- Marie - 27 years - Germany - Fairy - I am a wreck. Sometimes I am cotton candy. But all I want to be is thin air. When I am a wreck I like dark poetry, sad k-dramas and a handful of Lana Del Rey songs. When I am cotton candy I love to play video games, sing along to my fav K-Pop songs and dance till I am out of breath. When I am thin air, I will be beautiful.
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summary: a council gathering. a woman who finds paintings more interesting than people, and people more interesting than she lets on. and Titus Danforth, who has spent forty-eight years at the top of every room he has ever walked into. someone forgot to tell Hermia Vale that. or rather, she knew, and chose to ignore it. because she simply thought his body was a more interesting altitude.
or: hermia loves suspense, but also titus's appearance aka dick
pairing: titus danforth x female!oc
rating: explicit, mature / 18+ / minors do not interact!
warnings: smut at the end; short mentioning of mental illnesses, dark but kind of funny (i hope?) romance nsfw: oral sex, doggy, nipple play, unprotected sex, some dirty talk, some roughness
note: It is the first time i tried to write smut. at first i wanted to go for a plotless and short one-shot where we would concentrate on the “fun bits” hehe but i am currently watching euphoria, and the Maddy vibe caught up to me, and i thought that i had to throw in an oc that would (hopefully) give us some Maddy vibes. and then i thought that a little plot is always fun because we have to work for the dirt! i also would like to mention that the nsfw part is rather toned down compared to other fics since i was unsure, how to write it without being too cheap if you know what i mean :o i also added some ocs into the story to give myself more freedeom! anyway! I hope you enjoy!
i was listening to this song on repeat while brainstorming: sunmi - cynical
word count: 12.7k (i went crazy here, i am sorry)
AO3 / Wattpad
why so cynical?
The car turned through the gates at half past four, and Hermia Vale looked out the window, pulling her sunglasses down and thought: what posers.
The Danforth estate was the kind of property that announced itself from a distance, the gates alone were probably a hundred years old, wrought iron twisted into shapes that were meant to suggest power. But instead it suggested that someone had once upon a time been very, very frightened of something and had built accordingly. The driveway was long enough to be a statement. The trees lining it were the sort of trees that had been planted by people who were dead now, which was either poetic or ironic depending on your family's particular history with the Danforths.
Hermia's family's history was complicated. But also a success in itself which granted her the lifestyle she has now. And that’s all she truly cares about.
She watched the estate resolve itself through the tinted window. The facade, the symmetry, the rows of windows catching the late afternoon light, and decided it was genuinely beautiful. In the way that things built with unlimited money and no particular regard for human life tended to be beautiful. She could appreciate that. She had been raised to appreciate that. House Vale's primary residence in Geneva was beautiful in the same way, which was to say that every beautiful thing in it had a story behind it that you were better off not asking about in polite company.
"We'll arrive in approximately three minutes, Miss Vale," said the driver.
"Thank you, Étienne," she said, and went back to her phone.
Her father had sent a list. He had titled it, with the optimism of a man who had knew his daughter, Guidelines for the Danforth Gathering, which suggested he had not entirely learned his lesson from the Switzerland incident, the Monaco incident, or what they collectively referred to as the Prague Situation, which had been entirely not her fault and she had documentation to prove it.
She scrolled through it.
Be polite. She was always polite. She was exquisitely polite. Politeness was armor and she wore it like couture.
Do not antagonize the Danforths. This was vague to the point of being useless. What constituted antagonism? She had opinions. She sometimes shared them. That was called having a personality. And it is not her fault that they are lacking it and try to hide it behind those stupid killing games.
Remember that we are guests. She remembered. She simply had standards regardless of whose property she was on.
Do not bring up the Accords. This one she agreed with. Even she knew when to leave something alone.
Try to enjoy yourself. She looked up from her phone as the car curved around the final bend and the full front facade of the estate came into view. The steps, the columns, the staff arranged in a waiting line that suggested the Danforths had never once in their lives answered their own door. Her father was already somewhere in the building since he arrived a day prior to ensure no one is trying to kill his daughter. Because there is one thing besides money and power he loves unconditionally: Hermia. She could accidentally start a 3rd World War, and he would still find reasons to blame others in order to protect her.
But that is not the point today. She put her phone away, watching the estate coming closer.
She would try to enjoy herself. She always tried. The enjoyment simply looked different depending on the room.
The car completed its final curve and drew to a smooth stop at the bottom of the front steps. Through the window, Hermia could see the staff assembled in a neat line. Seven of them, uniformed, faces arranged into the particular expression of people who were professionally invisible. Everything about it was composed.
She waited for Étienne to come around and open her door and stepped out into the cool late afternoon air.
She didn’t meet any of the Danforths or other members of the High Council. This was a situation for later, and Hermia was glad about it. Because most of them were just plain psychos. She was at least a psycho with taste. And sometimes a manageable temper.
The room they gave her was in the east wing.
This was, she understood, a deliberate choice. The east wing was beautiful, appointed with the kind of careful luxury that suggested significant expense. But it was not the west wing, which faced the formal gardens and got the better light. She had been given the east wing because she was twenty-seven and female and from a house that the Danforths tolerated rather than respected. And because whoever had made the room assignments had decided that this was a sufficient message.
Hermia had received the message, filed it, and moved on.
The room itself, she had to admit, was gorgeous. Dark paneled walls, a ceiling that was doing something ambitious with plasterwork, curtains in a deep charcoal that fell to the floor. A four-poster bed that was both enormous and looked as though it had been there since approximately 1890. A writing desk near the window. A chair by the fireplace that was either a genuine antique or a very good reproduction, and given that this was the Danforth estate, she suspected genuine antique.
Her luggage had already been brought up. Two large cases and one carry-on, which she privately felt was restrained given that the gathering was three days. But her father had said Hermia, you are attending a Council dinner, not a fashion week and she had taken one thing out of the third case before deciding she needed it after all.
She opened the wardrobe.
She looked at the wardrobe.
She looked at her two large cases.
There was not, mathematically, a way to make this work. The wardrobe was lovely, old wood, brass fittings, smelled faintly of cedar, but it had been designed for a different era's relationship with clothing. An era when women had perhaps two dresses and a traveling coat and considered that sufficient. Hermia had brought seven outfits, four pairs of shoes, two sets of jewelry that needed to lay flat, and her coat, which was Chanel and was not going in a case.
She took a photograph of the wardrobe. She sent it to her father with no caption.
You'll manage he replied, and she just rolled with her eyes when she read that.
She immediately typed back I want it noted that I am suffering.
Without a moment of hesitation, her father answered: Duly noted. But we are guests. The suffering is included.
She sighed and put her phone down and began unpacking with the focused efficiency of a woman who had decided to solve a problem rather than continue being annoyed by it. “They are literally filthy rich, and they can’t even consider proper wardrobes for their guests.”, she mumbled to herself while she took inventory of what she brought with her. The dresses went in the wardrobe, reorganized by occasion and then by the specific social function each one performed. The shoes went on the wardrobe floor. The jewelry cases went on the writing desk, which was not ideal but was at least flat. The Chanel coat went on the hook behind the door because she was not an animal.
She was standing back, surveying the result, when she went and checked out the bathroom.
She crossed the room, opened the door, and stood in the doorway.
The bathroom was, objectively, beautiful. Black and white tile in a pattern that was probably original to the house. A sink with brass fixtures that someone polished regularly. Good towels, she checked. A mirror with a frame that was doing something decorative and succeeding.
And the bathtub.
Hermia looked at the bathtub for a long moment.
It was a clawfoot tub. It was obviously old, obviously original, obviously the kind of bathroom fixture that appeared in design magazines under headings like timeless elegance and historic charm. It had probably been considered luxurious in 1910.
It was also, by any modern understanding of what a bathtub was for and what a human body required of one, extremely small.
She was not a large person. She was aware of this. She was 1,61m and built along lines that her mother had called elegant and her school friends had called annoying, which meant they were jealous. She was not asking for a bathtub that could accommodate a family of four. She was asking for a bathtub in which she could lie flat, soak, and think without her knees being involved in the architecture.
This bathtub would not permit that.
She looked at it for another moment, in case it became larger.
It did not.
She took a photograph. She sent it to her father. He asked to accompany him, so she has every right to complain to him.
The bathtub, she typed beneath the picture, is the size of a washing machine. I want it formally noted that I am here under protest.
His response came faster this time, which meant he had been anticipating this specific complaint: You are there because I asked you to be there. Try not to commit any crimes.
I make no promises ;), she sent back with a winky smile attached.
You are like your mother, her father wrote. Then he added: The gathering starts at seven. I know you will look presentable, but don’t try to break too many hearts.
Again, no promises, she replied before she put her phone on the bathroom shelf and turned on the shower, because the bathtub was a loss she had accepted.
She was, however, a woman who remembered them.
The shower was excellent, she noted. Good water pressure, precise temperature, the kind of rainfall head that suggested someone had at least gotten that decision right. She spent longer in it than she strictly needed to. Partly because she was in no rush, and partly because her mind was set on a very specific thing tonight that needed proper preperations. If the bathtub was going to be an insult, the shower was going to be a full experience. She emerged feeling restored, if not entirely forgiving.
Getting dressed took forty-five minutes.
This was not because she was indecisive, she had decided on the dress before she'd left Geneva. The forty-five minutes was for execution, which was a different thing entirely. The dress was burgundy, Dior. Long sleeves and a neckline that was technically conservative by every measurable standard and had a way of presenting her chest in a way that was not so conservative anymore.
She had been told, on more occasions than she could readily count, that she could be dressed head to toe in the most covered-up garment imaginable and still make it look like she was wearing nothing at all. She had never been entirely sure how to take this, so she had simply continued wearing exactly what she wanted and let other people sort out their reactions on their own time.
The jewelry was simple. Gold, small, chosen specifically to look understated against the dress, which made the dress do more of the work. Her hair took twenty minutes and looked like it had taken five.
She looked at herself in the mirror and made two small adjustments and decided she was done.
She picked up her clutch. She checked: phone, lip color, the small object that her father didn't know she traveled with (you can take a hard guess here what it is lmao) and that she kept for the same reason she kept a good lawyer on retainer, which was that she believed in being prepared. Before she closed her clutch, she grabbed her phone to check one thing for the last time. Titus Danforth. Or rather a picture of him that she got from the internet. She saw him once in real life, she was nineteen, and he didn't even look at her. And it bothered her to such an extent that she couldn’t forgive him for that. But now that she is older, she realized that he might be a psycho but at least he is not someone who creeps on minors. Still, that he did not even greet her back then, was rude in a different way. And that thought distracted her from his appearance, because he was exactly the type of man she would dig her nails into.
She turned her phone off, and put it back in her clutch. She doesn’t want to be late. She checked her reflection in the mirror one last time before she opened the door and followed the corridor to the gathering of the most powerful, and evil people she can think of.
The gathering started, like her father wrote, at seven.
And on her way down, she could hear it. The low register of many conversations happening at once, the occasional crystalline note of glassware, the particular frequency of forty dangerous people performing civility at each other with great dedication.
She reached the top of the stairs, one hand trailing lightly along the banister and began to descend.
The dining room was, she had to admit, extraordinary.
Hermia paused at the threshold for exactly two seconds and then stepped inside with the easy confidence of a woman who had never in her life entered a room she wasn't prepared for.
The space was enormous. In the way of old money that had decided long ago that ceilings existed to be impressive. The chandeliers were not attempting to be subtle, and the walls were hung with art that ranged from very good to almost certainly stolen, sometimes both at once. Long tables ran the length of the room dressed in white linen and crystal and the kind of silverware that was heavy enough to be a weapon, which in this company was probably not an accident.
Forty people filled the space or rather, forty people occupied it. There was a difference. Filling a room meant the room shaped itself around you. Occupying it meant you had decided what the room was for. The gathered Council members occupied the Danforth dining room the way they occupied everything: as though it had been put there for their specific benefit, by people who understood their importance.
Hermia had grown up around people like this. She was, technically, people like this. She moved through them with practiced ease, accepting a glass of wine from a passing server without breaking stride and began, quietly, to take inventory.
House Chen was clustered near the far windows: the Elder Xing in conversation with Hermias father already, which she had anticipated. Her father caught her eye across the room and gave her the look that meant behave yourself, which she returned with the look that meant I always do.
The Reinholt family was near the fireplace, which burned low and decorative. House Reinholt was old, older than most of the assembled houses. Elder Marcus Reinholt was seventy-three and had the eyes of a man who had seen things that would reorganize most people's understanding of what the world was. Hermia found him interesting.
The Danforths themselves were distributed throughout the room with the ease of people on their own territory. She could see two of the cousins near the drinks table, a Danforth aunt she recognized from photographs in conversation with one of the Voss delegation, and Ursula Danforth standing near the center of the room with the posture of a woman who considered herself the axis around which things turned.
She did not see Titus.
She took a sip of the Bordeaux, excellent, as expected, the Danforths were not going to embarrass themselves on the wine, and turned her attention to the art.
The paintings were, in their way, more interesting than the people. At least the paintings didn't want anything from her.
She drifted toward the far wall, where the largest piece hung in deliberate isolation, lit from above by a dedicated fixture that suggested someone knew exactly what they had. It was a landscape, oil on canvas, large enough to demand its own consideration. Dark trees, a pale sky in the moment just after sunset or just before dawn, the kind of light that existed only in paintings. The brushwork was confident. The atmosphere was extraordinary. The colors were doing something complicated and getting away with it.
She tilted her head slightly and looked at the lower left corner.
Something there didn't match. The texture of the paint, the weight of the strokes. It was close, very close, close enough that you would have to be looking specifically to notice. The lower left corner had been restored, or touched up, or finished by a different hand entirely. Someone had done it well. Someone had not done it well enough.
She was still looking at the painting when she became aware of being watched.
It was not a dramatic awareness. There was no prickling of the neck, no sudden animal alertness. She had been aware of it for perhaps thirty seconds before she made the conscious decision to identify it.
She did not turn immediately.
She looked at the painting for another moment and then, at her own pace, turned.
Titus Danforth was watching her from across the room.
She had seen photographs,saved a couple photos on her phone. She had read documentation. She had, when she was nineteen and not yet old enough for the formal dinners, met him shortly, but he didn’t even acknowledge her. Didn’t even greet her. And she hated it when she was being ignored.
But she was twentyseven now and he was older than back then, but it had done nothing to soften him. If anything, the years had done what years sometimes did to men like him: removed anything useless, and made the essential more precise. He was dark-suited, his posture casual, and his silver hair in a condition of being neat and messy. And he was looking at her with an expression that she recognized immediately.
It was the expression of a man who had decided to be interested.
She had seen it before. She had seen it in boardrooms and ballrooms and once, memorably, at a funeral in Vienna. The man was now on a wanted list made by her father. She had seen it from men who were older than Titus, younger than Titus, and she had learned, at some point she could no longer precisely identify, that there were two ways to respond to it.
The first was to respond in kind. To let the interest land, to return it in whatever measure felt strategic or genuine or both. This was the most common response. Most people did this. Most people, when someone like Titus Danforth decided to look at them, felt the weight of it and shifted accordingly. Would even fall to his feet if they had the chance to get the attention of someone like him.
Hermia considered this for approximately half a second.
The second option was more interesting.
She looked at him. She held it just long enough to establish that she had registered his attention. She held it long enough to be deliberate.
And then she turned back to the painting. She tilted her head again, very slightly, and returned to the problem of the lower left corner.
Across the room, she was aware, without looking, of the quality of the air in that direction changing again. A very slight recalibration. Something that, in a man with less control, might have been surprise.
She took a sip of her Bordeaux.
The lower left corner was definitely a restoration job. Mid-twentieth century, she thought, based on the composition of the paint. The surrounding work was much older. Someone had acquired this painting already damaged, or had damaged it themselves, and had paid someone to fix it.
She wondered what the Danforth grandfather had paid for it and if he had known.
