absolution in death.

“ i would rather be in your arms for forever and a day than to sit the throne of a thousand kingdoms. ”

— li. they/them. nineteen. south asian. zhongli luvbot. feeding my gambling addiction. thousand of ocs. adrian tepes enthusiast.

— masterlist. requests. ocs.

— what i write for,

genshin impact. honkai starrail. castlevania. jujutsu kaisen. tgcf. bungo stray dogs. moriarty the patriot. jojo. house of the dragon. game of thrones. acotar. iwtv. etc.

— who i write for,

male readers, female readers, gender neutral readers. oc x character.

— what i write,

canon events, high school au, mafia au, modern au, yandere, anything as long as it’s sfw.

— things to keep in mind;

I mostly write for my ocs, and there’s like a lot of them. i have my own life to tend to, so sometimes the requests may be a bit delayed. please don’t go around stealing my work as your own.

— how to request;

robert baratheon x fem!targaryen!reader

next chapter: chapter one.

series masterlist.

word count: 5.9k

warnings: maybe ooc characters. war, blood, killings (the usual). reader is 16 when she gets married. i took some creative liberty with certain things (the targaryen family tree).

okay, so this has been in my brain for so long, finally writing it down. we’ll see how it goes.

281 A.C.

For as long as she could remember, [name] had always been fond of her older cousin, Rhaegar.

Rhaegar, who danced with her during feasts long after the musicians had begun to tire. Rhaegar, who played his sweetest melodies beneath her mother’s favorite tree in Dragonstone while the sea breeze tangled silver-gold strands across his face. Rhaegar, whose hair gleamed the same pale shade as hers whilst all her brothers had inherited darker silver from their father. Even his eyes were darker than her own, though he had always claimed to prefer hers.

More Valyrian, he had once told her with a quiet smile.

Baelon had often jested that Rhaegar would someday marry his little cousin. When she had been younger, [name] would only pout at the thought and insist he was far too old for her. Yet she had never failed to notice the sharp look their father directed toward Baelon whenever such jokes were spoken aloud during supper.

Affection was perhaps too small a word for whatever existed between her and Rhaegar.

He had always been a constant in her life. Steady. Familiar. The one presence she had never once doubted.

Rhaegar took her everywhere he could. To Summerhall most of all. She had lost count of the days they spent wandering its ruined halls together, listening to him sing some new song whilst sunlight spilled through broken stone and dust gathered like gold around them. He had even tried teaching her the harp, though her hands still stumbled clumsily against the strings no matter how patient he remained.

She often thought she would never master it.

Rhaegar, however, seemed to believe she could master anything.

“Just a little more,” the Crown Prince murmured beside her ear.

[name] groaned softly, uncaring for how unbecoming the sound was for a princess of her station. “I cannot anymore. My hands ache.”

“Try once again, for me.” There was laughter in his voice as he guided her hands with his own, roughened from years spent training with sword and harp alike. “You are improving, dōna riña.”

[name] adored the nickname. Sweet girl. She had adored it once, at least. Now, whenever it left Rhaegar's lips, warmth crept unbidden to her cheeks. "I wish you would not call me that." She plucked absentmindedly at the harp strings, refusing to look back at him. Rhaegar was a married man now, with a lady wife and children of his own. She herself would soon be of an age to wed. "It is embarrassing," she muttered. "I am not ten years old anymore."

Rhaegar laughed. She had always thought the sound prettier than any melody he could coax from a harp. "Ten-and-three is hardly different from ten," he teased. "I have called you dōna riña ever since you were caught stealing sweetcakes from the kitchens."

"I was five."

"You were."

"They were not for me."

"No?"

"They were for Baelon."

Rhaegar lifted a brow.

"I seem to recall the pair of you sharing them rather generously."

"We were dividing them."

"You were eating the evidence." A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I believe Rhaevon was the one who caught you," Rhaegar continued. "You both had crumbs all over your faces."

"I certainly did." [name] startled, twisting around. She had not heard her eldest brother approach. Rhaevon moved through the castle much as a serpent slipped through grass instead of a dragon roaring— quietly enough that one noticed him only after he had already arrived. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Lessons," Rhaegar answered before she could.

Rhaevon's gaze drifted between them. Rhaegar sat comfortably beneath the old tree they had climbed together as children, his back resting against its trunk, long legs stretched carelessly before him. [name] remained seated between them, the harp balanced across her lap while Rhaegar's hands still lingered lightly over hers.

One corner of Rhaevon's mouth twitched. "Our little dragon is hardly going to charm the realm with a harp," he drawled. "Mother would sooner have her learn embroidery properly."

"She is improving," Rhaegar replied without hesitation.

"At the harp," Rhaevon asked, "or the stitching?"

Silence.

[name] looked determinedly at the strings before her. The truth was neither. All three of them knew it.

Rhaevon sighed. "Come. Father is asking for us."

“For whom?” [name] stood up, brushing the dirt off her skirts. “Me?”

"No, for Rhaegar." Rhaevon took Rhaegar's forearm, hauling him effortlessly to his feet before dusting invisible dirt from his own sleeves. "You run along before your septa comes looking for you."

[name] made a face. “You sound exactly like Father.”

“That is because Father has been saying the same thing for years, and you have never once listened.”

Rhaegar’s mouth curved as he rose too, though he made no move to let the moment linger. He only brushed a hand lightly over her shoulder, warm and absent-minded. “I’ll see you during supper, dōna riña.”

[name] glanced once more at Rhaegar, at the easy tilt of his smile, at the bright certainty of him, before turning away before she might be tempted to linger. She had never been very good at leaving him.

She had been too young to notice when summer had first begun to fade. The days shortened, the sea turned colder, and the old tree beneath which she had once spent whole afternoons grew bare in the wind. Lessons came and went. Her harp sat untouched for longer stretches of time. Her septa spoke more often of duty, of embroidery, of all the things a girl of her age ought to know before she was presented to the world.

And, as it happened, the world was soon to open its doors to her.

It came first in whispers, then in certainty: a tourney at Harrenhal.

By then [name] had nearly forgotten the heat from that afternoon beneath the tree. Time, as it often did, carried the sharper edges away and left only what it pleased. Yet she remembered Rhaegar’s laughter, and the easy way he had spoken her name, and the look her brother had given them both before calling her back into the keep.

Months passed before Harrenhal.

Months in which the wind off the sea turned brisk and the castle grew busier with talk of travel, entourages, and banners to be packed. [name]’s mother did not come. Rhaevon did not come either, bound by duties of his own and a mind too sober for such pageantry. In the end it would be her father, Baelon, and herself who rode north with their household, the rest of their kin remaining behind in the keep they had built for themselves beyond Dragonstone’s black cliffs.

Her father said little during the journey.

He was not a man given to wasting words, and he seemed even less inclined to them when they were bound for a place as vast and ancient as Harrenhal. Baelon, by contrast, made up for the silence with ease, filling the road with jest and commentary and half-formed speculation about who might win the melee, who might fall from their horse first, and which lordling would make the most humiliating fool of himself before the realm.

[name], seated between the two of them in the carriage for much of the journey, listened with only half an ear.

The other half belonged to the thought of Rhaegar.

It had been some time since she had seen him. Long enough that she had begun, in those quiet moments before sleep, to wonder what he had been doing all that time, and whether he still sounded the same when he laughed. She wondered whether his hands still moved so deftly over the harp strings, whether his hair still caught the light the way it always had, whether he still looked at her as though she were something precious and unfinished.

When at last Harrenhal rose before them, it seemed less like a castle than a wound in the earth.

Baelon whistled softly beside her. “Seven save us.”

Her father only said, “Mind your tongue.”

Its towers loomed black and broken against the sky, and the air around it felt strangely heavy, as though the place itself remembered too much. [name] sat straighter in her seat as the procession drew near, her fingers curling in her lap.

Baelon noticed, of course.

“You look as though you mean to be swallowed whole,” he said, grinning at her.

She shot him a glare. “It is a ruin.”

“It is a very famous ruin.”

“That does not make it less unsettling.”

Her brother only laughed and leaned back, as though the world were made for his amusement. Her father did not spare either of them a glance.

When they passed beneath the gates, the noise of the tourney grounds rolled over them all at once—horses stamping, men calling to one another, servants rushing to and fro with crates and silks and wine. Banners fluttered in the breeze, bright against the grey stone, and everywhere she looked there were colors, and armor, and faces she did not know.

[name] had never seen so many people in one place.

She felt suddenly small.

Not frightened, exactly. Only aware.

Aware of the way the eyes of the realm might turn toward her, toward her family, toward the blood in their veins and the shape of their names. Her father’s house had never been one to court notice, yet Harrenhal was the sort of place where silence itself seemed to draw attention.

Beside her, Baelon tugged at his gloves.

“Well,” he said, bright as ever, “shall we go make ourselves known?”

[name] did not answer at once.

Somewhere beyond the press of horses and steel and shouted greetings, she caught sight of a flash of silver-gold hair.

Her breath caught.

And then, just as quickly, she lost him in the crowd.

The tourney grounds were unlike anything [name] had ever seen.

From the moment their procession crossed beneath Harrenhal's scorched gates, the castle seemed intent on swallowing them whole. Its towers rose like blackened fingers against an overcast sky, impossibly vast even after centuries of ruin. Men said dragons had melted its stone. Looking upon those twisted walls now, [name] found herself believing every tale.

Beyond the castle sprawled a city of silk and canvas.

Thousands had gathered.

Knights polished armor until it gleamed beneath the afternoon sun. Squires darted between pavilions with bundles of lances balanced across their shoulders. Noble ladies drifted through the camps in gowns dyed every color imaginable, their laughter carried by the wind alongside the scent of roasting meats and freshly turned earth.

Every great house in the Seven Kingdoms seemed to have answered Lord Whent's invitation.

The Three-headed dragon banners snapped proudly beside golden lions. Direwolves stood opposite roses. Falcons, krakens, stags and suns all claimed their place amongst the endless sea of color.

[name] scarcely knew where to look.

"This is larger than King's Landing during the wedding," she murmured, almost to herself.

"It is louder," Baelon corrected.

Their father offered neither opinion nor conversation.

Lord Aerion Targaryen rode at the head of their small procession with the same stern composure he carried everywhere, acknowledging the greetings of passing lords with little more than an incline of his head. Though descended from Maegor's line, their branch of House Targaryen had long kept to themselves upon the eastern shores beyond Dragonstone. They seldom ventured to court unless duty demanded it.

Harrenhal, however, had summoned the entire realm.

Including them.

Their own pavilion stood not far from the royal encampment, its red dragon stitched upon black silk stirring lazily in the breeze.

Servants hurried to unload trunks while guards established the perimeter. The Targaryen banners had scarcely been raised above their pavilion before Baelon disappeared.

Not vanished entirely.

Only... wandered.

[name] only found him again after she had been helped to her tent and left to endure a servant fussing over her sleeves.

He was standing with another man near the edge of their camp, one hand braced against his hip, the other gesturing lazily as though he had known the prince beside him for years. The sight made [name] slow. The stranger was not difficult to look at. Dark hair, sun-browned skin, a look in his eyes that suggested he had already decided the world was a private joke. He was smiling when Baelon noticed her.

“There you are,” Baelon called at once. “I was beginning to think you had gotten yourself lost between all the tents.”

“I am not the one who disappeared,” [name] said, stepping closer and smoothing her skirts as she came. “You have a habit of wandering off.”

“I do not wander off. I socialize.”

“With who?”

Baelon turned, a grin already tugging at his mouth. “With Prince Oberyn Martell, for one.”

[name]’s gaze shifted back to the man beside him, and recognition arrived slowly, like a memory surfacing through water.

Oberyn.

She had met him before, though it had been years ago now— at Elia and Rhaegar’s wedding in King’s Landing, when everything had been bright silk, music, and wine. She remembered him best for the trouble he had caused and the ease with which he had caused it. He had seemed then much the same as he seemed now: too amused by his own cleverness, too quick with a smile, and far too pleased whenever someone else was made to blush.

He inclined his head. “Lady [name],” he said, voice smooth as poured wine. “You have grown since last I saw you.”

She narrowed her eyes at once. “As have you.”

Baelon let out a soft laugh, as if he had been waiting for that.

Oberyn’s smile widened. “And still sharp.”

“I remember you better than that,” [name] said before she could stop herself. “You spilled Arbor gold all over Lord Redwyne at Princess Elia’s wedding.”

“That is a cruel way to put it.”

“You did spill the wine.”

“I was making an entrance.”

“You were making a mess.”

“I was being memorable.”

Baelon made a sound suspiciously like he was choking on a laugh.

[name] looked at him in irritation. “You are enjoying this far too much.”

“I am enjoying many things,” Baelon said. “Including the fact that you have not yet won this conversation.”

“I did not know this was a contest.”

“With Oberyn?” Baelon asked. “It always is.”

Oberyn folded his arms loosely across his chest, still watching her with that same infuriating amusement. “Your brother writes to me often. He makes it sound as though you are the fiercest girl in the Seven Kingdoms.”

[name] blinked once, then turned to stare at Baelon. “You write to him?”

Baelon looked entirely unrepentant. “Obviously.”

“You never told me.”

“You never asked.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“It is in this family.”

Oberyn’s mouth twitched. “He did not lie, you know.”

“About what?”

“You are fierce.”

[name] felt heat begin to crawl up her neck almost at once, which only made her more annoyed. “I am not.”

“You are,” he said, entirely too easily. “You just prefer to look offended about it.”

Baelon was now looking between them with open delight, as if the two of them were a performance he had paid to see.

[name] hated that he was pleased.

Worse, she hated that Oberyn seemed to know exactly what sort of reaction he could drag from her with very little effort at all. “You tease everyone this much?” she asked.

“Only the ones worth teasing.”

“And I am?”

He tilted his head, considering her with deliberate seriousness. “You blush too quickly to be entirely honest. That makes you interesting.”

[name] stared at him.

Baelon, traitor that he was, gave a low whistle under his breath.

Before she could find a proper reply, a shift in the crowd drew her attention.

She knew the silver-gold hair before she properly saw the rest of him.

Rhaegar was making his way through the press of bodies with the same easy grace he always seemed to carry, though there was a quietness to him even here, as if the noise of Harrenhal only moved around him instead of touching him directly. He greeted one lord, then another, and when his eyes found [name] they softened at once.

“There you are,” he said, as though he had been looking for her.

Something in her chest eased, though she would have hated to admit it.

Rhaegar stopped beside her, his gaze passing briefly over Baelon, then Oberyn. “Baelon.”

“Rhaegar.”

The two exchanged a brief nod. Easy. Familiar.

Then Rhaegar looked at Oberyn. “Prince Oberyn.”

“Your Grace,” Oberyn replied, though the title sounded almost like mockery in his mouth. “I was just telling your cousin how fortunate she is to have such attentive brothers.”

Baelon snorted. “Liar.”

Oberyn’s eyes flicked toward him with clear amusement, but [name] noticed that Rhaegar had already moved closer to her side. Not enough for anyone to remark on it. Just enough that she felt it.

Rhaegar’s attention returned to her. “You have not yet had a chance to see the lists, have you?”

“Not properly.”

“Then walk with me.”

[name] hesitated only a moment before nodding, though she could feel Oberyn watching them both with that same unreadable smile of his. Rhaegar offered her his hand. She took it. As he led her away from Baelon and Oberyn, [name] could still hear her brother’s voice behind them, easy and amused as always.

“I told you she would blush,” Baelon was saying.

“And I told you,” Oberyn replied, “that it would take longer.”

[name] did not need to turn around to know both men were smiling. Nor did she need to look at Rhaegar to know he had heard every word.

Rhaegar's hand was warm against hers. He let go as soon as they had put enough distance between themselves and the Martell prince, though they continued side by side through the maze of pavilions without another word for a time. Neither of them seemed to mind the silence. They had long since grown accustomed to it.

The afternoon sun painted the camps in gold. Somewhere in the distance, a smith's hammer struck steel in steady rhythm. Knights rode past at an easy trot while pages hurried after them carrying polished helms beneath their arms. The air smelled of trampled grass, leather, and woodsmoke.

[name] glanced toward Rhaegar. He looked much the same as he always had. His silver-gold hair had grown a little longer since she had last seen him, falling loosely about his shoulders, and there were faint shadows beneath his eyes that had not been there before. Fatherhood, she supposed. Or perhaps kingship waiting impatiently upon his shoulders.

"You have been looking at me for some time now."

[name] blinked. "I have not..”

One corner of his mouth lifted. "You have."

She looked away with a quiet huff. "You notice too much."

"I have known you since you were born."

"I know."

His smile softened. "I should hope so."

