break through his calm, calculated demeanor. His indifference was maddening, and yet it was what gave him such power over you.
You threw a chair. The loud crash echoed through the room, the sound sharp and jarring against the walls of your mind. Mihawk, from his distant perch in your thoughts, just complimented your form. It felt like a mockery. The very thing you had been trying to fight off (the control, the manipulation, the presence) had become so pervasive, you couldn’t escape it.
Now, most people won’t even stand within ten feet of you without checking the sky first. Your reputation has taken on a life of its own. You’re known as “the cursed one,” and, most depressingly, “Miss Librarian, please don’t smile at me, I have a family.”
It’s absurd. And yet, there’s something in your chest that twists when you think about it.
You’re not even sure if you should laugh or scream.
You’re definitely going to fight him when you meet him. If he ever lets anyone get that close to you.
But for now, with your heart still racing and your mind still at war, you can’t help but mutter, “You’re not even my type.”
And, almost immediately, you feel his presence in the bond again. He’s there, waiting, his cold, unfazed calm bleeding into your thoughts like ice.
“I like emotionally present people. With basic communication skills. Who aren’t legally classified as bladed weapons.”
Your words are sharp. A declaration. But it doesn’t seem to faze him.
“So not the world’s greatest swordsman?” he asks, his tone completely unbothered. You can practically feel the smirk, the satisfaction radiating from him, knowing he’s pushed you further than you’d ever admit.
You grit your teeth, and your mind spins with the frustration, but somehow, there’s a strange sort of pull. Something dark and undeniable that keeps you tethered to him.
The frustration simmers in your chest. “Seriously. If you were actually Mihawk, why the hell would you waste your time teasing some random nobody through a soulbond you’ve ignored for years?”
You wait for his usual biting response. The sarcasm. The sharp retort. The unmistakable sting of his presence in your mind. But instead... nothing.
And that? That’s worse. The silence lingers, heavy, suffocating, filling your mind with its oppressive weight. You can almost feel it pressing against you, like an invisible hand gripping your chest.
Then, finally, he speaks.
“If you would just… sit still for five minutes.”
As if that’s your fatal flaw. As if you’re the one at fault. Not the fact that his voice has tormented you for years. Not the way his cold, calculating presence threads through your thoughts like some twisted, invasive force, stitching together moments of torment.
Not the way he sends you sensory simulations of what “patience tastes like”. Which, apparently, involves mahogany desks, silk ties, and being pinned against a wall at sunset, unable to move, unable to escape.
You are the chaos. The disobedient spark that refuses to sit still, to be tamed.
And because of that, he plans. Oh, how he plans.
Dracule Mihawk. The stoic warlord, the emotional void, the sword-saint with a soulmark that binds you to him, and has conjured strategies for you. His mind is sharp, a finely honed blade, and his strategies are precise and meticulous. He waits for the moment when you finally stop squirming, when you stop snarling, stop stomping off every time he thinks “mine” just a little too loudly.
If you just sat still for five minutes? He could unbutton your coat with two fingers and a glance. He could press you back against a wine barrel and make you forget your name, your crew, your very mission. He could kiss you with the kind of terrifying precision that ends nations. Not with passion, but with intention.
He could use his voice. Not the cold, clipped one he always uses. No, the low one. The one that slips into your skull like molten honey at midnight, when your defenses are down, when the bond pulses with a frantic rhythm, and your soulmark burns like a warning bell.
“Five minutes,” he says again, his words curling around your thoughts like silk, slow, deliberate, intentional. “I wouldn’t even need five. But I’d take them.”
The weight of his words presses against you like a physical force. You slam a pillow onto the floor in frustration. Your heart is pounding. Your mind is a riot of conflicting emotions.
Your neighbor, ever the observant one, watches as you collapse onto the couch. "You having nightmares?" they ask, their voice filled with concern.
You laugh bitterly, shaking your head as you slump deeper into the cushions. "No, I’m not having nightmares," you mutter, your voice thick with exhaustion. "I’m having well-lit, fully choreographed mental war crimes from a man who says things like, ‘Hold still, darling. I’m aligning the moment."
You try to focus on anything else. You’ve taken to running drills, to burning off the restless energy that gnaws at your body. Anything to escape the suffocating grip of his thoughts.
But Mihawk? He knows. He knows every time you try to fight him. Every time you try to block him out. Every time you mentally scream, or imagine kissing a fisherman, just to escape the suffocating hold he has on your mind.
And each time, he responds with that same calm, smug satisfaction.
“Sit still,” he murmurs, his voice laced with satisfaction, as though he’s already won. “Or don’t. It makes no difference. I’ll have you either way.”
It’s suffocating. You haven’t known peace in years. You’ve become a woman possessed, consumed by a bond you never asked for, that you’ve tried to break at every turn. But Mihawk? He’s always there, watching. Waiting. With every passing moment, his grip only tightens.
Traveling the world with Ace is like riding a roller coaster with an unbuckled toddler, covered in oil, holding a lighter. This is important to know, because wherever you go, it’s tantamount to expect some sort of tomfoolery from your soulmate (if not yourself).
The market is loud and bright, full of shouting vendors and the smell of grilled skewers, seaweed snacks, citrus piled high like little suns. People brush past you, shoulders bumping. Somewhere, a child screams in delight over something that sounds extremely expensive.
You let go of Ace's hand for three seconds to look at something.
It is not dramatic. It is not even a proper separation. It is a normal, reasonable, adult decision made because someone bumped your elbow, and the crowd in the market swelled like a tide.
Ace’s palm slips out of yours.
You take one step to the left, yet you are still right there.
Ace turns around anyway, because Ace turns around every five seconds in public like he is a paranoid cat, and his expression changes so fast it is almost impressive.
First, there is confusion.
Then there is suspicion, like you have personally betrayed him.
Then, very abruptly, there is panic.
His eyes go wide. His shoulders tense. His head swivels left and right, scanning the market as if you have fallen into a trapdoor.
“Ace?” you say, because you are literally standing two feet away from him, and you assume he will simply look at you.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he grabs the nearest person by the shoulders. It is a very large fisherman holding a basket of eels. Ace leans in, eyes wild, voice urgent.
“WHERE DID MY BABYCAKES GO?”
The fisherman blinks. One eel flops dramatically as if it is also shocked.
You stare.
Ace continues, louder, like volume will conjure you out of thin air.
“I LOOKED AWAY FOR ONE SECOND! BADDIE, WHERE ART THOU???”
You reach out and smack his arm. Hard.
He whips around so fast he nearly dislocates something, sees you, and the sheer relief on his face is so intense it makes you feel slightly guilty, which is rude, because you did not do anything.
“Oh, thank God,” he says, voice cracking like a man who has survived a war.
“I was looking at fruit,” you say. “Two steps away.”
Ace grabs your face with both hands, cupping your cheeks like he is checking to make sure you are real and not a cruel hallucination sent by the sea.
“You could have been KIDNAPPED,” he says.
Your eyes narrow. “At the fruit stand?”
“Yes,” he says immediately, like this is obvious. “Fruit stands are dangerous.”
“Ace.”
“Baby, you don’t know. They have knives,” Ace insists. “Sometimes they have those weird spiky fruits. Pineapples are basically weapons. Trust me, I have experience with Marco.”
“Ace, baby.” You put a hand on your hip, "Don't bring Marco into this.”
Ace leans closer, still holding your face, and whispers like he is confessing something painful. “Listen, Marco is always a part of the conversation. Also, I totally thought you got stolen.”
You blink. “Stolen.”
“…Okay, no,” he admits grudgingly. “But this market is sketchy.”
You pry his hands off your face and step back. “Ace. I’m not going anywhere.”
He points at you accusingly. “That is what you want me to think. Then you run of with some hotshot who has nice abs and a bank account.”
You stare at him for a long second, then lift your fruit basket. “I have bananas.”
Ace’s gaze drops to the bananas. His shoulders loosen by approximately two percent.
“That helps,” he says, like bananas are a form of proof of commitment.
You start walking again, weaving through the crowd toward the stall you actually wanted. Ace immediately slides up beside you and takes your hand again, but he does it in a way that suggests he is never letting go until you are both dead, and not even then will he consider it.
You try to drag your hand away to adjust the basket.
Ace tightens his grip.
You sigh. “Ace.”
“No,” he says.
“I need my hand to pay.”
“I’ll pay,” he says.
“You don’t have money.”
“I have charm,” he says, very confidently.
“You tried that last time, and the vendor threw a fish at you.”
Ace lifts his chin, utterly unbothered. “Okay, new idea. How about instead these bananas—”
You barely have time to open your mouth before the world tilts.
One second, you are mid-sentence, the next Ace’s hand is at your wrist, momentum carrying you sideways as he pivots sharply off the main street. Brick rushes up behind you, cool and solid at your back, the noise of the market cutting off like a door slammed shut.
You blink.
The alley is narrow, hidden behind a cart stacked high with drying fish and herbs, the smell is sharp and salty and overwhelming. Your fruit basket is gone. The bananas are gone. Your dignity is hanging by a thread.
Ace finishes his sentence as if nothing had happened at all.
“—how ’bout I give you mine?”
He grins, all teeth and heat and trouble, and then his hand shifts. With a flick of his wrist, your hands are caught under one of his, pinned lightly above your head against the brick. Handling you with just enough pressure used to make your pulse jump.
Before you can form a proper response, his leg slides between yours, close enough to steal your breath, close enough that your knees almost give just from the sudden intimacy of it.
You stare at him, and he stares right back, eyes dark, smile slower now, edged with satisfaction.
“That,” you manage, “was not part of the discussion.”
Ace leans in, close enough that you feel the warmth rolling off him, his forehead nearly brushing yours. “You said I couldn’t pay with charm,” he murmurs. “Didn’t say anything about… alternate currencies.”
Your heart is absolutely not helping you right now.
“Where did the bananas go?” you say weakly.
Ace glances over his shoulder, then back at you. “Strategic sacrifice.”
“For what?”
“For this.”
And then he kisses you.
It’s fast and sudden and completely unfair, the kind of kiss that knocks the thought clean out of your head. His mouth is warm, confident, tasting faintly of salt and laughter and bad decisions. He kisses just like he lives: Fiery hot, all in, no hesitation, like the world might end if he doesn’t.
You make a sound you do not approve of and grab his shirt with your free hand, fisting the fabric to steady yourself. He hums against your mouth at that, pleased, the vibration sending a shiver straight through you.
Ace pulls back just enough to breathe, forehead resting against yours, breath warm on your lips.
When you finally break apart, your forehead thumps against his chest as you exhale.
Ace laughs softly, resting his chin on top of your head. “You okay?”
You tilt your face up, eyes narrowed, heat still humming through you. “You owe me bananas.”
He grins, unrepentant. “I’ll steal you more.”
“ACE.”
“Worth it,” he says easily, leaning in for one last quick kiss, softer this time, like punctuation.
Somewhere nearby, someone yells about stolen bananas. Ace squeezes your hands once before letting go, eyes bright. “Okay,” he grins. “Now we run.”
You don’t even argue, you just grab his hand and take off laughing, the alley swallowing the evidence behind you.
Having Ace as a soulmate is like dating a clingy campfire with feelings. He’s loud, loyal, and fully prepared to self-immolate if you so much as shiver, mentally or physically. He’s been obsessed since puberty—and yes, he still thinks spontaneous combustion is a valid love language. “If my soulmate’s cold, I’ll just set myself on fire. Easy fix.” Now you are scared and cold.
Character Suggestion by @dead-cipher
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A03 Link
-Bond Awakening-
It started innocently enough.
You are normal. At least, you try to be. You pay your taxes (when applicable), respect your elders (unless they’re creeps), and only scream into your pillow when absolutely necessary. You grew up in a modest village where nothing exciting ever happened—except, of course, for the fact that you’ve had a pirate in your head since age six.
You’re aggressively normal. You like toast. You do your taxes early. You read books in quiet corners and have strong opinions about brand-name toothpaste. You are average with a capital A.
At first, the bond felt innocent enough. There were brief flickers of emotion, bits of curiosity, and the occasional overwhelming urge to punch something and then apologize to it.
Then the voice started speaking in full sentences; chaotic, unfiltered, and alarmingly sincere.
“I hope he knows I love him even if I punched him. In the face.”
“If I die, I want to die doing something cool. Like falling into lava to save a kitten.”
“Do whales get lonely?”
“If I set this on fire and run away fast enough, technically it’s not my fault.”
A loud voice. With zero filter. And no self-preservation instinct.
It wasn’t just thoughts. You had vivid dreams of eating everything within a fifty-mile radius. You’d wake up laughing at jokes you never told. Or screaming, because some distant, invisible dumbass decided to fight a Sea King at age ten.
You knew what it meant. The telepathic thread had been there since childhood. Most people got soft hums of emotion, the occasional comforting whisper.
“Oi, how many push-ups does it take to break a tree?” “I should punch that guy. No reason. Just vibes.” “If I die young, bury me in meat.”
His name, as you eventually piece together through years of one-sided nonsense, is Ace.
Full name?
Portgas D. Ace
You’re just a normal, average person with a skincare routine and a deathly fear of taxes. Which is exactly why the universe, in its infinite humor, decided to tether your soul to Ace. He’s a human wildfire with the emotional processing skills of a stray golden retriever and the attention span of a sunburned raccoon.
His hobbies include: eating until death seems imminent, throwing hands with gods and warlords, spontaneous arson, and emotionally repressing every feeling that isn’t hunger or homicidal loyalty.
You’ve never met him. But you’ve heard him. He doesn’t know you exist. But you know him.
You know he doesn’t believe in soulmates. You know he eats like a vacuum. You know he cries alone at night and pretends he doesn’t. You know he got his first tattoo on a dare. And unfortunately… You also know that he once set a spider on fire to impress someone. (He regrets it. The spider haunted him in a dream. He whispered an apology three years later.)
A Sample of Your Childhood Psychic Transcript – Extended Cut
Age 7: "Do you think seagulls ever get depressed?" You were in math class. Trying to learn multiplication tables. Your soulmate, somewhere out there, was staring into the ocean like a tiny, unmedicated philosopher with a flair for existential bird-based melancholy.
You blinked. Raised your hand. Asked to use the bathroom. Sat on the toilet and whispered, “What?”
Age 8: "If I became a pirate, do you think they’d let me keep my blanket?" It was a sincere question. It made your heart ache. Not because it was sweet, but because you realized your soulmate was already planning his outlaw era.
Age 10: “If I get eaten by a sea king, tell Luffy I died hot.”
You were sitting in the back of the library, hunched over a weathered copy of Advanced Multiplication, when the voice echoed across your skull with all the solemnity of a soldier’s final words.
You blinked. Slowly. Once. Twice.
The voice—his voice—sounded older now. Still boyish, still rough around the edges, but with the kind of melodramatic resignation only a twelve-year-old could muster with such commitment. He sounded like someone who’d stared death in the face and decided to make it weird.
You turned the page. Pretended not to hear.
Other children had imaginary friends. You had this.
A borderline-delinquent who philosophized about death, grilled fish, and sea birds like they were moral arbiters of heaven and hell. A boy with a voice like fire and laughter, who once gave you a blow-by-blow breakdown of how to win a fistfight with a wild boar. He narrated everything. Bad decisions. Petty theft. Emotional spirals. The occasional hallucination.
You never answered. Not once. You were practiced. Well-trained. Unshakable.
But fate, as it often does, waited patiently to make you suffer.
-The Cold War-
Age 13:
It began with a whisper. Then a crackle. Then—suddenly, violently—“BOOBS.”
You choked mid-sip of your tea. Nearly stabbed yourself with your own pencil. The word reverberated in your head like a cannon blast, unfiltered and aggressively enthusiastic. There was silence. A stunned, terrible silence.
And then his voice, slightly breathless and awestruck: “I just… wow. That bartender was built like a miracle. Do you think she noticed me? Should I have said something? Was ‘You have nice elbows’ too weird?”
You sat motionless at the kitchen table, pencil still mid-stroke in a math equation you would never, ever finish. You could feel your soul physically detaching from your body.
Almost seven years. Seven. Seven years of absurdity. Of hunger rants. Of emotional crises about clouds that looked like parental neglect. Of vivid psychic broadcasts of every single dumb fight, scar, and mood swing.
But this? This crossed a line.
You stood. Slowly. Like a woman wronged. Marched outside. And screamed into the dirt like an ancient priestess channeling divine rage.
Somewhere, far away, a bird fell out of a tree from secondhand embarrassment.
“NO!” you yelled into the sky, fists clenched. “YOU DO NOT GET TO BE HORNY AND STUPID. PICK ONE!”
And somewhere, across sea and wind and sky— He heard you.
A pause. A stunned intake of breath.
“…Wait,” his voice said, softer now. “That was you. You talked. You’re real. Oh my god, who are you? Tell me your name. Tell me your location. I’ll find you. I swear—I’ll find you.”
You didn’t scream again. You didn’t cry. You didn’t faint. You simply answered, tone flat and final:
“No. I’m retracting my existence. Goodbye.”
And then you slammed the door—metaphysically, psychically, spiritually—and mentally filed a full restraining order against fate.
He did not take it well.
“Was it the boob thing? I swear I respect women. I mean—I don’t not notice them, but I’m not, like, a pervert. Just observational. Please respond. I haven’t eaten in four hours. I don’t know why that matters, but emotionally it feels important.”
You do not.
“If I die of heartbreak and/or starvation, tell Luffy I—wait. You already know. I died hot.”
By day four, he’d reached the melodramatic stage of soulmate grief.
“I’ve named the seagull that keeps following me. His name is Betrayal.”
You ignored him. You hardened your mind like iron. Practiced psychic silence like a religion.
But some nights, when the world was quiet and your guard slipped, you still felt the flicker of him at the edge of your thoughts: warm, restless, and ridiculous.
And once—just once—you heard him whisper through the bond, low and serious, voice heavy with something new.
“Please just let me know you’re okay. I’ll wait–”
You didn’t reply. Not then. But after the quiet way he whispered I’ll wait like a vow instead of a threat—you found yourself staring at the ceiling. Thinking. Overthinking. Trying very hard not to care.
And failing.
Just a little.
Eventually, grudgingly, with the emotional grace of someone returning to a party they swore they left forever…you let him back in. Not fully. Not warmly. Not with words so much as intention. But with conditions.
He wasn’t allowed to interrupt test days. No horny thoughts before noon. Absolutely no narrating your dreams back to you with commentary like, “Whoa, that one had symbolism.” And if he wanted to share his feelings, he had to at least pretend to have emotional self-awareness.
Naturally, he ignored all of this.
You became a master of selective tuning. His chaotic thoughts drifted through your mind like white noise: background nonsense you could mute with a blink. You mastered the sacred art of psychic eye-rolls.
He, in turn, began calling you “Mystery Babe” when you humored him and “Invisible Gremlin” when you roasted him into the dirt. You answered once in a blue moon. Just enough to ruin his day.
Like, “You fell off that cliff because you tried to flirt mid-backflip. Not because the ground betrayed you.”
Or, “Your idea of stealth is shouting ‘this way, boys’ at full volume.”
Or, worst of all: “I don’t dream about you. You sound like you smell like firewood and have impulse control issues.”
And Ace? He lost his entire damn mind. Delightfully. Publicly. Apocalyptically.
He became obsessed. Utterly, wildly, romantically feral.
Because now he knew you were out there. Real. Sharp. Hidden. The girl who outsmarted fate, ghosted destiny, and occasionally replied just to hand him his own ego on a silver platter.
You weren’t sweet. You weren’t eager. You weren’t simping.
You were just mean enough to be hot.
Like a mirage that tells you to hydrate and die.
And it was ruining him.
His crewmates noticed immediately.
“Is Ace talking to himself again?”
“No, he’s arguing with his soulmate.”
“…Does she answer?”
“Only to mock him.”
They started calling you The Phantom. Deuce took bets on whether you were real. Skull tried to flirt with the empty air once and got psychically blasted with, “Not you, oil-slick.”
By week three of your emotionally distant reappearance, Ace had declared—loudly, mid-fight, while on fire, “I don’t need to find the One Piece. I need to find my soulmate, so I can formally apologize for my horny teenage brain and then ask them to punch me in the face.”
There was silence.
Then the enemy captain nodded solemnly. “That’s valid,” he said, before Ace knocked him out. And honestly? Probably the most emotionally mature thing Ace had ever said.
And you almost responded. Almost. But instead… You smiled. And went back to ignoring him.
Age 15:
“I’m gonna fight this volcano. I’ve got it. No regrets.”
It came in loud and proud, mid-afternoon. You were standing in line at the pharmacy, waiting for cold medicine, when your soulmate decided to challenge a natural disaster to a duel.
You closed your eyes. Counted to five. He kept going.
“If it kills me, bury me with snacks. And a sword. Even if I didn’t have one. Just for the drama.” You pressed your fingers to your temples like you could pinch the psychic connection out of existence.
He was persistent. And worse, he was charming.
In the most idiotic, reckless, infuriatingly loyal golden retriever way imaginable.
He wasn’t suave. He wasn’t smooth. He was a walking campfire with sass and a dangerously low number of self-preservation instincts.
You were not speaking, but still, he talked to you.
“If I ever meet you, I hope you hate me at first,” he said once, quieter than usual. “That way, I can earn it. I wanna earn it.”
“I’d probably ruin your life,” he admitted another time. “But like… nicely?”
“Maybe you don’t exist. Maybe I got the broken kind of bond.”
And then, worst of all, the one that landed like a stone in your chest: “If you’re real, I hope you’re happy. Even if it’s not with me.”
You hate that he sounds sincere.
Age 16:
You are entirely convinced this man should be institutionalized.
You learn to live around him. You train your face not to react when he narrates his internal monologues mid-battle. You do not try to talk back. You’ve heard what happens when soulmates do that. It's called “dumbass feedback loop.” Two people yelling in each other’s heads until someone faints.
Instead, you simply exist. Quietly. Carefully. You’re old enough to drop out of school and change locations, which you do, and often. Use fake names. Pick villages with low foot traffic. Avoid taverns where Wanted Posters hang.
Ace, for his part, is infuriated by this.
He doesn’t know who you are. Doesn’t know where you are. Can’t even figure out your gender for the first ten years. He only knows you exist because he keeps trying to scream into the void, and you never scream back.
Which, of course, drives him completely insane.
He grows up.
You do too. You get better at tuning him out.
Until one day.
“I think I’m being followed. That guy has weird teeth. I might punch him. If I die, sorry, soulmate. I wish I had kissed someone.”
You freeze. Because it’s the first time he’s said anything that sounded like a goodbye. You don’t respond, and you find the words can’t break the door you’ve built open. But you stay up all night anyway. Eyes on the ceiling. Fingernails biting your palms.
The next day?
He’s fine.
“That guy was weird, but I gave him my sandwich. He cried. I cried. We’re friends now.”
You sob into your pillow.
Ace, Age 17:
“Okay, look. If you’re real. If you’re out there. Just… tap something. Whisper. Blink twice mentally.”
You: (mentally blinking once, for spite)
You become excellent at mental firewalling. He starts testing you.
“Do you like meat? Just tell me that. I won’t track you down. Probably. If you don’t respond in 3 seconds, I’m gonna assume you’re dead and go commit arson in your honor.”
Eventually, he starts talking to you the way people talk to their diaries; with sarcasm and later, sincerity.
That’s when things get complicated.
Because, behind all the reckless noise and weird thoughts about trying to headbutt a sea emperor, there’s this ache. This softness you weren’t expecting. He starts wondering out loud if he deserves a soulmate. Starts apologizing when he’s angry. Tells you about Luffy, about Sabo, and his untimely death (you sob for hours). About the fire in his chest that never quite goes out.
He doesn't even know you're listening.
And you wish you weren’t.
Because now it hurts. Now you want to answer.
But you don’t. You can’t. You know what kind of people hunt soulmates, especially ones with D. in their name. If the Navy finds you, they’ll use you. If pirates find you, they’ll sell you. And if Ace finds you?
...You don’t know what he’d do. But it’d probably involve grinning, dramatic declarations, and upsetting explosions.
So, instead, you run. You hide. You exist in the margins. You watch from the edges of the news whenever you hear about Whitebeard’s crew. You silently cheer when you read about them protecting islands and sinking slaver ships.
You almost cry the first time Ace calls you “my tether.” And then he follows it with “which sounds weird and kinda kinky, but spiritually accurate.”
You throw a spoon across the room.
You talk to him for the first time—really talk to him—when you’re seventeen.
It’s been eleven years of chaotic background noise. Of pirate shenanigans, shirtless bragging, impromptu wrestling matches, and unsolicited thoughts about meat, knives, ghosts, fire, and, occasionally, emotional devastation disguised as jokes.
You’ve learned to compartmentalize him. A psychic raccoon rummaging around your mental trash cans. Sometimes loud, sometimes weirdly insightful. Always there.
But that year?
That’s the year you hear him cry.
You don’t even know what triggers it. You’re just heading home, a basket of bread in one hand, the sun warm on your shoulders, when suddenly the world goes sideways.
“Why does it keep happening?”
His voice isn’t loud this time. It’s broken. Quiet. He’s not performing. Not cracking jokes. Just sitting somewhere, talking to no one. Maybe himself.
Maybe you.
“I keep losing everyone.” A breath. “First Sabo. Now the Spade Pirates.” He swallows hard. You feel it in your ribs. “I try to be good. But…”
Silence.
Then the whisper that shatters something soft in your chest:
“...Maybe I don’t deserve anyone.”
You stop walking.
Right there. In the middle of the road. The wind is gentle. Your throat is not.
You hesitate. For too long. Long enough to almost let it pass.
“You do.”
The word is small. Just one. But it slams into him like a cannonball.
“WH—NO WAY.” His voice skyrockets into disbelief. “You talked again! You—you heard all of that?! Forget it! UNHEAR IT. I sounded like a tragic romance novel. I need a redo.”
You roll your eyes.
“You sounded like a dumbass in pain. Which is slightly better than your usual dumbass setting.”
“Oh my god, you’re perfect.”
You ignore the heat crawling up your neck.
He doesn’t.
“Wait—WAIT—this is real. You’re real. You’re not dead or a voice invented by head trauma or—wait, you’re not a tree, right? I once emotionally confessed to a tree. It didn’t answer.”
You sigh. Pinch the bridge of your nose.
“I am not a tree. You absolute himbo.”
He makes a sound like he’s been physically electrocuted with joy. And just like that, Ace starts beaming across your bond. Not literally, but it feels like light. Like heat. Like a bonfire on a cold night that you didn’t realize you’d needed.
“This is the best day of my life. Please marry me. Or at least tell me your name. Or insult me again. I’d take any of those.”
You don’t give him your name. Not yet.
But you do say, “I’m not ready for you to find me.”
Ace joins something called ‘The Whitebeard Pirates’.
You quietly wonder if it’s a strip club or a cult.
But now, you’re curious, committed, and listening at metaphoric windows in his mind palace. The crack in your own mental door widens. Just enough that you know unconsciously are transmitting some spare thoughts.
Enough that you may accidentally transmit more details than you intend.
It’s not a scream. It’s not a cry for help. It’s not even a thought meant for him. It’s a snort. Of all things. A quiet, private, mental snort of disbelief.
You’ve spent your whole life avoiding him.
And honestly? You’ve been excellent at it.
Fake names. Remote towns. A personal blacklist of any island that’s ever whispered “Whitebeard.” You were disciplined. Focused. Determined not to let your soulmate ruin your peace.
Because you knew too much.
You’d heard his thoughts since childhood—unfiltered, uninvited, and deeply, profoundly stupid. You’d heard him fart. Cry. Argue with seagulls. Wonder aloud if crabs feel jealousy. You’d built up a mental image of a human raccoon with fire powers and the emotional depth of a wet sock.
And for years, that was fine.
Until today.
When you see it, you’re at a sleepy little port, casually browsing a message board for work. A wanted poster with a familiar name.
You glance. Just a peek.
And freeze.
Name: Portgas D. Ace.
Bounty: Irrelevant.
Expression: A curl at this lips lifting up like sin.
The creature is hot.
And a pirate.
But more important— He’s unethically hot. Shirt-open, jaw-sharp, lean-muscle, freckles-like-a-gift-from-God hot.
You envisioned a gremlin with muscles and zero self-preservation. You expected a 6-foot-tall disaster man held together by ego, duct tape, and barbecue sauce.
But this?
And he is divine punishment in man form. Shirt half-buttoned (barely). Freckles like stardust. Muscles that have never known a shirt that fits. A smile that should be federally regulated.
And dimples. Dimples.
He looks like he rolled out of a bonfire, forgot what a brush is, and still makes grown adults walk into walls. He looks like someone who would text “You up?” at 2 AM, and mean it platonically, then absolutely ruin your life in bed.
You sit on a bench. You stare at the poster. The wind rustles. Somewhere, someone sneezes.
You mutter, “Oh no. He’s hot. I am so screwed.”
Because now there’s a problem.
You’ve spent over a decade building immunity to his personality.
But no one prepared you for the smoulder.
And the worst part?
He feels it.
Ace is halfway through fighting a sea king when it hits. He literally pauses mid-punch.
“Holy crap,” he whispers. “They noticed me.”
Marco looks up. “Who?”
“My soulmate thinks I’m hot.”
He beams like the sun just kissed him. He fights a sea king out of pure euphoria. He gives a romantic speech to a palm tree.
And when he laughs—low and rough, like warm honey with a death wish—your brain short-circuits.
And he lets you have it.
“Hey!” Even his mentally transmitted voice is a problem. Sleep-rough and smug, “Miss me, baby? Bet you were thinking about me again. Don’t lie—I felt it. You feel really pretty in your head. Want me to walk you through it again?”
You tried everything.
Cold showers. Meditation. Punching someone for fun.
Nothing works.
Because Ace is a wildfire in human skin and bad decisions.
And worst of all?
He knows.
“I’ll let you touch the V-line if you say please.”
You’ve considered hurling yourself overboard more than once. But unfortunately, Ace can swim in your head. And he’s always shirtless when he gets there. You’ve moved ten times. Changed names. Changed continents.
Ace? Unbothered. Thriving. Intensifying. He starts taking notes. (They’re mostly unreadable. But it’s the effort.) He’s narrowed it down. He knows you’re alive and that you move often. That you’ve been dodging fate with Olympic-level skill.
He’s not mad.
He’s impressed.
“You’ve been dodging destiny like a pro. Damn. Marry me.” Now he daydreams about meeting you mid-brawl. Or during a cursed artifact heist.
Or stealing the same apple off a rooftop and locking eyes like, “So… this is awkward.”
He doesn’t want a perfect moment. He wants you. Your weird live-stock obsessed brain and all.
And you? You still think he’s reckless, loud, and infuriating. But… maybe…Just maybe…He’s exactly your kind of problem.
Wait. WAIT.
You reel back.
He gets slapped into a rock. He barely notices. He is too busy grinning like a moron.
That’s it.
That’s the moment he decides: He is going to find you.
Before, it was passive curiosity. Now? It’s an obsession. Amusement. Intrigue. Hope.
Someone sarcastic. Someone real. Someone who thinks he’s an idiot (correct). Someone who sounds more like a human person than a divine blessing.
He’s doomed.
He starts doing things he never used to do. Asking questions. Collecting rumors. Not of his soulmate, because no one knows what he’s after, but about soulmates, connections, and how the hell does anyone find each other if they don’t want to?
You dyed your hair the moment his emotional compass started pinging your hometown. You moved when he began fantasizing about coastal bars.
You became an urban legend. The myth. The whisper. That one girl who’s just not answering back.
Somewhere out there, your soulmate has a reputation. He’s one of those with A Silent Bond’. Pirates dare him to try to find you. He drinks too much sometimes and mutters, “She’s real. I know she is.” Someone once asked if maybe you died.
He said, “She didn’t. She’s just better at this than me.”
And you are.
But lately, the voice has been quiet. Too quiet.
Which is why, one night, halfway through brushing your teeth, a warm, raspy thought slips into your skull like a dagger wrapped in velvet, "I think I found your hometown, but you’re already gone...You win… this time. But if I see you, I’m still keeping you."
And you choke on your toothbrush.
The next mistake in your proverbial abode being invaded comes quickly.
He first catches a glimpse of you by accident. And it ruins him for days.
The bond has always been mostly one-sided. Him shouting into the abyss, you offering the occasional snarky whisper like some irritated brain ghost with boundary issues. You’ve never slipped. You’ve never let anything real through.
Until that day.
You were distracted. Tired. In the middle of patching a leak in your roof, your arms are covered in sap, and your soul is covered in rage because the only thing worse than your soulmate yelling about meat in your head is leaky ceilings during monsoon season.
And then, just for a flicker, you thought something too loudly.
You didn’t mean to. You were yelling internally about your ladder being possessed and made of evil wood spirits. You were furious with gravity. You were sweaty, sore, and covered in twigs.
And then, like a crack in a door.
He sees you.
Not fully. Just a snapshot, like the first page of a dream:
Sunlight streaking through wet leaves. Your face in half-shadow, eyes squinting up at a broken shingle. A smear of dirt across your cheek. Mouth pressed flat in focus. Your hand raised to swipe your brow, wrist wrapped in a red ribbon that was probably nothing but made his whole chest ache.
And worst of all: You are beautiful.
Not like the kind of “hot” he was always joking about. Not bartender-curvy or saloon-pretty or the fantasy women his crewmates dreamt up. You looked real.
Solid.
Warm.
Like someone he could come home to.
It knocked the breath out of him.
“...Whoa.”
The whisper was involuntary. Barely a word. More like a reverent exhale.
On your side, you froze.
Because you felt it.
You felt the moment he saw. The way the tether between your minds trembled, like it had finally aligned. Like it was no longer just a voice.
It had eyes. And they saw you.
“Oh my god,” he murmured, a little broken. “You’re real. You’re—”
You smacked the bond shut.
So hard, it echoed.
You didn’t talk to him again for two weeks.
And Ace?
Ace spent those two weeks walking around like a man hit by divine lightning.
He tried drawing your face from memory. Failed. Got angry. Started sketching again. Asked Thatch if he’d ever had a religious experience involving a hammer-wielding forest nymph and a red ribbon.
Everyone thought he was concussed.
Marco eventually sat him down and asked if he'd been cursed by a wood sprite. Ace just stared at the table and whispered, “She’s incredible.” And because he’s somehow managed to wedge a figurative foot in the door jam, he gets more glimpses.
It happens at night.
You’re alone, exhausted, curled up in a too-small bed on a too-small island that doesn’t even have proper plumbing. There’s a storm outside, thunder heavy and close, and you’ve been pretending all day that you aren’t upset.
But pretending only gets you so far.
You lie there, trembling. Not with fear. Just with the quiet, suffocating ache of trying to stay strong all the time. And that’s when your thoughts falter.
You let your guard drop.
Across the sea, Ace jolts upright.
Because suddenly, you’re there.
Not a thought. Not a quip. Another glance.
Like a flash through water. You. In the dark. Hunched over your own arms. Quietly crying into a pillow.
Not sobbing. Not loud.
Just… cracking.
Soft and honest and completely unguarded. The window next to your bed is cracked open. The candle is burning low. Your hands are gripping the sheets like they’re the only thing tethering you to the world.
You don’t even think of his name. But you feel him. And that’s worse.
And he feels everything.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t breathe.
For once, he doesn’t say anything.
He just watches in that stolen second, completely still, as his chest fills with something heavy, protective, and utterly unhinged.
He sees you. The real you.
Not just the sharp voice. Not the teasing distance. But the person beneath it all. Fragile. Furious. Lonely.
You snap the bond shut again the second you feel him. It slams so hard he physically stumbles back on the deck of the Moby Dick.
“Hey—! No, wait—!”
Silence.
He doesn’t chase the bond. Not right away. He just sits there, staring into the storm, heart pounding like a drum.
And then, very softly, he whispers to no one.
“You don’t ever have to be alone again, you know. Not with me.”
You huff in annoyance, trying to pull the mental shutters down like you're closing a damn window, but no matter how much you lock them, he's still there, pressing against the edges of your thoughts like he's trying to squeeze through a crack. And damn it, it’s working. His mental presence fills the spaces you’ve tried so hard to keep him out of, and now you can’t stop yourself from giving him all these little snippets of your mind, no matter how much you want to.
And goddamn it, when he decides to stay on your stoop, refusing to budge, there's only so much you can do—the nerve of him. There’s something oddly endearing about how he doesn’t back off, even when your mental voice tells him to just leave. He likes hearing your rambling nonsense, which makes you even more annoyed.
But it’s not just that. It’s the gems he’s pulling from you now. The stupid thoughts you can’t quite hide. Like that one, for example. You thought, just for a second, that the man who joined the Whitebeard's crew was somehow more interested in your bond, for the social aspect of it all. Like maybe he'd just stumbled into your mental space for the friendship and sweet, sweet no-escape bonding time, right?
It’s not completely irrational, right? Maybe a little delusional, but not out there. A guy that big with all that muscle? You really didn’t expect him to fit the “faithful romantic hero” trope—especially with “pirate” as his job title. He’s probably out there throwing hands and other things in every port he visits.
And every time something even remotely flirtatious crosses his mind, you bolt like your brain’s on fire, diving into farm animal facts just to avoid that embarrassing knowledge about what his hormones are up to behind closed doors.
He’s just not interested in you, carnally at least. Why would he be? You’re... you. He’s a famous pirate, a literal fire-bending golden retriever with abs and a fleet. He’s probably got a sexy fishwoman in every port. Hell, you'd fold for a sexy fishwoman, so why shouldn’t he?
But of course, he chooses the worst possible time to clarify. While you’re shopping. In public.
A thought slams into your brain like a meteor dipped in honey and sin.
“You’re not subtle, sweetheart.”
You physically jolt, and the egg vendor takes a step back. “You good?”
You nod, staring into the void. Because that voice—the one you haven’t heard in weeks—is suddenly awake. Smug. Dangerous.
“Not interested?...Not interested?”
A beat of silence.
“You’ve been dodging me for years like a criminal with a crush. You flinched when you saw my poster. You think I didn’t feel that spark? I felt your thirst, babe. It came through like a punch to the solar plexus.”
You grip the egg basket like it’s the only thing keeping you upright.
“You think I’m not interested? I’ve been tracking your emotional wreckage like a lovesick bloodhound with ADHD and a lighter.”
And then, of course, he gets descriptive.
Vivid. Uncomfortably so.
Your knees buckle a little.
“The things I could do if you’d just sit still for five damn minutes,” He practically screams, “And stop thinking about goats. Or cows. Or whatever weird barnyard tangent you go off on when you panic.”
You mentally scream, LIVESTOCK IS A COMFORTING TOPIC, and he laughs out loud in your brain.
It’s a warm, rough laugh that slides down your spine like a sin you weren’t ready to commit.
You drop your eggs.
And he keeps going.
“You think I’m not interested? Baby, I’ve imagined every version of you. Sarcastic. Half-dressed. Mud-covered. Covered in nothing but one of my shirts and bad intentions.”
Your ears go red.
“I’ve had to apologize to my crew for zoning out during a sea battle because you accidentally had a fantasy about kissing someone else. I almost torched an island.”
You drop your entire egg basket this time. Gone, like your dignity.
You storm home.
Slamming the door behind you, you flop onto your bed and shout into a pillow,
“STOP DOING THAT!”
You hear him reply, far too smug,
“Only if you stop pretending you don’t want me to.”
You assumed he was a eunuch. Fair. No normal man could be that energetic, that unhinged, that relentless without sacrificing something vital. There was no way a person who routinely set himself on fire for fun had enough blood left in his body to maintain… well, anything.
You’d once muttered aloud—after a particularly violent surge of his soul-linked thoughts.
“If this lunatic isn’t a eunuch, I’ll eat my shoe.”
To which the voice responded, chipper as ever, “Well, hope it’s chocolate-flavored, sweetheart, because I’m very much not a eunuch.” You rolled your eyes. Typical. He’d flirt with a cactus. It didn’t mean anything. But then, just after you bathed, exhausted and trying to sleep, he struck again.
The vivid mental image. Unsolicited. Graphic. Uncomfortably detailed. And so clear, it might as well have been seared directly onto the backs of your eyelids.
He wasn’t just not a eunuch. He was… a menace.
“Still think I’m not working, baby? Want me to describe how I’d use my very functional anatomy, or do you want a slideshow? Actually, hang on—let me tilt the angle. You’re not appreciating the scale.”
You tried to block him. You really did. But Ace had never once been deterred by logic, shame, or psychic boundaries. If anything, he doubled down.
“Hey, you’re the one who said I was built like a vending machine. Just thought I’d show you the snacks.”
You hated him. You hated how hot he sounded.
Hated that he was now giving himself full permission to know just how feral he was.
“Five minutes, sweetheart.
He could do things if you just sat still for five minutes.
He says it like a threat. Like a promise. Like he’s been waiting.
And you know he means it. Because every time you try to ignore him—every time you stubbornly pretend he’s not whispering sinful nonsense in your brain—he doubles down.
“Five minutes, sweetheart. That’s all I need. No interruptions, no running, no sassing. Just you, breathless and mine.”
You scoffed at first. Called him delusional. Told him to go flirt with a rock.
But Ace?
Ace just purred.
“See, look at how you're so pent up, baby. I told you. Five minutes, baby. Sit still, and I’ll show you what it feels like when someone actually knows you.”
His words crawl through your mind like fire, igniting every nerve. You try to push them away, but it's useless. Ace has never been one to leave you alone, not when he’s this determined.
He’s not just talking. He’s implying, and it’s maddening. You could feel it in the way he speaks, like every word is a thread pulling you closer to something you know you’re not ready for.
But god, part of you wonders if you’re wrong. What would it feel like to finally just give in? To stop pretending you aren’t as affected as he’s been telling you?
You’re teetering on the edge. One more push, and you’ll fall.
The worst part? You’re already halfway there.
“I’ve been dreaming about you for years. I’ve had practice.”
It’s maddening. Every time he gets quiet, you miss him. Every time he returns, you want to strangle him.
And now you’re terrified. Because someday, inevitably, you’re going to sit still. Just for five minutes.
And if there’s one thing you are when you’re mad and emotionally cornered, it’s petty as hell. You ghosted this man for the sin of saying boobies. Now, for trying to mentally fondle yours? You’re going nuclear.
So, you go on dates. Ace live-commentates them in your head like a sports announcer with ADHD.
“Bro. His hands are sweaty. You gonna kiss that? Ask him who his favorite pirate is. If it’s not me, stab him. What is this guy’s deal with anchovies? Are you safe??”
-Branching Out?-
You tried. Honestly, you really tried.
But you’re done. Emotionally. Mentally. Hormonally.
You’ve spent your entire adolescence haunted by the gremlin thoughts of a pirate you’ve never met. You’ve heard his opinions on soup, his guilty cries over cartoons, and more than one deeply concerning mental image involving rope.
So, you decide—quietly, pettily, desperately—that you’re going to break the bond by seducing a perfectly nice, boring man with great shoulders and zero mess.
Everything is set.
You’re wearing something cute but functional. You’ve got dinner plans. The guy is sweet. Polite. Zero war crimes. You even lit a candle, for atmosphere.
You’re about to lean in and kiss him when—
“WHO THE FUCK IS THAT?!”
Ace’s voice slams into your skull like a full-volume spiritual airhorn.
You blink.
The nice man asks if you’re okay, looking at you like you might suddenly sprout a second head.
You smile. Politely. Internally, you are SCREAMING.
“NOPE. UNACCEPTABLE. THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE HE APOLOGIZES BEFORE HE CUMS. IS THIS BECAUSE I MENTIONED THE CRAB DREAM? YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HIS MIDDLE NAME—DOES HE EVEN HAVE ONE? WHAT IF IT’S TERRY?”
You try to push him out. Focus. The man touches your hand gently.
“I WILL SET HIM ON FIRE. I HAVE FIRE HANDS.”
You exhale slowly and say aloud, “Please don’t set him on fire.”
The man blinks. “What?”
“Nothing.”
It is not nothing. It is a Sun God with no boundaries, loudly critiquing your sexual choices.
“I swear to GOD if he touches your waistband I’m going to hex his bloodline into extinction.”
You try again. Focus.
The man leans forward. He kisses your neck. It’s fine. It’s… nice.
And in your head?
“I HOPE HE FALLS OFF A DOCK TOMORROW AND GETS STUNG BY A SPITEFUL SHRIMP. YOU DON’T EVEN LIKE HIS HAIR. YOU’RE JUST DOING THIS OUT OF SPITE. YOU MONSTER. PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON BEFORE I WRITE A POEM ABOUT YOU OUT LOUD AND GET TATTOOED IN YOUR HONOR.”
The worst part?
You’re laughing. On your own bed. At the same time, a very confused man is gently trying to undo your shirt.
He stops, blinking. “Uh... are you... Okay?”
You wave him off. “It’s not you. I’m—ha—just mentally haunted.”
He leaves.
Kindly.
With a respectful bow (And possibly some trauma).
Two minutes later, Ace is smug and insufferable.
“So. Virginity status: Intact. Thanks to me. You're welcome. I’m a public service, honestly. Now that we’ve established that, can you PLEASE just let me take care of this properly and not with whatever beige sponge you dragged out of the alleyway?”
You groan.
He whistles.
“That better not have been a moan unless it was for me.”
You lie there glare at the ceiling, rage simmering.
“Don’t be mad,” Ace said, smug and unrepentant. “It’s not my fault you’re mine…And if I have to monologue in your head for six hours straight to keep you from letting some weak-jawed idiot put his hands on you, I will. Seriously, babe. All I’m asking is for you to wait until I can ruin you properly.”
You nearly screamed. Again.
And because you're a petty bitch with no control over things anymore, you decide to become mean. After all, it’s the only weapon left in your emotional arsenal.
You shut him out. Well, you try to. But you know it’s a cold war now. It’s inevitable. And your first strike? Completely accidental. As you stew in your indignation, a thought slips out—just a little too loud in your head.
“You’re like a damn stray dog that can’t stop following me. You’re lucky I don’t just leave you in the middle of the alley behind the Shimotsuki market and let the cats handle you.” You send a strong mental image of the said alley just to rub it in his face.
There’s a long, tense silence.
You feel something, but it’s so fleeting you can’t quantify it until he doesn’t reply.
Radio silence.
You’ve hurt his feelings.
You assumed he was pouting.
Which, to be fair, is on brand. He feels like the kind of man who would sulk about you not liking the exact ratio of buttons on his open shirt.
You told yourself you didn’t care. You told yourself this was good. Mental distance was good. Silence was peace. You didn’t need the constant horny peanut gallery in your brain, anyway.
You could finally focus. You could finally think.
You could finally wear skirts without worrying about mental commentary like: “Babe. That hemline? You’re gonna cause weather.”
And because you're a certified bitch, you can’t casually reach out. That’s what you tell yourself, anyhow.
You didn’t know how to reach out. You didn’t even want to. You just kept your mental door cracked open a titch and hoped he was somewhere being dramatic about the situation with a drink in hand.
But of course, that’s not what happened.
-The Slip Up-
He was not pouting.
He was tracking you.
Because here’s the thing. That little “alleyway” verbal slap and mental image of a sad little garbage can? That wasn’t just a mean thought. You hadn’t realized it, but you had just transmitted an image of your direct location straight to him.
It was a soul-bond breadcrumb. A signal flare. A bullseye on your very mortal, very sexy location.
And Ace? Ace is a feral golden retriever with boobs radar and emotional tunnel vision.
The second you let that thought leak? He started sailing.
You don’t know any of this.
You’re still sitting there, pretending you don’t care, when in reality, you’ve unknowingly painted a target on yourself. You don’t know that Ace, with his relentless persistence, is already closing in.
You have no idea that the moment your mental slip happened, he was already at the helm of his ship, grinning like a maniac.
And you’re still sitting there, blissfully unaware, believing that silence is your reluctant victory.
-Home Invasion-
A month later, he finally, finally speaks.
“Hey.”
You don’t answer. Is it because you were relieved and had tears in your eyes? Of course not, and if it were true, you wouldn’t tell anyone. Of course, you’re outside, being a human being and trying to be normal, so you look like a loon.
You glance around the street like someone’s going to see you talking to no one, looking like a total mess. You try to pull yourself together, pretending nothing's happening. Maybe you’re just a little shaken. But that’s fine.
You grit your teeth. “What do you want, Ace?”
“You mad I went quiet?”
You cross your arms in the street, and a grunt escapes. A small child asks her mother if your mad or constipated.
He laughs.
“No worries,, babe, no hard feelings.” And there it is. That smug edge creeping back into his voice.
Your desire to punch him returns in full force.
And you can hear the grin before he says the next words.
“Bet you missed me though.”
You can feel your eye twitching. This asshole. He's already won. Again.
“You’re impossible.”
“Aw, babe, that’s sweet. I missed you too.”
You take a deep breath and hold back the mental floodgates.
You try to ignore the fact that your heartbeat’s a little faster than normal, that you’re fighting the urge to scream because you know what's coming.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. And it makes you want to throw your wallet at the wall and hope a racoon doesn’t scurry off with it.
Then his next words drop like a bomb.
“You know," he continues, voice oozing with smugness, "I was just busy, sweetheart. You know, tracking you. No big deal.”
You freeze. Your blood runs cold.
Your brain short-circuits.
Tracking you.
The reality hit you like a freight train, its weight crashing into your chest. You hadn’t just let him know where you were with that stupid, careless mental slip—he’d been actively following your every move for a month. The very thought felt like you’d been exposed in ways you couldn’t possibly come back from.
The worst part? You couldn't even fight it. You knew exactly what he meant. You knew. The heat of his gaze, the way his presence lingered like a shadow over your thoughts. It was all too familiar, too dangerous.
And it felt mortifying.
You’d been trying to escape him, trying to block him out, yet all it took was a single slip-up—an image, a mental breadcrumb—and he was back, right where he wanted to be.
Without even realizing it, you screamed inside your head, “YOU'RE A FUCKING PSYCHOPATH.”
The laugh that followed reverberated through your mind, deep and smooth, like it had always belonged there.
“Missed you too, sweetheart.”
And then—you felt it before you saw him.
A heat, a wave that crashed against your skin like a sudden fever. The air seemed to shift. A flicker of danger, like lightning before the storm. It was that hurricane’s grin, that sun-warmed sin, wrapping itself around you like an invisible tether. You didn’t know whether to run or stay, but somehow, your feet were rooted to the ground.
And then—
“Hey.”
You looked up, and the world seemed to pause.
There he was. Portgas D. Ace.
Tall. Sun-kissed skin that looked like it had been burned by more than just the sun. His shirt was partially undone, revealing just enough of his chest to make your heart skip a beat. It looked like a war crime in the making.
And somehow, somehow, he was even hotter in person.
You stood there, frozen for a moment, mouth half-open, like a cat caught peeing on the rug. Was this real? Were you really standing in front of him, the man who had haunted your thoughts for weeks, months? You tried to form a sentence, tried to speak, but all that came out was a breathless, “...You... You’re real?”
That smirk. That all-knowing, impossibly smug smirk. He tilts his head.
“You gonna say hi? Or just keep pretending you didn’t hurt your own feelings more when you’re trying to hurt mine?”
Your brain short-circuits.
You attempt something vaguely resembling a sentence, but it comes out more like, “What the hell are you—how did you even—this is illegal.”
He just smiles, all teeth and smugness.
“Soulmates, baby. And that pretty distinctive mental image you flung at me like a broom. Shimotsuki Market. Very unique. Very trackable.”
You’re about to hurl something—anything—at him, so you grab your wallet off your hip and throw it at him. It's a reflex, a desperate attempt to do something other than stand there like a dumbfounded idiot.
He catches it effortlessly. Not even a flinch. Not a hint of struggle. Just that damn smile, like he’s deeply pleased with himself, and unfortunately, his smugness is also hot.
You try to walk past him, determined to regain some semblance of control. But of course, he steps right in front of you, blocking your path without a second thought.
“You ghosted me for years, babe. Years. I didn’t even know if you had a face. Now you do. And it’s a really cute one. So. Hi.”
You freeze. The air between you crackles with tension. Every nerve in your body screams at you to run. But you don’t.
You can’t. Not when he’s standing there, blocking the way out, with that impossible grin plastered on his face like he owns the world—and, apparently, your mind.
You want to hit him. Yell at him. But all you can manage is a shaky exhale, your pulse racing, your chest tight. You turn on your heel, desperate to escape, speedwalking back to some semblance of sanity. You shove past him, making it look like you’re in control.
“Rude,” he mutters, his voice laced with amusement. “But hot.”
You keep walking, determined. You’re going to get out of here. But of course, he follows.
“You’ve got a cute limp when you’re mad. Did you know that? We should talk. Or fight. Or make out. Up to you.”
Your hands ball into fists. But you don’t stop. You duck into the alley behind the shop, hoping the cramped space might give you an edge.
He follows you like a cursed Disney prince with a death wish. You whirl around, practically snarling.
“What do you want?”
He stops. The grin fades, just a little. He shrugs, casual, like he hasn’t just been stalking you for a month. But it’s not casual. It’s like he’s pulling back a little, trying to act nonchalant while wearing a smug look that says everything.
“I want you,” he says, his voice lowering. “I want to know your name. Your voice. What you actually sound like when you’re not yelling at me in your brain.”
For a split second—just one—you forget to be mad.
You forget you ever tried to run.
You’re staring at him now, and for a brief moment, there’s no anger, no desire to escape, just... him.
But then reality crashes back in.
And without thinking, you reach into your bag, grabbing the dried herbs you’ve been carrying for no particular reason, and hurl a handful straight at his face. You don’t even register what you’ve done until they’re in the air, the sharp scent of crushed rosemary and thyme filling the space between you.