She was still thinking, still looking, when someone appeared at her left elbow. Not Titus, the height was wrong, and she turned to find one of the Danforth cousins holding a champagne flute. He wore the expression of a young man who had been told to go and speak to the Vale girl.
"Miss Vale," he said, with the smile of someone performing social function. "I'm …"
"Elliot Danforth," she said pleasantly. "Your mother is Helena née Cartwright. Your father was the third son. You graduated from Georgetown two years ago and you're currently involved in the family's financial interests in the Pacific division." She smiled back. "It's lovely to meet you."
Elliot Danforth processed this for a moment.
"Likewise," he managed.
"The painting," she said, gesturing toward it with a small tilt of her glass, "has a restoration in the lower left corner. Whoever did it was very good. You might want to have someone look at the provenance documentation. Not because it changes what it is, but because if you're ever considering insuring it at full value, an auditor will find it and it's better to know in advance."
Elliot looked at the painting. He looked at her. He looked at the painting again.
"I'll … mention it," he said.
"Wonderful." She finished her wine, handed the empty glass to a passing server with a smile, and accepted a fresh one in the same motion. "Where are the canapés? I was told there would be canapés."
"Near the the east window," Elliot said. "The table by the…"
"Thank you," she said warmly, and moved away.
Behind her, she heard him exhale.
She did not look back toward where Titus Danforth had been standing.
She already knew he was still watching.
The canapés were, she was relieved to discover, excellent.
Smoked salmon on something thin and perfectly crisp, with a cream that was truffle.The Danforths were not going to serve mediocre canapés at their own gathering. Whatever she thought of this family they understood hospitality as an extension of power.
She stationed herself near the canapé table with the contentment of a woman who had identified the best thing in the room and intended to make the most of it. Around her, the gathering continued its careful choreography. Alliances performed, grievances smoothed over, information exchanged in the coded language of people who had been having the same conversations for decades in slightly different rooms.
She listened.
She was on her fourth canapé, and had collected three pieces of information she would relay to her father later, when she felt it again.
The weight of a specific attention.
Closer this time.
She did not react. She selected a fifth canapé with great thoughtfulness, as though the salmon were the primary concern of her evening, and took a small, deliberate bite.
Titus Danforth came to stand at the other end of the canapé table.
He did not take a canapé. He stood with a glass of something dark and looked out over the room with the air of a man surveying something he owned. He had not looked at her. He was not looking at her, which was its own kind of looking.
She ate her canapé.
He surveyed the room.
This went on for approximately forty seconds, which she counted.
Then she selected a sixth canapé, moved two steps in the direction of the nearest cluster of guests, and allowed herself to be drawn into a conversation about the upcoming revision of the Northern Accords with Elder Reinholt. He had materialized at exactly the right moment and whose eyes, up close, were as interesting as she remembered.
Behind her, she heard nothing. She didn't need to.
She was, she thought, as Elder Reinholt began to explain his position on the Northwestern jurisdictions, going to have quite an interesting evening.
***
Ursula Danforth had, over the course of her forty-eight years, developed a very precise understanding of her brother.
This was not, she would be the first to clarify, the same thing as understanding him. Titus was not a man who was understood. He was a man who was navigated. She did not understand him. She understood about him, which was a more useful skill and one she had been refining since they were children sharing a house that ran on control and the performance of it.
She understood, for instance, that when Titus went quiet in a particular way it meant something had gotten his attention. Not his professional attention. His personal attention, which was rarer and considerably more dangerous.
She had noticed this quiet approximately twenty minutes ago, from across the room, and had followed the direction of his gaze to identify the source.
Hermia Vale was standing at the far wall looking at a painting.
Ursula had looked at Hermia. She had looked at her brother. She had looked back at Hermia, who was now turning away from the painting and directly away from Titus, back to the painting, with the calm of someone who had made a considered decision and was comfortable with the consequences.
Ursula had felt, somewhere in the vicinity of her chest, the particular warmth of someone watching a very good play unfold from excellent seats.
She had then watched Titus spend eleven minutes not going over there, during which he had spoken to two people, accepted a refill of his whisky, and looked at the painting three times in a way that had nothing to do with the painting.
She had watched him send Elliot over, which was either a test or a miscalculation. And she had watched Hermia dismantle Elliot with the cheerful efficiency of someone who found the exercise mildly amusing and had moved on to the canapé table.
She had observed the canapé table standoff, which had lasted forty seconds and which Titus had lost in a way he probably hadn't fully processed yet.
And she had decided, at some point between the salmon canapés and the third champagne, that she liked Hermia Vale, and that she was going to do something useful with that.
She waited until Hermia had been in conversation with Elder Reinholt for a reasonable amount of time and then crossed the room.
"Elder Reinholt," she said warmly, appearing at his elbow. "I'm so sorry to steal Miss Vale, but my father wanted a word about the Geneva office and I'm afraid she's the only one who can answer the question."
Elder Reinholt, who had been around long enough to recognize a graceful extraction when he saw one, inclined his head. "Of course. Miss Vale, it was a pleasure."
"Likewise," Hermia said, and she looked at Ursula with her dark brown eyes that were doing a rapid and quite thorough assessment, which Ursula met with her most pleasant smile and the full knowledge that she was being read like a document. "Your father has a question."
"My father has many questions," Ursula said, guiding her smoothly toward the edge of the room. "About many things. None of them about you, as I'm sure you've already concluded."
"About thirty seconds ago," Hermia confirmed.
"Good. You're quick." Ursula released her arm as they reached the canapé table. She picked up a canapé and looked at it. "I wanted to talk to you."
"I gathered."
"You've been here for " Ursula checked the slim watch on her wrist "just under an hour, and you've already had your eyes and ears everywhere and turned your back on my brother twice." She ate the canapé. "I find that interesting."
“Eyes and ears are meant to be used, are they not?," Hermia said. She was not, Ursula noted, defensive. She was simply accurate. Then, because there was no point in being coy about it "I'm here because my brother has been watching you for the past twenty-three minutes and it's the most entertainment I've had all evening." She selected another canapé. "You turned your back on him twice. He's not used to that."
"I'm aware," Hermia said and turned her champagne glass slowly between her fingers.
"He sent your cousin over first," she said. It was not quite a question.
"He did."
"As a scout, or as a test?"
Ursula smiled. It was the genuine one, which she gave out less frequently than the performed one. "Both, knowing Titus. He likes to know what he's working with before he commits to an approach."
"He should have gone over himself," Hermia said, mildly, looking out over the room. "Sending someone else told me more than he intended to."
"And what exactly did it tell you?"
Hermia glanced at her sidelong. "That he was interested enough to want information and uncertain enough not to want to be seen wanting it." She sipped her champagne. "For a man who projects that much confidence, that's an interesting combination."
Ursula looked at her for a moment. She was thinking about the last woman her brother had been interested in, which had been four years ago and had ended in the specific way that things tended to end around Titus. With drama, some violence and with the quiet inevitability of a door being closed by someone who had decided the room no longer held anything worth staying for. He had not been particularly affected. The woman from four years though … she is probably still in a psychiatric ward.
"You're not scared of him," she said.
"Should I be?"
"Most people are," Ursula said.
"Most people have fewer resources and more to lose." Hermia looked at the room, her eyes not fixated in anything particular. "I have a very comfortable life that I intend to keep. Titus Danforth in a bad mood is an inconvenience. Titus Danforth with a specific grievance is a problem. I don't intend to give him a specific grievance."
Ursula looked at her. "Turning your back on him twice isn't a grievance?"
"It's an absence," Hermia said. "That's different. You can't be angry at someone for something they didn't do." The corner of her mouth moved, very slightly. "It just makes you look like you noticed."
Ursula laughed. It came out sharper than she intended, brief and genuine, the laugh that happened before she decided to laugh. She had a careful laugh for rooms like this and a real one for everything else, and Hermia Vale had produced the real one.
"I like you," she said, and meant it.
"Thank you." Hermia looked at her with what Ursula recognized, after a moment, as genuine attention. "Your brother is going to try again," she said. "Isn't he."
There was a moment of silence before Ursula answered.
"He doesn't like unfinished business," she confirmed. "The canapé table will have irritated him. He went over there to establish something and you left before he could." She sighed as if just the thought of her brother was a heavy burden. "He won’t stop so easily, unless you put a gun at his head. And even then I am not sure if he would be actually scared or more intrigued."
"I know." Hermia said with no surprise in her voice.. "What does he do when putting a gun against his head doesn’t work?"
"He gets interested," Ursula said. "Actually interested. So much that it consumes him."
For a moment Hermia didn’t move, didn’t even blink. As if she gathered some crucial information. "And you are telling me this because?"
"Because," Ursula said, with the frankness of a woman who had decided to be honest because it was more efficient. And fun. "my brother is significantly more pleasant to live with when he's in a good mood, and I have not seen him in a good mood in quite some time" she looked at Hermia, the dark hair and the Dior in its burgundy tone that made her skin even more pale " And you are the most interesting thing that has walked into this house in recent memory."
Hermia looked at her.
"That's a very calculated thing to say," she observed.
"I'm a very calculated person."
"So am I." She was quiet for a moment, looking out at the room again, and Ursula had the impression of something being considered. "What kind of good mood?" she asked, and her tone was so precisely neutral that it was its own kind of information.
Ursula smiled. "We don't need to discuss that."
Hermia looked at her for a beat. Then the corner of her mouth moved again, and this time it made it all the way to something that was almost, not quite, a smile.
"Your champagne," she said, "is excellent."
Ursula felt the laugh come up again and permitted it, briefly. She raised her glass.
"The one thing we've never gotten wrong."
Hermia raised hers.
They drank.
Around them, the gathering continued its careful performance. Alliances and grievances and the endless negotiation of powerful people who had decided that civilization was a useful costume. Ursula watched it over the rim of her glass. Across the room, she was aware of her brother's precise location, and of the fact that his attention had not moved.
"He's still watching," she said, conversationally.
"I know," Hermia said.
"You're not going to look."
"Not yet."
Ursula considered this. "When?"
Hermia finished her champagne, set the glass down on the table with a small, decisive click, and turned to look at the room.
"When it's more interesting than whatever else I'm looking at," she said.
Ursula looked at her brother across the room, composed, controlled, watching, and then back at Hermia, who had already moved on to studying the Reinholt family's conversational body language with the focused attention she had previously given to the fraudulent painting.
She picked up another canapé.
She was, she thought, going to have an excellent evening.
***
Hermia went to stand near the tall windows at the room's eastern end, looking out at the grounds in the blue early-evening light.
He stopped beside her.
He did not speak immediately. This was deliberate, the weighted pause. The presence allowed to settle before the words, the particular quality of attention that most people felt as pressure. It was one of his more reliable tools. People filled silences with him. They rushed to fill them, to say something, to establish that they were comfortable, that they were not unnerved, and in the rushing they invariably gave him something he could use.
He waited.
She looked at the grounds.
The evening light was doing something particular to the glass, catching it, refracting it, laying pale strips across the floorboards between them. Outside, the formal gardens were settling into shadow, the topiary precise and dark against the sky.
She did not fill the silence.
He waited another three seconds, which was longer than he usually needed, and then said: "The provenance on the painting in the far corner is documented. My grandfather acquired it through a private sale in 1962."
She turned. Not quickly. She looked at him and did a rapid and quite thorough assessment that she did not bother to conceal, and said: "The documentation may be accurate. The restoration in the lower left corner is still mid-twentieth century. Those aren't mutually exclusive."
He looked at her.
"It came to him already damaged," he said, after a moment.
"Then the documentation should reflect that." She turned back to the window. "It's a very good painting otherwise. The atmosphere in the upper register is extraordinary. Whoever did it understood light in a way that most people don't. Not as illumination but as weight." She paused. "The restorer understood neither. That's why the corner is wrong."
Titus looked at the painting across the room. He had looked at that painting for thirty years and had never looked at the lower left corner with any particular attention. He looked at it now, from this distance, and thought he could see, perhaps, what she meant.
"You studied art history," he said.
"Among other things." She glanced at him. "You looked me up."
"Basic due diligence."
"I know." There was no edge to it. No performance of being flattered or being annoyed. It was simply an acknowledgment. "University of Geneva. Art history and international economics. My father's idea and mine, respectively." She looked back at the grounds. "I also spent a summer at the Courtauld. The woman who taught the conservation seminar was extraordinary. She could date a restoration by the composition of the paint to within a decade." A small pause. "I am not that good. I can get to within thirty years."
"Mid-twentieth century," he said.
"Yes," she confirmed. "So somewhere between 1940 and 1970. Which puts it within your grandfather's ownership, if the 1962 date is accurate." She tilted her head slightly. "He may not have known. Or he may have known and not considered it important. People are inconsistent about what they decide matters."
"And you?" He turned to look at her directly. It was, he had found, a useful thing. The full attention, the refusal to look away, the specific quality of focus that most people experienced as something between flattery and threat. "What do you decide matters?"
She looked at him with the expression she had been using all evening: pleasant, composed, giving nothing and taking everything. Up close, it was more interesting than it had been from across the room. Up close, he could see that the composure was not performed. She was not managing herself in his presence. She was just herself, and her self did not require management.
He found this, against his better judgment, extremely interesting.
"Accuracy," she said. "And comfort." A small beat. "And good art. In roughly that order."
"And people?"
"People," she said, "are usually less interesting than they think they are." She looked at him with that direct, assessing gaze. "Present company's verdict still pending."
The corner of his mouth wanted to do something. He did not permit it.
"You've been here for just under two hours," he said. "You've spoken to three families, assessed the art collection, and had what appeared to be a highly enjoyable conversation with my sister." He paused. "You haven't spoken to your father since you arrived."
"My father is busy. He doesn't need me to manage his conversations." She tilted her head. "You've been watching me for just under two hours."
"Due diligence," he said.
"You said that already." Her tone was perfectly even. "It was more convincing the first time."
The silence that followed had a very specific texture. He was not accustomed to that. To the silence being used against him rather than by him, to finding himself on the receiving end of a pause that he had not created and did not control.
She looked back at the grounds.
"The guest rooms are very impressive," she said pleasantly. "But the wardrobe is too small. Is it intentional?"
"No," he said, before he could decide not to answer.
"Hm." She sounded genuinely interested in this, which was more annoying than it had any right to be. "You should swap it out to accommodate your guests better. You don’t want them to throw their Chanel coats on the floor" And with them she meant herself, and Titus clearly understood that.
"I'll pass the feedback along."
"Sure." She glanced at him, and there was something in it, not amusement, exactly, but the awareness of amusement.
The thing that had been happening in his chest for the past two hours, the specific quality of attention that he had trained himself to identify and manage, tightened slightly. He breathed through it. He had been breathing through things for forty-eight years and he was very good at it. He decided to change the topic.
"You're twenty-seven," he said.
She raised an eyebrow. "If you know it already, why do you have to say it?."
"I'm noting it."
"You're noting it," she repeated, with the tone of someone transcribing minutes at a meeting. "Noted. Shall I note anything in return?" She looked at him with those dark, assessing eyes, and the corner of her mouth moved,not a smile, the possibility of one, held just out of reach. "You're in your late forties."
"And still good-looking.", he added half-jokingly and the other half filled with confidence. Hermia just snorted, and couldn’t hide a laugh. "And in your heart attack era, little silver fox."
He stared at her.
Three full seconds. He was aware of them passing in the specific way of moments that were doing more than one thing at once. He was aware that his face had done something, briefly, that he had not entirely controlled. He was aware that she had seen it.
He was also aware, in some separate and more honest part of himself, that he had not been genuinely surprised by someone in a very long time.
"That," he said, carefully, "is-"
"Accurate," she said. "You were going to say something else, but accurate is the correct word."
The thing in his chest tightened again. He looked at her, the dark brown hair, her petite figure, the pale skin that seem to shine under the light of the chandeliers. And he also saw the expression of a woman who had just said something devastating and was regarding the aftermath with the detached interest of a scientist observing a result she had predicted. and And he just realized that he had made a significant miscalculation somewhere in the past two hours.