They walked a little farther, passing beneath the shadow of a great oak whose branches stretched over part of the road. The noise of the tourney seemed to fade there, replaced by birdsong and the rustling of leaves.

"It has been far too long," [name] said at last. "Dragonstone has been dreadfully quiet without you."

"I could say the same of King's Landing."

"You have Elia."

"I do."

"And little Rhaenys."

At the mention of his daughter, something in Rhaegar's expression changed. It was subtle. The corners of his eyes softened, and whatever burdens had lingered there seemed to lift, if only for a heartbeat.

"She grows faster than I would like."

"So Lady Elia writes."

Rhaegar looked at her in mild surprise. "You still exchange letters?"

[name] smiled. "Every fortnight, when the ravens behave themselves."

"I had wondered why she always seemed to know what flowers had bloomed in your mother's gardens before I did."

"Because I tell her."

"And here I believed the gardens themselves had learned to write."

She laughed softly. "No. Though Mother's roses would likely have better penmanship than Baelon."

"I would not argue with that."

The path curved toward a small stream that wound lazily around the edge of the encampment. They slowed almost unconsciously.

"How is she?" [name] asked. "Truly."

She already knew the answers Elia had chosen to place upon parchment. Rhaenys has begun walking. The gardens are lovely this spring. Your embroidery is improving, I hope.

Letters were careful things. They carried only what their writers wished them to.

Rhaegar understood the question beneath her question. "She tires more easily than she admits."

[name]'s smile faded. "I feared as much."

"The journey north was... difficult." He stooped to retrieve a smooth stone from the edge of the stream before tossing it gently back into the water. Ripples spread across the surface. "But she insisted on coming."

"That sounds like Elia."

"It does." There was quiet admiration in his voice.

[name] had liked Elia from the moment they first met. Many expected a princess of Dorne to be fierce in the loudest sense of the word—to argue, to command, to burn as brightly as the Dornish sun.

Elia did none of those things.

She possessed instead a quieter sort of strength. The sort that endured.

[name] remembered long afternoons in Maegor's Holdfast spent beside the princess with embroidery forgotten in both their laps while Elia spoke of Sunspear, of the Water Gardens, of the sea beyond Dorne. She remembered laughter over spilled ink, shared cups of lemon tea, and the gentle patience with which Elia corrected her stitches whenever she became too confident.

She missed her.

"I brought something for Rhaenys," [name] said.

"You did?"

"A little dragon."

Rhaegar looked at her.

"A carved one," she clarified quickly, laughing. "Made from driftwood."

"I gathered that."

"It is not very impressive."

"I imagine she shall treasure it all the same."

"I hope so."

"She already treasures your letters."

[name] looked at him in surprise. "Mine?"

"Elia reads them aloud whenever one arrives."

A warmth settled quietly in her chest. "I did not know that."

"They have become part of Rhaenys's bedtime routine."

For a moment, the tourney disappeared.

The shouting, the banners, the endless crowds beyond the trees all seemed impossibly distant.

[name] found herself smiling at the image of little Rhaenys curled in her mother's lap while Elia read stories of Dragonstone's cliffs and seabirds, of gardens overlooking the Narrow Sea, of Baelon climbing places he oughtn't and Rhaevon pretending not to worry.

"I shall have to make my next letter more exciting."

"I advise against mentioning Baelon's latest exploits."

"I was going to tell her about the goats."

Rhaegar groaned softly. "Please, don’t." [name] assumed that he had already heard all of it from Rhaevon.

"They escaped."

"I know they escaped."

"They reached Mother's solar."

"I know."

"They ate the tapestry."

He pinched the bridge of his nose with theatrical despair. "I had only just managed to forget."

[name] laughed, bright enough that a pair of passing ladies turned to look. Rhaegar watched her for a moment before his own laughter joined hers. It struck [name], then, that she had missed this more than she had realized. Not the grandeur of court. Not the songs.

Simply this.

Walking beside him with no destination in mind, speaking of family as though the world beyond them could wait a little longer.

283 A.C.

War had a peculiar way of stealing time.

[name] could not remember when spring had ended. She remembered only ravens. One after another.

The first had carried word that Prince Rhaegar had ridden south from King's Landing. The second spoke of battles in the Riverlands. The third announced Lord Hoster Tully's banners.

Then came names. Ashford. Stoney Sept. The Bells.

Every raven seemed to carry another piece of the realm away.

She stopped asking the maester to read them aloud after a time. She had learned enough simply by watching her father's face.

Then came the Trident. The raven arrived at dusk. No one spoke while the seal was broken.

Her father read the letter once. Then again. When he finally lowered the parchment, he looked years older.

"Rhaegar is dead."

Nothing else mattered after that. Not at first. The words refused to make sense.

Dead.

The same man who had spent endless afternoons beneath her mother's tree, laughing whenever she struck the wrong string upon the harp. The same man who had carried her upon his shoulders through the ruins of Summerhall because she had insisted she was too tired to walk. The same man who had believed she could learn music despite every shrill, hopeless note she had ever played.

Dead.

She thought perhaps she would cry.

Instead, she felt... nothing. As though some part of her mind had quietly decided that such a thing was too impossible to understand.

The news only worsened.

King's Landing had fallen. There was a new king. King Aerys was dead.

Princess Elia…

[name] could not bear to hear the rest. She already knew. Somehow she already knew.

For days afterward she continued writing letters she would never send.

One addressed to Elia, asking after little Rhaenys and whether Prince Aegon had yet learned to smile. Another to Rhaegar, reminding him that he still owed her a song he had promised to finish before winter.

They remained folded inside the drawer beside her bed.

Unread. Unanswered.

Princess Elia's last letter remained tucked between the pages of her prayer book.

The ink had begun to fade where her thumb lingered most often. Rhaenys insists she is old enough to feed the kittens herself now. I fear the poor creatures shall never recover.

[name] had laughed when she'd first read those words. Now she could scarcely bear to look at them.

She had folded the letter away weeks ago. She had unfolded it again yesterday. The words had not changed. Neither had the ending.

"Give Rhaegar my love, should you see him before I do."

She never would.

Weeks passed. Perhaps months. The castle no longer felt like home. It felt like a place where people walked quietly because grief had settled into the stones themselves.

Then, one rain-soaked evening, Queen Rhaella arrived. She came not as a queen. She came as a mother. There were scarcely enough loyal men remaining to call it an escort. Young Prince Viserys clung stubbornly to her skirts, too frightened to understand why everyone whispered whenever they looked at him. The queen herself was pale beneath the hood of her travelling cloak, exhaustion written plainly across her face.

[name] remembered kneeling before her. She remembered Rhaella placing a trembling hand upon her cheek. "You have always been kind," the queen had whispered.

It was the last full sentence [name] ever heard her speak.

The child came before dawn. A little girl. Small. Silver-haired. With a cry that seemed almost angry to have entered such a broken world. Queen Rhaella never opened her eyes again.

[name] had held her exactly once that day. She remembered thinking— She has Rhaegar's eyes. Then she had wept so violently that the wet nurse had quietly taken the child from her arms.

After that life simply continued.

Though none of them understood how.

Viserys wandered the halls with solemn eyes far older than any child ought to possess. Baby Daenerys knew nothing of the mother she would never remember, sleeping peacefully while the adults around her struggled to remember how such innocence was possible.

[name] found herself spending long hours in the nursery.

Sometimes she read aloud. Sometimes she merely sat in silence while Daenerys slept against her shoulder. The babe's heartbeat reminded her that life, stubborn thing that it was, refused to end simply because the world had broken.

Even so, she had not touched her harp since the raven from the Trident.

The nursery always smelled of milk and warmed stone.

It was the only place in the castle that still felt untouched by war.

[name] found herself there more often than she admitted to anyone.

Viserys was sprawled on the rug that afternoon, half-absorbed in the wooden dragon Baelon had carved for him, though his attention kept drifting toward the cradle where his sister lay. Daenerys was not yet old enough to sit, or speak, or understand the shape of the world that had already begun to harden around her. She only slept, small fists curled against the blanket, silver lashes resting against her cheeks like something too delicate for the world she had been born into.

[name] sat cross-legged on the floor beside Viserys, watching him move the toy back and forth across the rug.

“Is he riding somewhere?” she asked softly.

Viserys nodded without looking up.

“Home,” he said. Kingslanding.

[name]’s chest tightened in a way she had learned not to acknowledge too closely. “Then he has a long journey ahead of him.”

The boy made a small, determined sound in agreement.

Daenerys stirred then, a faint sound breaking from her throat, and [name] reached instinctively to adjust the edge of her blanket before the nurse could intervene.

The motion was familiar now. Careful. Quiet.

Like handling something precious that might fracture under too much attention.

A knock came at the nursery door.

Once. Twice. Measured.

The nurse stiffened immediately, but [name] did not move at first. Only when the door opened did she straighten, slowly, as though her body had decided reluctance was still a form of control.

A servant stood there, eyes lowered. “My lady. Your presence is requested in the great hall.”

[name]’s gaze flicked back toward Viserys.

The boy had not looked up.

“Now?” she asked.

“Yes, my lady.” A pause. Then, quieter: “Lord Tywin Lannister has arrived.”

The name did not belong in this room. It did not belong anywhere near children, or warmth, or anything that still tried to pretend the world had not been broken.

[name] rose. The floor felt colder when she did.

“I will come,” she said at last.

Viserys finally looked up at her. “Are you coming back?” he asked.

[name] forced her expression into something gentle. “Yes, I am. Stay with her,” [name] said to Viserys.

“I always do.” It was meant to sound proud. It sounded too serious for a child his age.

[name] rose slowly. For a moment, she simply stood there, looking down at the two of them—the boy who had lost a brother he could not remember properly, and the girl who had never known any of it at all. Then she turned and left.

The corridors were colder than she remembered. Or perhaps she was colder.

There were more guards than usual at the doors to the great hall. She noticed that immediately. Too many for a simple meeting. Too disciplined for anything informal.

Her fingers tightened once around the fabric of her sleeve before she forced them still again.

When the doors opened, the sound inside shifted.

Conversation.

Silence.

Then attention.

Every face turned toward her.

Her father stood at the head of the hall, as composed as ever, as though nothing in the world had ever had the right to unsettle him. Rhaevon stood slightly behind him, expression carved into something unreadable. Baelon sat farther down the table, but even he was quiet in a way she had not seen before.

And at the center of it all—

Lord Tywin Lannister.

[name] had seen him once before, years ago, at court. He had not looked different then. He did not look different now. That was perhaps the worst part. Men changed after wars. Most of them broke, or softened, or revealed something human beneath the titles.

Tywin Lannister looked as though nothing had ever touched him at all.

Her eyes met his. She did not bow deeply. Only enough to be correct. “My lord.”

“Lady [name].” His voice was even. Polished. Unmoving. Like stone worn smooth by years of refusing to yield.

There was something in her chest that tightened at the sound of it.

A memory she did not want. Names she did not speak. Elia. Rhaenys. Little Aegon.

[name]’s fingers curled faintly at her side. She forced them open again.

Her father spoke before she did. “You have chosen a difficult time to visit Dragonstone, my lord.”

“I have chosen a necessary one,” Tywin replied.

No apology. No softness. Just certainty.

[name] watched him then, properly. Not as a lord. Not as a man of rank.

But as the shape of something that had remained standing after everything else had fallen.

Her throat felt tight. She said nothing.

Her father continued. “The realm is still unsettled.”

“It requires consolidation,” Tywin said. “Not hesitation. It is said,” he began once again, voice even, “that your household has remained untouched by the worst of the war.”

[name] said nothing. Baelon shifted slightly behind the table.

Her father answered instead. “We have not been untouched.”

“No,” Tywin agreed. “Few have.”

The words were precise. Deliberate. As if every syllable had been considered before it was spoken.

[name]’s fingers folded together in her lap. She kept her face still. Kept her voice absent. But something inside her resisted the ease with which he spoke of devastation, as though it were an item to be catalogued rather than something that had torn through lives she had known.

Her thoughts flickered—unbidden—to Elia. To a woman who had once written her letters in careful ink, asking after gardens and embroidery and children who were still alive at the time.

“King Robert requires stability,” Tywin continued.

Her father’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. [name] felt the shift before she understood it. A turning point. Something arriving that had already been decided elsewhere.

“He is to be wed,” Tywin said.

Silence followed. Even Baelon did not speak.

[name]’s gaze moved briefly to her father. He was watching Tywin now with a stillness she had come to recognize.

The kind that meant refusal had already been weighed. And found… costly.

“The realm cannot endure uncertainty,” Tywin added.

[name]’s fingers curled slightly. Uncertainty. As though grief were a political inconvenience. As though war had simply been a poorly managed season. Her voice, when it came, surprised even her by how controlled it was. “And what has that to do with us, my lord?”

Tywin’s eyes shifted to her again. Directly this time. “We require alliances that endure beyond the present moment.”

Her father spoke again, quieter. “He speaks of a match.”

The words landed differently when spoken plainly. [name] felt something in her chest go very still.

Tywin did not elaborate immediately. He did not need to.

[name] already understood enough from the shape of the room, from the weight of the silence, from the way Baelon’s gaze had lowered slightly toward the table.

Her father’s voice, when it came again, was almost careful. “The king has been advised to seek union with Valyrian blood.”

The world narrowed. Not dramatically. Not loudly. Just… subtly, as though the air itself had decided to tighten.

[name] did not speak. Did not move. But somewhere deep within her, something that had already been stretched too thin finally stopped pretending it was intact.

Tywin waited. Patient. Unmoved. As though he had done this many times before. As though every reaction he might receive had already been accounted for.

[name] looked at him for a long moment.

And said nothing at all.

li yaps: and there we go— get married, guys.

okay so before anyone comes to me saying ‘you mischaracterised Rhaegar’ i don’t think he ever hated elia. even if there was no love, i don’t think they ever hated each other. and reader’s affections for rhaegar was stemmed from the fact that he’s her safe place. they’re just so similar, in certain ways.

also fun fact: aerys wanted to marry reader to rhaegar but reader’s father shut it down because reader was so much younger than rhaegar (with him being born in 258 a.c. and reader being born in 267 a.c.)

oh this just made me smile so stupidly omg 😭

like the fact that you’re already doing little character studies on them? that is so dear to me because that’s exactly the kind of story saltwater saints is meant to be. it’s not just plot, it’s very much a “sit with these people, pick them apart, notice the small things they do when they think no one’s watching” kind of universe.

because y/n and ezra are, well, they’re deceptively simple on the surface, but the more you sit with them, the more they start to contradict themselves in really quiet, human ways. they come off a certain way at first glance (y/n with that quiet steadiness, ezra with all that chaos and noise), but the more you look at them, the more the lines blur. y/n isn’t as put-together as he pretends to be, and ezra isn’t nearly as careless as he wants people to believe. they kind of orbit each other in this way that’s messy and a little unhealthy but also inevitable, i think.

so knowing someone’s out here analyzing them, forming their own little interpretations, maybe even noticing things i haven’t consciously put into words yet? that’s actually my favorite part of sharing this story.

prologue: subtlety

male!oc x male!reader

previous chapter: prologue i

next chapter: chapter one (coming soon)

series masterlist.

last night i was sleep deprived enough for me to decide that i want to write dual pov for this book (bad decision, i know). so expect more chapters from ezra’s pov!

warnings: idiots in love.

Ashford was the kind of town where the biggest scandal of the week could be summarized as “someone’s cousin from out of town parked weird at the grocery store.” Dreams there were modest. Gossip was not. If two people stood too close in the hallway for longer than six seconds, someone’s aunt had already written a Facebook paragraph about it.

And at the center of this deeply thrilling ecosystem was Ezra Reese, Ashford High’s very own golden retriever in a varsity jacket.

Vice-captain of the basketball team. Reliable. Friendly. The kind of guy who said “good morning” to teachers before they said it to him. He stayed late after practice to stack chairs. He helped freshmen find classrooms like a friendly NPC in a tutorial level. The janitor once trusted him with the spare key to the gym because, quote, “you seem responsible, son.”

Ezra Reese had the reputation of a boy destined for extremely wholesome local legend status.

You know the type. Thirty years from now there’d probably be a framed photo of him somewhere in the school hallway. Maybe a plaque. Maybe a newspaper clipping titled LOCAL BOY DOES GOOD THING. Maybe a slightly embarrassing mural where his face looked 12% too heroic.

That was the boy Ashford saw.

What Ashford did not see was Ezra Reese internally combusting every time one very specific person walked past him.

Enter: Y/N Adler.