You don’t wait to see the result. You sprint. Your legs move faster than your thoughts, driven by a primal instinct to get away.
Behind you, you hear him cough. Then, his laugh—rich and dark, echoing through the alleyway. “You really think you can outrun me?”
You don’t answer. You don’t even slow down. You’re not scared; you're simply trying to outpace the impossible situation you've somehow found yourself in. Your heart pounds in your chest, each beat louder than the last. But the truth weighs heavily on you: you know you can’t outrun him.
He laughs again. It’s a sound that rumbles through the air, low and confident, like he’s enjoying every second of this chase. “You’re gonna be so much fun.”
The words shoot through you like lightning, but you keep running, pushing your body faster, forcing yourself forward, through the winding streets, away from the port, desperate for a glimpse of safety.
But he’s already there, lurking just out of sight, like a shadow that follows no matter how fast you move.
You dodge down side alleys, weaving through crowds of strangers, your mind running through possible escape routes, trying to think ahead. You board random ships, desperate for anything that might carry you away from him. You even bribe a fruit vendor with a handful of coins, praying it’ll distract him long enough for you to catch your breath.
And still, Ace finds you.
You dart into a nunnery, desperate for sanctuary, the heavy wooden doors slamming behind you like a barricade. You take a moment to collect yourself—twelve minutes, exactly, to hide in the silence. But when you peek outside, the inevitable happens.
He’s standing at the nunnery’s threshold, his grin wide and unrepentant, as if he’s never been bothered by anything in his life. He looks like he’s enjoying this chase a little too much, like the mere fact that he’s found you is some twisted game he’s winning. The game where you run, and he—always—follows.
You round a corner in a port city two islands later and hear it.
“You run real pretty, sweetheart.”
You freeze, your feet stumbling over one another. Your breath catches in your throat. The words feel like a punch to the gut, the sound of them lingering in your bones. You try to move, but your body betrays you. You trip over your own foot, slamming into a nearby barrel to catch yourself.
Then you spin around.
And there he is.
Ace. Leaning against a post, relaxed, shirt half-open like he doesn’t have a care in the world. His sun-kissed skin glows in the warmth of the midday sun, freckles scattered across his chest like stars in a dark sky. The sunlight seems to conspire against you, highlighting every inch of him, making your breath hitch in your throat. He’s effortlessly cool—effortlessly here.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t lunge. Doesn’t need to. He just stands there, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, looking at you like he’s already won.
“Tired yet?” he asks, his voice as smooth as silk and just as dangerous.
You throw a rock at him. It’s the only thing you can think to do.
He dodges it with ease, like he’s seen it coming a mile away. His smile only grows wider, smug and victorious. “Not even a little.”
Your pulse is thrumming in your ears, your muscles aching from the running, but you don’t stop. You take off again, sprinting into the bustling marketplace. The vibrant colors of the stalls blur past you as you run faster, heart hammering against your ribs.
But he’s still right there.
He follows you, but it’s different now. He’s not rushing. He’s moving with the casual grace of a predator, strolling through the crowd like he owns it. His eyes never leave you, and you feel the weight of his gaze like a brand, marking you as his.
And then the worst part happens.
The locals start noticing. They cheer, like they’re watching a game, their eyes tracking the two of you with growing excitement.
One woman shouts, “GET HER, PIRATE BOY!”
You wince, a knot tightening in your stomach as the crowd roars in approval. You can’t outrun the attention now. It’s everywhere. The eyes of the city are on you, and in a moment of absurd clarity, you realize they’re rooting for him.
“Great,” you mutter, grinding your teeth together, the sound of your frustration mingling with the chaotic scene unfolding around you.
Ace grins wider, clearly relishing the bedlam he’s created. The man never stops. Never slows.
Then someone starts placing bets. On you.
Great. Just great.
You vault over a fruit stand, your legs pushing you forward in a burst of desperate energy. It’s not graceful, but you’re fast—too fast to think. You hear Ace whistle, his voice cutting through the noise like a blade.
“Nice form. You always this athletic or is it just when you’re running from your problems—me—specifically?”
You grit your teeth, ignoring the heat in your cheeks, and duck into a tavern kitchen, praying the staff are too busy to notice your disheveled, panicked entrance. The staff barely blinks as you slip past them, already halfway through the back door when—
He appears again.
Now he’s casually eating an apple, like he wasn’t just doing parkour across balconies and dodging flying fruit. He takes a slow bite, watching you with that maddening, self-satisfied smile, as if nothing had happened.
He doesn’t grab you this time. He doesn’t need to.
He just traps you.
He’s standing too close. That smile—sinful, smug, all-consuming—is never far from his lips.
“You done?” he asks, his voice low, amused.
You glare up at him, your heart hammering in your chest, your pulse quickening with the weight of it all. “No.”
He chuckles, a soft sound that crawls up your spine like heat. "Good."
And then, the moment you’ve been dreading.
He leans in.
It’s slow. Intentional. His breath brushes against your cheek. He whispers, his voice sliding against your ear like a stolen secret.
“Keep running if you want. I don’t mind.”
You feel the weight of his words, pressing in like a warning.
“Chasing you’s the most fun I’ve had in years.”
And then the sucker punch:
“But eventually… sweetheart, you’re gonna trip.”
You freeze. For a moment, your knees go weak, and your brain short-circuits, like someone’s cut the power to your mind. You’re standing there, so close to him, your body fighting against every urge to lean in, to finally give in to the pull.
You almost kiss him. Out of spite. Out of sheer frustration. Almost.
Instead, you throw a spoon right into his face. It clangs loudly against his cheek, and you make a break for it, leaping through the window with as much grace as you can muster.
“WORTH IT!” he yells behind you, his voice loud and triumphant as it echoes down the alley.
You run. Because you can’t stop. You won’t stop. Not until you’ve lost him for good.
But in the back of your mind, there’s something else. A tug. A pull. The taste of his words still lingering in your thoughts.
-CAUGHT-
By nightfall, he’s still following you. Somehow. Unbothered by your death glares, your total silence, or the fifteen attempts you made to accidentally lead him into thorn bushes. He compliments the flora. Bleeds cheerfully.
You’re huffing, exhausted and borderline panicked, your legs aching from the constant running. You can feel your nerves fraying, the last vestiges of your patience worn thin. You’ve been at this for hours, your mind screaming at you to find a way to lose him, but no. There he is. Ten steps behind, like some kind of relentless golden retriever on a leash, with that insufferable, charming grin plastered on his face.
Ace looks pristine. The dirt doesn’t seem to cling to him. His hair’s a little tousled, sure, but it’s still perfect. His skin glows in the low light, and you can practically see the smugness radiating off him, his eyes dancing like he’s having the time of his life.
“You’re picturing me naked again, huh?” he says, his voice like molten honey, lazy and confident. “That’s the third time today. Just say the word, babe, and I’ll come up shirtless and apologetic.”
You growl low in your throat, gritting your teeth as you quicken your pace. This is not happening.
“Oh no,” he whispers in your mind, his voice slipping through like silk, dangerously smooth. “Was that... foreplay?”
You did not just…
The rage inside you flares, hot and violent, and you snap, throwing a rock at him. It’s the first thing you can grab, and the action is pure, unrefined anger.
You watch it sail through the air, and you’re almost satisfied with the aim, the sound of it connecting with him. But then you realize something.
He let it hit him.
You stand there, frozen in place, while he groans from the dirt, propping himself up on one elbow, still grinning like a damn idiot. And you, for some unknown reason, feel terrible.
He’s laughing.
“You know,” he says, brushing the dust off his clothes like this is the most fun he’s ever had, “I’ve gotta hand it to you, babe. You’ve got a hell of a right hook. Still hot as fuck though.”
You say nothing. Your brain has blue-screened. You’re physically incapable of processing this absurdity, this entire situation that you’ve been dragged into.
“You’re—wow. You’re stunning. And you’re standing there. And you’re not yelling at me or hating me or vanishing into mist.”
Still nothing. Your dignity is buffering, on its last thread.He blinks, his smile widening even more, if that’s even possible.
“Unless you are mist. I did hit my head pretty hard. Are you mist?”
You force the words out, your throat feeling dry. “No. Just disappointed.”
His grin widens—widens. Like he’s won something.
“Oh, thank god. That sounds like you.”
You try. You really try to stay composed, but he stands up, all sun-kissed skin and scars, the epitome of absolute menace. You feel your soul leave your body with a little ‘whoosh’ noise. And then, like he’s really not going to let you have any peace, he pulls a small, slightly squished bouquet from his pocket.
“I brought flowers,” he says, holding them out to you with an innocent grin that makes you want to scream. “Sat on them a bit during the fall. But they’re yours. Please accept them and also my eternal devotion.”
You take the flowers. Your hands are trembling, and you hate it.
You hate that you’re standing here, accepting flowers from this ridiculous, insufferable man. But, God, you hate even more that he’s standing there looking like a golden retriever with a heart the size of the sun—hot, fire-punching, fate-cursed, sweet as hell.
And worst of all? You hate that you like it.
You hate that you might even like him. Because, unfortunately, he’s a cutie. A dumb, fire-punching, fate-cursed cutie. And you’re just so screwed.
You flee, again.
Not in the dramatic, cloak-flapping, “I shall vanish into the mist” way you always thought you’d flee your soulmate—no, it’s more like a dignified power walk with panicked footnotes. You grab your satchel, muttering something about needing air, and fast-walk directly into the woods, hoping that the isolation of nature might give you a temporary reprieve from the storm of chaotic thoughts in your head.
But you’re not prepared for the soft voice behind you.
“Want me to carry that?”
You stop in your tracks. You turn, and there he is, right there, as if he’d materialized from the very forest around you. His freckles glow in the dying light, shirt offensively open like he’s trying to challenge every ounce of your self-control. The flowers—crumpled and hopeless—are still in your hand. And the other is already reaching for your bag like this is just a casual joint grocery run, not a soul-rupturing disaster.
“No,” you say firmly, pulling the satchel closer to you like it contains the last remnants of your common sense.
“Right,” he nods, unfazed. “Emotional support bag. Got it.”
You start walking again, forcing yourself to keep your pace. Your legs carry you with a tension that suggests both urgency and defeat.
And, of course, he walks beside you. Casually. Like this is just another walk in the park, like he hasn’t just smashed through a tree, declared eternal devotion, and handed you mashed flowers. Like this is his first time seeing your face, even though it feels like the most significant moment of your life.
He hums, lazily surveying the woods around you. “Nice woods. Quiet. Great for internal screaming.”
You grit your teeth, trying to ignore him, but the temptation to throw him off the trail and let your frustration explode is too great.
“You should leave,” you say, half as a request, half as a warning.
“I know,” he responds, too casually. “But I won’t.”
You glance at him, unimpressed. “That’s called stalking.”
“That’s called fate,” he replies, totally unbothered. “Also, I’m very polite about it.”
You open your mouth, about to argue, when he cuts you off, adding with a teasing smirk, “I brought snacks.”
You close your mouth, your will to argue draining out of you like sand through your fingers.
The two of you walk in silence, the tension thick but oddly comfortable, until you finally reach your small cabin. You stop, spin around, and give him a dramatic flourish meant to intimidate—one last attempt at asserting some control.
“You are not staying here.”
“I accept your terms,” he says, already ducking through the doorway as though it’s his place now. “Great porch. Would die here.”
He pauses, looks at you, and for a split second, the smug grin fades. His expression softens, just a touch.
“Not that I’m planning to,” he adds, and something about the sincerity behind those words makes your chest ache.
You stand there, rooted to the spot, feeling like you're losing a battle you didn’t even know you were fighting. Because no matter how many times you tell him to leave, every inch of him belongs here.
-Emotional Turning Point-
He fits himself into your life like he was always meant to be your super handsome supporting male lead, living on the fringes of your porch and decency.
You’re not sure how he does it; how Ace, with all his chaos and charm, has somehow managed to worm his way into your routine, making himself right at home without even trying. But there he is, lounging in that damn chair by your door, making himself part of your world with a grin that says he’s here to stay. He’s everywhere. Leaning in the doorway, poking his head through the window, eating snacks with that infuriatingly content grin on his face.
It’s not that you invited him in. Not really. But it’s almost like he was always meant to be a part of this life, somehow. You can’t get rid of him, and—goddammit—you don’t want to.
Every time you try to get some peace, there he is, leaning casually against the doorframe with an offhand comment that somehow worms its way under your skin. He feels like your life now, like some permanent addition, wrapped in the scent of summer and smoke, never asking for permission, always managing to make you feel like you’re the one who’s been missing something.
And it drives you crazy. But not the bad kind of crazy. The kind where you’re frustrated because you don’t want to admit you like this new reality.
He's also so kind. So genuinely good in a way that makes you want to rip your own heart out for how much you’re falling for it. He doesn’t just show up with a smug grin and a million dumb comments. Though, hell, he does plenty of that too, but there’s something in the way he’s just… there.
The way he notices the little things. The way he makes sure you’ve eaten, even when you try to hide it. The way he doesn’t just barge in but waits for you to ask, like he knows when to push and when to let you breathe. And the most infuriating part? He does it without expecting anything in return. He’s not keeping score. He’s not holding anything over your head. He just… cares.
Which is how, eventually, you find yourself giving in. You tell yourself it’s because there’s no other place for him to sleep. He can’t keep taking the porch chair, it’s too awkward. You tell yourself it’s because he’s not that bad, right? He’s harmless, right? Maybe having him in the guest room won’t be so terrible.
But you know the truth. You know you’ve softened. You’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re frustrated, the way he listens without interrupting. You’ve caught him quietly fixing the little things you forget; your broken door lock, the pile of laundry you’ve been meaning to fold. And you’ve realized, with a sickening sense of vulnerability, that you’ve let him in.
The guest room? That was just the final step. You’re a pathetic push-over, no denying it.
Because now he’s there. In your home. In your life. Not just as the irritating golden retriever you thought he was, but as the person who somehow made himself indispensable.
You snort, unable to hold back the laughter, the absurdity of it all finally catching up with you.
Ace beams beside you, that ever-present, infectious smile stretching across his face as if he’s just made the greatest revelation of all time. The night settles into a quiet rhythm, the tension from the past moments fading as he settles himself into your life like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And Ace?
Ace stays.
He stays in the most inconvenient, inconveniently endearing way possible. His presence weaving itself into the fabric of your day like a persistent, sun-warmed thread that refuses to be untangled. No matter how much you try to brush him off, he’s there, in the most Ace way imaginable: full of warmth, full of disarray, full of ridiculousness.
And then, of course, he decides to hit you with it.
He tells you who his father is exactly one week after deciding not to die for vengeance and two days after setting your entire pantry on fire trying to toast bread with his hands. You’re crouched by the pantry door, diligently trying to patch up the mess he’s made, when he flops down beside you with that same blissful grin, the one that promises you’ll never know a moment’s peace.
“By the way,” he says, his voice smooth and casual, “my dad was the Pirate King.”
You freeze.
You don’t respond immediately. Instead, you slowly lower the patching materials, every muscle in your body tensing in complete shock.
The pause feels like an eternity.
Then, ever so slowly, you turn your head to face him. He’s still looking at you like he’s dropped a bombshell, waiting for the reaction. You blink once. Twice. And then, to his evident surprise, you simply say, “Okay.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” you repeat, your voice steady, your expression a carefully controlled mask. “Okay.”
He opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something else, but then he hesitates. “Like… you don’t care?”
You take a deep breath, trying to recalibrate your thoughts. “Do you steal children?” you ask, your voice flat, as though that’s the most important thing in the world right now.
“No,” he answers, confused but amused.
“Do you bring Marines to my door?”
“Absolutely not.”
You sigh, feeling the tension in your chest finally begin to loosen. “Then I don’t care if you’re the son of the Pirate King, a dragon, or the sea itself with legs. Just stop bathing in front of me.”
Ace makes a sound, like a duck being struck by lightning, eyes widening with exaggerated innocence. “That was ONE TIME.”
“It was yesterday.”
“I thought you were asleep!”
“You were singing.” You throw a wet cloth at his face without even looking at him, too tired to care about how ridiculous this is. “Also,” you add, as you wipe off the dust from your hands, “you have a birthmark. Not that I meant to see it. But it exists. And it is shaped like a banana.”
“OH MY GOD.”
He screams into the rag, the sound muffled and exaggerated, but it only makes you feel more at ease.
You keep working, the soft smile on your lips betraying the amusement you’re trying so hard to hide. You do care.
You care about the way he burns toast but guards your garden like it’s a castle. The way he talks in his sleep, thinking no one can hear him, and makes enough food for two even when you insist you’re fine on your own. The way he tried to give you his favorite dagger like it was a friendship bracelet—like you were meant to have it.
But you don’t care who his father is.
That man is dead.
Ace is alive.
And in the end, it doesn’t matter who his bloodline is. What matters is the idiot sitting beside you, grinning like he’s won the lottery and setting fire to his shirt trying to impress you by flexing in the sun. The one who, despite all the madness, somehow makes you feel like this chaotic, unexpected life is exactly what you need.
You might be losing the battle, but you’re definitely winning the war.
Ace knew he didn’t have a chance the first time he heard you spoke, and frankly, he’s never been one to deny fate.
Ace is the kind of guy who falls fast, and hard. And over simple things. It’s not a grand speech that changes him. Not a fight, not a dramatic stand in the rain, not a desperate plea to spare himself.
It’s something much worse.
You do absolutely nothing.
You make tea. You sweep the porch. You hang up wet laundry with that same quiet, suspicious side-eye you’ve been giving him since he crash-landed into your life like a shirtless meteor of emotional disorder. You don’t flirt. You don’t cry. You don’t tell him not to go. You just exist.
Like you’ve done for years, on the edge of war and wonder. Quiet. Clever. Alive.
And Ace?
He shatters.
Because now that he’s here, now that he knows your smile in real time and not just as a phantom curl behind his thoughts, now that he knows how you brew tea when you're nervous and fake a snort-laugh when you're amused and sleep with one hand under your pillow like you're still ready to flee.
He realizes something awful.
He doesn’t want to die anymore.
And if he goes after Blackbeard alone, that’s exactly what will happen.
So one night, while you’re bent over your little garden, muttering at a weed like it owes you money, he sits on the porch with his legs dangling over the side. The moon makes him look soft. Barefoot. Real.
He says, casually, like it’s nothing:
“I’m not gonna go.”
You don’t look up. Your hands are busy, pulling the stubborn weed from the soil, but you can feel the weight of his words like a distant thunderclap.
“Go where?”
“After Teach. Not alone.” He scratches at his hair, a rare softness in his voice. “I was gonna. I thought I had to. But then you made soup. And yelled at the laundry. And looked at me like I was a half-cracked egg someone left in the sun too long.”
You don’t give him the satisfaction of an immediate response. You just finish pulling the weed from the ground and set it aside, carefully, as if there’s a cosmic balance you don’t want to disturb.
“That was not a look of affection,” you say dryly, still not meeting his eyes.
“I know,” he grins, that damn grin that always makes your chest tighten. “But it made me realize I want to come back. I want someone to come back to.”
You stare at him now. Really stare.
And you see it.
Portgas D. Ace, fire-fist terror of the seas, Whitebeard’s reckless son, walking natural disaster.
He’s sitting still. And choosing to just live.
For himself. For his crew. And, impossibly, for you.
“I told Marco,” he says, quieter now, his voice almost unrecognizable with the vulnerability slipping through. “Let someone else bring him in. Or all of us. I’m not rushing into a trap because I want to feel like I deserve punishment. I don’t want to prove anything anymore.”
You blink. His words hit you like a wave, but the truth of it doesn't settle immediately.
“So you’re just... not dying?” You ask, the question slipping out without meaning to.
“Apparently,” he shrugs, still with that casual bravado he carries around like armor. “Real inconvenient. I’d emotionally prepped for a tragic death arc.”
You finally meet his eyes, watching as his smile falters just a little, just enough to let you see the weight he’s been carrying. And you realize, in that moment, you’re no longer looking at the man who sought death to prove something. You’re looking at a man who finally decided that maybe he deserves to live.
For the first time, Ace isn’t running. He isn’t running from his past, from his fate, or from the bedlam inside him.
He’s sitting still.
And that, in its own way, is the bravest thing he’s ever done.
You don’t say anything. You don’t need to. The silence between you is more than enough.
And as he sits there, beside you, in the quiet of your little garden and under the soft glow of the moon, you know—without a shadow of a doubt—that Ace has made his choice.
He’s not dying for the sake of others anymore. Not for revenge, not for the memory of his father, not for any grand ideal.
He’s living. For himself. And, maybe, just maybe... for you too.
And for the first time, it feels like the weight of it all. His choices, his fate, the chaotic spiral he’s been trapped in has shifted. It’s lighter now, and somehow, so are you.
-The Climax-
The thing about being in love—actually in love—and having a soulmate who shares not just their heart, but their food, their dreams, and their increasingly unhinged commentary on everything from ocean weather to crab mating habits, is that eventually… you just give in.
You commit to the idea.
Not quietly. Not with grace. But with a dramatic, full-body sigh, hands thrown to the heavens like, “Fine, FINE, I guess I’ll be in love with you, you ridiculous golden retriever of a man.”
And that would be fine.
If he wasn’t so good at making you mad.
It starts innocently, as it always does, with Ace just being himself. Fixing broken stuff around your ship cabin without being asked. Replacing your rickety chair with one he definitely stole from somewhere nicer. Quietly fixing your shoes with leftover leather scraps. Roasting fish at sunrise and pretending it’s not for you, even though he offers the best cuts.
Which would be sweet. If he didn’t leer when you thanked him. If he didn’t lean in like, “See? You’d miss me if I died.”
Or worse.
“You like me.”
And the worst part? He’s not wrong.
You do like him.
You like the way he absentmindedly hums when the sea is calm. The way he throws himself between danger and his crew without hesitation. The way he frowns when your hands are cold and warms them between his palms without comment. The way he talks about you to others, thinking you’ll never hear.
(You always hear. The bond makes sure of it.)
So when he saunters up, shirt undone, grin weaponized, holding a handmade seashell hairpin like he didn’t just crawl out of the ocean like a romantic cryptid, you lose it. He’s always is taller than you realize, and broader too. All sun-kissed skin, tousled black hair, freckles like spilled sugar, and that damn grin—lazy, lethal, and soaked in the smug knowledge that he’s been living in your head rent-free for years.
You get mad.
Not annoyed. Not flustered.
Mad.
That soul-warming, spine-tingling, irrational kind of fury that only one person in the world can summon from the depths of you just by existing.
Because how dare he.
How dare he worm his way into your life with that lazy grin and those too-soft glances when he thinks you’re not looking. How dare he make your heart thunder like a war drum just by standing there, shirt half-buttoned, freckles glowing like sin under the sun. How dare he know—know—how to soothe your anger and ignite it in the same breath.
And that’s when it happens.
That sharp inhale. That white-hot glare. That moment of eye contact held just a second too long.
He tilts his head. Smirks. You see it in his eyes; the gleam, the silent countdown to disaster. You know that look. That’s the look that means he's about to say something so stupidly hot it could derail your life and you'd still thank him for the wreckage.
You take a step back, instinctively.
He steps forward, all loose limbs and barely restrained heat, the picture of someone who’s already won.
“Run,” he says, voice all honey and heat, “and I’ll catch you.”
You snap.
You lunge. Not for anything romantic—no. For a punch. A real one. Right to that smug, pretty face.
You miss.
He doesn’t.
He catches your wrist like he was waiting for it, like he dreamed of this moment. His fingers curl around yours, warm and unshakable. You meet his gaze, ready to spit fire.
But he beats you to it.
“You’re everything,” he breathes, low and cracked. Like it hurts. Like it’s truth against his ribs. “Oh no. I’m so in love with you. I’m gonna ruin everything.”
You should run.
But your knees betray you, turning soft and stupid like seafoam on a summer shore. Your heartbeat hammers in your ears, drowning out every sensible thought. And then—oh gods—he leans in, close enough for you to smell salt and smoke, and his fingers thread through your hair. He murmurs something too dirty for daylight, and that’s it.
You’re gone.
“Five minutes,” you rasp, voice ragged with want and fury. “That’s all you get. Bring the fire or shut up.”
What follows is not logical. Or polite.
The next thing you know, you’re in his lap, breathless and burning, yelling, “This is your fault!” while your hands twist in his hair like you’re trying to strangle the ocean. And he’s laughing—laughing—like he just robbed the world blind and left the moon as payment.
“This is a mistake,” you growl.
He grins, eyes glittering like treasure. “Then let’s make it twice.” It starts with sass. Sharp words. Quicker hands. Your teeth graze his jaw. His lips find your pulse. Buttons scatter.
But it escalates the second you grab a fistful of his hair and hiss, “I swear to god, if you laugh—”
And then, he moans.
You both freeze.
The silence is electric.
You stare at him. He stares at you. Your hand twitches, about to retreat.
He growls. Low. Deep. Dangerous.
“Oh,” he says, voice wrecked with sudden hunger. “Oh, we’re doing this now.”
He leans in. Breath warm against your ear.
“You like pulling hair? That’s cute.” His grin splits wide.“I like begging. Guess we’re both gonna be real happy tonight.”
What follows is a blur of limbs, heat, curses, and catastrophic choices. The kind of night you survive by setting fire to every good intention and riding the wreckage down together.
Your lips crash into his like a curse, a surrender, a choice. And gods help you, he kisses like he thinks you belong to him. Because you do.
Clothes come off. Fast. Probably ruined. You don’t care.
Your lips crash into his like a curse, a confession, a final surrender. Like you’ve been holding back the tide of him for years and now—now, finally—you’re letting it pull you under.
And gods help you, he kisses like a man who already knows.
Knows your mouth. Knows your breath. Knows the exact way you melt when someone touches you like a secret instead of a prize.
He tastes like heat and salt and promise. His hands are already on you; hot, greedy, reverent. Calloused palms splaying across your back like he's checking you’re real.
Clothes come off in flashes. Fast. Desperate. Buttons pop. A seam tears. His shirt gets tossed somewhere near the door and yours doesn’t survive the landing. He kisses the swell of your chest with something close to awe and mutters something that makes your toes curl.
You don’t care about the bed. You barely register hitting it. You only notice him, solid and searing and all over you.
Ace doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t second-guess. Every touch is sure. Every sigh you give him maps a path he already seems to know by heart.
And then he really starts.
And you forget how to breathe.
His stamina is, frankly, criminal. You lose track of time. Of position. Of your own name. You understand why other pirates don’t attack him without backup.
At one point, you're clutching at the sheets like they might save you. At another, you're biting his shoulder because apparently you’ve lost the capacity for language. Everything is hot and blurred and so good you could cry. You consider it. Then he bites your ear and you do.
You finally gasp, half-laughing, half-accusing: “Okay—okay, what the hell. You’ve done this before.”
He just grins, stupid and perfect and way too pleased with himself. “Nope,” he says, rolling his hips slow and smug, “I’ve just had years of theoretical training.”
You blink up at him, dazed. “...What?”
“On you, sweetheart.” He leans down, mouth against your throat. “You think I haven’t been preparing? Please. I’ve studied. I’ve visualized. I had flashcards.”
Your brain misfires. Your body, meanwhile, is betraying you entirely.
“I hate you,” you whisper hoarsely.
“Mmm,” he hums, mouth dragging over your shoulder like a satisfied wolf. “Sure you do. Hate me with your thighs again.”
By the time your soul returns from orbit, you’re sprawled across the mattress like a saint mid-apocalypse. Your body feels like it’s been lovingly struck by lightning. Repeatedly. You manage a weak sound. He’s already draping a blanket over you with far too much tenderness for a man who just detonated your nervous system.
Eventually, you fall asleep.
Or black out.
Probably both
You wake up warm. Sated. And very, very naked in his arms.
You stretch, blink blearily, then pause.
Something’s wrong.
You are on a ship. The ship is moving.
You sit up too fast and nearly topple over. Ace hums behind you, still half-asleep. “Mm. Mornin’, baby.”
“…Was this five minutes?” you croak.
He yawns, kisses your shoulder. “Nah. Five was just to start.”
You scramble to sit up, fully panicking now, but he tugs you back down with one strong arm and starts kissing your neck like it’s not an international crime that you are being lovingly detained.
“Don’t bother,” he mumbles. “You’re not going anywhere.”
You blink. “Am I… kidnapped?”
He shrugs, completely unbothered. “Let’s call it an extended honeymoon. With, like, minor hostage vibes.”
You hiss. He kisses your jaw. You slap his chest. He grins. You try to stay mad. You do.
But when he pulls you into his arms again, presses his forehead to yours and murmurs in your ear.
“We’re gonna make such a good team.”
Cue full body shiver shutdown.
You stop trying.
And somehow?
You don’t even want to escape.
-Honeymoon-
Cosmic Joke Status: Flambéed
You’re now stuck with a flammable himbo who doesn’t knock, doesn’t think ahead, and would 100% commit arson for you just because someone looked at you funny.
And the worst part?
You’re starting to like it.
(Especially the part where he growls at people who flirt with you, like a very polite junkyard dog with abs.)
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Rob Lucci x Reader
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Previous
-X-Honeymoon-X-
There’s a new file in Marine HQ.
Encrypted. Red-stamped. Eyes-only.
Code Name: OPERATION CATNIP (UNCONFIRMED DEFECTION)
Subject: [REDACTED]
Former Affiliation: Revolutionary Army
Status: MIA
Presumed: Captured. Possibly Compromised.
The attached photo is blurry, zoomed in from a rooftop. You, hood up, profile turned, walking beside Cipher Pol’s most volatile agent.
You’re not cuffed. You’re laughing.
Lucci, for his part, is not.
But Hattori has a tiny scarf now. It matches yours.
You never officially defected. Of course not.
You still pass notes whenever you can. They hide in courier invoices, slip between mission files, and appear in invisible ink that smells faintly of tea. You still stage “coincidental” disruptions that line up suspiciously well with Revolutionary goals. You still call Dragon an overachiever in encrypted transmissions because plausibility is a costume you wear well.
Your life becomes a tightrope between espionage and emotional malpractice. One minute, you are sabotaging supply routes under the pretense of joint operations. The next minute, you are sipping Lucci’s coffee because he “forgot” yours, and you have no idea why he lets you do it other than the small matter that you are pregnant as fuck.
You are not exactly fighting the cause anymore. You are resting. Rest now equals waking in a bed built for a war machine, having your morning tea silently prepared by the pigeon, and getting ambushed by your soulmate when he grows bored of paperwork. He says that right before he throws you over his shoulder and ruins your plans for the afternoon.
CP0 still does not know what to make of you. Kaku mostly likes you. Kalifa tolerates you because you soften Rob’s edges. Jabra and the others mutter “Mrs. Lucci” under their breath and cross the room to avoid your smile. One of them said “ma’am” once. You nearly stabbed him with a letter opener. Lucci did not stop you. He only told the man to duck faster next time.
The pregnancy is not easy. You are cranky. Hungry. Loud in a way that makes even the pigeons look apologetic. Your moods swing like bad weather, and you keep losing socks to the void for reasons no one will explain.
Lucci is infuriatingly calm, like the world’s deadliest emotional support animal. He moves with the same precise, terrible efficiency he brings to arrests. He tracks your vitamins. He rearranges mission schedules so you do not have to travel. He refuses to let you lift anything heavier than a teacup. He maims a CP0 agent who volunteers to help name the baby.
You overhear it while half-conscious and sweating in bed. Someone is offering suggestions of how your past brought ‘complications’ to your pregnancy. Lucci answers in a voice that sounds harmless until you think about the things he has broken. “Say another word and I will rip out your tongue,” he tells the poor man.
The agent does not come back.
After that, the bond hums. A low, constant purr under everything else. It is no longer a claw. It is not angrier. It waits and it watches, coiled and patient.
There are moments when you catch him doing something small and human.
Rob Lucci—monster, weapon, the man who has broken nations and rewritten fates—will rest his hand on your belly like it’s the most fragile piece of evidence in the world. He sits very still, eyes lowered, expression unreadable. For once, he is not calculating. He is simply listening.
For a second, his entire world is reduced to that slow rise and fall beneath his palm. He does not speak. He does not move. He listens, as if your child is whispering classified plans only he has clearance to hear.
You crack one eye open. “I won’t let you name it something stupid.”
“Hattori II,” he says immediately.
“I will throw myself out the window.”
“Window’s locked.”
You hiss. He smirks.
You don’t belong to the Revolution anymore. Not completely. And Rob Lucci doesn’t belong to the World Government. Not entirely.
There is now a third player on the board; tiny, forming, with your defiance and his bloodlust—and the potential to set the world on fire simply by being born.
You fall asleep one night with his hand still on your stomach, the warmth of it grounding you, the bond soft and steady between your minds. A thought drifts lazily through it, his voice low and matter-of-fact: “If it’s a girl, she gets knives.”
“It is not even the size of a jellybean.”
“She’ll need them. Women need knives.”
“I’m not disagreeing,” You groan, dragging the blanket over your head. “But you are not allowed to train our child until they’re at least five.”
“We’ll negotiate.”
You will not.
Rob will not make you compromise and you both know it. He is an exceptionally generous spouse, at least when you are not trying to run.
Naturally, you do. Often.
Sometimes you do it for exercise. Sometimes for fun. Mostly because you like seeing Rob Lucci lose that unshakable composure for three brief seconds before he finds you again. He stalks through the compound like a panther whose favorite toy has gone missing. When he finally catches you, there is always the same look on his face: half fury, half relief, and a glimmer of quiet promise that you are going to regret it later.
You think it is hilarious. He does not. You are fairly certain his blood pressure could power a Den Den Mushi.
What is not hilarious is when an actual extraction team tries to “save” you.
The message arrives one humid morning, hidden inside a cinnamon roll. A perfect, golden, sugar-glazed cinnamon roll that you were halfway through devouring before your fork hit something that was definitely not icing.
You pause. Blink. Dig deeper and pull out a tiny wax-sealed scroll, sticky with frosting.
Of course. The Revolution always had a flair for drama and terrible timing.
You break the seal and read the delicate handwriting aloud to no one.
“Unit Foxglove is ready. Extraction window: 72 hours. Bring the asset. Dragon sends his love. :D Sabo.”
You stare at the note. Then at your bump. Then, at Rob Lucci, who is shirtless and absurdly calm, who has a knife planted deep in a melon he is carving like the fruit had personally betrayed him.
“They are coming,” you say flatly.
He does not look up. “I know.”
Of course he does. You lean back, rub your lower back with one hand, and let out a long, theatrical sigh that could have been subtitled: I am eight months pregnant and this is highly inconvenient. The charm on the ankle monitor jingles like a very smug bell. Hattori preens on the windowsill in a scarf that matches yours, looking offended at the whole affair.
You fold the note and tuck it into your pocket like a secret you have no intention of keeping.
Outside, somewhere in the gray edges of the world, people are sharpening plans. Rob Lucci continues slicing a melon with the same methodical calm he uses for interrogations. You stare at him, at the perfect precision of his knife work, and think about the cinnamon roll you will never get to finish—and about the tiny, overdramatic army apparently preparing to “rescue” you.
And come they do.
Three elite operatives. One airship. One fiery landing behind enemy lines that probably made them feel very heroic. They burst through the perimeter expecting alarms, gunfire, and a daring extraction.
What they find instead is you.
Standing in the doorway of your CP0-issued luxury suite, wrapped in a robe that definitely cost more than their combined salaries, hair a mess, holding a steaming cup of tea and eight solid months of righteous irritation.
“Who the hell authorized this?” you hiss.
One of them—a wiry man still dripping from the night mist—blinks. “Sabo said—”
“Sabo can eat my stretch marks,” you snap. “Don’t risk your life for me.”
You grab the closest one by the collar, yank him inside before the neighbors can see, and slam the door with the kind of force only pregnancy rage can summon. The teacup doesn’t even spill.
“Sit,” you order, pointing at the couch like a furious midwife about to perform battlefield triage. “Shut up. And don’t even think about calling this a rescue.”
They sit. They shut up. One of them, a young woman with an eye patch, glances around the immaculate suite—the polished floors, the silk curtains, the faint smell of jasmine tea—and whispers, “You look… comfortable?”
You glare at her over the rim of your cup. “That’s part of the problem.”
From the kitchen, Lucci’s voice drifts lazily. “Do I need to kill anyone?”
You close your eyes. “Not unless they eat my melon.”
There’s an awkward silence. The operatives exchange looks, all of them realizing at roughly the same time that they have no extraction plan for awkward domestic confrontation.
Hattori flutters by with perfect comedic timing, landing on the back of the couch, his tiny matching scarf gleaming like a badge of domestic treason. The little bird tilts his head, blinking at the intruders as if to say, You’ve made a terrible mistake.
And then Rob appears.
He doesn’t storm in. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t even draw a weapon. He simply enters the room like a shark gliding through blood, silent and inevitable.
“So,” he says, crossing his arms. His voice is calm—too calm. “You’re here to take my soulmate. The one carrying my child. The one who doesn’t want to go.”
Every Revolutionary in the room collectively realizes that they’ve made a catastrophic error in judgment. The air goes thick. Someone’s breathing too loudly. Someone else is rethinking their entire career path.
“I—well—we don’t see it like that—” one of them starts, words trembling like they’re auditioning for a eulogy.
Lucci’s gaze slides to him, sharp enough to slice through steel. “Your leader sent you,” he says, voice like a blade being unsheathed, “to kidnap my wife.”
The word wife lands like a gunshot.
You sigh, setting down your tea. “He’s not big on nuance,” you say dryly, rubbing your temple.
The unfortunate Revolutionary tries to stammer out a reply. “We—we thought you were being held against your will—”
Lucci tilts his head. “She is. By her own terrible decisions.”
You kick him lightly in the shin. “Quiet.”
He doesn’t even blink.
One of the Revolutionaries, whispering to another, mutters, “Are they flirting or negotiating hostage terms?”
You take another sip of tea. “Both,” you say. “Now please sit down before he starts rearranging organs for emphasis.”
They sit. Immediately.
Lucci’s voice softens by a fraction. “You have two hours to disappear,” he says, turning toward the window. “After that, my patience will expire.”
Ten minutes later, the extraction team leaves.
Not because you were rescued. Because you kicked them out.
You herded them to the door like a furious midwife with zero tolerance for theatrics. “Tell Dragon I am fine,” you say, folding your arms so your bump is front and center. “Tell Sabo I will stab him if he tries this again. Tell Ivankov to stop sending the weird maternity corsets. They look like medical torture devices, and no one needs that kind of complication.”
The wiry operative with the air of someone who thinks danger is a lifestyle choice blinks. “We—” he starts.
“You will take this,” you cut in, shoving a battered care package into his hands. The box explodes with Revolutionary aesthetics when opened.
Inside: a stack of Revolutionary safe intel, neatly labeled and color-coded. A pair of tiny knitted booties with a scrap of paper folded inside that reads, in clumsy block letters, Baby Will Be Trouble, ETA: Unknown. A small knife wrapped in ribbon with a handwritten tag that says Training Starts Early and a smudged doodle of a bird doing push-ups.
They stare at the knife. The one with the eye patch flushes. The leader makes a valiant attempt at dignity and says, “We will deliver the message.”
“Good.” You point in the direction of the airship. “And tell Dragon to send better pastries. That cinnamon roll betrayed me.”
They mumble agreements, shuffle toward the door, and file back into the damp night air like a defeated parade. Hattori flutters after them, flapping indignant wings and dropping a single feather on the threshold as if to say, This is my territory now.
Lucci accompanies them to the foyer and sees them off with a look that could curdle milk. He does not shout or threaten. He simply stands there, silent and steady, one hand resting on your lower back, his presence filling the space like a dark punctuation mark at the end of a sentence no one else dares to change.
The extraction team moves toward the door in uneasy silence. None of them meet his eyes. You can almost hear their collective regret as their voices drift back through the hall.
“She doesn’t seem like a hostage,” one whispers.
Another sighs. “She’s not.”
“Surely it’s Stockholm syndrome?”
“Poor girl.”
A pause follows, then a third voice says quietly, “No. Don’t pity her. She’s exactly where she wants to be.”
Rob exhales a short sound that might be a laugh. You can feel it through his hand against your back.
You glance up at him. “You think this is funny?”
He tilts his head, the faintest curve of amusement tugging at his mouth. “A little.”
Then, without ceremony, he turns you gently and guides you back inside, closing the door with one hand. The extraction team’s muffled arguing fades behind you as he steers you toward the couch. He presses you down onto a plush cushion like a cat placing its favorite toy back where it belongs.
You arch a brow. “They think I’ve lost my mind.”
His smirk deepens. “You chose to stay. That confirms it.”
You elbow him in the ribs, pretending to be offended, but the smile slips through anyway.
Outside, the airship roars to life, a clumsy retreat cloaked in dignity. You can picture them up there, still arguing over whether you need rescuing or a psychiatric evaluation. Inside, Rob leans down and presses a slow kiss to the side of your neck. His voice comes quietly, low, and certain. “At least now they know not to come back.”
You take a long sip of your tea, savoring the warmth. “Good. Next time, they can mail me snacks instead.”
He pulls away, shaking his head, and sits opposite you. He folds himself into the chair with the same unhurried grace he uses for everything—assassinations, paperwork, making breakfast. The corner of his mouth twitches, like a smile trying to escape years of training. “You are impossible,” he says.
You lean back, sleepy. “That’s why you married me.”
He pretends not to react, but you catch the soft flicker in his eyes. Then, quietly, he bends forward and presses a kiss to your temple.
It’s careful. Gentle. The kind of tenderness that feels dangerous coming from a man who once punched through steel.
You hum, half-teasing, half-drowsy. “You keep doing that, people will start thinking you’re soft.”
He straightens, eyes half-lidded. “Only with you.”
You close your eyes, warmth curling through you like sunlight through fog. And as you drift, the faint weight of his hand lingers against your belly, steady and protective, as if reminding both you and the tiny chaos inside that this strange, sharp-edged peace might be his plan after all.
This wouldn't fit in the second part, so here you go XD
Rob Lucci x Reader
Length 16 K+
Rating: 18K+
Warnings: Psychological Manipulation and Tension, Gaslighting, Invasion of privacy, Telepathic Intimacy, Sexual Tension, Violence, Firearms, Emotional Distress, Strong Language, Mentions of Casual Murder, government corruption, Dark Comedy, Sexual Content
Previous / Epilogue
-X- Inside Thoughts -X-
Your soulmate bond is, without question, the worst government conspiracy of all time.
You are convinced of this. Absolutely, scientifically certain. Forget the Void Century, the lost history, the Ancient Weapons. None of that compares to the psychological torture of having Rob Lucci in your head twenty-four hours a day.
You may not be considered a model citizen, but you were manageable. Contained. You only sabotaged the Marine ships that carried slaves. You distributed Revolutionary pamphlets that only occasionally contained profanity. You only sometimes blew up the wrong warehouse.
You were doing fine—functional chaos.
And then the universe decided to pair your psyche with the world’s most homicidal brick wall.
Your brain now pings like a cursed Den Den Mushi, lighting up every few hours with the dry, murderous internal monologue of a man who considers empathy a structural flaw.
Because your soulmate, the one person fate supposedly handpicked as your perfect match, is a government assassin with the emotional range of a cinder block and the moral flexibility of a loaded gun.
Worse, he is good at his job.
You get flashes of it sometimes, unintentional bleed-throughs in the bond. The steady rhythm of his footsteps before a kill. The quiet satisfaction when a mission ends cleanly. The mechanical calm of a man who treats murder like meditation.
You once told yourself it was all a mistake. Maybe the bond was miswired. Maybe you had gotten someone else’s fate by accident. Perhaps the universe was drunk when it matched you.
But every time you tried to ignore it, every time you convinced yourself it was one-sided, you would hear it again. That clipped, infuriating voice slides into your mind like a knife under the ribs.
“You’re thinking too loud.”
And you would sit there, teeth gritted, glaring at the ceiling, muttering, “And you’re thinking too murdery.”
It is an ongoing war—a telepathic hostage situation. A soulbond gone catastrophically wrong.
You had to quit the Revolution because you refused to become that person. The one who insists, “No, I swear, I’m not a spy, he just talks in my head sometimes.”
It was humiliating. Understandable, but humiliating. You could already imagine the looks, the whispered debates about whether you were compromised, the awkward sympathy from people who did not know what to say to someone psychically linked to the government’s most efficient murderer.
So you left.
Now you wander the Grand Line on your own, living out of ports and stolen cabins, pretending it is a spiritual journey instead of exile. You tell yourself you are looking for balance, purpose, inner peace.
In truth, you are looking for seastone and sanity. The first is to block the connection. The second is to stop yourself from dunking your head in a bucket until the voice goes away.
The search has not been easy. Seastone is rare, expensive, and guarded like treasure. Every dealer who claims to have some either tries to rob you, flirt with you, or sell you fake jewelry.
As for the spiritual peace, that is proving harder to find.
It is difficult to meditate when your soulmate occasionally thinks things like, “This could be cleaned faster with acid.”
Unfortunately, Rob Lucci has opinions, and he feels compelled to share them.
“You are not subtle. How have you survived this long?”
“Sure I am. I’m in a disguise.”
“You are wearing the same jacket you wore on your wanted poster.”
“It’s called consistency of character.”
“It’s called stupidity.”
You have tried everything to quiet him. You once attempted meditation, sitting cross-legged on a cliff overlooking the sea, breathing deeply, envisioning peace.
He interrupted two minutes in. “Your breathing sounds inefficient.”
You tried ignoring him for a full week. You did not think about him, did not speak, did not react, no matter what filtered through the bond.
On the fifth day, he retaliated. In excruciating detail, he began describing the most efficient way to strangle someone silently underwater.
You broke your silence with a shriek that startled three seabirds and a fisherman.
Your revenge was swift and brutal. You spent the next forty-eight hours mentally blasting Revolutionary marching songs at full volume. By the end of day two, his voice had gone from cold irritation to quiet, murderous resignation.
“Stop.”
“Not until you admit defeat.”
“You are tone-deaf.”
“Say it.”
A long pause, then, in a voice dripping with disdain, “I am begging for death.”
Victory had never tasted sweeter.
Since then, wherever you go, chaos seems to follow. You have robbed supply ships, bribed smugglers, and stolen a Marine captain’s boots purely because Lucci told you not to.
“That is childish.”
“So is spying on your soulmate.”
“This is surveillance, not spying.”
“That’s what all creeps say.”
Silence. Then, faintly, “I will find you one day.”
“You keep saying that. I keep moving.”
It has become your strange rhythm. He, the ever-present shadow in your thoughts, and you, the walking disaster who refuses to take him seriously.
The Grand Line has never been less peaceful.
Every time you find a chunk of seastone, you treat it like a holy relic. You test every piece with the devotion of a desperate priest. You have glued fragments to a headband. You have stitched slivers into your gloves. Once, in a moment of inspired idiocy, you even taped a chunk to your forehead to see if it would muffle the connection.
It did not.
It only gave you a bruise and the strong, bone-deep certainty that Rob Lucci was laughing. Silently, wickedly, like the world’s most self-satisfied cat.
“You are an embarrassment to basic tradecraft.”
“You’re an embarrassment to the concept of human warmth. Try me, catboy.”
“Your immaturity is staggering.”
“Your personality is a war crime.”
You’ve learned to live with it, the constant bickering echoing through your skull like an especially deranged radio signal.
Sometimes, the Revolutionary Army still sends word through couriers or coded papers, asking if you will ever come back. You always write the same answer: I fucking wish.
But the truth is, you can’t. Not yet.
Until you find enough seastone to build a telepathic Faraday cage around your skull, you are stuck wandering the Grand Line, trading favors, stealing rumors, and wreaking mild, strategically satisfying havoc.
You have learned that Marines lie through their teeth about their seastone stockpiles. Most of what they brag about turns out to be cheap alloy polished to look official. You have been conned, chased, nearly arrested, and once accidentally auctioned off fake seastone to a pirate who believed it could cure curses.
Some days, you think you are winning. Other days, you can practically hear Lucci sigh in your head when you trip over your own bag.
“Pathetic.”
“Graceful,” you counter. “It’s called improvisational movement.”
“It’s called clumsy.”
You smiled wider, mentally raising a fist in triumph.
“And yet, you can’t stop thinking about me. Checkmate, fascist Garfield.”
The bond went so still you swore you heard the faint, psychic sound of a forehead vein popping.
You have learned to take your victories where you can.
Because at least you have a purpose again.
You may not be a Revolutionary anymore, but you are something far greater: an eternal, seastone-hunting menace sworn to the noble cause of irritating Rob Lucci until the end of time. That is probably the closest thing to world peace you will ever achieve.
Still, if it wasn’t already clear, you are furious that a man whose best friend is a pigeon has unrestricted access to your thoughts. The idea that Cipher Pol’s deadliest operative can listen in on your most private contemplations if you let your guard slip for even a second fills you with an unholy amount of rage.
You cannot meditate, you cannot daydream, and you certainly cannot think about anything embarrassing without hearing a faint, smug echo of amusement in the back of your skull.
You once tried to imagine him tripping over his own ego just to make yourself feel better. He immediately replied, “That is not possible.”
Spoilsport.
So now you keep your mind fortified at all times. Sarcasm. Music. Petty insults. Anything to keep him from getting too close.
You may not win this war, but you are absolutely committed to making it as inconvenient as possible for him to exist inside your head.
However, you were never prepared properly for the lengths war required—and the truth? The absolute, soul-shriveling nightmare of it all?
Rob Lucci can, and will, match your freak.
You are weird, and he is worse.
You wear cat ears sometimes, just to “match his vibe.” You think it’s hilarious. He does not. You can feel the exact moment his mental silence turns into quiet, murderous disbelief.
But he will put tiny little cat ears on his bird, to spite you.
You have a habit of waking up at ungodly hours to scream Revolutionary chants in his head, just in case he is sleeping. It is spiritual warfare, and you are winning on principle.
Until he returns the favor.
You have startled him only once (by pretending to fall off a building mid-thought), and it was worth every single retaliatory image he threw back at you afterward. Most of those consisted of his “work,” which is to say, you got mental flashbacks of assassinations so gruesome you had to spend the rest of the night face-down on your pillow whispering, “Still worth it.”
The worst part? You sort of understand him.
To clarify, you do not agree with him; you just understand.
In the way one understands an ingrown toenail or a dislocation. The ache that becomes familiar. The way pain demands precision.
You understand the control, the ritual of it. The need to keep every piece of yourself arranged just right or risk collapsing. You know the secret loyalty buried beneath the brutality, the way he hides meaning behind precision, purpose behind violence.
You even understand the loneliness of being other. The silence between thoughts that feels too large, too empty, too familiar.
You tell yourself this is empathy (and unwarranted), not connection. Compassion for a monster, not kinship. You repeat it until it almost feels true.
But sometimes, when his thoughts slip through the cracks, you see things you shouldn’t. Cold corridors. Orders written in blood. The echo of something that might once have been grief. You see, you flinch, and then you hear it.
“We could be a good match.”
The words hit like a static jolt behind your eyes.
You immediately bury your face in a pillow and scream, “NO THANK YOU, I AM LEGALLY CONSIDERED A BANANA.”
The silence that followed that one was magnificent. Five full minutes of stunned disbelief. Cipher Pol’s most dangerous assassin, utterly blindsided by the mental image of you as a dancing banana.
It is, without question, one of your proudest achievements.
And for all his skill, all his lethal calm, Rob Lucci never knows what you are going to do next. He can predict a kill pattern from a breath. He can read a man’s heartbeat and know when it will stop. But you are pure chaos, and it drives him insane.
Unfortunately, he compensates for this with an almost supernatural ability to track you through the smallest thought that escapes your guard. A single flash of intent. A stray image. One passing emotion, and he has you mapped again.
“Alasbasta again?”
“Shut up, they have good booze.”
“Basic.”
It would be impressive—almost heroic—if he were not using that gift to stalk you across the Grand Line like a judgmental cat with homicide credentials.
You tell yourself it is fine. You can handle it. You have made peace with the fact that the universe paired you with the world’s most efficient predator.
The only way to cope is to double down. If the universe wants to curse you with Rob Lucci, then you are going to make it his problem. Now that your pretend “covert programming” cover is blown, you have gone pro. Full-time nuisance. Certified mental tormentor.
You have started poking him deliberately, methodically, as if it is your new vocation. Suggestive jokes. Stupid questions. Random philosophical debates about pigeons. You once thought, very clearly, “Hey, how do you look shirtless?” just to see what would happen during one of his briefings (and because you possess no moral high horse).
Nothing.
He never reacts in front of others. Not a twitch, not a thought, not a flicker of embarrassment. Not anger. Not discomfort. Not heat.
Just silence.
Dead air.
You assumed he was immune. Or asexual. Possibly both. Genuinely more into knives than people. It was almost respectable, in the same way a black hole is admirable for its focus and complete lack of moral restraint.
It was, in fact, impressive that he had managed to trip you up once by saying the word “Kinky”. But that seemed to have been a one-time event—a brief, freak occurrence. The man clearly had no libido, no romantic impulse, no trace of desire whatsoever.
Rude-ass bird bitch.
It was a crime that someone like him existed; built like divine retribution, armed like sin, and completely uninterested in the concept of affection. What sort of god designs a man with a face like that and then makes him emotionally unattainable?
You do not believe in that god. You reject that god outright.
If deities exist, they owe you reparations for wasting that much visual potential on a man whose idea of intimacy is probably coordinated stabbing. Double reparations, actually, because he’s inside your head like some murderous little contrarian butler; always judging, always commenting, always polishing his metaphysical daggers while you’re just trying to live.