The miscalculation was this: he had assumed, on the basis of her age and her composure and the particular way she had turned her back on him, that she was performing. That the unbotheredness was a tactic. That underneath it was something more familiar. Something he knew how to navigate, how to dismantle, how to redirect into something that suited him better.
He had been wrong.
She was not performing. The unbotheredness was not a tactic. It was simply who she was.
He was, he realized, talking to someone who was genuinely not impressed by him.
He did not know what to do with that.
What he did with it, in practice, was look at her for another moment.
"The gathering moves to dinner in twenty minutes," he said.
"I know."
"You're seated at the secondary table."
"I know that too." She said it without resentment. It was simply information. "My father negotiated our invitation. The Danforths negotiated the seating arrangement. Everyone got something they wanted." She glanced at him sidelong. "Where are you seated?"
"The primary table."
"Of course." She looked back at the grounds. In the blue evening light, her profile was, he noticed, very fine. "Then I suppose we have twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes for what?"
She turned to look at him fully, with the direct and comprehensive attention she had been deploying all evening.
"To figure out," she said, "whether you are good-looking AND interesting at the same time"
He looked at her.
"And?" he said.
She smiled, brighter than before. "Like I’ve said earlier: Verdict still pending” Hermia could see that he was not happy with that answer, but she didn’t care. Titus however, wanted to make sure that the woman standing before him could match his … ego. (i wanted to write his inner psychopath but he is not mentally well enough to realize that xD)
"Tell me about the incidents."
Hermia turned from the window. The grounds had gone properly dark now, the gardens lost to shadow beyond the glass.
"Incidents," she repeated. Not a question. Not quite an acknowledgment. The word turned over once, examined, set down.
"Plural," Titus said. "The documentation was thorough."
"It always is." She looked at him with the expression she used for things she was deciding how much to give. "I'm not going to explain all of them. Some of them are boring, some of them are confidential, and one of them was genuinely not my fault and I have documentation."
"Which one has documentation?"
"The Prague one." She said this with the mild firmness of a woman closing a door. "We're not discussing Prague. Though, I want to say, that their laws for weapons are too strict."
He filed this, though he truly wanted to know what happened in Prague. "Le Rosey* then," he said.
Something moved across her face, not discomfort, but more as if a memory she had buried returned. She looked at him for a moment with the eyes of someone deciding, not whether to tell the story, but how.
"Le Rosey, my school" she confirmed. She turned back to the window, which was dark now and gave back their reflections. "I was seventeen. There was a girl in my year, let’s call her Julia, who had decided that my boyfriend at the time was more interesting than her own." She paused, not for effect, but in the way of someone navigating a memory with some precision. "Julia was not subtle about it. Which I respected, in principle. Subtlety for its own sake is exhausting and I have never had much patience for it."
"But."
"But there's a difference between being direct and being disrespectful." Her reflection in the glass was very composed. "She was disrespectful. Repeatedly and deliberately, which meant it was a choice. And that meant it required a response."
"And the response was what?"
"Adequate and more than fair," she said, with complete conviction. "Given the circumstances and the provocation and the fact that I had asked her, twice, to stop." She looked at his reflection rather than turning to face him. "She ended up in hospital. For two, perhaps three weeks. I sent flowers." A brief pause. "White ones. I thought that was appropriate given that she didn’t send me anything, because I lost one of my nails."
He looked at her reflection.
"And the school's response?" he said.
"They asked me to leave." She said this with the equanimity of someone describing a minor scheduling inconvenience. "My father paid a significant amount of money to ensure the matter was resolved quietly, which it was. I think he also threatened someone. The girl recovered." A small beat. "Everyone was very dramatic about it. Which I found annoying, because Julia was not dead. She was simply in the hospital which she brought entirely upon herself." She finally turned from the window to look at him directly again, with the expression of a woman delivering a conclusion she considered both logical and obvious. "I did send the flowers. And if she was too weak to defend herself" she clicked with her tongue "one could argue that natural selection was simply doing its job."
Titus looked at her.
He was aware that his face had done something. A fractional shift in the region of controlled composure. He brought it back.
"You sent white flowers," he said.
"White seemed right," she said. "It's a hospital. You want something clean."
"You sent white flowers," he said again, slowly, "to the girl you put in hospital."
"As an acknowledgment." She looked genuinely puzzled by his tone. "It's polite. You don't just do something and send nothing. That would be rude."
The silence that followed had a texture he could not immediately categorize. He stood in it for a moment and then did something he had not intended to do, which was produce a sound that was, technically, a laugh.
Hermia looked at him.
He looked back.
"The canapés are gone," she observed, after a moment.
"Dinner," he said, "is in four minutes."
"Then I should find my table." She looked at him before she turned to leave. "Enjoy the primary table, Mr. Danforth."
"Titus," he said.
She stopped, turned her head.
"Enjoy the primary table, Titus," And with that she walked away and he watched her go.
Behind him, Ursula materialized at his elbow with the silent efficiency of a woman who had been waiting for exactly this moment.
"Well," she said.
"Don't," he said.
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"Stop lying."
"I was going to say," Ursula said, with the composure of a woman who had won something and was being gracious about it, "that dinner is in four minutes and you should find your seat."
He looked at where Hermia had been standing. The window gave back his own reflection now, alone.
"Yes," he said. "I should." Then he started to move towards his seat, Hermias perfume still in his nose. He knew that dinner would be more of a pain in the ass than usual.
The food was what it always was at Danforth gatherings. Several courses, each one considered, but also rather boring. The wine was better than the food, which was saying something. The conversation at the primary table moved through three languages and several decades of accumulated political history, and Titus contributed to it with the practiced ease of a man who had been raised to have this kind of conversations.
He was also, throughout the entirety of the first course, aware of exactly where Hermia was sitting.
The secondary table was to his left and slightly behind him, which meant that looking at it required a particular angle. He did not look at it. He was deliberate about not looking at it, which was, he was aware, its own kind of looking.
He heard her laugh once and filed this without examining it too closely.
He was deep in a conversation about the Northern jurisdictions with Elder Reinholt when he became aware of being watched.
Not in the ambient way of a gathering, where awareness of being observed was simply the atmospheric condition of the room. Specifically. Pointedly. With intention.
He did not look immediately. He finished his sentence to Reinholt, acknowledged the response, lifted his wine glass, and turned his head the precise fraction required to look at the secondary table.
She was looking at him.
She was in conversation with a woman and she was looking at him across the room with an expression that was calm and direct and, he realized after approximately one second, not calm at all.
Her tongue touched her lower lip. Slow, deliberate.
Then she looked back at her conversation partner as though nothing had occurred.
Titus set his wine glass down.
"... don't you think?" Elder Reinholt said.
"Yes," Titus said, with the automatic fluency of a man whose conversational competence ran independently of his attention. "The Northwestern precedent is instructive."
Reinholt nodded and continued. Titus listened with the portion of his mind that was designated for listening, and with the remainder considered, what had just happened and what he intended to do about it.
What had just happened was that Hermia Vale, from across a dinner table, had looked at him with the specific and comprehensive attention of a woman who had made a decision. In a seductive way.
And he made his own kind of decision that would not be changed. Like a goal, he had set, and that he needs to reach to matter the cost.
After dinner the gathering moved to the drawing rooms. The formal structure of the evening loosened slightly, the seating arrangements dissolved, the conversations rearranged themselves.
Titus did not go to the drawing rooms.
He went to the terrace.
He stood at the stone railing with his whisky and looked out at the dark sky and waited, to see how long it took.
It took six minutes.
He heard the terrace door open behind him and did not turn around.
Hermia came to stand beside him at the railing.
She had something in her hand. Champagne, he noted, the third or fourth of the evening, though she had not once tipped over the line from precise into loose. She also looked out at the dark sky in front of them.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
The night was cool. The sounds of the drawing room carried faintly through the glass behind them. Out here, those sounds were distant enough to be irrelevant.
"You came outside," he said.
"I wanted air," she said.
"The drawing rooms have windows."
"The drawing rooms also have Elder Voss, who has been trying to corner me about the Geneva Accords for forty minutes." She sipped her champagne. "I find the night air preferable."
He looked at her sidelong. "And the view?"
"Very good." She glanced at him, and there it was again, that expression, the one from across the dinner table. "You saw," she said.
"I saw."
"And you're interpreting it as an invitation."
He turned to face her. She remained looking at the sky, her profile in the dark very fine, the light from the drawing room behind them doing something to the line of her jaw, the curve of her shoulder. He looked at her with the full, deliberate attention he had been deploying all evening, and added to it the specific quality of honesty that he reserved for moments when the performance had run its course.
"Yes," he said.
She turned to face him then, and for the first time all evening the careful distance she had maintained was gone. She looked at him directly, without buffer, and he looked back, and the air on the terrace acquired a very specific quality that had nothing to do with the temperature.
"What if I was just bored?" she said.
He looked at her and she looked back at him with dark eyes and the expression of a woman who had said something and was watching, with genuine interest, what it produced.
He felt the anger move through him and breathed through it. He looked at her for a long moment, at the composure and the champagne and the Dior and the expression that was giving him absolutely nothing, and he leaned forward and said, quietly and with great specificity
"And if I put my hand in your underwear right now … would I feel boredom?"
The silence on the terrace had a very particular texture.
Hermia stared at him. The brown eyes, the composure, the expression he had been failing to read all evening. And then, slowly, the corner of her mouth moved to a big smile.
"Bold of you," she said, "to assume I'm wearing any."
The smile stayed. It was not the polished social smile she had been using all evening.
She held his gaze for one moment. Two. Then she turned, set her champagne glass on the stone railing with a small deliberate click, and looked at him.
"Let’s make a deal," she said, leaning her back against the railing, one hand slowly moving to the hem of her dress, lifting it slightly.
"You take a look at the small wardrobe in my room, admit that it is an insult towards your guests, and you can check for yourself what I am or I am not wearing underneath this dress" she said, her voice in a complete different tone now.
"Deal.” He didn’t even hesitate, his eyes fixated on her upper thigh, and the skin she chose to expose.
"Then," she said, and there was nothing in her voice except the calm certainty of a woman who had made a decision, "why are we still standing here?."
She picked up her clutch from where it had appeared on the railing and looked at him with the expression he had been trying to read since she walked into his dining room.
He could read it now.
He stepped back from the railing and gestured toward the terrace door.
Behind the glass, the drawing room continued its careful performance of civilization. Somewhere in it, he was dimly aware, Ursula was probably watching the terrace with the expression of a woman who had engineered something and was pleased with the result.
He did not look back to confirm this.
He opened the terrace door and Hermia walked through it, unhurried, at her own pace, and he followed, and the door closed behind them, and the night settled back into its quiet as though nothing had shifted.
But everything had shifted.
He was, for the first time in a very long time, fascinated with another human being in a way that he has no words for. And he is doesn’t feel any remorse for what is to come.
They walked through the corridor, the one Hermia walked through, when she went to the gathering. She wanted to say something about one of the portraits, how it's more creepy than artsy. Her lips were already apart, when she could feel his hands on her waist. No sound came out of her mouth, when he turned her around, and pressed his lips against hers. He didn’t even stop to look at her face for a second. He simply acted on his wants and needs that were building up the last two hours. Hermia reacted to that kiss, opened her mouth, to let his tongue in while he shoved her towards a wall. Her back was pressed against the wooden panels, while Titus deepened the kiss. His body was pressed against hers, his hands wandering over her body. He didn’t try to be gentle or subtle, he touched her where he wanted to. And Hermia didn't mind at all. His hands found her breasts, squeezing them through the fabric. Then they wandered deeper, and his lips moved as well. He kissed her neck, then bit it, and Hermia was gasping through all of it. Her body has already decided that this is exactly what it wanted, and when his hands moved from her thighs to the wetness between her legs, she let out a moan. Her hands holding on to his shoulders, her nails already gripping through his shirt. And the way he pressed his lower body against her … she could feel his hardened member, and by the look of Titus, she could tell that he would like to use it now.
“I am not a bitch that you can fuck in some corridor.”, she whispered against his ear, and for a moment he held still, and just looked at her. “Of course not, my lady.” he answered with a smirk. And before she could guess what he would do, he lifted her and threw her over his shoulder, like she weighs nothing.
He carried her like it was a decision he'd already made, one hand flat against the back of her thighs, the other at the base of her spine. Hermia, for her part, did not protest. She had said what she wanted and he had responded with a practicality she found, against every reasonable expectation, genuinely attractive. She could feel the solidity of his shoulder against her stomach, the controlled ease with which he moved, and she thought: well. He's stronger than he looks.
"Third door on the left," she said, from somewhere behind his back.
"I know where the fucking east wing guest rooms are," he said with an impatience in his undertone that suggests that he can’t wait to get of her dress, and his pants.
"Of course you do. It's your house." She examined the back of his jacket, good fabric, she noted, excellent cut, she had an eye for these things, and added: "You're going to crease your jacket."
"I am going to crease something else in a minute, and you will be a witness to it.” It was an absolute cheesy line, but it turned her on in a way, she was not proud of. And within a second he turned even hotter.
The corridor was dim and quiet, the portraits watching their passage with the expressions of people who had seen worse and reserved judgment. Titus stopped at the third door on the left and opened it with the ease of a man who was not currently carrying a woman in Dior over his shoulder.
He didn’t set her down, instead he kicked the door shut with his feet. He walked over to the bed, and threw her on the mattress. It was not a throw, exactly. More a transfer of momentum, as if she were a problem to be solved and the solution was best worked out on horizontal surfaces. Hermia landed with a bounce. Her hair had come loose on one side, and as she propped herself up on her elbows, she looked up at Titus.
He stood at the foot of the bed for a moment, drinking her in, and the look on his face was not just possession but admiration, as if this particular tableau exceeded even his most narcissistic hopes for how the night might end.
"The wardrobe," she said with a teasing smile.
“I don’t fucking care about the wardrobe, darling.”, Titus said while he stood at the end of the bed, his hand reaching out for her leg. His fingertips stroke gently over her bare skin, something she didn’t expect of him. She watched his fingers for a moment, before her eyes wandered to something more interesting. “Your cock is about to jump out of your pants.”, she whispered, and he stopped his movement. Their eyes met, and chose that moment to sit up properly, her shoes already on the floor. “And whose fault is that?”, he whispered back, leaning forward, and his hands moved up her thigh.
A shiver ran down her spine, and she could feel how she turned even wetter under his touch. But before he could reach her most private part, she took his hand in hers. And for a moment she simply held it. “I know you would love to simply fuck me through, but I am not a mere prostitute.” She leaned forward, her eyes fixed on his face. He simply stood there, watched her, and didn’t move, as if he was enjoying the build of the tension instead of a brutal release.
Her face was only inches from his chest, but she didn’t break eye contact. She could tell, by the way he breathed, his pants looked tighter with each second, that he was horny as fuck. And to her surprise very controlled about it.
Her hands moved forward as well, but not to touch his face, not to gently caress him. This is not a romantic intercourse, but she loved a good dick. Her hands found his belt, eyes fixed on his face, her fingers moved swiftly, since this is not the first time she is doing this. She opened the button, then the zipper. Paused for a moment, so that she can truly indulge in what is to come.
His hands moved to her face, and then up to her hair, when she reached into his pants, and pulled out his rock hard member, while he let out a short gasp. When she looked down, she saw his cock in her hands, she felt her own private parts throbbing with anticipation. His cock was exactly how she imagined it: thick, veiny, and long enough to leave a horny person more than satisfied. And she was more than horny.
She thought for a moment to say something, to play with it a little to make him suffer. But she would suffer too, and she didn’t want to wait. So she leaned down, licked the tip of his cock, her tongue moving carefully at first. But when she heard the noises coming out of his mouth, the grip in her hair hardening, she took his cook further down her mouth. She sucked him, up and down, her tongue moving along with it. He gripped tighter, his hips moving, slamming his dick deeper into her mouth. She would have gagged, if she wouldn’t be so fucking into it.