If Ashford was a quiet pond, Y/N was the rock someone threw into it just to see what would happen. Sharp where Ezra was soft. Quiet where Ezra treated silence like a personal enemy. Y/N carried notebooks everywhere instead of basketballs and spoke exclusively in sarcasm and mild disdain for school spirit. He walked down hallways like the entire building had personally offended him.

The first time Ezra heard him speak was during a pep rally. Y/N leaned toward Leon— his identical twin in face and complete opposite in personality— and muttered: “Is this a pep rally or a cult meeting with worse choreography?”

Ezra laughed. Loudly.

Which was unfortunate because the gym had gone quiet at that exact moment.

Y/N turned his head slowly and looked at Ezra like he’d just discovered a very enthusiastic labrador that had wandered into a philosophy lecture. And that— tragically, irreversibly— was the end of Ezra Reese’s peace.

Leon had introduced them properly later that week. “That’s my brother,” Leon said, the way someone might present a slightly feral cat that occasionally bites.

Ezra, being Ezra, stuck out his hand with a big friendly grin. “Hey, man.”

Y/N looked at the offered handshake like it might explode. Then he shook it anyway.

Ezra remembers three things about that moment. One: Y/N’s hand was warm. Two: Y/N smelled faintly like ink and coffee. Three: Something in Ezra’s brain quietly, catastrophically rerouted his entire personality.

At first he told himself it was curiosity.

Y/N was different. He didn’t clap when everyone else clapped. He didn’t laugh when everyone else laughed. He didn’t look at Ezra like he was impressive.

And for a boy who’d grown up being liked by default, that was devastatingly fascinating.

Y/N looked at him like he was just… a guy.

Ezra discovered, to his horror, that he wanted to change that very badly. So he did what any mature, emotionally balanced seventeen-year-old would do.

He hovered.

Not obviously. No, no. Ezra Reese was a professional.

He simply appeared near Y/N at extremely convenient times.

Walking past in the hallway? Casual hand on Y/N’s shoulder. Totally normal. Lunch table conversation? Leaning over to ask what he was writing. The answer was always some variation of: “None of your business.” Ezra would grin like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Crowded gym after practice? Ezra guiding Y/N through the crowd with a hand at his lower back like it was purely practical and definitely not something he’d been thinking about doing for three weeks.

He also developed a highly specialized emotional weapon known as The Puppy Dog Eyes™. This maneuver was deployed whenever Y/N looked like he might walk away.

Which happened frequently.

Ezra was not subtle.

His friends knew this.

The basketball team definitely knew this.

The cafeteria lady knew this.

There was a sophomore who once whispered, “I think Reese is in love with Adler’s weird twin.”

The only person who somehow did not know was Leon.

Which was frankly impressive.

Meanwhile, Y/N had the deeply unfair habit of existing in ways that made Ezra Reese forget basic motor functions. Sometimes Y/N sat in the bleachers during practice with his hood up, pretending he wasn’t watching. Ezra would notice immediately.

Suddenly every shot mattered. Every dunk felt like a performance. Every joke he made got about 40% louder. It was humiliating. He was humiliating.

And the worst part? Y/N would roll his eyes and call him “ridiculous.”

But he never moved away when Ezra’s knee bumped his on the bleachers. Never shrugged off the arm Ezra slung around his shoulders. Never told him to stop sitting too close.

Which meant Ezra Reese lived in a constant emotional state best described as: hopeful panic.

It became routine. Ezra orbiting Y/N like a very tall, very athletic satellite.

The vice-captain of the basketball team— protector of freshmen, stacker of chairs, beloved Ashford golden boy— reduced to following one sarcastic boy around the school like a loyal dog who had chosen his favorite human.

And honestly?

He didn’t even mind.

Ashford was small. Predictable. The kind of place where everyone already knew what your future was supposed to look like.

Scholarships. Basketball. Staying close to home. Being the kind of person people nodded approvingly about at the grocery store.

People thought Ezra Reese was loyal to the town. To the team. To the life mapped out neatly ahead of him.

They were wrong. Because the truth was very simple.

If Y/N Adler stood up one day, grabbed his notebooks, and said he was leaving Ashford forever…

Ezra Reese would be right behind him. No hesitation. No questions.

If that meant trading the jersey for a cramped apartment somewhere loud and confusing. Even if that meant sitting through terrible student films where nobody understood the plot. Even if that meant pretending to understand metaphors about existential dread and capitalism—

Fine. Whatever.

A dog, after all, goes where he’s called.

Even if the call sounds like a bored voice from the back row of the bleachers saying: “You’re staring again, Reese.”

And Ezra— grinning, shameless, completely gone— just shrugs. “Can you blame me?”

end notes? ezra is kind of my favorite character. he’s like my son, icl. and writing his pov came kind of easily, that’s why it’s longer than Y/N’s prologue.

male!jock!oc x crush!male!reader

index!

— prologue i

— prologue ii

— chapter one (coming soon)

Ashford is the kind of coastal town where nothing ever changes. The same people run the same shops, the same gossip circulates every week, and the same salty air seems determined to keep everyone exactly where they started.

Y/N Adler hates it.

Armed with a notebook, a deeply judgmental inner monologue, and an escape plan that involves film school and never looking back, Y/N spends his senior year quietly documenting Ashford like it’s a nature documentary about small-town stagnation.

Unfortunately for him, Ashford has deployed its most effective weapon.

Ezra Reese.

Vice-captain of the basketball team, beloved local golden boy, and human golden retriever with absolutely no sense of personal space, Ezra has recently developed the inconvenient habit of orbiting Y/N like a very tall, very affectionate satellite. He asks questions about Y/N’s writing. He laughs at Y/N’s sarcasm. He keeps putting his arm around Y/N’s shoulders in hallways like that’s a normal thing people do.

Even worse? Y/N… doesn’t entirely hate it.

Now Y/N has a problem. Because escaping Ashford is easy when you hate everything in it.

It’s much harder when the town’s most persistent basketball player has apparently decided he’s coming with you.

prologue: this cursed town.

jock!male!oc x male!reader

next chapter: prologue ii

series masterlist

will i ever finish a project before starting another on an impulse? probably not. this one’s been rotting in the corner of my mind for months now (I even made a pinterest board for this universe), so i decided to write it down.

imagine small town vibes, your brother’s best friend, the golden boy of the town (who is the vice captain of the school’s basketball team), being so down bad for you (final boss of avoiding people, and a future film student wants to leave town) and ruining all your future plans (unknowingly), following you around like an incessant, kicked puppy? yeah, that’s basically this story.

warnings: fixed last name for reader. but nothing else yet! this will be a bit more sweet and fluffier compared to my other works.

Ashford was a cursed town, that much was certain. Everyone who took their first breath in the damned place took their last breath inhaling the same salty air, as if the ocean itself had a retention policy. The population hadn’t changed in something years—no one could ever agree how many, because Ashford High stopped teaching statistics after three different teachers quit mid-semester and drove straight out of town, never to be seen again. Babies were born, people died, and somehow the math still refused to budge. Ashford didn’t grow. It simply… persisted. Like mold. Or a bad rumour. Or that one substitute teacher who smelled like cigarettes and despair.

Y/N Adler had clocked this early, the way some kids learned multiplication or God. He learned stagnation. He learned it in the peeling paint of the movie theater that only played remastered classics and never anything new. He learned it in the way teachers spoke about opportunities elsewhere with a tone that suggested they’d missed theirs. Ashford was a place that raised you gently and then sat on your chest until you stopped trying to breathe.

Y/N refused to stop.

He occupied the back row of every classroom like a permanent shadow, hood up, legs stretched too far into the aisle, notebook open to pages that were never what the syllabus required. His notes were scripts, half-scenes, scraps of dialogue stolen from overheard conversations.

Observations sharpened into weapons. He didn’t want to be seen here. He wanted to be watching, recording, someday reframing Ashford as a cautionary tale with better lighting and a bitterly accurate soundtrack. Film school. Writing. Anything that involved leaving this place and never looking back except to mine it for material.

Then there was Leon.

Leon Adler, identical twin in bone structure only, captain of the basketball team, beloved local hero, proof that Ashford did, in fact, reward compliance. Leon thrived here. He wore Ashford like it was tailored for him— broad shoulders, easy grin, future already outlined in pep rallies and alumni newsletters. Y/N loved his brother in the resigned way one loves gravity. Leon was unavoidable. Leon was everything Y/N wasn’t, and that was fine. Y/N had made peace with that.

What he hadn’t made peace with was Ezra Reese.

Ezra Reese, vice-captain of the basketball team, golden retriever incarnate, human embodiment of you good, man?—and, cruelly, Y/N’s brother Leon’s best friend. Ezra was everything Y/N was not: tall in a way that felt intentional, like he’d decided to grow into someone impossible to ignore. He laughed with his whole body. He listened like it mattered. Ezra had hazel eyes that lingered, soft and curious, and smiling like life had personally promised him a sequel. He had a habit —an infuriating habit— of slinging an arm around Y/N’s shoulders in the hallways, of leaning down to murmur dumb jokes during lunch, of looking at Y/N like he’d just said something clever even when he absolutely hadn’t.

Ezra had always been friendly. That was the worst part. Friendly could be dismissed. Friendly could be rationalized. Except lately, Ezra’s friendliness had developed… texture. Hands that stayed a second too long. A casual arm slung over Y/N’s shoulders in the hallway, like it belonged there. A lean-in during lunch, voice low, asking what Y/N was writing, like the answer wasn’t none of your business, please stop existing so loudly.

The first time Y/N caught the look—warm, open, almost hopeful—he nearly tripped over his own feet and had to pretend it was intentional. The second time, Ezra guided him through a crowded gym with a hand at his lower back, easy and protective, and Y/N spent the rest of the day acutely aware of his own pulse. It was horrifying. It was inconvenient. It was deeply unfair. Because Y/N was not built for distractions.

He was built for leaving.

Yet there Ezra was, showing up everywhere like a narrative device Y/N hadn’t approved. Sitting too close on the bleachers. Smiling like Y/N was funny when he was being objectively unpleasant. Looking at him like Ashford wasn’t a dead end, like Y/N was already something worth staying for.

Leon noticed nothing. Leon noticed rebounds, free throws, and whether the team bus smelled weird. Y/N watched his brother laugh with Ezra, watched Ezra’s eyes drift back to him every time, and felt the town tighten its grip. Final year. Final chance. And Ashford, petty and ancient and cruel, had chosen its weapon well.

Y/N hated that it worked.

Hated that the town felt less unbearable with Ezra around. Hated that the idea of leaving now came with an asterisk. Hated that for the first time in his life, Ashford wasn’t just a place he wanted to escape—but something that might, if he wasn’t careful, convince him to stay.

OC, G.M. (yandere male x gn reader)

— index,

prologue.

chapter one.

“There is no name for what I feel for you. Not love. Not worship. Not even madness. Those are too small.

They will say I followed you. They will say I watched you sleep. That I waited in the rain. That I knew the pattern of your steps before I ever knew the sound of your voice.

They will call it obsession. They will call it a crime. They will not understand.

Because they didn’t see you like I did. They didn’t see the light break on your skin like an annunciation. They didn’t hear the angels hush when you laughed. They didn’t know what it meant when I found you by the well that day, head tilted like the lamb in Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac—

waiting, unknowing, chosen.

You didn’t know me then. But you looked at me. And I was undone.

I was a man with no name, no god, no home. A former seminarian, half-wrought by guilt and ash. But you—

you were scripture. You were psalm. You were the soft-boned altar I was made to kneel at.

And when I took you, it wasn’t a sin. It was a covenant. A sacred act.

You were always mine. Before Genesis. Before guilt. Before God ever said, Let there be light.”

— signed,

chapter one: in the den of the lion.

yandere male oc x gn reader.

i didn’t want to write this. but i just couldn’t get this man out of my mind (he’s like a parasite). also finally came up with a name for him, so yay.

warnings: stalking, mentions of murder, implication of murder, breaking in, trespassing, abduction.

previous chapter - prologue.

series masterlist - the book of you.

ENTRY I — [Day 0: Creation]

I saw you again today.

You were wearing that soft grey sweater, the one that clings to your shoulders like ash before the wind takes it. It makes you look like the aftermath of something holy—like a temple after fire, still smoldering, still sacred. The way it slouched over your collarbone, that unblessed dip where the skin thins—God. It was obscene. I wanted to put my mouth there. To baptize you in the dark salt of my hunger. To taste where your pulse stutters like a guilty prayer. I imagined the weight of my teeth in that trembling hollow, like the serpent poised beneath the fig tree, awaiting the permission to fall.

You dropped your pen in class. A trivial thing. A twig fallen from the tree. And still—when he picked it up, when he touched it—I nearly broke his wrist. I heard it in my head: the dull snap, the cartilage giving way, the hiss of pain. That’s how fast the rage came. That’s how clear it was. He touched something that should’ve been mine.

And you… smiled at him.

Do you even know what you do when you smile? Do you know what you unmake? I almost wept. Not because he smiled back, but because for that one unbearable moment, your gaze—divine and stupid and blessed—was not for me.

your smile—was meant for me. I am the altar. I am the supplicant. And you— you looked at another.

I wonder if this is how Lucifer felt. Watching the face of God turn toward someone else.

ENTRY II — [Day 17: Baptism]

I followed you again.

You never lock your window. Do you know what that does to me? Is it innocence or invitation? Or some divine cruelty of yours, as if you know I watch and cannot help but keep watching?

I stood in your room tonight while the moon touched your skin, and you looked—divine. Not human. Not of this age. Like a fresco forgotten in the dust of Rome, or the last breath of a martyr.

Saint Sebastian, pierced and glorious, sanctified in pain.

You slept soundly, like lambs before the slaughter. I counted your breaths. Thirteen per minute. I memorized the rhythm, the rise and fall, the miracle of your lungs.

I left a pressed violet under your pillow. From the orchard. Where we first met. I want to see if you wake up changed—if something inside you stirs with an ache you don’t yet name.

I want to haunt you softly. I want to be your first ghost.

ENTRY III — [Day 31: Exodus]

You were crying in the chapel.

I found you by the altar, your back to me, your body trembling with each hiccup like a harp strung too tightly. I thought the stained glass would shatter from the sound of your sadness. I thought the candles would weep wax.

And I—I—felt the wrath of a thousand angels descend into my chest.

Who hurt you?

Give me their name. I will carve it into the Book of Death. I will salt the soil where they walk. I will turn their bones into relics. The wrath of the Lord came upon the Amalekites. And I shall be His rod.

You shouldn’t cry alone. You should cry into me.

I would drink your grief like wine. I would let it run over my tongue, bitter and red. I would taste every ache and call it communion.

You don’t need God. You need something with teeth.

You don’t need God. You need me.

ENTRY IV — [Day 43: Revelation]

You laughed today. On the phone. With someone I don’t know.

It was the kind of laugh that makes the sun rise. The kind that made the muses weep when Orpheus stopped singing. But it wasn’t for me.

You’ve never laughed like that with me.

Not yet.

You don’t know me. But I know you.

I know the chip on your favorite mug. I know the softness of your socks, mismatched and holy. I know the perfume of your shampoo, that clings to your pillow long after you leave. I know the sound of your sigh when you think no one hears.

If I were blind, I could still carve you from the dark. If I were dead, I would still know how your name fits in the mouth like an amen.

I could cut your silhouette from memory. Blindfolded. Bleeding. And it would still be perfect.

And yet you smile at strangers.

And I stay a stranger

ENTRY V — [Day 66: The Taking]

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.”

— Hosea 2:14

You don’t know my name. Not really. Not yet.

You’ve seen me once, maybe twice. A flicker in the corner of your eye as the train pulled away. A silhouette across the street, framed by glass. I’ve passed you like shadow passes over water—nothing to remember, nothing to fear.

But I have always remembered you.

You are the wound I was born with. The voice that spoke before God did. You were the first sound I ever heard, before my mother screamed.

You moved through the world like grace wrapped in skin. Not kind—no, not kind—but gentle. That cruel kind of gentleness, the sort that makes men fall to their knees with their mouths full of your name. You are the psalm carved into the back of my teeth. You are the reason I cannot sleep.

And tonight, I take you.

It has been raining for hours.

The sky is full of mourning, slick and bruised, like it knows what I’m about to do. Water falls in sheets, holy and relentless, like God is trying to drown the world before it sins again. Like He’s trying to wash me clean—but He’s too late.

I’m already damned. And I wear my damnation like a crown.

You’re walking alone, your hood up, your bag slung low. You never notice me. You never have. And yet… I know the weight of your steps. I know the way your fingers fidget when you’re nervous. I know you wear your left earbud more than the right.

You’re humming something. A hymn? A pop song? It doesn’t matter. I make it sacred just by hearing it.