You can almost hear him now, all sharp and clinical: “You’re projecting again.”
And you, muttering back under your breath: “You’re haunting me for free. At least mentally send a hand picture so I can enjoy it.”
It is unbearable. Unholy. Infuriating.
He gets to exist as a living weapon and rent space in your brain like it’s an elite penthouse. You, meanwhile, get intrusive thoughts narrated by the human equivalent of an unsheathed knife who thinks emotional vulnerability is a tactical flaw.
At this point, you are convinced the gods did not create soulmates for love or destiny. They created them for comedy.
And this theory is proven correct when, one day, Rob Lucci decides to remind you exactly how much danger you’re in.
It happens after a market theft gone wrong. You’re exhausted, bruised, lying on your back in a rented room that smells faintly of smoke and salt. Your muscles ache, your mind is foggy, and for once, the bond is quiet. Blessedly quiet.
You forget to censor yourself.
The thought slips out, half delirious, half dramatic.
“If you ever manage to catch me, I swear to god I’m going to find you, pin you down, and ruin your emotional stability.”
It isn’t serious. You are joking. You are tired, delusional, and feeling just a little too reckless to care. You even giggle to yourself. You expect silence. You expect the usual disapproval or, at worst, an unimpressed sigh.
Instead, you feel it.
A pause. A sharp stillness. Like a breath being held underwater.
“Say it again.”
You freeze.
Completely, terrifyingly still.
“…What?”
The response that comes next doesn’t sound like him. It isn’t cool, measured, or detached. It’s rough. Low. Unfiltered.
“Say it like you mean it.”
You stop breathing. Your pulse jumps. Every instinct tells you to throw the bond into static, to block him out before you say something you’ll regret.
But for a second (just one dangerous, trembling second) you can feel it. The edge in his voice. The shift. And it’s so jarring it feels like a glitch in his programming, like the government forgot to update the “no horny” patch.
You start panicking immediately. Because this? This has never happened before. This is the first time he’s ever responded to one of your direct flirtations with anything besides that cold, “I’d rather be dissecting a corpse” silence.
You weren’t ready for him to be interested. You definitely weren’t prepared for him to sound like that.
You scramble. You trip over your own thoughts trying to walk it back.
“Kidding. Kidding. You know me. Serial flirt. Low impulse control.”
There’s a pause. A deep, dangerous, contemplative pause.
“I would let you.”
You blink. “Let me what?”
Another pause.
“…Do what you said. Pin me down. Or are you too afraid to come try?”
Your brain completely shuts off. Blue screen. Critical error. Reboot failed.
You drop whatever’s in your hand—cup, snack, self-respect, who knows—and whisper to the empty room, “I think I broke the murder cat.”
For a full five seconds, you just sit there, wide-eyed, trying to decide if you’re hallucinating or if this is the start of your villain origin story.
And then, just to make things worse, you feel the faintest pulse of satisfaction through the bond. Like he’s smirking.
“You shouldn’t say things like that if you don’t mean them.”
Elsewhere:
Rob Lucci is profoundly, cosmically annoyed by you.
For years, he had managed to compartmentalize the voice in his head. You were background noise. A feral mental glitch. A bizarre government error that he had learned to tolerate, like tinnitus, but louder and more sarcastic.
He even grew used to it. Maybe, in some strange way, even fond of it. Not fond in any emotional sense, of course, just in the way one becomes accustomed to the hum of an engine or the steady rhythm of rain. Familiar chaos.
He has been busy, after all. Very busy. He is an assassin, a weapon, a ghost in a suit. His days are made of blood, orders, and precision. His mind has no room for foolishness, which is probably why you got away with your little telepathic harassment campaign for so long. Your so-called “training exercises,” your “emotional calibration modules,” your late-night mental serenades that nearly drove him to violence.
He knows how to kill. He knows how to track. He knows how to dismantle a life in under ten minutes. But a soulmate who will not shut up? Who thinks exclusively in chaos and innuendo? Who sings Revolutionary anthems in his head just to irritate him?
He has no protocol for that.
He has no vocabulary for it either. Not for the strange warmth that spreads through him every time your mind brushes against his. Not for the color your thoughts bring into the gray corridors of his discipline. Not for the sudden spark of something human that flickers in the spaces where he thought nothing lived anymore.
He has never thought of anyone the way he thinks of you.
And he hates it.
He hates that he notices when your thoughts go quiet. He hates that he finds himself waiting for the next intrusion, the next ridiculous outburst or reckless laugh that somehow cuts through the silence of his existence.
And most of all, he hates that when he saw your bounty poster for the first time—a grainy photo of you mid-peace sign while the building behind you burned to ash—something ancient and possessive clicked into place in the back of his mind.
One word.
Mine.
So yes, he is annoyed.
Deeply, profoundly, bone-deep annoyed.
He has had a second brain living rent-free in his skull for most of his life, and that brain is you. A gremlin. A Revolutionary-sounding, fire-happy, emotionally unstable, chaos-loving menace.
Your mental leaks are a study in disorder.
“I could fake my death using two chickens and a smoke bomb.”
“Technically, I didn’t steal the intel if I also gave them a muffin.”
“Am I morally obligated to free this war elephant? Because it looked at me funny and now I’m emotionally involved.” (You did)
He has endured this for years. Quiet missions turned into running commentary. Stealth operations accompanied by your brain’s equivalent of carnival music.
Once, during an actual gunfight, you laughed—laughed—and mentally screamed, “I LOVE WHEN THINGS GO WRONG!”
Rob dropped his pen. Just… dropped it.
The agents around him froze. No one dared ask why Cipher Pol’s golden weapon looked like he had just been slapped by divine chaos.
He had to sit there, stoic, pretending he had not just heard you declare emotional war on the concept of stability itself.
It was the closest he had ever come to genuine panic.
He sat in silence for five full minutes afterward, staring at the half-finished page in front of him, before calmly setting his pen back to paper and writing a single line in his field report:
“Subject unstable. Recommend observation. Containment if necessary.”
He did not elaborate. He did not clarify what containment meant. Because even he wasn’t sure.
It was, in truth, the worst possible word for what he intended to do when he found you.
Containment could mean a clean, efficient elimination; erase the problem, silence the noise, end the years of psychic disruption.
Or it could mean something else entirely. Something that burned low and constant beneath his composure, quiet and dangerous, like heat under steel. Something that made his pulse slow instead of quicken.
The more you danced in his head, the more certain he became that it was the second.
You had infected every corner of his discipline. You haunted the silence between missions. You lived in the space between his thoughts, laughing, taunting, impossible to erase. Every time he tried to bury you under routine, you resurfaced like a spark in dry grass.
If he ever caught you, he was going to end the stalemate one way or another.
He would either kill you or he would make love to you so completely that you would not be able to tell the difference.
You were screwed either way.
-X-Five Minutes-X-
You’re perched on a rooftop, mid-stakeout, half-awake, half-feral, and running entirely on caffeine and bad ideas. The city below hums with life, the air thick with smoke and salt. You’re supposed to be watching a Marine convoy. Instead, your brain does what it always does when left unsupervised.
“If I had a grappling hook and one (1) sexy distraction, I could totally get into that vault.”
Pause.
“I wonder if birds have secret names. Reveal your secrets, Hattori.”
Another pause.
“Do you think if I licked a Warlord I’d get superpowers?”
You’re proud of that one. You can almost hear the universe sigh.
And then, far away—islands and islands away—Rob Lucci stops moving.
He’s standing in a quiet alley, arms crossed, blood drying on his gloves, the copper scent heavy in the air. He has been patient. He has been composed. For weeks, he has kept his mind sealed tight against your chaos.
But something in him snaps.
For the first time in weeks, his cool, flawless control fractures.
What comes through the bond isn’t sharp or calculated. It isn’t one of his usual reprimands or calm corrections. It’s hot. Frustrated. Real.
“If you stopped thinking like a maniac for five minutes, I could show you what discipline feels like.”
You nearly drop your binoculars.
Your heart stutters. Your brain short-circuits.
For one perfect, horrifying second, the world goes still.
Holy shit, he cracked.
Then, because you were not born with a functioning self-preservation instinct, you grin and whisper into the night, “Oh no. He’s hot when he’s angry.”
And then you realize you said that out loud.
Your mouth falls open. Your hands go clammy. Your brain performs a full system reboot and spits out a single line of code: error: flirt.exe has crashed.
You choke on air. “…What did you just say?”
He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t backpedal. Rob Lucci does not do flustered.
He just stands there, miles away, processing. Calculating. His thoughts move like blades, each one quiet and deliberate.
He lets the silence stretch just long enough for you to start panicking, to start doubting you even heard him right.
Then, finally—calm, low, and almost lazy—he says, “You heard me.”
He sounds dangerous. Entirely too aware of the effect he just had on you.
You freeze.
“Ha ha, whoops, nope, sorry—”
He cuts you off.
“You fidget when you’re nervous. You laugh when you lie.” And if I had you for five minutes, you wouldn’t move a muscle—unless I told you to.”
Your entire soul leaves your body.
“Okay,” you manage, your voice cracking like a cheap radio, “that’s enough. No more bond. Bond revoked. We’re done. You’re terrifying. Also hot. Also terrifying. Mainly terrifying.”
He hums. Deep in your mind. Amused. Confident. The sound curls through your skull like smoke.
“Then stop inviting consequences you can’t handle.”
You let out a strangled scream, grab the nearest shoe, and hurl it at the sky with all the fury of a person haunted by a sexy telepathic government assassin.
-X- Soulglitch -X-
You’d had enough.
Enough of the tension that thrummed like a live wire between your thoughts. Enough of the lurking, possessive presence of the murder-cat in your head. Enough of waking in the middle of the night to the faint scrape of mental steel—Rob Lucci, sharpening knives somewhere across the sea and quietly muttering about spinal structure.
It had gone on too long.
So, you decided to do the only logical, Revolutionary thing left in your arsenal.
You were going to get laid.
By someone else.
Preferably hot. Definitely not government-affiliated. And, ideally, someone with no personal connection to pigeons.
The plan was simple. Practical. Spiritually cleansing. You would sever the bond the old-fashioned way: through sex.
You even made a list.
Step one: Find a man who isn’t a sociopathic, murder-happy Cipher Pol wet dream in a cravat.
Step two: Engage in mutually satisfying, adult, soulmark-obliterating intimacy.
Step three: Be free.
It sounded easy enough when you rehearsed it. You were calm, composed, absolutely certain. You’d handled raids, assassins, and near-death experiences; seduction couldn’t possibly be harder than smuggling a Devil Fruit through customs.
You chose a port city—something forgettable but warm, where the taverns smelled of rum and citrus instead of gunpowder. You picked an outfit that said “dangerous but approachable,” though the Revolutionary insignia you’d sewn into the lining somewhat ruined the effect. You even practiced in the mirror, tilting your chin, trying on smirks that mostly made you look like a delinquent about to steal someone’s lunch money.
Still, you were confident.
This would work.
You were going to find a charming, non-lethal stranger, let them ruin your night in a wholesome, soul-cleansing sort of way, and finally escape the psychic chokehold of the world’s most emotionally constipated assassin.
You squared your shoulders, took a deep breath, and stepped into the crowded tavern like a soldier marching into destiny.
Tonight, you were not a rebel. Not a courier. Not a fugitive.
You picked your target with scientific precision: a nice, normal man. A sailor with kind eyes, decent shoulders, and, most importantly, zero visible government affiliations. No pigeon. No bloodlust. No aura of “I’ve killed seventeen people and alphabetized the bodies.”
He bought you a drink. You smiled. He complimented your laugh. You touched his arm. He leaned closer. You thought, Finally, a normal human interaction.
And for three glorious minutes, your soulmark was silent.
No static. No smug commentary. No distant sound of a knife being cleaned.
Just peace.
Then, just as you were about to kiss him, your entire brain detonated.
Rob Lucci’s Banshee-Level Interference Protocol™: FULL PSYCHIC BLACK OPS activated like divine punishment.
He didn’t just interrupt your thoughts. He infiltrated them.
You gasp and lurch back so hard you almost headbutt the man. Your body locks up, every muscle suddenly traitor-stiff.
He leans in, brows drawn. “Hey, everything okay?”
You manage, voice thin and brittle, “Nope. Not even a little bit.”
If things could get worse, they do. The internal broadcast escalates from threat to running commentary. He does not warn. He narrates. He diagrams. He assigns choreography to violence with the bored detail of someone describing a weather pattern.
“I will start with his teeth,” Lucci says, clinical and cold. “Leave one. A warning. Perhaps the left hand too. Cannot make a fist with missing fingers. Do you want to know what happens when a ribcage is compressed from the inside?”
Sweat beads along your hairline, mapping a trail down your spine. You look like you ran a marathon, while the poor sailor thinks you are merely nervous. You are not nervous. You are being force-fed unfiltered homicidal fanfiction from your soulmate.
“If he even thinks of touching you, I will feed him to Hattori.”
The words hit like a physical shove. You lurch, accidentally knocking your forehead against his. He blinks, confused, and reaches for you to make sure you are not fainting.
“Disgusting. Amateur,” Lucci snaps, the tone a low, disgusted growl that makes your scalp prickle. “That is not where his hand belongs.” A sound like a suppressed animal breathes through the link, low and dangerous. “I will tear him apart with his own nervous system.”
You try to clamp down on your thoughts. You try to concentrate on anything else: the grain of the table, the rhythm of your own pulse, a meaningless line from a song you half remember.
It does not work. Rob Lucci will not shut up. He ramps up, methodical and remorseless. “Go ahead,” he says. “Keep talking. I will describe how I would kill him in real time. Let us begin with his kneecaps.”
Your palms are slick. Your breathing comes in shallow bursts. The sailor is looking at you with growing concern, waiting for an explanation you don’t have.
You are no longer aroused. You are not scared in the small, thrilling way you once imagined. You are flatlined into a hum of cold dread and incandescent indignation.
You hiss inside your own mind, “This is insane. I’m allowed to have sex with other people.”
The response is immediate. Cold. Final.
“You are on the run from an apex predator. You do not get to act like a normal person. The only one who gets to bend you over is me.”
Your brain explodes. Your knees buckle. Your dignity collapses in on itself.
The poor man leans in again, smiling nervously, and you shriek like someone set your hair on fire.
Which, to be fair, Lucci is currently threatening to do.
“Go ahead,” he says, voice sharp and calm in your skull. “Touch him again. Let me show you how I sever nerve endings in silence.”
You try to explain, breathless and mortified. “I’m—so sorry—my murderous telepathic roommate is having a breakdown in my skull—” And he’s not done. Oh, no. Lucci has entered what could only be described as Full-Possessive-God-Complex Mode. His voice rattles down your spine like artillery fire.
“You want to keep playing stupid games? Fine. Let me just narrow down your shoddy cover story and show up myself.”
You shriek back, in your mind and out loud, and shove the poor man off you mid-makeout. You do not tell him it’s because your soulmate is threatening to turn his pelvis into modern art.
“SHUT UP!” you scream—out loud, right into the sailor’s face.
He freezes, wide-eyed, because apparently “being cursed by a telepathic assassin” wasn’t in the flirting manual.
You stammer, “Sorry! I just remembered—I have to, uh, sabotage a shipment. For freedom. Or something. Bye!”
Then you bolt. You don’t look back. You just run, cape fluttering dramatically because humiliation deserves ambiance. And because Rob Lucci is a CP0-certified menace with zero emotional literacy and infinite psychic range, he delivers the finishing blow.
“Good little weasel. Scurry back to your hiding spot.”
You stop dead in the street, fists trembling.
“You absolute psycho!” you snarl under your breath. “I was this close to not being a Virgin Mary reenactor!”
His reply slides through the bond, smooth and clinical, like a scalpel tracing your spine.
“You think this is about virginity? Foolish. It is about my claim—Recognition. Your submission.”
You blink once. Twice. Then stomp into the night, muttering furious, inarticulate sounds that only ghosts and pigeons can hear.
Rob is quiet now.
Smugly, infuriatingly quiet.
You can feel it through the bond—the warm, self-satisfied hum of victory, like he’s sitting somewhere in an immaculate suit, sipping tea and congratulating himself for telepathically cockblocking you.
You grit your teeth and hiss into the darkness, “You’ve made your point. You’re deranged and territorial and possibly allergic to joy.”
And finally, because he cannot resist the last word, he says, low and certain, “You’ll lose interest in every other man the second I apprehend you.”
You nearly trip over a crate, catch yourself, and scream into your scarf at the top of your lungs.
The nearby pigeons scatter.
Meanwhile, In Mariejois or Wherever the Hell Lucci Is:
Lucci is sitting on a high balcony, the world spread below like a map he already knows how to read. He is perfectly composed, the kind of still that keeps people from noticing how dangerous it is. A thin cup of tea steams in his hand. Hattori pads along the railing and fluffs his feathers, indifferent and absurdly dignified.
Lucci’s face is blank, but the faintest tug at the corner of his mouth could be called a smirk, if you liked courting your own doom. He sets the cup down with surgical care and says, cool as winter, “Attempt aborted. She will not try again.”
-X-Coming for that Ring-X-
Yeah, you did not so much as glance at another man for two weeks. Not because you had suddenly discovered the virtues of celibacy. No. Because you knew that a single flirtatious eyebrow raise would send Lucci into a telepathic snarl and your skull into a full vibrational seizure.
He was clearly very upset about the whole tavern fiasco. He doubled down. No peace, ever.
What used to be manageable background static turned into a full orchestra of Lucci-isms. It scored your life.
Every morning?
“Ready to surrender yet?”
Every time you’re angry?
“How cute when you bristle. Are you tired of fleeing like a rat?”
Every moment of privacy?
“I could visit. We could test the tension.” He purrs thoughts that sound like threats, and you walk straight into three doors and one mastpole because you are trying not to imagine him saying it out loud.
Then there are the dreams.
Once you dreamed of sailing, of warm wind and treasure and the honest ache of salt on your skin. Those dreams are gone. Now you wake with the aftertaste of silk and the metallic ghost of a hand cupping your jaw. Gold eyes drill into you from the dark, and someone murmurs, “Stay still.” Sometimes he wears suspenders. Sometimes you do.
You throw your pillow across the cabin and nearly punch a sea king out of reflex just to get the image of that smug, impossibly handsome face out of your head. There is no relief. There is only Lucci and his ridiculous feathered sidekick, preening like a goddamn decorative marauder.
You tell yourself this will pass. You tell yourself you’ll find seastone, find sleep, find distance—some miracle combination that will buy you a few hours of mental quiet. For now, you stumble through the days like a person carrying a live grenade behind their eyes, flinching at every silence because it might be the calm before another psychic cat scratch.
It isn’t fair.
You’re not supposed to be the haunted one. You’re supposed to be the chaos in this cosmic matchmaking mistake. The gremlin. The agent of disorder. The problem child of fate. You didn’t ask to be soul-bound to the World Government’s angriest catboy with a murder hobby and a superiority complex the size of Mariejois.
You were supposed to be the one causing sleepless nights, not starring in them.
Instead, you get jump-scared by his stray thoughts like an unpaid intern in a haunted mansion. You’ll be minding your business, eating toast, and suddenly—“You chew too loudly.”
You’ve started threatening your own reflection. “This is fine,” you mutter. “I am calm. I am not being physically terrorized by a man who owns a pigeon.”
But the truth presses down like a storm. You can feel him, always, waiting in the quiet edges of your mind. Watching. Listening. Purring danger like it’s affection.
You’re not sure if you hate him, or if hate has just become the only way you know how to keep from falling all the way in.
Because a man who can match you—really match you—is a rare breed. And damn it, you’re having fun.
Just once, you let curiosity get the better of you. You pressed your thumb against your soulmark and thought, “What do you dream about, then, murder-kitten?”
And the line blurred.
Just for a second. Just long enough for the tether between you to pull taut like a wire, and for him to tug you in full force.
“Sit still for five minutes, and I’ll show you.”
The way he says it is a problem.
Not the words themselves, but the tone. The precision. The deliberate calm that slides under your skin like smoke. The bond hums with it, alive, intimate, impossible to ignore. His voice doesn’t echo; it sinks in.
It’s not a request. It’s not even a threat.
It’s a promise.
And then the visions come.
You—sitting in his lap, posture caught between stillness and rebellion. His gloved fingers rest on your chin, tipping your face toward him like he’s studying an artifact or his favorite weapon. Maybe both.
His breath ghosts your cheek. His hand drifts lazily down your spine, the kind of touch that pretends it isn’t possessive. You can feel his restraint in every slow, deliberate movement, the way he cages the impulse to ruin you under discipline and control.
Teeth graze your neck, light at first, then sharper, testing, daring.
Resist, the touch seems to whisper.
And you would. You should. But you have never been good at walking away from danger.
Not because you want to yield, but because defiance has always been your mother tongue. And he speaks it fluently, perfectly, the way a predator learns the movements of its prey. He was born for this kind of battle. Born to be a brat-tamer in a three-piece suit.
“You ass,” you mutter through the bond, shoving the thought back hard enough to sting. “Have some modesty.”
He chuckles, the sound low and patient, the kind of noise that could make entire religions crumble. You can almost picture him now, somewhere in a polished marble CP0 office, legs crossed, posture perfect, sipping tea like a civilized monster while mentally sketching the blueprint of your undoing.
“Five minutes,” he continues, voice quiet but heavy with certainty. “Still. Quiet. Mine.”
You laugh into the bond, sharp and breathless, part challenge and part surrender. He purrs back, smooth and satisfied, the sound vibrating all the way down to your bones.
But you are not ready to surrender. Not now. Not ever. No matter how tight his pants may be. No matter how much the bond has been misbehaving lately. No matter how often Rob Lucci—terror of the World Government—has started asking you the most menial, meaningless nonsense.
It is almost… domestic.
One morning, he actually asked if you had slept.
You froze. Blinked. Your brain short-circuited at the idea of Rob Lucci, professional execution machine, expressing human concern.
And you, absolute fool that you are, almost responded with something tender. Almost.
Then you caught yourself mid-thought, slammed down the iron curtain of sarcasm, and said something like, “Define sleep. Is that when my brain gets waterboarded by your personality?”
You got so flustered afterward that you smacked yourself twice, for good measure.
No. Absolutely not. You were not mentally dating the cat-man. Not today. Not ever.
You had standards. You had dignity. You had at least three functioning brain cells left screaming for help.
So you did what any self-respecting Revolutionary with a psychic stalker would do.
You launched a strategy.
No more vulnerability. No more weakness. No more emotional openings he could use like crowbars.
You shut it all down.
The next time he tried, you were ready.
“Have you eaten today?” His voice slid into your mind, edged, like a knife pretending to care.
You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t even blink.
“What’s your opinion on soup hierarchy?” you shot back. “Minestrone is class traitor stew.”
There was a pause. A long, baffled pause that radiated What the hell did I just hear? all the way from wherever in the world he was sitting.
Good.
Progress.
The next attempt came not long after, sharper this time. Controlled.
“If you turn yourself over, I will consider having mercy. We could come to an enjoyable agreement.”
You were lying on your stomach in an abandoned safehouse, eating slightly stale crackers off the floor.
Without missing a beat, you replied, “I’m just a little guy. It’s my birthday. Please respect my privacy.”
The silence that followed was thick and offended. You could feel him trying to decide whether to strangle you or schedule you for a psychiatric evaluation.
You grinned into the dusty floorboards. It was working.
To seal the deal, you escalated.
Every time the bond so much as buzzed with his presence, you unleashed your secret weapon: loud, mental humming. Off-key. Grating. Infinite.
Specifically, the “YEAHHH OH OH OH” part of the One Piece opening theme.
Just that part.
On loop.
Every time the bond buzzed with that familiar, infuriating presence, you hit play like a cursed jukebox from hell.
Sometimes, just to spice things up, you added commentary. Random, nonsensical thoughts launched like grenades across the psychic connection.
“Do ferrets dream in color?”
“If pineapples could fight, they’d win.”
“Hypothetically, if someone stole a World Noble’s shoes and replaced them with bread, would that be terrorism or performance art?”
You did not discriminate. Every unhinged, caffeine-fueled fragment of chaos was fair game.
Once, a kid in the safehouse caught you mid-mental broadcast, your face locked in deep concentration, humming softly under your breath.
They blinked and asked, “Are you crazy, or are you having a seizure?”
You didn’t even hesitate. “This is a Cold War, motherfucker. I am the Red Line of feelings.”
After that, three glorious days of silence.
No steel-tipped thoughts. No judgey little mental sighs. No lectures about “discipline” or “efficiency” or “how not to get killed in alleys.” Not even the faint flicker of disapproval when you flirted with that pirate cook who called you pretty and gave you free rum.
And that silence? Oh, it was satisfying.
You imagined him sulking.
Probably pacing in some sterile CP0 facility, arms crossed, jaw clenched, looking like an emotionally repressed cryptid whose favorite emotional outlet—murder—was temporarily unavailable. Maybe he was terrifying junior agents on ‘accident’. Maybe he promoted Hattori just to assert dominance.
“He’s annoyed,” you muttered sneakily, hands behind your head as you lounged on your cot. “Good.”
You pictured him brooding dramatically under candlelight in some over-decorated government suite, framed by shadows like a haunted Victorian wife. Alone. Sulking. Seething. Maybe whispering threats to his tea.
“Stay mad, Bird Daddy,” you said aloud, grinning into the dark.
You mentally high-fived yourself.
Victory.
Control.
Power.
You, the chaotic little gremlin of fate, had finally driven the World Government’s top assassin to radio silence.
For once, the quiet belonged to you.
The World Government is unaware that one of its deadliest agents had been mentally sexting his soulmate during stakeouts.
Meanwhile, you're practicing mental static while loudly whispering “my body, my bond” in a bathroom mirror, while he lounges somewhere smugly shirtless and pretends he didn’t hear your vibrator whimper again last night. Or until one of you snaps and ends up handcuffed—for security purposes, of course.
This is fine.
You are not feral.
You are in control.
You are definitely not imagining his voice next time you—…No.
Cold War. Forever.
Elsewhere:
Rob had not, in fact, thrown in the proverbial towel.
He had merely conceded you this battle because he was going to use it to win the war.
For years, Rob Lucci has been fascinated against his will.
Not because you’re good—he has met saints, and he kills those too. Not because you’re moral—you are very clearly not.
But because you are:
a) Clever,
b) Disobedient,
c) Untraceable,
and
d) Entirely unafraid of him, and wants to jump his ass.
Which, to Rob Lucci, might as well be a mating call.
He’s done with your games. Done with the long-distance flirting, the ceaseless chatter, the taunting mental broadcasts about soup and sabotage and ‘Bird Daddy’ titles. Done with pretending the bond is a nuisance when he knows it’s an addiction.
He’s done with the bounty poster being the only image he has of your face, one smirking in front of a burning warehouse like the patron saint of bad decisions.
He’s done with your commentary, your absurd trivia about cats, your self-congratulatory stories about crimes that technically should not have worked but somehow did.
You are a ghost with excellent comedic timing, and he has not a single ounce of humor in his body.
He has tolerated it. Studied it. Allowed it.
Now, he intends to end it.
Because Rob Lucci has just been granted something very rare in his line of work.
He began his next operation five floors underground in one of the Red Line’s unmarked CP0 intelligence hubs, the sort of place that looked less like an office and more like the world’s most humorless tomb.
The room was not warm. Not nice. It was the kind of space where career-ending decisions were made by people who hadn’t seen daylight in months. The walls were lined with black filing cabinets, the air smelled faintly of ink and regret, and the only light came from a few buzzing Den Den Mushi projecting encrypted maps of the Grand Line.
On the central table: maps, coded ledgers, three cross-referenced intelligence reports, and the torn remains of a Revolutionary leaflet he’d shredded with two fingers. Hattori, perched atop the pile like a tiny fascist gargoyle, fluffed his feathers with the righteous indignation of middle management.
Around the table stood four agents from varying departments; pale, nervous, and entirely too aware that Rob Lucci was in a mood. His expression was blank, all calm concentration—the look of a man preparing to open a locked room by force. One had already fled to find Kaku.
Across the table, the junior agents avoided eye contact. Three of them lowered their heads at once, deciding it was safer not to breathe in his proximity.
He stood at the head of the table, unmoving, the picture of quiet menace. Still as death. Eyes fixed on the map.
He wasn’t angry. He didn’t need to be. The silence did all the work for him.
“She’s changed her leak patterns,” Lucci said finally. His tone was low, precise, and terrifyingly calm—the kind of calm that made every agent in the room reevaluate their career choices.
The four Cipher Pol operatives standing around the table exchanged looks like schoolchildren waiting for a teacher to throw the chalk. Nobody breathed too loudly. Nobody blinked too quickly. The only sound came from the faint hum of the Den Den Mushi projecting the Grand Line’s map across the wall.
“She’s redirecting her thoughts. Purposefully. Random noise. Misdirection.” Lucci’s head tilted a fraction, as if he could hear your nonsense from across the sea. “She’s avoiding emotional output. Blocking the bond.”
He moved his hand across the map, tracing a slow, deliberate path through the red-marked sea routes. The gesture was graceful in the way dissection could be graceful.
Behind him, one of the newer agents made the rookie mistake of shifting his stance too loudly.
Lucci didn’t look back. He didn’t speak. He simply extended one arm, smooth and casual, and clotheslined the man into the wall with the same ease that most people swat a fly.
The agent slid down to the floor with a sound that could only be described as “career-ending.”
Nobody moved.
Lucci exhaled softly, as though this were merely a mild inconvenience. “She’s learning.”
He straightened, adjusting his gloves, his tone calm and surgical. “But not fast enough.”
The agents nodded in perfect unison, desperate to seem useful. The air was tense enough to choke on.
And yet—because every group of trained assassins has one idiot—a second junior operative tried to edge behind Lucci toward the coffee dispenser. His boot squeaked. Loudly.
The temperature in the room dropped a full degree.
Without turning, Lucci’s arm snapped out again in one fluid motion, catching the agent mid-step and sending him sailing into the same wall as his predecessor. The thud echoed. Papers fluttered. Someone audibly swallowed.
Silence.
A beat passed. Then, from the far corner, a whisper: “Should we… help him?”
Another voice hissed back, “No. He’s part of the lesson now.”
Lucci lowered his arm and patted his sleeve. “As I was saying,” he continued evenly, as if he hadn’t just physically deleted two coworkers, “she’s learning to adapt. But so am I.”
He leaned over the map again, eyes like sharpened glass. “And she’s going to run out of luck before she runs out of jokes.”
Hattori, perched nearby, gave a slow, judgmental coo.
One of the surviving agents risked a whisper. “Permission to… uh… stand farther away, sir?”
Lucci didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. The man quietly relocated himself behind a filing cabinet and began practicing invisibility through sheer willpower.
Lucci, unbothered, reached for the next report and flipped it open with a flick of his wrist.
Revolution-affiliated safehouse logs.Southern trade block manifests.Intercepted transmissions involving soup rations and stolen crates of condensed tomatoes.
He narrowed his eyes.
“Soup,” Lucci said suddenly.
Every agent in the room froze.
He tapped a gloved finger against the map—once, twice, perfectly rhythmic.
Across the table, Hattori gave a low, approving coo, as if to say yes, brilliant deduction as always, my liege.
“The minestrone comment was too specific,” Lucci continued. “Regional. That soup doesn’t circulate in northern cells. And she hates the dry climate. That eliminates the Alabasta triangle and half the canyon encampments.”
The agents blinked at him in stunned silence. One of them mouthed, ‘Did he just track a fugitive using soup?’
He didn’t care what they thought. He remembered. Two miserable weeks of your constant complaints about cracked lips and dry air, every thought broadcast straight into his skull. You’d been loud. You were always loud when you complained.
He marked a circle on the map, a slow, surgical motion.
The bond had gone quiet. To you, that silence meant safety. To him, it was data. Every pause. Every flicker. Every gap between your noise had a pattern, and Rob Lucci was a creature built for patterns.
He studied your evasions with the same precision he used to dismantle fortresses. He didn’t need the bond anymore. He could smell your trail in the data alone.
His finger traced the map’s southern routes, a line drawn with purpose.
“She thinks this is a war,” he murmured, almost to himself. The agents stayed very, very still. “She doesn’t realize she’s standing on a pressure plate.”
There was a long pause. Then, from behind the filing cabinet, a hesitant voice: “Sir, do we… uh… help her step off the pressure plate?”
Lucci didn’t even blink. “You are dismissed.”
The agent vanished faster than a budget cut. The others followed—papers gathered, chairs abandoned, dignity optional. Within seconds, the conference room was empty except for Lucci, Hattori, and the low hum of encrypted transponders.
Rob ignored the retreating footsteps and reached for his pen. He circled a single point on the map. The motion was neat. Controlled. Final.
Already, three zones were ruled out. Too much mental noise. Too cold. Too dry. You never functioned well in dry weather—he’d learned that during a two-week assignment when your thoughts had been an endless complaint about flaky skin and cracked lips.
He flicked one folder shut and opened another. His eyes skimmed the page.
“Two smugglers in Fort Turnen’s port reported a girl complaining about humidity and stealing mangoes.”
His fingers tapped once against the table—sharp, deliberate. The sound was almost a trigger pull.
“Her.”
He let the word sit in the air like smoke. Then he leaned back, eyes half-lidded, mouth curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. It was the stillness of a predator waiting for its prey to forget it’s being hunted.
“She thinks she’s so clever,” he said softly. The words barely disturbed the air.
He didn’t blink. Didn’t shift. Just stared down at the circled coordinates like they had personally offended him.
“There.”
Hattori gave a sharp, approving coo from his perch.
Lucci didn’t respond. He waited one beat. Two. Let the silence stretch taut, like a thread between his sharp teeth. Then, flatly—almost tenderly: “She forgot I have access to every ciphered port manifest from the last seventy-two hours… and the emotional restraint of a medieval bear trap wired to a corpse.”
Hattori puffed his feathers, a single dark coo rolling out like an omen.
-X-Home Invasion-X-
Somewhere across the sea, you sneezed, and for reasons you couldn’t explain, felt deeply and existentially doomed, which was strange, because you were fine. Perfectly healthy. Well-fed. And, in your opinion, impressively hidden.
You had been careful. Paranoid, even. You moved every two days, sometimes twice if you caught a whiff of Navy uniforms or suspiciously well-tailored trench coats. You wiped your presence clean wherever you went. No paper trail. No tavern tabs. No friends who could spell your name.
You had forced the bond into near silence, too. A masterpiece of mental static crafted from humming, petty distractions, and daily doses of sarcasm potent enough to kill a telepathic signal on impact.
You had even tried meditation. Sort of.
Well, you sat in a quiet room and thought about punching Lucci in the face for an hour. That counted.
And now, life wasn’t bad. You had scored a legitimate lead. A noble’s trading circle was rumored to be passing around a seastone necklace. Actual, functional seastone. A mind-shield disguised as jewelry.
“Cha-ching,” you whispered to yourself, pleased.
For the first time in months, you felt calm.
Which, given your luck, probably meant that somewhere out there, a six-foot government assassin with the emotional warmth of a glacier was already charting a course directly toward your coordinates.
It was a joke. You were joking. Obviously.
Because you were having a perfect day. The village you were walking through was sun-warmed but not scorching. The air smelled like salt and citrus. Somewhere nearby, someone was cooking something fried and miraculous, and you were already considering paying for it, which counted as both personal growth and fiscal responsibility.
Your boots clicked against the cobblestones. Children ran past, laughing. The world felt almost normal, almost peaceful. You let yourself breathe.
Nothing could ruin this moment.
Absolutely nothing.
Until you felt it.
That pressure. That too-familiar flicker at the edge of your mind. It was like the universe had just locked the door behind you, thrown away the key, and yelled “Psyche!”
You froze mid-step, one hand still hovering over the basket of fruit you had been pretending to admire.
Then, clear as ice water poured down your spine, came the voice.
Cold. Controlled. Impossible to ignore.
“Woman.”
You froze. “No,” you said firmly, to no one and everyone.
You straightened up, turned away from the market, and power-walked like your life depended on it. “No. Nope. Not today. Not me. Not now. Go kiss your weird bird and leave me out of this. I will jump into the sea again.”
The bond pulsed again; faint, steady, amused.
“Look up.”
You closed your eyes and muttered, “Nope.”
“Look up.”
Perplexed, you do.
Against all better judgment, you did.
And just like that, your perfect day died screaming.
Because Rob Lucci was standing on the rooftop in front of you, framed by sunlight and sea breeze like a very well-dressed apocalypse. The black of his suit cut a clean line against the blue sky, his white cravat gleaming like a threat. His arms were crossed, shoulders relaxed, expression unreadable. He leaned against the chimney with the kind of lazy confidence that only belonged to men who could kill you in three moves and still look good doing it.
For one long, horrifying second, neither of you moved.
Then you whispered, “You have got to be kidding me.”
He wasn’t rushing. He never did. His gaze slid down to meet yours, deliberate and slow, the corners of his mouth twitching like he might almost—almost—smile.
“Found you,” he said, voice low and unhurried, the syllables smooth enough to be mistaken for charm if you didn’t know better.
You gawked up at him. “What are you, a cat burglar or a divine punishment in a vest?”
He tilted his head slightly, as if considering it. “A punishment, perhaps. You did run long enough to earn one.”
“Yeah, well, stalking isn’t flirting, Lucci.”
“Depends on the outcome.” His tone was soft, but it carried across the space between you like the brush of a blade. “You look better alive.”
“Down, Satan. Not today.” You rolled your eyes and muttered, “You’re not my type.”
His gaze sharpened, gold flashing like a blade catching sunlight. “You don’t have a type. You have bad decisions.”
You blinked, jaw dropping. “Did you just—did you flirt with me?”
“I’m here to apprehend you.”
“That’s not a no!”
The wind shifted, curling between you, thick with salt and smoke. He stepped closer to the roof’s edge, one boot scraping softly against the stone. He didn’t need to speak; his eyes did all the work. Dark, steady, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with the mission.
You exhaled, slow and trembling, because this was not the reunion you were mentally equipped for. “Great. The murder cat’s hot and smug. I’m doomed.”
“Accurate,” he said simply. His tone was almost gentle, which only made it worse. Then, after a heartbeat, he added, “If you run, I’ll use my Devil Fruit to chase you.”
So naturally, you ran.
Your boots hit the stone floor before you can think.
The second you saw him—Rob Lucci in his full CP0 regalia, adjusting his gloves like this was cordial—you threw a smoke bomb, flipped the table, and booked it down the escape tunnel.
Behind you, he doesn’t shout. Doesn’t roar.
He laughs.
Soft. Cold. Catlike.
And that’s how you know you’re screwed.
“Run, little weasel.”
He let you.
Let you sprint through the streets, the crowd swallowing you whole, the noise and color of the port wrapping around you like a shield.
Because Rob Lucci wasn’t just a killer.
He was the predator.
And in the small, satisfied stillness that followed, he could already feel it—the thrill, the pulse, the perfect balance between chase and capture. The world narrowed to instinct and precision, the line between hunter and prey drawn clean across the map.
You’d just activated something ancient in him.
For you, this was Mission Impossible: Revolutionary Edition. Life or death. Every second counted. You were running for your people, your freedom, and whatever was left of your dignity.
For Lucci, it was something else entirely.
A sultry wildlife documentary.
He was the apex predator on the savannah, stalking the one mouse clever enough to taunt him. Every step of yours only fed his fascination. Every trick, every false trail, every desperate turn of instinct made him want to see what you’d do next.
He wasn’t angry.
He was enchanted.
A faint smile ghosted across his mouth as his eyes followed the direction you’d vanished. “Faster,” he murmured. “Make it interesting.”
Hattori cooed once, sharp and knowing, a sound like punctuation to a promise.
Lucci adjusted his hat with surgical precision, the motion smooth and deliberate. The wind pulled at his coat, at the fine white edges of his cravat. Then, in one seamless movement, he stepped off the rooftop.
The air rippled.
Muscle stretched, bones shifted, black spots flared beneath tearing fabric.
By the time his boots hit the cobblestones below, the man was gone—replaced by something sleek, lethal, and beautiful in the way natural disasters are beautiful. He moved like smoke and shadow, power wrapped in precision.
Run.
And you did.
You ran like hell.
Boots slapping against stone, heart hammering, lungs burning. You cut through the narrow streets of the port like a ghost on borrowed time. You vaulted barrels, ducked under awnings, and prayed that the sound behind you wasn’t what you thought it was.
It was.
The bond hummed with glee, a low, amused vibration that crawled down your spine. You could feel him—his focus, his hunger, his terrible patience.
He wasn’t rushing.
He was enjoying this.
Behind you, the town erupted into chaos. Market stalls overturned, chickens exploded into the air, and someone screamed about a “demon cat from hell.” You didn’t look back.
But if you had, you’d have seen it: a massive, spotted predator slipping through the streets like an omen, tail low, golden eyes locked on you.
He ignored the screams. Ignored the panic. Ignored everything but you.
To everyone else, it was terror. To Rob Lucci, it was music.
He moved through the village like a living blade, the rhythm of his pursuit calm, deliberate, unhurried. The thrill was not in the kill. It was in the chase.
He could have ended this a minute ago.
One shigan to the back.
One rankyaku to the legs.
Over.
But why would he?
Why rush when you were finally here—alive, agile, that heat in your mind sparking and thrumming as you vaulted a wall and crashed through a window?
“Smart,” he thought, his voice a velvet hum through the bond. “Flexible. Overconfident. Just like I imagined.”
He paced you from the rooftops, moving with a kind of inhuman grace, his body a blur of black and gold. Barely touching the stone, always within sight, always just a little too close.
Your thoughts scrambled like cornered animals, flickering wild across the tether. Left? No, ambush. Ravine path? Trapped. Just run. Just run. Just ru—
He leapt.
Not to strike. Not yet.
The impact of his landing sent dust spiraling into the air as his shadow passed over you. You caught sight of him—really saw him—and the world seemed to stop for half a heartbeat.
No description, no rumor, no dossier could have prepared you for what he looked like in motion. The sinuous stretch of muscle. The glint of golden eyes under fur. The ripple of power in every step.
He didn’t grab you.
Not yet.
Instead, he prowled closer, movements loose and deliberate, tail flicking lazily behind him. The hunter’s patience was a weapon in itself, and he wielded it with terrifying precision.
“Keep running,” his voice whispered in your mind, low and coaxing. “I want to see how far you think you can go.”
Your heart stuttered. Your legs burned. The air filled with dust and panic and something hotter—something you refused to name.
He smiled, slow and dangerous, keeping pace with you.
You nearly screamed.
Then you did what any self-respecting Revolutionary menace would do—you threw everything.
Smoke bombs. Flash powder. A goddamn fire trap laced through the side alley.
The street went up in chaos. Smoke billowed, fire cracked, civilians scattered. You darted through the haze like a ghost with a death wish, coughing, half-blind, half-laughing from sheer adrenaline.
And then, through the smoke, he walked.
Unbothered.
A little singed.
More smug.
Rob Lucci emerged from the fire like a biblical threat in a designer suit, golden eyes cutting through the haze, the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth betraying amusement.
You stumbled into a side street, chest heaving, lungs burning. Every nerve screamed for escape. Every instinct told you he was getting closer.
And he was.
He didn’t sound winded. Didn’t sound strained. In fact, through the bond, his voice was steady. Controlled. Thriving.
“Is this foreplay to you?” you snarled, half out loud, half in thought, vaulting a fence.
“You started it.”
“I was trying to escape!”
“Exactly.”
You almost tripped. “That’s not an answer!”
“It is to me.”
You swore so loudly that three seagulls changed flight paths.
He was enjoying this—your panic, your pace, your heartbeat thudding like prey realizing the cage had always been open because the predator wanted it that way.
“You are insane,” you hissed, ducking into another alley, heart pounding.
“And yet,” his voice purred, slow and warm against the inside of your skull, “you keep running exactly where I want you.”
You looked down the path ahead and froze.
Dead end.
Of course it was.
He drops before you silently, boots barely skimming the walls, Zoan-enhanced muscles turning the chase into a dance.
He’s so damn fast.
You hurl a dagger behind you. He dodges. You curse. He laughs. Your knife hits the stone floor with a pathetic clatter.
“Cornered,” he says aloud.
You freeze, panting, furious.
“Tired yet?” Yes, Your limbs are jelly. Your breath comes in shallow gasps. Every escape route has been cut off with surgical precision. But he can fuck off.
“Go to hell.”
“If you insist. But I’m bringing you with me.”
You’re shaking. Adrenaline. Rage. Fear.
And under it all?
Heat. A pulse that isn’t yours.
He steps closer. Eyes golden. That unreadable calm twisting into something dangerous.
Not hunger for blood.
For you.
“You run beautifully,” he says softly.
You try to kick him.
He catches your leg mid-air and pulls you forward—fast, unforgiving, close.
Your face is inches from his.
“Next time,” he says, “I want you to scream my name when you flee.”
You spit at his boots.
“Go ahead. Kill me.”
He steps forward. Unhurried.
“Kill you? After everything you’ve said to me? After all the charming things you’ve thought at me?”
You stiffen.
“You’re a soulless tax goblin. You talk to a pigeon, Lucci. I hope a Revolutionary seagull pecks your eyes out. You probably sleep in a government-issued coffin. I bet your full name is Roberto.”
He recites them all verbatim.
Your blood goes cold.
“Oh,” he murmurs, eyes glittering, “I remember every single insult. I treasure them.”
He crouches down in front of you, still immaculate, still calm.
You reach for another weapon.
He catches your wrist, gently. But unbreakable.
“I let you run,” he says.“I studied your patterns. Your moods. Your jokes. Your lies. I learned your scent before I learned your name.”
“You wanted revenge.” You whisper.
He leans closer.
“Do you really think I hunted you for duty?”
Your breath hitches.
“No,” he whispers. “I want satisfaction.”
-X-CAUGHT-X-
You thought you might escape. It was a long shot, but it was there.
Lucci let you get that far. Let you feel hope.
And then he pounced—literally—out of a goddamn metaphorical ceiling vent like a sexy government-issued gargoyle and tackled you mid-escape with all the grace of a hungry jungle cat and the enthusiasm of a man finally cashing in on years of soulmate tax.
Smoke curled thick and black from the wreckage of the town. Half the villagers groaned on the ground from the fallout. The rest pretended to be unconscious so they would not have to deal with you, and they screamed like outraged geese as the single most dangerous man in the World Government carried you, fireman style, toward the docks.
You were slung over Rob Lucci’s shoulder like an especially loud sack of contraband. The world was literally upside down. His shoulder dug into your stomach. His hand, placed on your thigh for "balance," felt far too casual. Your unit lay out cold, your base was on fire, and Rob Lucci, immaculate and terrifying, strolled through the smoke as if it were date night.
At least he was no longer a giant cat, and now just himself, a slightly naked man.
“Put. Me. Down,” you growled, elbowing for his warm neck to grab his hair.
“You would only try to run again,” he said, cold as ever, as he bats your hand away.
“I will run again,” you snapped.
“I know,” he replied, unfazed. “That is half the fun of not doing it.”
You thrashed a moment longer, then quit to catch your breath, glaring at the village and at him in equal measure. Around you, the townspeople muttered and clutched their bruises. A child peeked from behind a barrel and then scampered away when Lucci’s gold eyes glanced in his direction.
He carried you on, deliberate and unhurried, as if hauling you to the docks were the most natural errand in the world. You tried to imagine the scene in the reports back at Revolutionary HQ. You would be a cautionary tale, a laugh, an anecdote told to younger recruits. That thought did nothing to improve your mood.
Rob Lucci walked through the chaos like a man in a tailored funeral suit who had been appointed the guest of honor. You felt small, furious, and strangely incandescent with adrenaline. You vowed, again and again, that you would not be humble about it.
“PUT ME DOWN, YOU MURDEROUS CHEAT CODE!”
“No.”
“I AM A SOLDIER OF THE PEOPLE!”
“You’re currently luggage.”
“I WILL BITE YOU!”
“You already did. Twice. Your teeth are small. Inefficient.”
You kicked wildly, punching his spine—which, infuriatingly, felt like solid stone—and he didn’t even flinch. Instead, he adjusted his grip with lazy precision, like you were a particularly troublesome cat he’d found under a dumpster.
He shifted your weight higher onto his shoulder, one hand sliding down to steady you. His palm dragged just a little too slowly along your outer thigh.
You froze.
He felt it.
And he smiled.
“Sensitive?” he murmured.
“I will kill you with my Revolutionary-themed spoon,” you hissed.
“I’m flattered.”
His fingers flexed just slightly at your hip, and the touch was measured, deliberate. He could pretend it was for balance, but you knew better. It was about control. Ownership. Possibility.
“You’ve been in my head for years,” he said quietly, voice smooth as silk, warm as sin.
“And you’ve been in mine,” you snapped. “Like a splinter in my brain.”
His expression didn’t change, but something in his tone softened—dangerously. “And a balm to mine.”
Your breath hitched.
He shifted his hold again, and before you could wriggle away, he lifted you effortlessly, pressing you against his chest instead of slinging you over his shoulder. Your palms hit the hard plane of his torso. You could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing beneath your hands, slow and unbothered, like he had all the time in the world.
The smell of smoke clung to his clothes, mixing with faint spice and salt air. His gaze dropped to yours, calm, unbothered, the kind of look that made your heart forget its job for a moment.
“Better,” he said softly. “Now stop struggling.”
He cradled you close. Chest to chest. Arms locked around your back. Too close. Too hot. Too deliberate. Too much skin, as he was reduced to wearing what had survived his transformation: Pants and a tank top.
“Now I’m going to be everywhere else,” he murmured. “You’ve been caught. Accept it.”
You immediately launched a psychic assault through the bond—songs, random math equations, soup debates, Revolutionary slogans—but his composure didn’t so much as flicker.
“Miso is the best soup,” you screamed mentally. “And your haircut makes you look like a tax collector from hell.”
He didn’t even blink.
“Keep fighting,” he said aloud, his tone infuriatingly even. “It makes it more fun.”
Then, just to prove he could, he tossed you slightly upward, caught you again one-handed, and kept walking as if the burning village behind him was a minor inconvenience.
“Where are you taking me!?” you demanded, squirming like a possessed sack of laundry.
“Somewhere secure.”
“Define secure.”
“No windows. Five locks. Pigeon-accessible.”
You went still. “…You’re going to be smug about this forever, aren’t you?”
“Aggressively.”
“Like a jungle cat.”
“Correct.”
You stared at him, utterly betrayed. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
“I hope your stupid hat caught on fire.”
“I have three spares.”
You groaned, pressing your forehead against his shoulder. “You’re unbelievable.”
He didn’t deny it. He just kept walking through the smoldering wreckage, perfectly composed, a faint hum of satisfaction running through the bond like a too-satisfied little purr.
“Stop humming,” you muttered.
“I’m not humming.”
“Yes, you are. In your mind. You’re mentally humming smugness at me.”
“That’s not possible.”
“THEN WHY DOES IT SOUND LIKE A CAT VIBRATING IN A SUIT?”
He didn’t answer. He only adjusted his grip again, calm and unhurried, as if carrying a screaming Revolutionary through a burning town counted as light exercise. Any hope that Rob Lucci might give you half a chance to escape died the second your boots hit the dock.
There was a soft click at your wrist. Cold metal. Heavy. Unmistakable.
Your soulmate connection deadlined.
You looked down. Seastone.
“Seriously?” you hissed. “You carry seastone handcuffs around like friendship bracelets?”
“Standard issue,” he said sharply, snapping the second cuff shut around his wrist with surgical precision.
“Do you gift wrap your murders too, or is that extra?”
He ignored you, checking the lock, then your pulse, with the same calm efficiency you’d expect from someone folding laundry instead of apprehending a known Revolutionary.
“You have had this the entire time?” you snapped. “You’ve been carrying seastone for months, and you didn’t think to mention it? You could’ve muted the bond! You could’ve saved me from your weird murder ASMR brain!”
He locked the other cuff in place, perfectly calm. “That was not my priority.”
“Oh, so torture was the priority? Got it. You are unbelievable.”
“Quiet,” he said simply, testing the chain with a small tug. “We have a long trip.”
He wasn’t lying.
The entire journey back to the CP base on the Red Line was a blur of indignity. He didn’t remove the cuff once. Not to sleep, not to eat, not even when docking for supplies. He chained you to the mast when the ship rocked, to the railing when he worked, to a cargo crate when he slept.
At one point, you woke up chained to a cannon.
“Creative,” you muttered.
“Effective,” he replied without looking up from his reports.
You glared at him, furious, exhausted, and still faintly impressed that the world’s most terrifying assassin had mastered the art of professional babysitting.
“You are the worst person alive.”
“Statistically, that is not true.”
You have no proof, but you’re sure it’s true: Rob Lucci was sent to this world specifically to ruin your dignity.
He’s not exactly hurting you, but there’s something deeply offensive about being manhandled like a wayward toddler who just shoplifted a candy bar. You’re hauled in like cargo, one arm twisted behind your back, his clawed Zoan hand clamped over your shoulders. Not enough to bruise, just enough to humiliate. He moves with the grim confidence of a man who has decided that you, specifically, are an unstable weapon that should never be left unattended.
By the time you’re tucked under his arm, you’ve accepted your fate: you are now Lucci’s emotionally compromised handbag. He strides into the CP0 staging zone with the air of a man arriving at an art exhibit featuring his own accomplishments.
The room is cold stone, lit in sinister red by the lights from the encrypted Den Den Mushi. Two agents look up mid-briefing and immediately stop talking. Lucci enters with the slow, terrible grace of someone who has never once been told “no.”