He braced himself with one arm against the bedpost, knuckles whitening as he tried to keep his hips from bucking even deeper into her mouth. He could, theoretically, have forced his will, he’d done as much with less charming women, but Hermia was not to be compelled, and the paradox was that he found her resistance the furthest thing from frustrating. It was instructive. It was humiliating. It was the most erotic thing that had happened to him in twenty years.
Her tongue worked the slit of his cock with a precise, almost studious flick, and he cursed again under his breath, low and guttural. He was hardly present in his own chest. He was reduced to nerve endings and sensation, the wet suction of her lips, the cold air bruising his shaft when she let him fall from her mouth and trailed a cool, deliberate line along the underside with the flat of her tongue. He could see her eyes, brilliant stars in the dusk of the room, watching him as she bobbed her head, as she relished each involuntary, undignified twitch of his thighs.
He was close, dangerously so, and she knew it. Of course she knew it.
Titus tried to say something, her name, or a warning, or just a plea for mercy, but the words died in his throat as the back of her throat closed around his crown and her hands gripped the base of his cock with a determination that was equal parts possessive and punitive. He didn’t want to finish, not yet, but every cell in his body lit up, delicious and desperate, with the need to give in.
He was ready to lose himself, to fuck her mouth until he came and then apologize later, except at the last possible second, her lips still tight around him, her tongue still teasing, Hermia pulled away. She did it smoothly, a practiced movement, as if she’d been planning it all along. He felt the abrupt loss of contact like a slap, and staggered backwards, grabbing the bedpost to steady himself.
She ran her tongue over her lower lip and wiped the spit from her chin with the back of her hand, eyes never leaving his. She looked wild, disheveled, her makeup smudged in an artful blur, hair now completely undone. She looked, he would never say this out loud, like a goddess who had just stepped off the altar and was considering whether to set the temple on fire.
He realized his own cock was still out, painfully hard, a bead of precum at the tip glistening in the lamplight like a tear. The sight made him dizzy. “Why,” he managed, his voice ragged with what felt suspiciously like defeat, “did you stop?”
She gave him a look so innocent it belonged in a cathedral. “No cum on my Dior,” she said, voice raw, almost hoarse, a little tremor in it that only made the words more final.
He looked down on her, still panting. He moved his hands from her hair to her face, and cupped it in a way that was close of being rough. His face was inches away from hers, and she could feel his breath against her lips. “You know when this dress is gone, I will fuck you the way I want.”
She didn’t falter, didn’t even blink. Her eyes bore the same hunger that he was feeling, and it gave him a grand deal of satisfaction. “Then why am I still dressed?”, she answered back. She could see the exact moment when the animal inside him took over. He didn’t wait for her compliance, or her hesitation. The dress was gone in a single, practiced motion, stripped up over her head so fast it made her hair rise, the static charge clinging to her skin. Her arms were still in the sleeves when the belt hit the floor, and his pants were off, then shirt, in quick succession. She had a glimpse of what was coming: wide, heavy shoulders, the ropework of muscle up his sides, a chest that could belong on a field officer. She wanted to say something but there was no time, because he was on her, pushing her back onto the bed.
His knee pressed up onto the mattress, forcing her to fall back on her elbows, legs splaying around him in an arc of invitation neither of them had to voice. He followed, folding his body over hers with a predatory certainty, lips finding hers in a kiss that bordered on violence. And Hermia, daring herself to keep her eyes open, saw the way a vein in his neck pulsed, the hunger written across his face. His hand was at her breast, squeezing shamelessly, thumb brushing her nipple in a way that made her arch up, cunt throbbing, and she could feel his cock, hard and thick and hotter, dragging against her inner thigh and up against the slick, needy cleft of her pussy. There was nothing gentle about any of it. There was a kind of rage in him, not at her, but at the years of boredom and mediocrity that she now understood he’d been sentenced to by his own success. She was the excuse, the occasion, the release valve.
He broke the kiss momentarily, both of them needing air, and Hermia saw herself in his eye. She reached up, fingers digging into his nape, and pulled him back down to her, biting his lower lip until she tasted salt, and he grunted, almost a growl, into her mouth. He wanted to dominate, she knew, but he wanted her to fight him, too. He wanted it to be a contest. She understood the terms immediately, and she met every escalation with her own.
He had her pinned by the wrists, but she wrenched one free, burying her hand in his hair and pulling his head back so she could kiss and bite his throat. He shuddered, and his cock, already leaking, bucked against her again. In retaliation he caught her free wrist and stretched both arms up over her head, holding them there with one hand while the other resumed its work at her breasts. He kneaded her with rough affection, then rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, pinching until she gasped, the noise coming out sharp and involuntary. His mouth followed, wet heat engulfing her nipple, first teasing and then, when she thought she’d grown used to the sensation, sucking with ruthless intent.
She squirmed against him, tried to buck her hips up, but he shifted his weight and held her down, his knee pressing up between her spread thighs. He didn’t enter her, not yet. Another contest, another test of will. His cock rode the length of her pussy, sliding slick and thick over her clit, and every movement made her wetter, the friction sending a jolt up her spine. Hermia tried to focus, to reassert control, but the wants were turning her brain to vapor. She managed to free her right hand again and clawed at his back, raking hot lines down to his ass, and he jerked at the sensation, biting her harder in response. She yanked him up by the hair, so that their eyes locked.
“You going to fuck me or are you just going to gnaw on me all night?” she said, her voice hoarse with lust and something close to frustration.
But he only grinned, a wolfish show of teeth, and said, “When I’m done with you, you won’t remember the difference.”
Then he let go of her wrists, and Hermia, never one to waste an advantage, immediately rolled them over, straddling his hips. He let her, even exaggerated his helplessness by putting both hands behind his head, as if to say, You want it, take it. She lined him up with her entrance, the tip already wet and insistent, and let herself hover just at the brink, teasing him the way she’d teased herself for the last half hour. She circled her hips, grinding him against her clit, and watched his jaw flex as he tried, and failed, not to buck up into her.
But he was patient, or at least more patient than she was, and when she finally let herself sink down onto his cock, the stretch was exquisite, nearly unbearable. Her hands braced against his chest, and she gasped, the sound raw and honest, because it had been a long time and he was bigger than she’d expected. He thrust up, shallow at first, and then deeper, until she bottomed out, and for a moment neither of them moved, just breathing each other’s air, the weight of the whole night compressing into that single, molten point.
He took over again, because of course he did. He wrapped his arms around her waist and flipped her onto her back with a violence that was theatrical but thrilling. He started moving, slow at first, letting her adjust to the rhythm, but neither of them had the patience for a gentle crescendo. Within moments he was pounding her, hips snapping forward hard enough to make the headboard shudder. Hermia dug her nails into his shoulder blades, drawing blood, and locked her heels behind his back to pull him even deeper. She met every thrust with a counter-thrust, her muscles flexing, pelvis snapping up to meet him, her whole body united in the singular purpose of consuming him alive.
He kissed her again, the kind of kiss that bruised, and her legs wrapped around his back, pulling him deeper, harder.
It went on like that for what felt like hours, a pitched battle of sensation and will, ebbing and breaking over and over. Sometimes he slowed, drawing it out, making her beg for it. Sometimes she bit him, or called him names just to degrade him, or taunted him for not being able to make her come, but she could feel how close she was, could feel the coiling tension in her core, and that drove her mad. When he sensed her getting there, he changed his angle, thumb working her clit with practiced expertise, and she almost screamed, the orgasm building so fast it made her dizzy.
He watched her face the whole time, eyes hungry and a little dangerous, and finally, when she was almost there, he pulled out, flipped her face down, and took her from behind. She gasped at the sudden change, but loved it, loved the surrender of it, the way he held her hips so she couldn’t move, couldn’t escape the onslaught. He fucked her relentlessly, and when she came, it was so intense she bit into the pillow. He followed a moment later, rutting into her with a final, frantic violence, and came so hard it felt like the world went white at the edges. He spilled inside her, thick and hot, pulse after pulse, and she milked every drop from him, her cunt still spasming around his cock.
When it was over, he collapsed on top of her, their bodies stuck together with sweat and sex and something that was, despite everything, perilously close to … love? They lay there, chests heaving, limbs tangled, not speaking for a long time. He could feel her heartbeat against his, their two bodies vibrating on the same frenzied frequency. He didn’t want the moment to end, didn’t want to break the spell and return to the world of politics and negotiation and masks. For now, there was only this.
She was the first to move, running her hands up his back and holding him close, as if daring him to try to escape. He made no such effort. Instead, he shifted to the side, rolling them so that she lay partly atop him, her leg draped across his hip, her head tucked beneath his chin. He stroked her hair, surprised at the tenderness that crept into the gesture, and she made a low, satisfied sound that reminded him of a lioness after a kill.
They lay like that for a long time, neither speaking, letting the aftershocks run their course. At some point, she reached down and traced a lazy line along his chest, from collarbone to sternum, her touch light but proprietary. He grinned, unable to help himself.
“You know,” he said, his voice hoarse, “there are easier ways to negotiate a bigger wardrobe.”
She laughed and drew her fingernail across his nipple, just enough to make him flinch. “This was about curiosity, Titus. Maybe a little mutual destruction. But mostly curiosity.”
He laughed, genuinely, the sound echoing in the high-ceilinged room. “Well, consider my curiosity entirely fucking piqued.”
She propped herself up on an elbow and looked down at him, her hair a wild mess, eyes dark with mischief. “Next time, you should at least buy me breakfast first.” Her tongue flicked over her lower lip, as if savoring the memory. “Or don’t. I might like you better this way.”
*Le Rosey = super expensive and elite private school in Switzerland. It’s insane, you should look it up!
Hello! I really like your fanfic "The Dove and the Masked king". It is interesting and pleasantly written. Please, continue it! How many parts are you planning? Will Baldwin and Amicia have a happy ending? Will Guy get what he deserves? Please write more!
hi there! :) i am sorry for my late reply! :( thank you so much for reading my baldwin fic and investing your time in it! <3 i am currently writing the wedding scene, and i hope to post it soon! i am not really sure how many parts i will write, but i was hoping something between 15 and 20? maybe more? i am sadly a slow writer, since i am always busy with work, but i have some time off now, so hopefully the new chapter will come soon! quick spoiler (if you don't want to get surprised stop here!): there will be a happy ending, and guy will get what he deserves. after some drama. :) thank you again for reading my story, i really appreciate it! :) <3 <3 <3
the heart aches silently 💔 (dr. jack abbot x female!oc)
Note: I am not working for a month, so naturally I am crashing out completely. I am the victim of myself, but the good thing is, I have more time to write on my other projects as well! :)
Chapter 1 / AO3 / Wattpad
Chapter 2 - i am a nobody
Josephine showed up at the Pitt half an hour before her shift, the sky outside still the bruised purple of not-quite-morning. She stood on the curb, paper bag in hand, regretting the optimism that had made her buy coffee for three. Maybe if she was early enough, she could dissolve the awkwardness of yesterday’s joke, press restart before anyone could decide they’d already seen through her.
Inside, the same two orderlies from yesterday were at the security desk, neither acknowledging her as she punched the code and pushed into the main ER. The air was sharper, colder, more electric than during the day; every light in the corridor was lit, a row of unwavering interrogation beams.
Dana was at her usual perch, clipboard at a martial angle, hair even tighter than before. Josi approached, coffee carrier out like a treaty.
“Brought these,” she said, voice so even it sounded automated. “One black, one with that sweet fake creamer.”
Dana paused in her scrawl, considered the cups, then took the black one without breaking eye contact. “Not necessary,” she said, but the cup stayed in her hand. She sipped once, then set it on the ledge, resuming her documentation.
Rachel was next to materialize, bursting from the supply alcove with a stack of gauze boxes balanced on her hip. “You read my mind, honey!” She snatched the remaining cup, inhaled the steam, and grinned. “You’re not even on yet.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Josi admitted.
Rachel wrinkled her nose. “They put you in the G block apartments, didn’t they?”
Dana interjected, “I warned admin about those. Rats in the crawlspace.”
Josi managed a smile, but it was thin, the coffee already burning a hole in her stomach. “Not rats, just ghosts.”
Rachel raised her cup in salute. “We all got ’em.”
The whiteboard at the nurse’s station was already scribbled with color-coded hell: traumas pending, admits waiting, two beds flagged for “biohazard” and another for psych hold. But the corridor itself was eerily empty, the calm before Pittsburgh’s Monday morning crash.
Dana stabbed the board with a sharpie. “You’re with Robby today. Trauma one, he’ll find you.”
She didn’t have time to ask which Robby, or what flavor of chaos he ran on, because a code bell erupted from the ceiling. A banshee wail, not the gentle beeps of med-surg. Rachel was already moving, and Dana swept her hand in a single, practiced gesture: Go.
Josephine hit the trauma bay at a jog, pulse tapping in her ears. The gurney was rolling in already, crewed by a paramedic who looked like he’d spent the night under a truck. The patient, male, maybe forty, blood soaked through jeans and the remnants of a yellow vest, eyes rolling wild.
“MVC,” the paramedic snapped, voice already hoarse. “Pileup on the bridge, metal post through femur, possible abdominal bleed, GCS dropped en route.”
A tall man in a ratty Penguins hoodie emerged from behind the glass. Beard a week overgrown, dark hair streaked with gray; the only thing hospital about him was the stethoscope and a lanyard with ID clipped to the hem. “Robby” was underlined in block caps, the rest of the badge obscured by tape.
He didn’t bother with introductions. “Vitals.”
Rachel shot them off, eyes on the monitor: “BP 72 over 44, sats 91 on fifteen liters, HR 120. Not maintaining airway.”
“Alright, let’s get him tubed, two units O-neg to start, and I want a pelvic binder stat.” Robby’s tone was neither rushed nor soothing, just a set of instructions, precisely weighted.
Josi found herself at the man’s left, hands gloved before she’d registered the order. The patient’s leg was a map of shredded denim and clotted blood, the distal limb at an angle that made her stomach lurch. She felt for a pulse. Nothing. Already gone cold.
She looked up, caught Robby’s eyes. He nodded, tiny, like they shared a secret.
Rachel slammed an IV into the right arm, barely missing Josi’s knuckles. Another nurse, a face Josi didn’t recognize, took the other side, prepping for a central line.
“Get ready to cut the jeans,” Robby said.
She did, scissors slicing through fabric, freeing the wound. Metal rod, maybe half an inch thick, punched through mid-thigh, bone exposed. A bloom of arterial red fanned onto the bed.
“Pressure, now!” Robby barked.
Josi pressed gauze, hard, and with her free hand reached for the hemostat. She couldn’t see the source through the mess, so she packed the wound as tight as she could. The blood soaked through almost instantly, turning the gauze sticky and dark.
Another body crowded in, Dana, gloves already on, running the transfusion line. She met Josi’s eyes for a fraction, nodded approval, then turned her full focus to the bag.
On the monitor, the patient’s heart rate spiked, then began to stutter.
“Langdon, ETA on airway?” Robby’s voice, steady, annoyed.
Langdon stepped in, hands quick and deliberate. He glanced at Josi once, eyebrow arching at the sight of her hands deep in the wound. “Almost there.”
Robby turned back to the leg. “On my mark. Ready with another set of gauze, please.”
She anticipated, not thinking, just remembering the drills from NYU and the dozen messes that looked worse. On “now,” she swapped out the gauze, shoved new compress in, held the artery between two fingers. The blood flow slowed.
Robby’s hands joined hers, strong but careful, and for a moment they both just held the pressure, matching their breaths to the quickening beep of the monitor.
Josi felt, as if from outside her own body, the way her mind clicked into place: tunnel vision, all chaos and pain funneled into a single point of control.
“Good,” Robby muttered. “We can work with this.”
Langdon called out, “Tube’s in. Sats climbing.”
“Binder, now,” Robby said. “Then off to CT. I want stat films at the door.”
Dana was gone, already prepping the scanner.