I step out from where I’ve been waiting—still as scripture, quiet as guilt. My boots hit the pavement like thunder.

You stop. You freeze. You see me.

And for a moment, the world slows.

I drink in your face like prophecy fulfilled. You look at me like Eve looked at the serpent—curious, cautious, already falling.

Your mouth parts.

“…Do I know you?”

Your voice is a tremor. A bell in fog. It’s the first time you’ve ever spoken to me.

I want to fall to my knees. I want to press my mouth to the sidewalk where your shoes have touched. I want to rend my garments and scream Hallelujah.

But instead, I say your name.

Softly. Reverently. Like I’ve never said anything true before.

And you flinch.

You whisper, “Who are you?” And I want to laugh.

I want to say: I am the one who wrestled angels in his sleep. I am the one who waited six hundred and sixty-six days for you to breathe my name. I am the fire in the bush. The wolf in the fold. The thorn in Paul’s side.

But instead, I say: “Someone who loves you.”

And then I move.

You don’t scream—at first. You stumble back, soaked to the knees, your bag dropping from your shoulder. Your fingers fumble for something—your phone? A key? A prayer? But I catch your wrists before you can summon any god but me.

Your sweater is soft. Grey. The same one you wore on the day I first saw you in the library—backlit by sun, spine curved over some paperback like a supplicant. I wrap your arms with it, twist the sleeves around your wrists like cords of flax.

You say, “Please don’t hurt me.”

And I answer, “Hurt you? No. This is how I save you.”

You cry out as I pull you toward the alley, toward the waiting dark. Your body twists in mine like a trapped thing. You’re trembling, wild-eyed, gasping for some loophole in reality.

I press my forehead to yours. Your breath is sweet with fear. Your lashes are soaked. And still—you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

“This is the wilderness,” I whisper. “This is where He takes His beloved. To speak softly. To make her listen.”

You shake your head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I smile. Not cruelly. Not yet.

But with that terrible peace that comes when one’s purpose is finally complete.

“You don’t have to understand yet,” I murmur. “Even Mary wept when the angel came.”

I carry you.

You’re smaller than I imagined. All those months, I thought of you as colossal—gargantuan, divine. But in my arms, you’re flesh. Shivering. Breakable. Human. Mine.

I take you to the place I prepared—the basement room, warm and dry, with the bed made, the altar set. The walls are lined with things that remind me of you: dried flowers, Polaroids, bits of fabric, a bottle of lotion you once left behind at the gym. A page from a book you dropped in the library once. Your name, carved into wood a thousand times like a litany.

I set you down. Untie your wrists.

You don’t run. You stare.

“Why?” you ask, finally. “Why me?”

And that’s when I really look at you. Soaked. Muddied. Shaking with fear.

And I realize: You still don’t know.

You don’t know.

So I kneel. Slowly. Reverently.

“I loved you before there were clocks,” I whisper. “Before language. Before Adam. You were always the one.”

Your eyes fill. “You’re sick.”

I laugh then. I can’t help it.

“I’m lovesick. Isn’t that the same thing? Song of Solomon says: ‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.’ That’s us. That’s always been us.”

You say nothing.

So I keep going.

“Eurydice walked into the underworld to find Orpheus. But I—I brought you down myself. I stole you from the light.”

Your mouth opens.

I lean close. “Don’t worry. I won’t look back.”

— yours truly,

G.M

i wanna kill him and kiss him at the same time.

yandere male oc x gn reader

— prologue: genesis.

i should stick to writing one book at a time. but alas, it’s currently two am for me and i cannot bring myself to sleep. a concept ran through my head all night and i simply couldn’t close my eyes till i wrote it down.

this one’s just a spontaneous action. there’s no thought put behind it. i wrote it in a day and a half, half dazed and sleep deprived. a bit more on the darker side, i wanted to try something new.

maybe if people like this one, i’ll write another part and post it later on.

warnings: extreme yandere. delusional men. mentions of murder. yeah, there’s a murder. stalking. invasion of privacy. just the usual yandere stuff.

next chapter - chapter one.

series masterlist - the book of you.

I remember the first time I saw you. The world was unformed. Muddied, directionless. A watery chaos. And then—you.

You were standing by the abandoned well at the edge of the orchard, sun leaking through the branches like blood through linen. That place had always felt… older than the town. Older than time, maybe. Like a place even angels feared to tread.

And you were there. Alone.

God began his Genesis with “Let there be light,”— but I began mine with you.

I don’t think you noticed me at first. You were too busy with whatever mortal errand had brought you to that ruin. But I saw you. In full.

The curve of your shoulder as you tilted your head, listening to something only you could hear. The faint tremble of your fingers, how your lashes blinked like shutters trying to keep something holy inside.

You were a thing carved from psalms and prophecy.

You were a hymn I had never known I had waited my whole life to hear.

You were not born. You were revealed.

The world rearranged itself around that moment.

My ribs made room. My lungs learned your name in secret.

Do you know what you’ve done?

You, with your laugh that drips like honey over broken glass. You, with your gentleness that turns even cruelty into worship. You reached into my chest, barefoot and blameless, and wrapped your little fingers around my heart like it was a trinket. Something you could pocket. Something you didn’t even know you took.

And I let you.

Of course I did. Samson let Delilah cut his hair too, didn’t he? Even when he knew. Even when the scissors were glinting like teeth.

You walked through my mind like a temple.

Touched things you shouldn’t have—softly, so softly. I tried to close the doors. Lock them. Nail them shut. But your name was the plague, and I let it in.

Now it lives in me.

I think of you when I sleep. When I eat. When I breathe.

I followed you home that day. Quietly. Reverently. The saints have done worse for less.

And since then, I have watched.

Not in a way that you should fear. No—no, I am gentle. I am soft where the world has been cruel to you. I see the way you walk through life with that slight flinch, like you expect to be struck. I would never.

I would build you temples from my bones.

You left your window open once. Just once. I only wanted to see the inside. The objects you touched. The air you breathed. You have such small hands, did you know? I imagined what they’d look like pressed against mine. Or against my throat. I wouldn’t mind if you hurt me. In fact, I’d thank you for the pain.

You sleep curled up like something trying to stay warm in a godless world. You drooled a little on your pillow. I wanted to press my lips to that stain and drink whatever dreams had fallen from you.

Is that too much?

No—no. Don’t worry. I know what love is. Love is Abraham raising the knife to Isaac. Love is Persephone crying seeds down her chin. Love is Orpheus turning his head. Love is cruelty—when it must be.

And I would rend the sky open if it meant I could keep you.

They say love is patient. But I have waited centuries, in other lives, in other bodies. I have waited in plague and ash and ruin. You are the thing I was promised when the angels cast me down.

You dropped a hair tie once, by the bus stop. I still have it. I keep it in a little shrine in my closet. Don’t laugh—it’s sacred. Your hair was in it. You don’t know what that means. It’s like holding lightning in a fist and calling it your own.

I have seen the men you smile at. The ones you touch in passing. They don’t deserve it. They don’t see you the way I do. They don’t know how to love you like a curse, like a fever, like a second coming. They love you with mortal hands.

I love you like a god.

I wrote your name into my skin with a sewing needle and pen ink. It’s under my ribs, so it throbs when I breathe. So that I can feel you, always. Even when you’re not near. Especially when you’re not near.

You smiled at me once. At the library. Maybe you don’t remember it, maybe it was a nothing gesture to you. But to me? It was revelation.

My hands shook for hours. I couldn’t speak. I wept in the stairwell, quietly, like a man struck by divinity.

You should be more careful with your holiness. Someone like me might do anything for another hit.

I started sleeping under your window. Just to be close. Just to make sure no one else tried to hurt you. You have no idea what I’ve done to keep you safe.

I killed a man once.

He was following you too. Not like me. No, not like me. He wanted something else. I saw it in his eyes. So I followed him. And then I ended him. It wasn’t hard. The hard part was not whispering your name while I did it.

I buried him by the old well where I first saw you.

It felt… poetic.

Now no one follows you. No one touches you unless I let them.

And now i do not touch anyone either. I do not sleep with anyone. I have not since I saw you. I am married to you, in the temple of my mind. My vows were taken silently, but they bind tighter than chains.

Do you know what it means to be chosen, little lamb?

Have you read the stories of the gods and their beloveds? Zeus turned into golden light for Danaë. Apollo chased Daphne until she bled into a tree. Hades took Persephone and made her a queen in his underworld.

(Do not mistake the darkness for cruelty—it was love. Only love could be that desperate, that mad.)

Would you rather I be kind? Would you rather I leave you be?

Would you?

No, you wouldn’t. You don’t say it, but I know.

You’re scared. That’s alright.

Fear is the first fruit of knowing.

Eve was afraid when the knowledge slid down her throat like fire. Lot’s wife turned around and turned to salt. Even angels, when they appear in scripture, must begin with do not be afraid—because holiness looks like terror when you first meet it.

And I am holy.

I am holy in the way that archangels are holy. Stern and terrible. Brilliant with the rage of love. Wings sharp with flame and longing.

You have never known a love like mine. It does not tremble. It does not falter. It is not afraid of fire, or blood, or the truth.

I would bury the world for you. Flood it again like Yahweh did in the days of Noah. Let the innocent drown with the guilty. Let it all go quiet.

So long as I can keep you.

So long as I can hold your trembling body and whisper that you’re safe now, safe with me, and no one will hurt you again.

(Not even me. Especially not me. Even when you scream. Even when you run. I will wrap you in silk and patience and the blood of your would-be lovers.)

You were not made for this world. You were made for me. I will unmake the world, piece by piece, if it forgets that.

Do you understand?

Do you finally understand?

And soon, I won’t have to watch from afar anymore. Soon, you’ll understand. Soon, you’ll come to see that all along, I’ve been the ark. The vessel that held you above the flood. The only safe place left in the end of the world.

And when you scream, I will still call it a song. And when you cry, I will kiss the salt like it is sacrament. And when you beg me to stop, I will hold you tighter.

Because I love you. And love—true love—is not gentle. It is not sane. It is not kind.

It is holy.

And I would rather crucify the world than live in it without you. So sleep well, my beloved.

I’ll see you soon.

Amen.

— G.M

so um yeah, it was an experience writing this. I’ll make a masterlist soon (if i decide to continue this). i dunno whether people will like this, it’s pretty generic. i just wanted to like branch out and test some new writing styles and new scenarios and this was an opportunity for me to do so.

the characters are still under development. yes, your future boyfriend does have a name, not saying anything about it right now. it’s a boring name that i jotted down in my notes app while i was in class one day.

yandere male oc x male reader

mob boss x guard dog reader

— chapter four.

me, last sunday: I’ll post something next thursday.

anyways, i forgot these two existed. been writing another story, juicy angsty wlw. we’ll see how it goes. also the quality isn’t as good as the previous chapter, apologies in advance. i was in the ‘quantity over quality’ mindset while writing this. then again, even the quantity is missing. this one’s short af. i didn’t know what else to write.

warning: illarion is a disaster. no doomed old men yaoi. illarion. y/n being a whore. brothels. sex work. mentions of violence (yay, I’ll write actual violence next chapter)

previous chapter - chapter three.

series master list - my mad dog (all mine).

The penthouse was a kingdom adrift in the clouds.

A citadel of bone and black glass, sitting above the filth of the world, detached and dreaming. It rose like a blade above the skyline, cruel and perfect, a place meant not for the living but for myths. There were no birds here, no traffic hum—only the sigh of wind across the windows and the low groan of steel breathing in its bones. Inside, silence reigned like an old god. Not empty, but devout. Every surface gleamed too sharply. Every mirror seemed to reflect something not quite there.

Y/N sat at the long, brutalist dining table like a forgotten sentinel. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to the elbows, his collar open. There was a cut healing on his lip. A faint, wine-dark bruise bloomed beneath one eye. Smoke haloed around his wrist, unfurling from the cigarette he nursed like a rosary. He did not move. Not when the elevator gave its soft, metallic chime. Not when the doors split open with a sigh, ushering her in like a breath of fate.

She entered as though descending from myth.

Alexandra Volkov.

A name that carried old velvet and cold iron. The daughter of a dynasty stitched together by power and diplomacy, where secrets were currency and smiles were arsenic-laced. She was dressed like a bride in mourning: soft dove-grey silk that whispered over her knees, silver heels that did not dare to click too loudly on the marble. Her hair was pulled back in a crown of braids, pinned with diamonds so small they caught light only when they wanted to.

She stood for a moment on the threshold of that vast, cold room, her hands neatly clasped in front of her.

“Is he here?” she asked, her voice elegant but unsure.

The silence lingered like a beast.

Y/N flicked his gaze toward her. Slowly. Lazily. Like a lion in the heat, disturbed from dreaming. He didn’t rise. Didn’t nod. Only breathed out a thread of smoke that curled through the gold-burnished air like incense rising from the altar of some forgotten god.

“No,” he said. Nothing more.

The sunlight spilling through the windows painted her like marble. Behind her, the city glinted—sharp towers and glass spires, a place built for ruin. She stepped forward, her fingers adjusting the strap of her purse. The scent of her perfume arrived before she did: something floral, expensive, faintly funereal.

“I tried calling,” she said, glancing toward the hallway. “He hasn’t been answering.”

Y/N leaned back in his chair, arms resting on either side like a throne. He tapped ash into a tray carved from obsidian, left to burn slowly. “He rarely does.”

She hesitated. “I need to take him to his tailor. We have a fitting scheduled. For the wedding.”

The word sat in the air like a dropped blade.

Wedding.

It did not echo. It did not pierce. It simply… landed. Soft, unthreatening. And yet Y/N did not flinch. His expression did not shift. Not a ripple crossed the still, ruinous waters of him.

He only looked back toward the skyline, and exhaled. “Mm,” he murmured. “Best be quick. He hates those.”

The truth of it hit her in small, careful pieces. She looked around the room, suddenly realizing how little of it belonged to her fiancé. There was a coat rack with only two coats. A book of ancient poetry lay dog-eared and face-down, next to a bottle of bourbon and a dagger still stained at the hilt. A chessboard halfway through some impossible war. This wasn’t a bachelor’s home.

It was a shared life.

And yet it had no photographs. No past. Only the quiet, clawing ache of a love so vast and private it had devoured its own evidence.

“You live here?” she asked him, her tone more tentative now.

Y/N blinked once. “He likes company,” he said, vaguely.

It was not an answer. Or rather, it was the only one he would give. His eyes—when they slid to her—held nothing of challenge, nothing of cruelty. Only exhaustion. A weariness that settled in the bones of men who had watched empires rise and crumble. Who had loved their kings, and lost them, again and again.

She moved toward the table, careful not to touch anything.

“I didn’t think you’d be so…” She searched for the word. It hovered in the space between them like a moth drawn to the flame of some forbidden knowledge. “Young,” she settled on.

Y/N smiled. Briefly. Not with mirth, but with something darker. “Time doesn’t touch everyone the same way.”

She tilted her head. “Do you mind if I wait?”

He gestured to the couch. She sat. Crossed her legs. A diamond anklet caught the sun and threw a shimmer across the floor.

He lit another cigarette. The match flared like lightning in a storm.

She studied him, as women often did with men who would not speak their affections plainly. She tried to trace the outlines of what had passed between them—Y/N and Illarion—the way one might follow a constellation across myth. Something old and unresolved. Something that hummed like prophecy.

“You love him?” she asked.

The silence that followed was ancient.

“No,” Y/N said, eventually. But his voice betrayed him. It cracked at the edges. Like marble under frost.

She gave him a look—not of pity, but recognition. “Then why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like a man watching his kingdom being handed to someone else.”

He didn’t reply. His eyes, grey and storm-slick, studied her now with new weight.

“And you,” he murmured. “You’ve come to rule it.”

Alexandra gave the smallest nod. “It was arranged. I don’t pretend otherwise.”

“That makes it worse.”

“Does it?” she asked. “Or does it make it easier to mourn?”

Y/N said nothing for a few moments. “He likes navy,” he said. “Dark grey, sometimes. Don’t dress him in black. It makes him look like his father.”

She only nodded.

She sat in the sanctum of a man she did not yet know, in the ashes of a myth still burning. The light outside dimmed. A siren cried in the distance. Somewhere, far below, the city moved on with its thousand small tragedies.

Above it all, in the cold breath of Olympus, Deidamia sat where Patroclus had refused to kneel.

And for the first time, Alexandra Volkov understood:

She was marrying a man already in mourning.

And the corpse had never been buried.

Only crowned.

The elevator chimed again.

This time, it wasn’t Eurydice emerging from Hades—but Hades himself, dressed in a tailored coat the color of mourning doves, smile already lit like a torch he didn’t know he was about to drop.