“Soulmate secured,” he says flatly.
He drops you in the middle of the room like a sack of potatoes that personally offended him. You hit your knees, furious and embarrassed.
The others stare. You’re not restrained, but you might as well be. He’s standing right behind you, radiating grinning authority.
“Soulmate?” one of the agents finally asks, voice shaky.
Lucci doesn’t even blink. “Confirmed telepathic resonance. Fifteen-year sync pattern. Identifiable thought signature. Southern dialect. Obsession with soup. Chronic arsonist tendencies. The Revolutionary soulmate who’s been mentally heckling me for over a decade.”
Silence.
A few agents take a step back. One starts sweating like they ran a mile. Another whispers, horrified, “She does not look dangerous.”
You lunge for him.
Lucci places one hand on your head as if it were a particularly annoying hat and shoves you back to the floor with the kind of ease only patience and superior muscle memory can buy.
“Do not be dramatic,” he says.
You hiss like a feral cat. He is totally unmoved.
Lucci smiles the kind of smile that has never sat through a surprise. “She once stole twenty classified documents while dressed as a nun. She smuggled a bomb in a bakery box. During a diplomatic summit, she said, quote—I hope you get foot fungus under your steel-toed murder shoes unquote. She almost seduced a Warlord to avoid paying taxes.”
You, still flailing: “IT WAS A STRATEGIC CHARM OFFENSIVE.”
He lifts you as if you are a museum exhibit and sets you on your feet with his hands still planted on your hips, like he is checking the label to make sure you are real. “She has been avoiding me for years. Breaking protocol. Evading capture. Mocking me daily. But I am the superior agent.”
You slap his hand away.
“This is not a victory. You ambushed me while I was researching shampoo.”
“You were not researching. You were building a pipe bomb inside a shampoo bottle.”
“It had a lavender base, and smelling good is tactical,” you snap.
The agents murmur. One of them leans in, eyes appreciative. “She is… kind of hot, though? Like, she matches your vibe.”
Lucci gives him a look that could rearrange continents. “Talk to her and I will bisect you.”
You glare up at the roomful of faces. “He caught me off guard. It is not like he is even attractive.”
Silence presses down for a beat so long you can hear the Den Den Mushi humming in the corner. The murmurs die, the sweating guy stops sweating, and a brave throat clears somewhere near the back.
Lucci tilts his head, amusement easing into his features. He steps closer until his shadow swallows half the floor. “She stared at my chest for seven full seconds during the capture,” he says, perfectly calm, as if he is reading dossier notes. “Longer if you count the part where she tried to kick me.”
One CP0 agent coughs awkwardly. Another pretends to be reading a file upside down. Someone clears their throat with the sort of noise that tries to be professional and fails.
Lucci crosses his arms, planting himself behind you like a living barricade. He is the kind of person whose presence makes fluorescent lights feel less friendly. “I am officially logging her as a Class D soulbond complication,” he announces.
“Her Revolutionary status marks her for standard elimination protocol, no?” someone asks, trying to anchor the conversation in procedure.
“Soulmate exemption makes that clause inapplicable,” Lucci replies. “Containment is now my tactical priority.”
A hand goes up, the owner of the hand speaking in a tone that begs anyone to send him to another planet. “What does that mean exactly?”
Lucci stares at him the way a general might stare at a map. “If she escapes, I remove someone’s spine. Clear?”
Silence. The room collectively nods like a set of well-trained marionettes. One man actually writes down the words spine removal as if it were a checklist item.
You raise your hand while still on the floor. It looks more like a plea than a legal gesture. “I would like to file a harassment claim.”
Lucci’s eyes narrow by the fraction of an inch, one that means he is enjoying this. “You sent me a mental image of me in a maid's outfit last week.”
“It was retaliatory,” you snap. “You have been playing my internal monologue like a cheap radio for days.”
An intern from the back of the room, who has been trying desperately not to fumble a stack of forms, speaks up. “There is a standard harassment form. Section B covers emotional duress. Section C covers unauthorized telepathic imagery. Also, there is a waiver about not sharing classified thoughts with civilians.”
You look at the form as if it might bite. “Do you have a box that says he is not allowed to humiliate me in front of colleagues?”
The intern blinks. “We have a box that says you are not allowed to blow up municipal infrastructure, but that is unchecked.”
Lucci leans in until his breath is a draft you cannot see. “File your claim. I will add a note that you attempted to kick my pelvis while checking for a tactical weak point. I will also mark you down as a personal irritation and an ongoing intelligence source.”
You glare up at him. “Personal irritation is not a job description.”
“It is now,” he says, and his smile is the kind that is two parts satisfaction and one part unavoidable truth. “Also, that maid outfit image will be archived for training purposes.”
Someone near the back gasps. Another agent tries to look scandalized and instead manages something that resembles a hiccup. You bat your hand in front of your face in a theatrical attempt at dignity. “That was private.”
Lucci’s expression softens by a microscopic degree that you have been trained to interpret as weaponized fondness. “Everything you think about me is now technically evidence,” he says. “Consider your internal monologue subpoenaed.”
You snarl, which is unfortunately theatrical and probably not admissible. The agents murmur again, half-amused and half-terrified. The intern makes a note under Section D: interpersonal threats, emotional sabotage, and unauthorized fashion fantasies.
Lucci straightens, his shadow retreating but still ominous. “Containment checklist, people,” he says. “One, secure the perimeter. Two, no one talks to her without permission. Three, do not engage in any unauthorized compliments. Four, do not discuss her hairstyle. Five, submit all mental images to my office for review.”
A bewildered junior agent raises his hand. “What about—uh—what about lunch? Does she get lunch?”
“She gets lunch,” Lucci tells you without looking back. “As well a supervision.” He turned to you. “And if you so much as hum a seditious tune in the cafeteria, I will add a clause about communal seating.”
You accept the offered sandwich with the dignity of someone who has just had their spine threatened and also wants carbs. The room exhales like a balloon losing air. Somewhere, a Den Den Mushi chirps, oblivious.
-X-The Climax-X-
Being Lucci’s “captive” is… suspiciously nice.
The bed is enormous. The sheets are silk. The walls are reinforced steel painted a calming ivory. There’s a chaise lounge in the corner. A bookshelf stocked with some of your favorite titles (which is creepy because how did he know?). Even a tray of tea and a porcelain cup with your name on it.
The ankle monitor matches your outfit. The surveillance camera has gold trim. The door only opens when Lucci is nearby.
You cross your arms and pace the room slowly. “This is a prison cell with a spa filter. A hostage suite with throw pillows. Captive Stockholm syndrome bait—and it’s working.”
You test the limits. You try to dig through the wall with a spoon. The lights immediately cut out.
Lucci’s voice echoes in your head. “Don’t be childish.”
You respond by turning the faucet on hot and belting out sea shanties full of classified misinformation. Nothing. Silence. So you start narrating your mental diary instead.
“Day Four. Rob Lucci still thinks he’s in charge. I’ve befriended the bird. I think he’s into being disrespected. Will test further.”
Every morning, like clockwork, Rob appears. Always crisp, composed, and criminally smug. Always holding a single folder or a mug, like he didn’t just assassinate someone before breakfast.
You throw a pillow at him the second he steps inside. He catches it one-handed, doesn’t even blink.
“Sleep well?” he asks.
“You’re in my brain twenty-four seven, and you still ask that?”
“You had a dream about setting me on fire,” he says evenly. “So yes, I’d say you’re rested.”
He flips through your reports, though you know he’s just watching you pace like a trapped fox.
“When you’re ready to stop pretending you don’t enjoy this,” he says, sipping your tea without asking, “we can have a conversation.”
You gesture to your ankle monitor. “About what? My crimes against footwear?”
“No,” he replies. “About what I’m going to do to you once you admit I’m your type.”
You sputter. He leaves.
You’re not sure when it changes. Maybe it’s the second time he brings you a book from your childhood. Or the way he adjusted your ankle tracker so it sat higher because you said it looked “chonky.” Or maybe it’s the fact that he never touches you—but always stands close enough that you think about it.
You hate him. You hate that you’re starting to look forward to his visits. You hate that you check your hair before he arrives. You hate that the pigeon has started giving you knowing looks.
You’ve been locked in this luxury surveillance suite for weeks. You have books, warm baths, and blackout curtains, but also Rob Lucci smirking at you every morning like the cat who’s put the canary on layaway.
So you decide it’s time for the oldest trick in the manipulative little goblin playbook.
Faking sick.
You perfect the act by noon: Blankets pulled up dramatically. A damp cloth on your forehead. Voice lowered to a tragic whisper. Subtle whimpering. Just enough to make him concerned, not suspicious.
You’re sprawled on the chaise like a Victorian ghost of consumption, one hand draped across your forehead, the other warming a thermometer under your thigh.
He arrives at his usual time.
He stares.
You cough weakly. “Don’t come too close. I may have something contagious.”
He walks in anyway. “Is that so?”
“I’m dying,” you say with as much drama as possible. “Probably a fever. Possibly the plague. I should be released for humanitarian reasons.”
He removes the wet cloth from your forehead and tosses it aside. “You microwaved that.”
You try to look offended, but it’s difficult when you’re sweating from the effort of lying. “I’m vulnerable right now.”
“You’re sweating because you’ve layered three blankets and you’re hiding a hot water bottle like an overachieving theater kid.”
“Play along, you emotionless goth Komodo dragon.”
“This Komodo dragon tracks war criminals for a living.”
“I’m trying to emotionally manipulate you into spoon-feeding me soup.”
“Noted.”
He walks away. You freeze, thinking he’s either going to mock you publicly or ignore you entirely.
Instead, he returns. With soup.
You blink. “Wait—you’re really going to—?”
He sits on the edge of your bed, sleeves rolled up, spoon in hand, like this is standard procedure. His face unreadable.
“Open.”
You obey, too stunned to argue.
He spoons the broth in gently, silently.
Then he says, in a voice so calm it makes you sweat harder, “Your fever’s fake. You’re flushed because I’m leaning close. And you’re breathing faster because you like it.”
You choke on the soup.
“Oh no,” he says mildly. “Should I alert medical?”
“No,” you wheeze into your pillow.
“You sure? It might be serious. I’d hate to lose you to your own dramatics.”
“Shut up.”
He leans just a little closer. His voice drops low, deep as smoke.
“Your heart is racing.”
It was, but you denied it. Repeatedly. Aggressively. You denied it so hard that even the bond seemed embarrassed for you. You would have kept up the delusion forever—right up until the day Rob Lucci walked in wearing that tank top and those slightly too-tight pants.
No hat. No gloves. Just his thick black hair falling over his shoulders, the hint of stubble along his jaw, and the quiet, devastating smugness of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing.
You didn’t mean to break.
You’d held out for years—dodging psychic flirtations, rerouting telepathic calls into soup recipes, and pretending your migraines were more legitimate than his face. You resisted through five kidnappings, three ruined dates, and one vividly inappropriate dream that, for the record, wasn’t your fault.
But Rob Lucci wore you down.
With that voice that somehow managed to sound both murderous and expensive. With the way he appeared whenever you least wanted him to—and looked better each time, like a personally tailored bad decision. With that calm, infuriating confidence. And those goddamn gloves that made you think unholy thoughts about the dexterity of government agents.
You didn’t mean to break. But the problem with denying chemistry that strong is that it eventually stops asking for permission.
Then came the dream. The kind of dream that leaves you staring at the ceiling afterward—feral, sweaty, and spiritually compromised. The kind that makes you question your life choices, your taste in men, and the part of your brain that apparently decided emotionally unavailable assassins were your type.
So when the link sparked that night, you were already doomed. Half-buried in silk sheets, vibrating with frustration, rage, and one catastrophic hormone surge, you glared at your hand, then at the security camera in the corner, seriously considering how much trouble you’d be in if you smashed it just once.
Before you could commit to the crime, his voice drifted through the bond—low, smoky, and annoyingly composed.
“Still awake?”
You groaned into your pillow. “Shut up.”
“You’re projecting very hard for someone trying to pretend they don’t want me.”
There was a pause. You could feel the lazy smirk through the connection, like silk dragged across the inside of your skull.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You’ve been fantasizing about my hands for two hours.”
“HAVE SOME BOUNDRIES—”
“That’s not a no. Do you need some assistance?”
“...I hate you.”
“Then say it while I pull your hair.”
You froze. Every coherent thought fled your body, replaced by static and betrayal. Then, without your consent, your mouth decided to commit treason.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Five minutes.”
“What?”
“Just one climax,” he said, voice low and unhurried—the kind of tone that could make a nun reconsider her vows. “Then you can go back to pretending you don’t like me.”
You didn’t breathe. Your brain short-circuited somewhere between climax and pretending.
Then, weakly, pathetically, traitorously: “Fine.”
Which, of course, meant the door immediately opened.
.
.
.
You didn’t mean for it to happen.
You were angry. Frustrated. Emotionally starved and mentally poked like a bear with a stick for weeks. Your pride had been gnawed down to splinters, and your once glorious steel resolve now dangled by a single, fraying thread made of sarcasm and the worst dry spell known to Revolutionary-kind.
“That’s what it is,” he whispered against your neck, voice low and knowing. “Knew there was something. Sensitive little thing, aren’t you?”
You didn’t respond, mostly because your legs had filed for early retirement.
You don’t know how you got into his bed.
Well. You did.
It was teeth and tension and the sound of your self-control snapping in half. It was being shoved against a wall, his claws tracing fire up your thigh, his breath against your ear as he murmured, “Don’t run now. You asked for this.”
Now you’re naked in his bed, sprawled like a very expensive mistake. The sheets smell like ink, steel, and heat. His body is heavier than you expected—more muscle than sense—and when he drags those sharp teeth along your throat, you make a noise that definitely isn’t Revolutionary-approved.
He stops, just for a second.
“…Noted.”
Then he does it again.
You see stars. Maybe constellations. Maybe the entire moral collapse of your character arc.
That’s the exact moment sleeping with Rob Lucci stops being a bad idea and becomes a catastrophic, world-ending one.
“Still trying to pretend you don’t want to be ruined?” he mutters, voice dark and certain.
You don’t answer. You can’t. You’re too busy proving him right.
You swear you blacked out halfway through. Your legs crumble into jelly, as if they no longer belong to you. Your mouth is a desert. Your brain is a single frantic headline: Do not imprint on the bird-themed war criminal. Then the thought stutters and dies. Too late.
When you come apart, it is not cinematic. It is small and catastrophic. Muscles unravel in sympathetic surrender. Your fingers curl against rumpled linen. The world narrows to the mechanical hiss of his breath, the sharp clack of his teeth against your skin, the press of glove and palm, and the way he anchors you there as if you might float away. Heat blooms behind your ribs, and somewhere, absurdly, you can taste metal and coffee and the faint antiseptic tang of mission reports.
He kisses you like a secret victory, slow and precise. His mouth maps you like a cartographer discovering a new coastline. There is ownership in the pressure of his lips, and there is something almost tender in the way he tilts your head, like the act is a classified operation that has gone perfectly. His hand sifts lazily through your hair, fingers cool against the sweat at your temple. You feel the vibration of a low, pleased sound in his chest as if he is cataloguing your reactions in a notebook only he can read.
The aftermath is the real crime. Your lungs remember how to breathe in small, panicked bursts. You count ceiling tiles and fail. Your pulse pounds like a tiny fist against the inside of your throat. Your skin prickles where his teeth grazed, leaving a heat that is equal parts bruise and vow. You discover a bruise blooming along your thigh and instantly decide it will be useful later as evidence or a prop in dramatic retellings.
You wake in silk sheets, body sore in the way that means you did something dangerous and excellent. Every muscle hums like it’s remembering the details you’re trying very hard to forget. Your soulbond thrums under your skin, warm and smug, like it just got promoted and immediately started bragging about it.
The ankle monitor has been “upgraded.” There’s a charm now—an engraved bird in dark metal, sleek and polished, dangling from the band like a trophy. It’s tasteful, threatening, and entirely unnecessary. When you shift your leg, it gives a faint, mocking jingle, like applause for bad decisions.
Lucci is perched at the edge of the bed in a half-robe, the fabric slipping down one shoulder, reading a mission report as if he didn’t just dismantle your entire personality an hour ago. His hair is still damp, a few strands clinging to his neck, and he looks disgustingly calm.
“You’re awake,” he says, tone casual, like you hadn’t just committed career suicide by sleeping with the world’s most dangerous fed. “And you’re mine,” he adds, like it’s a closing statement in a report he’s already filed.
You blink up at him, brain rebooting. “You kidnapped me.”
“You screamed my name,” he counters without looking up.
“You have issues.”
He turns a page, unbothered. “You have a bite mark I’m rather proud of.”
You throw a pillow at him. He catches it midair and smirks.
“Five minutes,” he reminds you, “You were the one who begged for six.”
You stare at him, at the half-smile that shouldn’t be as pretty as it is, and for one brief, insane moment, you consider strangling him with his own belt.
Then he looks up, eyes sharp, tone suddenly flat and absolute. The air shifts. The playful veneer vanishes, replaced by something cold, anchored, immovable.
“We’re getting married,” he says. “You’re not leaving.”
You blink once. Twice. “I’m sorry—what?”
He sets down the file with terrifying calm, his fingers folding neatly over the page as if this is just another operational debrief. “It’s easier than the execution paperwork.”
You sit up so fast the sheet nearly slides off, clutching it to your chest like a shield. “WHAT.”
Lucci doesn’t even flinch. “You’re not leaving. Not again.”
“This was a mistake.”
He studies you, expression unreadable, the faintest trace of amusement ghosting over his mouth. “That’s not what you said when I—”
“Finish that sentence,” you snap, “and I will commit a war crime.”
You cut him off with another pillow to the face. It hits dead center. He lets it. Doesn’t blink.
“I’ll escape,” you say, voice tight, defiant.
“I’ll find you,” he replies, calm as a death sentence. “I will always find you.”
You gape at him. “That’s not romantic. That’s a threat.”
He turns another page in his report, the sound absurdly crisp in the silence that follows. “Then you understand the terms.”
You stare, caught between fury and disbelief. He looks utterly serene, like this conversation is just another formality. Like marriage, for him, falls somewhere between an arrest warrant and a classified merger.
“Unbelievable,” you mutter. “You’re proposing like it’s an HR solution.”
He glances up, eyes glinting. “You’ve caused a lot of administrative complications.”
“You’re insane.”
“Statistically, yes,” he says, setting down his report and rising with deliberate, predatory calm. The robe slides off one shoulder as he moves, revealing muscle, scar, and the kind of restraint that looks like a threat. “But I’m efficient.”
You sigh, trying very hard not to sound winded as he climbs back onto the bed. You tell yourself to be unaffected. You tell your legs to stop trembling. Neither listens.
“This isn’t love,” you say, voice a little too high, a little too breathless. “It’s just spite-driven horniness.”
He pauses above you, eyes half-lidded, studying you like he’s reading the fine print of your soul.
“You’re projecting again,” he says softly.
You scowl, heat crawling up your neck. “I am not!”
He grins—small, sharp, entirely too confident. “Yes. Yes, you are.”
You open your mouth to argue, realize you have no idea what you’re arguing for, and shut it again, because he’s already grabbed your knees to spread them.
Okay. Perhaps you were projecting. A little. But… you had a good reason.
It’s just—purely scientific curiosity. A psychological follow-up. A controlled experiment in bodily response.
You kind of want him to bite you again.
Just once.
Just to confirm the kink.
For research.
Cosmic Joke Status: Cat-Knapped
Congratulations!
You’re now bound to Rob Lucci; government assassin, part-time cat, full-time control freak. He never rushes, always calculates, and somehow manages to make “murderous efficiency” look attractive. His hobbies include glaring, judging, and silently showing affection by standing three inches too close.
He’s a terrible date, but he adores you in the most unhinged, emotionally repressed way possible.
Rob Lucci x Reader
Length 12 K+
Rating: 18K+
Warnings: Psychological Manipulation and Tension, Gaslighting, Invasion of privacy, Telepathic Intimacy, Sexual Tension, Violence, Firearms, Emotional Distress, Strong Language, Mentions of Casual Murder, government corruption, Dark Comedy
for @ithoughtthinks
Next
-X-Bond Awakening-X-
You’ve been a rebel since you were a toddler.
Not because of some tragic massacre or a deep-rooted family vendetta. No.
It started because your aunt ran an underground newsletter called The World Government Can Suck It, and she needed someone to help with the stapling.
You were a very serious child with very small scissors and an unshakable sense that the World Government was lame. And, as time proved, you were absolutely right.
They didn’t pay teachers. They banned your favorite cartoons. Then one day, the Marines arrested your aunt for “distributing sedition” when you were four. She got out later that week when the guards forgot to lock the door, but the point remained.
So naturally, you joined the revolution out of pure spite.
You’ve been a petty agent of chaos ever since. The rebels kept you around because you didn’t cry when the grown-ups died, when your grandmother fell asleep and didn’t wake, when supplies ran short, or when the radio cut out for days.
You weren’t recruited. You just refused to leave.
You grew up on the dusty edge of Baltigo’s outer camp, where the wind always tasted like gun oil and old paper.
Your parents had been free spirits, partners in every possible sense of the word. Everyone used to say they shared a mind.
When you were six, your mother laughed and said, “We do, in a way. It’s called a soulbond. Rare, inconvenient, beautiful.”
You still remember how your father described it: two frequencies that happen to harmonize by accident.
He said the connection mirrored who you were at your core.
And you were, without reservation, unhinged. So you could only imagine who out there had enough freak in them to match you.
Two months later, they did not come back from a raid, and that was the day most people would have folded and picked a trade. Found safety. Pretended the world wasn’t burning.
Not you.
You lived on the dirt-rimmed outskirts of a “technically neutral” zone, in a town that smelled like dust, oil, and old gunpowder. You read anything you could steal, picked fights with anyone who annoyed you, and thought the World Government was a joke. You’d just snuck out of a rebel planning meeting to steal honey buns from the quartermaster’s stash. Life was simple. Violent. Perfect.
You stole sugar cubes for fun and told people you were a bomb just to watch them panic.
Your hobbies included lockpicking, talking back, and petty vandalism with political intent. You were small, loud, and carved out of spite.
So at nine years old, when the first alien thought tore through your head, you knew exactly what it was.
“If they die quickly, they don’t make noises. Efficient.”
It wasn’t a voice in the air. It was something slicing through your mind; clean, detached, mechanical in rhythm. You froze mid-bite. The screwdriver slipped from your fingers and hit the floor with a hollow clink. For a heartbeat, the rebel camp vanished, replaced by the pulse of someone else’s thoughts, sharp and predatory.
“What—what the hell was that?”
“...Useless movement. Reaction time: poor.”
You straightened fast, heart kicking like a trapped bird. Whoever this was, they weren’t warm. They weren’t gentle. Their thoughts slid like a knife’s edge, assessing, reducing, categorizing. You could almost feel their attention. They’re dispassionate, precise, and take your words apart one trait at a time.
“Oh great,” you thought, “my soulmate’s a serial killer.”
“Incorrect. I am a Ciper Pol agent.”
“That’s exactly what a serial killer would say.”
There was a silence after that. Heavy, curious silence. You could feel him thinking, cataloguing even your sarcasm. He didn’t speak in emotions. He spoke in data.
You swallowed your mouthful, staring into the dirt, a half-laugh curling in your throat. “Yeah,” you murmured, “fate’s got jokes.”
The wind kicked up outside, carrying the smell of metal and ash. You shoved the screwdriver back into your boot, grabbed the stolen pastries, and squared your shoulders.
So this was him. Your soulmate. Cold, efficient, terrifying. You couldn’t wait to piss him off.
You sighed, not surprised, just profoundly disappointed. Of course, fate would saddle you with the worst possible option. You already knew the Cipher Pol was a government subsidiary, which made it, by definition, uncool. And now you had an uncool soulmate.
“Viva la revolution,” you muttered under your breath.
You tilted your head, testing the connection, and then thought deliberately, “Why do your thoughts smell like cold soup and fascism?”
There was a sharp pause, followed by the mental equivalent of a snapped command:
“Who said that?”
The voice struck hard, like a blade swung at your neck. Controlled, precise, and furious at being surprised. You froze mid-crawl through the ventilation shaft, one hand still clutching your loot.
“…Your new World Government telepathic training module,” you blurted quickly, brain scrambling for cover. “Identify yourself to proceed with Training Interface Echo-Protocol. Emotional conditioning module. Answer to proceed with evaluation.”
There was a moment of pure, suffocating silence. You could feel him assessing the statement, testing for deceit. The weight of his scrutiny pressed against the inside of your skull like a thumb on a bruise.
Then, abruptly, the pressure eased.
“Cipher Pol 9. Operative Lead and head agent Rob Lucci. Age thirteen. Counter-verify?”
Your eyes widened. Thirteen? The voice in your head had sounded like it belonged to a killing machine, not a kid. But then again, maybe those were the same thing where the World Government was concerned.
You smirked to yourself, whispering just low enough for the dust to hear. Perfect. Soulbonded to a fascist child prodigy.
The voice snapped again, ice-sharp.
“Repeat transmission.”
You grinned wider. “Request denied. Further clearance needed.”
There was a pause, sharp and assessing, and then the voice came back quieter, colder.
“Understood. What are the requirements of success within the module?”
You hesitated, brow furrowing. See, even at your young age, you were (to put it lightly) very unhinged. You could make a weapon out of a trash pit, a bomb out of a stove, and a believable lie out of absolutely nothing. And right now, you were about to mess with a government assassin.
You straightened a little in the vent, took a breath, and said with utmost fake professionalism, “To ensure proper social conditioning so the agent may seamlessly integrate himself.”
You winced immediately. That sounded way too bureaucratic to be true. You had no idea where half those words came from. You added quickly, “Self-assess the progress of Agent Rob Lucci.”
The silence that followed was long, taut, and mechanical, like the pause between a gun’s click and the bullet leaving the chamber. You could almost hear the faint rasp of his breathing, the gears turning in his head as he weighed the order.
Then, finally, he obeyed.
“Understood. Agent has completed 1,362 of 1,362 mandated Cipher Pol assignments and remains at the top of the division. Rokushiki training remains on course. The agent has completed six of seven forms. Competent in all techniques but specializes in Shigan. Progress toward Cipher Pol 9 is on track.”
You almost dropped the honey buns.
You clapped a hand over your mouth to stifle a laugh, your heart thrashing somewhere between horror and delight.
He bought it.
The World Government’s most promising child assassin had mistaken you—an unsupervised, sugar-fueled gremlin—for a telepathic government training manual.
Your parents would’ve been proud, and also horrified.
"Excellent progress, Agent," you said smoothly, already scheming your next move. "Please proceed with emotional calibration exercises."
"Emotional calibration exercises?" he replied, the thought snapping like a wire. It sounded even more unimpressed than you had imagined. Perfect.
You had no idea what those exercises were either, but if he was going to kill for the government, you were going to make sure he at least developed a personality first. You leaned back against the vent grate and let the dust taste of metal on your tongue. This was entertainment and subversion rolled into one.
So you tested one last theory, because testing things was what you did. "Agent, performance rating: eighty-seven percent. Adjust empathy ratio downward for optimal efficiency. New training module opened: Emotional Empathy and Friends, How Not to Kill Them."
"Empathy obstructs mission success," he corrected automatically, precise as a metronome.
Perfect. He argued with the program. He debated when the software told him not to. That meant he would keep answering. That meant you had a thread to pull when you needed to be batshit insane.
Your fingers found the cracked photograph in your satchel without looking. Your mother’s hand curled around your father’s wrist in a pose that read like a secret handshake. They had laughed and taught you that bonds could be either gifts or chains depending on the way you wore them. You had chosen spite as your ornament. You had decided to keep going.
You closed the photo, thumb running over the hairline crack, and let a grin spread slow and ugly across your face. The link between you hummed, quiet and lethal, a wire nobody else could touch. Invisible. Indestructible. Already dangerous.
You took one long breath until your ribs hurt and decided two things at once with the stubbornness that had kept you alive this long: "You will never let him know you exist."
"You will absolutely see how much you can get out of him."
You slid the screwdriver back into your boot, tasted the sugar from the stolen pastry, and felt the promise of sabotage bloom warm and sharp in your chest. Rob Lucci, Cipher Pol prodigy, perfect little instrument: he was going to be your most exquisite lever. You were going to twist him until the World Government cracked.
-X- A Sample of Your Childhood Psychic Transcript – Redacted Edition -X-
Age 10-13:
Do you spend the next several years covertly harassing a government agent?
Yes, yes, you do.
You learn things. Small things at first, like the way his pigeon, Hattori, preens its feathers in the same rhythm every night and the way Rob talks to it in his head as if he is listing inventory. The bird is his best friend, the one tangible thing he allows himself to care for aloud. You file that away under Useful Intel.
You learn geography. He lives and moves mostly inside the Grand Line while your rebellion runs ragged in the four seas outside it. You will never board the same ship. You will never share the same harbor. And yet the line between you stretches and hums, taut and dangerous, as if a wire runs from your temple to his and someone has tightened it. Distance means nothing when a mind reaches.
You do not waste those years with childish tricks. The game matures. Pranks become a strategy. Petty vandalism becomes subterfuge. You refine your chaos into an art form. Notes folded into ration tins become psychological mines that detonate hours after he reads them. Pigeons with glitter tied to their legs roost where he walks and leave a shine on his boots. You time your nonsense to his training schedule so that your interference arrives precisely when he is at the edge of fatigue. You learn his blink pattern, the cadence before he strikes, the little mental ticks that betray hesitation. You use those tells like a map.
You thought-check him the way a scientist monitors a dangerous experiment. You push a hypothesis into his head and wait. You send a whisper of nonsense during a mission and watch how his mind reroutes. You throw up a memory like a mirror and see what it reflects back: anger, boredom, a sliver of curiosity. When he labels something in his reports as "minor interference," you know you hit deeper than he admits. When he tightens like a wire, you note the pressure points and store them for later.
It becomes a discipline. You catalog his routines, his odd comforts, his small mercies. You map his silences, his fractures, the exact moment his focus slips and something human leaks through. You learn to be precise with your mischief. You are no longer only a nuisance. You are an instrument tuned to pull a single nerve.
Rob Lucci was a machine learning to breathe.
He ignored puberty the way he ignored pain, by scheduling around it. His hormones came and went like background noise. You, on the other hand, made a hobby out of identifying the slightest crack in his control.
Sometimes, when you caught the edge of his thoughts, they would flare with something he didn’t recognize. A flicker of curiosity. A passing awareness of someone’s laugh. The faintest pulse of admiration for a target’s precision before he snapped their neck.
You’d lean back in your cot, smirking. “Feeling something, Agent?”
“No. Misfire.”
“You sure? That sounded suspiciously like appreciation.”
“Incorrect.”
“You hesitated.”
Silence. Then the cool mental flick of a switch. “System interference detected.”
You delighted in every denial. You logged them like data.
He trained harder. You could feel it. The rhythm of his heartbeat changed. His discipline deepened. You had learned the pulse of his mind the way sailors learn the sea: by listening to when it went quiet before a storm.
He mastered new techniques, and each time he did, you felt the echo of triumph before he strangled it. “Rokugan initiation successful,” he would think in his precision-code thoughts, and you’d interrupt sweetly, “Congratulations. So proud. How’s your social life?”
“Nonexistent. Optimal.”
“Tragic.”
The connection between you became your favorite battleground. You sent stray thoughts at the worst possible times: mid-mission, mid-strike, mid-sleep. You whispered nonsense until he ground his teeth.
“Define love, Agent.”
“A biological inefficiency.”
“Define longing.”
“A distraction.”
“Define me.”
There was always a pause then, thin as glass. “Unverified variable.”
Sometimes you felt what he would never say. A flicker of tension when someone brushed too close. The cold satisfaction after a kill. The slight, almost human ache of isolation before he buried it.
He refused to name it, so you did it for him.
“You’re lonely.”
“You’re malfunctioning.”
“And you’re lying.”
He never answered that one.
At fifteen, he began missions that required months undercover. The thoughts you caught came colder, quieter, more precise. He’d catalog every breath, every face, every sound. He’d think of the people he killed as equations solved.
But sometimes, late at night, when he should have been asleep, you’d hear him thinking things that weren’t orders. Not quite dreams either, but more like static shaped into words. “The bird breathes. The knife waits. The world keeps lying.”
You’d whisper, “You could lie back, too. Just once.”
“Not an option.”
Still, the static carried warmth for a heartbeat before it froze again.
At seventeen, he was already feared within the Cipher Pol. His superiors called him precise, detached, flawless. You knew better. You’d mapped the parts of him even he didn’t acknowledge. The irritation he felt when his superiors hesitated. The quiet thrill of control. The dull ache under his ribcage meant he was, against his will, alive.
He was the government’s perfect weapon. And you were the unseen glitch that kept him human enough to feel frustrated about it.
Every time he suppressed an emotion, you were there to poke the bruise. Every time he convinced himself he didn’t need anyone, you reminded him you were still in his head, refusing to disappear.
But somewhere between the static, the sarcasm, and the silence, you learned the truth about him.
He wasn’t soulless. He was starving.
And you, unfortunately for both of you, had decided to feed that hunger with your favorite meal: chaos.
Elsewhere:
Somewhere across the sea, a boy has just murdered twelve pirates and a judge in the same afternoon.
He sits on a rooftop, the sunset bleeding red across his skin, calmly feeding scraps of bread to his pigeon while he wipes his blade clean. The metal gleams. His gloves do not.
Then he hears it.
The voice.
The grating, infuriating voice that sounds like a Vegapunk experiment given the personality of a bratty child.
Rob Lucci freezes mid-motion, the knife still half-drawn across the stone. He stares into the horizon as if he can intimidate the ocean into silence. For the first time in his life, he is genuinely uncertain if he is hallucinating.
Hattori coos softly beside him, crumbs still clinging to his beak.
“Protocol, why do you narrate everything?” Rob mutters aloud, his tone flat but dangerous. “I did not ask for your thoughts on grapes.”
From inside his head, the answer comes fast and smug. “Subject fails basic small talk. Again. Reset unplanned conversation during combat.”
He blinks once. Twice. Then, he calmly stabs the rooftop beside him, just to feel something predictable.
The voice continues cheerfully, ignoring the rising tension.
“Oh no, he’s mad. Protocol reports emotional instability. Maybe fewer executions next week?”
“This is not a test of restraint,” he growls, standing up. “This is a psych test. It has to be. They have never assigned me something this annoying before. Is this about emotional regulation? It’s not working.”
He pauses. Thinks again. Then mutters more quietly, “It’s really not working.”
If anyone else had been nearby, they might have thought he was talking to himself. But no, Rob Lucci is talking to you.
And it is driving him insane.
He is convinced you are a top-secret surveillance protocol, a loyalty implant from the Elders, or maybe a new Cipher Pol experiment meant to test his composure. Nothing else explains the bright, irreverent voice that insists on commenting during assassinations.
You, of course, are thrilled. This is precisely what you wanted.
“Test with subject will now commence,” you announce one evening while he is tracking smugglers through an abandoned port. “So what do you do for fun? Murder? Knife maintenance? Bond with your pigeon like a Disney princess?”
He stops mid-step. The air stills.
“He’s not a pigeon,” he says flatly, already irritated. “He’s elite.”
“And yes?” you prod.
“…And yes. Knife maintenance is relaxing.”
You grin in the dark of your camp thousands of miles away, one hand over your mouth to stifle the sound.
“Good to know, Agent. Logging hobbies: murder and knife polishing.”
He exhales slowly through his nose, the kind of breath that sounds like violence restrained by professionalism.
Somewhere far away, a rebel girl hides behind a crate of stolen ammunition, laughing like she just found the world’s most dangerous toy.
And on a blood-streaked rooftop, Rob Lucci feeds his pigeon, sharpening his blade to the rhythm of your humor in his head, utterly unaware that his “test” is in fact his soulmate. And he refuses to wonder why he is getting attached to a merciless program with little value and even worse timing.
“Hattori disapproves.”
“Okay, who is Hattori?”
“My pigeon.”
“Your…pigeon has opinions?”
“He believes you are not a valid program.” he adds flatly.
You spend the next two weeks loudly narrating his secret agent life just to annoy him and the bird.
“Hattori thinks your color coordination is tragic.”
Age 14:
Fourteen was the minimum age for a revolutionary to join. You had heard stories of kids younger than you who talked their way in, clever little legends who forged enlistment papers or lied about their birthdays. You did not bother lying. You simply waited, hovered, and refused to leave until someone gave up.
Your birthday was a day of great annoyance for the local liaison, a man who had been trying to get rid of you for years. He once called you “a cockroach with opinions.” You took it as a badge of honor.
He found you that morning sitting on a stack of supply crates, paperwork already filled out, your name signed in confident ink, and a triumphant look on your face. You had even brought your own pen.
“You’re not on the roster,” he said, rubbing his temples.
“I’m self-rostered,” you replied.
“You’re not trained.”
“I trained myself. You left your manuals out.”
“You’re a child.”
“I’m a revolutionary.”
By noon, he gave up. Officially, you were registered as a courier. Unofficially, everyone knew you were much more than that. You rerouted supply lists when no one was looking, corrected coded transmissions, and once or twice slipped edits into the commander’s reports. If something needed a little chaos, you were the go-to.
No one had the patience or authority to get rid of you anymore.
You celebrated your official status by stealing the liaison’s coffee mug and painting PROPERTY OF THE CAUSE on the side in red. He found it funny for exactly two seconds before realizing you had glued it to his desk.
You were proud. You were official. You were, technically speaking, someone else’s responsibility now.
Even better, somewhere across the sea, Rob Lucci had just turned eighteen. The government had probably celebrated it with a new assignment, a clean report, and another notch on his kill record. You celebrated it with a new tradition of your own.
Technically, as his bonded “communication interface,” you were supposed to assist with interpersonal training. In practice, that meant testing his composure whenever you felt like it. You treated it as a noble duty.
While he stalked targets through alleys, you’d drop thoughts into his mind that made him twitch. Sometimes it was a running commentary on his form. Sometimes it was a vivid image that no government handbook had ever approved.
“Attention, Agent,” you would say sweetly. “Initiating Interpersonal Distraction Protocol.”
The silence that followed was always exquisite. Then came the mental equivalent of a glare.
“Cease interference. Mission in progress.”
“Field test. Emotional stability assessment.”
“You are not authorized to assess anything.”
“Correction. I am the emotional calibration module. This is science.”
He ignored you most of the time. You could feel the way he shoved your presence into a locked box in his mind, sealed it under concrete discipline, and kept working. But every so often, when he slipped, when the focus cracked for half a heartbeat, you could feel it. The pulse of irritation. The heat of attention. The faintest flare of awareness that you existed.
“Did you stab a guy with a spoon?”
“Acceptable.”
“It was an accident, wasn’t it? FAIL.”
“Less acceptable.”
Age 15:
Despite the revolutionaries’ wariness, you turned out to be an exceptional courier.
You could move through border towns and checkpoints without drawing notice, talk your way past guards, and disappear before anyone remembered what your face looked like. You learned the art of blending in. You were small, fast, and clever enough to hide in plain sight.
They gave you short routes at first; letters between camps, coded messages folded into ration bags, supply tags smuggled through merchant ships. You delivered every one without fail. When storms came, you waited them out in the rafters of coastal inns, eating stolen bread and scribbling notes about wind direction and troop patrols. When patrols tightened, you built new paths through empty hills and abandoned farm roads, mapping them with symbols only you understood.
The older rebels began to trust you, even if they still called you “kid.” They sent you farther, into places where the wrong question could get you disappeared. You came back every time, covered in dirt and satisfaction.
You had no rank and no real pay, but you had respect—the kind that came quietly, handed over in nods and the occasional extra meal. You carried information like it was treasure, and in a war built on secrets, that made you valuable.
Some nights, when the campfire burned low, you caught yourself thinking of the man on the other end of your bond. The assassin who never seemed to sleep. The one whose thoughts flickered cold and precise in the back of your mind.
You were all business these days. The work had grown heavier, the routes longer, the missions sharper around the edges. You had less time to waste on games. Less time to poke at the telepathic killer who lived in the back of your mind like a bad radio signal.
And yet, you could never quite ignore him.
That arrogant brush of thought still lingered sometimes, drifting across your mind when you were tired or careless. It was never loud, never obvious. Just a quiet ripple of focus sliding over your thoughts, the way a predator’s shadow glides over water. You could feel him. Calm, precise, and infinitely patient, studying you like a puzzle he hadn’t decided how to take apart yet.
You didn’t speak first anymore. You didn’t have to. His awareness always came first: that faint, electric hum of attention that prickled down your spine when you were alone, the sense of being seen through fog.
Once, while crossing a checkpoint disguised as a merchant’s niece, you felt it again, his mind brushing against yours, silent and deliberate. The awareness slid over your thoughts like a knife testing for weak spots. You didn’t stop walking. You only smiled, subtle and sharp, and thought, “Still here, Agent?”
The silence that followed was long and measured, the kind that studies before it strikes. You could almost see the tilt of his head, the faint narrowing of his eyes.
“You are still functioning.”
“Disappointed?”
“Yes.”
You nearly laughed out loud, but your training kept your face neutral. A pair of guards waved you through, never realizing that the girl with the merchant’s papers was arguing with her own head.
Then he was gone again, dissolving into the static hum of his own discipline. More and more, he managed to hide from you. His mind, once sharp and easy to trace, had become layered. Trained to deflect, compartmentalize, and vanish behind thought-walls you could barely sense. It was infuriating. And, if you were being honest, impressive.
You had always been excellent at prying. You could slip through coded transmissions, overhear strategies meant for commanders, and dig into people’s minds like a thief through a lock. But Rob Lucci was learning to bar the door.
Still, you caught glimpses sometimes. A flicker of intent before a mission. A tactical outline formed and then buried. And on rare occasions, something useful; intel sharp enough to tip off a revolutionary cell before they walked into a trap. You never told anyone where your information came from. You just sent a message, changed a route, and kept a dozen people alive.
You exhaled slowly, steady and amused, as you passed through the checkpoint and into the narrow streets beyond.
You had letters to deliver. Passwords to memorize. Lives to save.
And somewhere in the distance, a government assassin who still, inexplicably, checked if you were “functioning.”
“Your voice sounds different this week.”
“Program Updating.”
“You’re reckless.”
“You’re judgy for a murderer.”
Age 16 - 18:
You have been living with this soulmate brain static for nearly seven years. By now, you have developed a strong, educated opinion: “Whoever this man is, he probably belongs in prison.”
He is unhinged. He catalogs people like inventory. He thinks in bloodstained spreadsheets. He narrates murders like they are Monday errands. He times his breathing between kills the way other people time their coffee breaks.
And when he is not thinking about efficient assassination techniques, he asks questions that sound like they belong in a clinical notebook.
“Do emotions cause tactical disadvantage?”
“Should I develop a secondary knife system?”
“What’s the purpose of jokes?”
You once heard him idly consider whether it is possible to deconstruct someone with his bare hands. You were applying lip balm at the time. You paused, the stick halfway to your lips, and said aloud to the empty air, not even bothering to hide your disgust, “Okay. Jail. Immediately. Maximum security. Possibly with a muzzle.”
You are not joking. You are not even being dramatic. That is a practical plan. You make lists like that now. Containment, observation, and rehabilitation if feasible. You have contingency maps folded into your journal for things you have not yet dared to try.
Despite everything, the static is familiar. It is a wire that hums in the back of your skull when you sleep. It is a score you know the timing of, like a song you cannot stop humming. It makes you twitch. It makes you laugh. It makes your hands go steady when you need them most.
He is dangerous. He is precise. He is everything the World Government wants and everything you want to break.
You have become a professional problem in return.
By sixteen, you are a master of false names and location scrubbing. You have at least four legal identities, six unofficial ones, and a face that changes just enough with each haircut to confuse bounty officers. Your handwriting shifts by habit now, and even your accent bends under pressure. You move like rumor and smoke, never linger, never repeat.
You have learned to build false trails the same way you used to build daydreams. A message left in one port will lead to an empty inn in another, and by the time anyone pieces it together, you will already be gone, eating stolen fruit under a different flag.
You have also learned how to control your mind the way he controls his body. You think shallowly on purpose, a steady stream of static, jokes, and irrelevant commentary to keep him from tracing anything useful. Your mental landscape is a carnival of noise. Song lyrics, bad puns, and fake emotional cues, so that anything real drowns before it reaches him.
Sometimes, when he’s quiet too long, you prod him just to see if he’s still there.
“Status check, Agent. How’s the bloodlust?”
“Stable.”
“Therapy works wonders, I hear.”
“Eliminate unnecessary thought.”
“Denied.”
You are not sure how much he actually believes in “The System,” whatever version of the government has brainwashed him into. But you know how to use his belief like a lever. If he still thinks you are a training protocol, you feed the role. You give him fake directives, false affirmations, and little bureaucratic lies that sound official enough to bypass suspicion.
Sometimes you make him question orders. Sometimes you nudge him to delay an execution. Sometimes you just interrupt his perfect silence because it’s funny.
Every small rebellion is a victory.
You are the ghost in his machine, the glitch in his precision, the proof that even the government’s most efficient weapon cannot completely lock out the human noise in his head.
And right around your eighteenth birthday, you make a very, very silly mistake.
It happens on a sunny afternoon in a crowded port city. You have just finished delivering a packet of coded letters to a courier ship when you decide to stop for a drink. The market hums with life: salt, sweat, music, and shouting, and you feel, for once, almost normal. You lean on a railing overlooking the harbor, take a sip, and then you see him.
Not Rob Lucci. Just a man. A very handsome one. Broad shoulders, warm eyes, a smile that feels like summer. He rolls his sleeves up and laughs at something, and the thought hits you before you can stop it.
It’s not even a complete sentence. Just a pulse of heat, a flicker of appreciation that races through you, lazy, human, and completely unfiltered.
And across the sea, Rob Lucci freezes.
He is in a briefing room, pen in hand, his focus razor-sharp until suddenly it isn’t. For a second, something foreign bleeds into his mind. Warmth. Attraction. A flush of curiosity that isn’t his own. It lingers, soft and human, like sunlight bleeding into frost.
His fingers tighten on the pen. The sound of it snapping echoes in the room.
“What is this?” he thinks, sharply, scanning for intrusion. “This is not tactical input.”
You feel the connection flare and realize, with slow horror, that Rob Lucci felt it too. You can sense his confusion, his alarm, the faint edge of disgust. You slap a hand over your mouth, as if that will help.
“Nothing. Static. Ignore it.”
The silence that follows is glacial. Then, very quietly: “This feeling is not mine.”
“Forget it.”
You can almost hear him breathe through his nose, deliberate and controlled. For the first time, his composure falters.
“It was… warm.”
“Stop talking immediately. Subject focus on mission—”
“Not unpleasant. Unexpected.”
“Stop. Right now.”
He pauses again, collecting himself, and when he speaks next, his tone has shifted. It was calmer, steadier, but edged with something you’ve never heard from him before.
“You are capable of this?”
“Of being attracted to someone who isn’t a government weapon? No, I’m a machine, you are hallucinating.”
“...Understood.”
And then he withdraws, walls snapping back into place so fast the bond hums from the impact.
You stand in the harbor’s noise, mortified, your drink forgotten, heat creeping up your neck.
-X-Emotional Fallout-X-
In retrospect, that was the moment you should have vanished. Packed your things, burned every code name, and disappeared into the wind. You should have let him believe he had passed whatever imaginary test you represented, given him his metaphorical gold star, and left him alone with his murder spreadsheets.
But you didn’t.
In your arrogance, in your smug belief that you were untouchable, you decided to keep playing. You told yourself it was curiosity, maybe pity, maybe strategy. The truth was more straightforward. You wanted to see what would happen if the unfeeling government weapon actually felt something.
And you had just broken cover.
Because somewhere far away, Rob Lucci sits in the sterile quiet of a Cipher Pol office, staring at the snapped halves of his pen. The ink pools across his report like spilled blood. For one brief moment, he had felt something that wasn’t his: warmth, attraction, the quick pulse of human desire.
And against all logic, he misses it when it’s gone.
The absence sits heavy in his chest, unclassified and unwanted. He tries to file it as interference. He tries to analyze it, to quantify it. But the numbers do not fit.
So he begins to ask questions.
Not to you—the “sentient protocol” still whispering jokes into his head—but to his superiors.
“When was the last software update for the telepathic training module?”
“Has the emotional calibration experiment been approved by the Elders?”
“Can an internal communication system develop autonomy?”
His tone is clinical, detached, every word wrapped in the calm professionalism of a Cipher Pol report. But the reaction it gets is immediate and deeply concerned.
First comes confusion.
Then comes alarm.
His direct supervisor blinks, shifts uneasily, and tries to laugh it off. “Telepathic training module? Rob, what are you talking about? We don’t do that here.”
When Rob insists, calmly and precisely, the laughter dies.
By the end of the week, three officers have filed mental health evaluations “just to be safe.” A medical team is quietly dispatched to assess possible exposure to experimental toxins. He is given blood tests, sleep deprivation tests, and a full psychic interference screening.
The results are all normal. Rob is not.
He is cooperative but unsettling, answering every question with measured precision and that cold, quiet voice that makes the doctors exchange nervous glances.
“Do you hear this voice now?”
“Yes.”
“And what is it saying?”
“Nothing useful.”
The whispers start before the tests end. Agents in the hallways glance his way and murmur. Hearing voices, they say. Losing his edge. Maybe too young for this division after all.
A week later, an internal investigation begins. He is temporarily pulled from field work. Surveillance officers shadow him around headquarters, noting every pause, every mutter, every moment he seems to “listen” to something no one else can hear.
He tolerates it in silence, the picture of composure, but the tension in his shoulders never fades.
Then, during yet another late-night evaluation, an older officer. A gray-haired woman, unimpressed, the kind who has seen too many Cipher Pol agents lose their sanity, sighs and flips through his file.
“All right, enough,” she says, snapping the folder shut. “You’re not hallucinating. You’re not infected. You’re probably not compromised.”
Rob looks at her, still and expressionless. “Then what am I?”
She squints at him like he’s being deliberately obtuse. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s probably one of those soulmate situations.”
He blinks once. “A what?”
She waves a hand like she’s swatting a mosquito. “You know. The weird telepathic bond thing. Happens once in a generation, give or take. Annoying as hell, but not a security threat. Congratulations or condolences, depending on how you look at it.”
There’s a long silence.
Rob just stares at her, the faintest crack in his composure. “You’re suggesting I am psychically linked to another person.”
“Yes,” she says dryly. “Welcome to the rest of your life. I’d give you some seastone, but we’re fresh out.”
The room stays quiet for a long moment. The fluorescent light hums. The sound of her pen scratching on the report feels like a countdown.
Rob Lucci sits perfectly still. His face is unreadable, but the air around him feels tight, stretched thin.
He nods once. “Understood.”
“Good,” she says, already moving on. “Now get out of my office before I start feeling sorry for you.”
He leaves without a word.
Out in the hall, the other agents pretend not to stare. No one quite knows how to treat the Cipher Pol prodigy who, apparently, hears voices. His record is spotless. His efficiency is unmatched. But now there’s that single line in his file: possible soulmate interference.
No one laughs in his face.
He returns to his quarters, sits down at his desk, and looks at the blank wall in front of him. He doesn’t move for several minutes.
This is the moment he realizes he’s been swindled.
For years, he has treated the voice in his head as a system: an experiment, a protocol, an assigned tool of the World Government. He has obeyed its directives, catalogued its interference, tolerated its nonsense. He has let it talk to him, mock him, distract him.
And now he knows it isn’t a system. It isn’t a test. It’s a person.
A real person.
Somewhere out there, someone has been inside his head for years, listening, commenting, joking, interrupting his thoughts during missions, flashing ridiculous mental images during briefings, and generally humiliating the government’s most efficient weapon.
Rob Lucci’s jaw tightens. His heartbeat stays steady, but his hand clenches around his pen until the plastic cracks.
For the first time in his life, he feels something close to hurt, but that isn’t directed at an unknown target. It’s personal. It’s sharp. It’s cold.
He takes a breath, slow and deliberate, and the thought forms with absolute clarity.
“You’ve been playing games.”
He doesn’t know where you are. He doesn’t even know your name. But the wire between your minds hums faintly, and on the other end of it, you feel a pressure shift, a static pulse that makes you look up from your work without knowing why.
He stands, expression calm, every motion precise.
“And when I find you,” he says, finally aware you can feel it if not hear him, “I’m going to end the game.”
Of course, you won’t know any of these details for years.
For now, you’re somewhere across the sea, laughing at a joke you’ve just made to a fellow courier, utterly unaware that your government assassin soulmate has just discovered your existence and taken it very, very personally.
-X-The Slip Up-X-
You are halfway through one of the most critical stakeouts of your burgeoning career.
The mission is delicate, an arms exchange between a corrupt noble and a local marine officer. You have been perched on a rooftop for hours, watching, memorizing, waiting for the right moment to send word. Every movement and every breath has been planned down to the smallest detail.
The night air is still. The world feels steady. And then, without warning, the bond shifts.
It starts as a pulse. Faint, deliberate, and too close. You stiffen, one hand hovering over your Den Den recorder. It is not random static. It is intent.
Then his voice comes through the quiet. Calm. Controlled. Almost casual.
“Testing system connection. Acknowledgment requested.”
You stiffen, your fingers hovering over your Den Den recorder. You haven’t heard him speak directly to you in weeks. He usually stays locked behind walls of silence, all cold calculation and discipline. But now he’s reaching out, and it isn’t routine.
You grit your teeth. “Busy. Not now.”