Rachel stood back, hands bloody but immaculate in her movements. She flashed Josi a grin that was all teeth and adrenaline. “Not bad for a first rodeo.”
Josi wanted to respond, but her mouth was dry. She peeled off her gloves, threw them in the bin, and tried not to look at her own hands, which shook despite her best effort.
Robby watched her, not smiling, not frowning. “You from Roosevelt?”
She blinked. “Yeah. How …?”
He shrugged. “I can read a CV.” Then, “You ever see a tension pneumo in the field?”
She remembered, immediately, the pale girl in Manhattan, breathless and cyanotic, chest rising and falling like a bag of cement.
“Yeah,” she said. “Needle between the ribs, second intercostal.”
He nodded, satisfied. “You’ll want that skill tonight.”
Before she could ask, the radio cracked overhead: “Three more inbound from the bridge. Priority one, two, and three.”
Robby turned to the nurses. “Rotate out if you need water. Otherwise, buckle up.”
The next two hours were a blur of glass, torn flesh, screams, and the reek of burnt rubber. Josi moved from room to room, logging vitals, flushing lines, tying off bleeders. Every few minutes, she caught Dana’s eyes from across the bay, measuring her, tallying up points. Rachel, who’d started the night in a cheerful blitz, now moved with a hunter’s economy, always at the next wound, the next tray, the next crash.
At one point, while prepping a twelve-year-old with a glass shard in her forearm, Josi caught Langdon watching her with the bored curiosity of a cat. “You like it here?” he asked, voice low.
She said, “It’s the job.”
He smirked. “We all said that, once.”
The words stuck, but she didn’t have time to process. The girl’s mother wailed in the hall, the attending barking orders about contrast and scanning windows. Josi closed the wound, wrapped it, and passed the girl up to the pediatric team, all while the metallic taste of stress hung at the back of her mouth.
By hour four, the original trauma bay was restocked, wiped down, and ready for the next disaster.
Josi found herself next to the coffee maker, hands wrapped around a cup that was more acid than caffeine. Rachel slumped into the plastic chair beside her, ponytail lopsided, eyes bloodshot.
“God, I love days like this,” Rachel said, then caught herself. “That’s messed up, right?”
Josi shook her head. “Better to have purpose than nothing.”
Rachel smiled, softer now. “You know, you did good. I mean, Dana will never say it, but she only gets pissy when people are stupid.”
“She was nice to me,” Josi said, and Rachel snorted.
A shadow moved behind the glass, Robby, pacing, talking into a phone. His voice was a low growl, but his eyes flicked over to them. After a second, he motioned Josi over.
She stood, muscles heavy, and met him at the door.
“You did well,” he said. “Most new hires fold by lunch.”
She tried to muster gratitude, but all that came out was, “Thanks.”
He held her gaze for a beat too long. “You keep this up, you’ll last. Just don’t get too attached.” He gestured to the trauma bay, now silent. “It doesn’t end well for the sensitive ones.”
She thought of the man on the gurney, the metal rod through his leg, the way his eyes had fluttered just before the sedatives took him under. She wondered if he’d make it, and if he did, what would be left.
Josi nodded, then drifted back to her chair.
Rachel was gone, the cup still spinning on the table.
In the hour before sunrise, the Pitt was almost peaceful. The hum of machines, the distant rattle of a janitor’s cart, the slow rise of dawn through the west-facing glass.
She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and let herself believe, just for a moment, that she was, if not home, at least somewhere she could belong.
After the ambulance barrage receded, the Pitt reverted to its normal state of hibernating tension, fluorescents buzzing, air cold and arid, trauma beds already wiped and ready for the next disaster. Josi spent the hour between 7 and 8 restocking the med carts with militant precision, lining up the vials by color, the sterile packs by size, reordering the IV kits so nobody would have to dig for a 20 gauge in a pinch.
It wasn’t lost on her that this was the only part of the job where nobody looked over her shoulder. She worked by feel, moving along the cabinets with the kind of grace her mother would have called wasted on a girl. Whenever she found a tray out of order or a package torn at the edge, she fixed it with a compulsive flick, not so much for the nurses as for herself.
Rachel was first to catch her at it, arms folded, eyes lidded with fatigue and a little admiration. “You make it look like a dance,” she said.
Josi didn’t pause. “Makes life easier, next time it’s chaos.”
Rachel grinned. “You really did do New York, didn’t you?”
She shrugged, folding a packet of gauze into its compartment. “The job is the job.”
Rachel lingered, eyes flicking between the carts and Josi’s face. “So, what’s it like? I mean, the city. I always wanted to try travel nursing out there, but I’m kind of a chicken.”
Josi forced a smile. “It’s big, loud, cold. Lots of stairs.”
Rachel laughed, leaning into the edge of the counter. “You ever see anyone famous?”
“Plenty of famous people end up in the ER,” Josi said. “Mostly for stuff you can’t talk about at lunch.”
Rachel’s interest was insatiable, and Josi could tell the questions wouldn’t stop until she gave something real. She opened her mouth, but the words didn’t make it out.
Mercifully, a voice interrupted them from behind, a woman’s, low and a little wrecked, as if she smoked too much or never slept.
“Is this the new float?” The woman’s face was sharp at the jaw, eyes muddy brown, auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail that failed to corral the wildness.
Rachel jumped to introduce. “Josi, this is Dr. McKay. She runs day shift trauma with Langdon.”
Josi wiped her hands and turned, offering a nod. “Nice to meet you.”
McKay didn’t do handshakes. Instead, she leaned her shoulder into the wall, watching Josi with the wary interest of a rescue dog. “You from Manhattan?”
“Yeah. Roosevelt.”
McKay nodded, as if that explained something. “I did my residency at Bellevue. Hell of a place to learn, if you don’t mind never sleeping.”
Josi felt an involuntary kinship, her tension easing a click. “That’s what they told us. That, and learn to run.”
McKay’s lips twitched. “They told me the same thing. Only they didn’t mention you had to run with your arms full half the time.”
She shifted, revealing a hand that trembled at rest, the tremor vanishing as soon as her fingers clenched into a fist. “It’ll take a while to adjust here. The Pitt is … a different kind of beast.”
Rachel chimed in, “It’s less busy but more weird.”
McKay snorted. “It’s just as busy, but the people are a bigger mess.” She looked at Josi again, not unkindly. “You’ll figure out who to trust. Until then, don’t take anything personally.”
She pushed off the wall, moving past them with a nod.
Rachel waited until she was gone. “She’s good people. Just … burned out.”
Josi went back to aligning the syringes, wishing she could fade into the utility closet.
“You know,” Rachel said, “if you ever want to hang out, there’s a bunch of us that do trivia at Sonny’s. Or, like, karaoke.”
Josi shook her head. “I’m not really …”
“... social? That’s fine.” Rachel’s smile was too understanding. “But it gets old, being the new girl. Might as well get it over with.”
The next cart was done. Josi closed the drawer with a little too much force, the metal clack echoing down the hall.
Rachel watched her, then relented. “Alright, I’ll go bug someone else. Just don’t disappear, okay?”
Josi waited until the footsteps faded, then finished the carts in silence.
The next lull was lunch, if you could call it that, ten minutes to inhale instant noodles in a staff lounge that doubled as a lost and found. The couch sagged in the middle, the coffee machine next to it spit out liquid tar, and the fridge contained at least five half-eaten yogurts of unknown vintage.
Josi took her spot at the table, avoiding eye contact with anyone who passed through. She’d barely cracked the top on her soup when Rachel dropped into the chair across from her, this time with Dr. McKay in tow.
McKay smelled faintly of cloves, and when she spoke, it was low enough that only Josi could really hear. “You okay?”
Josi nodded. “Fine.”
McKay eyed her, skeptical. “You handled the trauma this morning like a pro.”
Josi shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”
“I can tell.”
There was something almost gentle in the way McKay regarded her, like a sparrow appraising another bird with a broken wing.
Rachel, meanwhile, was undeterred. “So, do you have family in New York? Or are you, like, starting over?”
Josi set her spoon down, her shoulders tightening. “No family. Just wanted a change.”
Rachel’s face softened. “I get it. I moved to Pittsburgh after college because I needed somewhere cheap, and my parents would never visit.”
Josi managed a laugh. “Yeah, that’s the dream.”
They ate in silence for a minute, the only sound the distant hum of a floor buffer.
McKay broke it with a low confession. “My first year here sucked. Dana was always on my ass. I almost quit, twice.”
Rachel nodded. “She’s tough, but she means well.”
McKay’s gaze fixed on Josi. “Just don’t let it eat you up. The Pitt breaks people down before it builds them up.” She smiled, a quick, sidelong flicker. “Even the ones from Bellevue.”
Josi felt the faintest spark of belonging, but it guttered as soon as Rachel tried again: “So what do you do when you’re not here? Hobbies, weird habits, anything?”
Josi’s mouth opened, closed. She imagined telling them about her vinyl collection, the way she organized her CDs by year and genre, how she’d started learning to bake sourdough just to fill up empty weekends. But the words evaporated, leaving only a shrug.
“Sleep,” she said. “If I’m lucky.”
McKay laughed. “That’s a hobby around here.”
Rachel grinned, but it was edged with frustration, she clearly wanted more. “I’ll get it out of you eventually,” she warned, playful but sincere.
Josi couldn’t tell if the threat comforted or terrified her.
After lunch, she found herself walking the corridor outside the lab, arms wrapped around her middle. She liked the quiet there, the hum of the refrigeration units, the steady drip of distilled water from the filter.
That’s where McKay found her again, hands deep in her pockets.
“You’re doing fine,” McKay said, voice lower than before. “Just pace yourself.”
Josi nodded. “Thanks.”
They stood together, the silence almost companionable.
A code blue blared over the speakers. McKay straightened, but not before Josi noticed the tremor in her hands, a shiver, nothing more, but gone the instant she was needed.
Josi watched her go, then pressed her own fists against her sides, wondering if she’d ever get steady.
***
Rachel tried again before the shift was over, ambushing her at the central station with a smile and a question about music. Josi kept her answers short, redirecting whenever she could.
But tonight, she was content to have made it through intact, the raw edges tucked away where nobody could see.
Josi waited until the last of the day-shift drifted out before she entered the locker room, letting the institutional hush close around her like a shell. She found her cubby, second from the end, bottom row, the only one with a sticker still half-attached from its last owner, and dropped her bag with a soft thud.
She sat, elbows on knees, head low. The day’s grime was under her fingernails, streaked in the creases of her knuckles; her calves ached from hours of standing, and her mouth was thick with the taste of adrenaline left over from the traumas.
She changed out of her scrubs with methodical care, folding the top along the fade lines, rolling the pants so the drawstring stayed neat. It was a habit from her first hospital, if the scrub techs liked you, you could always find a clean set in the right size. She had never outgrown the need to be liked by invisible hands.
She peeled the badge from her neck and stared at it for a moment, the word HASTINGS, JOSEPHINE, NURSE printed in letters that looked much too bold.
There was a mirror propped above the sinks, warped at the corners. She glanced into it and didn’t recognize herself: her green eyes shadowed purple, cheekbones sharp as wire, a streak of dried blood along her jaw she must have missed in the handwashing station. She wet a paper towel, wiped it away, and didn’t look again. Her dark hair looked like a nest but at this point she didn't even care anymore.
The only thing she cared about was a break. A small silent moment to leave work where it belongs before she left for home. She reached into her bag and pulled out the battered earbuds, jammed them deep, scrolled through the playlists until she found the one labeled PEACE.
The opening guitar riff was a wall of sound, crushing and relentless, the vocals an atonal scream that blotted out everything but the music itself. Bad Omens always gave her the peace of mind she needed. She closed her eyes and let the noise do its job, shaking loose the memories of the day, the spurt of arterial blood, the sharp plastic stink of the crash cart, the mother clutching her wounded girl in the hallway, Dana’s wordless appraisal after every call.
She lost track of time. It was a good feeling.
She leaned her head back against the metal locker, its chill pressing through her hair to the scalp. For a while, it was just her and the music, nothing else.
She didn’t notice the door open. Didn’t see the rectangle of light, the slow, deliberate steps across the tile.
It wasn’t until the song cut between tracks, an abrupt moment of silence, that she realized she was no longer alone.
She opened her eyes. The man in the doorway was tall, lean, his blue hospital jacket zipped to the neck. His hair was a mess of a little bit of dark and gray, face more lines than smooth, a six-o’clock shadow already plotting to become tomorrow’s beard. And those arms.
Dr. Jack Abbot. The Night Attending.
He didn’t speak, didn’t move. Just watched her, arms crossed, the faintest tilt to his head, as if she were something he couldn’t quite diagnose.
The next track started, double-bass, guttural vocals, loud enough that she felt it in her teeth. She fumbled to pause it, yanked out the right earbud. The echo of it still buzzed in the air between them.
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the heart aches silently 💔 (dr. jack abbot x female!oc)
Note: I know I have other storys that I should continue to write on. But after what Shawn Hatosy did to us on the Quinn app, I can not control myself any longer. Me and my disorder need to give in to our primal urge to thirst over older men. I swear it's not me, it's his arms. I am just weak, I am so sorry. I can not even defend myself anymore. :D So here you have a nice slow burn romance for our beloved Dr. Jack. Abbot. And I totally mean slow burn. The slowest of all burns you have ever encountered because I love pain and suffering (that's why I like older men that I can't reach in this lifetime lmao). Enjoy! :D
Summary: Josephine "Josi" Hastings is the new nurse at the "Pitt", working for the day shift. She left New York behind because being attached to something is a thing she hates. She leaves before things get too involved, too emotional, just too ... close. It is her policy to leave before anyone can leave her. This is how she ended up in Pittsburgh, looking for a fresh start where she can be the new "nobody" with zero attachments.
But then there is him.
With his salt and pepper hair, and these arms, that look like they could carry all your sorrows away. Dr. Jack Abbot. The night shift attending, a war veteran, a widower, and by all accounts the last person anyone should get close to. He isn't looking for anything either. Neither of them gets a say in the matter.
AO3 / Wattpad
Chapter 1: the beginning
The doors to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency department were cheap steel and thick glass, smeared at shoulder height with a collage of handprints and latexed fingers. When Josephine Hastings pushed them open, they gasped on tired hinges and released her into chaos.
She barely had time to let the air hit her, a blast of recycled AC and the gritty bouquet of coffee, metallic blood, and industrial-grade disinfectant, before she was nearly clipped by a paramedic hustling a gurney inside. A boy with a mop of blond hair lay on it, chest heaving, red blooming through the cotton wad pressed to his collarbone. Two orderlies in matching maroon scrubs flanked the stretcher, one shoving IV tubing and the other cradling the kid’s head, as a trauma doc barked out questions in a voice so sharp it seemed to etch the tile.
Josi stepped aside, heart a jackhammer in her throat. She flattened her palms to her own scrub top, then dropped them, not wanting to look like she needed comfort this early in the day. Nobody noticed her anyway. At this hour, the Pitt was a hive of velocity, residents in mismatched sneakers, techs slaloming through the charting stations, nurses running IV bags like relay batons. The security guard, a bored man with a doughy neck, didn’t even look up from his crossword.
Somebody had told her, back at orientation, that the Pitt was designed in the brutalist style to maximize efficiency, not aesthetics. She believed it. The ceiling was low and stippled, the linoleum floor a tired grey checkerboard that did nothing to hide last night’s dried drips. Every surface was edged with chipped rubber bumpers. The nurses’ station looked like a battered submarine command, lit by the jaundiced flicker of fluorescents. A clock on the wall screamed 07:03.
She tried to breathe. She’d done trauma before; two years in a grimy corner of Manhattan where the only constant was sirens and the only rule was don’t get in the way; but here, every alarm, every shriek of the code bell, seemed to demand something personal from her. Josi steeled herself and stepped forward, letting the doors whisper shut behind her.
“Move it!” barked a voice from her right. She barely dodged a crash cart being piloted by a girl who looked young enough to be carded at an R-rated movie. The girl grinned at Josi, flashing orthodontic brackets, then disappeared down the hall.