Illarion Lucero walked in with the careless grace of a crowned serpent. His cufflinks gleamed like teeth. A sun bruise lingered on the side of his neck. His watch ticked like a blade being sharpened. The air around him changed—stiffened, then curved, like it had learned long ago to brace itself when he entered a room.

“Alexandra,” he said, all silk and shine, striding toward Alexandra with arms half-opened.

She rose—gently, like a tide—and smiled. It was perfect, practiced. The smile that was in every family portrait, every press release.

“Illarion.”

He kissed her cheek, briefly, then turned to Y/N, who still sat at the table with his cigarette burning like an hourglass turned sideways.

“I see the two of you have met,” Illarion said, attempting levity.

Y/N didn’t respond. Not a nod, not a glance. He inhaled slowly, letting the smoke fill his lungs the way others filled confessionals—heavily, too late.

Illarion pressed on, his voice brighter than it needed to be. “Alexandra, this is Y/N. My… oldest friend.”

At that, Y/N looked up.

The words fell into the room like wet ash.

Friend.

There was a pause, and then Y/N said—softly, but with the clarity of a scalpel—

“I need to pick up the new pliers. The ones with the rounded grip. His teeth won’t come out otherwise.”

Illarion’s smile froze.

Alexandra blinked. “I—I’m sorry?”

Y/N tilted his head as if he hadn’t heard her. Or maybe as if she were a wind chime in the next room, decorative and faint. His tone didn’t change—low, hoarse, almost gentle, like reading a grocery list.

“He begged last time. All that sniveling. I want it quiet tonight. I want him to think he has time.”

Silence rippled like silk torn in half.

Illarion’s jaw tensed, ever so slightly. “Y/N.”

But Y/N was already rising, stretching like a wolf uncurling from its winter. He stubbed out the cigarette, grabbed his coat from the chair. The cigarette tray had tiny flecks of dried blood along its rim.

Alexandra didn’t speak. Her lips parted slightly, not in fear—but in recognition. She’d seen men like him in war zones, not in ballrooms. Ghosts who’d never fully died.

“Illarion,” Y/N said with mock politeness, brushing past them both.

Alexandra flinched as his shoulder brushed hers. Not from contact, but cold. He was cold—utterly, unnaturally cold.

At the door, Y/N paused.

“Have fun at the fittings,” he murmured without looking back. “She’ll want velvet, I imagine. Or silk. Something that doesn’t cling to bloodstains.”

Then he left.

The door shut behind him with the finality of a guillotine.

For a moment, neither of them moved. The penthouse was too still, as if the walls themselves were unwilling to breathe until his shadow fully disappeared.

“I—” Alexandra started, then faltered. She placed a hand on her necklace, steadying herself. “He’s…”

“Difficult,” Illarion supplied. “He’s… complicated.”

“He doesn’t like me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone.”

“But he loves you,” she said, simply.

Illarion turned then, sharply. “That’s not—”

But he didn’t finish.

Because Alexandra wasn’t looking at him. She was watching the place where Y/N had stood, her expression unreadable. Not afraid. Not judgmental. Just… curious. Like a priestess trying to interpret an omen from the entrails of a sacrificed lamb.

“I’ll wait in the car,” she said softly, reaching for her coat. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

She walked out with the same grace she came in—part ghost, part queen, a woman who now knew that the kingdom she was being married into was haunted. Not by death, but by a devotion so old and so unacknowledged that it had grown teeth.

Illarion stood alone in the center of his penthouse, between two half-drunk glasses of wine and a book of Sappho’s fragments left spine-up on the coffee table.

A breeze slid through the open balcony doors.

Far below, the city moved like a dark sea.

He didn’t follow her. Didn’t speak. Only stared at the closed door Y/N had vanished behind, something ancient flaring in his chest like a forgotten wound re-opened.

In some old ruin of himself, he remembered how Achilles had wept—not when Briseis was taken, but when Patroclus refused to look at him.

And he understood, with sudden, terrible clarity—

That marrying a woman would not sever the thread between them.

Not even with a blade.

The day bled slowly into dusk, the sun’s last golden spear fracturing into bruised shades of amethyst and ash, as Illarion stepped away from the gilded cage of wedding fittings—those sacred rites of silk and lace, veiling a destiny heavy as Atlas’s burden, a fate writ not for him but for the house he was born to uphold. The city sprawled beneath him like a restless Hades, its tangled veins of light and shadow pulsing with whispered prayers and silent condemnations.

In his palm, the cold circle of the ring lay like a frozen promise, a circlet forged of iron and gold, destined to bind him to a life he did not wish to live. His mind, a tempest of unrest, churned with thoughts that could not be silenced—the echo of a shadow he could neither command nor release.

The path to Acheron was a descent, a falling away from the marble temples of power into a subterranean world woven from velvet, smoke, and whispered sins. The brothel nestled like a secret wound in the city’s flesh, its unmarked door a portal to another realm—where silk caressed sinew, where whispered lies wove tangled webs around broken desires.

Illarion crossed its threshold like Orpheus entering the underworld, silent and burdened, a king in exile among the lost and the damned.

Inside, the scent of amber and musk clung to the air like an old lament, thick and knowing. Laughter rose and fell like distant waves—sharp as a blade flicked just beyond reach. Shadows pressed against scarlet walls, the curtains swaying in slow, hypnotic rhythm, like the breath of some slumbering beast.

He moved through the labyrinth of bodies and stories—past women crowned with jewels and sorrow, past men drowning in forgetfulness and fleeting touch—until he found the quiet eye of the storm, the private chamber where fate and fury entwined.

There, bathed in the dim glow of a single lamp, sat Y/N.

Smoke curled from his cigarette like a serpent coiling through the underbrush, tendrils catching the light like flickering whispers of lost gods. His shirt hung open at the collar, revealing bruises deep and dark as midnight moons, scattered like constellations across pale skin. He lounged with the ease of one who had bargained with demons, the sharp edges of his presence softened only by the girl beside him.

Lynelle.

She was a contradiction wrought from shadow and flame—a flicker of innocence encased in resolve sharpened like a blade. Her dark eyes held the quiet intensity of one who had seen too much and chosen silence as armor. Her hands rested still in her lap, statuesque and serene, carved to endure tempests both mortal and divine.

Y/N’s fingers traced through her hair with a tenderness that belonged to a forgotten world—a realm where pain could be soothed by touch, where loneliness might be made lighter by the mere presence of another.

Illarion lingered at the door, the sight piercing deeper than any sword. The weight of unspoken histories settled around them, thick as dust in the still air, suffocating in its gravity.

“Y/N,” Illarion’s voice cut through the hush, rough and tight with restrained fury.

Y/N’s eyes flicked upward, slow and unreadable—dark pools reflecting the half-light of a world he’d long ceased to trust.

“I’m busy.”

“With her?” Illarion’s words were a blade sheathed in concern. With a whore? Is she more important than i am?

A ghost of a smile curled at Y/N’s lips—half mocking, half mournful. “Jealous?”

The word fell between them, sharp and careless—not for Lynelle, never for Lynelle—but for the invisible chains binding them in silence and fire.

Illarion’s temper flared like a struck match, but he swallowed it back behind a mask of cold resolve. “You’re coming with me. Now.”

Y/N rose then, stretching like a predator reluctant to leave its prey. His movement was languid, effortless, brushing past Illarion with a chill that lingered like a specter.

Before following, Illarion approached the bar where Salomé, the madam, regarded him with eyes deep as Tartarus—ancient pools reflecting sins and stories of a thousand souls consigned to her doors.

“You don’t like her,” Illarion murmured, nodding toward Lynelle, who remained where she was, waiting for Y/N to come back.

Salomé exhaled a plume of smoke, her gaze never leaving the chamber. “No one does. Except him.”

He searched her face for jest. Found none.

“Why her?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper, heavy with years and memory. “Because she listens. Because she asks no questions she does not wish answered. Because she reminds him… of things he fights to forget.”

Illarion frowned. “Like what?”

“The past,” Salomé breathed. “She reminds me so much of her— Y/N’s mother. A woman of fire and shadow—born of a different world, yet made to burn in this one.”

Illarion’s fingers clenched around his glass. “She was a whore.” Illarion had heard his father call her that so many times, behind closed doors, and only for Rylan to hear.

Salomé nodded slowly. “And he loved her.”

“Impossible.”

“Love is never clean,” she said, voice thick with knowing. “She was his first rebellion—the flame his father was warned against. A wild thing that did not belong in a house built of stone and blood. The fire he could not let go, the ash he never stopped smelling on his skin.”

Illarion swallowed hard, the ghosts of old stories stirring like restless phantoms—the bitter echoes of love and betrayal, of power and fragility entwined like serpents.

“And the girl?” he pressed, voice a fragile breath. “The one with Y/N,”

Salomé’s smile was thin—razor sharp. “She is the shadow of that flame. The promise of something more dangerous than love. She holds him when the world shatters, and he… lets her. They just talk. Y/N doesnt take her to his bed, not like he does with the other girls. I suppose she is different. They sit together and talk, sometimes she nurses his wounds.”

“What?

“She’s a medical student. Pays off her tuition from here. And Y/N always leaves a generous tip, almost as if he’s the one being done a favor.”

Illarion’s mind raced, pieces falling into a cruel mosaic. The ring in his pocket burned cold—a frozen oath to a woman he barely knew—while the man he could not lose sat deep in the underworld of Acheron, bound by silent chains forged from pain and loyalty.

The brothel was a world apart—a cavern carved from velvet and shadows, a secret alcove where the city’s sins bled soft and dark. The heavy scent of amber and musk hung thick like incense before a forgotten altar, a place where whispered prayers went unanswered and every stolen touch was a whispered oath.

Illarion remained rooted near the bar, his eyes fixed on the quiet storm unfolding in the private chamber. Salomé’s voice—a low chant of stories and warnings—wove a tapestry of past and present, but beneath the words beat the wild rhythm of something raw and untamable: Y/N.

Yet, while Illarion wrestled with ghosts, the figure he sought slipped away—a shadow melting from the light like a silent wind through ancient ruins.

Y/N moved toward Lynelle with the ease of a mythic hunter threading through the dense forest of forgotten gods. His steps were silent, a grace born from battles fought in silence and blood, his presence a quiet invocation of a name spoken in half-forgotten prayers.

Lynelle sat still, like Briseis bound not by chains but by an invisible thread of shared pain and stolen moments. She was both prisoner and sanctuary—a flicker of soft flame in the dark tempest of Y/N’s fractured world. Her eyes, deep and ancient, held the quiet sorrow of Hades’ captive, yet there was steel beneath that sorrow—an ember refusing to be snuffed out.

Y/N paused beside her, the bruises on his skin pale moons beneath the flickering lamp. Where Illarion’s touch was the wrath of Ares—wild, demanding, scorching—Y/N’s was the gentle hand of Apollo’s lyre, quiet and healing. A benediction whispered softly in a world made sharp by knives and fire.

He leaned down, and his lips met hers in a kiss that was a sigh—soft as the breath of night winds weaving through olive groves, tender as the shadow of a laurel leaf cast upon marble statues.

It was a kiss without fury, without possession. A quiet promise made in the language of broken souls.

Lynelle’s dark eyes fluttered closed, surrendering not to weakness but to the fragile refuge found only in this stolen moment. The weight of history pressed upon them—the stolen queen, the captive beloved—yet here, in this stolen kiss, there was no chain, only fleeting freedom.

All the while, Illarion watched. His breath caught like a falcon’s cry piercing the dusk. The storm within him churned—jealousy, desire, something older and darker—an ache as ancient as the grief of Achilles for his Patroclus.

He stood still, the cold marble beneath his feet a pale echo of the frozen fury in his chest. The ring in his pocket burned with the chill of inevitability, a binding not just of promise, but of sacrifice.

Here was a truth no crown could silence: Y/N belonged to a world Illarion could not conquer. A world woven from shadows and whispered loyalties, from pain and protection intertwined like serpents on a staff.

As the kiss lingered, a fragile thread stretched taut between the three—an invisible triad of power and passion, devotion and desperation, love’s cruel geometry.

The bride-to-be waited outside the threshold of this hidden realm, unaware of the quiet wars waging in the spaces between.

And in the hush of the brothel’s dim light, beneath the ghosts of gods and kings, the fate of these entwined souls hung trembling—like the first leaf trembling before autumn’s breath.

uh, so yeah, there we go. Illarion is getting married. good for him. i wanted to add more of the world building details but refrained from it. if i write anymore about these gay and repressed losers, I’ll end up losing my mind.

yandere male oc x male reader

mob boss x guard dog reader.

— chapter three.

anyways, im still alive (unfortunately) and i did completely forget about my tumblr account, and the fact that i was posting my writing here. being honest, i didn’t get much writing done, at all. i’ve just been day dreaming about my oc’s.

i’ve already planned three different universes in my head. anywhore, here’s the third chapter. im typing this during a sermon, on my mobile, and my fingers are numb.

i’ll write illarion and Y/N kiss as an apology later.

warnings— straight marriage? illarion. Y/N. Y/N being a whore. mentions of prostitution. brothels. i don’t know much of what’s here.

previous chapter - chapter two.

next chapter - chapter four.

series master list - my mad dog (all mine).

It was winter in name, not in breath—February in the city, the air pale with chill but softened by the haze of low sunlight bleeding through the tall windows of the Volkov estate. Illarion Lucero, heir of empire and sin, arrived in a car the color of spilled ink, flanked by men who never spoke unless necessary. The iron gates parted like theatre curtains.

The Volkovs were already waiting. A kingdom of polished smiles and cold perfection.

And then she stepped out.

Alexandra Volkov.

Tall, sculpted, with frost-glass skin and eyes like the edge of a blade dulled only by self-control. She moved with the grace of a girl born to be watched, but never touched; her silk dress whispering secrets against marble as she descended the stairs. Her hair was braided like an empress’s, thick and dark and intricate. And her expression—calm, unreadable, the precise detachment of a woman who had known from birth that love would never be a luxury in her world.

Illarion watched her, hands in his pockets, a cigarette tucked behind his ear though he wasn’t smoking. He wore black on black. No tie. No warmth. Just the quiet fire of someone who had built his name on ruin, and now was expected to bring someone else into the architecture of that ruin and call it legacy.

“Mr. Lucero,” she said, extending a hand.

He took it. Her fingers were ice, and somewhere far away, it reminded him of another touch—warmer, bloodied, knuckled by violence, not diplomacy. Y/N’s hands. The ones that dragged men to their graves like Orpheus dragging Eurydice backward into hell.

“Alexandra,” Illarion replied, voice low, velvet-laced but empty.

Their first words hung in the air like a contract sealed in breath.

Her father, a white-haired man with gold-rimmed spectacles and a faint accent made for boardrooms, gestured them inside. Discussions began—mergers, alliances, security protocols, the wedding. A union of titans, orchestrated like war, dressed up in flowers and lace. Illarion gave all the correct nods, offered the occasional opinion when asked, but his gaze strayed.

Out the window. To the street where, a week ago, Y/N had beaten a man half to death for information. To the velvet skyline behind Alexandra’s shoulder, where Acheron’s red sign blinked like a heart in cardiac arrest. To the ring on his finger, too heavy, too new.

Alexandra, for her part, watched him in turn. She knew men like him. Sharp smiles. Soft threats. The kind of man who could quote Sappho and slit your throat in the same breath.

“You’re thinking of someone else,” she said when they were finally left alone.

Illarion looked at her then—really looked. She was not cruel. Not kind. Just honest. Raised to read the room before she read books.

“And you’re not offended by that?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she replied. “I don’t require your love. Just your name.”

He almost laughed. Almost.

“And what do you require from love?”

“Control,” she said simply. “And a kind of cruelty that doesn’t rot.”

Their silence stretched.

She poured herself a glass of champagne. He declined. And in that moment, Illarion thought—this is not a woman I will destroy. This is a woman I will share a house with, a life with, a thousand quiet mornings like this one. But she will never taste my rage, my ruin, my fever.

That, he saved for Y/N.

He thought of Y/N’s voice—monotone, dry, cruel with affection. He thought of the way he leaned against walls like a god bored by the mortal world, of the scent of gunpowder and Acheron perfume that clung to him like bruises. He thought of the first time he bled for him. The last time he kissed him. How he hadn’t yet tasted his name in full.

Alexandra set her glass down. “You’re still thinking about him.”

Illarion met her eyes.

“Always.”

And though she said nothing, she offered him a faint smile—not of sympathy, but of understanding.

There would be no tragedy between them. Only agreement.

They were allies, not lovers. Royals, not romantics.