“Unresponsive. Confirm operational status.”
Your pulse spikes. “System down. Not currently available to run systems.”
“Response latency higher than standard,” he says, as if dictating a report. “Response latency elevated. Emotional stability questionable. I will proceed with my assessment of system integrity.”
He pauses for a moment, and it feels like a trap being set.
“Acknowledged. Initiating auditory stimulus.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“Query: What is the purpose of excitement?”
You almost laugh from disbelief, but the sound dies when you realize your target has moved. You blink, and in that single second of distraction, the noble’s guard glances toward your rooftop. Your breath catches just as your target moves. You blink, distracted, and the man below glances up, sensing something. You duck too late. He hesitates, scanning the roof.
You duck into the shadows, heart hammering, biting back a curse. “You almost blew my cover, you absolute menace.”
There is a thoughtful silence, followed by his calm voice. “The system expresses agitation in direct correlation to stress. Noted.”
You glare at the night sky. “Of course I’m agitated, you smug machine. I’m not—”
You stop yourself. The bond goes quiet. You can feel him listening now, not with the cold distance of before, but with precision, closing in like a blade narrowing toward its mark.
“Continue,” he says softly.
“No.”
“Do it, coward. Or are you feeling a little shy these days?”
You bite your lip, refusing to move. The silence grows dense enough to choke on.
Then something shifts again, subtle but sharp, the edge of his thoughts wrapping around yours, not forceful, but sure. It’s like being caged without a touch. He doesn’t shout, doesn’t threaten, just waits. You can feel how certain he is that you will crack first.
“You hesitate,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “You evade. You improvise.”
He is building a case, brick by brick. Shit.
“You respond to tone. You use humor. You make errors.”
You can hear your heartbeat in your ears. It is too loud, too human, pulsing against the inside of your skull like a signal you cannot mute. He’s not guessing anymore. He’s confirming.
“You little liar,” he says at last, the words quiet enough to make your skin crawl. There is something almost gentle in his tone, the kind of softness that only exists to make the knife sink in deeper. “You’re not a system at all, are you. Your attention to detail would be respected, if it weren’t so disruptive.”
It’s not a question, but a statement. The air in your lungs turns solid. You don’t breathe. You don’t move. You focus on keeping your mind as still as possible, flattening every thought, smothering the panic that threatens to leak through the bond.
For a long moment, he says nothing. The silence hums like tension wire. You can feel him thinking, circling, measuring the space between you. When he speaks again, it is so calm that the sound makes your stomach twist.
“Ah.”
A single syllable, quiet, deliberate, dangerous.
“Did a funny little creature have a moment of panic?” His voice drips amusement, low and steady, a predator toying with prey that just realized it was cornered. “You should be panicking.”
The words slide through your mind like cold steel. You can feel the weight of his focus now, precise, clinical, inescapable. Like a large jungle cat circling in the trees above your head, he’s systematically using that fearsome insight of his to see just what you are. He’s peeling away your defenses, thought by thought, testing how much fear it takes to make you break.
You try to think of nothing, but the nothing quivers. The stillness betrays you. Your mind, so prone to chaos, betrays itself further: flooding with noise, half-formed thoughts, memories, sarcasm, fragments of half-finished songs. You try to drown him in them, to clutter your head until he loses the thread.
He doesn’t.
He moves through the storm of your thoughts with terrifying grace, picking through each one as if they were cards laid out for his inspection. You can feel him sifting through the mess, slow and deliberate, the weight of his focus cold and invasive.
“Goodness,” he says finally, voice smooth and almost pitying, “such a young woman for such big lies. Only eighteen?”
The words are so close, so intimate, that you flinch. Your grip slips, your concentration shatters.
“Tell me, little weasel,” he murmurs, voice coiling like smoke, “by what audacity did you think to trick me? Did you really think you could stay on top forever?”
A sharp pulse of anger rises in you, fierce and instinctive. You seize it, hurl it toward him like a spark.
He laughs. Not loudly, not cruelly, just a soft, knowing chuckle that makes your skin crawl.
“I think, Rob Lucci,” you manage, forcing your thoughts to steady, “you’re forgetting that I did manage to trick you for several years. So trying to even the playing field right now is a pretty sorry tactic.”
His amusement deepens.
“Even the playing field?” he repeats, the words dripping with derision. You can almost see the faint tilt of his head, the slight curl of a smirk. “Hardly. You were never on my level, and you never will be.”
His tone sharpens, each word sinking in with surgical precision. “A temporary lapse of judgment gave you a fantasy of control. Consider this your correction.”
You try to push him out, but his presence presses closer, his voice low enough to feel rather than hear.
“From now on, I will be watching you very carefully. Do not make another mistake.” He lets the following words fall like a knife. “I promise to make them cost dearly.”
And then: “Alley behind the Blue Lantern tavern. Third crate from the left. Shadow on the wall. Roof tile loose above the eastern drain.”
Your blood runs cold.
It’s your exact location.
You do not think. You move. You grab your bag, shove papers into the brazier, and light them with a match. The flame catches, the codes curl and blacken, and you drop the half-burned pages into the gutter. You stuff the rest of the satchel under a loose board, clip the Den Den recorder to your belt, and slide into the narrow passage like water finding a crack in stone. The city smells of smoke and frying fish and someone else’s victory. Your hands shake, but your feet do not.
The bond hums behind your teeth, quiet and satisfied.
Then his voice, close in your head and colder than the night air. “Confirmed. You are at the Blue Lantern alley. You are moving east along service access. You are carrying a Den Den recorder and two forged manifests.”
“You are not allowed to know that,” you think, breathless. “You heard me. You do not get to—”
“You should not have behaved like a child,” he replies, each word measured and slow. “You should not have let your feelings expose you. How shameful, for someone who lectured me so fervently, to make those same mistakes.”
You press yourself flat against moss-slick stone, heart a drumbeat in your throat. “I did not expose anything. Fuck off, Government dog.”
“You’re sloppy,” he says. “You allowed a real stimulus to break your protocol. That was your mistake.”
“So what now? You going to turn me in? Call the Marines on me? Make a report?” you spit, trying to sound braver than you feel.
“I will do what is necessary,” he answers, voice narrowed into the clinical calm you have learned to dread. “You have cost me my peace and misled me. That lowers my threshold for tolerance.”
“Cost you your peace?” You feel for the transmitter in your cuff and jam a thumb over the switch to abort the relay. “I did not cost anything. You are literally a man-shaped machine without feelings.”
“Is that so?” he says. “Nevertheless, you are compromised. Withdraw and do not contact Cell Seven for twenty-four hours. Burn the second packet and leave the city by the river route. Dispose of your merchant papers. If you are intercepted, deny everything until extraction.”
You stare at the crumbling embers where the manifest burned. “How do you know so much?”
“Because I’ve been observing you now for several days,” he replies. “And while your mind is slippery, you forgot one thing—I am Rob Lucci, the top agent of Cipher Pol, and you have more than crossed a line. You may as well be jump-roping with it.”
Panic tastes like metal in your mouth. You force the fingers of one hand to steady as you follow his instructions, because the alternative is being cornered, and the alternative is not something you want to think about. You drop into the alleyway gutter and crawl, the scrape of your sleeve sounding like a trumpet in your ears. You can almost hear the noble’s guard below, the clink of coin, the rustle of cloth. You swallow bile and obey.
“You are satisfied?” you ask, every nerve on fire. “You got what you wanted.”
“Not satisfied,” he corrects. “Satisfied suggests an endpoint. Consider this an escalation.”
Your jaw tightens. “Escalation, how?”
“I will be watching you closely,” he says. “I will map your movements. I will identify your safe houses. I will trace your supply lines. Do not make another mistake.”
You laugh, a sound that is mostly tears. “You expect me to… just let you do that?”
“I expect you to adapt,” he replies. “I expect you to survive. I will not be benevolent. I will be precise.”
You shove your scarf over your face and move, feet finding alley routes by memory. You find the brazier where the rest of the papers smolder, and you stomp them into ash. The recorder on your belt clicks like a small, disgruntled creature. You pull it off and press the erase button until your thumb aches.
“You are bluffing,” you think finally, the words trembling in the back of your mind, more snarl than threat. “You won’t scare me.”
“I do not wish to merely scare you,” he answers, low and calm, his voice a steady current sliding into your skull. “Think of this as retribution.”
His tone sharpens, the edges gleaming with quiet pleasure. “This is a game now, little rebel. The last one you will ever play. I am it. You run.”
The air in your chest locks. The bond hums with power, an almost physical pressure that makes your throat ache.
“Try me.”
“You are just a scared little criminal,” he continues softly, “the one who hides behind lies and thinks herself clever. I want you to understand what it means to be hunted. You have lived inside my head for years, and now I will live inside yours.”
The words strike deeper than any knife. You can feel the satisfaction radiating from him, the slow coil of something predatory.
You do not reply. You can’t.
You move into the night, every step guided by instinct. The city folds around you like an old wound. You know where to go, where not to look, which corners are safe. You swap cloaks, sell your merchant papers for coin, and release pigeons to carry false trails. Each act is sharp and efficient, born of necessity, but the fear crawling under your skin makes your movements too fast, too loud.
You burn the last of your mission papers in a brazier and crush the ash under your heel. The mission is gone, compromised, erased. The men in the courtyard will finish their deal with the wrong documents, and you will vanish into the crowd like smoke.
But the bond does not let you go. It vibrates faintly, filled with a cruel satisfaction that twists your stomach.
“Shall we narrow down what you are now? You’re smart, aware, and knowledgeable of the government systems. So you’re either a Marine or you’re a revolutionary. And no self-respecting Marine would’ve harassed me this long. So that leaves the rats—A revolutionary.”
You hiss, and he laughs.
“Perfect.”
Far away, Rob Lucci sits in a silent room lit by a single lamp. His shadow stretches long across the wall, unmoving. He finishes writing his report, the letters small and immaculate. Then he places the pen down beside the file, aligning it with the edge of the paper. His movements are deliberate, ritualistic, designed to keep his rage sharp and his focus sharper.
The report contains only one new note: Subject confirmed. Location verified. Reaction observed. Ongoing surveillance required.
He leans back, expression unreadable, eyes reflecting the thin light of the lamp.
“Run,” he says quietly into the stillness. “Run if you like, revolutionary girl. I want to see how far you think you can get.”
He lets the words linger. The bond hums, alive, echoing through your skull like the slow toll of a bell.
“I will find you,” he continues. “I will learn every sound your breath makes when you are afraid. Every lie you tell to survive. I will take back every second you stole from me.”
You slip into the alleys, your heart pounding too fast to hide. The streets feel smaller than they ever have.
The connection fades, but the echo of his voice remains, patient and absolute.
And far away, Rob Lucci sits in the dark, smiling faintly, satisfied not by victory but by control.
The bond cuts out completely, leaving you in the cold with only your heartbeat and the knowledge that you are no longer unseen.
He is coming.
-X-Branching Out?-X-
Humiliating does not begin to cover it.
By the time you reach the next safehouse, the adrenaline has burned out, leaving only the raw ache of humiliation under your ribs. You sit there in the dark, filthy, exhausted, and more shaken than you will ever admit. The Den Den Mushi stares back at you from the desk, its eyes half-lidded, waiting. You know what you have to do.
It takes three tries before you can steady your hand enough to dial.
The line crackles, and then the air seems to hold its breath as a deep, even voice answers.
“Report.”
You swallow. “Commander Dragon, sir. This is Courier Six.”
There is a long pause. “Courier Six,” he repeats slowly. “You were stationed in the East Blue sector. Why am I hearing from you off schedule?”
You squeeze your eyes shut, feeling the weight of every word before you speak it. “I have been compromised, sir.”
The silence on the other end grows colder. “Explain.”
Your throat burns. “I… I can no longer serve as a revolutionary. Not safely.”
“Why?” The question is simple, but it lands like a blade.
You have survived interrogations, infiltration, and starvation. But this—this is worse. This is a disgrace. “Because,” you say finally, “I have a soulmate.”
There is a beat of stillness. Then, Dragon’s voice, low and calm. “That is not a crime.”
You laugh once, humorless. “It is when the soulmate is Rob Lucci.”
The line goes dead quiet. Even the Den Den seems to hesitate, eyes widening slightly.
When Dragon speaks again, it is slow, careful, as though he is measuring the gravity of each word. “Cipher Pol’s prodigy?”
“Yes, sir.”
Another pause. Then, surprisingly, a sigh. “You are certain?”
“Yes.”
“Then you cannot remain in active operation.”
The words land like a final order. You already knew it, but hearing it spoken aloud feels like the ground giving way beneath you.
He continues, firm but not unkind. “You will find a seastone object. A ring, a charm, something small. Keep it on your person at all times. It may dampen the connection enough to keep you hidden.”
You nod, even though he cannot see it. “Understood.”
“You will also avoid contact with field units until further notice,” Dragon adds. “Your presence endangers others. If he can track you through the link, he can track us.”
“I know,” you whisper. “I’m sorry.”
There is a rustle of paper, the sound of someone considering possibilities and finding none that end well.
“Do not apologize,” Dragon says at last. “Survive. Return when you can. Until then, you are on indefinite leave. I’ll have someone send you the file we have on Lucci, to ensure you have the best chance possible to avoid him.”
“Yes, thank you, Commander.”
The line clicks. The Den Den Mushi closes its eyes.
Well, fuck.
The silence that follows feels like it swallows the whole room. You stare at the little snail, its shell still faintly warm from the call, and feel the weight of what you have just done settle deep in your chest. It was the right thing to do. You know that. But knowing something is right has never made it hurt less.
You have spent almost half your life in the Revolution’s shadow, running messages, decoding transmissions, slipping through checkpoints, surviving on grit and luck. You had built yourself out of rebellion and adrenaline, and now it is gone with one conversation.
You lean back in the chair and cover your face with your hands. The quiet feels wrong. The air itself seems too still, too unoccupied.
After Ivankov’s capture, things had already been difficult. The camps had grown tense, the people weary, the resources stretched thin. But you had stayed. You had mattered. With your strange connection to Cipher Pol, you had been able to turn a curse into a weapon.
You had heard plans through the mind of a monster and turned them into warnings. You had redirected raids, saved lives, and given your people time they would not have had otherwise. You had been useful. Important.
Now that door is closed.
You can feel it already. Rob Lucci’s presence, once faint but constant, is sealed behind something solid. The line that once hummed between you is muffled now, faint as a heartbeat behind a wall. Whatever minor, accidental vulnerability had existed between you has been buried under control and spite.
You sigh and push yourself to your feet. The safehouse seems smaller than it did that morning. The lanternlight flickers weakly over your bag and the few things you still own.
You pick up the seastone clasp from the table and turn it over in your hands. The metal is cold, dull, harmless. For now, it will have to be enough.
You step outside into the night air. The wind coming off the sea smells of salt and smoke, sharp enough to sting your eyes. You will have to move again soon, to stay ahead of the government, the Revolution, and the assassin who now knows you exist. You will have to island-hop until you find something stronger, maybe a seastone ring or chain that can quiet the bond entirely. That will be a pain in the ass. Everyone knows seastone is rare, locked away in Navy vaults or forged into shackles meant to hold monsters.
You adjust your pack and look out toward the horizon. Somewhere beyond the black water waits another island, another name, another beginning.
You square your shoulders, take one last look at the dark shape of the safehouse behind you, and whisper into the empty air, “Fine. I’ll run. But not forever.”
Then you walk toward the docks. Behind you lies the Revolution, and somewhere far beyond that, the faint, fading echo of Rob Lucci’s awareness hums at the edge of your thoughts, soft as a warning.
And so you run. You do it well. You learn to sleep lightly and pack fast. You hide in fishing towns, in crowded ports, in mountain villages where no one asks questions. You trade news for food, steal newspapers for information, and keep your mind braced against him at all times.
Still, the connection never disappears completely. Some days, when you are tired or careless, you feel the faint drag of his attention. A flicker of curiosity. A passing thought. You respond the only way you know how—“Fuck you.”
Sometimes, if you are very unlucky, you can almost hear the faintest trace of amusement ripple through the silence that follows.
So you keep moving, cursing him, mocking him, pretending you are not waiting for the day he stops being quiet.
You move like smoke between islands, slipping through ports and fishing towns, always with one ear open for danger and the other pretending not to listen for him. The quiet stretches for weeks at a time, and you almost start to believe it will last. Almost.
Then, just when the silence has settled deep enough to feel safe, you make it to another port—and get a surprise.
It is Sabo.
You know him well. You had trained together for a short time before everything went to hell. He is younger than you by a few years but already sharp, confident, and infuriatingly good at everything he touches. You have seen him talk a man out of treason and pick a lock in the same breath.
He finds you at a small café by the docks, his hat tilted low, a folder tucked under his arm. “I thought you’d be halfway across the Calm Belt by now,” he says, his grin as easy as ever.
You raise a brow. “And I thought you’d be old enough to drink by now. Guess we’re both disappointing today.”
He gives you an apologetic look. “We still don’t have seastone, by the way. Not even a sliver. You’re on your own there.”
You snort. “What else is new?”
He chuckles. “You know, you could come back when this blows over. Baltigo could use you. I could use you.”
You grin despite yourself. “You mean you miss the chaos.”
Sabo’s eyes glint. “Maybe a little.”
You banter for a while, the easy kind that feels like home. He teases you about your sarcasm; you accuse him of being Dragon’s favorite. For a few minutes, it almost feels normal.
Then, like a knife sliding through velvet, the bond stirs.
“How charming,” Rob Lucci’s voice cuts through your thoughts, smooth and quiet, the words dripping with irritation. “You make time for chatter while you hide. How social of you.”
Your smile chills. “Wow, get lost.”
“That boy,” he says, and there is something sharp under the calm, a faint edge of disdain. “He is very comfortable with you.”
You roll your eyes, shifting in your seat. “He’s a friend, asshat. You wouldn’t know what that is.”
“A friend,” he repeats, as though tasting the word. “You are too familiar with him. Too quick to laugh.”
“Are you jealous?” you think dryly.
The silence that follows feels taut, stretched thin between you. Then, his voice was colder now. “Do not flatter yourself. I am simply aware of how easily you trust, and how easily that can be used.”
For a moment, you swear you feel his irritation flare—a faint pulse of heat, quickly strangled by restraint.
“Continue to indulge yourself if you wish,” he says finally. “But remember that I have no patience for games that are not mine.”
The bond flickers and goes still.
Sabo notices immediately. His brow furrows, and his voice softens. “You okay?”
You blink and force a smile. “Fine. Just a headache.”
He doesn’t look convinced. He leans back in his chair and studies you, the way only someone who’s seen too much for his age can. After a moment, he picks up the edge of the file he gave you and flips it open again. His eyes skim the pages, thoughtful.
“You know,” he says slowly, “there’s been talk lately. Something about Cipher Pol Nine.”
You tilt your head. “What kind of talk?”
He lowers his voice. “Rumor is they’ve got Devil Fruits now. Real ones. Animal types. Dragon doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. Said their agents are changing—faster, stronger, less human.” He looks up, gaze steady. “If that’s true, and if your Lucci is still one of them… you need to be careful.”
Your stomach tightens. “He’s not my anything,” you mutter, a little too quickly.
Sabo gives you a small, sympathetic smile. “Still. I’d keep moving. Whatever that bond is, you can bet he’ll find a way to use it.”
You nod, pretending to be calm. “I’m already two steps ahead.”
“Good,” he says, standing and adjusting his gloves. “Because if what I’ve heard is right, you don’t want to see him up close. Not now.”
He hesitates, then adds more quietly, “If he does find you… Don’t fight him directly. Find something to slow him down. Distance might not save you, but it’s better than being cornered.”
You nod again, slower this time. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Sabo studies you for a beat longer, then sighs. “You’ll be fine. You always are.” He forces a grin, trying to lighten the mood. “Just don’t do anything stupid before I see you again, alright?”
You smile faintly. “No promises.”
He laughs, gives you a quick salute, and turns toward the docks. The crowd swallows him almost instantly, his blond hair vanishing among the sailors and smoke.
You stay where you are, staring after him until the sound of the port dulls to a hum. The wind shifts, carrying the scent of salt and iron.
Somewhere beyond the horizon, you can feel the faint, simmering irritation of Rob Lucci, buried but not gone. It thrums faintly at the edge of your awareness, sharper now, almost predatory. You wonder if he somehow heard that conversation. You hope he didn’t.
You sigh, sling your bag over your shoulder, and mutter, “Unbelievable.”
Then you buy a ticket for the next boat out, your hand trembling slightly as you pass the coins over. The clerk barely looks up, stamping your receipt before sliding it back across the counter. Outside, the ship’s horn sounds, deep and lonely, echoing across the harbor.
And because you are a menace with class and the right amount of paranoia, you upgrade your bunk to a single room. The clerk raises an eyebrow at the price difference, but you hand over the extra bills without flinching. Privacy is worth it.
You tell yourself it’s because you need the quiet. In truth, you just don’t want to risk anyone seeing what you’re carrying or overhearing you if you slip and start talking to the voice in your head.
Your cabin is small but clean. The mattress is narrow, the porthole fogged with sea air, but it locks from the inside, and that’s good enough. You drop your bag on the cot and take inventory: forged papers, dried rations, the seastone clasp, and the folder Sabo gave you.
You tell yourself not to open the folder.
You sit down, light a small lamp, and open the file.
Rob Lucci.
It hits like a slap.
You’ve never seen his name written before. You’ve only ever felt it, echoed in precision and blood through the back of your mind.
The file includes:
Kill count: Redacted. Estimated triple digits by age fifteen.
Training records: Enrolled in assassination curriculum at age ten. Specializes in silent infiltration, interrogation resistance, and maximum psychological impact executions.
Known affiliations: CP9. Promoted to Team Lead. Black File status. Authorized to operate independently of global jurisdiction.
Personality analysis: “Unstable but controllable.” “Exhibits complete emotional flatline during high-stress operations.” “Bonded with a carrier pigeon. Do not separate.”
You read the entire thing. Twice.
You sit very still.
Then whisper aloud, “Holy shit.”
You had thought you were soulbonded to an unwell bureaucrat. Some desk cop with too much ego, too little empathy, and a bad habit of mentioning homicide before breakfast.
But now you know the truth.
You are bonded to the government’s most efficient, most terrifying assassin. A man who makes other Cipher Pol agents nervous. A man the World Government doesn’t fully control. A man who matches suits with his bird.
The voice in your head is not a joke. Not a mid-tier threat. Not a pretend monster.
He’s the real thing.
You think about every time he “warned the system.” Every time he went quiet when you teased him. Every time you joked that he should be locked up.
You glance down at the crisp, red-stamped pages. Your life, reduced to reports. Missions, aliases, routes, all listed in neat lines of black ink. At the very end, a single sheet labeled Top Asset.
You snort. “Top. Sure.”
Your eyes skim further until you find it—Cipher Pol Nine. The words blur, but you force yourself to read.
You whisper, “I have been mentally flashing a serial killer for years.”
Sabo had been right. The file lists “enhanced operatives” and “experimental combat capabilities.” The rest is vague, but one line stops you cold.
All CP9 agents are now equipped with Devil Fruits. Further awakenings possible. Lucci is rumored to possess the Cat-Cat Fruit: Model Leopard.
You lean back. The chair creaks. The paper trembles in your hands.
“Great,” you mutter. “As if he wasn’t terrifying enough. He’s a cat-boy.”
You flip to the attached photo and immediately regret it.
Tall. Sharp. Controlled. Terrifyingly attractive.
Your brain says, run. Your heart says, you like tall disaster men.
He’s hot.
It’s the final insult—the cherry on top of your psychic suffering sundae.
Rob Lucci is, unfortunately, catastrophically attractive.
You were prepared for a monster. A killer. A trench coat with a vendetta. You were not prepared for broad shoulders, cold gold eyes, a jawline that could qualify as a weapon, or the quiet, predatory calm of someone who knows exactly how dangerous he is—and enjoys it.
And somewhere, deep in the back of your mind, you feel it. The faint, smug hum of amusement.
His voice slides through the bond like silk and smoke. “See something you like?”
You nearly drop the file.
“Did you really not bother to find out what I look like?” His tone is smug, warm with mockery. “Not that it matters, but I’ve been told I’m quite handsome.”
Your temper flares. “No need to panic, Lucci. Your virginity’s safe with me. I know you’re probably a eunuch. All that efficiency? There’s no way you’ve ever had a single romantic thought.”
You gesture at the file. “You’re ninety percent tactical override and ten percent cat memes. No way—”
And then you feel it.
The psychic pause, sharp and deliberate, like a blade being drawn.
A vivid, unfiltered image floods your mind. Heat. Skin. Muscle. The kind of confidence that comes from knowing exactly what he’s doing. A voice that purrs, low and certain—“No, I’m not.”
You choke.
He sounds pleased. “I’ll take your apology now.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” you hiss, your entire soul vibrating with secondhand mortification.
You focus, summon every ounce of rage and spite you possess, and fire back the most violent mental image you can craft: golden scissors snipping dangerously close to something very important.
You smile sweetly in the vision and whisper, “Oops.”
You wait.
You wait for the outrage. The fury. The shriek of wounded ego.
Instead, you get a low, satisfied hum. “Kinky.”
You freeze. “What?”
He leans into your mind like a sin wearing a smirk. “If you wanted to roleplay interrogation, you only had to ask.”
You make a strangled sound that might be a scream.
You try to flood your mind with noise. You imagine throwing a thousand chairs through the bond, hurling his smug mental voice out of your head, but he’s still there, laughing quietly.
“You think about me a lot for someone so angry,” he murmurs. “Do the scissors again.”
“Absolutely not!” you yell aloud, earning a concerned look from the cabin wall.
You try meditation, deep breathing, sheer willpower—anything to shut him out—but his laughter follows, low and smooth, curling under your thoughts like smoke.
You grab a glass of water, splash it on your face, and glare at your reflection. “What the hell was that? Am I being mentally seduced by a government-licensed corpse puppet?”
Silence. Then, faint amusement.
You point at the ceiling. “You are blocked.”
“You don’t have the ability to do that anymore.”
You groan into your hands.
You close the file, press your palms to your eyes, and try to breathe. The ship rocks gently beneath you, and the low hum of the engine fills the silence.
You need a plan. A strong drink. A vow of celibacy. Possibly a cat-shaped tiara, just out of spite.
Because one thing is certain.
Rob Lucci is no longer the quiet monster in your head.
CARMEN GUADALUPE RAMÍREZ: newyorker at heart and cousin to bella swan. paul lahote's biggest headache and imprint. breakdancer. faceclaim — espressomarini
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synopsis: a baratheon wild at heart. a targaryen prince broken by love. when rumors of a betrothal spark jealousy, you set out to reclaim his heart—but in the process, discover that what you’re really chasing is more than desire. will you be able to win him back before it’s too late?
pairing: valarr targaryen / female reader, valarr targaryen / baratheon reader, daeron targaryen / kiera of tyrosh, baelor targaryen / jena dondarrion, maekar targaryen / niece-wife (inspired by this request by @lolavegas20)
tags: strangers to friends to one-sided enemies to lovers, toxic!reader (a bit? she’s self-aware tho!), miscommunication/misunderstanding, commitment issues, angst, he fell first, she fell harder, slow burn, reader gets a bit drunk one time, happy ending
word count: 25.8k+ (i am so so so sorry)
note: thank olivia rodrigo’s “get him back” and “when harry met sally” for inspiring this yummy idea for a fic 🤭 this is not beta-read so if there any mistakes i do apologize, english is not my first language 😭 it’s a bit long as i got carried away, i apologize… but pls do enjoy y’all! lemme know what u guys think (i will try to write for maekar x young niece-wife reader in the future, she is so fun!)
YOU HAD been born a Baratheon, and yet from the moment you could walk, it seemed the world never quite knew what to do with you.
Storm’s End was a fortress built to withstand gales and thunder, but even its thick stone walls felt indifferent to your presence. You were not the eldest child, the one groomed for legacy and expectation. That was something your older brother bore with stolid strength and determination, a man as severe as lords twice his age. You were not the youngest just as well, whose sweetness and promise drew the admiring gazes of lords seeking gentle wives and docile futures. That honor belonged to your lovely sister—mild-mannered, beautiful in a way that softened rooms, perfect in all the ways men liked their daughters and brides.
You were the middle one. The forgotten one, the one of little consequence.
Your parents loved you, of course. There was no denying such fact. However, love, when spread thin and distracted by duty, has a way of becoming distant.
They did not scold you harshly nor praise you lavishly. They did not correct you often because, in truth, there was little incentive to. You were never meant to inherit, never meant to be bargained for in marriage with the same urgency as your sister. And so, left largely to your own devices, you grew much like a vine untended. A wild little thing, curling wherever it pleased, stubbornly alive.
It was perhaps inevitable that you found your true upbringing not beneath your parents’ careful eyes, but in the booming laughter of your uncle.
Lyonel Baratheon—the Laughing Storm himself—was everything Storm’s End pretended not to be. Where the castle that was supposed to raise you had been stern, he was riotous. Where duty weighed heavy upon your house’s shoulders, he would dance. Where men spoke carefully of politics and restraint, your uncle laughed with a goblet in one hand and a sword in the other.
He was a storm given flesh. Someone charismatic, bombastic, fiercely honorable, and utterly unafraid of the world. A warrior who laughed as he crushed opponents, who roared louder when insulted, who loved with the same intensity he fought. The smallfolk adored him, the soldiers followed him without second thought, and even the court could not help but watch when he entered a room.
And you—initially unnoticed by most—were always there at his side.
You watched him dance when others stood stiff. You learned to speak boldly because he had never punished honesty. You learned to laugh loudly because he never was one to shush joy. You learned, through his indulgent guidance, that strength did not always have to be quiet, and that being feared was not half as powerful as being unforgettable.
By the time you were grown, the court had already decided what you were. The girl that was too loud. The girl who was a bit too unruly. The little doe who was just too… Baratheon.
You reveled, drank, danced, and spoke your mind with little care for propriety. You did as you wished, because no one had ever truly asked you to do otherwise. And when lords looked past you in favor of your sister, you learned not to mind. Attention, after all, had never been your currency.
That was why the banquet felt like nothing more than another night of music and wine to you—at least at first.
It had been thrown in honor of a visiting delegation and to celebrate a minor courtly occasion. It was the sort of thing that mattered greatly to those who lived by their titles and making a show of it, and very little to anyone with blood still warm in their veins.
Normally, your uncle would have been the soul of such an evening, his booming laughter and reckless charm ensuring no one dared to call the night dull. But Lyonel Baratheon had been delayed—some matter of arms or pride or both, knowing him—and you had been sent in his stead.
The hall had murmured with disappointment at first. The Laughing Storm absent? How dreadfully proper this night would be, then. You could not, in your good conscience, abide that.
You arrived late on purpose, skirts swirling, already smiling as though the night had whispered a secret meant only for you. Torches have lined the walls, casting gold and shadow across polished stone. Lords and ladies sat stiff-backed, speaking in low voices about alliances and obligations. Music played softly, restrained, polite. To you, it was a bit too much like music meant to be listened to, not felt.
You had already lived enough lifetimes in such short span of years to know how such evenings ended. It would be dreary and miserable, with weary courtesies, half-empty cups, and promises no one intended to keep.
So you acted to fix it. You were known for such things, after all.
By then, your name carried a particular sort of reputation—one spoken with admiration by the bold and with quiet disapproval by those who preferred their daughters to be submissive, obedient. You had danced with lords and laughed with knights, shared kisses with men whose names you barely remembered by dawn. None of it had ever meant very much to you. You had broken hearts not out of cruelty, but carelessness. You loved easily, briefly, and without promise.
Men mistook your warmth for devotion. Cruelly so, if you had half a mind to be aware of yourself, you never corrected them.
So when you stepped onto the floor and pulled one noblewoman after another into motion, when you laughed and clapped and coaxed the musicians into something faster, brighter, more alive, the hall transformed. The wine began to flow. Shoes start to scuff against the floor. Conversations rose into laughter. Even the most rigid courtiers found themselves smiling despite their best efforts, roped into the crowd moving with bliss.
With little grace, that was when you saw him.
Valarr Targaryen sat at the end of the high table, ever above the salt, like a blade laid carefully upon velvet—perfectly placed, perfectly still.
You had heard of him before you ever laid eyes upon him that night. The whispers had reached you early in the evening, traded between goblets of wine, ale, and careful courtesies. The prince had come in place of his elders, they said. His family was detained by matters of the realm and obligation elsewhere, and so he had been sent to represent the dragon in their stead.
It struck you then as faintly amusing, how you stood in your uncle’s place while he sat in his family’s. Two heirs of temperament, if not of title.
He did not drink much, you note with the absence of drunken rouge on his skin. His cup remained half-touched beside him, serving more as ornament than indulgence. His posture was immaculate—shoulders squared, chin lifted just enough to command respect without seeming arrogant. His dark hair caught the reflection of torchlight, the strand of silver shining under the light like pale flame.
Among all these, it was his stillness that drew you in. For stillness, in a room so alive, was louder than laughter.
His eyes followed the crowd with quiet intensity, not lazily nor idly. He only observed, measured, and assessed. There was calculation there in his violet-brown gaze—but not cruelty. There was no boredom, either. You believe it wholly to be something else. A tension held taut beneath polished manners.
Most would have mistaken it for disinterest. You did not. Your uncle had taught you better than that.
Lyonel used to say that one must learn to listen to silence, leaning close then as though he was imparting some grand secret. He divulged that men shout their strengths, but they whisper their weaknesses.
Watch who laughs too loud, he counseled, and who does not laugh at all.
You had grown up studying faces across feasting tables because of that man. Really, quite a surprising thing considering his disposition. But because of him, you learned which knights puffed their chests to mask insecurity, which lords softened their voices when they wanted something, which courtiers smiled without warmth. You learned how to make people comfortable, how to disarm them, how to coax them into revealing what lay beneath silk and steel.
And what you saw in Valarr was not indifference. It was restraint.
He wanted to move. You could see it in the subtle flex of his fingers against the goblet’s stem, in the way his gaze lingered a heartbeat too long on the dancers when the music swelled. But something—duty, expectation, the weight of a name older than storms—held him fast to his seat.
A prince does not lose himself in revelry. A prince remains composed. A prince represents.
You knew that burden well enough, though you are amply prudent to know that yours had always been lighter in comparison. You could afford chaos. He could not.
You noticed him because he was the only one not moving. Because in a hall you had set ablaze with laughter, he remained untouched by the flame.
You danced past him once, skirts brushing near his boots, laughter directed at an old lord that harrumphed a jest trailing where you pass as though a challenge. His eyes flicked to you—sharp and assessing—but he did not rise.
You passed him again, this time spinning deliberately closer, watching from the corner of your eye as his jaw tightened ever so slightly. It was worth noting to you that it did not seem a displeased sort, nor scandalized. Rather, he seemed quite… tempted.
When that did not break his composure, you stopped directly before him, hands on your hips, eyes bright with challenge.
Up close, you saw more. You saw that he was not shy, for shy men avoided eye contact as would a sinner avoid the seven-pointed star in a sept. He did not. He met your gaze evenly, steadily, but with caution. A certain… carefulness. As though he feared venturing wrong into a world that would remember every misstep, especially from him.
You tilted your head, studying him as one might study an opponent before a duel. Oh, you thought. You are not cold. You are merely waiting for permission to burn.
“Why, you look positively miserable,” you said, not unkindly.
He blinked, clearly startled, as though he had not expected to be addressed at all, much less so directly. “I— I beg your pardon, my lady?”
You smiled wider. “You are allowed to enjoy yourself, you know. This is a celebration, after all, not a sentencing.”
His eyes flicked past you to the whirling dancers, then back again, measured and thoughtful. “Some of us are required to maintain a certain decorum.”
“Decorums die of tediousness,” you replied at once. “Usually young and terribly unmourned, I find.”
The corner of his mouth betrayed him, twitching despite his effort to suppress it. “That may be so, but I fear my family would not appreciate me abandoning propriety in favor of—” his gaze dipped briefly to your spinning skirts, “—enthusiasm.”
“Oh, please do not flatter me,” you said mischievously. “I am far worse than enthusiasm.”
You extended a hand. “Come dance.”
“Do you have any knowledge of who I am?”
You groan in playful vexation, eyes rolling in your sockets. “Must you truly bore me with talk of titles, Your Grace?”
“You do, then,” he concludes, appearing torn between uncertainty and relief.
“So what?”
It truly had been unwise to act so insolently, especially with someone of such consequence such as he. Even so, after the counts of wine and beer you’ve had, though it was not too much, it did give you an almost blind confidence and unawareness that made you care far less than you should have.
“I do not… dance,” he breathed out, seeming bewildered and defeated all at once.
You leaned closer, lowering your voice as though sharing a secret meant only for him. “Liar.”
A pause stretched between you. He studied you now—not the crowd, not the room, but you. There was something like disbelief in his expression, as though he were trying to decide whether you were real or merely another reckless impulse best to be ignored.
“I truly must decline,” he said at last.
Unwilling to admit defeat, even to a challenge only you had struck against yourself, you took his hand anyway. It was warm, strong in its grip. It felt calloused in places that suggested he was no stranger to swords, no matter how courtly he appeared. He stiffened at the contact—but he did not pull away.
“Oh, do not look so frightened,” you laughed softly. “I vow not to scandalize you too terribly, or the Gods themselves shall strike me down.”
“I am not frightened,” he replied, a touch too quickly—though the faint color rising in his ears told a different story.
“Of course not,” you said, already tugging him gently upward. “You’re a dragon. Dragons do not fear storms.”
He should have refused again. He should have reminded you of titles and expectations and duty.
He did neither.
Once standing, he hesitated, uncertain what to do with his hands, his posture too formal for the lively rhythm now spilling through the hall. You stepped closer, placing one hand lightly at his shoulder, the other guiding his arm as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Just follow me,” you said. “I’ll take the blame if anyone scolds.”
He let out a quiet breath—half laugh, half surrender—and allowed himself to be led.
At first, his movements were careful, measured, as though he feared stepping wrong would echo through history. But you laughed when he stumbled, teased him gently when he grew too stiff, praised him when he relaxed even a fraction. Slowly, the tension eased from his shoulders. His steps grew surer. His smile—when it came—was unguarded and rare, as though it had been waiting patiently to coaxed out.
And in that moment, as the music carried you both, Valarr Targaryen realized that no duty had ever felt so heavy as the restraint he had imposed upon himself.
You, meanwhile, simply danced—unaware that with every laugh, every touch, every reckless smile, you were undoing him entirely.
It is later—when the music softened and the crowd thinned, when laughter dulled into murmurs and dancers began to drift back to their seats—you felt the shift in the air before anyone else did. You always did. Parties, you learned, had their rhythms, and this one was winding down, slipping into that familiar moment where joy became nostalgia before the night was even over.
You caught Valarr watching the musicians this time, no longer tense, no longer standing apart. Just thoughtful.
“Come,” you said quietly, tugging at his sleeve. “Before someone drags you into another polite conversation you don’t care about.”
He allowed himself to be led again, easier now, less hesitant. You guided him a few steps away from the hall and toward a balcony overlooking the vast expanse of land in this estate, where the torchlight flickered softly still and the noise faded into something manageable. Here, the air was cooler, quieter. Real.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Then he broke the silence, voice lower than before. “You don’t often slow down, do you, my lady.”
You glanced at him, surprised—not by the observation, but by the gentleness of it. “I do,” you said. “Just… not where people can see it. I rather it be my partiality to merrymaking that is remembered.”
“You enjoy this, then,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the hall. “The noise. The attention.”
“It is the people I enjoy, my prince,” you corrected. “And I enjoy making things less unbearable for them.”
He smiled faintly. “You certainly make such endeavors look effortless.”
“It isn’t,” you said after a beat. Then, with a shrug, “I just grew to learn early that if no one is going to give you space, then you must take it.”
Something shifted in his expression then—something quieter, more serious.
“I… wasn’t meant to be here tonight, truth be told,” he admitted. “I had been sent.”
You hummed. “Funny that. So was I.”
He looked at you sharply. “You?”
“My uncle was delayed,” you said easily. “Storms, duties, pride—take your pick. I fill in his sonorous absence when needed.”
Silence arose, so you turn to glance at Valarr whose stare lingered. You sensed the question before he could speak it and smiled pleasantly. “Lyonel Baratheon.”
“Lyonel Baratheon…” he repeated. “He is the one called ‘The Laughing Storm,’ is he not?”
You barely keep in a snort. You think to tell your uncle that a member of the royal family also knows him by his moniker, but save such musings for a later time. “Quite so.”
“That is… not what I expected. It is not ofttimes lords would send their nieces to attend these events on their behalf,” he said. There is a pause, before he scrambles to amend his verbiage. “W-Which is not reflective of your own abilities, of course. I believe you are well capable for your uncle to have chosen you to serve as his delegate.”
You laughed softly at his frantic response. “Do not take it to heart, Your Grace. I certainly do not. No one ever expects a woman to be trusted enough for such matters.”
You spoke then of small things at first—travel, places you had seen, places he had only heard about from lords and knights and men alike. From your perspective, it all seems much more agreeable. You told him of roads and inns and small moments that mattered more than feasts ever did. He listened closely, asking questions that showed he wasn’t merely being polite. And in turn, he spoke of expectations, of being watched even in stillness, of learning how to hold yourself so the world would not presume weakness.
“It is strange,” he said at last. “To want something so badly and yet never quite have the courage to reach for it.”
You studied him for a long moment. “Then maybe,” you said gently, “you should get out of your own head and reach for it scared.”
He looked at you then—not as a prince weighing propriety, but as a man standing at the edge of something unfamiliar and frightening and beautiful. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t, my prince, nothing ever is,” you said. “But I reckon it would be worth it.”
For the first time that night, he laughed—not politely, not carefully, but honestly. And something in his chest unraveled.
When you finally stepped away, the night pulling you back toward laughter and noise, you paused just long enough to press a kiss to his cheek—quick, warm, and utterly careless.
“Thank you, Your Grace, for dancing,” you said, as if he had done you the favor.
To you, the gesture had been nothing. To him, it was everything.
As you disappeared back into the revel, Valarr remained in the balcony, heart racing, mind alight, utterly undone. He knew—without yet knowing how or why—that he would never quite escape the memory of you. He would never outrun the sound of your laughter, the warmth of your honesty. Especially not the way you saw him without reverence or fear.
Something irrevocable had begun. You, of course, noticed none of it.
You were a Baratheon, and storms never stop to see what they leave behind.
AFTER THAT night, Valarr Targaryen did not fade from your life as fleeting presences often did. He lingered.
At first, it was in the form of letters—careful, polite things carried by ravens, sealed with wax and restraint. He wrote of the weather where he was, of duties performed, of books he thought you might enjoy. You replied in looser hand, ink sometimes smudged, thoughts running ahead of formality. You wrote of travel, of boredom, of people who amused you, of nothing in particular and everything at once.
It became a rhythm.
Sometimes the letters crossed paths in the air, one raven rising as another descended. Sometimes weeks passed. Sometimes only days. And each time, you found yourself smiling before you ever broke the seal.
You met again, as though by fate’s casual design—at tourneys, at feasts, at courtly gatherings where banners snapped in the wind and history was quietly being written between cups of wine. You were almost always at your uncle’s side, laughter ringing from beneath his pavilion.
Your Uncle Lyonel thrived in such places, and you with him—your presence expected now, your energy welcomed. And Valarr was often nearby as well, not as free as you, not as unburdened, but present nonetheless.
He came with his father.
Prince Baelor—the heir to the Iron Throne, Hand to the King—commanded rooms with quiet gravity. Valarr followed a step behind, observant, composed, learning the weight he would one day bear. Where Baelor spoke of duty, Valarr listened. Where Baelor stood firm, Valarr stood straighter.
But when he found you across the crowd—laughing and dancing and alive—his reserve softened.
You grew close in the way only the young and unguarded ever truly do. Through shared glances, quiet jokes, and letters that grew warmer, bolder, though never explicit. And you, perhaps without meaning to found amusement in the way his eyes followed you, the way his attention sharpened whenever you leaned closer or laughed a bit too freely at his side.
You flirted like it was breathing—not because you often deigned to, but because warmth could not help but follow you wherever you went.
It was in the way you spoke to Valarr without fear or reverence, calling him by his name as though it were the most natural thing in the world. In the way you leaned in when he talked, not out of coyness but genuine interest, eyes bright and focused, making him feel—dangerously—like the only person in the room. You touched without thinking, as well, with a hand at his arm when you laughed, fingers brushing his sleeve as you passed, a brief squeeze of reassurance when conversation faltered. Small things, innocent things, really.
To you.
You listened to him in a way few ever did. When he spoke, you did not rush to fill the silence or redirect the topic—you let him finish, let his thoughts land, let him feel heard. You remembered details he mentioned once in passing and brought them up weeks later, casually, as though it meant nothing.
You teased him gently, never cruelly. You challenged his certainty, questioned his restraint, smiled as if you knew something he did not. Sometimes you praised him—his discipline, his thoughtfulness, the way he carried himself—and said it so plainly, so honestly, that he did not know where to place the feeling it stirred in him.
You never promised anything. You never asked for anything. And that, perhaps, was the most intoxicating part.
To Valarr, every letter felt like an invitation, every meeting like a secret shared. He mistook your ease for intimacy, your affection for intention. He thought the way you looked at him—open, amused, warm—meant you saw him as something singular when, in truth, you were simply being yourself.
Storms do not need intent to uproot trees, regardless. They only need to pass close enough. And Valarr, standing in your wake, fell like it was fate—never realizing you had never meant to make him fall at all.
The breaking point came during a tourney—one of many, but one that would stain his memory forever.
Your uncle’s tent was alive that night, swollen with sound and motion, a riot of music, sweat, and unchecked joy. Soldiers spun noblewomen badly across the rugs. Squires pounded tankards against tables in crooked rhythm. Someone had shoved a long trestle aside to make space for dancing, and the packed earth beneath your feet trembled with the force of it all.
It was chaos—glorious, unmeasured chaos—and you belonged to it the way flame belongs to air.
Valarr had gone because he thought you would be there.
And you were.
He saw you at once—however could he not? The torchlight caught in your hair, skirts fanning as you turned, laughter spilling from you without restraint. You did not merely dance, you commanded the space around you. Men straightened when you passed. Women smiled despite themselves. You were audacious joy given mortal form, as if the gods had carved you from thunder and given you a heartbeat.
He could have watched you forever.
Until he saw the lord.
The man was handsome in an easy, polished way—broad-shouldered, flushed with drink, confidence curling at the edge of his grin. His hands rested at your waist with familiarity that made Valarr’s jaw tighten. You did not remove them. If anything, you leaned closer. Your laughter softened, became something warmer. When the lord bent toward you, his mouth hovering just shy of yours, you tilted your chin up in answer.
Valarr did not remember crossing the space between you. One moment he was watching and the next—
His hand closed around your arm, firm, pulling you back. “Enough.”
The word cracked through the music like a whip.
You stumbled half a step, startled, still processing the near-kiss, still feeling the warmth of another body close to yours. The lord blinked in confusion as Valarr stepped between you, all rigid lines and burning eyes.
“She’s had too much to drink,” Valarr said, voice clipped, controlled only by force.
The musicians faltered. A lute string gave a miserable twang and went silent. Conversation thinned into sharp pockets of attention.
The lord straightened at once, recognition dawning with visible alarm. “Your—Your Grace,” he stammered, bowing awkwardly. “I meant no disrespect. I assure you, I-I had no ill intent toward the lady—”
“You were about to kiss her,” Valarr said coldly.
The lord flushed. “Only because she—she did not object—”
“I did not object,” you cut in, heat rising to your cheeks—not from shame, but fury. “Valarr—”
Valarr’s fingers tightened at your arm, unyielding but never to hurt.
The lord, desperate to recover his footing, stepped forward slightly. “My prince, I swear, the lady was willing. I would never presume—”
He reached toward you—perhaps to steady you, perhaps to prove his innocence. Valarr shoved him back with a hard palm to the chest. It was not a dramatic blow, but it was entirely unmistakable.
“Don’t you touch her,” Valarr said, voice low and lethal.
That was when the tent truly fell quiet. Whispers sparked like flint all over. A prince. A shove. Over a lady. Over you.
Your humiliation flared into something incandescent.
You tore your arm from Valarr’s grasp. “What are you doing?” you demanded under your breath, heart pounding not with swooning gratitude, but with white hot rage.
The lord looked between you, mortified. “I assure you, Your Grace, there was no dishonor meant—”
“Leave,” Valarr said, not looking at him.
“My prince—”
“Now.”
The authority in his tone brooked no argument. The lord hesitated only a moment before bowing stiffly and retreating into the crowd, eyes following him with hungry interest. You could feel every single one of them. Worse yet, with one glance toward the other end of the tent, where your Uncle Lyonel looked on with a severe gaze bordering between displeasure and concern, it was as if the embarrassment that has burrowed beneath your skin grew teeth.
Without another word, you grabbed Valarr by the wrist—hard—and pulled him through the parted bodies, past the flap of the tent, into the cooler night air beyond. The sounds of revelry rushed back in behind you, louder now, edged with speculation and no doubt your uncle’s attempt to divert the crowd’s attention.
You did not stop until you were well clear of prying ears. Only then did you turn on him.
“What in the Seven Hells was that?” you hissed, voice low but shaking with fury.
“He— He was taking advantage of you,” Valarr replied immediately. The words came out too fast, too sharp, as though he had spent too long a moment wanting to say them. “He had no right—”
“No right?” You turned on him, incredulous. “I gave him every right, Valarr. I wanted him to kiss me.”
The sentence landed like a blow.
For a moment, he did not move, did not speak. He simply stared at you, as if the ground beneath his feet had tilted and he had not yet, nor will he ever, find his balance again. The anger drained from his face first—then came confusion, raw and unguarded. After that, there appeared something unmistakably wounded.
“You do not know that,” he said at last, but the certainty was gone from his tone. “You do not know what men are like when—”
“I know exactly what men are like,” you cut in. “And I am not some fragile maiden in need of saving.”
“That is not what I think,” he said quickly.
“Then why did you treat me like one?”
The question hung between you.
Valarr dragged a hand through his hair, breath uneven now, the careful restraint he wore like armor beginning to crack. “You cannot possibly expect me to stand idly by while someone makes a spectacle of you.”
You laughed softly, humorless. “Are you listening to yourself? You are the one who made a spectacle,” you said, voice tight with restrained fury. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”
“I stopped him.”
“You shoved a lord in front of half the realm,” you said coldly. “You embarrassed him. And you embarrassed yourself.”
He straightened, shoulders going rigid. “I do not care what they think.”
“Well, you should!” you snapped, stepping closer. “You are not some reckless knight in a tent full of drunkards. You are the firstborn son of the heir to the Iron Throne. You cannot go about striking men because you dislike where their hands are placed.”
His eyes lifted to yours, sharp and burning. “It wasn’t dislike.”
“Then what was it? Hm?”
He faltered, actually faltered, and took a step back as if the answer had struck him before he was ever ready to speak it aloud. When he finally did, his voice was quieter and considerably unsteady.
“You nearly kissed him.”
“Yes!” you said at once, unflinching. “Yes, Valarr, I did. And what of it?”
His breath caught. His hands curled at his sides, knuckles whitening as though he were holding himself together by force alone.
“And what of—” He stopped, swallowed hard, then tried again. “What of what we have?”
The words cost him something. It showed in the way his voice cracked—not loudly, not enough for you to catch unless you were listening for it.
But you laughed. It was not unkind nor deliberate. It was instinctive and light, almost fond, as though he had made a clever joke you had not expected.
“We?” you echoed, brows lifting in genuine surprise. “Gods, Valarr. There is no we. There never has been.”
The silence that followed was immediate and devastating.
Something in his face hardened completely, all warmth gone in an instant, as though shutters had slammed shut behind his eyes. The hurt was still there—you could see it as clear as morning—but it had been buried beneath pride and restraint and something dangerously final. Without another word, he turned away.
He did not shout. He did not argue. He did not look back. He walked into the night with his features set to stone, leaving behind the music, the laughter, and the girl who had become the axis of his world without ever knowing it.
You did not follow.
And Valarr learned, in that moment, what it meant to love a storm—and be left standing in the ruin it never meant to cause.
ALL OF it was nearly a triennium ago now—though it has never felt like something that belongs to the past. The memory remains sharp, unsoftened by time, as vivid as torchlight against canvas. You know precisely how long it has been because, at this very moment, a piece of news has reached you that makes those events feel not distant at all—but dangerously, painfully present.
You had not even been meant to hear it.
It came drifting through the stone corridors of Storm’s End as idle house staff chatter often did—careless, half-muttered, passed between handmaidens adjusting sleeves and housemen pretending not to listen. A prince, someone said. A betrothal. A lady from Tyrosh.
That was all. No certainty. No care for the damage such words could do. You suspect that they had heard it from the lords and ladies that came at your Uncle’s disposal for feasts and festivities of no apparent reason, holding onto the word “prince” to be of more consequence than the detail of this prince’s name. Either way, your heart stilled all the same.
A prince is to be betrothed to a lady from Tyrosh.
Your mind did not need to wander through possibilities. It did not consider cousins or distant branches of the dragon’s line. It did not pause to ask which prince, or whether the rumor held truth at all. It went to him at once.
Valarr Targaryen.
Of course it did. No other prince had ever mattered enough to you for the thought to sting, after all.
The reaction was immediate and undignified. It felt like a sharp, hot twist in your chest, like breath stolen from your very insides without warning. Alarm followed close behind, quick and vicious, curling into something darker before you could stop it. A sort of bitter taste akin to jealousy, possessiveness, and perhaps a flare of something you did not yet have the courage to name.