Josi’s hand went for the lanyard at her neck, thumbed the badge: Hastings, Josephine, Nurse. She didn’t recognize a single face yet, but the chatter at the station suggested the staff already knew who the “new night float” was. There were glances, quick, speculative, assessing, but nobody stopped their momentum. She hovered at the periphery, oxygenating her lungs with every medical-grade inhale.
A woman with platinum-white hair swept into a bun intercepted her, cutting through the traffic like a tugboat through oil. Clipboard in one hand, tablet under her arm, eyes sharp behind reader glasses. The nameplate at her chest: Evans, D. Head Nurse.
“New float?” the woman said, not quite a question. She gave Josi a clinical up-down, eyes pausing on the badge, the shoes, and then back to her face.
“Yep. Josephine Hastings,” she said, softer than she’d intended.
The woman didn’t smile. “You’re on time. That’ll change. I’m Dana, charge today.” She held up the clipboard, as if Josi might try to challenge her for it. “Follow.”
Dana’s pace bordered on punitive. She led Josi through a tangle of mobile computers and half-filled crash carts, pausing only to issue rapid-fire corrections to anyone in her vector.
“That’s a class IV, not a three, chart says so. Don’t run lines where Langdon can see you; he’ll have a fit about the tape. Don’t touch the B block med carts, that’s Santos’s territory. And-” she wheeled suddenly “Never, ever block these double doors. Got it?”
Josi nodded, letting the tour stitch itself into her memory. Dana showed her the supply closet, a bunker of blue nitrile gloves and sterile gauze, stocked by category and size like an armory. The crash carts, color-coded and rigged with every possible disaster. The break room, an afterthought of a space wedged beside the laundry chute, with a coffeemaker that looked older than Josi herself and a whiteboard for passive-aggressive notes about fridge etiquette.
Every time Dana called out a feature, she snapped her gaze back to see if Josi was keeping up. She was, but only just. Her brain was a sopping sponge; she wondered if this was what concussion felt like.
The last stop was the trauma bay, unreal in its clinical brightness, almost holy, the gurney at the center still rumpled from its last sacrificial offering. Two junior nurses were disinfecting the rails, chatting in shorthand. One of them, Vietnamese and with the posture of a dancer, glanced up and made brief eye contact.
“Rachel, this is Josi, our new float.” Dana said it like she was introducing a rescue animal.
Rachel’s face split into a smile, too wide and genuine for this place. “Welcome to the Thunderdome,” she said, and stuck out her hand. Her fingers were cold and strong. “First day?”
“First shift. Technically still in orientation.”
“Oh, honey.” Rachel’s voice was warm, eyes kind, “Nobody orients here. You’ll get it, though.” She grinned at Dana, who allowed a flicker of approval before corralling Josi onward.
They emerged into the main hall, where two med students were performing synchronized shrugs at a vending machine. Dana pointed them out. “Never ask them for anything. They’ll faint at the sight of their own blood.” She turned abruptly and parked herself in front of the doors to the physician’s fishbowl, where a wall of glass separated the docs from the floor.
Through the glass, Josi saw the silhouette of a man bent over a chart, pen moving in tight, obsessive loops. His hair was dark, eyes bright. He wore a navy-blue scrub top, sleeves shoved to the elbows, and a pair of athletic shoes that looked two paychecks out of reach for most people.
Dana rapped on the glass. “Langdon, you free?”
The man straightened, uncurling like a snake. He looked up with a face that was, objectively, unfairly good looking. Cheekbones cut from marble, lips set in a permanent line of skepticism. His eyes, pale blue, zeroed in on Josi with surgical precision. Overall he was a handsome man, but definitely not Josi’s taste.
He slid the door open. “Yeah?”
Dana gestured. “This is the new float. Josephine. You’ll have her shadowing your team for the first block.”
Langdon nodded, taking her in. There was something analytic in the way he looked, like he was mentally dissecting her, piece by piece. “Welcome,” he said, but didn’t offer a handshake. “You done trauma before?”
Josi nodded. “New York. Two years.”
Langdon’s lip twitched. “That’ll help. Just keep your head up and don’t let the crazies get to you. It’s not so bad if you don’t get emotionally invested.” He glanced at Dana. “She’ll be fine.”
Dana gave a noncommittal grunt. “Don’t let her end up in the pit. Not yet.”
Langdon flicked his eyes to Josi again, this time with a hint of amusement. “The pit’s not so bad, if you know how to swim.”
Josi smiled, a reflex more than a choice. “I’m a fast learner.”
“Good.” He returned to his chart, the conversation already over.
Dana shot a final, appraising look at Josi, as if seeing how she’d weathered the gauntlet. She seemed marginally satisfied. “Clock in at the central station. They’ll run you through the rest.”
With that, Dana retreated, clipboard leading the way. Josi was left in the fluorescent glare of the main corridor, the echo of her own footsteps the only thing that didn’t move at triple speed.
She inhaled, lungs flooding with bleach and adrenaline. At her back, the trauma bay lights flickered, waiting.
***
The Pitt’s cafeteria was a half-hearted apology for the rest of the hospital, its linoleum scrubbed to a gloss, windows clinging to the far end like a final hope for natural light. Most of the tables were bolted to the floor, and the plastic chairs were engineered for minimum comfort, as if designed by someone who believed a meal should never last more than eight minutes.
Josephine barely noticed the taste of the chicken salad on her tray. It was as bland as wet cardboard, but at least it was cold. She sat, spine ramrod straight, at a table in the corner where the view overlooked the hospital’s loading dock and the steady pulse of Pittsburgh’s commuter traffic. She’d expected to eat alone, to methodically work her way through the nutrition bar and coffee she’d packed as a backup, but before she could even open the wrapper, the Vietnamese nurse from earlier plopped down across from her, tray bristling with color: slaw, neon-pink pickled radishes, a stack of spring rolls.
Rachel Nguyen was, up close, even more of a presence than in the trauma bay. Her hair was woven into a slick French braid, punctuated by a bright band at the nape; her eyes, when they landed on Josi, sparkled with a kind of reckless interest.
“You survived,” Rachel said, grinning. “That’s more than most can say after Dana’s Death March.”
Josi forced a smile. “She’s intense.”
Rachel wrinkled her nose. “She’s a legend. I swear, I once saw her tourniquet a wound with her ponytail holder.” She popped a spring roll, chewed, then said around it, “How you liking Pitt so far?”
Josi hesitated, searching for something honest but not ungrateful. “It’s … efficient. Not what I’m used to.”
Rachel nodded. “I get that. I transferred from Children’s two years ago. The vibe here is very ‘trial by fire’ literally, in the case of one resident, but that’s a whole story.” She leaned in, lowering her voice. “You want a crash course on the real hospital?”
Josi shrugged, grateful for the lifeline. “Sure.”
“Okay. So, floors three through six are Med-Surg. ICU is seven, but unless you’re working a float, you’ll never see it. EVS, cleaning, that’s mostly Hannah and her crew, avoid the supply closet from midnight to six, unless you want to see stuff you can’t unsee.” Rachel counted off on her fingers, greasy with dipping sauce. “The only time the admin suite comes down to the ER is when they want to pretend they care. Food’s best on Wednesdays, garbage on Fridays. And most importantly” She leveled her chopsticks at Josi, “never, ever get on the bad side of Dr. Abbot.”
The name surfaced some faint recognition in Josi’s mind; it was in the staff directory, late in the alphabet. “Why?”
Rachel leaned back, the chair protesting. “He’s the Night Attending. Top of the food chain after hours. Genius, seriously. A walking medical encyclopedia, but also, like, damaged goods. War vet, lost his wife a few years back, runs on about four hours of sleep a week.” She tapped her temple. “Whole different kind of brain up there. Creeps some people out. He’s polite but not friendly, if you know what I mean.”
Josi tried to picture the man. She couldn’t. “That’s … ominous.”
“He’s not mean, just …” Rachel considered. “You know those animals at the zoo, the ones that look right at you and you realize you’re the one in the cage? Like that.” She skewered another spring roll, chewed thoughtfully. “You’ll see.” And then after a pause she added “He has nice arms though.”
Josi considered asking more, especially after the arm comment, but she was still smoothing out the humiliation of her first shift, already dreading her own mistakes being discussed in the next break room over. She went quiet, staring at the condensation on her plastic cup.
It was Rachel who filled the silence. “I’m not trying to scare you. Just … everybody here has a story. Most of us, we deal. But some people, they just … fold it in until it turns into something else. And he likes to go up the roof sometimes. To think … I hope.”
Josi didn’t trust herself to respond. She was saved by a shadow falling across the table. Dana. Her bun as severe as ever, tray loaded with nothing but black coffee and a single banana.
Rachel made a space for her with a booted foot. “Dana.”
Dana slid in, ignoring the offered seat back, sitting so upright it looked painful. She gave Rachel a glance, then fixed Josi with an appraising gaze. “You settling in?”
Josi nodded, “Yes, thank you.”
Dana grunted. “Good.” She peeled the banana with two fingers, a surgeon’s efficiency, and bit off the tip. “Everything good with Langdon?”
“Uh … yeah,” Josi said.
“He’s not as smart as he thinks he is,” Dana said, mouth full. “But don’t let him push you around.”
Rachel giggled. “And steer clear of the janitor closet,” she stage-whispered.
Dana smirked but didn’t disagree. Instead, she sipped her coffee, then said, “I heard you’re coming from NYU?”
“Roosevelt,” Josi corrected, surprised by the accuracy.
“Big city girl,” Rachel teased. “Was it too fancy for you there?”
Josi picked up her fork, used it to chase lettuce around her plate. “Just needed a change. Pittsburgh’s got a better nurse-to-patient ratio.”
Dana grunted again, but softer this time. “It’s a good place. Hard, but good.” She glanced at the wall clock, eyes narrowing. “You got ten minutes, then you’ll want to see where the on-call room is. It’s a zoo after sundown.”
Rachel finished her meal and wiped her mouth with a napkin. She eyed Josi, lowered her voice again. “So, real talk: what’s your plan? You gonna stay here forever, or is this just a pit stop before a travel gig? Because most new nurses use the ER to polish their CV.”
Josi opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead. All she wanted, right now, was to keep her job, keep her head down, and not make anyone’s list.
Before she could gather her thoughts, Rachel added, “It’s okay if you don’t know. Most people here are running from something. I just like to know who I can trust, you know?”
Josi looked up, caught the first honest flicker in Rachel’s eyes. She recognized it instantly, because she’d seen it in the mirror every day for years. A kind of hunger to connect, no matter how many times the world told you it wasn’t worth it.
“Honestly?” she said, voice steadier now. “I just want to be somewhere nobody knows me.”
Rachel laughed, but it was gentler. “Mission accomplished.”
Dana drained her coffee, eyes on Josi the entire time. “Don’t screw it up.”
Josi nodded, then, in a moment of exhaustion and defiance, said, “I’ll try not to jump off the roof if I can help it.”
There was a brief, frozen beat where Rachel’s mouth hung open and Dana’s jaw tensed. Then the world went utterly, audibly silent.
Rachel looked away, cheeks suddenly two shades redder. Dana’s face didn’t change, but her eyes sharpened to a point.
Josi’s own pulse thrummed in her ears. “Sorry,” she muttered, “Bad joke.”
“No, it’s fine,” Rachel said, too quickly. “It’s just, like … some people do, you know?” She pushed her tray away, suddenly restless. “Anyway, I gotta check the carts.”
Dana sat motionless, peeling her banana with excruciating care. “Not funny,” she said at last, but not unkindly.
Josi sat in the aftermath, eyes on her tray, feeling the fluorescent lights glower down on the back of her neck.
When she looked up, Dana was already gone, and Rachel was weaving her way toward the doors. Josi watched her go, then, very carefully, wrapped her hands around the cup of water. The sweat on the outside soaked her palms, grounding her.
It would be a long shift, she thought.
She was right about that.
By the time Josi pushed through the hospital's front doors, Pittsburgh had gone grey and indifferent around her, the kind of early evening that couldn't decide if it was still afternoon or had already given up. Her feet knew the route back before her brain did. Two bus stops, one transfer, the particular smell of the Neville Street stairwell that she still hadn't identified and wasn't sure she wanted to.
Josi let herself in with a code she still hadn’t memorized. The rental unit on Neville was the kind of post-grad housing nobody ever loved: beige walls, thin blinds, and a smoke detector that chirped every time the humidity spiked. It had taken less than a week for her to realize there was no acoustic insulation; the coughs of the woman next door, the heavy thuds of the night owl above, even the elevator cables groaning their way up and down the shaft at all hours.
The place was an architectural afterthought, but it was hers, and the only thing that greeted her at the threshold was the dust-and-cardboard scent of new moving boxes and the faintest whiff of stale air.
She peeled off her shoes, let her toes flex against the icy laminate. The path from the door to the couch was a minefield of half-emptied boxes, open on top, some already rebounding with packing paper. The previous tenant’s nail holes still peppered the wall above the couch; her own attempts at decor, a vinyl player, two houseplants clinging to life, a stack of hardcover books, looked absurdly temporary, as if she was camping in someone else’s bad dream.
The overhead lights hurt her eyes. She flicked them off and navigated by the spill of sodium streetlight through the window. Pittsburgh, even at midnight, hummed with distant car engines and the damp metallic whoosh of the river. For a few moments, she simply stood there, hunched and motionless, arms slack at her sides.
The silence, after a day at the Pitt, was less peace than vacuum.
She dropped onto the couch. The cushions barely gave; she wondered if she should have splurged on something softer, or at least less orange. She could still feel the ache in her calves, the slow burn in her lower back, Dana’s “death march” had wrung every ounce of adrenaline from her.
She thought, not for the first time, about turning on the TV or queuing up the music. But the urge to retreat into noise was counterbalanced by the exhaustion that pressed on her skull.
On the crate she’d made into a coffee table, her phone pulsed with blue light. Two missed texts from an unfamiliar Pittsburgh number, probably HR or Rachel, neither of which she had the bandwidth for. She swiped those away.
Then, a banner from an old group chat: Roosevelt Nights. The photo was an accidental selfie of three nurses smashed together, drunk, grinning, hair wild from a rooftop party. For a minute, she hovered on it, thumb tracing the edge of the screen.
A message scrolled up: Yo, Jo! How’s PA treating you? Find any cute docs yet?
The instant urge was to type something clever, some snarky one-liner about the war zone she’d landed in. But the weight of the day pressed her thumb to the “x” instead. She deleted the notification, stared at the empty table, then finally let herself sink back.
It was late, but she wasn’t tired in any way that sleep could fix.
Her gaze drifted upward, to the popcorn ceiling, then sideways to the gash of moonlight on the wall. She let herself replay, again and again, the moment in the cafeteria, the split second after her joke, the way Rachel and Dana had both gone perfectly, icily still. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe they’d already forgotten. Maybe they hadn’t.
Josi pressed her knuckles to her brow. Stupid, she thought. She was here for a reset, not to bring her old self with her.
Her stomach growled; she ignored it. Instead, she dragged herself upright, peeled a box cutter from the mess on the table, and slit open the top of a box labeled KITCHEN in Sharpie. Plates rattled inside, poorly wrapped. She set them out in the cabinet, one by one, the mechanical repetition numbing the edge of her thoughts.
Outside, a siren wound up, wailed, then fell away.
She didn’t feel more at home by the time the box was empty, but at least the plates were off the floor.
When she finally crawled to the mattress on the floor (her bed frame still in pieces, leaning against the wall), she lay flat, fingers fanned out on the coarse bedsheet. The air was cold against her skin.
She considered, for the first time, that she might have made a mistake.
She didn’t let herself dwell on it. Instead, she closed her eyes and let the city’s noise fill the hollow places inside her, breathing in the quiet until it hurt less.
She thought, almost against her will, about what Rachel had said.
Those animals at the zoo, the ones that look right at you and you realize you're the one in the cage.