But outside, in the cold city dusk, another kind of tragedy waited. One with cigarettes and blood and brothel perfume. One named Y/N.

And Illarion Lucero had already chosen his war.

It was past midnight.

The city hummed like a sleeping god, electric and unknowable, its lights flickering like half-remembered sins across the rain-slick pavement. The air smelled of iron and storms, as if the sky itself was holding its breath.

They were in Illarion’s study, a room lined with books no one read and weapons no one dared to touch. A room of control. Of ancient order. The walls whispered the names of every man Illarion had ever betrayed, and the floor was quiet under the weight of unspoken things.

Y/N stood by the window, a cigarette in one hand, the other stuffed in the pocket of a leather jacket that had seen blood, sex, and too many nights at Acheron. His face was half-shadowed, the streetlights slicing across his cheekbone like a wound carved by light. He hadn’t said much all night. Just followed. Just watched.

Illarion sat at the edge of his desk, a glass of something amber and old in his hand. He swirled it, watching it catch fire in the lamplight.

“Volkov,” he said softly, as if tasting the name.

Y/N didn’t turn.

“She’s not like what you think,” Illarion continued. “Sharp. Controlled. Born to rule.”

“And?”

“I agreed.”

Y/N’s breath caught almost imperceptibly—almost. But Illarion saw it. He always saw it. The faintest shift of his shoulders, the twitch at his jaw. Like Achilles when Agamemnon took Briseis—not in rage, but in something deeper. The betrayal of being expected to endure.

“You’re marrying her,” Y/N said flatly. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

A pause.

Long enough for the city to shift on its axis.

Y/N turned finally, cigarette burning low between his fingers, ash dripping like snow. He looked tired, and tired on him was beautiful. He wore his exhaustion like war paint—hollow eyes and bitten lips, violence just under the surface.

“And what,” he said, voice low, like thunder buried in the dirt, “do you want me to do about that?”

Illarion looked at him the way gods look at their favored mortals—pained, amused, cruel.

“Nothing.”

Another pause. Then a slow, deliberate drag from Y/N, his eyes never leaving Illarion’s.

“Convenient,” he murmured, smoke trailing like prophecy.

Illarion stood, closing the distance between them in three quiet steps. The air between them thickened. Memory pressed in—shared nights, broken men, blood on each other’s hands. The way Y/N had once bled in his arms, laughing, saying, “You’re gonna look so pretty at my funeral.”

Illarion had kissed him after that.

“I want you to stay,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Y/N tilted his head. “As what?”

Illarion didn’t answer.

He didn’t know how to answer.

Patroclus. Weapon. Ghost. Beloved.

Instead, he said, “You’re the only one I trust.”

Y/N laughed, bitter and quiet. “You’re marrying someone you don’t trust. Classic.”

“Don’t make this ugly,” Illarion snapped, voice cracking like thunder on the sea.

Y/N dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his heel.

“I’m not the one making it ugly.”

Illarion’s breath caught in his throat. Something in him wanted to kneel. Something in him wanted to grab Y/N by the collar and ruin him again. Like old times. Like always.

“You knew this would happen,” Illarion said.

“I hoped it wouldn’t.”

There it was. The confession. No flowers, no poetry. Just ruin spoken plainly.

“I hoped you’d choose me.”

Illarion stepped forward, so close now they shared breath. “I did.”

“No,” Y/N whispered, eyes flickering with something raw, something terrible. “You chose power.”

A silence, louder than any scream.

Illarion’s hands twitched at his sides.

“Are you in love with her?”

“No,” Illarion said too quickly. Then, “She’s necessary.”

“And I’m not?”

“You’re a goddamn limb,” Illarion snapped. “You’re my right hand. My shield. My fucking shadow. I’d kill without you. But I’d die with you.”

Y/N didn’t flinch. Just blinked slowly, like an animal too tired to run from the blade.

“Then die,” he said. “Or live honestly.”

He turned, ready to leave.

Illarion’s voice followed him. “I still dream of you.”

Y/N paused at the door.

“Then go to sleep,” he said. “It’s the only place I’ll belong to you now.”

The door closed like a tomb.

And Illarion Lucero, heir of rot and ruin, stood alone in his empire of cold.

His bride would arrive tomorrow.

But tonight, he belonged to a ghost named Y/N.

The night whispered like a secret through the velvet drapes of Acheron, perfumed with sin and softened by shadows. Beneath its jeweled lights and honeyed laughter, the city’s filth came to be absolved—masked in silk and satin, the wounded and the wicked alike passed through its doors. And Y/N was no stranger to it.

He sat now with that same quiet gravity, ice melting in his untouched drink, boots streaked with dried blood from an evening that demanded neither reflection nor remorse. His shirt clung damply to his side, stained red beneath the black. A kill done clean, another name gone silent. Another night checked off in service to Illarion.

The same Illarion who had, not an hour ago, told him with the precision of a blade: “I’m getting married.”

And Y/N—Y/N had only blinked.

“Convenient,” he had said, as if he’d been told the weather, or the price of petrol, or that there was another body to bury in the woods.

It wasn’t cruelty. It was indifference honed into armor. He had learned long ago that caring came with a price. That attachment made corpses of men like his father. That even someone like Rylan—the ghost who raised him—had once been soft before love gutted him like a deer.

And Illarion—well. Illarion was not exempt from such ruin. He too would rot from the inside out, chained to duty, devoured by something he tried to name as empire.

Y/N had already buried that kind of hope. He didn’t mourn what was never his.

So now, beneath Acheron’s ceiling of stars that never burned, Y/N let the night bleed on. He wasn’t here for lust or longing. Just… stillness. Noise that wasn’t the crack of bone. A warm body that didn’t scream.

That’s when he saw her.

Lynelle.

New. Too fresh-faced for this place, like she’d been carved out of a world that hadn’t yet learned to bruise. Her hair was undone, lips painted in a color that reminded him of pomegranates—of Persephone before the fall.

She was trying not to tremble when he gestured to her with a flick of his fingers.

The Madame caught the glance and nodded, whispering something in Lynelle’s ear before nudging her forward. Y/N had already taken a key from the counter, and she followed him up the stairs, as silent as a mouse in the dark.

The room was gold and amber and still.

She stood by the door, spine straight, arms folded over her chest like a prayer waiting to be denied.

“You nervous?” he asked finally, slumping into the armchair and kicking off his boots.

Lynelle blinked. “A bit, sir.”

He laughed—dry, smoky. “No need to be. Not gonna touch you.”

She blinked again, uncertain. “Then… what would you like me to do?”

“Sit,” he said. “Just sit. And don’t look at me like I’m about to bite.”

Awkwardly, she lowered herself to the edge of the bed, hands clasped in her lap, still waiting.

He let the silence stretch, head tilted back. The city’s music filtered through the walls like a memory he couldn’t quite hold onto.

“You know who I am?” he asked after a beat.

Lynelle nodded. “They say you’re the Knife. That you kill people for Mr. Lucero.”

He smirked, eyes half-lidded. “Charming title.”

“And that you don’t talk much,” she added carefully.

“Maybe tonight’s an exception.”

He looked at her—really looked. There was something in her posture, her pulse fluttering at her throat, that made him ache for a version of himself that might have once been innocent, too.

“You a student?” he asked.

She blinked again, surprised. “Yes. Medicine. Final year.”

He whistled low. “Bright. So why the hell are you here?”

She looked down. “Debt. And… I needed somewhere to breathe.”

He nodded as if he understood—and maybe he did.

“I used to have dreams,” he said. “Then they put a gun in my hand and told me I was good at killing. Never looked back.”

“Do you still dream?” she asked quietly.

He gave her a ghost of a smile. “Only when I drink too much.”

A pause.

“You love him, don’t you?” she said suddenly.

Y/N blinked, startled.

She flushed. “I mean—Mr. Lucero. You look like someone who’s bleeding for someone who doesn’t bleed for you.”

There it was. The unspoken carved into flesh.

He exhaled, leaned forward, arms resting on his knees. “I don’t bleed anymore,” he said. “And he’s getting married. So none of it matters.”

Lynelle tilted her head, studying him. “But you still come here. You still talk about it.”

“Because you’re the first person who doesn’t want something from me.”

That silenced her.

He stretched out on the couch like a lion tired of hunting, eyes fluttering shut.

“You remind me of someone,” he murmured. “My mother, maybe. She was too good for this world. Ended up dead for it.”

Lynelle’s lips parted, a softness entering her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “Just… stay a while. Don’t be scared. I just needed quiet.”

And so they sat.

Two strangers in a golden room, beneath a world that demanded their ruin. Her, a Briseis unbought but borrowed. Him, a Patroclus with bloodstained hands, retreating into a silence Achilles could never follow.

Downstairs, the world burned on.

And somewhere else, Illarion Lucero stared into a mirror, wondering why Y/N hadn’t come home.

The night had folded itself into velvet. Somewhere, in the quarters of an old ancestral home, men sharpened knives and women painted on the illusion of civility, but far from it all—where marble bled into shadows—Y/N found his father in the greenhouse, pruning vines like it was a penance.

Rylan never looked up. He spoke first, always did.

“Should’ve burned this place years ago,” he muttered, snipping a dead orchid. “But it kept your mother’s scent. Jasmine and smoke.”

Y/N leaned against the doorway, bleeding quietly into the dark. He was a silhouette of war: dried blood on his collar, bruises blossoming like dark peonies across his jaw, a gash on his palm that still wept.

“You came here to mourn flowers?” Y/N asked, voice low, dry.

“No,” Rylan said. “I came here to remember what it cost me not to mourn properly.”

Y/N said nothing, and that silence stretched like old silk between them.

Rylan finally turned. His face—lined but steady—bore no tenderness, only the grave sort of fondness reserved for ghosts and sons who don’t know they’re still boys.

“You look more like her when you bleed,” Rylan said, gaze slipping to Y/N’s temple. “She used to come home like that, too. Bruised. Silent. Carrying sins she didn’t commit.”

Y/N’s mouth twitched, something between a smirk and a wound.

“She was a whore, wasn’t she?”

“She was more than that,” Rylan said evenly. “But yes, she was. Proudly. Soft-spoken. Smarter than anyone in that godforsaken brothel, especially the men who thought they owned her.”

“Did you love her?” Y/N asked, not because he cared, but because he needed to hear what regret sounded like.

“I did. Too late to matter,” Rylan replied, plucking a leaf. “Just as you’ll love someone one day and break their heart like a sacrament.”

Y/N looked out the glass wall, at the moon caught in the water basin like a drowned god.

“She died young.”

“They all do,” Rylan said. “The ones who burn too long for someone else’s warmth.”

A long silence again, broken only by the crickets beyond the pane. Then:

“He told me he’s getting married,” Y/N said, quiet.

Rylan glanced at him. “And you feel nothing.”

“I never do.”

“That’s not true,” Rylan said, moving past him to toss the clipped leaves into a brass basin. “You just refuse to call it by name. That’s the difference between you and me—I gave it a name and it devoured me. You won’t even look it in the eye.”

Y/N chuckled bitterly, “So you think I’m still like you.”

“No,” Rylan said, pausing in the doorway. “You’re worse. Because you could still be kind, but you choose not to.”

Y/N didn’t follow him. He stayed there, under the stifled breath of green things, haunted by a woman he barely remembered and a man who looked too much like his own shadow.

Above them, somewhere in the distance, the wedding bells were already being forged—golden, cold, and loud enough to drown the sound of fate knocking on the wrong door.

And the gods, those old cruel poets, smiled.

and there we go, the third chapter’s out now. what do we think? a bit shorter and rushed, but I’ll edit this later.

also would y’all read if i release another series? a bit of a historical, fantasy setting. some wlw sprinkled in. so much angst, y’know. basically— emperor x foreign concubine x empress.

yandere mob boss x right-hand male reader

— chapter two.

me when im actually productive. wrote this in two days. finished this last week itself, but was dreading to post this cause im just a pussy. but alas, the spirits kept whispering in my ear to post this unedited chapter. a little short. decided to up the pace a lil, cause otherwise s’just boring. im sure no one wants to read about two idiots committing crime.

also, kinda experimented with a new writing style. idk what to think ‘bout it now actually. it’s kinda nice, i suppose.

warnings: brothels, not very spicy (idk how to write smut 🧍🏽‍♀️). y/n is bi. illarion. illarion’s dad (he still doesn’t have a name). idk what else is there, really. maybe smoking and drinking. no crime or blood yet.

previous chapter - chapter one.

next chapter - chapter three.

master list - my mad dog (all mine).

Ilarion Lucero had inherited an empire built on blood and silence, an inheritance as cursed as the house of Atreus.

By day, he was the portrait of discipline—polished and unshaken, the perfect heir to a dynasty that had never known ruin. He moved through gleaming boardrooms and smoke-laced parlors with the ease of a man accustomed to power, his name spoken in hushed reverence, his hands never once appearing unclean. He shook hands with ministers and monsters alike, his lips curved in a polite, unreadable smile as he signed deals in ink while others signed theirs in blood.

But by night, the truth of him unraveled. The empire he ruled was not one of gleaming glass towers and pristine ledgers. It thrived in the hush of darkened corridors, in the weight of unmarked bills exchanged beneath flickering streetlamps, in the fear that tightened spines and bent knees at the mere mention of his name. It pulsed in the shipments that arrived under false pretenses, in the bodies that disappeared without a trace, in the quiet deaths that whispered his name like a prayer.

And at the heart of it all—his Patroclus, his ruin, his curse.

Y/N.

The name itself was a mark of finality, a requiem sung in the language of violence. A man who did not flinch, who did not falter. The blade in Ilarion’s hand, the shadow at his back. His executioner, his tether, his curse.

And like all things destined for tragedy, Y/N did not belong to him. Not truly. Not in any way that mattered.

But Ilarion was Achilles, and Achilles had never known how to let go.

He found him where he always did.

Acheron. A sanctuary for men who did not wish to be known. He found him where he always did.

The room was draped in gold and shadow, its air thick with the scent of perfume and spilled whiskey, the soft murmur of laughter dissolving into the velvet hush of the night. A place where designations ceased to matter, where power bent to pleasure, where no name was sacred enough to be protected.

Y/N was sprawled across a chaise, skin painted in half-light, his shirt undone, his collarbones blooming with bruises that did not belong to Ilarion. A woman draped herself over him, whispering something against his throat, her fingers tracing idle patterns against his chest. He did not seem to hear her, his gaze distant, unfocused, as if already somewhere else.

A wasted thing.

A waste that belonged to him.

“Enough.”

Ilarion’s voice was not loud, but it was enough.

The woman startled, turning to face him, her painted lips parting around a breath she did not dare exhale. She knew who he was. Everyone in Acheron did. With a murmured apology, she slid off Y/N, disappearing into the haze of perfume and candlelight.

Y/N exhaled, tilting his head back against the chaise, whiskey glass dangling between his fingers. “You always ruin the fun.”

Ilarion stepped closer, pouring himself a drink. “I wasn’t aware you were having any.”

Y/N’s lips curled, lazy and sharp. “Fair.”

There was something devastating about the way he looked at him—like a wolf who had long since grown accustomed to its cage, like a man who had made peace with being owned. And yet, for all the weight of Ilarion’s claim, there was always something defiant in the way Y/N carried himself. A blade that refused to be dulled.

“You drink too much,” Ilarion murmured.

Y/N chuckled, low and humorless. “You think I’d be more useful sober?”

“I think you’d be more tolerable.”

Y/N stretched, languid and indifferent, his shirt slipping further down his shoulder. “And yet, you keep me.”

Ilarion’s fingers curled around his glass. “Of course I do.”

Because Y/N was his. Because he had carved his place in the empire Ilarion ruled, because for all his ruin, for all his self-destruction, he still came when called. Because Ilarion had spent a lifetime bending men to his will, and Y/N was the only one who had never bent.

And perhaps that was why Ilarion could never let him go.

Perhaps Achilles had never been meant to survive without Patroclus.

The night had unraveled into morning, the velvet darkness giving way to the creeping light of dawn, pale and indifferent. It slithered through the blinds of Ilarion’s office, casting silvered shadows across the mahogany desk, the sheen of polished floors, the sharp angles of his chair where he sat like a king on an iron throne. Across from him, Y/N lounged as if he had no weight to carry, no blood on his hands, no ghosts at his heels—cigarette balanced between his fingers, the slow curl of smoke slithering toward the ceiling like an offering to forgotten gods.

Ilarion did not look up when he spoke.

“You should stop sleeping around.”

A pause. Then the quietest drag, the ember flaring like a dying star.

“Why?”

Ilarion turned a page in his ledger, the paper whispering like the turning of fate’s loom. “It’s reckless.”