You told yourself you had no right. You told yourself this was absurd—that you had been the one to laugh at the ridiculous notion back then, the one to dismiss, the one to watch him walk away without an effort to stop him. You had never claimed him. You had never promised him anything, nor did you even allow the possibility to linger long enough to settle.
Be that as it may, the idea of him choosing someone else, of his attention turning where it had once lingered on you, felt utterly intolerable. Not because you believed he belonged to you, but because some traitorous part of you had always assumed he would remain there. A patient man—your patient man—waiting, open, and unclaimed.
You had never been accustomed to competition.
Men always came quite easily to you. Attention, in your wealth of experience, had never needed to be fought for. And Valarr—ever-steady, ever-forbearing, ever-earnest Valarr—had felt less like a conquest and more like a certainty you could return to whenever you wished.
The realization struck you with humiliating clarity… that you had mistaken his devotion for permanence.
Worse still, the thought of a lady from Tyrosh—foreign, elegant, deliberate—made something sharp and ugly coil in your stomach. She was someone who was chosen, worse yet, intended. Someone who might take him seriously in all the ways you had not.
In hindsight, you are reminded by it that you were meant to serve at court now. Having been summoned to King’s Landing—a role was offered to you with polite insistence, one you had accepted without much thought at the time. Truthfully, the invitation had been a matter your mother and father was made aware of prior to you. Duty, they called it. Opportunity. Proximity to power.
Proximity to him, your mind supplied unhelpfully.
Officially, your appointment was an honor beyond question. You were to serve as a lady-in-waiting to the young niece-wife of Prince Maekar Targaryen, a princess spoken of with rare and sincere fondness. Court whispered that she was gentle where her husband was unyielding, gracious where he was sharp—a tempering presence, a soft hand laid upon iron. To attend her was to stand close to the royal line without inviting suspicion, to be seen as useful rather than threatening. A perfect placement for a lady of your house.
You told yourself you understood this. You told yourself you were grateful. You even meant it, in some distant, well-mannered part of your heart.
Yet gratitude was a thin thing compared to the pulse of anticipation that followed you through every corridor of thought. The Red Keep was not merely the seat of power, to you. It was where you knew Valarr resided now, where his days unfolded beneath the same roof that would soon shelter you.
You would attend the same feasts, kneel within the same sept (not with a choice of your own, as someone near irreligious), stay in the same courtyards where glances could linger too long and words were to be weighed like coins. You would move in the same orbit, close enough that chance alone could no longer be blamed.
As a lady-in-waiting, you would attend the princess at dawn and dusk, help oversee her household, accompany her in public, stand just behind her chair at court. You would listen more than you spoke, smile when required, learn the subtle grammar of power that ruled the Keep more firmly than any crown. And all the while, beneath silk and duty, something restless would coil in you—an awareness that this summons had not only placed you near the heart of the realm, but near the one person you had never quite managed to leave behind.
You would come to serve a princess—this was the version of the story you repeated to yourself, the one that sounded proper and orderly and fit for a lady of House Baratheon. A bidding to court was an honor. A duty, a sensible next step for someone of your birth.
But some treacherous part of you knew the truth even as you clung to the lie, that you would have gone to King’s Landing regardless, so long as he was there.
The realization did not arrive all at once. It unfurled slowly, insidious and unwelcome, coiling itself around your thoughts. You told yourself it was curiosity, nothing more. Or perhaps closure. Guilt, even. After all, you had not been kind. You had never been careful.
This—whatever this feeling was—was unbecoming. You knew that. It was not the sort of thing a lady ought to entertain, least of all over a man she had never named, never claimed, never promised herself to.
You had never loved him. At least, that was what you insisted. And so what did it say about you, to feel this sharp, unsettled heat in your chest at the mere suggestion that he might soon belong to someone else? It felt ugly and petty. Pernicious, if you were honest.
You had absolutely no right to it.
And yet, all the same, you did not like the idea of losing something that had once been yours in all the ways that mattered, even if you had refused to give it a name. You did not like imagining another woman laughing with him, standing where you once had, learning the weight of his silences and the steadiness of his regard. Worse still, you did not like the thought that she might take him seriously in the way you never had, or that she might be given the chance to love him properly, where you had only ever danced around the edges.
All you truly knew was a prince was to be betrothed to a lady from Tyrosh. Nothing else had been spoken to you. No assurance offered. The rumor stopped being harmless the moment it took root in your chest. It became something sharp, personal, and thoroughly past bearing.
Your pulse quickened, defiant and disordered, as a single, reckless thought took hold.
No, you thought. Not like this. Not without a fight.
KING'S LANDING greeted you the way it greeted everyone—loud and hot and unapologetically alive—just the way you remembered it. The Red Keep loomed above the city like a promise and a threat all at once, its red stone glowing beneath the sun as though it remembered every fire it had ever survived. You had been to court before, of course, in visitation to him, in trivial noise and equally unimportant celebration—but never like this. Never to stay. Never to serve.
You were escorted through halls that smelled faintly of incense and polish, past tapestries heavy with history, until you were announced into the solar of the princess you were now bound to.
Prince Maekar’s wife—his niece by blood, his princess by law—rose from her seat at once when you entered.
She was younger than you had expected, or perhaps simply softer than the court stories suggested. Her gown was modest in cut but rich in fabric, her glimmering silk-silver hair braided simply, her smile unguarded and bright. She did not wait for you to kneel for long before stepping forward herself.
“Please, my sweet,” she said gently, hands already reaching to lift you. “You are a Lady of House Baratheon. I would not have you on the floor.”
Her touch was light and reassuring, unpracticed in command, from what you could deduce, but still practiced in care. Her voice carried the same warmth, clear and earnest, lacking the brittle authority you had braced yourself to endure from someone of her status. You note, just as significantly, the sheer verity and luster in her spirit, an air about her that is uncomplicated and could not possibly be feigned.
“I am very glad you have come,” she continued, studying you not as one might appraise a servant, but as one welcomes a guest. “I have heard you are quite… lively.”
You huffed a quiet laugh before you could stop yourself. “That is one word for it, Your Grace.”
She grinned wider at that, a soft, genuine thing. “You may call me Princess,” she said and seemed quite excited by it. “I should like us to be comfortable with one another.”
It disarmed you at once.
She gestured for you to sit with her rather than stand at attention, pouring the wine herself—an intimacy you had not expected, nor quite knew how to respond to. After all your time out and about, it is not a common practice you observed from those of higher status to do such a gesture. You accepted the cup carefully, posture still stiff with habit, hands folded neatly in your lap.
“I hope the journey had not been too tiring,” the princess said. “King’s Landing can be a bit unkind to newcomers.”
“It was long, Your—Princess,” you corrected yourself quickly, earning a soft laugh from her. “But I have journeyed worser roads and even worser company. The Keep is… certainly impressive.”
“Well. That is a polite way to put it,” she smiled conspiratorially. “Most people mean overwhelming.”
You allowed yourself a small one in return. “Yes. I suppose that too.”
She asked after Storm’s End then—about the sea winds, the sound of the waves battering stone, the storms that gave your house its name. When you spoke of it, you heard yourself soften, the formality loosening just a touch.
“It must be very loud,” she said, eyes alight. “Though I imagine the storms are magnificent.”
“They are,” you replied. “You’re forced to learn quickly whether you love the noise or resent it. There is no in-between.”
“And you?” she asked. “Which are you?”
You hesitated. “I think… I grew to love it. It gives you allowance to be unruly, especially at the height of a particularly heavy rainfall, I find.”
She laughed at that, delighted. “I think I would like storms very much, then.”
After sipping from her cup, the Princess leans forward suddenly with blithe interest. “Lord Lyonel—The Laughing Storm. I have heard so many stories.”
You couldn’t help yourself as your smile turned fond. “Most of them are true, I can vouch for it. And the rest… well, they are probably understatements.”
Her laughter rang bright and genuine, echoing lightly against the stone walls. “We could use more men like him here. People tend to forget how to laugh in this place.”
“Court does have a way of weighing on people,” you said carefully.
She nodded, swirling her wine. “It does. There are days I feel as though I’ve lived a dozen lives without ever leaving these walls.” She glanced up at you then, almost shy. “I do not often get to leave the castle.”
You blinked. “Not at all?”
“Rarely,” she admitted. “There are so many rules. So many eyes. And yet…” She smiled again, softer now. “I am happy. I have my duties. My books. My garden. My lovely children. I find joy where I can.”
Something about the way she said it—without bitterness, without regret—caught you off guard.
“That is… admirable,” you said honestly. “I think I would go mad.”
She tilted her head. “Perhaps. Or perhaps you would learn new ways to be free.”
You laughed quietly, the sound surprising even yourself. “You speak like someone who has made peace with things others might resent.”
“I suppose I have,” she said simply. “And you? Are you at peace?”
The question was gentle. Curious and not demanding, which makes you hesitate, then answer truthfully. “I do not know yet, Princess.”
She reached out then, resting her hand lightly over yours. “That is all right. There is no need to rush here.”
For the first time since arriving in the Red Keep, you felt your shoulders ease up. You wondered then—quietly, unexpectedly—if perhaps joy did not always require escape.
“I imagine court will feel rather different,” she said after a moment. “Especially for someone like you.”
“I imagine it already does,” you replied honestly, then hesitated. “I can only hope I will not disappoint you.”
“You will not,” she said at once, too quickly for courtesy, her certainty earnest. “Do not think so, my lady. I did not ask for you because I needed perfection. I asked for you because I needed someone real.”
She hesitated then, fingers tightening slightly around her cup. “My last lady-in-waiting has only just retired. She has been with me since I was but a child. She knew my silences better than my words.” A small, wistful smile touched her lips. “It is strange, learning how to be without her.”
Something softened in your chest. “I’m honored you would trust me with that place,” you said quietly.
“I think you will be good for me,” the princess replied, sounding quite sure of herself. “And I for you, perhaps. We shall learn each other in time.”
She spoke of her household then—of duties and rhythms, of mornings filled with petitions and evenings heavy with ceremony. She made it all sound manageable, even gentle, as though life in the Red Keep were not something to be endured, but navigated like a thrilling venture. How she maintains such excitement for a place she’s been in for so long, you do not know.
“You will find it overwhelming at first,” she admitted softly. “But it becomes easier when you stop thinking of it as a cage and instead start thinking of it as a crossroads.”
You nodded, though your attention had already begun to drift—treacherously, involuntarily.
Your eyes traced the archways beyond her solar door. The corridors beyond. The staircases. The countless hidden turns of the castle.
Where would he be?
A part of you reckon he’d be sparring with knights in the training yard. Perhaps tending to matters of the court in council chambers, or brooding in some shaded gallery overlooking the city. The thought slipped in unbidden, persistent as an ache. You wondered if he had already passed beneath these same banners today, if you had missed him by mere moments.
“Lady Baratheon?”
You blinked, startled, realizing you had not heard the last of the princess’ words.
“I—Forgive me, Princess, I did not mean to lose myself in thought,” you said at once, flushing. “I do believe the journey was longer than I thought my body could handle.”
She regarded you for a moment, eyes thoughtful but not unkind. If anything, there was something knowing there. Something almost… amused.
“Of course,” she said, letting the matter drop with grace. “The Keep has a way of pulling one’s thoughts in many directions. Hearts are not always punctual.”
You stiffened slightly at that, though she only smiled, serene and distant, as though indulging a private fancy.
“I am glad you are here,” she added, almost dreamily. “I believe some meetings are meant to happen twice. Or perhaps… finished properly.”
You did not yet understand what she meant.
But as you left her presence later that day—heart restless, thoughts circling the same forbidden name again and again—you had the uncanny feeling that the princess already knew exactly who you were searching for.
And perhaps, in her own quiet way, she was hoping for the same ending you had not yet dared to admit you wanted.
BY THE end of your first full day in the Red Keep, you had learned that serving a princess was less about idle attendance and more about quiet constancy. Better yet, it did not come as much of a surprise that you found yourself enjoying it.
Your first conversation with her had already softened whatever wariness you’d brought with you to court. Now, with each passing hour, that initial trust deepened into something steadier. She did not keep only one lady-in-waiting—no royal woman of rank ever did—but you were the newest, and increasingly the one most often at her side.
There were others, of course. From elder ladies who oversaw her household accounts and dowries to younger girls learning how to walk, speak, and smile without offending half the realm. Even so, it was you she asked to remain when the room thinned. You were the lady she would ask to sit beside her in the solar as her correspondence was read and quietly annotated. You were the lady she would ask to walk with her through the gardens while she dictated replies, trusting you to remember which words must be softened and which sharpened.
You helped her dress in the mornings. Where, instead of doing so in silence, you offered kinds of conversation she must have desperately sought for quite a time. You learned which gowns she favored when she wished to be taken seriously, which colors she wore when she was tired, and which jewels she avoided because they reminded her too much of obligations she had not chosen.
You became, without ceremony, her gatekeeper in small ways, as well. Through announcing visitors, gently deflecting those she had no strength for that day, and lingering close enough at audiences that she could glance at you when she needed grounding.
More than anything, to a greater degree, you were her companion.
She spoke freely in your presence—more freely than court gossip would ever guess of her to be privy to. She talked of books she loved, of the quiet joy she found in tending her garden with her own hands, of spending all other free moments with her youngest children, or of how the castle felt smaller at night and louder during the day. Some of those times, she would pause mid-thought and murmur something half-formed, almost dreamlike.
“I dreamt of a dragon standing in the rain,” she said once, absently, fingers tracing the rim of her cup. “But he would not open his wings.”
Then she would blink, as if realizing she had spoken aloud, and laugh softly, brushing it aside.
Yet when you spoke—of history, of power, of the careful reading of people she seemed so intent on mastering—she listened with full attention. She asked questions. She remembered your answers. There was depth beneath her gentleness, insight beneath her warmth. A sharp steel beneath the softest of silks.
You learned things about her the court did not know, or perhaps did not care to notice. And in that knowledge, in that growing ease, you found yourself unexpectedly at home.
If only your thoughts did not keep straying—to corridors beyond your station, to footsteps that were not the princess’, to a prince you had not yet seen but felt everywhere all the same.
Still—throughout it all—your attention betrayed you.
It was your third day in the Keep. You had dined within its walls, learned the rhythms of its bells, slept beneath ceilings so intricately carved they seemed to whisper of old kings and older sins. You had walked its corridors often enough now to no longer lose your way, could anticipate which turns would open into light-filled galleries and which would narrow into shadowed passages meant for servants and secrets alike. On paper, at least, you were settling in.
And yet you had not seen him.
You told yourself it was for the best. That you required composure, distance, a steadier heart. That your first meeting after three years ought not happen by accident—some careless crossing in a corridor while your arms were full of parchment, or while you were mid-laugh at something the princess had said. You deserved more dignity than that. He did too.
Still, imagination was a traitor.
You caught yourself wondering where he walked now, which parts of the Keep he favored. Whether he still took his steps too quickly when agitated, whether his presence still seemed to bend a room toward him without effort. You imagined what it would be like to hear his voice again—not as a memory behind your eyelids softened by time, but sharp and immediate, spoken within arm’s reach. In these thoughts, your breath would hitch before you even realized it had changed.
The smallest sounds undid you. Every echo of boots against stone set your pulse racing. Every door opening drew your gaze up, unbidden, hopeful despite yourself. Once, while organizing the princess’s correspondence, you misplaced an entire letter simply because footsteps passed the solar entrance—and you were certain, for half a heartbeat, that they were his.
Your other duties suffered in subtle ways because of it, too.
You would catch yourself pausing a tad too long while fastening clasps or reading the same line of a missive twice before understanding it. Even while walking beside the princess, listening as she spoke of her plans for a coming afternoon tea with the ladies of prospective ally houses or her thoughts on a visiting lord, part of you strained outward—toward hallways you could not see, toward a presence you felt rather than heard.
Even the princess, not often praised for being perceptive, noticed.
She noticed the way your hand stilled when a voice rose outside the door. She observed the way your attention fractured, just slightly, at even the mere sound of male laughter in the distance. She took heed of the way your thoughts seemed always half a step ahead of where you stood.
And she said nothing.
Instead, she slowed her pace when you walked together, as if giving you time to gather yourself. She repeated instructions gently when your focus slipped. Once, when you startled at the sound of approaching guards, she merely smiled and shifted the conversation elsewhere, sparing you the embarrassment of explanation.
In that silence, you sensed understanding—not prying, not judgmental, but patient. As though she knew that some absences were louder than presences, and that some names did not need to be spoken aloud to be felt in every stone of the Keep.
FOR DAYS now, she had been speaking of it—almost offhandedly at first, then with a growing fondness that made it clear the thought had taken root.
“We must take tea in the gardens,” the princess had said once while you were fastening the final clasp of her sleeve. “Not yet, of course. The sky has been too fickle. I want it clear. Properly clear.”
Another time, while you sorted correspondence at the solar table, she had sighed again that particular dreamy sigh of her and added, “When the sun behaves, it will be an enlightening day.”
That word had made you pause, quill hovering mid-air.
“Enlightening?” you had echoed, unable to keep the amusement from your voice.
She had only smiled, something small, knowing, and entirely unhelpful. “That is how it appears in my dreams, my lady.”
You had laughed then, soft and unguarded, teasing without malice. “Princess… do your dreams often plan your afternoons?”
“Why, more often than I would like,” she had replied, just as lightly. “Do yours not?”
“Oh, well, mine are far less poetic,” you had said. “Usually disordered things. Half-formed thoughts. Nothing worth arranging tea around.”
She had tilted her head, studying you with that quiet attentiveness you were beginning to recognize. “Still,” she had murmured, “I think you would make good company for an enlightening day.”
So when, on the morning of the fifth day, she invited you at last, it felt less like a command and more like the fulfillment of a long-promised indulgence.
The gardens were everything one would expect of a royal keep and still, they stole your breath. Roses climbed pale stone walls in disciplined abundance, their colors deep and lush, their scent heavy in the warming air. Low fountains murmured nearby, water catching the sunlight in quick silver flashes. The trellises, wrapped in nearly endless looping vines, arched overhead, offering dappled shade, and the paths beneath your feet were swept so clean they seemed sacramental.
You could not help but admire it all openly.
“They are beautiful,” you said, glancing around as servants set down the tea. “Even more so than the courtiers boast.”
The princess smiled into her cup. “They always boast. But I like to think the gardens listen better than most people.”
You took your place beside her, the familiar ease between you settling quickly. For a while, conversation flowed without effort—about the weather finally settling, about a book she had nearly finished, about how the roses had been transplanted years ago from another region entirely.
Then, idly, you asked, “Do you truly dream so often, Princess?”
She considered the question, eyes tracing the curve of her teacup. “Often enough that I have learned not to dismiss them,” she said. “Dragon dreams… They are not always clear. Sometimes they are only feelings. Light. Sound. A sense that something is… approaching.”
You frowned, curious rather than alarmed. “And today?”
She glanced up at the sky—blue, unmarred, almost indulgent in its clarity. “Today feels promising.”
You laughed softly, shaking your head. “You make it sound as though the day itself has its own intentions.”
“Can it not?” she countered gently.
You had no answer for that, only a fond smile. Whatever the court gossips said of her softness, whatever rumors clung to her like ill-fitting silks, moments like this revealed something else entirely. In these shared instances, one can truly distinguish her thoughtfulness, curiosity, and quiet confidence in her own inner world. If anything, your trust in her only deepened.
You were midway through explaining the difference between storm winds that threatened and those that merely boasted—using a half-remembered lesson from an old maester that served your house—when footsteps crunched across the gravel.
You did not turn at first, but the princess did, and her expression brightened just a fraction.
“Cousin!”
And your world tilted when you looked up.
Valarr Targaryen stood at the garden’s edge, sunlight catching faintly in the pale streak threaded through his dark hair. He looked… older. Not merely in years, as is obvious, but also in bearing. He looked broader through the shoulders, straighter in the spine. The softness that once clung to his expressions had now hardened into something disciplined, almost severe. His jaw was sharper now, his mouth set in a line that seemed practiced in restraint.
He bowed first to the princess. “Your Grace.”
Only then did his gaze shift and find you.
The world did not stop. The fountain still murmured, the breeze still stirred the roses. A bird even called somewhere beyond the hedges. Nevertheless, within that small circle of stone and sunlight, everything tightened as though a bowstring drawn too far.
It was not the startled stillness of prey in torchlight. It was the silence before a storm breaks over open sea.
His composure slipped, barely. There was a pause in his breath and the faintest narrowing of his eyes, not in anger, not quite in surprise—something deeper. Recognition. Memory.
You had imagined this moment a hundred times in the corridors of the Keep, in the privacy of your chamber before sleep claimed you. You had rehearsed calm greetings, measured smiles, a perfectly dignified nod.
None of it survived the reality.
You forgot how to breathe, and somehow, he recovered first.
“Your Grace,” he said evenly to the princess, drawing his gaze from you with deliberate control, “you sent for me?”
Sent for him? Your head turned so quickly toward the princess it was almost undignified. Confusion was written plainly across your face. You had not known. You would have prepared. You would have—
The princess merely lifted her cup, serene as ever. “Yes,” she said lightly. “I only wished to ask about your training. And whether you will accompany your father to the Riverlands for the name tourney of Lord Harroway’s grandson.”
There was something in the way she phrased it, in a manner too smooth and too careful to be truly casual.
Valarr inclined his head. “I am to go. My father believes it… advantageous.”
His tone was respectful, attentive—yet his shoulders held a stiffness that had not been there when he first approached. He has his hands clasped behind his back, fingers curling once against his palm before stilling. His weight shifted, not away from you yet not quite toward you either, as though he were standing on uncertain ground.
You noticed none of it, of course, for you were too busy noticing everything else.
The changes are more prominent to you, now that you have beheld him longer. How much taller he seemed. How his hair was unmistakably shorter than how he usually wore it from years past. How his voice had deepened, roughened at the edges. How the sunlight caught against his cheekbone and made him look carved from something stronger than flesh. He truly was refined now. A man contained, no longer the boy who had once laughed too freely and spoken too quickly.
You had wondered for days what it would be like to see him again, but you had not been prepared for this.
The princess gestured toward an empty chair. “Will you sit, Cousin?”
He hesitated—only a breath, barely perceptible—before inclining his head and doing as she asked. He did not take the seat beside you. Instead, he chose one angled just so: close enough to be proper, distant enough to be intentional. The space between you felt measured, accounted for, as carefully placed as any word left unsaid.
The princess smoothed her skirts, unbothered, and turned the conversation forward.
“I must confess,” the princess said lightly, turning her cup in her hands, “I know the Riverlands through maps and songs at best. They always sound either terribly romantic or deeply inconvenient. Which is it truly?”
Valarr answered at once, grateful—perhaps—for the solid ground of the subject. “Both hold truths, Your Grace. The rivers make travel slow, but they also gather people. Lords who would not cross mountains will cross bridges.”
“And which houses will attend?” she asked. “I can never keep them straight.”
“Those of note are House Tully, of course. Likely the Freys, as well. Though whether they arrive early or late is always a matter of speculation. A handful of river knights are often quite eager to prove themselves.” His tone was calm, practiced. His eyes never strayed from her face.
You curled your fingers more tightly around your teacup.
“Is it common,” the princess went on, “for such a tourney to carry… meaning beyond the lists?”
“Yes,” Valarr said. “Especially now. A visible show of unity reassures uncertain bannermen. It reminds them where power sits.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Interesting… So presence matters just as much as victory.”
“It does.”
Her gaze flicked to you then, soft but deliberate. “I have heard that Lady Baratheon has seen more tourneys than I ever will,” she said. “Perhaps she might have an opinion of it.”
You straightened instinctively. “In the Riverlands, spectacle carries weight,” you said carefully. “The lords there are proud men. They notice who attends, who is honored publicly. A strong showing—”
He did not raise his voice. He did not look at you. He simply continued, as though you had not spoken at all.
“My father’s presence alone will satisfy most concerns,” he said to the princess. “Victory is secondary. Order is what they wish to see.”
The princess hesitated. “Still, Lady Baratheon’s point about pride—”
“Pride is easily managed,” Valarr said. “River lords posture, but they do not fracture so easily.”
You swallowed. “Some do,” you said quietly. “Old grievances linger. A careless slight—”
“I believe you overestimate the fragility of their loyalties,” he replied at once. Measured and polite, yes, but final. The words struck like a door closing.
You stared into your tea. “It was only an observation,” you said after a moment, your voice steadier than you felt.
“And I have acknowledged it,” Valarr said, still facing his cousin just as he raises his own cup to his lips. “We simply disagree.”
The princess shifted in her seat, the air between the three of you suddenly taut. “If it is any consolation, I find differing views most useful,” she said gently.
“As do I, Your Grace,” Valarr answered at once.
But he did not look at you when he said it. Soon, thick and unmistakable silence crept in. The fountain’s murmur seemed suddenly too loud. You focused on breathing, on not shrinking.
At last, Valarr rose.
“I should not keep you from your afternoon,” he said to the princess, bowing with impeccable courtesy. “I thank you for the tea.”
She inclined her head, regret flickering across her features so briefly you might have imagined it.
He turned then. For a heartbeat—only one—his gaze met yours again.
There was something there. Something tightly leashed. His jaw tightened, as if swallowing words that had nearly escaped. His fingers flexed once at his side. His throat moved with a restrained breath.
You saw none of it. You only saw the wall.
He inclined his head. “Lady Baratheon.”
No smile. No softness. No indication of fondly recalling the past. And then he was gone, gravel crunching beneath his boots until even that sound faded into the hum of the garden.
You sat very still even after he was completely out of reach.
The garden felt altered in his absence. It is not quieter, precisely, but it feels hollowed out to you now. The fountains continued their patient song, the birds flitted and called from the hedges, and sunlight still warmed the stone beneath your palms. Life went on with an almost insulting normalcy.
The princess watched the path he had taken, her expression thoughtful, then faintly troubled. She set her cup aside, fingers folding together in her lap.
“I fear,” she said gently, “that did not go as I had hoped.”
You glanced at her, surprised by the candor.
“He has grown… disciplined,” she added after a moment, as if searching for a kinder word. There was regret there now, unmistakable. Not disappointment in him, but in the sharpness he had allowed to surface. “And yet discipline need not be unkind.”
You managed a small, careful smile. “It suits him,” you said, because it was easier than admitting how thoroughly it had cut.
But the truth pressed close all the same.
It was not what he had said that lingered. To you, what struck was everything he had chosen not to. You were not so blind to not see the way his eyes had slid past you. You were not so foolish to not take note the way your name had never crossed his lips. You were not so wrapped in your own head to not notice the way he had looked at you as though you were no more than another voice at court, easily dismissed.
A stranger.
The sting came suddenly, bright and humiliating, and you had to look down lest it show too clearly on your face.
And yet—even as it hurt—you knew.
You knew this small, sharp ache was nothing. Not truly. It could not compare to the quiet devastation you had left behind years ago, spoken so carelessly, laughing where you should have been gentle. He was the one who turned away in the end, leaving with a sharpness that cut through the air between you. But you remained where you were, rooted in place, watching his retreating back without running after him and without fully understanding what had just been broken—or how deeply you had wounded him.
This—this coldness, this distance—was restraint learned the hard way. The knowledge did not soften the pain, as it only settled heavier in your chest.
You reached for your teacup, then thought better of it, setting it aside with deliberate care. Your hands steadied as your resolve did.
“I am sorry,” the princess said softly, and though she did not name what for, you understood. She had seen enough. Perhaps more than she had intended.
You inclined your head to her, gratitude mingling with resolve. “You had no way of knowing.”
But you did.
You had known this reunion was inevitable, that it would not be gentle. You had simply underestimated how much it would still matter.
Very well, you thought. If this was the shape of the ground between you now—cold stone, measured distance, pride sharpened into armor—then you would cross it all the same. If he would not meet you halfway, you would take the first step. And the next. And however many it required.
You would make him forgive you. You would make him remember not the girl who laughed and left, but the one who stayed. He will have to remember that you were the one who chose him, even now, even late.
And if, in the course of that effort, a certain lady from Tyrosh found her future less certain than gossip promised—
Well. She would just have to accept that certain storms did not retreat simply because someone else wished for clear skies.
YOU TOLD yourself, at first, that you would be subtle, measured, and reasonable.
You swore you would allow time to do its work—that familiarity would soften him, that proximity would loosen the careful knots he had tied around himself. You were, after all, no green girl chasing attention in corridors. You were a lady of House Baratheon, trained in restraint, in wit, in the art of saying much while appearing to say very little.
So you began there, engineering coincidence.
A shared corridor at the hour he favored after training, when his hair was still damp at the nape and the scent of leather and steel clung faintly to him. You would pass with an idle remark—about the weather turning, about the guards changing rotation, about a tourney rumor spoken lightly enough to invite correction.
Once, you smiled and said, “I hear the yard has been dull of late. Either the men are improving, or you are growing too merciful.”
He paused. Then turned. Then, for one grueling, hopeful heartbeat, you thought you had him.
“Discipline discourages carelessness, Lady Baratheon,” he replied evenly. Then he inclined his head and walked on.
You stood there, smiling after him like a fool, heat creeping up your neck.
All right, then.
Subtlety, you decided, was overrated.
You knew—intellectually—that this was unbecoming. You could not even begin to fool yourself into thinking that waiting around corners and timing footsteps was the sort of thing women—prudent, self-reliant women—who had sat at councils and spoken freely among lords, did in their free moments. This was something girls in songs would do, swooningly and utterly overcome with passion. You knew that desperation was an unbecoming color, and worse, that you had no real claim to him.
You had no worthy title. You hadn’t even a promise to cling to. What you had only was a history you had fractured with your own hands.
And yet, confidence had always been your vice as much as your strength. Baratheon blood did not know how to retreat quietly, and you were far too used to being wanted, to being answered when you reached.
So you waited.
It was absurd, really—standing just out of sight near the turn of a gallery, pretending to examine a tapestry you had already memorized, counting breaths and footsteps like a conspirator in your own folly. You told yourself you were merely testing fate, convinced yourself that if he passed, he passed. If not, you would go on with dignity intact.
And he did. He passed. It just so happened that you stepped out at precisely the wrong—or right—moment.
The collision was sudden, solid. You gasped as you stumbled forward, a moment you hadn’t foreseen, the world tilting—
And Valarr caught you.
His hands came up instinctively, strong and sure at your waist, steadying you before you could hit the stone. For the briefest instant, you were pressed against him, close enough to feel the heat of his body, the sharp inhale he failed to hide. His grip tightened, just slightly, as though his body had remembered something his mind had not permitted.
For half a heartbeat, neither of you moved. Then he realized.
He released you as if he were burned. It happened so abruptly that it was almost comical, with you staggering back a step, skirts tangling, barely managing to keep your balance. He retreated as well, posture snapping into rigid control, jaw set hard enough to ache.
“I—” you began, then stopped, pulse racing. You forced a laugh that came out a touch too bright. “F— Forgive me. I should watch where I am going.”
His eyes flicked over you, sharp and quick, as if checking for injury—and then away just as fast as it passed.
“Yes,” he said shortly. “You should.”
There it was again. That distance, that restraint wound so tight it creaked. He inclined his head, already moving to leave.
You watched him go, heart pounding—not with triumph, but with something messier. Because for that fleeting second, when his hands had been on you, you had felt it.
Not indifference. Not absence. Reaction.
And that was dangerous.
Because it made you bold where you ought to have been cautious. It made you tell yourself stories—that if you pushed just a little more, teased just a little harder, forced him to remember the ease between you, the laughter, the almosts—
You would get him back.
You did not like how possessive that thought sounded, how little it cared for propriety or patience or the quiet dignity expected of you now. You did not like how easily you justified it—how you told yourself that you were only reclaiming something that had once been yours, even though it had never been named, never promised.
Manipulative, perhaps. But storms were not known for their restraint. And you were far from done.
You became… inventive. If subtlety had failed, then information would not.
You learned quickly that the Red Keep ran on whispers as much as it did on banners. You’ve come to learn that maids talked when they folded linen. Pages talked when they thought themselves unseen. Guards talked when wine loosened their tongues. You listened—never too intently, never so directly as to invite suspicion, but with the practiced ease of someone raised among courts and camps alike.
You asked about schedules in the guise of courtesy. You asked about quiet places one might visit within the Keep under the pretense of needing space for your duties. Sometimes you laughed and said, “I am forever losing people in this castle,” and the servants, eager to be useful, gladly told you where one might be found.
You did not often ask the princess.
It is not because she would not tell you—on the contrary, you suspected she would answer with disarming honesty—but because there was something in her gaze now. A knowing softness, a patience that suggested she saw far more than she said. You had the distinct sense that if you pressed her too directly, she might smile that gentle, prophetic smile of hers and say something altogether too revealing.
So you kept your scheming elsewhere. And inevitably, one truth surfaced again and again.
If Valarr was not at court, nor in the training yard, then he was in the library.
Always.
The realization struck you with a strange pang of fondness before you could stop it. You remembered him telling you once—years ago, sprawled across a bench with ink-smudged fingers and a book balanced precariously on his knee—that his love of reading came from both his parents, though especially his mother. Lady Jena Dondarrion, gentle and sharp-minded, who had loved stories and histories and passed that love on quietly, against all assumptions. She had been the one, he’d said, to coax Prince Baelor into lingering longer over pages instead of parchments.
It felt… intimate, remembering that.
And so you went to the library. Casually, of course.
You told yourself—very reasonably—that it made sense. The princess had mentioned wanting certain correspondence copied. You enjoyed reading. Libraries were public spaces. It was entirely innocent.
Never mind that you timed your arrival with surgical precision. Never mind that you waited just long enough for him to be well and truly settled, for the likelihood of him leaving to be minimal. Once he began reading, you knew, it took effort to pull him away. He would not abandon a chapter lightly.
You entered as though summoned by chance.
The library was cool and hushed, sunlight slanting through high windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the air. And there he was—seated at one of the long tables, a book open before him, brow faintly furrowed in concentration.
Your heart tripped.
You approached with measured steps, schooling your expression into mild interest. When you were close enough to see the title, you tilted your head and said lightly, “That one puts men to sleep by the third chapter. I would have thought you braver.”
You had meant it teasingly. Familiar. A bold grasp for an opening.
He did look at you then, properly this time. His gaze lingered just a fraction too long—on your face, your posture, the way you held yourself as though this were all effortless. Something unreadable flickered there before it vanished behind reserve.
“It teaches patience,” he said. Then, after a pause, “And restraint.”
You laughed, a little breathless despite yourself. “I see. Such riveting qualities.”
He inclined his head once, as if acknowledging a point already concluded, and returned to his reading.
Dismissed.
You lingered for another heartbeat—long enough to feel foolish—then drifted away before your composure could crack. Your retreat felt infinitely louder than your arrival.
Another day, another attempt.
You tried conversation next—safe, neutral ground.
“You always favored histories,” you remarked once, gesturing to the stack beside him. “Have you ever considered that you might enjoy something lighter? Poetry, perhaps?”
“No,” he replied without looking up.
You smiled anyway. “Straightforward as ever.”
Silence.
Another time, you dared a softer approach. “You read like your mother used to,” you said quietly, testing the words as one might test ice.
That earned you a reaction—his hand stilled on the page. But when he spoke, his voice was carefully blank. “That is not a comparison I make lightly.”
“I— I meant no offense, Your Grace,” you said quickly.
“I know,” he answered. And turned the page.
Every exchange ended the same way. With your words reaching toward him, his responses closing ranks. It was polite, correct, impenetrable. All in all, the most painfully awkward of all conversations you ever struck.
You began to feel like a ghost haunting his periphery—noticed only enough to be avoided. And yet, for all his distance, there were moments you could not quite explain. The way his shoulders tensed when you came too close. The way he always acknowledged you, however briefly, even when he ignored others. The way he never told you to leave.
You told yourself these things meant nothing. After all, you were the one orchestrating these encounters. The one lingering where you ought not. The one pretending coincidence where there was intent.
You were not proud of it, but you were not ready to stop. Not yet.
So next came games.
It is not in the form of light sparring upon supper-table debates, for that had been proven too easy for him to deflect. No, if you were going to reach him, you would have to reach the boy he had once been. The one who delighted in puzzles, the one who would abandon sleep to chase the satisfaction of a riddle solved.
You remembered, with painful clarity, the afternoons nearly three years ago when you would sit with him on the parapets trading clues back and forth, each more elaborate than the last. You had liked riddles well enough—but he had loved them. He thoroughly loved the chase, the pattern. The satisfying click of revelation.
So you built one.
It was, in hindsight, unhinged.
You began with a scrap of parchment slipped into a book you knew he had already borrowed from the library—a book of old Valyrian histories he had read twice before. The note was written in a cipher you both used to tease one another with in the past.
Where dragons once bowed and lions pretended not to notice.
He would know it referred to the small carved antechamber near the throne room—an old alcove where statues of past kings stood half-forgotten.
He found it, of course, with little to no difficulty. You learned this later from a breathless page who had witnessed the prince examining the statues with narrowed eyes before discovering the next clue tucked behind a loose stone.
You had anticipated his path carefully. Each location you chose had meaning. From the training yard where he had once insisted on teaching you how to properly grip a practice sword, to the balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay where he had confessed his hatred of storms despite your lineage, and even the old rookery tower where you had argued about boundless of things, including fate, whether it was written or forged.
At each place, there was a riddle. At each riddle, a memory.
You even enlisted the princess.
It had taken only the slightest explanation and a promise that it would do no harm. She had listened with that soft, knowing look and agreed.
When Valarr reached her solar, following a clue that read Seek the dreamer who sees what others do not, he had apparently smiled—actually smiled—and bowed in amused confusion.
“I did not know you conspired in children’s games, Cousin,” he had said. The princess gushes to you much later how it had been so long since he last regarded her as such.
“Enlightening days invite unusual pastimes,” she had replied serenely, handing him the next folded parchment.
By then, you were certain. You were decisively certain that he knew, that he had begun to suspect the hand behind the hunt. You were quite assured that each clue was stirring something old and familiar within him. Why else would he continue? He could have stopped at any time. Instead, he followed every thread.
By the time he reached the final location—the small, sun-warmed alcove overlooking the sea where you had once spent an entire afternoon arguing about whether he would make a better king or a better knight—his steps were quick, eager.
You were already there, waiting, and in your hands, you held the prize.
It was a small leather-bound book—its edges worn, its spine carefully mended. The very same volume of riddles he had once lent you and never received back. You had kept it all these years. Inside, tucked between the pages, was a pressed stormflower from Storm’s End. It was a quiet offering, a memory returned.
When he stepped into the alcove and saw you, his expression was incandescent. For a heartbeat.
His smile—bright, unguarded, triumphant—lit his entire face as he lifted his gaze, already beginning to say something. And then he realized.
It was you.
The smile vanished as though struck. His features did not harden all at once. They faltered first—confusion, recognition, something dangerously close to hope flickering in his eyes before discipline slammed down over it like a portcullis.
His jaw set. His hand, which had half-lifted in anticipation of accepting whatever prize awaited him, curled slowly into a fist.
You swallowed, forcing brightness into your voice. “You solved it.”
Silence.
“I thought,” you continued, holding the book out, “you might like your property returned.”
He stared at it. He looked on at the worn leather, at the familiar edges, at the stem of the stormflower peeking just slightly from between the pages. His throat worked.
For a moment—a fragile, breathless moment—you thought you had him. Thought he might step forward, take it, let the past bridge the distance you had both been circling for days.
He did take a step and your heart hopelessly leapt. But then something shuttered behind his eyes. His hand flexed once more, not reaching but resisting. And instead of closing the space between you, he drew back.
“You should not have,” he said, voice tight.
“I wanted to,” you answered, too quickly.
“That is precisely the problem.”
The words struck harder than any dismissal before them.
Before you could respond, before you could salvage the fragile thing hanging between you, he turned and he left. Not briskly, not angrily. But decisively.
You stood there alone in the sunlight, the book still extended in your hand, feeling absurd and small and terribly, terribly young.
For the first time since you had begun this campaign of coincidences and cleverness, you did not know what to do next. And added to the long ledger of things you did not know—he did not truly flee.
He did not stop until the salt left the air and the corridors closed around him, stone swallowing sound. Only then did he falter. His hand struck the wall, then slid flat as if to steady himself. He dragged his fingers through his hair, once—twice—jaw tight, breath measured and failing all the same. His knuckles pressed to his mouth. He bit down until copper bloomed.
Unwanted flashes cut through him. From your waist beneath his hands days ago when you collided in the passage, to your face lit warm by lanterns and candles in the library as you tried—again—to banter, and the small, unmistakable fracture in your composure when he turned cold and left the book of riddles untouched.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He had known it was you—known from the first clue, the phrasing only you favored, the memories threaded too carefully to be coincidence. He had followed anyway, and that was the cruelty of it.
He could still see you at the end, bright with hope, holding the past as though it were something he might simply take. His fist curled, then tightened.
He could not.
Whether bound by pride, by penance, or by a future already being shaped for him beyond these walls, he refused to name it. Wanting you did not make you possible. So he stood there, miserable and silent, and told himself, again, that he cannot.
For you, each attempt only ended the same way—not in cruelty, not in anything sharp enough to justify indignation, but in distance. Distance which he drew that is still polite, considered, unassailable. He gave you nothing that could be seized and shaken into meaning.
And the most infuriating part of it all was that you understood.
You understood why he did this. You understood why he kept his voice even, his gaze measured, his courtesy intact like armor. You understood that you were no longer simply someone he had once loved—or once been hurt by—but a disruption, a risk. A temptation he had no right to indulge. Whispers traveled faster than truth in the Keep, and those whispers spoke of Tyrosh, of alliances spun in silk and salt, of a woman he had not yet met but already owed fidelity to in spirit if not in name.
You told yourself—often—that he was being honorable. Valiant, even. Loyal to a future that did not include you.
And in your clearer moments, you thought you deserved this coldness. You had been careless once. You were cruel even without intending to be. You had left wounds that did not bleed until much later, and now he bore the scars while you bore only regret. Perhaps he could sense the selfishness beneath your efforts, the wanting disguised as reconciliation. Perhaps he saw through you entirely.
But while that thought should have quieted you, it did not.
Understanding did nothing to soothe the resentment crawling beneath your skin, sharp and restless, furious at circumstance, at timing, at the sheer unfairness of wanting something that had already decided it would not be yours. You could admit fault and still feel wronged by the world for remembering it. The contradiction made your head ache.
By the time the dinners blurred into one another, you told yourself—firmly—that this would be the last time.
Wine loosened your resolve before it dulled your pride. Your thoughts slurred not into recklessness, but into honesty. When the table thinned and conversation softened into murmurs, you found yourself speaking without quite deciding to.
“Do you think,” you asked lightly, too lightly, “that people truly change—or do they simply learn which parts of themselves to keep hidden?”
He paused, appraised you under a dismantling gaze, just long enough for hope to be cruel, and looked away.
“They change,” he said at last, eyes on his cup rather than on you. “Or they should. Growth requires leaving some things behind.”
The words were not unkind, and that was exactly what ended it.
You nodded, as though he had confirmed something you already suspected. You did not press. You did not smile. You let the silence settle between you like a final stone laid carefully in place.
That night, you lay awake despite the wine still swimming through you, head aching, thoughts stubbornly clear. You replayed his answer until it lost all ambiguity. It was not a warning. It was not an invitation. It was a line, drawn cleanly and without malice.
You were not a girl so easily discouraged—never had been. But even you knew when persistence turned into trespass. And as bitter as it tasted to admit, you knew this too: He deserved peace.
And whatever he had become, it was no longer someone who could afford to want you.
THE ARRIVAL of the lady from Tyrosh became the Keep’s only language for an entire week.
It crept into every corridor and bled into every conversation—murmured between servants polishing bannisters, traded like coin between ladies at embroidery, speculated upon openly by guards who pretended not to care. Preparations swelled until even the stones seemed to hum with anticipation. Drapes were changed, menus were revised, and even the courtyards were scrubbed twice over. It was said she would arrive on the eve of Prince Matarys’ name day, as though fate itself had chosen spectacle over subtlety.
You learned her name late. Too late.
Kiera.
It came to you in passing, spoken casually by another lady-in-waiting as though it had always been known, and the sound of it landed with an unexpected weight. You felt a sharp, belated shame bloom beneath your ribs—hot and undeserved. You had spent weeks thinking of her as an idea, a rumor, a threat. Never as a woman with a name, with a life already entangled in expectation before she had even crossed the sea.
That stung more than jealousy ever could.
You had always been better than that. A champion of female companionship, through and through. The sort who bristled at careless cruelty, who knew too well how often women were turned into symbols rather than people. And yet, wrapped up in Valarr—his silence, his restraint, the ache of unfinished things—you had allowed yourself to forget that there was another woman standing at the edge of this story, blameless and unknowing.
You corrected yourself quietly, thoroughly. And from then on, you made yourself scarce.
You buried your hours in duty, shadowing the princess from dawn until candlelight, anticipating needs before they were spoken, volunteering for tasks no one else wanted. You rearranged schedules, took longer routes through the Keep. You learned which corridors Valarr favored and avoided them with strategic precision. If he entered a room, you found reason to leave it. If his name surfaced in conversation, you redirected it with practiced ease.
Avoidance, you discovered, was its own kind of discipline.
By the time the banners were raised and the final preparations set in place—by the time the Keep held its breath for the arrival of Lady Kiera—you had convinced yourself you were ready. You had persuaded yourself to believe that you had done the decent thing, that whatever bitterness lingered beneath your composure was contained, managed, mastered.
Some things were already in motion long before you understood them. Some choices, once made, could not be unmade by cleverness or persistence or longing. And this, you told yourself quietly, was one of them.
Lady Kiera of Tyrosh was received with all the ceremony the moment demanded, and more.
The court gathered in full splendor, not merely out of courtesy, but calculation. This was no simple visit of a noblewoman from across the Narrow Sea. Tyrosh had long been a sympathetic harbor to the Blackfyre cause, its ports and coin too often turned toward exile and rebellion. To welcome the daughter of its Archon was to make a statement: that old loyalties were being rewritten, that the Iron Throne’s reach now extended into waters once hostile.
Prince Baelor himself stood at the forefront, composed and gracious, his presence lending the occasion its gravity. Beside him was Prince Maekar, solid and stern as ever, his wife the princess radiant in silk chosen carefully for Tyroshi eyes. Their sons were arrayed nearby—Daeron with his easy charm, Aerion sharp-eyed and restless, and young Aegon watching everything with a curiosity far older than his years—while their daughters Daella and Rhaella fidgeted with their own frocks.
Prince Matarys hovered close to Valarr, excitement barely contained—his name day looming, his world suddenly fuller for it.
And Valarr himself… Well, you did not look at him. You stood where you belonged, half a step behind the princess as her lady-in-waiting, posture perfect, expression serene. You answered when spoken to, inclined your head at the proper moments, and kept your gaze precisely where it ought to be. Still, you felt it—the unmistakable weight of his attention, like heat against your skin. Especially then. Especially then.
You did not return it.
Lady Kiera was presented at last, and she did not disappoint expectation. She moved with an ease that spoke of sunlit courtyards and salt air rather than rigid halls, her smile unguarded, her eyes bright with curiosity rather than calculation. She greeted the princess with warmth and respect and familiarity, developed from their shared correspondence for the past few moons.
“And you must be her lady,” Kiera said next, turning to you without hesitation, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to include you. “I was hoping I might meet you. The princess speaks of you fondly in her letters.”
You blinked—just once—before smiling.
“I’m honored, my lady,” you replied. “I hope the journey treated you kindly.”
She laughed softly. “As kindly as the sea ever does. I believe it sensed I was in good spirits.”
“I have never seen Tyrosh,” you admitted lightly. “Only heard it described. They say the markets are all color and noise—nothing like court.”
Lady Kiera’s smile widened. “That is a generous way of saying chaos. But yes—color everywhere. Even the fishmongers dress as though they are attending a festival.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself. “Then King’s Landing must seem terribly gray by comparison.”
“Hopelessly,” she said, good-natured rather than critical. “I may have to bring half the Free Cities’ silks with me next time, just to survive it.”
“I would welcome the improvement,” you replied, meaning it.
She inclined her head, warm and sincere. “I hope we’ll speak again.”
“As do I, my lady.”
She drifted away then, drawn into greetings with other lords and ladies—still smiling, still effortless. And only once she was gone did the weight of it settle in your chest. The ease, the kindness, the fact that she had given you nothing but goodwill.
And guilt settled into you like a stone.
Because she was kind. Because she was real. Because she was not the faceless rival you had once allowed her to be in your mind, but a woman standing before you—warm, earnest, and wholly undeserving of your earlier bitterness. And Valarr… Valarr deserved someone untouched by old wounds and half-healed regrets.
She had barely stepped away when you felt the shift again—that subtle tightening in the air that always preceded him.
You did not look at first. You told yourself you would not. But the sound reached you anyway—the soft cadence of his voice, courteous and warm in a way he had not been with you. When you finally glanced, only briefly, you saw it. Valarr was bowing now over Lady Kiera’s hand, pressing a gentleman’s kiss to her knuckles. Careful, correct, and impeccably princely.
She smiled at him. But it is not the polite smile of court obligation, rather something lighter, genuine.
Something in your chest lurched, sharp and instinctive, and you looked away at once—too quickly, almost guiltily. As if you had been caught witnessing something you had no right to see. Which, you told yourself firmly, you did not.
You schooled your expression before anyone could read it. You forced the reaction down into the quiet places where you had been storing so many other feelings lately. No one noticed. No one ever did. You had always been good at that.
You had wanted him back, there was no point to deny this truth. But standing there—having already been greeted, already included, already treated with courtesy by a woman who owed you nothing—you understood something with aching clarity: wanting did not grant you the right to take. Not from him. Not from her.
So you smiled. You wished her welcome. And you meant it.
No matter how much it cost you.
“STOP FUSSING,” the princess said gently, not even turning from the mirror. “You will crease the fabric before you ever wear it.”
“I am not fussing,” you muttered, attempting—and failing—to smooth the skirt of the gown you had very clearly been fussing over.
Around you, her chambers were alive with silk and laughter. The other ladies of her entourage moved in a whirl of color and perfume, fastening clasps, adjusting sleeves, arguing amiably over ribbons. The princess had refused—flatly refused—to have them dressed in matching, somber hues like ornamental servants.
“If I must sit through hours of ceremony,” she had declared earlier that afternoon, “I will at least be surrounded by beauty.”
And so beauty there was.
Lysa wore a dark purple satin embroidered with tiny silver stars at the hem. Elenei had chosen a soft rose silk with gauze sleeves that floated when she moved. Another had donned green velvet cut daringly square at the neckline. None of them matched. None of them looked diminished.
And the princess herself—
Her gown lay across the bed like poured sunlight. Cloth-of-crimson threaded with darker maroon dragons, the bodice structured and regal, the skirts layered in cascading panels of deep silver silk that caught the light with every shift. Pearls traced the neckline as garnets winked at the wrists.
You, meanwhile, held up your own selection with clear reluctance.
“It is too much,” you insisted. “I am your lady-in-waiting, not a rival spectacle. This one is perfectly suitable.” You gestured toward the far more modest gown draped over a chair—soft brown with minimal embellishment.
The princess finally turned, eyebrow lifting. “That one might as well be fit for mourning, my lady, not celebration.”
“It is appropriate.”
“It is dull,” she corrected serenely. “Wear the gold.”
The gold in question was hardly scandalous—but it was beautiful. A deep topaz silk that mirrored sunlight, with subtle silver beading at the cuffs and along the square neckline. It was elegant, striking. And, to top it off, it had been in the shade of your house colors. Hues you have missed oh-so-dearly to don since you arrived in the Keep more than a fortnight ago.
“You will not overshadow me,” she added, amused. “If necessary, I shall simply wear something more magnificent.”
“You already are,” you said dryly, helping her step into the first linen layer.
Laughter rippled through the room. Layer by careful layer, you and the other ladies dressed her: chemise, corset pulled firm and laced tight, underskirts arranged for volume, the heavy outer gown settled over her shoulders. You fastened the tiny pearl closures at her back while another adjusted the train so it fell in perfect symmetry.
When at last the final ribbon was tied and the last crease smoothed, she drew a measured breath and said lightly, “Leave us, please.”
There was no protest, no visible offense. The princess had always been careful of that.
You had heard whispers of favoritism before—quiet murmurs from lesser courts about ladies elevated too high in their mistress’s confidence, but she had never allowed such talk to root here. If she asked you to remain, she would later send you on an errand while another stayed behind. If she sought your counsel, she would later seek theirs too. She cultivated harmony deliberately, insisting her ladies be companions rather than competitors.
Tonight was no different. As the others departed, she called after them, “Find the emerald clasp for my hair, if you would be so kind, my ladies. I believe I left it in the cedar chest.”
They left cheerfully enough.
When the door closed, silence settled softly between you. She met your eyes in the mirror.
“You have been very diligent in avoiding my cousin,” she said.
You stilled only briefly before resuming the arrangement of her hair. “I am being sensible.”
“Is that what we are calling it?”
You exhaled slowly. “I am merely an observer now, Princess. As I should have been from the start.” You focused on pinning a section into place. “The distance between us took root because of my own doing. It is only fitting I respect it. Perhaps it is better this way. I broke his heart once. I have no right to disrupt what peace he has found now.”
Her gaze softened, but she did not relent. “And the scavenger hunt?”
Heat crept up your neck at the memory it wrung out.