She turned it over in her mind the way you worried a loose thread, not pulling, just testing the tension. A war veteran. A dead wife. Four hours of sleep a week. The kind of man who went to the roof for reasons nobody seemed entirely sure about, and everyone was too careful to ask.
She'd worked with difficult attendings before. In New York there had been a cardiothoracic surgeon who communicated exclusively through sighs and a trauma doc who threw charts when he was displeased. She knew the type.
Except Rachel hadn't said difficult. She'd said damaged.
There was a difference, Josi thought. Difficult was a personality. Damaged was something that had happened to a person.
She stared at the popcorn ceiling, fingers spread on the coarse sheet.
He has nice arms though.
She almost smiled at that. Almost.
Outside, the night shift was beginning somewhere above her, in the hospital she'd left behind. She wondered, briefly, what it looked like up there after dark, whether the Pitt went quiet or just changed frequencies, swapped one kind of chaos for another.
y'all why is it that when I search up fics for adult characters there's an understandable variety of ratings. But the SECOND I search for a character that is a minor or is played by a minor, there is an overwhelming amount of smut and suggestive content labled MDNI when the character/actor themself is under 18.
is it just so normalised to sexualise children that we're okay with this? do we seriously put our own fantasies and desires above the safety of children?
Reblog to let your followers know that despite your current obsession your previous obsessions still exist and are simply lying dormant until they awaken and strike again
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Hello! Please, will you continue your fanfic "The Dove and The Masked King"? Pleeease, it's wonderful!
Aaaah, thank you so so much! <3 Your compliments meant the world to me and they helped to write a new chapter! I know it has been a long time and I am not very consistent but I hope you still enjoy the story! I just uploaded a new chapter! :) Though it is not the wedding, I still hope you enjoy it! Even though I am not a consistent writer, I will always update! :) And thank you so so much for your messages! luv you! <3 <3
Prologue Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV
Read Here: AO3 Wattpad
Note: I know I was gone forever again! :o And I also know this is not the wedding! But I just had to write it because this was stuck in my head for such a long time! I hope you enjoy :)
One day before the wedding
The wedding dress was extraordinary.
Amicia stood on a small platform in her chambers, surrounded by mirrors, while the seamstress made final adjustments. The gown was white silk embroidered with silver thread in patterns that resembled both mountain peaks and Jerusalem's holy architecture; a blend of her homeland and her new home.
The bodice fit perfectly, the sleeves were delicate and flowing, and the train ... the train was fit for a queen. Which, she supposed, she was about to become.
"Oh, my lady," Liora breathed from behind her. "You look … you look …"
Amicia turned to see her maid dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Despite having her, Ayelet and Mira as maids for a short time, she feels oddly connected to them. Connected like … friends.
"Liora, are you crying?”
"No," she said, clearly crying. "I just …. You look so beautiful. Like an angel coming to earth! Mira and Ayelet should be here and see it too!" Amicia smiled fondly, but on the inside she wished her mother would be alive to see her like this. But it doesn’t matter anymore. What’s dead is dead, and the little princess will soon learn that the duty of a queen will be heavier than she expected. Even the thoughts of her mother won’t save her from that. But now … now she has pretended that she is happy. And truth be told after talking to Baldwin, she actually felt a little more at ease.
The seamstress stepped back, examining her work with a critical eye. "Perfect, the alterations are complete. We'll have it pressed and ready for the ceremony tomorrow." She began carefully helping Amicia out of the dress. "You'll be the most beautiful bride Jerusalem has ever seen, Your Highness."
Amicia caught sight of herself in the mirror one last time before the dress came off. She barely recognized herself. Gone was the mountain princess in simple gowns. This woman in the mirror looked regal. Powerful. Terrified. But there was something, something smaller that wanted to grow. Hope, perhaps?
The rest of the day passed by quickly and Amicia can’t even remember who she had spoken to and what she had said. Evening had fallen by the time she returned to her chambers and all she wanted was a bath and sleep.
Liora had prepared a bath, blessedly hot, scented with oils that reminded Amicia vaguely of home. She'd sunk into it gratefully, letting the warmth ease the tension in her shoulders. Ayelet and Mira were still busy with the last preparations for the wedding, so it was just her and Liora, who told her stories about her childhood while she washed Amicia's hair.
Now, freshly bathed and with her hair still damp, Amicia stood in her chambers wrapped in nothing but a large sheet of soft linen. Liora was laying out her nightclothes on the bed, muttering about needing to have them pressed properly.
"You should have seen the embroidery work on that dress," Liora was saying. "Absolute mastery. Ayelet and Mira would have …"
The door burst open.
Amicia spun around, clutching the linen sheet tighter, her heart leaping into her throat.
Guy de Lusignan strode in as if he owned the place.
"Lord Guy!" Liora's voice was sharp. "You cannot … this is highly inappropriate …"
"I apologize for the intrusion," Guy said smoothly, though his eyes were traveling over Amicia in a way that made her skin crawl. He held an ornate box in his hands that looked well-polished and expensive. "But I have a wedding gift for the princess, and I wanted to deliver it personally."
"This is the princess's private chamber," Liora said, moving to stand between Guy and the princess in protection. "You will leave immediately."
"I am Princess Sibylla's husband," Guy said, his voice taking on an edge. "Which makes me family to the future queen. Surely a brief visit to deliver a gift is acceptable."
Amicia found her voice after the initial shock slowly passed, though it came out smaller than she wanted. "The guards … they should have announced it to you!"
"The guards tried to bar my way." Guy's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I explained that I am above such restrictions. I am not some common courtier to be kept waiting at your door like a servant."
He moved closer, and Amicia instinctively stepped back. She was acutely aware of wearing nothing but a sheet. Of her damp hair loose around her shoulders. Of how vulnerable she was.
"Lord Guy, you must leave," she said, trying to sound commanding. "This is completely inappropriate. I'm not even dressed-"
"I can see that." His eyes traveled over her again, lingering. "How ... modest."
Liora moved forward, her slender frame somehow imposing. "Out. Now. Before I call the guard captain and have you removed by force."
"You?" Guy laughed. "You're a maid. You have no authority to-"
"She has MY authority," came a thunderous voice from the doorway.
Tiberias filled the entrance, his weathered face set in lines of absolute fury. Behind him, two guards looked mortified.
"My lord, we tried to stop him," one guard said desperately. "But he insisted!"
"I know what he insisted." Tiberias's voice was ice. "Lord Guy. Get. Out."
"I was merely delivering a wedding gift-"
"You were intruding on the future queen's private chambers while she was in a state of undress." Tiberias took a step forward, and despite being older, despite Guy being taller and younger, there was no question who was more dangerous in that moment. "That is not delivering a gift. That is an insult. An assault on her dignity. And grounds for me to have you thrown in the cells."
"I am the husband of the king's sister!"
"And she is the future Queen of Jerusalem," Tiberias snapped. "Which means she outranks you. And even if she didn't, no man enters a lady's chambers uninvited while she's bathing. That's not politics. That's basic decency." He pointed at the door. "Out. Now. Before I forget I'm supposed to be diplomatic."
Guy's jaw clenched. For a moment, Amicia thought he might argue. Then his eyes flickered to her, still clutching her linen sheet, face pale with shock, and something cold and calculating passed across his features.
"My apologies," he said, all smooth politeness now. "I meant no offense. I simply wanted to welcome the princess properly to Jerusalem. But I see my timing was ... unfortunate." He set the ornate box on a nearby table. "My gift. I hope you'll accept it as a gesture of ... family welcome."
He left, brushing past Tiberias with barely concealed anger.
The moment he was gone, Tiberias turned his back to the room. "Someone get the princess something proper to wear. Liora!"
"Already on it," she said, rushing to grab a dressing gown.
Amicias's hands were shaking as she tried to wrap the dressing gown around herself while still clutching the sheet. She felt violated. Exposed. Guy's eyes on her had felt like insects crawling across her skin.
"Are you hurt?" Tiberias asked, still facing away. "Did he touch you?"
"No," she managed to say. "He just …. he looked at me. Like I was …" She couldn't finish the sentence.
"Like you were an object he was evaluating," Tiberias finished grimly. "That's Guy. Always calculating. Always looking for weakness." He paused. "I'm sorry. I should have posted guards inside your chambers, not just in the corridor."
"You can turn around now," Liora said quietly. "She's decent."
Tiberias turned, and his expression softened when he saw Amicias's face. She was trying very hard not to cry, but her hands were still trembling.
"Lord Tiberias," she said, her voice wobbling. "Thank you for … for coming. I didn't know what to do. He just walked in and I was …. I couldn't …"
"Stop." Tiberias moved closer, his voice gentle now. "You did nothing wrong. This is entirely on Guy. He knew exactly what he was doing … trying to intimidate you, make you feel vulnerable, establish dominance." His expression hardened. "It won't happen again. I'm posting guards inside your chambers from now on. And I'm having a conversation with Guy that he won't forget."
"I'm so sorry for the trouble."
"What trouble? You were attacked in your own chambers."
"Not attacked, just…"
"Amicia." Tiberias used her first name, which he rarely did out of respect. "A man forced his way into your private rooms while you were undressed, against the protests of guards, and stood there evaluating you like livestock. That's an attack. Don't minimize it."
Amicia felt tears prick her eyes. She was tryint to be strong, like it was expected of her but this situation took so much strength from her. "I just …. I don't want to cause problems. I am here to be queen and I let myself be pushed around like I am a nobody."
"You are not a nobody and that is exactly what frightens him." Tiberias spoke calmly, like a father to its child.. "You have already proven that you do not tolerate his behavior. What he just did was invasive and it is only natural to react shocked." He glanced at Liora. "Keep the door locked. Guards inside and outside. And if Guy, if anyone, tries to enter without permission again, you have my authority to use force."
"Yes, my lord," Liora said firmly.
“Don’t worry, princess. As long as I live I will make that bastard's life a living hell.”Tiberias moved toward the door, then paused. "Also …. stop calling me Lord Tiberias."
"But you're a lord, you deserve the respect-"
"You're going to be queen. I'm just an old warrior. You outrank me." He smiled slightly. "Just Tiberias is fine. Or Raymond, if you prefer. But this 'Lord Tiberias' business makes me feel ancient."
"But I should show proper respect …." Amicia started.
"You respect me by trusting me to protect you. That's enough." He opened the door, preparing to leave.
"Wait," Amicia said, moving forward, not thinking, just acting on instinct, and bowed deeply. "Thank you for protecting me."
"Stop bowing!" Tiberias looked genuinely uncomfortable. "You're a princess! Soon to be queen! You don't bow to …"
Amicia stood on her tiptoes and kissed his weathered cheek. Quick and chaste, the way she used to kiss her father when thanking him for something.
Tiberias went completely still.
"Thank you," Amicia said softly. "For being here."
For a moment, Tiberias just stared at her. His weathered face had gone slightly red, and he looked completely flustered, a rare sight on the usually composed warrior.
"I …you …" He cleared his throat roughly. "You're very welcome. Now get some rest. Lock the door. And if Guy comes anywhere near you again, you scream. Guards will come running."
He practically fled the room.
Liora shut the door behind him, locked it firmly, and turned to Amicia with raised eyebrows. "Well. You've certainly charmed that old warrior completely."
"I was just thanking him!"
"You kissed him on the cheek and called him kind. The man looked like he'd been struck by lightning." Liora moved to the bed, turning down the covers. "Come. You need rest. That was a horrible ordeal."
Amicia nodded and followed her maid's order. She sank onto the bed, suddenly exhausted. The fear was fading, replaced by a bone-deep weariness.
"What if Guy tries again?"
"He won't. Not with Tiberias involved." Liora's voice was firm. "That man will protect you like you're his own daughter. I saw it in his eyes."
"But I barely know him-"
"Doesn't matter. He promised to protect you, and he's taken that responsibility seriously." She pulled the covers up. "Now sleep. Tomorrow is your wedding day and you should be joyful and not scared. …. And I suspect Tiberias will be having a very pointed conversation with Lord Guy about appropriate behavior right now."
Amicia tried to calm her heart, but despite the feeling of tiredness, she couldn’t fall asleep easily. Her thoughts were running wild. The wedding. Guy’s invasive behavior. And Baldwin. Though her thoughts were always full of him.
***
In the corridor outside, Tiberias stood with his hand pressed to his cheek where she'd kissed him, looking absolutely bewildered.
One of the guards cleared his throat. "My lord? Are you well?"
"I'm fine," Tiberias said gruffly, dropping his hand. "Post guards inside her chambers. Rotating shifts. And if Guy de Lusignan comes within fifty feet of this door, I want to know about it immediately."
"Yes, my lord."
Tiberias started to walk away, chasing after Guy, then muttered under his breath: "If I were forty years younger and not old enough to be her grandfather, Baldwin would have serious competition."
The guards wisely pretended not to hear.
Tiberias caught up with Guy three corridors away from Amicias's chambers. He did not even try to run away or hide his pretentious and over-confident smile.
"A word, Lord Guy."
Guy turned, his handsome face arranged in an expression of mild curiosity. "Lord Tiberias. I assume this is about the ... misunderstanding earlier?"
"Misunderstanding." Tiberias's voice was flat. "Is that what you're calling it?"
"I was delivering a wedding gift to my soon-to-be sister. Hardly a crime."
"You forced your way past guards, entered the princess's private chambers without permission, and stood there ogling her while she was undressed." Tiberias took a step closer. "That's not delivering a gift. That's assault."
Guy's expression hardened. "Assault is a strong word for a simple visit between family members."
"She's not your family yet. And even when she is, you don't enter a lady's chambers uninvited. Ever." Tiberias's hands clenched into fists. "You knew exactly what you were doing. Trying to intimidate her. Make her feel vulnerable. Establish that she's powerless here."
"I was establishing that I am the husband of the king's sister," Guy said coolly. "Which means I have certain ... privileges in this palace."
"You have no privileges in the future queen's chambers."
"Future queen." Guy's smile was cold. "Yes. The little mountain princess. So sweet. So innocent. So completely unprepared for life in Jerusalem." He tilted his head. "Tell me, Tiberias, how long do you think someone that soft will last in this court? A week? A month? Before she makes some fatal misstep and embarrasses herself, and the king, beyond repair?"
"She's stronger than you think."
"Is she?” Guy's eyes gleamed. "She's a liability. An embarrassment. And eventually, even Baldwin will see that. Just because she has a way with words doesn’t mean she is truly fitted to reign over a kingdom."
Tiberias was seriously considering whether he could throw Guy out a window and claim it was an accident.
"Let me make something very clear," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "Princess Amicia is under my protection. The king's protection. If you go near her again without explicit permission, if you speak to her without a chaperone present, if you so much as look at her in a way I don't like; I will make your life a living hell. Do you understand?"
"Are you threatening me?" Guy's voice rose. "I am the husband of Princess Sibylla. I am second in line to-"
"You are nothing." Tiberias stepped closer, using his height advantage. "You're a French nobody who married above his station. The nobles hate you. The people don't trust you. The only reason you have any power at all is through Sibylla, and even she's starting to see what you really are." He leaned in. "So here's what's going to happen. You're going to stay away from the princess. You're going to treat her with respect due to a queen. And you're going to remember that when she marries Baldwin tomorrow, she'll outrank you completely."
"If she marries Baldwin," Guy said softly. "A lot can happen in a night."
The threat was barely veiled.
Tiberias grabbed Guy by the front of his tunic, slamming him against the wall. "If anything happens to her, anything at all, I will know it was you. And I will end you. Accident. Poison. A fall from the walls. I don't care. You'll be dead."
"You can't threaten me-"
"I just did." Tiberias released him, stepping back. "Now get out of my sight before I forget I'm supposed to be civilized."
Guy straightened his tunic, his face flushed with anger. But there was fear there too.
"This isn't over," Guy said.
"No," Tiberias agreed. "It's not. But you've been warned. What happens next is your choice."
Guy stalked away, footsteps echoing in the corridor.