Y/N exhaled a ribbon of smoke, his laugh slow, indifferent, edged with something like mockery. “Didn’t know you cared about my virtue.”

“I don’t.”

The words were steady, unhurried, carved from marble. Only then did Ilarion lift his gaze, dark and unreadable, a god surveying the mortal before him.

“But you don’t belong to them.”

A smirk. Slow, wolfish, touched with danger.

“No?”

Ilarion did not answer.

The silence stretched between them, thick as honey, heavy as prophecy, the kind that lingered at Delphi’s temple before the gods whispered their doom.

Then, soft, almost amused, Y/N murmured—“You’re afraid I’ll bite someone else’s hand, aren’t you?”

Ilarion’s gaze darkened, something shifting in the depths of his expression—a storm on the horizon, a beast woken from its slumber.

Y/N had always been reckless, a creature unbridled, untamed, the kind that would never bow without a fight. He was not a flower to be plucked, not some Hyacinthus doomed to be adored and broken in the same breath. No, he was something far crueler, something sharp-edged, something that could draw blood even as he smiled.

But even wild things could be claimed.

Ilarion leaned back, fingers steepled, voice quiet as the pull of an undertow.

“You are mine.”

There was no hesitation, no room for debate.

“And I don’t share.”

Y/N flicked his cigarette into the ashtray, watching the embers die, the ghost of fire lingering in the air between them. His smirk remained, but his eyes—cold, distant, untouched by the weight of Ilarion’s words—spoke of something else entirely.

“You don’t own me, Ilarion.”

A lie, but a beautiful one.

Ilarion smiled. Slow. Dangerous.

The kind of smile that preceded ruin, the kind that kings and conquerors wore before they razed empires to the ground.

“You keep telling yourself that.”

The decree fell like a guillotine.

“You’re getting married.”

The words settled into the study, quiet and suffocating, waiting to be disturbed.

Ilarion sat across from his father, the glow of the fireplace casting long shadows across his sharp features. The older man regarded him with the air of a king delivering a verdict, his silvering hair swept back, his presence as unshakable as the empire he had built.

A slow blink. Then silence.

Ilarion tipped his head slightly, watching the flames curl in the hearth. “Am I?”

His father’s lips curved, barely there. “Don’t play stupid, synok.” Son. A word spoken with the weight of obligation, nothing more. “You knew this was coming.”

A name followed. Alexandra Volkov.

The Volkovs were a dynasty of old money and sharpened knives, their empire built on steel and fire. A logical match. A marriage of kingdoms.

“And if I refuse?”

His father chuckled. “You don’t have that option.”

Of course not.

A slow, aching pause.

Then, his father tilted his head, studying him like a man peeling back flesh, searching for something hidden beneath the bone. “Is it him?”

A heartbeat.

Ilarion stilled.

His father exhaled, almost amused. “Y/N.”

He had never needed obvious tells to see through his son.

“You look at him as if you want to carve your name into his ribs. As if you want to break him down to his bones and keep what remains locked away.” His father chuckled, shaking his head. “It is not love, Ilarion. It is possession.”

Something dark twisted in his chest.

Love.

It was not love.

It had never been love.

His father’s gaze was sharp, knowing. “Marry the girl. Make the alliance.” He set his glass down with a quiet clink. “And keep your dog where he belongs.”

Dog.

The word curled between them like a leash snapping taut.

His father sighed, rubbing his temple. “You are too sentimental, synok.” A pause. Then, with something sharper: “Dogs are loyal until they realize the leash can break.”

Ilarion exhaled slowly, smoothing the cuff of his sleeve. He rose from his chair, movements elegant, composed.

“I’ll think about it.”

His father’s lips curled. “No, you won’t.”

Ilarion turned toward the door, the weight of the conversation settling into his chest like an iron brand.

His father’s voice followed him, quiet but heavy with warning.

“Do be careful, son.” A pause. “It is an ugly thing to want something you cannot own.”

Ilarion did not look back.

His father was wrong.

Y/N was not a dog.

He was something else entirely.

And ownership had never been in question.

The scent of lavender clung to his mother’s parlor like the ghost of a dying summer—soft, lingering, a whisper of something fleeting. It was the perfume of her world, a world spun from silk and steel, from quiet discipline and tempered grace. A world where beauty was a weapon, where elegance masked the sharpness of survival. Yet beneath it all, there was something colder, something older—something that smelled of the sea, of brine and storm-torn waves, of the place she had once called home before she had been reshaped into something fit for a throne.

Thetis had bathed her son in the Styx to make him untouchable. His mother had done the same, though no river had been there to receive him—only blood, only duty, only the sharp reminder that love, in this family, had never been more than a gilded cage.

Ilarion stood by the window, the city stretched before him, its lights flickering like dying stars. Twilight bled across the horizon, gold and rust and bruised violet, the color of old wounds. He thought of Achilles standing at the edge of Troy, watching the sun sink into the ocean, knowing that the night would bring only ruin.

Behind him, his mother sat upon her velvet throne, the porcelain teacup poised between her fingers, delicate yet unshaken. She was the portrait of restraint, of something carved from marble—beautiful, immovable, untouched by time.

“You saw him,” she said at last, her voice breaking the hush like a wave against stone. It was not a question.

Ilarion did not turn. “Of course.”

A pause, long and deliberate, the kind that settled between gods before they spoke fate into being.

“And?”

He exhaled slowly, the dying light casting sharp angles across his face. “And what?”

Her teacup met the saucer with the softest clink. “Did you agree to it?”

Ilarion’s hands clasped behind his back, the silk of his cuffs smooth beneath his fingers. “Not yet.”

A faint smile curved at her lips, humorless, knowing. “You never had much of a choice.”

“No.”

Another sigh, this one heavier, as if she had always known the answer and had simply wished, for once, that it might be different.

“Your father is a practical man. He does what is necessary.”

“So do I.”

A silence stretched between them, taut as a bowstring before the arrow was loosed.

Her head tilted, her dark gaze sharp, searching. “Do you?”

He did not answer.

Instead, her eyes flickered toward the untouched tea, the pale liquid cooling in its porcelain prison. And then, softly—carefully—

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

His fingers twitched at his sides.

She did not need to say the name.

She knew.

Y/N.

Another exhale, this one edged with something closer to resignation. “I wish you would let him go.”

Ilarion’s lips barely parted before she continued, voice quiet but resolute.

“You never liked him,” he murmured.

Her jaw tightened, just slightly. “I dislike what he represents.”

His brows lifted, amusement glinting in the sharp lines of his face. “And what is that?”

A flicker of hesitation—just a breath, just a moment. And then, deliberate, measured, the words that fell between them like a prophecy spoken too late:

“A mistake.”

The word settled in the air, quiet as a dagger slipping between ribs.

Ilarion’s gaze darkened. “Whose?”

She did not answer at first. But then—soft, unyielding—

“Your father’s.”

The weight of unspoken history pressed between them, heavy as the tide, as the pull of something neither of them could escape.

Ilarion’s fingers curled into his palm. “I see.”

His mother exhaled, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her dress, though they both knew it was not fabric she was trying to tame but the years themselves. “You are young, Ilarion. You do not yet understand the weight of your name. Of your duty.” She hesitated, then pressed forward, as though treading on ice already beginning to crack. “Your father… made certain choices in his youth. Choices that nearly cost him everything.”

Ilarion’s gaze sharpened. “You mean Rylan.”

Her expression remained unchanged, but he did not miss the tightness at the corners of her mouth.

“Rylan is nothing but a ghost of my husband’s foolishness,” she said, voice crisp as winter air. “And his son is a reminder of it.”

Something twisted deep within him—slow, insidious.

His mother leaned forward, her gaze colder now, stripped of tenderness. No longer a mother’s eyes, but something sterner, something forged in iron. “I do not want you to repeat his mistakes.”

Silence.

Then, voice smooth, but edged with something unreadable, Ilarion asked, “You think Y/N is a mistake?”

She exhaled, tired now. “I think he is a dead end.”

Ilarion’s jaw tightened.

Her stare did not waver. “You are not your father,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “You are not a man bound by sentiment.”

Ilarion’s lips curled, cold and amused. “Aren’t I?”

She shook her head. “You don’t love him, Ilarion.”

His gaze flickered—sharp, unreadable.

She reached for her tea once more, her fingers delicate around the porcelain rim. And then, in a whisper that was more certainty than doubt—

“You only want to keep him.”

Ilarion said nothing.

Not because she was wrong.

But because she was right.

And so they stared at each other, mother and son, as the gods once did.

She, like Thetis, who had fought to shape her son into something untouchable, something greater than mortal men. And he—Achilles, standing at the edge of fate, knowing the price of his own desire, knowing that to reach for it was to step closer to ruin.

Thetis had tried to make Achilles immortal, had dipped him in the Styx, but had left his heel untouched.

Ilarion had been bathed not in river water, but in expectation.

And yet, like Achilles, he had found something he was unwilling to let go of.

His mother had seen it the moment Y/N entered his life.

And she knew—

It would be his undoing.

The air in the study was thick with the weight of old sins, of ghosts that refused to be buried. Smoke curled toward the ceiling, weaving through the dim light like the whispers of men who had long since learned that their words were weapons, that silence was a blade honed sharper than steel. The scent of burning tobacco, of aged whiskey left to breathe in cut crystal, of leather softened by time—all of it clung to the room, an oppressive warmth that did nothing to dull the chill of the conversation that had yet to unfold.

Ilarion’s father sat behind his great mahogany desk, the very image of a king upon his throne, his presence stretched across the room like the last light of dusk—golden, but fading. Behind him, the window framed the city in its twilight hush, a world waiting in patient submission.

Rylan stood near the edge of the light, half-swallowed by shadow, a specter carved from night itself. One hand tucked into his pocket, the other holding a cigarette, its ember pulsing with quiet life between his fingers. He was as he had always been—unmoved, untouched, a man who had learned long ago that sentiment was a luxury afforded only to those who did not have to survive.

Between them, silence stretched, taut as the string of a lyre before it broke.

Then, at last, the voice of the king:

“They’re going to end up just like us.”

Not a question. A prophecy. A certainty as inevitable as the sun falling into the arms of the horizon.

Rylan took a slow drag of his cigarette. Exhaled. The smoke drifted between them, the softest echo of a sigh.

“You don’t care?”

The words could have been an accusation. A taunt. But Rylan did not rise to them, did not even flinch. Instead, he tilted his head just slightly, amusement flickering at the corner of his lips like the remnants of a dying star.

“Should I?”

A chuckle, low and humorless, like the sound of dying embers. “You never did.”

Rylan’s gaze flickered toward him, dark as oil, unreadable. And then—soft, measured, something near bored:

“Not about things that don’t matter.”

Ilarion’s father hummed, swirling the amber in his glass, watching the liquid catch the light. “And does he?”

The name did not need to be spoken.

The cigarette burned low between Rylan’s fingers, the ashes gathering like dust at his feet.

“He survives.”

It was not an answer. But it was the only one that mattered.

A long pause. A moment held in the quiet weight of things left unsaid.

And then, a knowing smile, sharp as a blade:

“He reminds me of you.”

The words landed softly, like the first drop of rain before a storm. Rylan did not move, did not react, but something in the air shifted, imperceptible, a thread pulled too tight.

The king leaned forward, the smirk never fading. “The way he carries himself. The way he fights. The way he doesn’t give a damn about anything but one person.” A pause. A deliberate weight. “He even looks like you did when we were young.”

A flicker of something—too fast, too subtle to name—passed through Rylan’s expression.

He took another drag, exhaling the smoke slowly, deliberately, as if it might fill the space between them.

“And you think that’s enough?”

Ilarion’s father’s smirk deepened. “It was for you.”

Rylan’s fingers curled slightly around his cigarette. The ember glowed bright, then dimmed.

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

A pause. The barest flicker of amusement, as if the question itself was entertaining. “Isn’t it the truth?”

A beat of silence.

And then—“You always talk too much.”

A quiet chuckle. “And you always had a weakness for strays.” His father tilted his head, watching him with the eyes of a man who had already seen the end of this story. “First her. Now him.”

At last, Rylan turned to look at him fully. The weight of his gaze settled, heavy and deliberate, like a hand pressed against an old wound.

“She wasn’t a stray.”

“Oh, she was.” Ilarion’s father’s voice was soft, a mockery of kindness. “And so is he.” A pause. A smirk playing at the corner of his lips. “A mistake.”

The word landed between them like a blade driven into the earth, drawing an unseen line.

Rylan did not react, did not flinch, did not tense. His grip on the cigarette remained loose, his posture as effortless as ever.

But his voice, when it came, was quiet. Steady. Final.

“Not a mistake.”

A brow arched in amusement. “Then what?”

Another pause.

Then, slow, deliberate, like the shifting of constellations:

“A consequence.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the smoke curling between them.

The king let the word settle, turning it over in his mind, tasting the weight of it. Then, a slow exhale. A smirk curling his lips.

“You know…” He swirled the whiskey in his glass, voice dropping into something cruel, something almost pitying. “If he were mine, I’d keep him.”

Rylan exhaled a breath of smoke, his eyes half-lidded, his expression unreadable.

“I’m sure you would.”

A sip. A smirk. A flick of cigarette ash.

And then, as all things between them had always been, the conversation faded into the quiet understanding of men who had already lost too much.

And so they sat, these two gods of a fading age.

Apollo and Hyacinthus, once bound by youth and devotion, now left only with the echo of what had been. Ilarion’s father—the sun, burning, consuming, leaving nothing untouched. And Rylan—the flower that had once flourished beneath him, now withered in the shadow of the past.

Hyacinthus had died in the arms of his god, his blood spilled upon the earth, blooming into the petals of mourning.

But Rylan had not died.

He had walked away.

And that, perhaps, was the crueler fate.

so, yeah, that’s chapter two. maybe i was on something while writing this, idk. wrote it bit by bit, that’s why the writing style isn’t very consistent. im still trying to find a pace that works for me.

and i know some might start to hate y/n because of his extracurricular activities 🧍🏽‍♀️ it’s fine, hate him all you want. he’s just a manwhore— illarion’s manwhore. im trying to develop his character and give him some depth and miserably failing.

also, yeah, i did once mention that this will be kind of like a Achilles and Patroclus retelling thingy, so there’s that. and then there’s rylan and illarion’s father (toxic old men yaoi 😋)

yandere male oc x male reader

mob boss x guard dog reader

— chapter one.

to start things off, it’s been like three months since I posted the prologue and I have no way to defend my actions. I simply forgot. like the story kept running through my head all day and night, and I did write; the later parts of the story, lol. i really didn’t want to write the starting parts. i was just lazy, nothing else.

warnings: illarion, illarion’s dad, Y/N, mentions of blackmail and violence. nothing much, really. tame compared to what I’ve planned.

previous chapter - prologue

next chapter - chapter two.

series master list - my mad dog (all mine)

Y/N arrived like a storm—unwelcome, unasked for, and impossible to ignore.

He did not come with a wagging tail or soft eyes full of devotion. He was not the obedient, noble creature Ilarion had longed for, the one he had begged his father to give him. No, Y/N was something else entirely. A stray, all sharp edges and untamed wildness, the kind of animal that bit the hand that tried to feed it.

But he was Ilarion’s now. That much was clear.

At first, they danced around each other like two creatures who did not yet know if they were predator or prey. Ilarion, raised in silk and shadow, did not know what to do with this boy who walked into their mansion with his hands in his pockets and a scowl carved deep into his face. Y/N was nothing like the children Ilarion had grown up with—those glass-fragile boys in ironed uniforms who spoke softly and moved like ghosts, always careful, always cautious, as if the wrong step might shatter them into pieces.

Y/N was fire where they were mist, solid where they were air.

And at school, he was a disaster (his father had enrolled Y/N into his school soon after their next meeting).

He never sat up straight in class. He never raised his hand or took notes. The teachers despised him for his indifference, for the way he lounged in his seat like he had better places to be. The students feared him, though they never said it aloud. He did not belong in their world of wealth and whispered politics, where power was measured in quiet cruelty and the sharp cut of words. No, Y/N fought with his fists, with blood on his knuckles and a scowl on his lips.

And yet, he never strayed far from Ilarion.

At first, Ilarion did not question it. He did not acknowledge the way Y/N’s presence had become something of a constant, like the low hum of an approaching storm. He did not ask why Y/N always seemed to be near, lingering just close enough to catch the words others whispered behind Ilarion’s back—the jealousy, the envy, the resentment.

He did not ask why those whispers always stopped so suddenly, why the boys who spoke too loudly found themselves with bruised jaws and swollen lips.

He did not ask, because he already knew.