“I apologize,” she added quickly. “I should have asked sooner. Maekar’s duties have consumed much of my time. I did not mean to ignore what was happening beneath my own roof.”
“It was childish,” you said, sharper than intended. “An elaborate attempt to reclaim something that was never mine to begin with. I behaved like a spoiled little girl who could not tolerate not being wanted.”
“Is that truly what you believe?” she asked quietly.
You hesitated.
“You are not spoiled,” she continued. “And you are rarely childish. Why do you think you tried so hard?”
You opened your mouth—closed it. Because you were proud? Because you hated losing? Because you resented Tyroshi silks and distant promises?
Or—
Because you loved him.
The thought rose unbidden, unwelcome, undeniable.
You would not have orchestrated riddles across the Keep for pride alone. You would not have humiliated yourself repeatedly for vanity. You would not have felt your chest fracture at the sight of him kissing another woman’s hand if it were merely wounded ego.
You swallowed.
“I do not like what it makes me look like,” you admitted finally.
She reached for your hand, squeezing it gently. “I did not ask what it looks like,” she said. “I asked what it is.”
And for the first time in weeks, you had no clever answer.
Love.
It had always sounded like something other people were certain about.
You had never been.
You knew, in the abstract, that your parents loved one another. You had been told as much often enough. But your childhood had kept you at a distance from their quieter moments. You remembered departures more than embraces. You recalled of their letters more than laughter. Whatever tenderness existed between them had unfolded largely beyond your sight, tucked into spaces children were not invited to linger.
So you had grown up understanding love as fact, not feeling.
Then there was your Uncle Lyonel—surrounded perpetually by beautiful women, draped across feasts and balconies like ornaments. He called them sweet names. They called him worse ones when he was out of earshot. There had been heat there, certainly. Desire. Amusement. Possession. But it was all so temporary. A rotation of faces and favors. Flesh-love, if one were honest, bright and consuming and gone by morning.
You had seen enough of that to know it was not the thing poets bled over.
And you had read the poets. You have listened to ladies sigh over ballads and septas speak of devotion as though it were a divine affliction. You had heard housemaids whisper about knights who swore themselves to one woman alone, about longing that made food taste like ash and sleep impossible.
It had always seemed… excessive.
Men had admired you before. Knights had written verses in your honor. Lords had angled for your favor with polished compliments and earnest promises. You had entertained some of it, deflected most of it, never once feeling as though something vital hung in the balance. Attention was pleasant. Attraction was easy. None of it rooted deeply enough to frighten you.
You had never measured your pulse after parting from any of them. You had never orchestrated riddles across an entire castle. You had never felt resentment burn beneath your skin at the sight of a courteous kiss.
Perhaps that was why you had not named what you felt for Valarr. Because naming it meant admitting it was not pride, not wounded vanity. Not mere habit or nostalgia.
It meant it was something that could break.
You stared at your reflection in the mirror, thoughts spiraling inward, until the princess’s voice cut cleanly through them.
“You have been quiet for far too long.”
You blinked, pulled back into the room. She studied you—not unkindly. Simply waiting.
You hesitated, then allowed the smallest, most cautious concession.
“Perhaps,” you said slowly, testing the word as though it might shatter, “it is possible that I… care for him more than I intended.”
It was not a declaration, not a vow. But it was still the faintest warming to the idea.
THE CORRIDOR toward the Great Hall grew warmer with every step.
Music seeped through the stone first—muted strings and laughter softened by distance—followed by the unmistakable swell of voices gathered in celebration. The princess walked ahead of you, unhurried and luminous, her gown whispering over the floor. You lifted its train slightly, smoothing the heavy silk where it threatened to catch, while another lady adjusted the fall of her sleeves and a third lightly coaxed a curl back into place among her silver hair.
“You’ll fuss a hole through it if you’re not careful,” the princess murmured, amusement threading her voice as you reached to tame a stubborn fold for the third time.
“You look perfect,” you replied reflexively, fingers retreating. “I only fear the hall may not survive it.”
She laughed softly, then glanced back at you. “Are you ready?”
You inhaled once, steadying yourself. “Yes, Princess.”
At the doors, you inclined your head to the herald and gave the signal.
His staff struck stone, and his voice rang clear and ceremonial.
“Her Grace, Princess of Summerhall—daughter of Prince Aerys Targaryen, wife to Prince Maekar Targaryen, of the blood of the dragon.”
The doors swung wide.
If anyone noticed that she was fashionably late, no one dared remark upon it—nor did they seem inclined to. The hall turned as one body, conversation dipping in a soft, reverent hush before swelling again with unmistakable warmth. This was not the pause of judgment. It was the pause of recognition, of affection.
Smiles bloomed openly. Lords straightened in their seats. Ladies leaned forward, eager to behold rather than critical. Even the servants seemed to slow, as though unwilling to break the moment too quickly. The princess moved through it all as if she had been expected precisely then, as if the night itself had waited for her arrival before truly beginning.
You followed a respectful pace behind her, heart swelling with something close to pride. It was impossible not to feel it. She wore her welcome with effortless grace—not preening, not shrinking—but simply being. Radiant in deep scarlet silk threaded through with silver, her gown caught the candlelight like ruby under water. The embroidery along her bodice gleamed subtly, intricate rather than ostentatious, as though it had been made not to demand attention but to reward it.
She looked, absurdly, like something sent down rather than born—late not out of carelessness, but because the heavens themselves had taken their time.
You felt honored simply to walk in her wake, to be counted among her retinue. To belong, even in this small way, to her brilliance.
At the high table, King Daeron II rose slightly, his expression warm rather than formal, and beside him Queen MyriahMartell smiled with an open fondness at their granddaughter. The princess bowed, perfect and unhurried. They inclined their heads in return, not merely as monarchs, but as family.
A heartbeat later, Prince Maekar stood.
He crossed the space between them without ceremony, offering his arm. The way his face softened as she took it was unmistakable. Whatever the court whispered of alliances and duty, this—this quiet ease, this pride—was not feigned. He looked at her as though the hall had rearranged itself around her presence, as though her lateness had only sharpened his relief to see her at last.
They moved together to their seats amid renewed applause.
Only then did you withdraw, as was proper, stepping back to your place farther down the table. And only then—traitorously, unbidden—did your gaze lift.
Across the hall, nearly opposite you, sat Valarr—between his father and Matarys—with Lady Kiera to his other side and Prince Daeron beyond her, already flushed and unsteady with drink. You told yourself not to search for him, yet your gaze found his all the same.
Valarr was not watching his luminous cousin. He was watching you.
The realization struck like a misstep on stone. You looked away at once, forcing your attention back where it belonged—to the princess, to her place at Maekar’s side, to the way the hall seemed brighter simply for having her in it.
You told yourself that was enough. You told yourself not to think of anything else.
When the hall at last settled into something resembling order, King Daeron II rose from his seat.
He did not need to raise his voice as the room quieted for him all the same.
“My lords, my ladies,” he began, hands resting lightly on the carved edge of the table, “tonight we are fortunate enough to celebrate more than one blessing.”
A murmur of approval rippled outward.
“We welcome Lady Kiera of Tyrosh to our court—daughter of the Archon, and honored guest beneath our roof. The Narrow Sea has too often divided friend from friend, kin from kin, and worse—fanned old embers into flame.” His gaze swept the hall meaningfully, and no one mistook his reference. “Let it be known that we prefer bridges to bonfires. If there is to be fire in this realm, let it warm our halls—not burn our future.”
Polite laughter followed that, warm and approving.
“Tyrosh is a proud city. Westeros is a proud kingdom. Pride, when tempered by wisdom, need not lead to strife. It may instead lead to partnership. May this visit mark not merely courtesy, but confidence—confidence that peace is forged not only in battlefields, but at tables such as these.”
He turned slightly then, smile deepening.
“And as though that were not cause enough for celebration, we mark also the name day of my grandson, Prince Matarys—who grows another year older and, I trust, another year wiser.”
Cheers broke out properly at that, Matarys grinning unabashedly. The king waited for the sound to soften before continuing.
“Life grants us many duties,” he said, more quietly now. “Some we choose. Others are chosen for us. We do not always control the path set before us—but we do control the manner in which we walk it. With resentment… or with grace. With division… or with loyalty. The realm endures not because we are spared hardship, but because we meet it together.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly. You kept your gaze lowered, fingers tightening briefly around your goblet.
“We must remember,” the king went on, “that what strengthens one branch strengthens the whole tree. Alliances are not chains. They are roots. And roots, though unseen, are what allow us to weather storms.”
There it was—that quiet, piercing wisdom he was known for. So gentle it felt almost like comfort, so precise it felt almost like rebuke.
You swallowed the lump rising in your throat.
Alliances are not chains.
You told yourself it was only politics. You told yourself it was only the language of rulers and realms. It had nothing to do with the sharp ache beneath your ribs, nothing to do with wanting something that perhaps had been set aside for the good of more than just two foolish hearts.
You forced the thought down and smoothed your expression.
The king lifted his cup. “To Tyrosh. To Westeros. To growth, to loyalty, and to the years yet ahead.”
The hall erupted in agreement. Goblets rose. Servants moved in seamless unison. Music swelled once more as the feast properly began.
You ate, spoke when spoken to, and laughed at the proper moments and kept your posture composed. You made sure to have your hands folded neatly, your wine never more than half-finished. From a distance, you might have looked perfectly at ease.
From the inside, you were cataloguing everything—perhaps because looking outward felt safer than turning inward.
You could not help but admire the family gathered at the high table. King Daeron sat close to Queen Myriah, his hand resting over hers more often than not, their heads inclined together in quiet, practiced intimacy. It was not showy affection, but something settled and enduring, the kind that had survived decades and burdens alike. When she spoke, he listened. When he laughed, it was softer for her.
Prince Baelor, ever the dutiful heir, looked content in a way that surprised you. He had no romantic companion at his side, yet there was no bitterness to him—only a gentle pride as he watched his youngest brother, Maekar, with open fondness. He clapped Maekar on the shoulder at one point, said something that made the prince groan and grin all the same. It struck you then how love took many shapes, not all of them romantic, and how Baelor seemed full of it nonetheless.
Further down the table, Aerion leaned toward Daella, whispering something that made her scowl before she flicked a grape at him with impressive aim. He laughed; she did not—but her lips twitched despite herself. Aegon and Rhaella, seated nearby, were less discreet, rolling grapes between their fingers as though plotting some small mischief, their heads bent together conspiratorially until a sharp look from an elder sent them into feigned innocence.
Prince Daeron was… well. Daeron. Loud, flushed, already halfway to drunk and raising his cup at anyone who glanced his way, whether they deserved a toast or not.
And then there was Valarr.
He sat in polite conversation with Lady Kiera, his posture impeccable, his smile courteous. Too courteous. He nodded as she spoke, murmured replies at the right intervals, laughed softly when she did. And all the while—all the while—his gaze kept straying.
To you.
It is not boldly, not enough for anyone else to notice. They were just brief glances, stolen and swift, as though his eyes betrayed him before his discipline reined them back in.
It unnerved you. Not only because it felt improper—because he was speaking with the woman everyone believed would be his future wife—but because of the sheer contradiction of it all. Days ago, he could barely acknowledge your presence without icing his voice. Now he watched you as though anchoring himself, as though you were something he needed to keep within sight.
The emotional whiplash left you dizzy.
You looked away. Then back. Then resolutely down at your plate.
When the music softened and shifted into a livelier tune, it was the princess who rose first.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, delighted, already tugging at Prince Maekar’s sleeve. “This was played at our wedding banquet, do you remember?”
He groaned theatrically. “How could I forget? You danced until your slippers were ruined.”
“And I would do it again,” she declared, beaming.
He rolled his eyes, but the fondness in his smile ruined any pretense of complaint as he stood and offered his hand. She took it eagerly, skirts gathered, and the two of them made their way to the floor amid warm applause.
Their joy was infectious. One couple joined them. Then another. Laughter soon rose, and the hall loosened, as if the night itself had taken a deeper breath.
That was when you saw Valarr lean toward Prince Daeron.
He said something low, brief. Daeron waved him off with an exaggerated flick of his wrist and a grin that suggested he had not listened at all.
Valarr straightened, then he turned to Lady Kiera and offered his hand. She smiled—bright, unguarded—and wrapped her fingers around his.
You told yourself, again, that you could bear it.
You told yourself that you had borne worse things than this. From silence, distance, to the slow, unspoken unmaking of whatever you and Valarr had once been. This, at least, had form. This had music and steps and smiles that could be explained away as duty, as courtesy, as inevitability.
So you watched him offer his hand to Lady Kiera and told yourself it meant nothing.
You held your chin high, your shoulders set back, your expression carefully neutral. You even managed a sip of wine as they took their places on the floor, as if the sight before you was no more than another pair among many. Of course he would dance with her. Of course he would. She was Tyroshi, noble, newly arrived—his future, if rumor was to be believed. What did it matter whether it meant something or not? What did it change, really?
Nothing, you insisted.
At first, their steps were measured and polite. It was the sort of dance that could belong to anyone. You clung to that, to the idea that it was all surface and ceremony. You watched the patterns instead of their faces, the sweep of silk and the precise turns, the way the light caught on jewels and embroidery.
Then Valarr laughed.
It was not the restrained kind of curve of the mouth he offered most of the court. It was not the courteous, practiced smile he had worn these past days—cold, distant, almost unfamiliar. This was bright and insouciant. It broke from him easily, as if summoned without effort.
Your breath caught.
You told yourself not to look at him, and failed. His head was tilted toward Lady Kiera, his expression alight, eyes crinkled with genuine amusement. She said something you could not hear, and he laughed again, louder this time, as if the sound had been waiting in him all along.
It struck you then, sharp and unmerciful, how he had only ever laughed like that with you.
Memory rose unbidden, of other halls, other nights. The way you and Valarr used to dance at banquets, how the steps would dissolve into something lighter, freer, until you were laughing breathlessly, conspirators against the stiffness of courtly expectation. How he would lean in to murmur some absurd observation, just to make you laugh harder. How the world had once narrowed to the space between you, warm and certain.
You had thought that laughter belonged to the past. Watching him now, you wondered—painfully—if he looked even happier than he had been then. If this was simply how he was, now, with her.
Your fingers tightened around your cup. You barely noticed.
The dance carried on, and with it came a familiar figure: the turn where one partner’s hand rose, briefly, to cradle the other’s cheek. An intimate gesture, fleeting enough to be proper, bold enough to mean something all the same.
Valarr’s hand lifted.
Lady Kiera laughed as he did it, bright and easy, her head tipping into his touch without hesitation. They were still laughing when the step ended, still caught in that shared moment, as though nothing else in the hall existed.
Something inside you gave way.
It was not a dramatic shattering. It was quieter than that—a final, exhausted crack. The last place you had been bracing yourself simply collapsed.
You rose from your seat too quickly. Your chair shifted just a fraction too loud in your ears, though no one else seemed to notice. You stilled yourself at once, schooling your movements, forcing grace back into your limbs. You would not make a scene. You would not let this be seen as weakness.
But you could not stay.
You set your cup aside with care and smoothed your skirts. You walked, then, not fast enough to be called fleeing but not slow enough to pretend you were lingering. Each step toward the doors felt deliberate, controlled, as though you were walking out of the hall by choice rather than necessity.
Your heart ached with every pace. You did not look back—but you felt it, all the same. The weight of Valarr’s gaze, sudden and sharp, as he noticed your absence. As he turned, perhaps, mid-laughter, to see you going.
You kept walking. You told yourself you were fine. You told yourself you could endure this, too. And you told yourself—over and over—not to turn around.
THE GODSWOOD had never been sacred to you in the way it was meant to be.
You had never been one for gods, old or new. The Seven were stories you had learned because you were expected to learn them, names and virtues recited by rote, their temples grand and echoing and somehow distant. And the old gods, the weirwoods, the faces carved into bark—those had always felt like someone else’s faith, someone else’s history. You had never knelt properly nor have you ever prayed with any real conviction.
And yet, a few days after you first arrived at the Keep, you had wandered—half-lost, half-avoiding the noise of court—and found the Godswood by accident. There were no heralds, no marble. There were just earth and leaves and the hush of wind through branches. The weirwood stood at its heart, pale and ancient, its red leaves scattered like embers against dark soil, its carved face solemn and watchful.
You had stopped there without knowing why.
Breathing had come easier, your shoulders loosened. The constant, invisible weight you carried—expectation, propriety, restraint—had slipped, just a little. You had not prayed. You had simply stood, hands folded, listening to the quiet.
From then on, it became something uniquely yours.
When the days pressed too close, when words crowded your thoughts, when you needed to remember how to be only yourself and nothing else—you came here. You paced the paths. You sat beneath the branches. You breathed. You thought. Or, sometimes, you just didn’t.
It was no surprise to you that your feet carried you there now.
The night air was cool against your flushed skin, the sounds of the feast already distant, dulled to something indistinct and harmless. You barely noticed when the path gave way to roots and leaves, when the pale trunk of the weirwood came into view. You only knew that your chest felt too tight, your thoughts too loud.
You stopped beneath the tree and dragged in a breath, then another.
Your hands went to your hair, fingers threading through it, tugging slightly as if grounding yourself might keep you from unraveling completely. Jealousy burned sharp and ugly in your chest—jealousy, and regret so heavy it felt like grief. Regret for every unsaid word. Every step not taken. Every moment you had convinced yourself to be sensible, to be patient, to be quiet.
And then—worse than all of it—the realization you could no longer outrun.
You loved him.
It is not simple fondness. It is not mere habit. It is not some lingering affection that time might have dulled. It was love, clear and undeniable, settling into you with aching certainty now that it was far too late to do anything with it. You had loved him when it was easy. You had loved him when it was complicated. And somehow, foolishly, you had kept loving him even when he pulled away.
You pressed your palm to the rough bark of the weirwood, grounding yourself in its cold solidity, breathing hard as if you had run a great distance.
Get a hold of yourself, you told yourself fiercely. This changes nothing.
Then, you feel a presence shifted behind you.
You did not hear footsteps—not really. Just the subtle awareness of another body, another warmth in the cool night air. A hand lifted, hesitated, and then brushed your shoulder lightly, tentative, as if asking permission rather than taking it.
You flinched.
“Of course you’re here right now,” you said, the words sharp with sarcasm and something far more wounded beneath it, before you even turned.
The hand withdrew at once.
There was a pause—long enough to stretch, long enough for the tension to thicken between you. When Valarr spoke, his voice was measured, carefully even, as though he were choosing each word with deliberate calm.
“I do not know what you mean.”
You turned then, finally, to face him.
He stood a few paces back, posture composed but eyes searching, dark hair catching the faint silver of moonlight through the branches. Up close, he looked much as he always had—and yet entirely different, too. He is still guarded, uncertain. As if he had followed you here on instinct and was only now realizing what he did, how fragile the moment he intruded on was.
“You never do, don’t you?” you said, a bitter little smile tugging at your mouth. “Funny how that works.”
His brow furrowed slightly, but he did not retreat. “You left the hall,” he said instead. “Abruptly.”
“I needed air.”
“So I gathered.” His gaze flicked, briefly, to the weirwood at your side. “I thought—” He stopped himself, then tried again. “I wanted to make sure you were well.”
You laughed softly, humorless. “And are you satisfied?”
Valarr hesitated before he shakes his head once. “You do not look well.”
“Insightful as ever.” You folded your arms, as much to hold yourself together as to keep him at a distance. “Shouldn’t you be dancing?”
Something shifted in his expression at that. It is not anger nor defensiveness. This was something closer to guilt—or frustration, carefully contained. Which, you had to admit, you did not quite understand what for.
“I was,” he said quietly.
“Good.” You inclined your head, mockingly polite. “Then by all means, Your Grace, please do not let me detain you.”
“That is not fair.”
You met his gaze then, really met it, and felt the old pull. That dangerous, familiar, unwelcome tug. “Neither is following me into the one place I go to be alone.”
Silence fell between you, thick and charged. The weirwood loomed above, ancient and impassive, bearing witness without judgment.
Valarr exhaled slowly. “I did not come to argue.”
“Then you came poorly prepared,” you said, though the edge in your voice wavered now, thinning under the weight in your chest. “Because I do not think I can keep pretending I have nothing to say.”
For a moment, he only looked at you. It was not a look of wariness or being distant. It was a gaze that was just there. Waiting.
“Then… say it,” he murmured. “I am here now.”
You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. It came out shaky, almost a laugh, though there was nothing funny about it.
“I have been awful,” you said suddenly. “To you. For longer than I care to admit. I see that now.”
His brows knit together at once. “You have not—”
“No,” you cut in, softer but firm, because if you let him interrupt now, you’d lose your nerve. “Let me finish. Please.”
He stilled. His mouth opened as if to protest, then closed again. He nodded once.
You swallowed a lump that grew in your throat, gaze dropping to the roots at your feet, twisted and exposed like the truth you were finally forcing into the open.
“I was sharp when I shouldn’t have been. Petty. I said things just to see if they would land, just to see if you still noticed me.” Your fingers curled at your sides. “And when you didn’t—when you pulled away—I panicked.”
You shook your head, a rueful, broken thing. “So I tried to be clever about it. Casual. As if I wasn’t trying at all.”
You glanced up at him then, just briefly, to make sure he was still listening. He was—utterly still, eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made your chest ache. He looked like he wanted to speak, like something sat heavy on his tongue, but he stayed silent.
“I struck up conversations I’d rehearsed in my head,” you went on, voice trembling now. “I ‘accidentally’ bumped into you in corridors I had no business being in. I timed my visits to the library down to the bell, just to make sure you would already be there—head bent over some book, pretending not to notice me.”
A breathy laugh escaped you, wet with tears. “Gods, and the riddles. The damned scavenger hunt. I told myself it was harmless. That it was just… fun. But it wasn’t. It was me clawing for your attention because I did not know how else to ask for it.”
Valarr shifted then, just slightly. His jaw tightened. His hand flexed at his side, like he wanted to reach for you and didn’t dare.
“I told myself I was just bored,” you said. “Or mischievous. O— Or that I hated the idea of you changing because change is inconvenient and I’m selfish.” Your voice cracked. “But that was a lie. Or at least—only part of one.”
You drew in a breath, sharp and unsteady. “I was afraid. Afraid of losing you in a way that didn’t come with a clean ending. I was so afraid that one day you would belong to someone else and I’d have to stand there smiling, pretending it did not hollow me out completely.”
Your eyes burned now, and you didn’t bother blinking it away.
“I do not want you to marry her,” you said quietly, suddenly aware of the wet streaks on your cheeks. “It is not because Lady Kiera is unworthy, or because I think I deserve you more—but because the thought of it feels like watching a door close that I never realized I was standing in front of.”
Valarr inhaled sharply at that. “You—”
“I know,” you rushed on, the words tumbling faster now, afraid if you slowed you’d falter. “I know how it sounds. It is messy and it is— I know it is far too late. I know I do not get to demand anything from you, least of all after the way I acted.”
Your voice softened, dropping into something achingly sincere. “But this is not a game. It never was. And it isn’t jealousy for jealousy’s sake, or wounded pride, or some foolish need to be chosen.”
You lifted your gaze fully to him now, tears clinging stubbornly to your lashes. “I care about you, Valarr. Deeply. Irrevocably. I think I have for a long time—I just didn’t know how to name it, and I was terrified of what would happen if I did.”
Silence stretched between you, heavy and electric.
Valarr looked like he was holding himself together by sheer will alone. He took a step forward, then stopped, as if afraid of breaking something fragile.
“I didn’t plan to say any of this,” you whispered. “I just… couldn’t keep carrying it.”
The Godswood remained quiet, the weirwood’s carved eyes watching without judgment, as the truth settled between you—aching, irrevocable, and terribly alive.
For a long moment after you finished, the world did not move.
The wind stirred the red leaves overhead. Somewhere beyond the trees, a faint echo of laughter drifted from the hall. But between you and Valarr—nothing.
He stood very still. A bit too still than what you would have hoped for. His face had gone unreadable in that careful way he wore at court, but you saw the pulse in his throat, the tightness in his jaw. He was absorbing it. Every reckless word. Every trembling confession.
And he was saying nothing.
The silence began to rot inside you.
“Well?” you demanded at last, the vulnerability curdling into defensiveness. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
Valarr blinked, as if startled by the sharpness in your tone. Then he huffed out a breath—almost a laugh. Not amused, not kind. It was disbelieving.
His head dropped, dark hair falling forward as he shook it slightly, like he could not quite fathom what he’d just heard.
“You…” He let out another short, incredulous breath.
And then—without answering—he turned. He turned as if to leave. The sight hit harder than anything else that night.
Of course, you thought numbly. Of course this is how it ends.
You swallowed down the sting, the humiliation rising hot and choking. “Right,” you muttered, mostly to yourself. “That was foolish of me.”
You turned away too, because if he was going to walk back into the light and leave you standing here with your heart flayed open, you would not give him the satisfaction of seeing you break. You made it two steps toward the weirwood before your composure fractured.
Fresh, hot tears came again quietly, stubborn and humiliating. You pressed your palm to the pale bark again, forehead nearly following, shoulders trembling despite your effort to steady your breathing. The Godswood, your sanctuary, felt cruelly indifferent tonight.
You had done it. You had said it. And it had not been enough.
But then, footsteps crushed softly against fallen leaves behind you.
You stiffened but did not turn.
“I was never going to marry Kiera.”
The words were so abrupt, so out of place, that for a second you thought you had imagined them.
You turned slowly.
Valarr stood a few paces away again, closer than before, his expression no longer composed—no longer controlled.
“She was promised to Daeron,” he said, more firmly now. “From the beginning.”
You stared at him.
Oh.
Oh.
“W-What?”
That was all that came out. Small and bare and entirely awestruck.
Your mind scrambled backward, replaying every assumption you had made. Every glance. Every whispered conversation. You come to the dawning awareness that not once—not once—had anyone explicitly said it was Valarr.
You had simply… decided. Because he was the only prince who had ever mattered to you.
The realization landed with quiet, devastating clarity.
It had always been him. Even when you pretended otherwise. Even when you told yourself you were only irritated, only competitive, only restless.
It had been him.
Valarr let out a frustrated sound, running a hand through his hair. “Do you have any idea,” he began, his voice tight, “what it has been like—these past weeks?”
You opened your mouth, ready to defend yourself, to argue—
“Don’t,” he cut in immediately, sharper now. “Not yet. You have said your piece. Let me say mine.”
You closed your mouth.
He stepped closer.
“I pulled away because you were hurting me,” he said, not cruelly, but plainly. “Because every jest you made felt barbed. Every ‘accident’ you have admitted to be orchestrated felt like a test I did not know I was taking. You would lean close one moment and freeze me out the next. Do you know what that does to a man who—”
He stopped himself, jaw clenching.
“To a man who what?” you whispered.
His eyes flashed—not just with anger, but with years of something far deeper.
“To a man who has been in love with you for years.”
The words didn’t explode. They landed heavy, wholly unquestionable.
“You broke my heart once already,” he went on, voice roughening. “Do you remember? That night at a tourney, with the lord you nearly kissed in your uncle’s tent.” His jaw tightened. “And when I confronted you, you defended him. You defended him instead of choosing me. You made me feel as though I had imagined everything between us.”
Your breath caught sharply.
“I hated you for that,” he admitted, the confession torn from somewhere old and festering. “Or I tried to. I told myself I did. It was easier than admitting I was still thinking about you every waking hour.”
His laugh this time was hollow. “Years. I have measured years by whether you were in the room.”
The ache in his voice deepened.
“And these past weeks?” He shook his head. “Torture. Watching you try to draw me back in—smiling at me one moment, needling me the next. Do you know how much restraint it took not to respond? Not to keep holding you close in the corridor when you ‘accidentally’ ran into me? Not to stay in the library when you lingered, pretending to search for a book you had already read twice?”
You stared at him.
“I knew,” he said softly. “I knew you timed it. I knew the riddles were an excuse. I let you believe you were clever. Because... Because if I admitted I knew, I would have had to admit how desperately I wanted you to keep trying.”
The honesty stripped him bare.
“I thought I imagined it at first,” he continued, voice uneven. “Thought perhaps I had mistaken friendliness for something more. But then you would look at me like I was the only person in the room. And the next day you would treat me as though I’d offended you merely by existing.”
You flinched.
“Yes,” he pressed, frustration bleeding through. “You were sharp. You were cruel sometimes. You made me feel foolish for hoping. So I stopped hoping. I thought that was what you wanted.”
“It wasn’t,” you breathed.
“I know that now,” he shot back. “But you never said it.”
His chest rose and fell unevenly.
“I tried to be sensible,” he said more quietly. “Tried to tell myself that whatever this was between us was one-sided. That you enjoyed the attention, the game, the chase—but that you would never choose me.”
The hurt in his voice was naked now, painstakingly unshielded.
“And still,” he went on, stepping even closer, “I could not stop.”
You looked up at him fully then, tears tracking freely down your cheeks.
“I love that you are sharp,” he said, the words tumbling out faster now, urgent and unguarded. “I love that you argue with maesters twice your age because you cannot stand half-truths. I love that when you are nervous, you twist the ring on your finger without realizing it. I love that you hum under your breath when you think no one is listening—and that it is always the same half-finished melody.”
Your breath hitched.
“I love that you pretend to dislike sweetwine but always finish a cup of it when served, or steal a sip from mine. That you read the last page of a book first because you cannot bear uncertainty. That you care too much about people who do not deserve it and then act as though you do not care at all.”
His voice shook.
“The world may call you difficult. Too proud. Too willful. But those are the very things that make you… you. And I would not trade them for a softer, quieter woman who never challenges me.”
You shook your head faintly, overwhelmed. “Valarr—”
“I was cold because I was wounded, my lady,” he admitted. “Not because I felt nothing. But because I felt too much. Because loving you has never been mild. It has always been consuming.”
The confession settled between you, thick and trembling.
“I have watched you walk into rooms and pretend you do not feel,” he said softly. “But I see it. I have always seen it. Even when you pretended to choose someone else. Even when I tried to hate you for it.”
His hand lifted, hesitant at first, before brushing a tear from your cheek with aching gentleness.
“And tonight,” he murmured, voice breaking just slightly, “when you left the hall—I thought you were walking away from me again. And I… I realized I could not survive that twice.”
The vulnerability in his eyes was raw. Petrifying and hopeful.
“It has always been you,” he said quietly. “Even when you made it unbearable. Even when you made it hard. Even when I told myself I was done.”
The Godswood seemed to close in around you, the world narrowing to the space between your breaths. And for the first time that night, the pain in your chest shifted— no longer sharp and splintering, but trembling with something that felt dangerously like being chosen.
For a suspended, fragile moment, neither of you moved. Nonetheless, the air between you had changed.
All the sharp edges—the resentment, the pride, the misread silences—had dissolved into something unbearably clear. There was no more guessing now. No more strategizing. No more pretending not to feel.
You loved him.
You loved him not in the restless, impulsive way you had once disguised as teasing or possession, not in the shallow thrill of wanting to be wanted. You loved him in the terrifying, steady way that demanded you choose him openly.
And he loved you—not despite your flaws, not in ignorance of them—but because of them. Through them. Around them.
Your hand lifted without conscious thought, settling against his chest. You felt the rapid beat of his heart beneath your palm, strong and unguarded.
“You infuriate me,” you whispered, voice trembling but soft now.
A faint, breathless huff of a laugh escaped him. “I am aware.”
“And you are unbearably certain of yourself.”
“Only about you.”
That did it.
You closed the distance first—but he met you halfway.
The kiss was not tentative. It was an impact.
Valarr’s hands came up immediately—one sliding to the back of your neck, fingers threading into the hair at your nape, not rough but firm, anchoring. The other hand enveloped the side of your face, thumb brushing your cheek as if confirming you were real before pulling you fully to him.
Your breath vanished. Your other hand slid from his chest up into his hair, gripping at the base of his skull, holding him as tightly as he held you. There was nothing restrained about it. No courtly politeness of careful moderation.
It was years of yearning and waiting igniting all at once.
His mouth moved against yours with urgency—not careless, not frantic—but hungry in a way that felt earned. Every restrained glance. Every swallowed word. Every almost and never and what-if poured into that single point of contact.
You felt him exhale against you, felt the tremor in his hands as his fingers tightened slightly in your hair. Your body pressed closer without thought, as if drawn by gravity.
You had been kissed before. You were not naive.
But this— This was not a kiss meant to impress or distract or amuse. This was a claiming and a surrender all at once. It felt like the world narrowing to heat and breath and the sharp, dizzying realization that you were exactly where you were meant to be.
When you finally parted, it was not from lack of want—but from lack of air. Your foreheads hovered close. Your noses brushed. Your breaths tangled together, warm and uneven.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. His thumb was still resting against your cheek.
“You taste like sweetwine,” he murmured softly.
You huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “Did you not just say I disliked it?”
“Darling, I will never put it past you to lie.”
You did laugh then—quiet, disbelieving, a little breathless. Your heart felt different now. It was not frantic any longer, not fractured. Steady.
You had spent so long acting from jealousy. From fear. From the need to reclaim something you thought you were losing. But this—this was not about losing.
It was about choosing. Choosing him with full knowledge of the risks, choosing him without games. Without pride to hide behind.
“I do not want to be that person anymore,” you admitted softly. “The one who pushes and pulls. The one who hurts you just to see if you’ll stay.”
His forehead rested against yours. “Then don’t be.”
“I want to choose you,” you said. “Not because I’m afraid of someone else having you. But because I love you.”
The words did not tremble this time. They settled.
His breath caught. He pulled back just enough to look at you properly, his hands still warm at your face, his eyes searching as if committing this version of you to memory.
“Marry me.”
Your eyes widened slightly. “Valarr—”
“I have loved you through pride and pettiness,” he said, almost fiercely. “Through misunderstanding and resentment. I have tried to bury it and failed. I have tried to replace it and failed.”
A faint, crooked smile tugged at his mouth. “I am done pretending I want anything else.”
You stared at him, heart pounding anew—but not from fear. “Are you proposing to me in the Godswood at night without witnesses?” you asked faintly.
“Yes.”
“You realize that is terribly improper.”
“I find I no longer care.”
You studied him—this man who had yearned for you for years, who had been wounded by you, who had still chosen you.
“And if I say yes?” you asked softly.
His hand slid fully into yours, fingers lacing with intention. “Then I will spend the rest of my life arguing with you in libraries and pretending not to notice when you steal my wine.”
A slow smile spread across your face as you close the distance and kiss him again. He returns it gladly, like a man starved of affection, passionate and undone all at once. You pull away just as he settles into the rhythm of it.
“You will,” you said thoughtfully, ignoring his mumbled protest at the sudden departure, “have to endure my sharp tongue—”
“I adore your sharp tongue—” A kiss.
“—And my pride—”
“—I admire it—” Another.
“—And my tendency toward dramatics.”
“—I expect it.” And another.
You exhaled, a sound halfway between laughter and awe. For so long you had been the girl who flirted to distract herself. You had been the woman who toyed with affection because true love felt too heavy to name. Now you stood here, stripped of artifice, choosing—choosing him—openly.
“Yes,” you said.
The word felt like stepping forward instead of circling endlessly.
“Yes,” you repeated, stronger this time. “I will marry you.”
The relief that broke across his face was almost boyish—raw and luminous. He pulled you into him again, less desperate this time but no less certain, his arms wrapping fully around you as if anchoring both of you to this new reality.
Above you, the red leaves of the weirwood stirred softly. And for the first time in years, there was no misreading. No almost.
Only alignment.
IT HAD been three moons since the night in the Godswood.
Three moons since Valarr had asked for your hand beneath red leaves and watchful branches. Three moons since you had said yes—not out of jealousy, not out of pride, but out of something steady and terrifyingly certain.
The Keep had not been quiet about it.
As expected, the princess had been the first to know.
You had barely finished your halting explanation—tripping over the words proposal and Godswood and yes—when her eyes widened to an almost scandalized degree of delight.
“I knew it,” she breathed, clutching your hands in hers. “I absolutely knew it.”
The composure lasted all of three seconds.
Then she let out a barely contained squeal, dragging you into an embrace that smelled faintly of roses and parchment and expensive ink. She pulled back only to grip your shoulders, shaking you lightly in disbelief before pressing her hands over her mouth in an attempt to muffle another shriek of laughter.
“You are going to marry him,” she whispered, as though it were the most delicious secret in the realm.
You felt your own giddy laughter bubbling up in answer, the two of you dissolving into quiet, girlish giggles that would have scandalized half the court had they witnessed it. She leaned her forehead against yours, eyes shining.
“It is about time,” she declared at last, though her grin betrayed how thoroughly she had enjoyed every dramatic step that led here.
Prince Baelor had reacted with less subtlety.
There had been a long stare, a heavy exhale, and then a clap on Valarr’s shoulder that nearly knocked him forward. When he turned to you, he inclined his head with deliberate courtesy. “You will find,” he said evenly, “that my son is steadfast once he has chosen.” A pause—brief, almost private. “And I believe he has chosen well.”
Later, you had learned that he drew Valarr aside that evening, away from the noise and congratulations. Whatever passed between them had not been meant for you—but Valarr told you enough.
“He said,” Valarr recounted softly, a rare vulnerability flickering across his face, “that my mother would have liked you.”
He did not say tolerated, or approved of. He had said, that Lady Jena Dondarrion would have liked you.
And coming from Prince Baelor, that had felt like the highest blessing of all.
Lady Kiera, gracious as ever, had smiled with genuine warmth when the announcement was made. Daeron at her side—her Daeron, as it had always been—looked quietly pleased, fingers laced with hers as though the matter had never been in question.
It had never been in question, and that was the mortifying part.
No one had ever said Valarr was to be betrothed to Lady Kiera. No proclamation had named him. No formal hint had been dropped. You had simply assumed, and you had not confessed that particular misunderstanding to the lady from Tyrosh. Some dignities were better left buried.
Valarr, unfortunately, did not share that philosophy.
Now, months later, seated across from Kiera and Daeron at supper, you found yourself uncharacteristically… bashful. You, who had once thrived on provocation and spectacle, now carefully avoided meeting Kiera’s knowing gaze for too long. You spoke politely. You smiled with composure. You did not make dramatic declarations across the table.
Valarr noticed, because of course he did.
Later that evening, when the hall had thinned and the torches burned lower, he leaned toward you, voice warm against your ear. “You were very well behaved tonight.”
You narrowed your eyes slightly. “I am always well behaved.”
He hummed. “Mm. Shall I remind you of the night you nearly declared war on me over a misunderstanding of your own invention?”
You stepped lightly on his boot beneath the table. He only grinned.
“You could at least have the decency not to look so pleased about it,” you muttered.
“I am pleased,” he replied easily. “It is poetic.”
“It is humiliating.”
“It is romantic,” he corrected softly.
You opened your mouth to argue, but he reached for your hand, thumb brushing over your knuckles in a gesture so gentle it stole the sharpness from your tongue.
“You chose me,” he said quietly. “Before you even knew you had.”
The teasing faded from his expression, replaced by something steadier. Something that still, even now, made your chest tighten.
You had changed in these months—not softened exactly, but steadied. The jealousy that once drove you had dissolved into something far braver. You no longer needed to test him. No longer needed to wound to measure devotion. You chose him openly now, and in doing so, found yourself less restless.
But you were still Baratheon.
You still laughed too loudly when something struck you as absurd. You still rode your horse faster than was entirely prudent. You still spoke before thinking when provoked.
The difference was this: You were no longer ashamed of it. And he no longer flinched from it.
Valarr loved you in your fire as much as in your tenderness. He met your recklessness not with restraint, but with balance. When you surged forward, he steadied. When he overthought, you pulled him into motion.
You fit—not because you were tamed, but because you were understood.
“You are staring,” he murmured now, brushing his thumb along your jaw.
“I am allowed,” you replied. “You are to be my husband.”
His mouth curved slowly. “Gods help the realm.”
“The realm will thrive,” you said loftily. “Under your influence.”
He leaned closer, laughter softening into something warmer. “Under our influence.”
Your breath caught just slightly at that.
He kissed you then—not the desperate, world-altering kiss from the Godswood, but something quieter. Intentional. His hand cupped your cheek, your fingers curled into the front of his tunic. It was slower now, familiar in the way only chosen love can be. When he pulled back, your foreheads rested together, a shared smile lingering between you.
The storms within you had not vanished. They had simply found a sky wide enough to hold them.
And perhaps that was the most significant thing in the end. You had never needed to be less wild, less fierce, less Baratheon. You had only needed someone who would stand beside the thunder—and call it beautiful.
--- A Dark Omen: Valarr Targaryen (witch! female reader, Baelor lives! AU)
Requested?: Nope.
Word Count: ~10.5K
Summary: Dunk watches Prince Baelor fade beyond the maesters' skill until a crow appears to answer their prayers - an old friend. They venture into the woods to find Dunk's long-ago witch friend, who bargains with fate to bring the prince back from the edge. It costs a piece of herself, but she is happy to pay it.
Notes: I did not read this through once I was done, so I have no clue how it flows. Do I know anything about the arcane? No. Do I love witch readers? Absolutely. This will have other parts as well, so if you wanna see a specific witchy ability lemme know.
The pavilion smelled of poultice and blood. Dunk stood with his hands jammed into his armpits as if doing so would help him stay together. He was much too big for the space and far too helpless in it, every shift seemed to make the ground give way.
Prince Baelor lay on a low bed with blankets folded under his shoulders to keep him from rolling, though in truth the Prince had yet to show a single sign of life other than breathing. His head was turned to the side as to not put pressure on the affliction, his hair had been shorn where the blow had struck and the clean linen protecting the area was already turning pink at the centre.
The maester had washed the blood away and tried to staunch it as much as he could by filling the space, but Dunk could still see the shape of it in his mind, an ugly cavity where a skull ought to be smooth.
"Will this help?" a voice asked, too young and trying not to sound it.
Egg stood by the bed, clutching a folded cloth as if it were a sword. His eyes were fixed on his Uncle's face with a stubborn kind of fury, as though staring hard enough might keep the man tethered to this world.
The maester's mouth tightened. "It may ease his pain, if he feels any. That is all."
Prince Valarr was on the other side of the bed. He had not sat, or leaned, he stood straight-backed in his doublet as if he were already in a sept, made of marble like the statues of dead kings. His hands betrayed him, knuckles white with his fingers curled around nothing.
"He feels," Valarr said, voice quiet and uncharacteristically weak for a prince. It wasn't a question, it was a demand that could not be met.
The maester glanced at the bandages and Dunk saw something like fear flicker across the old man's face before it disappeared behind training.
"We have done what can be done. If the gods are... merciful, he may yet return to us."
Dunk swallowed whatever he wanted to say. Can't you do anything else? The maester held Baelor's head steady while he tipped a few drops between the prince's lips, he rubbed his throat to coax a swallow that came sloe and half-wrong. A thin line of liquid dribbled down his chin which was swiped away with a piece of linen.
"You'll save him," Egg said suddenly, and it came out harsh and brave. Desperate all the same. "You have to."
The maester's gaze slid past him, past Dunk, to Valarr. For a heartbeat his face softened, as if he wanted to say something kinder for a son watching his father die. What came out was the truth, plain and simple.
"We will keep him comfortable, we will watch, we will pray. If he is to live, it would not be by my hand alone."
Valarr remained steadfast but he stared down at his father with an expression Dunk couldn't begin to name. Grief, yes. But there was something else threaded through it, something that made the air brittle. Guilt? Perhaps, it was Valarr's armour that guarded Baelor, his armour that failed and allowed the injury to occur. But Valarr had not swung the mace. That was Maekar.
Dunk had seen it happen in a flash of panic and steel, Maekar trying to reach for Aerion. Striking his brother with a blow that was meant to deter.
Egg made a thin, furious noise. "There has to be-"
"There is not," the maester resigned.
Dunk's hands suddently felt enormous and useless, his thoughts scrambled for something, anything, that could make a difference. But he only had a sword at his hip and the certainty that steel was of no use against a broken skull.
Dunk stumbled out into the cold air as if fleeing smoke. The sky was darker now. He sucked in a breath and it tasted of mud and fear. There was nothing to be done. Prince Baelor would die. And he would die for Duncan.
Just when all hope seemed lost, the horizon opened for him.
Perched on a line of Baelor's pavillion as if it belonged there was a crow, black feathers slick against the twilight. It should have been a dark omen, an animal of death appearing at Baelor's bed but this crow was special.
It did not hop away when Dunk stepped closer, it only watched with a bright knowing eye, head cocked.
This one had a pale scar along its beak like a scratch left by an old knife. He had seen that scar before, years ago. When he had been bleeding out and feverish.
The tent rustled, and he heard Egg's voice, small now, asking something - begging perhaps. Dunk could not make out the words. The crow clicked its beak once, sharp as flint.
His hands curled into fists. He saw Ser Arlan's face as it had been when he was alive, heard his voice clearer now too.
The crow's her signature. Don't bring steel into her hollow.
Dunk looked down at his sword, one he hadn't parted from in days. His fingers unclasped the belt, he set the blade down on a crate beside the pavilion like a man laying a child to bed.
Behind him, the tent flap snapped open. Egg burst out, face puffy and blotched. He stopped when he saw Duncan without his sword. "What are you doing?" His voice more a plea than a scold. "Ser Duncan, what are you-"
Dunk pointed at the crow. "You see that?" He needed to check that his mind wasn't conjuring up images to give him hope.
Egg followed his finger. "It's a crow."
"Good, it's hers." Dunk said, surprising himself with how certain he sounded.
"Hers?" And then, because he was Egg, because he was curious even at the edge of grief. "Who are you talking about?"
"A... friend." Dunk said, awkwardly because the word was too small to describe what she had done. "A woman who... who pulled me back once when I ought to have died. A witch, maybe." She was definitely a witch but he couldn't just admit that.
Egg's eyes went huge. "A witch."
The tent shifted again, and the Young Prince stepped out into the open air. He moved like a man who had decided not to fall apart until later. His gaze flicked across their faces. "What is this?" Valarr asked.
Dunk hesitated. He could lie, say nothing. Few took happiness in the mention of witchcraft.
But inside the pavilion, Baelor was dying - because of him.
"There is someone," Dunk started. "Not far, or maybe far. I don't know. I've always been able to find her, when I needed her. Or she's found me. She's in the woods."
Valarr's face tightened at the word woods and the unspoken truth behind it. Witch.
"We have maesters," It sounded like something he'd been taught to say, something that was always worked before. "We have-"
"We have nothing that's helping him," Dunk cut it before remembering his station. "I beg your pardon, my prince."
Egg stepped between them as if he could break the tension with his small body. "If she saved you, maybe she can save him. We have to try."
Valarr looked at Egg as if seeing him for the first time, a boy with too much heart and not enough sense. "I have been told all my life to steer clear of witchcraft," He said. "That it is a lie that wears a woman's face."
Dunk went to open his mouth but Valarr held up a single, shaking finger. "But I have also been told that my father will die." The crow hopped down onto a high crate like it had been waiting too long.
Valarr's eyes flicked to it. "If there is a chance," he said, and the words cost him something. "Then I will take it, take me to your friend."
Egg latched onto Dunk's sleeve at once. "I'm coming with you, Ser Duncan."
"No," Dunk began, but Egg's grip tightened and his stubbornness flared liked a flame.
"You said she is your friend," He said fiercely. "You said she saved you. I'm coming."
Dunk looked at the boy, and felt something soft and aching in his chest. "Fine," Dunk said. "But you stay close. Do as I say and you don't touch a thing. She gets cranky when people do that."
Egg nodded quickly. "Yes, ser."
Dunk turned back to the bird, as he took a step towards the dark line of trees beyond the camp the crow lifted, flapped once, and glided ahead, low over the grass like a shadow pulling them by the hand.
Dunk set his jaw and followed it into the trees, Egg hurried to keep up. Valarr's footsteps fell behind them, measured, as if a prince could walk into a witchwood without letting fear show on his face.
The woods took them the way deep water takes a stone, quietly, without hurry, like it had been waiting. Somewhere above, something skittered along bark, quick as lightning.
The crow had disappeared some time ago, every now and then Duncan could've sworn he saw it swoop through the trees in his peripherals but everytime he turned to look, it was gone.
Egg kept close at Dunk's elbow. The knight could tell he was trying to be brave in the way all boys did, too quietly, as if the silence could protect him. Even Valarr, who Dunk had never talked to outside of a few hours ago, was walking closer.
"You said she saved you," Egg whispered, like speaking too loudly would wake what slept between the trees. "Before. You said you ought... to have died."
"Aye," he said. "I was four and ten."
Egg glanced up at him, eyes wide. "How did you get hurt?"
Dunk's thoughts snagged on the old pain. He remembered the taste of blood in his mouth, the way the world had blurred and faded and the last thought he had. So this is what death feels like.
"We were on the road," he said slowly. "The memories of that time are fuzzy. I can't remember the place's name. Some men thought an old knight and a young squire would be easy pickings. They were wrong about Ser Arlan being easy." His voice tightened as he continued. "But they had more knives than we had luck."
Valarr's footsteps drew closer, maybe he wanted to hear to story. To be reassured that this woman could save his father.
"One of them caught me. I got two blades, something in me ruptured. Internal bleeding, she said. I remember falling, I couldn't breathe proper and blood was coming up from my lungs. Ser Arlan tried to keep me awake and stop the blood but it kept coming."
Egg swallowed audibly. "And he took you to her."
"That he did."
"Did he know her?"
"He did. I asked how, once. He told me that some debts are best paid quietly. I think she owed him."
Valarr spoke for the first time since they'd left camp. "What did she do?" As if the act could be measured and judged.
"She told Ser Arlan to put me down," Dunk said. "Said I needed to feel the ground under me. Made him take off his mail and set it aside. She doesn't like having steel near." Valarr's gaze moved down to where Duncan's sword ought to have been.
"Did it hurt?" Egg's voice was small.
Dunk let out a small laugh. "Yes," he said. "It hurt. But I don't think it was her doing, I think that was just my injuries. Then all of a sudden it didn't. It wasn't like she had given me milk of the poppy. It was like the pain became far off. It gave me time to think and recover my senses."
He could hear Ser Arlan's voice again, low and careful. Do as she says, lad. Don't argue. Don't touch the charms.
"She told me to keep breathing, not to try. She told me to do it, like she was pulling on the reins of a horse. And I did. Something about her made me do it, maybe that was the true witchcraft."
They walked on, the trees grew closer, and branches knit overhead. After a time, Egg asked, "And you've been able to find her ever since?"
Dunk's lips pressed together. "When I needed her," he said, and it sounded like superstition the moment the words left his mouth. He hated that it did, he wished for the world to be a thing you could hit with a hammer until it made sense.
"She doesn't live like other folk," he added. "Sometimes you'll happen across her like she's always been there. Sometimes you'll turn around, and she'll be right there behind you, quiet as a shadow. You don't hear her coming."
Egg looked around at the black trunks and glistening leaves, as if Dunk's words would prompt her to appear. "That's not possible."
Dunk snorted softly. "A lot of things are impossible. And yet."
Valarr's voice came again, controlled and strained. "Why does she help you if the debt's been paid?"
Dunk thought of the first time he'd met her, of Ser Arlan's face lined with worry, of him kneeling on damp earth and speaking to a girl in a low voice that carried respect. He thought of the way she'd looked at Dunk as if she were weighing him up in her mind. Not his size, but something else. Something more valuable.
"I don't know," Dunk admitted. "Maybe she liked Ser Arlan, maybe she saw something in me worth saving." He swallowed before continuing. "I know what people say of witches. That they kill without mercy, but she's not like that. Not at all. I think she just likes helping people, she hides away because she knows what people would do if they knew what she was capable of."
Bringing people back from the brink of death. Valarr and Egg thought to themselves. A powerful skill, what else was she capable of? She must be one powerful witch. If it is true, she would be caged by some high lord. Forced to do their bidding over and over again.
Egg's pace quickened by half a step, eager despite the fear. "What is she like?"
"She's... calm." He said. "Not meek or anxious. She doesn't take insults from anyone, she'll give some remark or just stare at you like she's counting your bones. She feels deeply for people, perhaps more deeply than anyone I've met. But she hides that part. Sometimes, she laughs at things that aren't funny. That always made me feel like she knows something I don't...though, I am fairly certain she can see the future."
Egg shivered, from the cold or excitement, Dunk couldn't tell. "And she has a crow," Egg said, like that made it all more real.
"Aye, that one." Dunk looked to the sky as if the bird would appear. "Keep your coins, brooches, and chains hidden. It will steal anything shiny it can get its mouth around to give to her as a gift, as long as it's not steel. She keeps them as a collection."
"You're certain she can save him," Valarr spoke, now fully alongside them. It wasn't really a question, more of a line he was trying to hold.
Dunk wanted to say yes. To swear on his sword that his father would be safe for both Baelor's sake and Valarr's. "I don't believe her crow would come if there was nothing to be done. Besides, I'm certain the maesters can do nothing. And I'm certain she's done what shouldn't be possible before."
Valarr's breath hissed through his teeth, a sound like steel being drawn. Suddenly, a crow's call was heard ahead of them, it reverberated through the forest. Its wings could be heard beating, once, twice, as it disappeared into a deeper pocket of the dark. Dunk's heart lurched.
Egg grabbed his sleeve. "Ser Duncan-".
"There," Dunk said, though he had no reason to know yet. Something in him remembered this feeling, stumbling through the trees with blood spewing from his mouth and Ser Arlan's voice in his ear.
He pushed on, faster now. Branches snagged at Valarr's cloak as he followed behind closely. The trees thinned as if the forest was making space. The clearing was not empty.