Tiberias stood there for a long moment, breathing hard, resisting the urge to punch something.
Guy will eat her alive if we're not careful., he thought grimly.
He needed to talk to Baldwin without delay. He should know the open threat Amicia had to face and will probably face again.
Baldwin was in his study, poring over reports from the eastern borders, when he entered without knocking.
"We have a problem," Tiberias said without preamble and Baldwin looked up, immediately alert. "What kind of problem?"
"Guy just forced his way into Princess Amicia's chambers while she was bathing."
The reports scattered as Baldwin surged to his feet. "He what?"
"Walked right past the guards. Found her in nothing but a linen sheet, fresh from the bath. Stood there looking at her like …" Tiberias's jaw clenched. "Like she was something he could own. Liora tried to throw him out, but he claimed his position gave him the right to enter."
Baldwin's hands were shaking, and not from disease. He tried to calm himself, he can not show what his true feelings regarding this matter are. "Where is he?"His voice was soft as always and an outsider might think that he speaks like he doesn't care about Amicia. But Tiberias could clearly hear the emotions behind that controlled voice.
"I already handled it. Threw him out, had a ... conversation with him about propriety and consequences." Tiberias moved to the window. "But Baldwin, we need to talk about security. For Amicia."
Baldwin stood up, and slowly walked up to the window. "Is she all right? Did he hurt her?"
"She's shaken. Scared. But physically unharmed." Tiberias stepped next to him. "I posted guards inside her chambers now. And I made it very clear to Guy that if he goes near her again, I'll kill him myself."
"Good." It was a simple response but for Tiberias it was close to a love declaration. They were both quiet for a moment and it was clear that something was on Baldwin’s mind.
"You said she was shaken. How bad?"
"Bad enough that she thanked me with tears in her eyes for making her feel safe." Tiberias paused, then added, almost reluctantly, "And then she kissed me on the cheek."
Baldwin's head snapped to the side to look at him. "She what?"
"Kissed my cheek. Very chaste. Very innocent. The way a daughter thanks her father." Tiberias's weathered face was slightly red. "And then she bowed to me, even though I told her not to, and called me kind."
Despite everything, Baldwin felt something warm flicker in his chest. "That sounds … lovely."
"It was devastating," Tiberias admitted. "Completely disarmed me. I nearly forgot how to speak." He met Baldwin's eyes. "And I'm telling you this because you need to understand something, that girl is affectionate. She may hide it rather well behind her regal posture, but she seems like someone who can feel affection towards anyone.. And you-" he pointed at Baldwin, "-you're going to be her husband. Which means eventually, when she's comfortable with you, when she trusts you ... you're going to get that same open affection. Those same grateful kisses and honest thanks and-"
"Raymond-"
"I'm serious." Tiberias's expression was fierce. "Because that girl will feel affection towards you, I can feel it in my bones.”
“You have rather old bones, my friend.” Baldwin answered, but he was only trying to deflect from that warm feeling in his chest.
Tiberias could sense that Baldwin's thoughts were slowly moving away, and he already had a vague idea of what or who he was thinking about.
“Try to sleep, you majesty. Tomorrow will bring enough changes. I will watch over Amicia for the night, so you don’t have to worry.” Baldwin only nodded and watched his oldest friend leave to protect the woman who will become his wife tomorrow.
His wife.
These two words still sound strange and he is still not sure if he is dreaming. He never dared to hope … a leper … What would a leper do with a wife? But he was also King of Jerusalem and he has a duty to fulfill. But with Amicia as his bride this duty doesn’t seem too bad.
Jane Austen, I love you so much. I wonder what you would think if you knew that people were celebrating your 250th birthday. You’d probably find it tedious and baffling, a grand joke in the greater scheme of life. Emma would think she deserved to be feted, my girl Fanny would be nervously wishing that Edmund would ask her to dance, Elizabeth would sail lively through the festivities, Anne would find the most well-read guests in the throng, Elinor would be amused and observant, and Catherine would be hoping for a ghost to appear. In myself, I see a mosaic of all of them, and that’s what makes you timeless. Happy Birthday, old friend.
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Note: My dearest Baldwin enthusiasts! <3 I am so sorry for the delay! :( So many things happened in the last weeks that I did not had the time to continue writing. Also, I kind of wrote myself against a wall and did not know how to continue smoothly. That's why this chapter is a bit short, but not less important! But do not despair! In the next chapter we will indulge into the wedding! Have fun! <3
It was long after midnight when the feast ended and the last drunken nobles stumbled back to their chambers. It was less of a torture than Amicia had anticipated, but no less tiring. The nobles used that evening for a fun get-together, but for her it felt more like a parade. The way no one has barely spoken to her except Guy, and his not-so-clever remarks. The way everyone looked at her was like something terrifying and holy at the same time. A Queen could bring peace; some of them knew that. But a queen, a fertile one even, could ruin the hopes that some nobles had.
Baldwin is loved among the common people, but the nobles despise him. Tiberias had said it himself: most of them would not cry if the king would suddenly perish. And it is not because of his illness or his politics, not entirely. But it is the power his title would promise, and too many hands are reaching for the crown.
Amicia sighed, her thoughts were getting heavier by each day. Jerusalem is so colourful, but her mind is not. “Still thinking about Guy's impertinence?” Tiberias asked while walking beside her. After the feast was over, he offered to walk her back to her chambers to make sure that she arrived safely. In truth, he was worried that Guy might lurk in the shadows, trying to … trying something he would regret. He knew Guy was full of words but lacked action. But his comments during the feast … something did not sit right with him. “No … maybe … it’s just …” She stopped, staring down at the floor before she looked up, her fists clenched at her sides. “Is my life in danger, my lord?” Tiberias raised his eyebrows, but quickly understood what fear she was carrying. “No, it is not. And it never will be. Many don’t want to see the bloodline of the king continue, but the few that are loyal to him are stronger than you think. And we would rather die than see anyone lay a hand on you.” For a moment, they just looked at each other, the darkness of the night lingering between them. “Thank you, Tiberias. For being here.” Amicia smiled at him softly before she continued to walk towards her chambers. “There is no place I’d rather be.”
They walked the rest of the hallways in silence. But when they reached the door, Amicia hesitated as if something was still on her mind.
"May I ask you something?" she said, turning to Tiberias. "You may."
"It’s about the king."
Tiberias didn’t move or blink. But she saw the shift in his shoulders. The subtle tension and the protective instinct. Still, he nodded. "What do you want to know?"
She folded her hands in front of her, turning her back to the door, voice soft. "How do you see him? The king?" Tiberias turned to her fully now, eyes dark and sharp beneath furrowed brows. "I see a boy," he said. "Too young and too smart. But also too proud. I see a man who carries more weight than any of us ever should. I see pain and guilt. And brilliance, I have never seen in a man before. And walls so high they scrape heaven."
Amicia chuckled at his last sentence, one with which she could not agree more. "I talked to him in the gardens a few nights ago, it was … nice. Very nice. But I had the feeling he tried to push me away with his … kindness.”
"Because he’s still trying to save you," Tiberias said with a sigh, laying a hand on her shoulder to give her some strength. "That’s what he does. He pushes away what he wants most because he thinks having it will destroy it."
"But I don’t want to be saved from him," she whispered. "I want to understand him. I just … I … don’t know how."
Tiberias gave a small, rueful laugh. "You and the rest of us."
He took a step back, then leaned back against one of the pillars.
"You want my advice?"
She nodded eagerly.
"Don’t chase him. He’ll run harder. Just … be still. Let him come to you. And if he never does, then at least you were true to yourself and tried.”
Amicia breathed in slowly, and Tiberias watched her closely. “I know you are scared of what's to come. Your wedding is in two days. But just be yourself, and I am sure he will come to you.” He gives her a final smile before he turns around and vanishes into the night. Amicia stood there for a while, thinking of what he had said.
Then slowly she retreated into her chambers, feeling calmer than she ever had since arriving in Jerusalem.
She closed the door behind her with a gentle click, the air of her chambers still perfumed faintly with rosewater and wax.
Her dress slid from her shoulders without resistance, and soon she was left in her soft undergown, her feet bare against the stone floor. The silence of the night weighed heavy on her chest, and even though she felt much calmer after talking to Tiberias, sleep refused to come.
Her mind spun too loudly: the wine-damp laughter of the nobles, the stinging glint in Guy’s eyes, the ache in her chest at the thought of Baldwin’s voice … so gentle, so distant.
He tried to save her with kindness, Tiberias had said. But how do you save someone who doesn’t want saving? Who thinks that he is too lost, too damned? Amicia let out a heavy sigh, walking away from the window to go and sit on her bed. “Oh, Baldwin …” is all she said when she lay down on her back, arms sprawled out. “Don’t make you suffer more than you have to.” She stared at the ceiling, thinking of his sweet voice, when a knock came. It was soft, hesitant. As if the person behind the door knew that this hour was rather inappropriate.
“Come in!” Amicia shouted when she rose from her bed, hoping that it was not Guy who was visiting her. Lucky for her, it was only a page, who bowed deeply when he saw Amicia in nothing but her white underdress.
“My lady,” he whispered, “forgive the late hour. But I bring a message from His Grace. He said it could not wait.” he raised his arms, head still bowed, to show her the piece of paper that demanded such urgency.
Her heart jumped, and without a second thought, she took the parchment and unfolded it without an inch of patience.
If you are not yet asleep, I would be grateful for your company. The chapel garden. B.
She stood, rereading the words over and over again. Did Tiberias speak to him, or why does he want to see me so suddenly? Right now, she did not care why exactly he wanted to see her; all she knew was that she had a chance to talk to him. Probably the last time before their wedding.
“Thank you, you may go.” She said to the page, who still stood there with his head lowered. As soon as she dismissed him, he turned on his heel and closed the door behind him when he left.
Without wasting another second, Amicia grabbed her dress that she had thrown on the floor and hastily put it back on again. It was loose on the back because none of her maids were there to help her tie it, but she did not care. Without any sound, she left her chambers with only a small candle in her hand to light her way.
The garden behind the chapel was smaller than the king’s courtly grounds, but far more beautiful in its quiet way. Here, the hedges grew wild around the carved stone benches, ivy clung to crumbling walls, and white lilies bloomed even at night. Lanterns had been placed carefully along the pathway with small flames in them glowing like stars in the hush of the hour.
Amicia moved slowly down the path, her hair swaying with every move. She found him standing near the old fountain, half in shadow. His white cloak was pulled tight against the night breeze, and the moon silvered the sharp lines of his mask. Amicia stopped, looking at him in silence. He looked … peaceful. Content, even with the mask.
As if feeling watched, Baldwin turned, and for a long second, they just looked at each other, making Amicia's heart beat with a different rhythm.
“I apologise for the hour,” Baldwin said gently. “I would not have disturbed you if I thought you were asleep.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said truthfully. “My thoughts refused to be still.”
“Mine as well,” he murmured.
He gestured to the bench near the fountain, and she joined him without hesitation. They sat close, but not quite touching. He was quiet for a moment, his voice softer when he spoke again. “Tiberias told me what happened at the feast. Guy’s remarks.”
Amicia’s spine straightened slightly, a reflex when she heard that man's name. “He was hardly the only one with remarks.”
“Still,” Baldwin said, “I am sorry.” For a moment, Amicia was certain that he lifted his hand with the intention to comfort her, but decided otherwise. It was such a small movement that it could have escaped one's eye, but she noticed.
“You need not apologise for the viper in your court,” she said. “You have enough burdens.”
A pause. Then he turned his face slightly toward her, his silver mask as unyielding as ever. “I only wanted to make sure you were not … worried. About him.”
Amicia met his gaze steadily, even if she could not see his whole face; his eyes spoke volumes. It was as if she were speaking to a little boy who was afraid of something he could not name.
“I’m not,” she said clearly. “He lacks importance in his character for me to worry about him.”
A sound escaped Baldwin, not a strong laugh, but a small, genuine one, as if it had surprised him. It was low and unpolished and real.
Amicia blinked. It was the first time she had heard him laugh, and it stirred something inside her. But just as quickly as it came, it faded into a dry cough. He turned his head away, raising a gloved hand to his mouth. It passed quickly, but not unnoticed.
“Are you alright?” she asked softly, leaning towards him to see if he was okay.
“I’m fine,” he said, too quickly, turning his head now in the opposite direction, so that he does not have to see her face anymore.
Amicia remained silent for a moment, thinking about what she should do. She wants to make sure that he is fine, wants to see in his eyes that the pain has subsided, but she also remembers Tiberias' words. She does not move, only stares at his back.
“You should rest more,” she said gently.
“There are many things I should do.”
A beat passed.
“You can still go home, Amicia.”
Another beat passed. None of them moved, except for their hearts, which were trying to play the same melody but could not hold the same rhythm.
“But, I don’t want to.” She answered, sounding like a stubborn child. And Baldwin? He just sighed. “If you despise me that much, that you want to get rid of me, then say this to my brother's face.” Another sigh escaped Baldwin's lips, and slowly he turned back around to face the woman who makes his heart lighter but his thoughts run wilder. “You know that I don’t despise you …”
A pause as if he does not know what to say anymore.
“Don’t push me away, Baldwin. You deserve every kindness that this world has to offer, even if you don’t want to accept it.” Amicia stood, and his eyes followed her like a lost puppy. “But if you want me truly gone, I will go and pack my things immediately.” She reached for the candle she had placed down when she arrived, and took a step forward to leave. But a firm touch on her lower arm made her stop. “Don’t leave. The night wind must have clouded my thoughts. Forgive me.” His gloved hand stayed wrapped around her soft skin, and Amicia could feel the ground shake beneath her feet. “Funny, because the night wind makes me see things much clearer.” Slowly, she stepped back and sat down again. Next to Baldwin, who, hesitantly, removed his hand from her arm.
They sat in silence again, but not for long.
“It is the wedding, and what comes after that weighs heavily on your mind, am I right?”
There was a moment of silence, and Amicia thought he would never answer.
“That and so many other things. I am aware that half of my court wants to see me dead in an attempt to secure the crown for themselves. My … ailments kept them in place instead of acting out to pleasure their own greed.” He stopped, thinking whether he should truly burden her with his thoughts and fears. But the way she looked, her eyes showing kindness he had never seen before, her hands trembling slightly as if she was fearing with him … it hit a soft spot he did not know he had. “All the snakes in court were ready to wait patiently for the day I might die. But they underestimated my determination to make sure that Jerusalem stays as it is, even after I am gone. I fear that I am not the one in danger since the leprosy will take hold of me, but you are.”
“Me?”, slightly shocked by his statement, Amicia stared at him, her forehead wrinkled with a sense of doubt and disbelief. And … a little bit of uncertainty.
“You know what happens when a man and a woman get married, correct?”
She nods, and feels a little … awkward. This is not the kind of topic she likes to speak about so freely.
“And what greater danger could be out there to those who long for a crown than a woman who can bear children with a legitimate claim to the throne?” He sounds so calm when he speaks, which shows that these thoughts crossed his mind over and over again, trying to find a solution to a problem that does not want to be solved.
“I understand.” Even though their conversation took a serious turn and Baldwin was sharing his worries with her, she could not stop her cheeks from blushing. This was the most unromantic way to talk about future children imaginable, but it still made her feel shy, embarrassed, but also … excited.
“But I have faith in your capability of handling such things without anyone getting hurt, so we don’t need to think about a grim future. At least for now.” She smiled at him, to ease his sorrows and to guide his thoughts back into the light. He chuckled and shook his head slightly. “Then I will make sure that your faith in me will be fruitful.”
The wind moved through the chapel trees, carrying the scent of lilies and stone. For a time, neither of them spoke. They simply sat beside each other as the lanterns flickered and the moonlight wrapped the garden in soft silver. There were no love declarations that night, but both of them felt lighter than ever before. And their hearts slowly learned to beat to the same rhythm.
just wanted to make my stance clear: anytime a fascist dies it’s a good thing. kirk only harmed the world with his violent rhetoric and i’m glad karma got delivered.
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