And he never told Y/N to stop.

By the time they were thirteen, an unspoken understanding had settled between them: Ilarion was the golden boy, the untouchable heir to a legacy written in blood and empire, while Y/N was his shadow, the mad dog at his heels.

It was inevitable, then, that when Ilarion spoke, Y/N listened.

And when Ilarion needed something done, Y/N was the one who did it.

Time did not soften Y/N. If anything, it sharpened him.

By sixteen, he had become something fierce, something untamed. He was taller now, broader, his face no longer round with childhood but carved with something sharper, something crueler. The fire in his eyes had not dulled, but it had learned patience. His rage no longer burned bright and reckless—it simmered, waiting, coiled beneath his skin like a beast ready to strike.

He was still the same boy, the same stray Ilarion had been given all those years ago. But now, he was something else too. Something dangerous.

And Ilarion—perfect, golden, untouchable Ilarion—had grown into the role his father had carved for him. He was flawless, the kind of boy people whispered about in admiration and envy alike. He had the world at his feet, the teachers singing his praises, the students bending beneath his presence. He was the sun around which their little kingdom revolved, and he played the part beautifully.

But the sun has shadows, and Ilarion’s shadow had a name.

Y/N.

The school called him a delinquent, a lost cause. He skipped classes, smoked behind the gym, walked into rooms like he owned them and stared down teachers like they were beneath him. He broke rules like they were made for him, and he did not care.

Or rather, he only cared when Ilarion did.

“I swear to God, Y/N,” Ilarion muttered one afternoon, arms crossed as he leaned against the old brick wall behind the school, where they always met when no one else was watching. “Could you at least pretend to be a functioning member of society?”

Y/N, perched on the ledge with a cigarette dangling lazily from his lips, barely spared him a glance. “And why the fuck would I do that?”

Ilarion scoffed, his irritation as sharp as the autumn wind. “Because you look like a damn criminal.”

“I am a damn criminal,” Y/N shot back. “Your criminal.”

Ilarion exhaled, long and slow, tilting his head back to look at the sky. He hated that Y/N was right. Hated that, despite his exasperation, despite the lectures and the sighs and the sharp-edged glares, he still found himself here. Still found himself asking.

Because there were always people who needed to be put in their place.

Boys who thought power came from their fathers’ wallets. Men who thought they could speak without consequence. People who thought that just because Ilarion wore his power with silk and smiles, he would not use it.

Ilarion never laid a hand on them himself. He didn’t have to.

Not when he had Y/N.

And Y/N—his mad dog, his stray, his shadow—never needed to be told twice.

“You’re impossible,” Ilarion muttered, shaking his head.

Y/N exhaled smoke into the air, grinning. “And yet, you keep me around.”

And Ilarion, despite himself, did not argue.

The afternoon sun filtered through the academy’s courtyard, golden and soft, casting long shadows against the pristine marble floors. It was a quiet hour—one where only the desperate or the foolish found themselves loitering with trembling hands and fragile hopes.

Ilarion had not been searching for anything. He had been making his way toward the student council room, mind preoccupied with the endless obligations of a golden boy, when he saw it.

A girl.

Standing before his dog.

She was pretty, delicate in the way all high-society daughters were raised to be, with neatly pressed ribbons in her hair and the scent of expensive roses lingering in her wake. The picture of polished elegance. And yet, there was something almost pitiful about the way she stood there—wringing her hands, voice unsteady as she whispered the words.

“I like you, Y/N. Please go out with me.”

Ilarion stopped.

Y/N stood before her, detached and distant, the very image of disinterest. His uniform was, as always, a mess—tie loose, shirt half-untucked, a cigarette tucked behind his ear like an afterthought. He had not bothered to meet her eyes, his gaze instead fixed somewhere past her, as if she were nothing more than background noise, a dull murmur in a world he had long since stopped caring for.

Ilarion knew that look.

Knew it because Y/N never looked at him that way.

The girl swallowed, gathering what little courage she had left. “Y/N?”

Silence stretched.

And then—finally—Y/N tilted his head, as if acknowledging her presence for the first time.

“You like me?” he echoed, voice flat.

The girl nodded quickly, a spark of hope igniting in her gaze.

Y/N exhaled sharply through his nose, something close to amusement but far colder. “What is it that you like, exactly?”

The girl hesitated. “I—I think you’re… cool.”

A pause.

Then, slow, deliberate, Y/N smirked.

It was not a kind expression.

“You ever wonder why I don’t have a girlfriend?” he asked, voice dripping with something unreadable.

The girl stiffened. “…No?”

Y/N yawned, stretching lazily. “It’s because I get bored easily.”

The spark of hope in her eyes flickered.

Ilarion, still watching from the shadows, clenched his jaw.

“I might still say yes, though,” Y/N added, tone mocking. “Could be entertaining for a little while.”

Ilarion turned on his heel and walked away before he could hear the rest.

He found her in the library.

She was seated by the window, absentmindedly flipping through a book she clearly wasn’t reading. Her expression was distant, her mind likely still lingering on the conversation from earlier.

Ilarion did not bother with pleasantries.

“You will stay away from him.”

The girl startled, looking up at him with wide, doe-like eyes. “What?”

Ilarion stepped closer, looming over her. His expression remained polite, refined—unshakable—but there was an undeniable edge beneath it.

“Y/N,” he said, as if explaining something very simple to a very slow child. “You will stay away from him.”

She blinked, confusion flashing across her face before something like realization took root.

“I—I’m not trying to—”

“You don’t understand,” Ilarion cut in smoothly, tone unwavering. “He is not what you think he is.”

Her lips parted, a protest half-formed, but Ilarion did not let her speak.

“You think you want him,” he continued, voice calm, “but you don’t. He isn’t kind. He isn’t gentle. He will not love you, nor will he pretend to. He is cold, detached, and endlessly cruel when he grows tired of things.”

The girl paled.

“He would ruin you,” Ilarion said, smiling faintly. “And he wouldn’t even care.”

A beat of silence.

Then—quiet, barely above a whisper—she asked, “Then why do you want him?”

Ilarion stilled.

The question was simple. Innocuous, even. And yet, it lodged itself into his throat like a blade, sharp and unrelenting.

Because Y/N was his.

Because Y/N listened to him.

Because Y/N—who cared for nothing, who met the world with disinterest and apathy—only ever looked at him.

Ilarion exhaled slowly.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Leave him alone.”

The girl said nothing.

She did not need to.

By the next morning, the girl was gone.

Oh, she was still at school, still walking the halls with her pristine uniform and perfectly tied ribbon. But she no longer looked Y/N’s way.

No more stolen glances. No more waiting outside his classroom. No more confessions in the courtyard.

Y/N noticed. Of course he did.

He caught Ilarion’s eye across the cafeteria, something unreadable flickering across his face.

Then, ever so slowly, he smirked.

And Ilarion—golden, untouchable, innocent Ilarion—simply picked up his fork and took another bite of his meal.

Y/N was smoking behind the school when Ilarion found him.

The sky was overcast, the air thick with the scent of rain and tobacco. Y/N was seated on the ledge, one leg hanging lazily over the side, the other bent at the knee. His blazer was discarded beside him, and his cigarette burned low between his fingers.

Ilarion did not say anything as he approached.

Y/N exhaled a slow curl of smoke before flicking the cigarette away. “That was fast.”

Ilarion’s brows furrowed. “What?”

Y/N turned his head slightly, gaze sharp, unreadable. “The girl.”

Ilarion froze.

“She’s scared of me now,” Y/N mused, tilting his head. “She wasn’t, before.”

Ilarion’s jaw tensed.

“Did you do something?” Y/N asked, voice void of curiosity.

Ilarion scoffed. “I should be asking you that.”

Y/N smirked. “I didn’t do anything.”

A pause.

Then—slowly, deliberately—Y/N turned to fully face him, expression unreadable.

“But you did.”

Ilarion said nothing.

Y/N exhaled sharply through his nose, something almost resembling amusement flickering across his face. “You’re ridiculous.”

Ilarion scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t,” Y/N muttered, standing. He stepped closer, movements slow and deliberate, the scent of smoke and something faintly metallic clinging to his skin.

Ilarion held his ground.

Y/N’s gaze flickered over him, detached but keen, like he was seeing something Ilarion had yet to recognize.

Then, without another word, he turned and walked away.

Ilarion exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

That evening, Ilarion sat in his father’s study, the scent of aged whiskey and old books lingering in the air.

Across from him, Rylan stood beside Y/N, his expression a mixture of irritation and exhaustion.

“I hear you’ve been getting into fights,” Ilarion’s father murmured, swirling his glass.

Y/N did not react. He merely sat there, blank-eyed and silent, detached from the world in a way that made it impossible to tell if he even heard the words.

Y/N’s mouth curled in an unflattering way. “You say that like it’s a problem.”

Rylan sighed, rubbing his temples. “He doesn’t listen.”

“I never do,” Y/N agreed.

His father exhaled, long-suffering. “And you,” he said, glancing at Ilarion. “You’re supposed to keep him in line.”

Ilarion met his gaze, expression impassive. “I don’t control him.”

“No,” his father mused. “But he listens to you.”

Y/N finally moved, tilting his head slightly, gaze flickering toward Ilarion.

The room was silent.

Then—quiet, unbothered—Y/N said, “Only when I feel like it.”

Ilarion’s father sighed.

Rylan pinched the bridge of his nose.

And Ilarion—who had spent his entire life untouched by want—realized, with a slow, sinking certainty, that he was no longer as immune to desire as he once thought.

unedited. unrevised. y’all get it raw and fresh. just finished writing. posted it as soon as I was done, really. took more time to add the pics and align everything and paragraph everything really. anyways, here’s chapter one.

i feel like the next chapter will actually start picking up the pace. i just wanted to set the scene a bit and like just cause. anywhore, stan illarion for better skin (even if he’s a lil shit).

yandere male oc x male reader.

prologue.

first of all, thanks for reading. this is my first time publishing one of my original works :) disclaimer that English isn’t my first language and that i don’t pay attention to grammar lessons at school, so there might be a few errors. sorry in advance about that !!

warnings: mentions of firearm and cursing. maybe a bit of child neglect. nothing too dark…yet (we’re just getting started)

next chapter - chapter one

Ilarion Lucero had always wanted a dog– a german shepard, to be precise– when he was younger. He had always gotten everything he had ever wanted back then; Ilarion was his father’s only heir, the young master of the household. Everyone– the maids, the servants, the butlers, his father’s men, even his mother– was at his beck and call all the time back then; when he was young. Because God forbid that the young master should ever once feel yearning or sorrow.

Ilarion Lucero had never once asked for anything; because everything he ever desired was handed to him in a bloody silver platter before he opened his mouth to ask for it.

Yet, despite the endless parade of silver-plated indulgences, there was one thing Ilarion had asked for.

A dog.

Ilarion, perhaps when he was five or perhaps six, went to his father’s office, barging in without knocking. (back then he hadn’t paid much mind to the gun that sat atop his father’s maghony desk). He had demanded that his father should get him a dog, because a boy from his class got one; a white one, covered in fur and had wide and glossy eyes. Ilarion had also wanted one. He begged, he cried, he pleaded with all the fervor of a child who had never known denial. And yet his father’s answer remained the same.

No, his father had said, you’re not responsible enough to take care of a dog.

He didn’t face his father for three days after that. His mother had begged him to eat; even had the chefs make his favourite food. But he did not budge. He had hoped that his father would feel some kind of remorse in his cold heart and buy him a dog so that he could brag to his classmates about having a dog as well.

But his father did not do that.

Ilarion had always known that his father was rather unsympathetic (it was the kindest word Ilarion could scavenge to describe his father). His father smiled, of course, the man never compressed his emotion (though it was only in his later years that he realized the smile was fake). The older man loved his son, his mother had always told that his father loved him when he was younger whenever he would ask about why his father never quite kissed his cheek and embraced him as his mother did. Love, he thought, was not something that should be hidden. Love was warm kisses, soft words and long embraces (things his father never gave him).

Illarion never quite believed it. He wasn’t stupid after all (in his six year old brain acing his exams made him feel smart). His father did not love him. Nor did his father love his mother. He had heard them argue back and forth; his mother asking his father to quiet down so that their son wouldn’t hear them and his father said, ‘let him hear then.’

And Illarion knew that he was only his father’s heir; not his son, or his beloved boy, but only his heir.

And an heir should be kept happy, right?

So, he asked for a dog once again.

He cornered his father during breakfast, pleading more. This time his father simply looked at him before walking away, the man that was always with the older man (Rylan, his father’s right hand man) following him.

Later that day he asked again (Illarion really wanted that dog), during dinner. Surely, in the warmth of their home, with food and wine laid before them, his father might soften. But his father did not. his father left the table and his mother, silent and withdrawn, didn’t say a word.

Illarion sought out his mother after dinner. Seeking solace and perhaps an ally in his crusade for a puppy. Hence he made his way to his parents’ bedroom, more than ready to risk his father’s wrath.

His mother wasn’t there in the bedroom. Rather he only found his father and Rylan conversing. And for a moment illarion could swear that he heard his father say, “take the fucking kid outside.”

and Rylan, ever the loyal servant, took illarion out of the room.

“What kind of dog do you want?” He asked.

And Illarion didn’t waste a second answering (he had rehearsed the answer to this question, in case his father was to ask). “A big one,” Illarion said, “like those dogs that the guards had in the last gala.” And then Illarion realized that Rylan didn’t attend the gala which took place last week, which could possibly mean that the older man didn’t know what dog Illarion was talking about. “The big one, full of fur and like a long nose,”

Rylan cut him off, “A German Shepherd, kid. I know. Your father told me.”

“Oh.”

“Do you really want a dog?”

“Yeah,” illarion nodded, “I want one.” Maybe he’ll try asking during Christmas or his next birthday.

“I’ll see what I can do, kid.”

Illarion doubted that Rylan could do anything about it. After all, Rylan was just his father’s lackey and would just follow his father’s words like it was the holy scripture.

But two days later Illarion was proven wrong.

His mother didn’t join him for dinner that day. It was just him and his father eating in silence until the door opened, revealing Rylan accompanied by a boy.

Illarion immediately focused on the boy, who seemed to be around his age. But tall, so incredibly tall. Perhaps the boy was at least two or three years older than Illarion. Ilarion blinked. The boy had striking features that mirrored Rylan’s. But where Rylan stood rigid and composed, the boy exuded an air of defiance (Another difference was that Rylan wasn’t covered with bandages and dinosaur bandaids like the boy was).

“I’m sorry about the delay,” Rylan said, ushering the boy towards the dinner table. “This is my son.”

illarion heard the boy scoff and cross his arms over his chest. And it took him a minute to notice what the boy was wearing…a pair of jeans and a tank top— so casual that it bordered on insolence.

“It’s a pleasure,” Illarion’s father murmured, taking a sip from his glass of wine. “I’ve heard so much about you, Y/N.”

The boy— who Illarion now knew as Y/N— didn’t reply until Rylan nudged him . “Likewise,” came the reply, bored and nonchalant.

Ilarion watched in disbelief as his father allowed the insolence to pass unchallenged. It was the first time he had seen anyone address the man with anything less than deference and leave unscathed.

While his father was amused, Rylan looked the opposite. Perhaps a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance (the same expression that was mirrored on his son’s face).

“Y/N,” Rylan said through gritted teeth, “Go sit beside Illarion. He’s your friend now.”

And the boy complied, dragging his feet as if the short distance to the table was a long gruesome journey in the desert with no water. Illarion watched, bewildered, as Y/N plopped onto the chair beside him with all the grace of a sullen street cat.

Illarion’s father turned to look at him for the first time that night. “He is yours to look after now, illarion.”

Ilarion stared at the boy beside him, at the bandages on his arms and the fire in his eyes. He had asked for a dog, a loyal and silent companion. What he had been given was something else entirely— a mad dog, wild and untamed.

quick yap session :) it was like three a.m. when i wrote this, partially high on caffeine and sugar. idk what i was trying to achieve with this, actually. side note, im doing this just for shit and giggles actually. don’t take this seriously.

— illarion lucero.

mob boss and his loyal dog. [achilles and patroclus retelling] [kinda yandere] [tall, buff, male reader] [so much angst]

— ezra reese.

grumpy film nerd and the basketball golden retriever who will not stop following him. [small town shenanigans] [sunshine x grump] [brother’s best friend] [accidental emotional support jock] [writer boy with escape plan] [touchy-feely athlete with zero boundaries] [hallway shoulder slings] [bleachers flirting] [he’s playing basketball for an audience of one] [this was supposed to be a temporary crush] [uh oh feelings]

— G.M