Trinkets hung from the branches, strips of cloth, bones bleached white, little bundles of herbs, and twigs that had been arranged into symbols. They swung with the breeze that ran through the area.
Then the wind stopped as if the life had been sucked out of the clearing, and all fell silent.
As if the forest had exhaled her, she was there. Not a crunch of leaves or a snap of branches. Just there, in the alcove of a tree, watching them as if she'd been waiting for hours.
The crow was settled on her thigh, and Dunk's heart thudded painfully in his chest.
"You three are late." Your voice was as soft as moss, it hadn't changed since Dunk had last seen you.
He found his tongue at last. "Prince Baelor," He managed, the sound came out like a prayer and an apology. "He's-"
"I know," She said as she lifted herself from the ground, swiping any dirt away from her clothes.
Her eyes were on Dunk, but he had this sudden, unsettling feeling that she was looking through him, past him, all the way to the pavilion and the dying man inside.
She moved as though she belonged. Certain of herself and her abilities. Dunk had always felt clumsy compared to her, all boots and breath and loud human warmth.
Egg's gaze flicked over her abode. "You..." he began, then faltered, as if he weren't sure what to say. "You knew we were coming."
The witch's mouth curved. "Of course, I knew."
Valarr stepped forward a half pace. "How?" His voice was polite but bordering on anxious. "No one in camp sent word. No rider-"
"No," You agreed softly. Your gaze slid to him, taking him in the way you'd taken Dunk in years ago. "No rider would have reached me in time."
Egg blurted, "Then how?"
You tipped her head, considering whether the question deserved a serious answer before shrugging and saying, very simply. "The wind told me."
"The wind... doesn't talk." Egg frowned.
"It does, to us witches at least." There was a quiet finality that made the argument seem childish.
Dunk felt Valarr's stare, sharp and disbelieving yet so desperate. The prince's lips pressed into a line, as if he were reciting all the lessons he'd been taught about women in woods. Dunk could see the battle inside him, between what he'd been told and what he wanted.
No, what he needed.
Dunk looked at the trinkets laid out around her. "You've been... preparing." He nodded at the items.
Your eyes softened for a second. "I set out what I would need," you said. "How far is the prince?"
"Not too far," Dunk answered, looking back the way they came.
"He's sinking. I can feel it. And you wouldn't have come to me if he weren't."
Egg's breath caught, "Can you save him?"
The witch looked at the young boy before her. Your gaze was fond, sad and wary as the same. "He is not yours," you said gently. "Yet you are afraid for him all the same."
Egg's cheeks went red. "He's good." He said fiercely. "He- he didn't deserve this."
"No one deserves this." You murmured. "Perhaps, besides your elder brother. His soul has been consumed by the Targaryen madness."
Valarr's voice came out tight. "If you can help him. Then name your price."
"I do not bargain like a merchant over a dying man." You said, though there was no cruelty to be found in your voice. You looked at each of them individually before continuing. "Bring me to him. Now."
Your hands were stained, not with blood but with old green smears. Crushed herbs, perhaps, or something else. There were cuts along your fingers that were half-healed as though you'd been working for hours.
"You really knew?" Dunk said quietly.
You walked past him, carrying your copious amount of supplies. "I told you...the wind."
Egg hurried to keep up. "What did it say?"
"It said a good man was being taken." You replied. "It said that two young princes would follow a knight true at heart. It said grief would come hidden behind duty."
The path back was not the same path in reverse. Dunk was sure of it. The trees had shifted. The ground rose where it had been flat. He would have been lost in minutes, but the crow flew overhead, and the woman followed it without a moment of hesitation.
Valarr watched her hands, he didn't want to look too closely at her eyes no matter how welcoming they seemed. He watched her hands instead because they seemed safer.
Her hands were full.
A bowl was held carefully against her hip, a small bundle of different herbs tied with twine in the other. A pouch at her belt bumped softly with each step, heavy with whatever she'd packed, chalk, charcoal, bones, stones and perhaps even teeth. Strips of cloth were folded and tucked under her elbow, even the crow seemed to add weight, hopping from branch to branch over her.
Valarr's throat worked. He had been told, like many other followers of the Seven, that women like this were snares. That you did not speak too freely to them. That you did not accept gifts, and you did not offer help, because that would be an invitation, and that could become a binding.
But then he glanced ahead, imaging his father's tent, the way the man's chest barely rose. And teachings, for all their weight and worth, did not keep a man alive.
She stepped over a root without looking, like she knew where it would be before it was there. Her balance was too sure for someone carrying so much.
Still.
Valarr could not stand behind her like a boy being led. He had to do something with his hands, if only to stop him from thinking of what fate awaits his beloved father.
He moved closer, careful not to brush her sleeve. His voice came out steadier than he felt it. "- My lady." The words tasted strange in his mouth. He had addressed ladies of court with silks and jewels and perfumed hair. This woman smelled of damp earth, which actually might've been more appealing than the perfume, to be honest.
You did not slow or turn your head. "I'm no lady."
Valarr's ears warmed, but he kept walking alongside you, matching your pace. "Then..." He swallowed and cursed himself for fumbling like a squire. "Then-"
Your eyes flicked to him briefly, quick and assessing. "Then speak... my prince."
"You are... carrying a great deal." He gestured, awkwardly, at the bowl, the bundles, at everything. "Might I carry something?"
For a heartbeat, he thought she might laugh. Instead, she looked ahead and said nothing at all.
He held his hands out slightly, palms open, in the universal posture of 'I mean no harm'. It felt ridiculous.
"I can carry the bowl," he added quickly, before pride could choke him. "Or the cloth. Whatever you wish."
She slowed then, and her gaze slid to his hands. He got that odd feeling that he was being tested. "You're afraid of me." You stated. It was not an accusation, it was an observation.
Valarr's jaw tightened. Lying would be pointless. "Yes."
"And still you offer."
"Yes," he said again, because there was no other answer. His voice dropped without his permission. "Because my father is dying."
You made a quiet sound, almost a sign, almost a snort, and adjusted your grip. "You've been taught to fear us." Then again, though you look more amused now. "And it is not just because your father is dying."
Valarr's brows drew together. He kept his hand out anyway, stubbornly open. "Then why?" He asked, and it came out more honest than princely. "Why would I-"
She didn't look at him when she answered. Her eyes stayed on the path. "Because you're a good person," she said simply.
The words landed wrong, like a cloak thrown over him that doesn't quite fit. Valarr almost stumbled on a root he didn't see. "I-" he began, then stopped. Praise from courtiers was easy, they always wanted something. This didn't sound like that.
The witch glanced back at him then. "Don't argue. It's clear as day." She looked at the space around him, over his shoulder, as if searching.
Valarr looked down. "You don't know me."
"I can see it. Do not tell me what I can and cannot see. It's right there." You gestured around him. "You cannot escape it."
He forced himself to stay calm. "What," he said, carefully, "is there?"
You exhaled through her nose, the smallest hint of impatience. "Your aura," she said, like naming it made it easier to understand. "The shape of you."
Valarr stared at her profile, trying to decide if this was some trick meant to unsettle him. "That's not a thing."
"It's a thing," she replied. "It's just not something people are taught to notice. But some people are more sensitive to them. Have you ever gotten a bad feeling about someone you've just met? It's similar, just deeper."
He frowned. "An aura."
"Yes." She shifted the items in her arms. "Everyone has one. Some people glow like hearth fires. Some people are like smoke, cunning, and not to be trusted. Others are... cold."
Valarr's fingers flexed, hands unsure of what to do with themselves. "And mine?" He asked before he could stop himself.
"Yours is clean... warm... and light." She said slowly, like she was trying to select the truest word. "Not spotless. No one is. But clean like river water over stone. Purifying. It tells me that others are cleansed in your presence. You inspire others to do better. I imagine your father's is much the same." It shouldn't have pleased him the way it did, it did soothe his nerves though. "Your aura leans forward. Towards people. Toward the needs of others. The cruel ones don't do that, they curl inwards. They take."
Valarr swallowed. “And you can tell that just by looking.”
“I can,” she said. “It’s why fear doesn’t impress me. Half the men who fear witches are good men who were taught wrong. The other half are bad men who don’t want others to see them for what they are. Vermin.”
His hands hovered again, still offered. “Then let me carry something,” he said, stubborn. “If you can see what I am, then you can see I mean it.”
"...Very well," she said at last. She leaned forward and held out the bowl, herbs, and other bits and pieces that were hidden in the folds of her clothes.
He took them with both hands, careful, reverent despite himself.
"Don't let it touch the ground," she told him.
"I won't."
"And don't let anyone else touch it. I've only allowed you to."
"No one will," Valarr promised, and meant it with a fierceness that surprised him.
You believed him, and not just because his father's life was on the line.
Egg lifted his head like a hound catching a scent. "We're close." He whispered.
Dunk didn't answer, but he could see torchlight now between the trunks, they shone like little wavering stars that made the dark seem less endless.
The elder prince kept a half step behind the witch, items steady in his hands. Her loyal crow swooped over the camp's edge and landed on a stake, watching the tents like a sentry. A few men nearby saw it and made signs against ill-luck without thinking. They knew that the crown prince's life hung in the balance, and under normal circumstances, a crow would be the last thing you wanted to see.
"Seven save us," someone muttered. The words made your skin prickle, made it burn. When Dunk turned to look at you, knowing the effect such words could have, you looked unimpressed if a little uncomfortable. Gods and curses were small talk you'd grown bored of years ago.
A guard stepped forward with a hand raised. "Halt. Who goes-" He got as far as the princes before stopping, startled. "Prince-"
"Enough, Prince Baelor is dying." Dunk had said, voice rough.
The guard's eyes darted to Valarr as if astonished that the hedge knight was making a demand, but the prince had nothing to say. He didn't think he could speak even if the Gods demanded it of him. Not with his father so close. The guard looked to the woman beside them, silent, and he hesitated, confusion and suspicion making him stupid.
It was Egg's voice that cut through, steady with command. "Out of our way."
Rank did what fear could not. The guard stepped aside at once, and the group of men around him shifted as if the ground was burning. They watched the witch pass with a morbid fascination.
"That's a woods-woman-"
"Gods above, she's got charms-"
Egg tucked closer to Dunk, as if the words were being sent his way. Dunk wanted to scoop him up and hide him in his cloak like a pup.
The witch moved through the camp as if walking through mist. Knights, squires, and servants alive found themselves stepping away as she grew closer.
They reached Baelor's pavilion, and Dunk shoved the flap aside. The maester looked up sharply, eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion. "Ser Duncan, you cannot simply-" He fell upon the woman, and his voice faltered before returning twice as sharp. "What is this? Who is that?"
Egg rushed towards the bed. "He's still breathing," he whispered, relief and terror mixing as he watched his Uncle's chest barely lift.
Valarr stepped in behind them, holding the supplies as if it were Baelor's skull in his hands. The maester's eyes widened at the sight of a prince holding items for a witch like a serving boy.
You stood still for a heartbeat, taking in the area. Then your gaze went to Baelor's face, and something in you shifted, recognition. "He's slipping," you said, the words sliding off your tongue without meaning to.
The maester bristled at her words. "And you, are a-"
"A nuisance," you supplied, calmly as ever. "Yes, have you anything useful to say, or shall I get to work?"
Dunk flinched, expecting outrage, but the maester's mouth opened, shut, and opened again like a fish. He couldn't quite believe the audacity.
Valarr's voice came controlled, but there was steel to be found there as well. "She has come to help."
"To help?" The maester reiterated like the idea was unfathomable. "This is a prince of the blood. This is- this is-"
"-a man," the witch said, and the simplicity cut through his indignation. You stepped closer to the bed and stopped just shy of touching. "A man with his skull caved in."
Her eyes flicked to the maester's chain around his neck. Then to the tools of his kit, the buckles, the metal clasps.
"No steel inside the circle," You said, moving items off the floor so that you might place down a cover that you can draw on.
You drew out a large circumference before gesturing Dunk and Valarr over to the cot that held Baelor. "Prince, give me your items. You two are going to lift him, carefully, into the middle of the circle. Turn him until I say so."
She gestured forward with her head as her hands were now full again, and both men wasted no time before lifting the prince up by the wooden slats on either side. They slowly moved into the circle, as to not disturb the crown prince.
Once in the centre, they moved in opposite directions to change Baelor's orientation. "Stop," The word came suddenly from the witch's lips. "Put him down gently."
Egg stepped around the circle, not quite sure what he was allowed to do. "Why does he need to face this way?"
"His head is to the east. So that the sun might shine its light on his soul first."
It made no sense to anyone else in the room, and Valarr honestly had no idea how she could tell the cardinal directions from inside a tent just off feeling alone, but realised that if she could see auras, then this truly wasn't all that weird, all things considered.
Valarr swallowed as he looked down at his father. "Tell us what you need," he said, because that was something he could do, something that sounded like a command rather than a plea.
The witch held out the bowl to him, "Place this at the foot of the bed," she said. "Carefully."
Valarr knelt, the movement looked wrong on him, and yet he did so without hesitation. He set the bowl down as if it were a sleeping babe.
"Good," she murmured.
The witch's fingers brushed the air over Baelor's bandages, not touching, hovering as if feeling for heat. Though Dunk knew she had lost that ability long ago. Her hand trembled once, subtly.
The maester's eyes narrowed. "Whatever you plan, I will not permit-"
"You will," she said without looking at him. She drew herbs, charcoal and other items they could not name from her satchel. "Because if you don't, he will die."
Silence swallowed the tent. The maester went still at that before falling back helpless.
She moved around the circle silently, drawing insignias into the circle at seemingly random spots. They were too old and too wrong to be letters. A few times, she flicked a few drops of mysterious substance onto the chalk line, and the air seemed to thicken.
"A boundary," she spoke unprompted. "To ward of spirits that might wish to take advantage of Prince Baelor's predicament."
She finished the last mark and sat back on her heels before looking up at all of them. "Now, move nothing unless I tell you. Speak to him only if I ask. And if anyone breaks my line-" her eyes slid to the maester, "-then you will watch as the spirits tear him apart."
Valarr's breath trembled in anticipation. "I won't let anyone touch it," he said. Just as fierce as back in the forest. The witch's gaze softened with approval. Then she nodded once and turned back to Baelor as if the rest of them had become nothing more than furniture.
The witch dipped two fingers into the bowl at the foot of the bed that she'd poured another unknown liquid into (it was grey-tinted but that was about all they could make out. She drew a wet line down Baelor's wrist, then another along the inside of his forearm.
She murmured under her breath, nothing in the common tongue. An ancient language only she seemed to know. Valarr couldn't make any sense of them, but his skin prickled at their sound nonetheless.
She pressed her palm, very lightly, against Baelor's breastbone. "Breathe," she told him. It was a command, but a light one, like she was coaxing him into it. Like she'd commanded Dunk, years ago, with blood in his mouth and death close enough to taste.
Baelor's breath hitched.
Egg's eyes went wide, and he looked to Dunk, who didn't seem all that surprised. Just hopeful. Valarr leaned forward on his feet and stopped himself from approaching his father with visible effort.
She closed her eyes. Her brow knit in concentration. Her hand moved to the side of his father's neck where the pulse lived. The flame of the lantern dipped.
"It's time to return." She whispered, meant only for Baelor. "It doesn't have to be all the way. Just enough." She paused again before continuing, quieter now. "Your son is waiting."
Her fingers of her right hand slid to the bandage at the back of his skull while her left hand picked herbs from her satchel. She slid the greens into the Prince's mouth with little fuss, and he swallowed them down on his own.
The maester wasn't looking at the witch but at his prince's face, desperate and helpless. "Father above," he whispered so that only those closest to him could hear. Dunk and Egg. "Mother, have mercy. Warrior, lend him strength..."
She could not hear the prayer, and it wasn't meant as a weapon, but Dunk watched as the witch's fingers tightened into a fist. A faint hiss escaped her teeth.
It wasn't in pain per se, but rather irritation, like how one might act when a mosquito flies too close and draws blood. The skin above the veins in her hands flushed red as if her blood began to boil.
Egg didn't notice, but Valarr certainly did. "What-?" His breath caught.
The witch looked over her shoulder, searching for the cause of her irritation. She looked past them, trying to keep her attention tethered to Baelor and not the sour sting crawling under her skin. "Pray in your mind... or better yet, go outside," she said, words clipped.
The maester faltered mid-prayer, startled more by her tone than anything else. "I am praying for the prince," he stammered, defensive and ashamed all at once. "Not against you."
Dunk swallowed, he had seen this before when he'd run into the witch sometime ago. Intent mattered. He'd watched her burn worse when men and women alike prayed at her, not for someone. When the faith was a blade, and she was the target.
Despite the fear being for Baelor and not of her, it still scraped because, despite what people liked to hope, their gods were not merciful. And they had no love for her.
The witch flexed her hand once, shaking off the nettle sting. "I'm aware. But your gods don't like me, and they'll take any chance to strike me even if you don't mean to. If you must pray, please specify that they do not harm me. That would be much appreciated."
The maester's lips pressed together at her words. He looked torn between indignation and desperation. "Why?" He demanded, and truthfully, Valarr wished to know as well. "If you do good, with your... abilities. If you truly mean to save him, why would the Seven-?"
"Because I'm not one of theirs, and if you wish for the truth?" She said, looking at them fully now. "Fate has decided that Baelor should die today. They don't like that I've made a habit of disagreeing, or actively fighting back." The red on her skin had faded now, and she seemed more comfortable.
They had nothing to say to that. Fate has decided...
The maester continued to pray quietly, but must have heeded her words because she didn't respond like before.
Her fingers hovered at the back of Baelor's head again. She did not touch, but she held her palm there. Baelor's chest rose.
Then rose again, smoother than the last.
You shifted your stance, bracing yourself, and then you began the real work. Murmuring those old words again, tracing invisible lines over Baelor's throat and brow, forcefully anchoring his breath.
"Now," you murmured, "Stay." The words landed heavily in the same space. Egg swallowed hard, and Valarr's nails dug into his palms.
Baelor's chest rose steadier yet, like he'd settled into sleep instead of death. Your hands slowed, and your lips moved one last time. Then you lifted your fingers up through the air as though you were closing an unseen door.
She sat back on her heels inside the chalk circle, and nothing happened. There was no sudden gasp, or opening of eyes, and certainly no sudden miracles.
Egg let out a thin breath that sounded like it might've been trapped in him for hours. "Is... is it done?" He whispered.
You didn't answer straight away. You were staring down at your hands as if they belonged to someone else. You flexed your hands, once, slow and then placed the palm against the earth, grounding yourself like you'd told Dunk to do long ago.
"It's done, "she said at last, voice flat with fatigue. "Now we wait."
The maester's hand hovered uselessly over his kit. "If the swelling-"
"Will settle," she cut in "If you stop jostling him like a sack of grain. Keep him dim. Keep him quiet. Let him sleep. You'll know within a few hours if the thread holds."
"Hours." Egg repeated, maybe he could bargain with time by saying the word.
You reached into your pouch and drew out a bundle wrapped in cloth. You loosened it and spilled its contents onto the ground. Bones, all kinds of bones, and a set of worn cards with edges softened by use, their faces marked with inked figures.
"I can look," you offered, as if you were speaking of checking the weather. "Bones and cards. But it won't change what's been decided. It will tell us which way the wind is blowing."
Valarr stepped forward as you gestured for him. As Baelor's son, he should be the one present. He stared at the bone as if they might bite. "You can... see the future."
"I can talk to the wind, I can see auras, I can read the cards and the bones to see what is possible. The paths. Visions of the future come more rarely, even if I do know the gist of what is to happen."
She lifted one of the cards, pinched it between two fingers, and for a moment Dunk saw her blink, once, twice, like a woman trying to fight sleep. Her face tightened with confusion.
She held the card closer to the lanternlight.
Egg leaned in, curiosity fighting fear. "What does it say?"
The witch stared at the card as if the ink had shifted without looking. "It says..." she paused before she brought the lantern closer, and realisation settled on her features. "Ah, it says what it has always said."
The men looked between each other, somewhat confused. She looked from the card before lifting the herbs next to her to the light, fingers brushing over the more colourful flowers attached to them. Then, she looked up towards, the tapestry hung on the wall. The intricate weaves. The colours. She hummed, nodding to herself as if taking stock of her surroundings like they were brand new.
"There's no need to worry yet. It's my own affliction that is confusing me, not the prince's."
Dunk's stomach tightened, because he'd recognised that look. He'd seen it once before, when you'd saved him and gingerly reached for the campfire like it was a stray dog that might bite. Back then he'd thought you were only tired, now he thinks he knows better.
"Come closer, Prince," you said, and Valarr obeyed at once, sitting in front of you as you gestured his down.
You turned to your bones first, forsaking the cards. They gathered in your palm, warming with your breath as you whispered into them. You cast them onto the cloth.
They clicked as they fell, the sound too loud in a tent too quiet.
You leaned in and studied the way they'd landed. Valarr watched your face with intent as you hummed, turning back to your cards once more.
You spread them out in a neat arch, you held your hand out over them in demonstration. "You are his closest blood, so it will be more accurate if you do this part." Valarr's spine straightened with your words. "Hold out your hand like so." He hovered his hand over the cards, and you placed yours over his. Your touch was ice cold despite the heat in the tent. "Now, you will move your hand over the cards. The relevant cards will move on their own."
Gingerly, he did as he was told. Palm flat over the cards, he moved it slowly and watched with awe as cards nudged towards you from the neat arch you had laid them.
You lifted your hand away at last and gestured towards the bones. "Three of them are strong. One is weak." Your gaze flicked up to Valarr's eyes. "That's good odds for living."
Then you turned the first card, the second and the third.
A figure inked in black stood upright, arms raised as if holding up a roof. The second card showed water, dark and contained. The third was a wheel. You stared for a long moment, then nodded, a short decisive motion that made Egg's shoulders sag with sudden, shaky relief.
"He wakes."
Valarr's whole body went taught, as if someone yanked a string through his limbs. "When?" He demanded, too quickly, too hungry.
You didn't snap at him for it like Dunk thought you would've. You looked back to Baelor and spoke with the same blunt certainty you'd used when you'd told him to breath. "Not tonight. Tomorrow perhaps. The bones say it will be sooner rather than later." You fiddled with a few of the pieces. "Long before the sun reaches its peak in the sky, soon after the it rises in the east."
"He'll be...him?" Egg asked, they knew what magic could do to one's soul if used incorrectly.
"He'll be him," you confirmed. You drew another card from the arch and observed its contents. "He'll have headaches. Bad ones, some days. And if he is too stressed or angry, his body may seize." Your gaze cut to the maester. "Turn him on his side. Clear his mouth. Don't put a spoon between his teeth like fools. Let it pass. They will not kill him."
The maester blinked, and despite his previous disdain he absorbed the knowledge readily. "Treatable," he said, like he was tasting the concept.
Valarr swallowed. "No graver affliction?" He asked, voice small like a young boy's.
You shook your head. "I have seen blindness after my work, Paralysis. But the cards preempted those issues then. If they do not speak of it now, it will not become a problem."
Dunk's knees threatened to give, relief hitting him like a blow. He braced a hand on the bedpost to stay upright. For a moment, no one spoke but then Valarr looked up at you, and duty returned to his face like armour sliding into place.
"What do you want?" he asked. "For payment. If he wakes up, we will give you anything. Truly."
The maester's head jerked up, and Egg went still. Dunk knew they had nothing to worry about, you had never asked for payment before. Ypu didn't even glance at them. You looked at Baelor, then your face twisted in something like weary amusement.
Men and their payments.
"I want you to keep him alive," you said. "This man will be king and he will be a great one. He will be respected but he will also be loved. He will do many great things."
Valarr blinked. "That's-" he faltered, searching for the proper words. "That's not payment."
"It is to me," you replied, simply.
"But-" He swallowed again. "Gold. Land. Protection. A vow. Anything. Name it."
You leaned back on your hands. "I will stay," you said simply. "To ensure his care...After that, you owe me nothing." You added a shrug on the end as if the deal had already been made.
Valarr's eyes narrowed, not in suspicion of you, but in suspicion of the world. Magic of this kind did not come without cost. Of all the things he'd been taught, that was a certainty like a statue.
"Nothing?" he repeated. "That's not-" Possible, he stopped. His gaze slid over you, the way you held yourself too still, the faint tremor you hid. His eyes dropped to your cards, then the fire which you'd kept glancing at when you thought no one was looking.
"You..." Valarr began, voice rough. Dunk felt it, the moment the thought finally found Valarr and settled behind his eyes. If the debt was paid, and no one else had paid it... then-
"You paid it."
You hummed quietly, and your fingers gathered the bones and the cards around you.
His throat bobbed. "What did it cost?"
You didn't answer immediately. Not because you couldn't, but because saying it out loud always made it real in a way you preferred to avoid. Your fingers paused over the bones and then resumed your careful gathering.
"Enough," you said, voice tired.
Valarr's jaw tightened. "That isn't an answer."
You looked up them, and the lanternlight caught your eyes. Dunk saw it clearly now, how your gaze didn't settle on the bright things in the pavilion the way others might. Earlier, you were taking in the shapes and edges. The card you'd held when you got confused held intricate colours, in the dim lighting even Dunk could see that from his distance. It was one of the few reasons he was able to discern what it depicted.
It was strange that you couldn't, you'd had to bring the lantern to it to figure out which card it was.
"What colour is the tapestry?" His voice came unbidden, you'd looked at earlier in your confusion. You'd analysed it carefully.
You blinked once, slow. "I can see it. I can't see what colour it is."
Dunk swallowed. "You could," he said. "You could see colours earlier."
"A few hours ago, yes." You agreed. Your mouth twitched with what might be humour.
Valarr's hands curled at his sides. "So that's what it cost. You paid with-"
"With a piece," you finished for him. "A sliver of my soul. Pieces can be given to hold the door open for those who have lost their way."
Egg hugged himself. "Why would you do that?"
You looked at them again. "Because fate takes," you said. "It takes the good in the world and leaves the rest as a lesson. I've never been fond of such lessons. Besides, what is the importance of colour? Compared to the magnificence of a future King?"
Valarr stared at you, as if seeing you for the first time. "And when there is nothing left?" He asked.
You shrugged casually. "Then I die," you said. "I will have given myself away one threat at a time."
The prince edged forward, hands fisting and unfisting at his side. "Tell me how to repay you," he said, voice strained. "Tell me what to give so you don't have to keep-"
You shook your head once. "There is nothing to replace what has been lost. It cannot be made right. But perhaps there is one small thing you can do." Valarr looked up at you as you extended the olive branch. "I will stay to tend to Prince Baelor. I would appreciate if you men refrained from calling me a monster and trying to make your gods strike me harder than they already have."
Valarr's jaw tightened. "No one will touch you," he promised with steel. He knew his father would agree, he would be grateful that you saved his life magic or not because you'd done it selflessly and Baelor had always appreciated acts of selflessness.
You nodded, as if considering the way you'd considered his aura. "Good."
"Now," you said briskly, as if you hadn’t just confessed your own slow death, "sit with him. Quietly. If he stirs, don’t crowd him. If he seizes, don’t panic. If the maester starts bleeding him because he doesn’t know what else to do, stop him."
The maester bristled faintly, but you only chuckled at his ire. Valarr's voice cracked despite him. "And you?" He asked. "Are you- are you alright?"
Other than giving away part of your soul, predicament.
You paused, before your expression softened into a grateful smile, something kind and gentle. "I will be."
Morning came slowly.
The pavilion was dim by design, the flap kept mostly shut so the sun could not stab its spears of light inside. Still, it crept in around the seams, pale in the early hour, turning everything into soft shapes. The camp was waking as well, muffled bootsteps, a horse snorting nearby, distant voices trying to speak quietly and failing.
Valarr had not slept. Not properly. He'd sat with his back to a tent pole until the ache in his back became familiar, his thoughts became sludge several times throughout the night before he forced them to sharpen. He counted his father's breaths like a prayer.
Now it was just the three of them in the Pavilion. You and Valarr. The maester had been sent away at dawn, 'to fetch fresh water,' Valarr had said, and the man had gone with a stiff nod. Dunk had been ordered to get something to eat, and Egg had been peeled away only after he fell asleep sitting upright, head lolling against a bedpost like a little doll with its strings cut.
Valarr remained, as did you.
You were turning something over in your fingers, a little charm made of twine and bone. You rolled it as if doing so helped keep you tethered.
"You can listen to the wind, you can see auras. What else can you do?" Valarr asked quietly.
You didn't look up. "Plenty."
"That's not an answer," he muttered, and even exhausted, he couldn't quite keep the princely edge from his voice.
Valarr shifted, wincing as pins and needles bit his legs. “You said you can see auras,” he said. “You can talk to the wind. You can read bones and cards.”
You watched Baelor's chest rise and fall before you answered. "Sometimes," you said, "things people have carried for a long time tend to carry them back."
Valarr frowned, "That's a riddle."
"It's true," you corrected, and your eyes slid over him in that quiet, measuring way. "Give me something of yours. Something you've had for a while."
His brows drew together. "Why?"
"You asked what else I could do?" She parried with a mischievous smile. "And because you'll understand the so-called riddle."
Valarr hesitated, then reached down toward his belt. He moved carefully, and his fingers found a small buckle hidden beneath his doublet, old and worn at the edges. Not steel.
He held it in his palm for a moment before offering it to you.
"It was on my first belt," he said. "When I was little. My mother had it made." His voice softened.
Your fingers closed around the buckle, and the change was small but unmistakable. Your thumb traced the carved vine, guiding you somewhere.
"Sunlight," You finally spoke. "Through light curtains." Your voice was quiet, as though you didn't want to disturb what you were seeing. "A chamber that smells of beeswax and... oranges. Someone is humming." You paused, brow creasing with faint surprise.
"You're laughing. You're-" Your eyes flicked under your lids like tracking a moving thing. "You've got the best on wrong. Twice around your waist. You speak of being ready to be a knight already. You're about two feet tall."
Valarr's lips parted, and let out a soft breath that was almost a laugh. "I did," he said, voice warm with recognition. He'd forgotten about that. "Gods, I did that."
You nodded, still half in the memory. "She kneels before you," he said, and for a heartbeat, your tone gentled. "Because you're small, proud, and won't ask for help." Your thumb stilled on the buckle. "Her hands are quick, though her nails are bitten. She smells like rosewater." A wide smile came to your face at the feeling of maternal care, it was bright. Like you were experiencing warmth for the first time. Your own mother had never cared for you in such away, especially not after discovering what you were capable of.
You continued, voice low. "She says-" You paused. "You'll be tall one day. But you'll always be my boy."
Valarr's breath left him slowly. He stared at the buckle in your fingers like it had just given him his mother back for a moment. Not just her life. Her voice, her smile. Alive and ordinary.
You blinked again, and your gaze returned fully to the tent, to Valarr's face. You held the buckle a moment longer, then extended it back to him
"Thank you," you said simply.
Valarr took it carefully, reverent without meaning to be. "For what?" he asked.
"For sharing her with me," you replied. "Even if you didn't mean to." Your mouth curved again, small and sincere. "Memories are sacred. People guard them. They lose them. You let me hold one."
Valarr swallowed, the buckle warm in his palm from your touch. "I had lost it. It felt like remembering properly."
"Yes," you murmured. Then, after a beat, you added, almost gently, "Your mother was beautiful."
Valarr's eyes stung. He didn't look away this time.
"She was," he said, voice rough with gratitude. "She really was."
You nodded, and it settled something inside you.
And then Baelor made a small wet sound in his throat. Valarr's head snapped toward the bed. Baelor's fingers twitched beneath the blanket, and you both sharpened to attention.
Every muscle in Valarr's body was braced. Baelor's lips parted and a breath dragged in deeper than either of you had heard from him all night.
Valarr swallowed loudly. "Father?" he whispered.
Baelor twitched stronger this time. The hand nearest the edge of the blanket flexed as if searching for something to hold. His brow pinched in the faintest grimace.
Pain, Valarr realised. But pain arrived with waking. You were already rummaging around your bag for some pain relief for the prince when his lashes fluttered.
He hovered in place, trembling like a man caught at the edge of a cliff. You lifted one hand, palm outward, a quiet signal for patience.
Baelor's eyes opened. They were half-lidded and unfocused, like he was surfacing from deep water, but his gaze was searching across the tent.
His mouth moved, and no sound came at first. He swallowed and tied again.
"W-" he rasped, voice rough. "Where..."
Valarr's chest tightened so hard it hurt. "You're safe," he said quickly, too quickly. "You're safe, Father. It's me. I'm here."
Baelor searched until his eyes snagged on his son's face. Recognition didn't bloom all at once. It struggled through the fog and then, like a door finally finding its latch, it caught.
"Valarr," Baelor breathed.
Valarr's eyes burned again. He nodded hard. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes. I'm here."
The crown prince tried to lift his head and immediately winced. Instinctively, his hand rose towards the back of his skull, searching for the damage.
You moved just enough to intercept. Catching his wrist with the gentlest pressure and guiding the hand back down to the blanket.
"No, my prince," you spoke, close and steady. "Leave it and breathe."
Baelor's gaze moved to the sound of your voice. He stared at you, trying to piece together the wreckage that was your mind. His brow furrowed.
"Who...?" He managed, and the word broke apart around the edges.
"A friend," Valarr said, voice thick. He swallowed and tried again, softer. "She saved you."
Baelor's eyes lingered on you, then his gaze drifted to the crow that was now perched above him. It clicked its beak and cawed loudly.
His lips twitched, a small smile. "A... crow." he rasped like it was the strangest thing in the world.
Valarr almost laughed and cried at one. "Yes. Yes, a crow."
"Sorry. He can get excited." You added looking up at the bird.
The elder prince suddenly looked exhausted. Waking must have taken everything he had. His voice came again, fainter now. "My head..."
"It must hurt. I can remedy that." You said matter-of-factly. "You were struck hard but you're going to be okay."
"Maekar. He must be worried." He whispered.
Of all things Baelor could have reached for in the fog, he reached for his brother. Even now."Of all things Baelor could have reached for in the fog, he reached for his brother. Even now.
"He is," Valarr said quietly. He glanced at you and then back to his father. "He's... he's beside himself."
Baelor's brow furrowed in confusion. "I remember him hitting me. He was trying to get to Aerion."
Valarr nodded once, and despite his anger at his Uncle, he spoke honestly. "He didn't intend-"
"I know," Baelor breathed, and the certainty in it was astounding. "He didn't mean for this."
Forgiveness offered before anyone had even asked for it. Baelor truly was unchanged.
You stepped forward with a small vial. "This will help," you said softly, holding it to Baelor's mouth. "For the pain. It won't steal your mind the way poppy does."
Baelor's eyes flicked to you, still dazed, but he drank when you pushed your hand forward.
Valarr watched the way his father's breathing remained even.
Alive. Alive.
Baelor exhaled, long and slow. "Thank you," and the gratitude in it wasn't courtly, but honest and true.
You inclined your head. "Rest," you replied, like it was the only thanks you would accept.
Baelor’s eyes closed, not in collapse this time, but in surrender to healing. His breathing stayed steady, no wet hitch, no faltering thread, just sleep taking him gently.
Silence settled in the pavilion.
Valarr sat very still, listening to his father’s breaths until he could trust them. Only then did he turn his head toward you.
You were gathering your things again, cards stacked, bones wrapped, the little twine charm rolled between your fingers as if it anchored you. The way you moved was careful, economical, like someone who had learned not to waste anything... not even motion.
Valarr stared at you for a long moment. Then he stood, slowly, as if he was afraid to disturb the air.
"I don’t know how to say it properly," he said, voice low. "I’ve been taught manners and gratitude and a hundred pretty phrases that mean nothing when you've-" He faltered, then forced the words through. "When you gave up part of yourself for him."
You didn’t look up. “Don’t make it into worship, prince.”
“I’m not,” Valarr said quickly. His voice roughened. “I’m-” He swallowed. “I’m thanking you.”
You paused, just a fraction. Your fingers stilled on the cloth bundle. Valarr exhaled shakily. “He spoke Maekar’s name first,” he said, almost to himself. Wonder and heartbreak tangled together. “Even after… even after what happened.”
“That’s who he is,” you murmured.
Valarr nodded. “That’s why it mattered.” He took another breath, steadier now. “Maekar thinks he’s killed him.”
You hummed, quiet. "Then you should go and end that misery before it festers."
Valarr’s jaw tightened. "I will." His gaze flicked to his father’s sleeping form, then back to you. "But-" He hesitated, and his cheeks warmed. "When he’s more awake... when he understands what happened... he’ll want to thank you himself."
You snorted softly, humourless. "Kings and princes always want to thank with gold and promises."
"He’ll want more than that," Valarr said, and there was certainty in it now, born of knowing his father. "He’ll want to keep you close." He looked away briefly, embarrassed by how it sounded. "Not as a... not as a prisoner. As protection. As honour. As-"
You seemed to understand. For a moment you almost look caught out, like someone who's spent a lifetime slipping through the cracks and had forgotten what it felt like to be offered a door.
"That's dangerous," you said.
Valarr met your gaze. "So is letting you vanish back into the woods after what you've done," he replied, voice firm. "Many saw you come enter the camp with us, they know why you've come. Once they discover that Baelor has survived such an injury, they might come hunting.
Valarr's fingers curled around the old buckle in his palm. "I won't force you, and I won't allow anyone else to either," he said. "But... if he asks, will you at least hear him?"
"I’ll stay until I’m sure he’s steady," you said at last. "That was my word."
Valarr’s throat bobbed. "And after?"
You looked back at him, eyes that saw the world in shape and shadow now, but still saw people with unnerving clarity. "After," you said, "we’ll see what the wind says."
Valarr nodded, accepting that as the closest thing to a promise you would give. He stepped carefully around the chalk line, stopping at its edge like a man respecting a border. Then he bowed sincerely.
"Thank you," he said again, and this time the words didn’t shake. "Truly."
Your mouth curved, faint and tired. "Go," you told him. "Before your uncle makes himself sick with guilt."
Valarr turned toward the pavilion flap, hand already reaching for it, then paused and glanced back once.
Baelor slept on. Alive.
And you sat beside him in the dim, a witch in a prince’s tent, having given him a piece of her soul to ensure his survival.
Valarr swallowed, steadying himself with that sight, and slipped out into the waking camp to go find Maekar, and end one brother’s torment with a simple, impossible truth.
He lives.
Boy oh boy, I am churning these out. The creative juices are flowing. My boy Valarr, I love him with all my heart, and obviously I had to write Baelor surviving cause we all know he would've been the best Targaryen king.
AURELIA CÓRDOVA: daughter of tyche and camp half blood's resident gambler. "bestfriend/rival" of luke castellan and the worst influence on younger campers. faceclaim — lydia alice ellis
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a/n. ugh writing this part is hard i have so many better ideas for later chapters. so stay interested or im gonna lose steam. i think ive improved reader's personality im always scared of making it sound pick me girlish.. anyway plz like also starting a tag list ig
ii. How to: Piss him off
The alcohol from last night means that the second I hit my bed, I’m out cold.
One of the perks of Cabin Ten is the lack of siblings. Which means a bed to myself. Silky sheets. The faint smell of rose perfume. Quiet mornings.
Thunk.
…What the hell?
Thunk.
I peel my eye mask off and squint against the sunlight bleeding through my window. A hangover headache pulses behind my eyes like a warning bell.
Thunk.
Oh my gods.
Small pebbles bounce off the glass, and somewhere in the cabin, one of my siblings lets out a sleepy groan.
I fling the window open, already annoyed, and immediately regret it when a pebble smacks me square in the eye.
“OW!”
I’m officially furious.
I grab the offending rock from my floral sheets and hurl it back down blindly, eyes still squeezed shut. “GEEZ!”
I rub at my eye, then lean out the window to find my target.
Below me stands a very familiar mop of curly brown hair.
Luke Castellan is rubbing his forehead and glaring up at me like I personally declared war. I freeze, scanning the cabin behind me to make sure none of my siblings have woken up from the noise.
All clear.
When I look back down, Luke’s irritation has melted into a stupid, lopsided grin. His eyes flick to my bedhead. Then to my cartoon eye mask.
I groan and slam the window shut.
Two minutes later, I’m slipping into my pink fluffy robe and slippers, tiptoeing out the door and closing it softly behind me.
The sun is just creeping over the horizon, painting the sky pink and orange. Luke is already on the porch, fist raised, about to knock when I open the door.
We stare at each other.
“Luke,” I mutter, “what the hell are you doing here? What time is it even?”
He smirks. “Sorry, princess. Did I disturb your beauty sleep?”
“Uh. Yeah. You did.”
“It’s six o’clock,” he says. “You said you’d meet me for training today.”
“I didn’t think that meant the crack of dawn,” I snap, rubbing my temples.
He shrugs. “I can let you sleep in if you want.”
I sigh. “No. I’m already up. There’s no going back now.”
I blink at him through my hangover haze. “Wait here. Let me get ready.”
I shut the door before he can say anything else, leaning my forehead against it for a second.
Honestly, with how early it is and how terrible I feel, I almost just throw my hair up, slip on my Converse, and call it a day.
Then I remember.
How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days: Step One — take forever to get ready.
I smile to myself and turn toward my closet.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
When she finally steps back outside, I stop mid-stretch.
Her hair is styled like she actually planned on being seen, lip gloss catching the early morning light. And she’s wearing her camp t-shirt with the collar cut so low it’s basically useless for sparring.
I look her over once.
Then again, because maybe I imagined it the first time.
“…You know this is sparring, right?” I say slowly.
She blinks at me, all innocence. “Yeah?”
I gesture at her, vague but pointed. “You’re wearing jewellery.”
She glances down at the thin necklace resting against her collarbone. “Oh. This old thing?”
My jaw tightens. “You also took forever.”
She squints like I personally offended her. “I took like what, five minutes?”
“Thirty.”
“Wow,” she says flatly. “Guess the day’s ruined.”
I stare at her for a long second, weighing my options. Arguing would be pointless. She looks way too pleased with herself already.
I exhale through my nose and jerk my head toward the training ring.
“Get over here,” I mutter, already suspecting this morning is not going to go the way I planned.
She playfully skips down the steps of the porch.
Yup, way too pleased with herself. Hopefully, some sparring will wipe that little knowing smirk off her face.
I put my arm around her shoulders and playfully drag her along.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
I grab a spare set of training armour and gesture for her to sit on one of the benches lining the arena.
She looks at the gear, then at me. “You know I can put this on myself, right?”
“I know,” I say easily. “Humour me.”
How to make a girl fall in love, I think.
Step one: proximity.
I start with the shoulder guards, kneeling in front of her to secure the straps. My fingers brush her arm by accident, and I don’t rush to pull away. She stiffens just a little.
Interesting.
I move on to the chestplate next, motioning for her to stand. When she turns around, I gently sweep her hair off her neck so it won’t get caught in the laces. She goes still.
I tighten the straps carefully.
When she sits back down, I crouch to fasten the knee guards. I can feel her watching me now, then very deliberately not watching me. A faint flush creeps up her cheeks.
She clears her throat. “I can do this part myself.”
I shake my head and smile, keeping my tone light. “It’s fine. I’ve got it.”
She hesitates, then nods, looking off toward the arena instead.
Yeah, I think. That’s working.
Luke Castellan, you still got it.
Once I’m done, I toss her a spare hair tie. “You’ll want that out of the way.”
She takes it, shooting me a look I can’t quite read before tying her hair back. While she does, I strap on my own armour and grab two sparring swords from the rack.
I hand her one and step back, settling into my stance.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s see if you can keep up.”
We square off, and I roll my shoulders, loosening up. Habit. I take my stance without thinking about it, relaxed and ready. I know how this looks. People always tell me I make it look easy.
She watches me like she’s clocking every move.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
She moves first.
Not flashy. Not reckless either.
Her blade comes in clean and controlled. I block on instinct, expecting her to overextend. She doesn’t. We fall into a rhythm almost immediately, and my brows knit before I can stop them.
Huh.
She nearly tags my side, close enough that I feel the air shift. I adjust at the last second.
“You’ve been keeping up with Clarisse,” I say, more statement than question.
She shoots me a look. “Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“No,” I say, genuinely. “It explains a lot.”
We clash again, and this time she pushes harder. Forces me to move my feet instead of letting me rely on reach and balance. That pulls a grin out of me before I can stop it.
“You’re trying to show off,” I say.
“Maybe,” she says easily. “Or maybe I just don’t like being underestimated.”
That lands closer than I expect.
My grin fades as I circle her, watching how she shifts her weight, how she’s already adjusting to my patterns.
“You know,” I say slowly, “people don’t expect much from Aphrodite kids.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“I didn’t say I agreed.”
She pauses. Just half a second. Long enough.
I knock her blade aside.
“Careful,” I add lightly. “That’s how you get hit.”
She resets, but something’s changed. Not worse. Sharper.
We go again. Harder. Longer. By the time we finally break apart, she’s breathing heavy, hair falling loose around her face. I should feel smug.
Instead, I feel… impressed.
And a little annoyed about it.
I rest my sword on my shoulder and study her. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
I hesitate, then say it anyway. “You’re good. And you didn’t get ready like this by accident.”
She tilts her head. “Like what?”
“Late. Dressed up. Pushing my buttons.”
She smiles sweetly, and I don’t buy it for a second. “You think I’m doing that?”
“Yes,” I say immediately. Then, after a beat, “And I think you want me to notice.”
The space between us tightens. Charged.
She steps closer. Too close for sparring. “Well,” she says, “did it work?”
I open my mouth. Close it again. Look away first, dragging a hand through my hair.
“Yeah,” I admit. “Unfortunately.”
When I meet her eyes again, something settles in my chest. Determination. Familiar ground.
“But just so you know,” I add, I can tell she's bracing for something I can't quite place
“You're never going to be a better sword fighter than I am”.
She hums, unimpressed. “Guess we’ll see.”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
We go at it like that for a while, trading blows and commentary, until the arena starts to fill. Camp always wakes up in waves. One minute it’s quiet, the next there’s the sound of armour clanking and kids dragging benches into place.
Most people know I usually help run morning training. Me and Chris. So without a word, she settles onto one of the benches at the edge of the ring, stealing a swig from my water bottle and shaking her hair loose from its ponytail like she owns the place.
I turn my attention to one of the younger campers, squaring off with him to work on his form.
“Almost,” I tell him, knocking his blade aside. “One more time. Tighter stance.”
Sparring at camp isn’t about staying clean. If you don’t walk away with at least a bruise, you’re doing something wrong. It’s part of the deal. Part of the fun.
So when I take a glancing hit to the arm, I barely register it.
I definitely don’t react.
Before I can reset, she drops my water bottle.
Actually drops it.
“Luke!” she yells, already sprinting toward me.
I don’t even have time to respond before she’s in my space, hands on my arm, turning it over like I’ve just been mortally wounded.
“I’m fine,” I start.
“Oh my gods, you’re bleeding,” she says, horrified.
I look down. It’s a scratch. A tiny one.
“I told you not to overdo it,” she continues, loud enough that half the arena is now watching. “You promised you’d be careful.”
I did not promise that.
“I’m really okay,” I say, trying to step back.
She ignores me completely.
“Does anyone have ambrosia?” she calls out. “Or nectar? He’s hurt.”
I can feel heat crawling up my neck.
“I do not need ambrosia,” I mutter.
She cups my face like she’s checking for a fever.
Someone snorts. Someone else laughs.
“This is humiliating,” I say under my breath.
She leans in, voice sweet. “What? I’m just worried about you.”
Her eyes sparkle.
She knows exactly what she’s doing.
I gently pry her hands off me and clear my throat, trying to recover some dignity. “Training’s over.”
The moment I step back, I hear Chris lose it.
“BRO,” he wheezes. “Do you need us to kiss it better too?”
I shoot him a look that promises violence.
She just smiles.
And that’s when I realise something terrible.
She’s going to drive me insane.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
The rest of the day passed without incident, thank the gods. She seemed preoccupied with her own cabin duties.
The next morning came way too early, as usual, with the sun barely brushing the treetops. I had just started getting used to the quiet after yesterday’s… outburst, when I realised it wasn’t going to last.
I grab my tray and slide into the usual spot at the pavilion next to Chris. I scan the tables… she’s not there. interesting.
And sure enough, five minutes later, she strolls in, hair loose, eyes sparkling. She plops down opposite me, casually munching on some fruit.
“You guys heard about Luke this morning?” she asks, voice loud enough to get a few nearby campers’ attention.
Chris freezes mid-bite. I tense, instantly regretting the morning’s events.
“Oh, nothing much,” she says, tilting her head innocently. “Just that Luke serenaded me at sunrise… and threw pebbles at my window. Very romantic. Totally the stuff you read about.”
I choke on my cereal. Chris starts laughing outright.
“What?” I sputter. “That’s… not even—”
“Don’t lie,” she interrupts, hands dramatically pressed to her chest. “I mean, really. The soft little rocks tapping on my window? The sunrise? Truly… swoon-worthy.”
I groan, rubbing my forehead, but I catch the glint in her eye. She’s loving this.
I glance around, trying to gauge how many people are watching. A few of my brothers are snickering. Chris is losing it.
“Fine,” I say, throwing my hands up. “ In my opinion, though you got lucky”.
Her jaw drops. “Wait… what?”
“Yep,” I shrug, leaning back. “I was talking about having some of the Apollo kids come with me to be a last-minute mariachi band. But… Chris talked me out of it. Said that it would scare you off”.
She blinks at me, clearly delighted, and I can’t help but grin. “Swooning yet?” I tease.
“Oh, Luke,” she sighs dramatically, waving a hand like she’s swooning on cue, “your gestures know no bounds. Truly, your heart is a delicate instrument.”
I shake my head, laughing despite myself. She’s impossible.
Chris mutters, barely holding back his laughter: “Dude, no way”
“I’m Luke Castellan,” I reply, voice casual but prideful. “If I’m going to get blamed for being romantic, I might as well take ownership of it.”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
When Luke turns his head, I take it as my cue to finally let out the eye roll I’ve been holding in. Hasn’t this guy had enough already?
I huff, about to give up, but then a good idea hits me. One more move to seal the deal. I hop out of my seat and practically skip to the other side of the table.
I press a big, exaggerated kiss to his cheek and blow a dramatic mwahhh.
“Bye, Lukey! I’ll see you later.”
I catch a flicker of heat in his cheeks and a few stifled laughs from the rest of the Hermes table.
I start to turn away, only to feel his calloused hand grab my wrist and pull me back. He tsks, tapping his cheek in mock demand for another one. Really? You’d think this guy had endured enough.
I can’t hold the eye roll back this time. I bend down and lean in to plant another kiss on his cheek.
And then he turns his head at the last second.
Our lips meet.
We’re kissing. I’m kissing Luke Castellan. In front of half the camp.
It’s gentle, sweet… and, I almost hate to admit it, I kind of enjoy it until the table erupts in loud hoots and hollers.
I slam a hand over my mouth, and now it's my turn for my face to turn a bright shade of red. I mutter something along the lines of a bye and bolt back to my cabin’s table.
I flop into my seat and bury my head in my arms with a dramatic thud.
Kate leans over, using her inside voice. “I was going to say good work for yesterday, but… looks like he outdid you this time.”
I huff, ignoring her.
I lift my head just enough to peek at the Hermes lunch table. His siblings have returned to their usual chaos, but Luke is there, catching my eye. He gives a teasing little wave.
I smack my head back down on the table.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
After Luke's little stunt the other day, I knew I had to up my game. Embarrassing him had been fun, but it was not enough. This time, I wanted him to get mad, or at least noticeably irritated.
How to lose a guy in 10 days: Step 2— get into his personal life
I had seen Annabeth around camp enough to vaguely know her—she was always quiet, sharp-eyed, and impossibly focused, the kind of girl who gave off “don’t mess with me”. We’d exchanged a few nods in the pavilion, maybe a quick “hey” when passing each other on the trail, but that was about it.
This morning, though, she was sitting alone on the edge of the dock, writing something in her notebook. I had a few minutes before training, so I decided to take the chance.
“Hey,” I said, settling down on the dock a few feet from her. “Mind if I join you?”
She glanced up, raised an eyebrow, and then, to my surprise, smiled. “Sure. I could use a break.”
I smiled back, feeling like I’d passed some invisible test. We started talking about small stuff first, what cabins people were in, the weird quirks of camp meals, and how training had gone. But as the minutes stretched on, the conversation slowly drifted toward Luke. Not in a mean way, it just started with casual observations.
“I’ve noticed something,” Annabeth said, lowering her voice a little. “He… acts one way around everyone, but you can tell there’s more under the surface if you watch closely.”
I grinned, leaning back on my hands, the wood of the dock digging into my hands. “Yeah? I might have noticed that too.”
By the time training was about to start, we’d shared enough laughs and little insights that I felt like I actually knew her a bit. Enough, in fact, that when she later pulled an old photo from between the folds of her notebook, I didn’t even hesitate to lean in and inspect it with a very shit-eating grin on my face.
There he was, Luke, about four years younger, smack in the middle of an awkward phase. His jacket was oversized, making him look even smaller, his curly hair swept to one side like a makeshift emo bang, and his beanie pushed low over his eyes. The whole thing was both endearing and absolutely hilarious.
We practically laughed until we cried.
Annabeth continued talking, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the photo. The look in his eyes was… sad. Something made me wonder what he was going through. For a second, I felt a twinge of guilt laughing at it, but if even his sister could chuckle at this, surely it was fair game.
Maybe if things were different, I would ask him what his childhood was like, how he ended up at Camp Half-Blood with his little sister, who he was at fourteen. I shake the thoughts out of my head before they go any further.
What was more important was the dirt I had on him now.
Meaning: I had ammunition for later. And I was going to enjoy every second of it.
